Product of a Failed State

Thought for today: This is a beautiful life, filled with beautiful people.

I took the day off from practice today -- I was due, and plus it was my first chance to sleep in in 6 days. I rode my bike downtown to teach my yoga class -- freezing all the way there because I was supposed to go running after teaching and wanted to wear my running clothes. When I got there, I got a note from my running partner saying she couldn't run. Not a huge deal, but it would have been nice to have known that so I could've dressed for biking.

Went downstairs to teach my class to a bunch of regulars along with a couple of newbies. I love teaching yoga for so many reasons, but one of them is that whatever I'm dealing with in my life -- in this case lots of uncertainty about my next career step -- just sort of falls away.

Afterward I went into the sauna to heat up in preparation for the cold ride home, and I was joined by one of my students -- a 60 (that's a guess?) year old Liberian woman who has been regularly coming to my class with her daughter for the last few months.

My student asked about my job interview -- I had mentioned it in a previous class -- and I told her it went really well but I didn't get the job. She commiserated, and then proceeded to tell me that coming to yoga is one of the best decisions she ever made. She said it has changed her life, taking her from feeling as though she was crippled (her word -- but she doesn't have a lot of range of motion) to feeling as though she can move again. She said she wished that society put a greater value on the work that I do with my yoga students because it changes people's lives.

Wow. Talk about a conversation that fills one with both gratitude and perspective, something that this student comes by, as I have, through a traumatic experience. Hers was in her war-torn country, mine in the midst of an upper middle class upbringing in the Midwest.

I didn't know any Liberian musicians until I googled and found this one, and because the lyrics were not available on the internet, I only have one line to share with you:

I'm a product of a failed state

This student of mine, the product of a failed state, is such a shining example of the power of shared humanity to lift one another up. Human beings are good like that, and I'm proud to be one of them, new job or no new job...