A mystical moment at the Mystic Aquarium |
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By I recently had a magical moment of clarity while exploring the Mystic Aquarium. I wasn’t looking for it and wasn’t expecting it. It just appeared. And with the crazy nature of my life these days, I figured I better write it down so I don’t forget it. While my husband was home pumping water out of our basement after a rain storm, I took the kids to the Aquarium for an hour or so. We did our usual loop – Beluga Whales, California Sea Lions, African Penguins – and were on our way back to the pavilion via the bridge walkway, when I saw a young couple holding hands. I only saw them for a few seconds as we approached each other, but as they held hands and smiled at my children and the other children on the bridge around us, I remembered. I remembered being there – holding hands with my husband-to-be, smiling at the families around us and dreaming about someday when we would be exploring the world with our own family. I looked down at my 10-month old happily chatting away in his stroller, and my almost-three-year old bopping along the bridge spinning her pink umbrella, which doubles as a parasol on sunny days, and I realized that I spent much of my adult life anticipating and waiting to be here. I remembered the months that stretched into a year of hoping and praying, and crying each month that “it” didn’t happen. I remember how the joy I felt when I was around other people’s children started to become clouded by feelings of sadness and frustration. And now here I am. In the place that I so longed to be and I keep catching myself wanting to be somewhere else. I keep catching myself longing for the days before babies – days when I read the newspaper and had opinions about what was happening in the world. Days when I sipped tea and ate lunch alone in peace. Days when I showered regularly, alone, and could run a dozen errands in an afternoon without negotiating with a toddler or having my hair yanked out by a bored baby on my back. And I keep catching myself looking longingly to the future – to the magical day when everyone is sleeping through the night (in their own beds) and I can cook dinner, check e-mail and make phone calls without anyone “helping” me. I look at mothers with older, more independent children, who seem to have a little bit more of their pre-child selves back, and I think I can’t wait to be there. At the same time I keep catching myself talking about what I used to do – I used to practice yoga, I used to teach yoga – before I was here. But in the brief moments on the bridge at the Aquarium, I realized that I am very much practicing yoga and I am very much teaching yoga. My studio is now my home and my students are my family and most importantly, myself, and the most important yoga practice I can undertake is being present, with joy, to my life exactly as it is right now. It reminds me of the words we use at our church to begin each service, which have become my daily prayer: It is a blessing to be here. It is a blessing to be here now. It is a blessing to be here now, together.
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