All the people mobilize, nothing left to pulverize

This has been such a whirlwind week. I left Boston a week ago today, and was looking back at my journal entries only to discover that what I'm remembering as empowering and enlightening was actually fairly lonely. Not to mention achy (I was constantly scooting my butt up to the front of my seat and arching my back so my neck flopped back and I stared at the sun roof and sometimes dropped my jaw and said "ahhhhhhhhh" while I was driving 80 miles an hour down the interstate). It was definitely empowering - I don't mean to suggest that it wasn't, but I think it just happened that phone calls with people who asked how my trip was going aligned somehow with moments when I was feeling particularly confident in my decision, my direction, my independence. Pbbbbbth. I don't mean to dishonor those moments; they were significant and hope inducing and bolstered my momentum and my faith and all the rest. But much of the time I was very much stuck in my own skull asking myself the same questions about Los Angeles, about the music, about leaving Emma and how much I would miss her, about how my program connections had grown so strong in Boston and my ability to make friends had blossomed, and whether or not I'd be able to even make it in LA. In reading that back I supposed it's all just fear (not to belittle it, fear is legit, but it's maybe not as festering and awful as I made it out to be). I just don't know what to do about it other than talk about it. Sometimes pray, but in the week before I left (and still in this moment too) I began to feel so disconnected from God that praying about my fears felt like little more than complaining to the open air. Or like mailing a broken model airplane to your friend who you hoped could fix it only to realize that the address you put on the package was your own. I guess that metaphor implies that I'm just not reaching God in the right way, or something, not making the effort through the appropriate medium. Hm.

Two nights ago I went to an evening yoga class - one of those things that seems like it could only happen in LA, like dining in the dark with blind waiters or that chick who is always rollerblading on the boardwalk with a costume made out of a spandex american flag. The two yoga studios that I've checked out so far have both been wonderful, clean lines, warm people, and a myriad of class styles (Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Restorative, 12 step Recovery-based etc). I was happy to go and lay down my mat (somehow it astonished me that my yoga mat had traveled with me across the country, from Baptist and Inner strength to the LA studios, and that I could just hop back on it and have another experience....as though I expected I'd have to start over somehow) and keep myself open to the experience of a new set of teachers, a different length of practice, a different vocal register of chanting (weird!) and different incense. But it was still a sanctuary from the crazy, the fear of not making friends, the wondering what Emma is doing and if she's detached from me, the anxiety over my interactions with Clint and wanting to make everything okay and appropriate, being frightened that in my absence, Kate would discover I'm nowhere near as cool as she thought I was and would find someone else to bake with (or worse, the fear or Emma taking my place with her), and the overwhelming pain of being separated from Jessica and what it means to love a friend like that and be away from such a necessary touchstone such as her. And now what. All those questions are, I think, about being forgotten. Rather, the fear or being forgotten. They melted with the practice which was wonderful, but were happily waiting by the door for me when I left class for me to pick up like children from day care. Ugh.

I'm missing my Boston folks, I'm missing especially my Monday night women's group, I'm missing Full Moon and the swing sets that I frequented and the bakeries I was just getting to know. I'm missing feeling hopeful that something was about to happen. Right now, I don't feel like that. Maybe later.