All These Places

I have a friend in Colorado who scolds herself by saying “Silly Emily.”  Her name is Emily by the way.  She says it in a laughing manner so that instead of beating herself up, she can just laugh at the fact that she has done something against her better judgment.  Or she’ll say it when she knows that she has neglected to do something that would make her feel happier.

                I packed my running shoes and sports bra for my month long trip to Costa Rica.  I lugged them over a thousand miles and since I arrived, they have been sitting at the bottom of my little clothes cubby in my cabina.  Because I didn’t feel like running my first week here; and then it was just kind of fun to not wear shoes at all.  I thought that the copious amount of yoga I was doing would compensate for the lack of miles under my feet; I thought I would somehow be OK not being a runner for a month.

                Silly Ashley.

                Our instructor promised that we would all get to our breaking point at some point during this journey of ours.  It was too much to be in this yoga bubble all of the time.  We would be mentally tested by not only studying for mid-terms, but also by (and perhaps even more by) studying ourselves.  And then we moved into the physically exhausting portion of our training—as we all started to practice teach, our days consisted of taking 5-6 yoga classes a day.  On Friday night, I broke.

                My body was exhausted and I started to take residence in my own head a little too much.  I left the group of people hanging out in the main house at about 8:30 pm and went to bed.  For the first time since I arrived, I started to feel truly homesick.  I took comfort in the fact that everything would be better in the morning, with a fresh sunrise to wake me up.  And then it was a headache that woke me up at 4 a.m.  I rolled around in bed for a while and then had a little cry while talking to one of my roommates.  It helped to get the words and the tears out as she reassured me that my feelings were most likely pretty normal amongst our group.  Everyone is entitled to a bad day—even in paradise.

                That morning, I kept my headphones in my ears for most of the morning, losing myself in music and trying to coax myself back to normal, trying to snap out of it.  It was working and by lunch, I was pretty much back to a good spot.  And then it hit me — I needed to go running.  I laughed at myself for not figuring it out sooner.  We had the following day off so I started to plan my run and I delighted in the simply the plans themselves.

                And when Sunday morning rolled around, I unpacked the socks and shoes that had been stored in a grocery bag for three weeks.  My mind eased in to the return of the old habits—lacing up the shoes and putting my Ipod on my arm.  I told my roommate to alert authorities if I wasn’t back in time for breakfast (always delicious here at yoga school on the days off) and I told her which road I planned on taking. 

                Those first steps felt like coming home.  The muscles started working and I picked up my pace, dodging the mud puddles that had been created by the previous day’s rainstorms.  If I haven’t mentioned it yet, we are residing on the side of a mountain—-so my run up the road had a punishing incline.  As my lungs started heaving, I switched to the yoga breath that I have been practicing these past few weeks.

                At a ‘T’ in the road, I hung a right onto a road that was more rolling.  There was a farm to the right and I gave the cows an “Hola” as I cruised past.  I sang along to the music that pumped into one ear.  I left the earbud out of the other ear so that the music could be accompanied by the sound of birds erupting all around me from the jungle.

                And then about halfway through my run, I had one of those moments where I had to pinch myself.  I was in a foreign country, running on a dirt road, surrounded by postcard-worthy beauty.  There was not another soul to be seen.  The moment was mine.  I would be returning to yoga school where delicious coffee and new friends awaited me.  The 24-hour headache slowly started to melt away and my mood immediately improved.  And all it took was a little run.  Silly Ashley indeed.

                And then I got a $30 mani/pedi on the yoga deck before spending the day laying on the beach and shopping for jewelry.  OK, now I’m good; can I stay here forever?