City of Oaks

Breath and Breadth.

I started going to hot yoga recently. It’s kind of changed the game up a little bit, I think. Interestingly, it’s more of a rediscovery of a previous mode of operation. A riff on what once was; shall we say.

I’ve been keenly noting another series of those encounters. You know the sort… pieces fall into place and it just happens… it’s just the typical interactions that happen all the time but don’t quite register as having happened… unless you’re paying real close attention to what’s happening. I haven’t been paying attention as closely as I should have, but intuition has guided me to become an active participant in the current happenings. I’ll try and explain.

Bear with me here. I’ve got to simultaneously describe the breath and the breadth. A proper story to provide scale, yeah? Seeing as the breadth would be dimensionless were it not for breath as a unit of reference, and the meaning of the breath would be diminished if not for its contribution to measuring and understanding breadth.

For the sake of explicating with an excruciating level of precision, and also as a means to reminisce on the year that has drawn to a close faster than I can account for… Here goes!

January and Februrary. The steering went out in the Land Cruiser just after Christmas (thankfully in a parking lot) and I spent a fair bit of time after work in the lab trying to figure out how one replaces tie-rod ends. There’s really nothing like getting a bit greasy and fixin’ your own problems. I was busying myself doing cool shit in the lab. Settin’ up reactions and documenting them quite meticulously. New reaction conditions increasing efficiency and a bright mind excited to be done with classes for the remainder of my career. Not only was I immersed in my experiments, my house slowly began transforming into a home. Re-arranging furniture and painting walls. Putting up shelves and building a bike mount for the wall. Hanging art and cleaning up the yard-waste from fall. Earning my stipend as a teaching-assistant; well-deserved reprieves and red wine in the evenings. Small projects and boxes being checked in structured and regular intervals. Went to the occasional house party - at one such event a ‘tea party’ (with liquor, of course) I met this guy named Kevin. A group of us had gathered in the hosts room and were just chatting and sipping on tea as the party was winding down. We were discussing the similarity between ventriloquists and murderers - as one does at a tea party - the commonality being that they’re both just a little “off”… and aren’t we all? This then brought to light that we all had things that made us weird and we went around the circle doing our best to describe our own little quirks. It came to me and I explained that I like riding my bike more than anything, even sex. Everyone was intrigued. Sex has been so glorified that they were all a bit caught off guard, I think. It’s true though! I explained that I have yet to find a partner that I understand as deeply as the Basso and that my bike and I are intimate partners in our own right. They all nodded along but made jabs that I’m not having the right kind or whatever. Ha. Ha. Kevin mentioned that he hated riding bikes but loved running and I was immediately interested by that statement because I hated running but loved riding bikes. What’s the disconnect? Maybe I could get a little bit of what he got and I could find the same enjoyment as I have found in cycling, in running. A few nights later I saw him at a party that he was hosting and he challenged me to a half-marathon. I agreed without hesitation. So began my running. Recruited Will and Jordan to run the half-marathon with us too! A wholesome couple of months with order and tangible progress that I am glad I can reflect on so positively.

March. Took some time off for spring break and drove to Bradenton, Florida by way of Savannah, Georgia. Hoping to spend some quality time with Chris and Will and get some much-needed fresh air. I stopped in Savannah and had a killer time checkin’ out Chris’ new digs. We wandered around and had drinks and looked at fountains and they turned the water green for St. Patrick’s Day. Land Cruiser overheated between Savannah and Florida because I had too much transmission fluid in the reservoir. Had to finish making a poster while in Florida. Rather than simply enjoying the company of my closest companions, I was forced to plan my days around finishing a project that should have been completed before I left. Next time I’m taking an Amtrak! Made it back North Carolina and the Cruiser broke down due to a loose exhaust hose melting the sheathing on the alternator’s wiring; shorting and blowing the main battery fuse. I had to stay the night in a mechanic’s parking lot about 100 miles from home and they fixed me up right quick the next morning so I could get back to Raleigh. These are, in my estimation, the first signals - the initial perturbations. The small ripples that would eventually result in my desire to perform hot yoga at 6:00AM. Weird, right? These are just a few things that you could say: “Well it was bound to happen eventually.” “Can’t nail it every time.” “Nothin’ to do but keep cloppin’ along.” And that’s just what I did! Fool that I am! Or am I? I stayed the course and kept the trajectory. Not really taking into account that these events were rooted in the imbalance of my attentions. Not truly understanding that my ‘well-deserved’ reprieves had begun to metamorphose into something other. That the passion of the child with his new toy was waning and it was time for conviction to take its rightful place. Presented the poster - went well. I am a capable individual and impromptu discussion of my studies is an area in which I excel; presenting is a natural process - so I thought. The arrogance of the preened, you see.

April. Teaching was winding down and I lazed away the days in the lab. Reading about my star-signs and half-ass-ing the occasional reaction and purification. At least I was still kind of training for a half-marathon and had gotten back into the gym. I went home for a weekend to run the half-marathon. Will bought Jordan and I all matching shorts from a company Ryan was working for. I finished my first ever 13.1 mile run in 1:57:36. Pretty stoked on it, but I know I could do better. Far better. Unfocused experimentation - the bane of all science. Inadequate documentation - the cardinal sin of any formally trained scientist. I expended minimal effort translating the information from poster-format to a presentation in preparation for my second-year talk (an early milestone in the graduate studies). PowerPoint slides ‘complete’ approximately two hours ahead of a practice presentation during group meeting. Quick review of animations and notable talking points. Two complete hours of torment under the scrutiny of a primary investigator; clearly dissatisfied with the coherence of a last-minute hack-job.

May. A stint of hyper-production as a result of acute feelings of disappointment and guilt. While I did find these motivators to produce the desired effect, unforeseen consequences found their way into my life. I was a bit manic in the period leading up to this presentation. More intense days and nights - both in the workplace and at ‘home’. Week-night bar-hops a la bicicleta. Brutally early mornings pedaling into office and lab for repeat performances. A balance which could never have been maintained. I do so love to ride the Basso. Quite frankly, that bicycle makes me feel indomitable. I can accelerate from a track-stand faster than the typical sedan or truck and maintain speeds in the mid-twenties (mph) for moderate distance. The city becomes mine. Drawing proper lines, up and down hills; feeling three-dimensions from your toes through your core and into your hands. Cutting hard and jumping curbs. Manipulating the musculature in its entirety to continuously achieve optimal balance, in real-time, on two quarter-sized rubber contact points. Soaring! Gulping the surroundings into lungs which can never seem to get enough. There is an intense connection. An extension of form that advances the capabilities of the body and enhances the experience. The presentation concluded in an appropriate amount of time in front of an audience of approximately fifty chemists of varying stature. Questions were answered in a more than satisfactory manner. Thus… my second-year talk went without a hitch. The focus of my manic pursuit was actually a smashing success! It was the things occupying the periphery that would later smite me for the hubris of believing I could maintain such an impossible lifestyle. After receipt of overwhelmingly positive feedback from fellow graduate students I strutted my way back to the office, grabbed my bike, and went for a ride in my city. Oh boy did I go for a ride. You see - I had been neglecting bike-maintenance in the past month seeing as it was occupying the periphery while I was busy ‘succeeding’ on other fronts.

In an effort to set the stage: I wrote a poem just before the situation that follows. While writing the poem below I was envisioning the route I will describe shortly. It takes me from my office space on NC State’s campus straight to the warehouse district in downtown Raleigh.

Ode to Basso

Legs pumping. Chest thumping.

State of flow.

Mind is blank.

Form alight.

Sensation.

Don’t let go. Embers glow.

Left foot; crank.

Fight and flight.

Transcension.

Right foot; crank. Drain the tank.

All is might.

Abrasion.

Narrowed sight. Pain now bright.

Halation.

Exhaustion.

Elation.

And so it all proceeds as such. I put some Gorillaz on blast and crushed from the loading dock on Yarbrough; around NC State’s campus. High on my success I was hucking through the Pullen round-about and smashing down Hillsborough Street, hopping over man-hole covers and weaving around bumps. Flying past the old IHOP building. Merging left, glimpsing Cycle Logic, and veering right onto Morgan. Caught in the bliss found at the boundaries of one’s interface. Watery eyes and thick saliva, muted sounds of huffing and puffing; mind catching up to the torrent that is the form. And I’m suddenly past Drink, Drank, Drunk. Irregardless. The Comedy Club. Randall Building. Making preparations and drawing a line down a slight grade to lean into a hard right on a side-street just past Trophy. Weave right. Weave left. One last heavy crank to get the left foot down and throw my weight to the right for a hard dive into a narrow-but-thrilling downhill. Crunching chain on mis-aligned casette. Right knee - unexpectedly lightweight - careening toward handle bars (similar to the remote thrown into the ceiling after a bit of heavier lifting); loosely held for fine control. Sharp and undefinable sound as handlebars leap from hands and front wheel turns to side and parallel becomes perpendicular in an instant. Silence. Loud clicks as my cleats come away from the pedals; a distant crash of metal as the bike arrives at our soon-to-be common destination. An astonished moment sitting in the street with a blue-ish sedan stopped twenty feet away. I didn’t loose any time during the ordeal. I remember being weightless for a second. I remember the look of the asphalt from up above - like the static on an old television blurring by. I understood what had occurred and was actively processing. I smiled and waved at the girl behind the windshield, she was staring at me in open-eyed terror. Hopped up, grabbed my bike, my headphones, and my bottle, and stumbled quickly to the curb. Maggie, as it turns out, put her hazards on and came to the curb to make sure I was okay. An elderly man brought paper towels from his truck and I pressed them against my rent chin; intuited from an ever so slight discomfort in my jaw that managed to burrow through the adrenaline. I could see the sheathe of tendons around my middle knuckle through the top of my hand and more gouges ran up my right wrist and arm to shoulder. I was thoroughly thrashed. Maggie drove me and my bike home and I used the last of the adrenaline to wash my wounds. I attempted to go to the hospital to have my chin stitched but the Beetlejuice-esque queue and sickly energy drove me away with some advice to make sure anything I used was sterile. Topical stitches and a sleepless night. A bent sewing needle and thread soaked in isopropyl alcohol. Three shitty ‘sutures’ and a glob of super-glue. Alive and not-so-unscathed. It would be quite a few months until my jaw would close properly and it will still be a while yet before the scars on my arm, the reminders of my hubris, will fade. Still, yet, I kept plodding along. Only now with a hitch in my get-along. It’s amazing how much data one must internalize before it registers that something’s happening.

I had been on an interesting date with this cute girl from Tinder named Olivia earlier in the spring. Just one date, really. We weren’t on the same page and there was no continuity. She texted me randomly and said something along the lines of “I know we haven’t been in contact, but you know about bikes… so will you help me find a bike?” Of course I agreed. There’s nothing better than seeing somebody gradually obtain the freedom that comes with cycling! So we started perusing Craigslist every now and again. I hadn’t been riding the same since the incident - still aching and a little frazzled by the glaring reminders of my inadequacies. Struggling mightily to force synergy into the disparate trajectories of life. It was actually Olivia who found her new bike! To be dubbed ‘Beatrix the Bianci’ a sweet little 90’s steel frame with decent hardware and a minor dent in the left chain stay. I packed a cooler with drinks and some snacks for the air-conditionless transit to Durham through stand-still rush-hour traffic. Picked Olivia up and we were off to check out this Craigslist bike! We chatted and talked about the things we never got to on our first date- it was a good drive. Upon our arrival to the site of ‘transaction’ we approached the front door and gave it a knock or two. The door cracked and eyes peeped out - creepy like. The guy said he didn’t want his dog to get out and we should meet him around back. Classic Craigslist. We chuckled at the idea of being murdered behind this house and made our way around. I noticed a thing leanin’ up against a detached garage. He came out to meet us and let us in the back door to check out the bike - sans murder. In fact, he even offered to throw in a couple of extra tires and handlebars for Olivia! Here. It begins. This is the scenario that changes things. The fictional circumstance that allows a current reality to be skewed so far as to distort one’s understanding of the way in which they interface with the world. “What’s the deal with the tallbike?” “Want to buy it?” “Oh uh hah, I don’t know… Let’s figure out the Bianci first.” Then the Bianci’s seat was lowered and the tires were gassed up and Olivia had tentatively cruised around the street on it and I had given it a quick but thorough run through the gears. Beatrix had been secured and now it was time to get the doggone butterflies out of my stomach. “How much do you want for it?” “Hundred-bucks or so.” “I don’t know man… is it good to ride? Like, are the welds cool?” “Yeah, I can put some air in the tires if you want to test it out.” “Okay, let me watch you get onto it. If I can get on it and it’ll fit in my truck, I’ll give you ninety for it.” I hopped up to the seat about 6 feet in the air on my first try. The grin split my face from ear to ear. I was able to get down just as gracefully. So we took the front wheel off and loaded tallbike and Beatrix into the Land Cruiser and I forked over the full hundred. Still happening. I went on a ten-mile ride called “Light Up The Night” the following evening after a mad dash to tension the chain. This was the event that exposed me to just how distorting this thing would be to my current means of interfacing. People wanted to know what the hell I was about. This is the key to twenty-twenty… more on that. Also, I bought a sketchy rickshaw and acquired an LLC. Wasn’t able to make it materialize into my grander vision… Still happening.

June. The tallbike brought pure and unadulterated joy into my life after a series of total fuckin’ bummers. It offered a new type of rigor on two-wheels. It gave me back my confidence in cycling that had been tucked away. New sensations and sights. Perspectives and approaches. I still didn’t get it though. I abused this newfound empowerment, in a sense. I used it to further mask the negative chain of events that I had just been beginning to detect. At the end of June my boss financed a trip for the group to attend a national conference called the "‘American Peptide Symposium” in Monterey, California. A niche, but highly relevant conference for our field of study. She was attempting to expose us to the rigors of the field and the personalities of its occupants. I was still too distracted with my ego to take note of the gnawing feeling that I had not earned this trip. So I took an extra five days vacation and put vague plans in place to backpack through Big Sur. I packed my Penny board into my bag and boarded a plane for the first time in thirteen years. Layover in Texas then boarding the next plane. This time, I sat alone next to the only empty seat on an otherwise full plane. I busted out the art supplies and ordered myself a bourbon ginger. It’s not my desire to discount the next portion of the year with a foreboding tone. The subsequent ten days will be remembered with distinct clarity for the remainder of my life because I was truly immersed. I arrived in San Jose with my lab mates, put the trucks on my board while we waited for the bus that would carry us to Monterey. I had a hotel room with some dude from Canada, separate from my lab mates. Julien and I were sharing a bed (cheaper than it was awkward) and he wasn’t supposed to arrive until later that evening… So I went ahead and skated around for a bit, then met up with all my coworkers. We met this sweet girl named Emma on the elevator down to the opening ceremony. There was a mixer for graduate students that evening and I was re-introduced to Emma and met this dude named Tyler who I dubbed ‘Canada’ for the remainder of our stay. We all went out on Monterey. I joined partly because I wanted to and partly because I didn’t want to wait in my hotel room for Julien to arrive so we could go to bed together… ya know? Weird. Evidently, Julien didn’t get in until 3:00AM or so. I awoke next to a complete stranger for the first time in my life and was overcome with the distinct desire to be elsewhere. So I got ready for the day and skated to the Starbucks to have a pour-over at 6:00AM. While I was at it I carved a stamp with the art supplies I had brought. This then became a staple of the next five days at the conference. Up at the butt-crack of dawn and asleep late into the night. Almost as though a repeat of my hyper-productive phase in May, I occupied an unsustainable lifestyle. I didn’t need to sustain it for long though. I threw myself out of bed into a hotel power-shower and made it to Starbucks by 6:00AM everyday. Talks began at 9:00AM and ended at 5:00PM with lunch in between, so I had time to do my thing on either end. Presentations ranged from niche tools and discoveries to story-like talks of entire careers and scientific approaches. To say it was invigorating is a vast understatement. People who have dedicated decades of their lives to answering questions they were simply curious about… It’s very difficult to describe the sensation of seeing time. Hundreds of experiments rolled into a few sentences about how a particular system typically behaves. I took notes with voracity and was attentive for the talks. I engaged critically with the people around me and I succeeded in giving a coherent poster presentation on my recently published research. I went to the Moneterey Aquarium with my distinctly giggly labmates and then back to the beach to hang out with Emma. We went on a little date one evening. Split the check and balled out on an eighty-four dollar bottle of wine. Shared appetizers and main courses and laughed and talked all the while. Substantial conversation, the kind that makes to see similar trends in your own life. I owe her a letter. The conference drew to a close and I began to switch gears. Emma and Tyler both left early so I spent the last day with my lab-mates. I re-packed my things for the second leg of my trip. Took the excess to a UPS Store and shipped it all back to Raleigh via snail-mail. The next morning I checked out of the hotel and skated to a cute little coffee shop that I wished I had found earlier. Waited for the bus to take me to Big Sur and started walking. I started with a 9-mile hike in the Andrew Molera State Park. This stretch of the Californian coast is the only portion that I had missed on my circumnavigation of the United States and I wanted to dive as deep as I could. I posted up and read some of ‘On The Road’ by Kerouac in a small clearing overlooking the Pacific; took a nap. Finished my hike, filled up my water bottles, and started walking south along the side of Highway 1. I stopped at a gas station and bought a sandwich and a tallboy. Kept walking until it got too dark to see well and stomped into the woods - totally illegal. Posted up in a bush and got a couple hours of shut-eye. Woke randomly. Black shadow where there should not be. Panic. Fumbled oversize knife and stood up slowly. Black critter with white streak bolted in opposite direction. Skunks are no joke and I’m glad I didn’t get sprayed as it would have made the remaining days of my trip a bit unpleasant. I decided to pack up and relocate. It was probably only about 10:00PM. I kept walking on the side of 1 until I arrived at a bar that was still open. After a bit of a struggle to order a boiler maker that ended up costing me $17.00 (DDD charges me $5.00 on a good day and $6.00 on the average day.) I got pretty sauced on the back deck of this bar and looked up and there was this man wearing a jacket with a patterned hood and a beaded portrait on its back. He turned around and started talking shit in this overbearing British accent muddled by a lack of teeth. I can’t really recall what he was talking shit about but I did a fair enough job at holding my own. He was far more sauced than myself and quite a bit bigger so I wasn’t going to make a fuss; just amiably rebuffed his attempts to degrade me. He introduced himself to me as ‘Twatrick the Liar’. A straight-forward and refreshingly honest title. Sends the signal that you shouldn’t really believe anything the man says… or should you… he was burping, and farting, and snotting everywhere. A character. That’s what he was. He even knew it. Evidently worked at a gas station nearby, trimmed marijuana during the season, and spent the rest of his days in Guatemala. Liar or not he definitely had a way about himself. He explained to me something rather profound using an analogy rather befitting of a man named “Twatrick the Liar”. “You see. The whole world is masturbating with sand-paper and pretending like they know what they’re about. They’ve got it all wrong, but they’ve convinced themselves that they know how sandpaper is to be used. It’s all backwards, man. The sandpaper is for grip!” This interaction comes to mind immediately after I hear somebody say how something ought to be done… Maybe they don’t actually know how it ought to be… Twatrick told me to google his name and I found this gem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I0HNJ5aev0). Left the bar with enough liquid courage to attempt the bush-sleeping again. Mission success. Woke up at sunrise and walked the last bit to another few hiking trail entrances. I hiked and walked for another full day after stocking up at a convenience store. My feet and ankles were swollen and bruised. I’ve never walked so much or lived so roughly before. I loved it. Every aspect. I caught the last bus back to Moneterey and rented a little motel room for the night, showered, and then my cousin Shelby drove from San Francisco for a day! We shopped at the Cannery and went to Carmel-By-The-Sea briefly. Rented bikes and rode this thing called the 11-mile Drive. It had all of these beautiful overlooks and points of interest. On her way back to San Francisco she dropped me off in Salinas (evidently a very dangerous town?) so I could catch a through-night Greyhound at 1:30AM to North Hollywood. I ended up stumbling into a little popup shop with live music in the basement of the bar that reminded me of the Cypher at NC State. I found a ‘crew’ and we went to a bar before they all sent me off to catch my bed! I arrived in North Hollywood where my friend Ryan was supposed to be waiting for me. He wasn’t. He also wasn’t answering his phone and his last contribution to our group chat was some late night shenanigans with his Cali-crew. Sigh. All good though, I had my Penny and I was in NoHo! So I went and got myself some brunch to get back in the game and wandered around the main strip. He eventually picked me up off the side of the road about 3 hours late. We drove to Malibu and I borrowed one of his boards to go surfing. Malibu is striking. He drove us back to his house - I was very road weary at this point and needed a good ol’ futon to sleep on. We had us a day in Costa Mesa, played some basketball, got some burritos, lounged in the pool. The next morning he dropped me off at the airport in San Diego and I slept the whole way home - doing my best to mask the full body chills and sniffles that Twatrick had imparted. I am proud of this trip. I did the thing as it was meant to be done. Everyone else was sleeping in before the conference while I was exploring a new environment. Everyone else was complaining about how long the talks were while I was getting butterflies at every new topic. I walked nigh on 40 miles and engaged with my surroundings. I did the damn thing. My only failure lie in the means by which I achieved this feat. I was not approaching this in a sustainable manner. Once again - I was smited by the peripheral things while I had succeeded in my endeavor - I couldn’t maintain the momentum. It’s not fair, it simply is. Back to the drawing board. This time with a yet more informed approach.

July, August, September, and October. These months are the ones that disappeared. The ones that went on forever yet seemingly fall through my hands like fine sand. Sweaty months full of biking and smiling and general merriment. Months spent engaged with the periphery and caring nothing for the original focus. Months that I feel I’ve just barely survived. Months that have molded me into a better-fit being. I went on a week-long vacation back to the Outer Banks with my family. We haven’t really visited much as a family since leaving. Will and I coordinated a potluck and were able to get everyone together to celebrate life - that was good. Back in Raleigh. Tallbike is stimulating; not only in the sense that you’re on a bike that’s six feet in the air and can see sooner and farther, but also in that everyone on the ground wants to interact with you. In a very real way I was thriving. Exploring new realms of social interaction and imparting smiles most everywhere I went. I was enjoying myself thoroughly. That said, in a very real way I was atrophying. Deteriorating. Still spending the nights barhopping and the mornings dragging a diminished form through the line at Cup A Joe for some espresso and sweetbread. One morning, early-August, a bit hungover and walking to work with messy hair and sleepy eyes. I stopped at Cup A Joe for the regular. Sat my butt on the bench outside and stopped caring that I was going to be late. Chatted with this dude named Regan about the Land Cruiser and his new Jeep Grand Cherokee. We’d met earlier because of the tallbike. There was this chick that sat a couple tables down that had a cool aesthetic and was listening to a podcast or something. She didn’t have any coffee and was eating food that she had brought with her. I finally mustered the energy to get up and start making my way to work, but mostly I wanted to talk to this girl and see what her deal was. We walked across Hillsborough at about the same time and I asked her something lame like “Are you on your way to class?” To which she responded she was actually going to her therapy appointment - which struck me as odd because she was not presenting signs of emotional or mental distress. I was a little caught off guard but not enough to stop talking. We carried on for a bit and I told her I was in graduate school. “You didn’t get any coffee, what’s the deal?” To which she responded that she had already had her coffee before she taught yoga this morning. “It’s like 9:15AM - how have you already had coffee and taught yoga?” “I teach at 6:00AM, so I have a quick cup of coffee before I make my way to the studio!” I’m stunned. I love the challenge of remembering peoples names. I don’t forget faces - it’s always been that way. Names are a real challenge though. Rachael. 110 Yoga. Noted. I talked to Will on the phone and told him I met this super cool chick who teaches yoga downtown and I was going to try and take a class. Never materialized. I couldn’t make myself go to bed at an appropriate time such that the weaker version of me would be able to wake up before 6:00 in the morning. Weak. I just kind of maintained this haze well into September. I’d had a failed attempt at rekindling something with Olivia and the whole graduate school thing didn’t seem as desirable or attainable. I found myself dreading the next day… a sensation I never thought I would feel again. External responsibility. A reason to come home instead of going downtown. I felt that this was a key to the void of purpose I had been feeling since my return from Monterey. I’m standing in lab. Thinking to myself… “I should just adopt a cat on the way back from my parents house.” Fifteen minutes later I get an e-mail from a fellow chemgrad. “Fwd: gatitos para adoptar.” Still happening. I sent an e-mail to the originator and we agreed I could come by to meet the kittens that following Sunday. Huck (at the time Kitten #2) entered my life - I’ve literally never had the sensation of an animal taking to me. Not to get weird, but I think we have a soul-resonance or something. Huck gave me something to foster and account for in my routines. I love the little guy and he’s kind of a badass. I hope one day he’ll go on tallbike rides with me. I started re-organizing my house a bit.

November. Still wanting for more order. Sitting at work. Randomly check 110 Yoga’s website. There’s a deal posted. The ‘10-20-30’. Ten classes within twenty days for thirty dollars. Rachael would also be filling in for the original instructor for their “Saturday Beginner Flow” scheduled for the reasonable 12:00PM time slot. I immediately thought - if I can’t commit to this then I’m a bitch. I’m weak if I can’t at least make this happen. So I bought the thing and I would be able to rent a mat from the studio while I was dipping my toes in yoga. It’s hot yoga by the way. One-hundred and three degrees. A sweaty experience to say the least. It’s First Friday downtown. I take quickbike for a spin and we check out a few galleries. Started at CrankArm for a few drinks because I get gift-cards for leading/sweeping their Wednesday night routes. Last minute decision to check out Ruby Deluxe for old times sake - and to carry the buzz. I used to go a lot senior year of college. I got myself a Tecate and headed back outside to mingle with some of the people I had recognized on my way in. Chatting with a guy named Jason - total legend. Then I see Rachael leaving. Hadn’t seen her since our first and only encounter in August on a Thursday after she had taught yoga at 6:00AM. I had to say hello. So I did, and I think she recognized me but I’m not sure. I told her that I was taking her yoga class the next day and that I was a complete amateur and not to expect much… It’s because I said I was going that I made it. I woke up with a gasp at 11:00AM, more than a little hungover. I jumped on the tallbike and cruised downtown at 11:35AM for my first exposure to hot yoga. Rachael gave me a quick rundown on the towel/water situation and then I was walking upstairs suffocating on the air outside the studio… it’s fuckin’ hot. I tried so hard. I will never forget the cathartic feeling that I was overcome with like three hours post-yoga. I realized how anxious and tight I have been for all these years. I went to the 6:00AM classes on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The reasons I kept coming back were many-fold. It gave me an hour to focus on expanding. It involved moments of pure attunement and peace. The people were so welcoming and intentional in their interaction. There was a tangible sensation of progress. More than anything though, these classes were teaching me to use my body differently. To move differently. I started trying to keep my hips under me while in the lab and I would find myself ‘tapping' into my core on the bike. I understand my body better now than I have ever before and I truly realize how much more there is to explore.

December. I had a practice preliminary defense in mid-December. I didn’t play games this go-round. I would not be involved in another two-hour torment. I maintained my hot yoga routine and worked on my presentation. I did new experiments and focused on getting the rest of my house dialed in. I started drinking way more water than alcohol and I paid closer attention to my body. I found a fuzzy kind of balance. Some days I feel as though I’ve atrophied - like I’m not as good a chemist as I once was. Other days I realize that there is just a whole lot more on my plate than ever before! I presented my practice talk and this time my boss complimented it. There was constructive criticism and I walked away from the entire experience, better. Not a perfect balance, more a fuzzy amalgamation of desirable outcomes. Very few things were lost to the periphery. I had to pull an all-nighter going into the practice to make sure it was presentable. I couldn’t tell you the last time I made any art. I haven’t been creating for my own purposes. I spent six full days at my parents house around Christmas. It’s part of the reason I’ve gone through the effort of writing all of this. You see… I want more for myself. I have lived during this year. It’s evidenced in the things I have explicated and perhaps more in what I have not. The routines of eating and defecating so mundane that they need not be included. The breath that must exist in the interstices. The metric used to gauge the breadth.

If I truly look back at the doe-eyed boy that I began this decade as - it comes into shocking perspective what I have achieved in this ten year period; I am proud of the person that is leaving this decade. I am excited for the person that is entering a new decade. There is so much to have. All things beautiful. I want everything. This past year and the time I have spent reflecting in the recent weeks have given me a deep appreciation for the things that have found their way into my life. It’s time to show that appreciation. There is a difference between burning bridges and choosing not to build them. You see - one details the destruction of allocated resources. The other indicates that resources are being conserved or have been allocated elsewhere. I have allocated my resources, now it is time to bolster the structural integrity of these bridges. Integrity is interestingly enough rooted in the ability to say ‘no’. So here’s to taking it easy and working on the things that I already have in my life.

The series of circumstances that have lead me to Raleigh. To bikes. To chemistry. To yoga. I will not allow them to be ignored or masked any longer.

I have created for myself a bit of a mantra for the coming year:

Create. Focus. Hone.

More on this, later.

Evan WillisComment