We are stardust, we are golden

One year ago today, I went with Fiona and four other new friends to Pura Tirta Empul in Ubud, Bali, to visit the temple and do a water purification ritual.

And I just realized when I was typing that water purification sounds like filtering through a Brita jug, rather than using the water for self-purification.

According to Hindu tradition, the water at this temple is holy. You say a prayer and put your head under each of the water spouts, washing the water over you.

A couple years ago, my mom and I went to the memorial service of a dear friend. She was surprised when I got up to take communion (not Catholic, so we were all invited), and I said I needed all the help I could get.

This is how I felt about the water purification ritual at the temple. As long as we were invited to take part, I wanted to embrace the blessing.

Fiona and I had arrived late the night before, by the temple trip a full 12 hours later we were besties.

Our lovely driver, who Fiona had organized with via WhatsApp, suggested going to the Tirta Empul temple the next day, because it was a full moon, a particularly auspicious time to go.

He had six seats in his car, so Fiona offered the trip to our new friends at breakfast, four of whom wanted to join us.

It was magical.

It's easy to ascribe meaning to events in hindsight, but so I will just say that thankfully, in the wake of losing my mom, the world lined up for me to go to that particular training in Ubud.

While my mom was alive, there was no way I'd consider Bali, even though all but one training for the company I'd chosen took place there. It would've been unthinkable to be 25 hours of travel away from my mom, in case anything happened.

And then, when the worst possible thing happened, the arms of the world opened up wide, and I threw myself into them without hesitation.

It occurred to me, and I asked Nick, and I texted the company to ask if it was possible, and I bought a ticket. All of this happened I think on the same day. And then I drove the kids to Maine and then I left.

I was scared to go so far away alone, though I did so with no hesitation in my 20s. I was extremely anxious about an intense yoga teacher training. 

All I knew was that I had to go. I couldn't stay in an empty house where everything reminded me of my mama.

In retrospect, I couldn't have chosen anything more healing.

Though Indonesia is predominantly Muslim, Bali is Hindu. The temples and gods and rituals, though not mine, were so familiar. The vegetation was that of my childhood. The smell of incense was everywhere.

Because I didn't grow up with home as a fixed address, it was familiar enough that it felt, in some ways, like home.

Now I can say that I arrived an absolutely crazy person, hollowed out by grief. I didn't, at that point, have things that I was affirmatively seeking.

I was just desperately escaping.

But because I'd lived through losing my dad, I didn't feel guilty when, deep in my sorrow, I laughed.

I knew their energetic vibration is so similar, and that experiencing joy wasn't denying my grief. It didn't diminish how much I loved and missed my mom.

And so I threw myself wholeheartedly in.

The teachers told one of my friends that the group before us had been entirely composed of very young women. And they got very competitive about their outfits.

I don't even know what I'd have done if I'd wound up in that group.

So on the one hand, I don't believe that things happen as they're meant to. I don't believe my mom was meant to miss that final step and fall on our landing and break her hip. And then go to the hospital and never come home.

I just don't.

But sometimes life lines up in a way that makes me feel so lucky, and then I do in fact wonder about stars aligning and the universe and such.

And I do firmly believe that we are all connected. And since we have the laws of thermodynamics proving that energy doesn't go away, who is to say that we're not all together somewhere in the same time and space.

Which is all to say, I have no idea. I'm one of those people who picks the pieces of things that I like out of the whole.

Which is part of why I sucked at math. Because I'd pick and chose the parts of the problems I understood to solve, and then I'd combine them.

This doesn't lead to the correct answer, but it does really confuse your teachers.

But I do feel like it was such a blessing that I wound up in that time and place. And I feel lucky that Fiona had had to change her ticket so we wound up on the same flight, and I feel beyond lucky that we connected immediately and intensely.

This morning I realized it was Maude's birthday, which meant it was the second of July, which also meant it was the one-year anniversary of my life-changing adventure in Bali.

I think back to the people who cared about me almost immediately. The kindness and generosity of almost complete strangers.

It's striking to me that our training group included a very young woman who'd lost her mother the year prior. She knew exactly where I was.

When I was in tears because, when we were supposed to be coming up with our own sequences for the final, and I couldn't remember Sun Salutation A, which is foundational, she said it was because I had grief brain.

Nothing stayed. I couldn't remember anything. Anything. I couldn't remember anything, but I felt everything acutely.

Having someone explain it so simply as grief brain was a blessing.

Making a new friend with whom I resonated so deeply at a time when I felt frail and vulnerable felt like the biggest gift. 

When I need to visualize a place of peace and happiness, I conjure up the image of the rice paddy next to our yoga shala. I envision laughing with Fiona leaving the field, or while walking to meals, or squeezed into the same cash vestibule trying to figure out how many zeros to add to make $100 in Indonesian Rupiah.

I'm a terrible visualizer—which always surprises and frankly kind of offends me, because I have such a good imagination—but all of these images are so accessible.

I think now, a year later, I want to tell some of these stories. They bubble up from time to time. I had every intention of telling them after the training but then all this other stuff happened and I finally feel like maybe I'm coming back to me.

Truly I know that I come from a place of immense privilege to escape across the globe at the worst time in my life. I used money my mom had left me, and the freedom of children at camp, and I spent the cash and the opportunity.

Those three weeks of healing, and the yoga teacher certification were Betty's gift to me.

Last week, in Boston on the way to camp, I took a class taught by one of my yoga teacher training friends. She and I had been paired for a meditation exercise. We were supposed to stare into each others eyes and transmit love and compassion.

And we couldn't stop laughing. But tears were also pouring down my face. We were doing the exercise, and I think discharging an excess of profound emotion through laughter.

It's one of the most extraordinary experiences I've ever had.

Also, her class was fantastic. She invited us to set an intention, and if we didn't have one, she offered the suggestion of gratitude. And I will always feel grateful for the friendships and deep connections that began a year ago.

I have long known that time actually helps. Even deep in the midst of my grief, and then my fear of cancer, and the pain of recovering from surgery, I knew that time was my friend. 

But time is also is the longest distance between two places.

So.

Here I am, one year later, healthy, and in such a different and more positive energetic space.

I'm truly, profoundly grateful.