Thursday, August 23, 2007

Sat guru. Sat dumbass.

...but uh, mostly dumbass.

I don't think this entry is going to make any sense to anyone but me, but since no one knows about the existence of this blog, that might not matter.

I was browsing through old emails this morning. I came across one to my friend Byron in which I described one of my recurring day dreams - kayaking or dogsledding though the arctic from village to village, teaching yoga; sort of a wandering samurai yoga teacher. I concluded the description of my fantasy with the words "Have mat, will travel." So therein lies the origin of the title of this blog.

Byron died last Labour Day, after a long struggle with lymphoma. He left a wonderful wife and beautiful little girl behind. I still really haven't made any sense of this, or peace with it. I still find myself angry, sad, resistant to accept his passing. I had a hunch when Byron was still alive that he and I shared a lot of similarities, in the way we were raised and in the way that we viewed the world around us. Conversations with his wife in the past few months strengthened this belief in me. But I never talked to him about it. Now I'm angry at myself. Why did I squander my friendship with him? Why the hell did I hold myself back? There isn't a damned thing I can do about it now, and my fumblings to cope over the past year have benefited me not a whit; they just kept me from dealing with losing him. Is it selfish of me to think this? To judge my actions solely in the light of what gains I personally have gleaned from them? There's a subtext here that I can't discuss, even in a blog that no one knows about.

I've made some new friends over the past few months, with whom I passed a thoroughly enjoyable evening on Tuesday. As a getting-to-know-each-other sort of exercise, one of them asked me what I would like to be able to do better. I declined to answer the question aloud, but the answer was clear to me. I wish I was better at holding on when I need to hold on, and letting go when I need to let go.

Like now.

No comments: