Dienstag, 28. September 2010

living - learning

first heard as a quote from 'Sex and the City', I have always liked these words. And yes, you can learn somethign from TV series, as these words are so true – living means learning. Or in order to be alive, you need to learn constantly. Every day.

I have learned something. And it feels great. I have understood that I am not a child anymore. That I don´t have to be afraid of anyone telling me what to do. I don´t even need to ask for permission to do anything. I am free to decide and DO myself. Terhefore, I have decided that I will act as an adult from now. I will see myself as being one. I will NOT let my inner scared child restrict me. I will just DO what I need to do. I am 30 years old, for any sake, what am I waiting for???

So instead of hoping I might get the chance to go surfing this week, I just said to my teacher´s wife, I want to take one day off during the week, which one would be best? She said Thursday, I had thought so, too, so that´s done. I hired a car from end of next week on to be able to get around here and pick up my very dear friends from the aiport who will come here to stay for a week. I have rebooked my flight home so I will have a whole week before going back to Germany and I can just travel or lie on the beach or surf or shop in Lisbon. Because I am grown-up and I can just decide what I want to do, right? I have already booked my next trip, as I only want to be home for a few days and then head on to London. Two weeks in the big city ahead. Will be quite a shock after having lived here. But I am craving for some urban adventures ;-))

It might all be small things but it was such an act of freeing myself from all that restrictions that I felt. Hiring that car, getting my needs met by asking for a free day. Things that I used to never dare. Because I always thought I will complicate the life of others so I better not ask for anything. Turns out the only reaction I ever get IF I ask for something is: 'Great!' I should really have tried earlier...

I will be here for four more weeks and it feels like time is flying by. It feels like I have only just got here. But yet, I have a good feeling about leaving again. Because I have already understood my lesson here for now. And I am working towards it. I am still really confused and lost when it comes to how my life could settle down eventually in the future and I am no further in any planning of that. But this is only the beginning. There will be much more learning ahead, difficult and easy lessons. And a lot of life to live. Happily.

Sonntag, 26. September 2010

paddling back

I don´t know what had come over me when I wrote that 'breakthrough'-entry last week. Thank God I wrote the maybe in the end.
I have been addicted to eiter starving myself or overeating constantly for the last 16 years (this is a number I can hardly bear, it´s more than half my life). Let´s substract the good time, which might add up to a year or so, in which I didn´t feel so addicted and actually attained a healthy weight only through eating 'normal' somehow. It´s still 15 years then.
In the last weeks and months, it has been worse than ever. I have these days where I get up and I unconsciously start to put food in my mouth from the first minute standing up. I can tell you, to overeat ( feeling guilty and miserable and disgusting all along) even BEFORE breakfast, that´s no start into a new day at all. That´s a desaster.
So as i have been doing this for a while now, of course I have gained weight. I don´t know how much, I don´t have a scale (maybe that´s a good thing??) . Sometimes I want to know to estimate the damage done. After all, there is a very sure way to happiness: Achieving my dream weight again.
Of yourse I know that´s bull****. Who doesn´t? I know the key to letting go of the addiction is loving myself, allowing myself to feel good about me no matter what. and that´s the crucial point. The 'no-matter-what' part. I suck at that.
I can easily fell great about me when I have hardly eaten one day. Or when i really worked hard without pausing. Or when someone else is happy with what I have done. Or when I achieve soemthing I really wanted. But only until I enter the next kitchen. I will destroy my good feelings before I notice myself by overeating- maybe because I know it´s not the happiness I am looking for in the end. But it´s part of my happiness to feel good about my body and I still (unconsciously or even consciously) prevent that from happening.
Sometimes it seems the addiction is just never going to end. How can I stop when I can´t? When will I be able to not binge anymore at all? When can I allow myself to be independet from the drug 'food' that is killing me?
I have decided to take an extreme measure. I will join my teacher´s wife for a 10-day-liver-detox-cleansing-diet from tomorrow. To get me detached for once. i hope it´ll work. I know that the liver has job to digest feelings, and that´s what it´s about isn´t it? I am hoping for some release and relief. And for a break from constant eating. Since sometimes it helps to have strict rules and to share them with somebody. That´s what they do in rehab programmes, too, right?

Of course I am dreaming about losing enormous amounts of weight in those 10 days, to get over my disorder for good and live happily ( and slim) ever after. I guess I need it to get me motivated in the first place. I will let you know how I do. And my liver.

Mittwoch, 22. September 2010

Falling down and standing up again

It´s so easy to fall into dull comparisons between surfing and life. You try, it´s hard, you keep up, it gives you a little in return sometimes, it can be frustrating, it can be pure joy. After only 5 lessons I can say, I had any nice little parallel existing in my head and thought, it really is good material for writing about it, but only if there hadn´t been so many before me who have done it already.

Since Sunday I can officially say I know how to stand up on a surfboard. Wow. I still fall down a lot, maybe even more often than I keep standing, but my body got used to the movement, internalised it and I got the very much longed for appreciation of my surf teacher. So there is hope. And, yes, I have been dreaming of surfing a pipe. From the first lesson on. I guess it will be a long way to get there. Often enough I cannot yet estimate enough, how hard a wave´s gonna brake or what is the exact moment to press up and jump up standing. But with the ever so slight progress I made in those last two sessions I have the unbreakable plan to be good at this someday. Not like in competitions. But confident to go out there by myself, go with the waves instead of fighting against them and simply enjoy it. Because another maybe much wiser surf teacher said to me: 'You can say you surf when you start having fun doing it.' I might get there evetually, not there quite yet but I can see it, the light at the horizon. And here we are again. The greasy comparisons. All you can say about surfing, you can pretty much also say about life. Because I want to learn to go more with the flow instead of against it. And one thing the surfing really showed me already. You just have to keep trying, doing it, focussing while you do it (otherwise you swallow even more saltwater), and no matter whether you fell or made it to the beach standing up – you just go right back in. And it made me realize again that I have that capacity in me. It re-vived my fighting spirit.

I think my surf teacher smiled at me yesterday for the first time instead of pulling a face and going 'Come on, girl!'. And I really feared he could see me as one of those chubby english or german tourists, who look so uncoordinated as if they had never done any sports in their life. The boys are really pale and always look a bit dumb but are willing to try anything, go out for the big waves way to soon and always have this hectic facial expression when trying to catch a wave. They catch it, then they fall, and they don´t look good doing it. They probably never will. The girls have a different approach. They don´t even get up in the first place. They look like stranded little whales on their boards, helplessly trying to move some water around them, and even when the teacher holds their boards, gives them a starting signal and pushes them into a wave, shouting 'Up!' they hardly manage to press up thier torso without falling. Their bodies look very limp and heavy and useless. But they seem to have fun anyways.Thank God I know now he doesn´t see me as one of them. I was even allowed to go behind the surf (the so called outside) for the first time yesterday. I didn´t catch a wave but it caught me. Fair enough. As I said there´s hope.

Dienstag, 14. September 2010

the break through... maybe

so I had another consultation with my teacher. I had my first one with him in June, I was petrified then and so anxious he would tear me apart I actually was sick to my stomach the whole day. Until I met him. He was the nicest fatherly loving teacher you could imagine. Confronting, yes. But gentle. And uplifting. Since I arrived here at his house I realized I am constantly expecting him to shout at me or critizise me or be unhappy with how I work. Of course he has never done anything like that to me. And he probably never will because he feels that I am beating up myself enough as it is. I don´t need anyone else on top of me joining that team.

But at some point this fear and anxiety changed, I could integrate the knowledge that he is only the screen on which I project the fear of my father I lived through in my childhood. Very basic psychology. But very effective. Because this seems to be the surrounding in which I can understand, reflect and observe the patterns in which I react internally, not even try to surpress or change them, but just let them work within, relax, lean back and learn that THIS man is nice, and most others will be as well, and that whatever I lived through with my own father has ended. This in now, this is new, this is MY life.

When I got my appointment for my consultation, I wrote down some notes about what topics I want to mention to him. At first I thought I wanted to talk about these family issues. And I told him openly what I had been projecting on him but that I started to let it fall away from me and I feel it changes to the good. It surprised him a little, how much I had feared him, but he appreciated the honesty and I was so happy I could just sit there and tell him my fears without being fearful in that moment. I am not afraid of him anymore. He used to be the embodiement of my deepest fears of being rejected, unwanted, not loved. And I have lost that fear towards him.

So then I thought I wanted to talk to him about my marriage and my eating disorder. Of course I knew he wouldn´t discuss with me whether I should break up or not or what wheight would be healthy for me. But he took it even on a more abstract and metaphoric, yet even deeper level than that.

In way, we continued the talk we had in June and it astonished me a lot how he was able to bring me more to the core. In that first session with him I was so weak inside I had nothing to put against him or myself, I couldn´t even sit upright, or look him into the eyes. But yesterday it was different. I was not afraid to say what I think and feel, I didn´t feel uncomfortable with him being direct, whenever I was ashamed of what I wanted to say I just told him and he encouraged me to still say it and it was such a relief. He/we boiled everything down again to the core issue: I don´t allow myself to be happy, I believe it is fobidden for me to be happy. But there is more. While I am keeping myself away from happiness, I also surpress my greatness. And apparently, my teacher sees a lot of that in me. He thinks that when I was young, I probably had a glimpse of of that greatness, that one day I could be a leader, a spiritual teacher, a healer, a radiant yogini, whatever. Or I could misuse this inherent power and become a 'rockstar', become manipulative and egoistic in my greatness. His impression is my soul wanted to prevent that from happening so it buried my awareness of my own greatness underneath guilt, shame, fears and complexes. It hurt so much to hear him say that to me by that time already sitting so close to me our knees were touching, staring right into my eyes. And I stared right back into his. I wasn´t even looking at him as a person. He was some kind of a medium then, he had put himself and me into a deep meditative state by then and I was able to feel that greatness inside. It sits in my chest, maybe in my heart. But it´s sealed. It´s like an egg with an almost unbreakable shell. Which needs to be broken from the outside (my teacher offered me to punch me just to give it a try, laughing, but we postponed it, after I had a laugh, too) or rather unlocked from the inside, where there is the key. I need to dare and risk to take that key, turn it, unlock it. Open up.Be happy, be great, be inspiring and uplifitng to others and myself.

So again, for a moment, I could feel that egg-shaped thing inside me and I somehow touched it. And that hurt so much. The thought, the image, the knowledge maybe of my greatness hurts. But it also feels so honest, so truthful. And the truth is: I need help with this. I closed all of my inner beauty away so carfeully I will not be able to handle this on my own. I need support and I need help. And this honesty about MY need of hep is the first step. Because I need to let go of the need to be needed, and instead recieve help. Let myself be weak, needy, childish, but let me be me. And if ME needs help, that´s what it is. It hurts but it´s honest. And it feels amazingly good in a way. I am here to be helped with this. I have to choose how I want this help to be. But it is there, available to me, I just need to say thank you and take it.

This feels (again) like a turn-around-point, a break-through, a new start, something is shifting.

I even did an early sadhana this morning, read Japji, did NOT go back to sleep afterwards, but I am awake now. I will have more consultations here, i will work on this, with it, towards me, my greatness, whatever greatness lives within me.

But for now I will put on my bikini (internally repeating the mantra 'unconditional love') and go surfing, embrace this day and smile again. Finally.

Freitag, 10. September 2010

the romantic idea of how it´s gonna be vs. reality

So I am here.
It´s a peaceful place. I am in contact with myself.
But is that always nice? No. Does that alone make me happy? No. Do I still have to fight for having a good day? Yes. A lot. Too much.

I go surfing. I meet interesting people. Nice people. But does it help me be a different person? No. I am still me. I still have to fight to change my patterns.

Being here is pretty much all I ever hoped for. And I DO feel good. In a way. This is where I need to be. But it´s not pleasant. I took myself on this journey. I WANTED this. I NEED this. But it´s still a struggle.
I struggle with food a lot right now. That´s the front row of the enemy, my mind. I don´t particularly overeat, but I think I do. Constantly. I feel I am bloated and wobbly and huge. I know I am not. But I have to fight the urge to become really desperate when I look into the mirror. I don´t want to live in this body when it looks like this. I don´t want to hate my body either. It´s 16 years of eating disorder and there is the frequent occasional days of not knowing how to work this out. My body feels best when I eat little with big breaks in between. But that happens to be the exact opposite to what my addiction wants me to do.
So where do I go? Extreme control and self-discipline? Can only work for so long and then I´ll catch up. On the calories. Letting go and just eat? I will die of panic, I get so insecure I tend to overeat to cause me then to be more rigid with myself again. Just not think about it? Great idea. Don´t think about lemons. Now.

Behind these first lines of my inner war there is the thoughts. About being not enough, wrong, ugly, fat, a burden, only good when I bend myself so much I almost break. I can think that in ANY occasion. I can spend days only thinking these thoughts. I have done so. It makes me extremely frustrated to know that I have.

Then there comes the guilt. That I haven´t saved my parents´marriage. Our family, That I wasn´t strong enough to fix it all, to hold it all together. That I haven´t done everything right, meaning perfect and flawless. With the true belief that THAT would have made the difference.

When I made it through all of these lines, there is the big monster. My self-hatred. Which is the seal on that immense big tub of self-love. It has become so strong over the years, the seal has almost grown in.

But it hasn´t, I know that, I have already broken it. Very shortly. But nevertheless impressive. It was the last day of last year´s Yoga Festival in France. During a meditation, I literally opened my heart. I could see it. From the inside. The immense love that is there. For myself, for the world, for everything. So strong it took me days to recover, it was such a shock to see and feel it. It shook me to the core to see in this little instant that I DO love myself. That I CAN be happy. That I CAN enjoy this life. That I can LIVE after all that zombie-like vegetating as an anorexic, then as a depressed overeater. That I love myself. This miniature moment of complete insight into my core (at least that it what it felt like) changed my life forever. Ever since then I have been searching for a way to cultivate it. My self-love and my being connected to my soul. Because as my spiritual name tells me, that´s my potential. So I want to live up to that.

I pray that someday I will. For today I will have to accept defeat once again.

Sonntag, 5. September 2010

I guess I have arrived


I have done something absolutely crazy today.
I MADE MY OWN DAY!!
After an early night yesterday, I got up quite early today, did some useful things, went shopping for various even more useful things with my teacher´s wife, and then... I went to the beach. By myself, by bus, first time on my own through this country. Like a normal tourist, I walk on the beach, lay out my towel, strip down to my bikini (thank God it still fits) and lay down for a little sun bath. Wow. Sometimes it´s as easy as that. I have a brilliant time, just lying there listening to the surf, reading my corny book (but loving it) and watching the surfers give their best to impress the ladies around. I am rather not so impressed but a bit shocked by the intensity of the surf and then - it itches. I want to do that, too! I want to be whirled around in that powerful waves like them!
When I first arrive to the beach I need a coke. Not a real one. A fake one. I used to be hooked on diet coke, now I go for coke zero. I don´t know why, I just happen to love the taste of it. Not despite but because of the sweeteners. anyways, i am standing at the counter of this bar, and can already see the tins in the fridge, waiting for the girl preparing coffee to give me some attention so I can mutter some not-at-all-understandable words that have the magic coke in the middle of them. But she just ignores me. that girl wears braces. And dares to serve the bunch of overly hairy and pot bellied guys that are cleary standing behind me first! am i too german or what? I thought the cueing tradition in this country was famous? Even when she finishes the coffees for the guys she doesn´t bother looking at me so I think, well I better switch on the navel now. I will not let that little bi*** ruin my perfect beach sunday. I am sick and tired of feeling wrong and unwanted anywhere. so I just shout my order out over the counter dirctly into her face. she doesn´t look at me still, no facial reaction whatsoever, but she actually opens the fridge and gives me my coke. well done me.
So having won the first fight, i had already lost the second. The sand is just too hot. i tiptoe stupidly trough the masses of perfectly tanned and shaped beach beauties (unfortunately more female examples) till I am close enough to the waterline to settle down. the burn will be gone by middle age. The look is spectacular. This is what I mean when i say beach. Rough waves, turquoise water, surfers to watch, amazing nature around. i am happy just being. And that´s what it is today. I finally am. Here. I. am. Here. And it´s good. Yesterday I still thought, I am wrong, this is all wrong, i am wrong wherever i am, today, this feeling is gone. I have arrived.
(with a little help from a good friend, i might say at this moment, not hesitating to mention that our formerly common favourite band once covered this song of Joe Cocker´s, thank you Maverick ;-))
So I enjoy some hours in the sun, nice little breeze to take off the edge of that sun, going for a short walk, having ice-cream... and on the way back to the bus, i pass again that surf school I had seen on the way out already. That I just went by cause there wasn´t anyone obviously in charge and a sign said the next class is not till next Friday which I won´t be able to make as I´ll be playing taxi driver for my teacher... I am walking by the school again and I can see some really cool guys wearing the school´s logo on their t-shirts, hanging around, being VERY cool... and I walk by and didn´t even have the guts to speak to them let alone ask them for lessons.
Maybe it´s not for me. Maybe it´s not meant to fit into my schedule that i surf here, maybe I am actually not cool enough to even try it, maybe I am not allowed to... be happy. Here we go again. For a second i get so angry, i want to scream, and then I think. Nope. I am not going home like this. I can surf if I want to. i want to live my life and DO things.
So I turn on my heels, walk back to the surf school´s cafe, and hear myself asking the guy at the counter who I can ask about surf lessons. right behind me stands one of those rocking cool guys with extremely well mirrored sunglasses, and I say to him: I want to learn how to surf. He says there´s a class tomorrow at 4.30pm. I say, great can I have a card to check the next classes in case I can´t make it. He goes, here´s my number, call me. Well done me, again. I DID IT. I made my day. of course i can make tomorrow at 4.30pm. It´s not a problem at all. So it´s all settled. Me being here. me surfing tomorrow. me starting to realize again that this is MY life, I decide, I DO, I live. Wahe Guru.

Samstag, 4. September 2010

ashram / compost

there are funny sides to living in an ashram. for example seeing your teacher (with beard and turban) carrying half a tree through the garden or going shopping groceries with you down the road (a spiritual master needingmy help to chose the right bundle of bananas? come on!), or seeing him disappear down to his waist in a cisterne he needs to check (of course gracefully holding his beard to the side while doing so). The daily ritual of 'bread-with-honey-meets-voluptous-beard' I know from other teachers so it doesn´t fascinate me as much anymore (although I sometimes have the impression the winner of this unequal fight is not always clear from the beginning, though the beard tends to win).
there are not so funny sides, too. within 24 hours i am confronted with all, and I mean ALL, my issues that try to drown me at the present moment. I am back to feeling 16 again, lost and insecure, a child needing approval of her existence every 5 minutes, a young 'overly-feeling-responsible' woman who tries to fit in so well and not to make too much noise and always expects somebody to shout into her face for doing everything wrong constantly. I am perfectly sure that I have absolutely NO right to be here in this wonderful place, living with this amazing family, and being happy, let alone exist.
Yesterday was a good day actually, I had a lovely time with my teacher at lunch and working in the garden, laughing a lot, first signs of arrival appeared. maybe i was feeling too good. I was facing an afternoon without a task given and I binged. I was able to stop only to continue after dinner. Great. I just don´t think I deserve this. i am not allowed such a great opportunity to grow, to learn, to be me, to be. I really still believe i have to take care of anyone´s needs but mine and need to be a bit plump to not be too sexy or attractive (in case that could make somebody feel uncomfortable). It all boils down to me not loving myself. i don´t see myself as a lovable person, I just don´t see ME at all. sometimes I think i don´t wanna see me.
I have my biggest issues sitting directly in front of me and smirk: my eating obsession or rather the obsessive thoughts about wanting to become skinny again, my overactive desire to make anyone happy but myself. I am not quite sure whether I shoved all this on my back just to make my neck hurt or to eventually throw it on the compost. Cause it´s real heavy stuff. At least that´s what it feels like right now. I will go now and contemplate about composting issues. i quite like the idea.

Mittwoch, 1. September 2010

where´s the rules?

I arrived to this ashram expecing it to be somewhat strict. (I am German after all.) Then I was offered coffee. I still opted for herbal tea though. But there are BIG quantities of coffee in this house. I assume they´re not only for guests. The general daily schedule includes an early morning sadhana from 5.30 am (which is already 'lazy' compared to the traditional 4 a.m.). Turns out, unless there is a group for a training at the house, nobody will bother to do a group sadhana, especially not that early in the morning. These people her have a highly irregular working schedule so there is no way to keep up such an extreme regime. So nobody will expect me to get up at 4 in the morning then? No. Nobody even expects me to do sadhana at all? No. I am expected to do my duties, to work for the house. That´s all. I don´t know yet whether that´ll be a lot of work, but it is always put like: 'you will be working hard'. We´ll see.

9.30 a.m.
So on my first day today I got up at 7, did some yoga, had breakfast, hung up some washing (in the sun that is unbelievably hot at 9 in the morning) and now i am writing this. I´m sitting in the office, noone here yet, looking at passport pictures of my (beard ´n turban) teacher. It looks somehow ridiculous to force somebody so NOT limited by physical or mental boundaries (that we accept as society) into such a small frame. It doesn´t make sense at all.
Yesterday a feeling of being trapped and tied down came up again (one of my little demons I guess) and today I realize, it probably won´t be like that at all. I might have a strict working schedule, but it all relies on negotiation and communication. So there´s nothing around that cannot be changed. Even to the extent I might find out I don´t want to work here at all, I´d still be able to stay as a guest. So i have to sit now with this: I am free, I chose to be here, I am free to change my status here anytime, but still I don´t feel free. Would I feel more freedom if I had many rules to obey? No, but then there would be something obvious to rebell against. This way, it´s down to me. I can only rebell against myself. Or to put it the other way round, it´s UP to me. I can do whatever I like. I try to look at it like this today. To see whether it fits.

12.30 a.m.
As there is still nobody around telling me what to do (how horrible), I gave myself the task to do some ironing and cleaning. At least now I don´t feel like a total freeloader anymore (are we having a problem here?). It´s way too hot to go outside, it´s lunchtime now and I appreciate my room in the cool basement. The sky is amazingly clear blue and the little white clichée houses contrast against it with pure perfection in the glooming sunlight. By now there are some people working around me, the cook/cleaner, a portuguese lady in her mid-forties (only speaks portuguese of course), who has been cooking and moving furniture for some hours now, not wanting any help, but listening to the portuguese version of xxx very loudly while she does her duties. Did I mention this is so clichée? But in a good way. The other woman around is a young (pregnant) portuguese woman in her thirties, she does some local admin stuff on the computer, but as there´s no landline for the phone or internet available (this house is so much in the middle of nowhere it would have to have it´s own posts and chords, so nobody bothers to invest that much), she uses the only internet connection available right now and I feel pretty cut off. It´s my second day without email, facebook and reading blogs. And I have to say I am not amused about how much I miss it. I don´t necessarily think it (being online) is a bad thing, after all it´s a way of connecting and communicating, but still when you miss something so much after half a day, it merits some reflection. And if I had internet connection right now, I would probably be surfing, writing emails and procrastinating otherwise instead of writing this.

6.20 p.m.
I am finally posting this. And all of a sudden, being on the internet is the weirdest thing ever. As if it was just a stupid idea to send all these thoughts out there. For whom? I hope it reaches somebody. i hope it reaches me.

travelling is dying

9.30 a.m.
so here i am, sitting at the aiport. I don´t exactly remember how i got here. I must have somehow managed to get almost everything done and actually pack my things for the ashram.
I look around and see young couples, older couples, young families with babies, mothers with teenage children. I try to imagine why they are going to their destination. Whether it´s holidays or family visits, if they actually go home from a trip or are going to live in an ashram. Hm, i might be the only one here with that intention. For a little moment, i feel special, then thinking whether i am hooked to that feeling of doing something extrordinary. I have a very physical remembrance of how i felt when I was 16 and went to Australia for the first time. Feeling like a brave adventurer and somewhat heroic and tough.
I feel sad and incredibly happy at the same time. I leave so much behind right now I probably can´t even grasp myself just HOW much it is. I am sad to leave the familiar, the easy life (as in you know how it works), the clearly visible path. It feels a little like dying. As if you had to let something die inside in order to make space for the experience of adapting to a new life.
On the plane I sit next to an elderly German couple and with some irritation I watch them be all excited about their lunch sandwiches being served, being very tense about whether they´ll get the right food, whether it´s been paid for and so on. They are excited like little kids who have been prmised some ice-cream for desert. That they can pick themselves. With a bold glance at their travel documents I read that they´ll stay till 22nd December. Wow, they will definetely stay longer than I intend to for now and I just judged them as being immature over their lunch behaviour.

1 p.m.
I arrive to a hot country. Gosh, it had been so cold and wet at home the last two weeks I had already forgotten it can actually be really warm and I can sweat. I am picked up by my teacher´s wife (she´s also a yoga teacher) and there comes even more memories of being picked up at the airport by my host mum including the anxiety attacks waiting at the baggage claim and having the impression that I am and always will be the last one to get her suitcase only to be able to enjoy sweet moments of incertainty. To make it even better, we pick up her son at a German school where he met some friends for a LAN party (this teenage boy´s dad wears a turban and a very long beard, by the way). After a short drive we arrive at a beautiful house in the middle of nature and I am welcomed by a friendly (and very happily licking) dog. Which would be the next similarity. I can chose my own room, we have a lovely lunch (there´s sweets and coffee around ;-)) get shown round the house and find out that my yoga teacher´s son is not only a computer junkie but also a surfer. Although he thinks with his 15 years his far too old to learn it as he only started a year ago. He probably will die laughing when he finds out I want to give it another shot at almost 31. (At least I find out there´s plenty of surf schools around and I´ll have a chance to take classes there!!)

4 p.m.
It´s an intense day. I sit on one of the terraces and try to realize where I am, feel a little lost and alone and even wonder at one point what I am actually doing here. I am throwing sticks for the dog and can´t believe just how much I feel like being 16 again. And of course not at all at the same time.

9 p.m.
I manage to arrive some more after a 2 hours nap (unintendedly) and a nice soup and conversation with my 'yoga host mum'. It´s nice to be here. I AM in the right place, I think I am just very nervous about the confrontation with myself. Cause I can feel it lining up at the horizon. It´ll be some journey. I am so happy that I have managed to get here after all. But I see ever so clearly what I leave behind. What is dead or maybe still dying. And even if it´s all good to get rid of in the end, there is this huge sadness of loss and grief. The one you also feel when somebody dies you didn´t even know.