April 2023 – I-70 WEST AND BEYOND

Writing is hard. UCLA writing workshop.

A curiosity outside of our classroom. No phones though. It could have been a great writing prompt though…

The first day of school for me was always a day that gave me a knot in my stomach, even though I was returning to most of the same kids I had been in school with the year before and the year before that and several I had played with over the summer. This morning, I had my first day at school, a weekend workshop, on the UCLA campus, and the knot returned. I had had the teacher for three other classes, but all of them from home, sitting in front of my computer on Zoom, pajamas on the bottom and looking more put together on the top. Today, I finally got to meet the woman who has become a writing mentor for me, face to face and in person. Just like six months ago when I participated in a writing workshop in Santa Monica, my son, Grant took me to class, or actually to the hotel where I spent the weekend. We enjoyed dinner before at Flavors From Afar located in the Little Ethiopia section of LA. It’s an interesting restaurant that changes its menu monthly to feature dishes from the homeland of a refugee or immigrant chef. This month’s menu was Guatemala, a place my kids and I all traveled to several years ago. The food was excellent and because of the delicious food as well as their commitment to help refugees, it will go on my “must eat there” for future LA visits. I have to admit though, I was more focused on my upcoming classroom time than tamales or tilapia. My nerves of insecurity were making themselves known.

Grant dropped me off at the hotel, conveniently located in the UCLA campus, and told me he’d wait to make sure I got in OK. He told me “good luck,” adding words of encouragement, a shift in roles as I used to be the one in the driver’s seat offering up words of encouragement. However, he forgot to tell me to make sure I had everything, which in my excitement, I didn’t. He texted me later and told me I had forgotten my jacket and my water bottle. Fortunately, it was a warm and sunny in LA. He suggested buying a UCLA water bottle to show school spirit, in jest, of course, but at this point, I’ve taken enough classes at UCLA — close to 100 hours of contact hours, to justify a water bottle and maybe even a sweatshirt. My son, who forgot homework most days, texting me to tell me I left my jacket and water behind was great fodder for writing if I needed a prompt over the weekend.

When you’ve only known each other from a small square in a page of squares of faces on Zoom that can’t help me think of Hollywood Squares, seeing each other in person took my teacher, Amy and I a minute before we embraced in a hug that felt long overdue. The classroom was nothing special — four walls with a chalk board on two of them, no windows and a horseshoe of desks that were on wheels, which at first I thought was strange, but by the end of the day, we had all scooted ourselves around while trying to find our best spot. I could see and hear what wasn’t possible on Zoom — the emotions in the eyes, the body language, the audible sighs on a well-crafted or heart wrenching sentence. I was in a classroom of 15 talented, authentic and very brave souls who at the end of day one, felt like I knew with a level of intimacy that doesn’t usually come with initial meetings. And we’ve only begun.

After class, I walked into Westwood Village, a few miles from my hotel room, and cobbled together some food to take back and enjoy on the small patio outside of my room. I bought a sandwich bigger than my head, a bag of chips and a single sized serving of rose. I don’t normally eat huge sandwiches, but I worked up an appetite by writing from 9 to 5 so made the indulgent splurge. On my walk home, a man stopped and asked me if I’d like a ride. Flattered by the offer while knowing I’d say no, I turned around to get a closer look of who was either hitting on me, being a creep or simply a nice guy. I said no, but thanks, to the man behind the wheel who not only looked suspiciously too old to drive, but a bit like my Dad. I have silver hair. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

Amy, our teacher, told us at the end of day one to take the evening off, relax and get a good night’s sleep because it would be far more exhausting mentally than we’d realize. Pouring your heart out onto the page, as soulfully fulfilling as it is for me, is also exhausting in a way that catches up to you later and always as such a surprise when I find myself tucking into my bed at 8:30 or 9:00. Regardless of what we were told, I’m sure most people in my class were doing the exact same thing I was doing…writing, rewriting and contemplating what we want to share. There is no rest for the weary. At least not for this weekend.

On the last day, our second day, we each had 10 minutes of sharing time with the class and because I’ve taken Amy’s memoir classes before, I knew what that 10 minutes would probably look like — 20 minutes or even 30 and our class wouldn’t end at 5:00, but closer to 5:30 and even that would be a stretch. We could use the time for anything we wanted, whether that was reading a piece or talking about book plans or writing plans or anything else we wanted to share. I chose an essay I wrote about a woman I knew for a matter of months during my year of living in Phoenix. I wrote it many years ago, decades actually, but have gone in and made edits and changes over the years. I’m hoping it will become a part of something else I’m working on but as per the methodology that Amy adheres to, I’m not going to share much about those plans.

Amy gave us prompts, where we have 5 to 10 minutes to write then could go back and tweak during free time, which was not much. On the first day, we chose a piece we had written in the prompts for the class to workshop. The class would ask questions in areas where they wanted more information written, such as “how old were you when this happened?” Or “Where were you?” Usually the questions were pretty basic. The hard part was we weren’t allowed to answer the questions because Amy didn’t want the writer to be influenced. Rather, the questions were written down and we could decide later if we wanted to address them in our piece. It was a strategy that had been used in all of the classes I’ve taken with Amy, so I was familiar with the drill.

We spent all afternoon on the last day with our “10 minutes of sharing,” which predictably was more like 30 minutes. I was so moved by the bravery of some of the stories I heard and stunned by the tragedies many in our class had suffered as children and young adults. Amy had told us on our first day that we’d connect with one or more of the students and would form life long bonds and we’d be surprised by how close we would become with only 16 hours of being with one another. She was right. It happened twice with her classes on Zoom and it happened even more so in person. We’ve already been emailing and there will be a few who I will try and connect with on future trips to LA. Most, by the way, were from the area but one girl was from Dallas, another from Seattle and one from San Francisco. The remainder lived in the LA area.

It’s such an opportunity for me, with regards to both my writing as a whole and my soul to be able to spend a few weekends a year with other like-minded adults who on a gorgeous day in LA would choose to be in a window-less classroom writing about memories, many of them painful. It will take a few days or even weeks for me to totally absorb the time I spent with this incredible and brave, group of writers. I couldn’t have been in better company.

On Sunday, early evening, Grant picked me up and asked me how my class had gone and although it had only been a few days since he dropped me off, it felt like it had been at least a week. Time spent in that drab classroom went fast but also at times painfully slow. I can’t articulate specifically what I learned to do or undo because those elements will come in drips and drabs while I write, but I know from past experience that there will be a time while I’m writing when something that Amy or one of the other classmates said will be exactly what I need to hear and I’ll add that word or sentence or chapter that I was too afraid to include before and I’ll see the face of the person who shared the wisdom, clear as day, as if they are standing over my desk with raised eyebrows saying, “what are you REALLY trying to say?” I’ll give their invisible self a nod and continue to type, or write in spiral notebooks that sit in stacks in a basket by my desk.

I know every one of us in that weekend workshop came away with something different from our time in that classroom, but there was one thing we could all agree with without exception. Writing is hard. No explanation, and no need to go deeper with those words — hard and as necessary as oxygen for each and everyone of us who sat in the windowless room in desks on wheels. I need to be reminded of that while I sit in front of the ever familiar blank page, while I try to find my words or the meaning or even the purpose behind those words.

Writing is hard and laborious and emotional and frustrating but it’s also one of the purest forms of creativity and making sense of my world that I’ve found, beginning with discoveries through awful poetry in my teens. While back at my desk, where I have a tiny clothesline attached to the wall with 3×5 cards pinned to it with saved words on them, there are two cards I’m drawn to today.

“Authenticity only comes when you take risks.”

“But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight. Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight” (*Lover’s in a Dangerous Time,” by Bruce Cockburn).

Tomorrow, it will be a different card with different words, but for today, on the heels of inspiration and some deep soul searching, those are my words.

Learning to Breathe

A year ago today I returned from my volunteer work in south Texas. I wouldn’t have remembered the date, except it was the day before Easter and it was a sunny day, nearing 60 degrees, with the beginnings of Spring starting to poke through the mud and small bits of remains snow. Just like today. That’s what I thought I’d be writing about until I went to the breathing workshop with Max Strom, at a yoga studio here in Boulder. I’m going to set Texas and my volunteer work aside for now because the two hours I spent with Max this morning feels like the bigger story today and the one that wants to be told and if I looked at the date on the calendar and not Easter as the date, I realize I still have a few weeks on my return from Texas anniversary.

Five years ago, to the date, I completed my first of three blocks (7 days each, as I recall) of my yoga teacher training with Max Strom, something I signed up for with no more than a whim directing me and serious doubts that I’d actually complete all the sessions, which is neither here nor there, except today also happened to be the day that I signed up for a breath workshop with Max at a yoga studio here in Boulder. I didn’t put the synchronicity of dates together until seated on my mat, front row and to the left, as always, and looking up to the front of the room where a comfortable chair sat on a mat with a small table next to it with a bottle of water and a sound bowl sitting on it. Although the studio wasn’t at all like the one I had spend 200 hours in during the training, seeing the chair on the mat, in the front of the studio, brought a flood of memories back. I was always one of the first ones to class, just like this morning, because I like a gentle entry into things that are new. I like to have the time to settle into the space before the class or the workshop begins. I also want the best seat in the house and my early by nature personality usually confirms that I will have just that. There were six other mats in the room when I got there, making my 25 minutes early look a little less anxious. By the time the workshop began, the studio was as full as it could get, with our mats just inches apart. Max is popular and loved by anyone who has taken his workshops or yoga classes over the years. I heard about it through my daughter, who took some classes at the studio and happened to be on their email list. Otherwise, he would have come and gone and I never would have known.

Sitting on my mat with my journal, a pen, a bottle of water and a bolster to make the two hours of mostly sitting, more comfortable, I was taken back to the very first day of the yoga teacher training, with the same lineup of accoutrements on my mat, but a much different feeling. I was preparing for an 8 hour day with 6 days to follow that 8 hour day and not a 2 hour workshop. I thought back to how nervous I was — filled with apprehension and wondering if I’d really be able to complete what I had signed on for. I was also very proud of myself for having made it that far —from the signing up part to the showing up part and was thankful for the monetary investment that would made my chances of quitting before completion slim. Thoughts of “Seriously? You really think you can do 200 hours of this and for what? You don’t even want to be a yoga teacher, do you?” To “This is the next step in your yoga journey, whether you teach or not and I’m proud of you for showing up,” were in competition in my mind. The loudest one of confidence and pride usually winning until its counterpart of doubt and insecurity would push its way to the front to be heard. Inhale, exhale, I can do this. I want to do this, I thought. I didn’t feel that kind of doubt this morning that had been present the first day of my training, but I did feel anxious. I had never been in the studio before, didn’t know one of the 60 or 70 people whose mats were pushed together almost touching, but I did feel grounded, literally, with the view out the window of the mountains I spend so much time hiking in. That made me feel home. The shades, by the way, were drawn before the workshop began, so no one would have to deal with the sun in their eyes or maybe it was so we would concentrate on what Max was saying and not the view behind him.

Max and I made a visual connection but it wasn’t until the workshop was over that we were able to reconnect and I was able to give him a hug. Max is a big man and I remember thinking “gentle giant” the first time I heard him spoke. His voice quiets a room and his stories are ones that I could sit all day listening to, even on a thin, not very comfortable, yoga mat. He is one of the best teachers and speakers I’ve ever heard and I felt blessed to once again be in his company, absorbing the wisdom he imparts every time he speaks. He was only going to be in a few US cities before going back to his home in the Netherlands, making his time in Boulder even more synchronistic and special. He told me his next stop was Kansas City.

What a gift of reflection today has brought me. I was a much different person when I started that first module of the 200 hour training five years ago (thank you Facebook for all of your historical, “to the date” reminders… they often matter, like today). For starters, the bottom three inches of my hair were still brown. I lived in Leawood, Kansas, had not yet become a grandma, didn’t know that a year and three weeks later, my role of grandma would give me the new name of “Laudie,” a throwback to what some of my friends who I worked with at Kulik Lodge in Alaska used to call me. The name stuck and now three grandchildren have adopted it, soon to be four when the littlest one starts talking.

I had a condo in Frisco, Colorado at that time, but if someone would have told me that three years after that training was completed, I’d buy a home in Boulder and would begin the process of selling my home in Leawood, Kansas, I would not have believed them. I had no idea the physical and emotional pain that would come from moving from the place I had lived most of my life nor did I know the joy that returning to the state where life began for me would bring. All of this came together this morning during Max’s “Learn to Breathe to Heal Yourself and Your Relationships,” to which I’d add, “while finding the gift of such synchronistic timing that no doubt will take you back to a pivotal journey in your life that you’ll most likely want to write about.”

While we were going through the breathing exercises, both standing and seated, I couldn’t help but return to both the physical space and the emotional space of that time. I had two different women stay with me, Laurie (ironically) during the first session and Megan during the last, which was new for me — sharing the upstairs of my home along with coffee at my kitchen table with women I had never met but after a few days, the sharing would also include our histories, our stories and pieces of our hearts.

As the days of the last session of the teacher training progressed, and I knew I would have to get up in front of all the students (maybe 30? 35?) and do a short teaching section, I became nervous. Very nervous. To calm myself, I would come home at the end of class and walk until I felt confident that I could stand up in front of the group, all who I now called friends, and teach. I honestly don’t know why I felt such anxiety about it but I did, and it was real. I remember writing a blog post about it and made the comparison to my irrational fear of mice after having seen one on the sidewalk when I was out walking. It was dead, by the way, which gives even more emphasis to the “irrational” part of my rodent fears.

Today, there was no anxiety about having to teach, something that immediately came to mind when Max walked in, but rather, a deep sense of comfort and knowing. Max looked the exact same as he did five years ago which gave me great comfort, but not being in the studio that felt so much like home to me in KC felt strange. Afterwards, when we had the chance to talk, he asked me if I lived in Boulder or was just visiting, adding that when he saw me he was confused because he wasn’t going to be in KC until the following week. I told him I lived in Boulder and felt a surge of pride with those words as they come out with ease now and I no longer feel the need to annotate with my date of arrival.

The teacher training and what followed for me, most importantly a move, have made for an incredible journey of growth and one that felt good to have the memory nudge today seeing Max, but with very different eyes this time. It feels both important and necessary for me to be able go back in time to see how far I’ve come, but what a rare gift that the opportunity is so real it can be breathed in (literally) and finished off with a big hug when completed. This morning I relearned the breath techniques Max taught our class five years ago but with a grasp that felt easier and more comfortable to hold on to.