Misplaced Metaphors and Global Grooves

Stupid extended metaphor of the day: In a moment one may only identify as higher consciousness (use that as a metaphor for what you will), I was thinking today that living here is like doing yoga (yes, that’s actually a simile): some days you do it a lot less gracefully than others, but you know that the movements you’re going through are still beneficial to your general well being (no matter how corny they look). But some days you don’t want to do yoga, and you think, “F*^% yoga!” Some days you just want to do what’s comfortable, like sit on the couch, watch mis-represented reality on TV, and eat sugary, starchy, over-processed foods that have been cured in free-range animal fat and dipped in chocolate (organic, of course). But you don’t have a couch or a TV or a an organic market to help fulfill these desires. But you desire it, and some days you feel guilty for this, other days you don’t. Some days you try your best and you can barely touch your toes, and some days your lack of balance and coordination looks like Indra Devi performing divine asanas. Ah, the great yoga studio of life. I’m no yogi and my experience with yoga is limited to an inconsistent couple of years of Bikram, but I sure do prefer planting my feet on the grass and stretching my spine to Santana while the warm winds move around an open blue sky, in favor of standing on synthetic, grey carpeting and reaching toward pockmarked ceiling tiles in a stanky and stifling undersized studio. Hmmm. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Living here is like doing yoga -- fer reals.


Groovin’

So, hey! Good to be here. I miss the rhythm and interaction born of these journal entries. I have lately been occupied (notice my conscious disuse of “busy”; I’m trying to strike that word from my vocabulary) …I’ve been occupied with living, which of course includes working … on my tan! Ha, ha! Seriously, I’ve been wishing all week long that we had a swimming pool. … But really, in addition to working on my wrinkles and melanoma, I was trying to explain why else I haven’t been writing as often (we North Americans always feel compelled to have an excuse for everything – because just the right explanation can justify any laziness, ignorance, overindulgence, or untruth; Ticos are not like that -- as you can see, I’m still not one) … Anyway, a local friend was recently ruminating on life down here and told me, “Eventually, you’re just here.” Mini-epiphany! Indeed, as with any metamorphosis – having a baby, buying a home, starting a new school, going to prison – the day comes when you stop comparing one existence to the other and simply exist in the current reality. So I guess that’s what we’ve been doing – simply existing. “Sliding into the groove” as Chris says. Not to say I/we still haven’t been reflecting – just not on virtual letterhead. Every moment has become its own meditation and I’ve simply been drawn less to the computer and more to the moment. That also comes from a conscious choice to modify my relationship with my laptop; we’ve become way too intimate and it’s time we took a little break from each other. But our trial separations never last long; I’ve always got a class to teach or homework to grade or emails to answer. Something always beckons me face-to-face with this bright, glowing mind-sucking machine. Yet in this wonderfully, electronically insidious world, the computer is my one means of both molding minds and being molded. This machine is both my livelihood and my lifeline out here. And I love to write. So here I am.

And here I go, off to bed!

More to come soon . . .old friends, new freaks, and whatever happened at Bible study?! Tune in next time to find out! . . .