Yeah, so it's been awhile since I had anything productive to say. It's not that nothing is going on -- more that it feels superfluous to keep gushing about the yoga studio again and again and again.
Anyway, I'm in Austin right now for a prenatal yoga teacher training, and while it brings up the same topics that this blog has explored again and again (yoga and Austin), okay, well, I'll go for it anyway. Tonight I'm on my own, and that means that I have time to revisit the city and process some of the leftover emotions regarding my previous time here. And the same thing that used to happen when I first drove into town happened again. There's about a 16 hour window in which I feel the friendliness of Austin, how it's like a warm summer love in the throes of sweet adolescence, a boy in tennis shoes with a shy artsy bent and dirty hair sort of feeling -- just something sort of sweet and off-centered and willing and youthful about it. It's lovely. But then, just like before, somehow that little-boy-heart disappears into the cloud coverage of something that I can't reach. For me, there's a fog about Austin -- something sad and interminably lonely about this place. Something I can't reach, but only glimpse. The feeling-tone of the city moves from something nearly tactile to something so cloudy and grey.
And maybe it's just my head messing with me, I don't know. I drove out to Barton Springs to have a bite to eat and watch the light drain out of the sky, and that was okay. But driving out, I passed a field that I've passed many times on my hikes around that area, and the first image that came to mind when I passed it was a photograph I took there years ago, in college. I was with Mike, and the picture is a black and white photo of him in a flannel shirt bending his face over a grandly delicate white flower. It was one of my favorite pictures of him. And it's not like I meant to think of it, but the idea showed up anyway, intrusive and demanding to be acknowledged.
Maybe that's the problem. Maybe that's always been the problem. An inability to move past that great big love. And the fear of him. And his death. And I've processed it mostly, but then I come here and it returns. Or something returns. The ghost of him isn't wholly what swallows me either. It's also an un-understanding of why I failed to find a place here. Maybe I lacked the support system I needed to carry me through. And maybe I let my emotions get the better of me rather than standing up to my own despair and fighting past it. Maybe I should have learned how not to listen to the mental chatter that kept reminding me of my aloneness. Maybe I should have left the house more.
So that's part of this Austin visit. It's not the whole of it, but it's definitely something I'm aware of. I wonder why this city continues to feel so distant from me after the first hours of entry, why it enters into a fog, like a ghost town, when I know that it's vibrant with activity. Well, all I'm looking at right now is an echo -- it's not the real isolation, not considering the details of this trip so far. And in studying the echo, I find it so sad to remember the fog, re-feel its haze and recognize what probably drove me into it -- the terror of meeting my ex within weeks of moving here, the horror of his sudden death, my immediate isolation in the first apartment complex, my separation from the dream of Montana, my intimidation by the confident voices in my academic program, my tenderfooted inability to be strong past all that and assert my way toward real relationships with people.... And that's a hell of a lot of forces to navigate past. I guess it's no wonder that I spent three years here in a blur.
As with most life lessons, I guess what I learned was humility. Compassion. Strength after trial. I also gathered a good bit of fear too -- fear of people after living among too-confident and smug and sometimes sterile intellectualism, fear of my own mortality after Mike's death. Fear of isolation. Fear of using my voice.
But things are changing lately too. I had my first confrontation at work recently, and as hard as it was, I made my way through it, and I believe right now that the situation is going to improve. At this yoga workshop, I am actually participating in group discussions. If you know me at all, you'll know that this is one of the most remarkable things that I have ever done. My silence among my peers -- ultimately, my lack of confidence in my voice -- has been one of my greatest regrets, my greatest weakness, for years now. I don't quite know what happened. But something shifted not very long ago, something that has convinced me to begin owning my voice and owning my habits and my thoughts. I feel a hint of what it might be like to be unapologetic about who I really am. I'm starting to say what I think. I'm starting to feel like it's okay to disagree out loud. Whoa. So sharing my thoughts in the yoga discussions -- well, it totally blows my mind to hear my own voice aloud. I am tearing up just typing that.
Life is changing in other ways too. I got off birth control a few months ago and decided to risk it with other forms of protection (no, I'm not pregnant), and I also took a big family vacation to Disneyworld with the entire Watts clan plus Jesse. I was pretty nervous about the trip before we went, wondering how I'd react to that much time around children -- who can be pretty exhausting in short periods -- but the trip brought quite a different reaction. After spending a full week with my niece and two nephews, I found myself thinking that being a parent really didn't seem so daunting after all. Chandler, who is in a phase of growth where he's learning to be demanding and argumentative, isn't only that. His nature is also very sweet, and he can be generous -- and, to my great surprise, he totally loves shoulder massages and relaxes completely when you start to rub his back. Wow. What a great parenting technique. I never would have expected a ten year old like him to be easy to calm, but he is. The thing is, you just have to learn the right buttons to press, and then you can pull off parenting. Same thing with my 2-year-old nephew Dane. He can be a holy terror at times, but it's an occasional behavior that can be tempered by particular management techniques -- like distraction and giving him what he needs. And what Dane enjoys most in the world is some peace and quiet and a small space in which to be free to move. He puts up fights in crowded places like restaurants, but his needs really are simple and easy to meet if you plan with the knowledge of how he'll react to the choices you make for him.
Parenting is like a formula in some ways. You just have to figure out how to work with your kids in the best way. Children aren't unmanageable -- they're just individual people with preferences that you have to keep in mind. Dane's a country boy at heart, plain and simple, and parenting him means working around that framework, recognizing him for who he is and adapting your ideas to those needs. Parenting looks like lots of work, certainly, but it also looks do-able. It's something I can figure out. At 32, I'm finally understanding that. Who knew I'd have such a rewarding time at Disneyworld?
I'm going to be teaching prenatal yoga soon, and I've spent the last three days learning all about birth. I feel like I'm entering a new phase of my life. I'm letting go of some of the old crap -- like the shrinking violet stuff that's unproductive and ultimately worthless -- and I'm ready to set some new life goals. Like working on my marriage. Being a good partner to Jesse and making his family my family. Owning my voice and using it. For real. And finally -- I can finally say it for the first time in my life -- I want to have a baby.
