Yoga Bites: Mossy Path

When we were kids sent from Brooklyn to upstate New York, my sisters and I would go into the woods behind my father’s property and wander for hours. Deep in we’d go, finding hidden stone walls and caves made from fallen leaves and sticks. The natural land was mysterious compared to the concrete jungle where we lived most of the year. I can remember building forts out of branches and fern leaves, and looking for neon orange lizards under the mossy paths. Kneeling on the earth, listening for underground creatures or studying the insides of a rotten, fallen tree.

In the late afternoon we’d return to my dad’s shack for food, and eat as if we had just emerged from months away, spooning peanut butter out of the jar, bottom of our jeans still wet and muddy.

It was there I learned to blaze my own trail.

When I was in 3rd grade, my mom, sisters and I moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan. I was devastated. At the time, I spent every waking moment with my best friend Jasmine, and the thought of not seeing her everyday ruined me. So, I studied the subway map and at age eight hopped on what I thought was the “F” train to Bergen Street, Brooklyn. Only it was the “F” train to Queens. I stood on the platform at the station on the other side of the tunnel, not afraid. Somehow over the next few hours and a few subway rides later, I found Jasmine’s house, and spent the rest of the night jumping on her bed sharing my story over oreos, not dunked in milk.

It was then I learned to blaze my own trail.

When I was 19 I decided to find my dad who I hadn’t seen since I was that little girl in the woods. Sitting in my Hampshire College dorm with a few friends listening to records, my friend Jeremy asked me “what kind of music did your mom and dad listen to when you were growing up?” Unable to answer the latter part of the question I found myself on a quest for the musical influences of my dad, and weeks later sat on a bus towards upstate New York, having told no one else in the family besides my grandma Elise who helped me find him. After a day well spent with my father listening to Tom Waits and Ry Cooder, with no time or need for those questions of “why’d you leave?” I got back on the bus with my pockets full of mixed tapes and an understanding of myself in this man.

It was here I learned to blaze my own trail.

A few years later, living in Chiapas, Mexico, I came home to find a few drops of blood, broken glass and a machete on the kitchen floor.  I remember walking through the house, afraid that the burglar was hiding behind a bookshelf or door,  and feeling a sense of deep exhilaration as I noticed that every bit of every thing I owned had been stolen and was gone. Everything. My music. My photos. My clothing and shoes. My computer and TV. My kitchen plates, knives, forks, spoons. even the bottle opener. Even the tacks that held up the bark painting I bought from the local folk artist the weekend before. Everything. I spent that night sitting in the dark with the machete on my lap staring at my reflection in the big glass window that by day framed the mountainside. I felt free.

It was how I learned to blaze my own trail.

At age 37, I was set to open my own yoga studio on Martha’s Vineyard. After two years looking for the right space, I was invited to rent the upstairs of a new tennis club. After months of painting, installing the new cork floor, ordering props, bringing together a fabulous team of teachers, crafting a schedule, the place was looking good. A month out from our opening date, my husband and I sat on the floor of the soon-to-be-studio and at the same time acknowledged that something was wrong. Neither of us could quite verbalize it. One phone call later, the entire studio concept was over. That night I cried on the stack of yoga mats that crowded my living room floor.

It was why I learned to blaze my own trail.

Two days ago my friend Kim and I are walking in the woods in the rain. Kim reminds me that real roots are found inside each of us.  ‘Yes! I know!” I say and I feel a pang in the pit of my belly. I ground in by bushwacking through the me-woods. Don’t we?

Dad visits me in a dream last night. He says, “Sherry, we navigate this world with the wonder of the innocent and the will of a warrior. Keep blazing baby girl.”

Today, I write this in the hair salon as I wait for the coloring to cover my gray roots. Retelling the story not to be told through the travels told through the covered up color of my hair.

What would a map of my soul’s blazing look like?

Maybe it could be found as sinewy muscle that attaches my low ribs to my hip, or in the upper palette of my mouth? Or in the way my calf muscle shakes after standing on my tip toes. Perhaps it’s hidden in the dust on the top of the cable box?

I’ll have to keep checking my inner compass.