The shy face of spring returns

Been away from the bloggie since the last winter. I refer not only to the season that just bid its farewell in the jolly northern hemisphere, but I also call attention to the fact that I just lived through the last real winter of my life.

My yoga practice has revealed a few things to my searching soul during these past months of ice and rain, sleet and snow. One is that, in no way shape or form am I a cold-weather person in the slightest –

the body and mind rebel, the soul searches for the fragrant sun of yesterday, for the winter speaks in breaths unkind –

I have decided I’ve suffered my last wintery climate. While I still love New York with all my urban-concrete heart, I shall endeavor, like the passionate surfers ever following their beloved wave, to follow the sun for the rest of my warm-weather life.

Now, I expect to sail through certain wintry scenarios with great gusto and snowball-tossing, as for my next tour and travels, and that is all fine by me as I won’t actually be calling home to such situations. It’s a lifestyle change indeed, not in the least unaffected by another recent lifestyle change…

I quit drinking this year. It’s not quite as black and white as it seems. I’ll have a glass of wine every now and again with a compatibly righteous meal — ahem, there is justice in that still — yet the change has been an enormous one for me. In one decadent evening I used to throw back two or three bottles of wine easy and either suffer a nasty hangover or not, depending on the quality of the draught and the state of my health at the time. In effect, I was performing the ritual a few times a week, drinking everyday for sure.

And then, I didn’t even consciously try. I just did as my body told me. I started a conversation in yoga along with a new relationship in my life, which seemed to put me aright in some ways, and I stopped. I just stopped on a dime. I didn’t want to taste a single drop of drink anymore. I could have just tapered off, but I’ve always been of an excessive temperament. Not drinking was miserable for its side effects and such, but I had no real complaints because it just felt right. While I’ve come out the detox stage feeling fairly clearheaded and balanced, I do admit to a new way of being in the world now that’s all rather Dali-esque to me.

I just can’t believe how absolutely everything affects me so deeply now. I’ve left myself vulnerable and anxious to life and I feel it all the time. It’s not like I was so terribly numb to it all before — I just had a different way of dealing with things. Now it’s all there on my plate waving Hi at me, stacked up on top of each other til it’s all at eye-level and staring me down.

I write. Every five minutes there’s something else I must say, there’s constant traffic now, and I pick up my guitar again. Just as life took a turn that I did not expect, the music has taken a whole new direction. How perfectly mirrored we are in what we create. I am taking in the springtime in all its happy morbidity. I hope to have a new tune posted soon.

Meanwhile, I gotta say that Katharine Hepburn had it right. A glass of milk with dinner is a revelation.