Tina's wanderings around the world

Tomorrow we'll hit the three week marker of our arrival in the US. It's been filled with a flurry of activity but this week we've finally begun to see a bit of normalcy and I finally have some time to sit down and sort through my thoughts. A bit of a back track. We arrived in Portland on a Friday, the 15th of November. I don't remember if I wrote this (I hate re-reading what I've written sometimes...bad habit I should break) but I had totally misjudged the date of Thanksgiving. I thought it was on the third Thursday of November and so we'd booked our flights accordingly. Turns out it was a week later than I'd thought! It made me feel better that I wasn't the only person who didn't know the secret formula to the date of Thanksgiving, but nonetheless, it left us with an extra week on our hands. We had already booked in a rental car for the week to assist with the car hunt so we figured we'd just head up to Seattle to start our search early. ...

It's been nearly three weeks since we landed in the US and things, as you can imagine, have been hectic with relocation. I wrote this little ditty while I was on the plane over. Yikes. My body is shaking. Hands are shaky, the insides are shaky, and my breathing is far too shallow. My body is beginning to betray the anxiety. That and the coffee I had on an empty stomach this morning was not a good idea. Breakfast is usually served on Qantas morning flights, but this time it was just a cookie. It’s 1:30pm and that’s the only fuel this body has had so far.  I’m sitting on an Air Canada flight from Sydney to Vancouver after a morning flight from Melbourne to Sydney and I’m slightly freaking out. We’ve talked about this for ages—moving to Seattle, going back to the US. But talking about something and actually doing it are completely different things. Despite the years of knowing this was in the future, nothing has prepared me for this moment. The moment the plane took off from...

I got up early (as is the usual these days), got my pack on, and walked on down to the bus station to catch a bus to Pokhara. There was a long line of buses, mostly not labeled, and a helpful wandering vendor pointed me in the right direction. I bartered for a cup of fresh masala tea (15 rupees which is like 15 cents—not bad) and baked goods then sipped away at the hot deliciousness while watching the constant stream of travelers file through.    It was a mostly uneventful eight hours. Although I was seated next to a very large man that kept spilling over into my space. I did the usual wiggling around and trying to slightly forcefully exert presence over my territory by pushing my left leg and arm up against his spilling. That didn’t really work. Then, stroke of brilliance, I realized the armrest wasn’t down. That seemed to draw his awareness to the situation and it was mostly okay for the rest of the trip. Aside from when he would fall asleep and creep over, which wasn’t i...

  Yesterday I made the transition from Ananda back to the city. I was ready to go, though I know I’ll miss the yoga schedule. Also, surprisingly, I got really emotional when I said goodbye to the three other students there (the German ladies came back). I almost started crying. It was like the end of camp, where you’ve just made a bunch of new friends, learned something new about yourself, then get sad to say goodbye to it at the end. But. The transition was good, and while I had been worried all week about what I would do when I was done at the yoga center, it all fell into place starting off with the taxi driver who didn’t try to rip me off and knew exactly where I was going. Score. Then my hotel booked me in for a tour to see the temples around the city for a good price. Score again. Then I sat for a while online on the rooftop of my hotel which was gorgeous with its bright potted flowers and prayer flags and strong wi-fi. Then on my way back to my room, found...

The book I’ve been reading this week has illuminated the broader world of yoga that I really didn’t know existed. The book is pretty awesome, actually, it’s called “Practical Yoga Psychology” written by Dr Rishi Vivekananda, though I think that’s his yogic name. His Christian name is Brian Thompson and he’s both a physician and a psychiatrist and has spent his professional life integrating the techniques of yoga with Western bodies of knowledge dealing with the mind, body and healing. He’s spent quite a lot of his time between Australia and the US, and I feel like his credentials are trustworthy. His introduction to yoga often refers to Western forms of medicine, psychiatry and science; into areas that most readers probably already have a basic foundation.    So I'm going to do a bit of a summary to help me remember what I've learned. (Any nieces and nephews not down with the yoga explanation, tune out now!) Here's an overview of the parts that have stood out for me. ...