What seems like a lifetime ago, when we lived in Georgia, Laurel
and I had shirts made that said “The Perfect Sunday”. It included three lines with checked boxes, “Church”,
“Yoga”, “Beer”.
Fast forward, life has changed dramatically. As many conversations go these days, “…and
then COVID happened”, we moved from Georgia to Ohio, we left the church, we
went from a “home” yoga studio to yoga franchises, and we haven’t found a
brewery quite like Slow Pour. Not sure
about Laurel, but I was kind of feeling like Dorothy and not being in Kansas,
or Georgia, anymore.
As I often do, let me divert for just a minute. The other day, Laurel and I were getting
haircuts, we’ve found a very nice young lady, and she does both of our hair,
and we were there back-to-back. As I was
getting my hair cut, we were talking to Jesy, OK, Jesy was talking to us, and
as is normal, Jesy was sharing way too much about her life. Jesy is a wonderful young lady, but my God,
she has a shit life. The amount of drama
she deals with in her family, and shares with us, is overwhelming. But the amazing thing is, Jesy is always so
upbeat and positive. I have no idea
how. Then she said those magic words,
when she was discussing her relationship with her uncle, who had just died, compared to her relationship with her father:
“Appreciation,
not Expectation”
As I sat in the chair, I had this urge to tell Laurel, “Quick,
write that down for me!”, but I didn’t, so I wouldn’t embarrass Jesy. Thankfully, it wasn’t that hard to remember,
even for me, and I thought a lot about what she said. I know, I took you on a detour, but I really
believe it helps to gain the context of the story.
“A Perfect
Sunday”
Last Sunday, we got to experience a perfect Sunday. I’ll do my best to capture it for you, but I’m
sure I won’t ever be able to fully express how perfect it was.
We have hit summer of course, and one of the great benefits
to me of summer is outdoor yoga. As many
of you know, I love yoga, and what I love more than yoga is outdoor yoga. There’s just something about it, yoga is such
a spiritual journey, but taking a spiritual journey out in nature? That is at the top of my list. Yoga and nature combined, two of my favorite
things in life, how could it be better?
Well, it could.
Anne Weidinger is a yoga teacher that Laurel and I have come
to know in the past year or so. As many
of you know, while I love yoga, I’m still a relative novice, and I’m really a
novice when it comes to teaching yoga. I
have a huge amount of respect and admiration for anyone who teaches yoga, it’s
not that easy, and I have found that all the teachers I’ve ever had bring
something special to a class. There are
some though that are on a much higher plain, and Anne is one of them. I’ve never had anything but an incredible
class from Anne.
Anne arranged for a yoga class at Mitchell’s Berries, a
small farm about a half hour away from us.
The entire week before, the weather was sweltering, just unbelievably
hot and dry. Probably not ideal weather
for outdoor yoga, but I would take anything.
That morning, we got our first rain in quite a while, and
Anne delayed the start for an hour, to fit the class in between raindrops. As we drove out to Plain City, the skies
looked threatening still, and we wondered if we’d be doing yoga in the rain or
doing yoga at all. We got to the farm,
and as we headed toward the field, the clouds were still heavy, there was a
gentle breeze, and after 90-degree weather for a week or so, it was a bit
chilly.
As we started doing yoga, there was a bit of a menagerie of
weather going on. Gentle breezes,
stronger breezes, huge puffy clouds, large dark clouds, and moments of blinding
sun, when it was no longer chilly, but really hot. The only thing missing was some form of
precipitation, but it felt so good to feel so much weather on my skin.
The sounds were incredible, all sorts of different birds
throughout the fields and trees. The
wind rustling through the trees and the plants created such a feeling of peace. The smell of the country, particularly after
a nice rain, was so refreshing.
The yoga was of course amazing, it always is with Anne,
and as I said, doing yoga in nature is just such a beautiful gift. One of the few benefits of COVID that I
learned, since we had to do yoga outdoors a lot, is that balancing on an uneven
surface is much easier for me than balancing on a hard floor, which I know,
seems counterintuitive. And the
opportunities to find a Drishti in nature are numerous, a tree, a bush, a
clover, a bird (no, that won’t work, but still fun to watch!). The other fun thing about these outdoor
events is the people that come to them, there are some that we know well, some
we barely know, and some we’ve never met before. These events attract a wide array of people,
and it’s really fun to share that experience with some familiar and some not so
familiar faces.
It didn’t end there though.
Part of our package was the opportunity to pick raspberries and black
raspberries. While I grew up in the
middle of cornfields when I was younger, I don’t think I have ever picked
berries in my life. This was a brand-new
experience for me. I ended up with the
black raspberries’ assignment, and my instructions were the blacker the better,
and if they don’t come off the vine easily, they’re not ready. As I wandered around, I’d find a black one,
and go to pick it, and then, wait, that one is blacker, wait, that one is
blacker, how can there be so many shades of black? So, I reverted more toward, do they come off
the vine easily? It was going fine until
I investigated my pint basket and saw after 15-20 minutes, I had maybe 10
berries in the very bottom of the basket.
This could take days to complete.
But do you know what? So
what. I’m out in the middle of farm
country, on a beautiful day, picking berries.
So what if it takes all day.
The best part of course is that I got to share all of this
with Laurel. She is the one who
introduced me to yoga, and I’m forever thankful for that. I love going to yoga with her, when I lose my
way, I always look to her for guidance to figure out what the hell I’m doing
wrong. We go for walks every day in
nature, it’s so much fun to look at the ducks, bunnies, birds, frogs, various
trees and plants, whatever nature has for us that day, and point out something
new to each other that day.
I’ll go back to what Jesy said, “appreciation not
expectation”. Maybe it was the change in
the weather, maybe it was no idea what to expect because of the weather, maybe
it was the group of people that show up for outdoor yoga, maybe it was picking
berries for the first time in my life, maybe it was Laurel finding not one, but
two, four-leaf clovers, but I really had no real or strong expectation. I was just able to appreciate every aspect of the experience, doing something
I love, out in nature, which I love, with the person I love more than anything. Yes, it was a perfect Sunday.
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