My Quiet Place

Today was better than yesterday. Flash to yesterday and you would see me limping to class, cranky from the pain in my foot and frustrated by yet another injury that will set back my yoga practice. I returned to Japan after summer vacation happy and energized. These feelings have, over the course of the last few weeks, waned to the point where all I feel lately is an aching dullness that never seems to go away, except when I’m on the mat. This is the one place I feel connected and alive. All my senses are heightened. I feel the spongy give of the studio floor as I walk to retrieve my mat. I unroll it and take a seat. I stretch forward and feel my hands sink and stick into the mat. I smell the rubbery scent of the mat beneath me and I know I’m home. A month ago I returned to yoga after almost two months of not practicing due to a groin injury I initially suffered in December of last year. It felt wonderful. It never ceases to amaze me how connected I can feel to perfect strangers. While I do yoga I’m completely centred on myself: my breathing, my positioning but at the same time I’m connected to every person in the room. Everyone breathes together, moves together and the energy that creates is pure. It vibrates and it leaves me feeling high. That’s how I felt as I returned from my yoga class on Sunday night: alive and jumping and so I headed to my friend Juniper’s. A couple of hours and tarot readings later, I stood to leave from her apartment only to discover that I couldn’t put pressure on my left heel. Strange, I thought. Hopefully, it will be gone by morning. Well, it wasn’t and by yesterday afternoon my whole body was feeling the strain of trying to avoid putting any pressure on my heel. I decided to head to the doctor’s (something I should’ve done when I hurt my groin). After a short visit with him I left with a diagnosis – inflammation of the aponeurosis of a foot - and a prescription for an anti-inflammation drug. Needless to say after coming home from the doctor’s yesterday I felt so extremely frustrated and discouraged that I found myself sobbing over my dirty dishes. One minute I’m doing the dishes and the next I’m buckled at the knees, shoulders heaving. This year in Japan has been especially difficult for me and the one way I know how to cope is yoga. And that for the time being has been taken from me. I desperately miss my family and my friends; I’m unsure that Japan can offer me anything more than it has and as a result, I’m constantly questioning my reasoning for staying another year and if I don’t have the grounding force of yoga to keep all my emotions and thoughts from taking over then, well: Welcome chaos.