Another cold, gray day in northeast Pennsylvania. I’m dressed as if it’s the middle of winter instead of early autumn. I mope around my apartment, my iPod blasting “California Dreamin'” and “This is not America” and “She was an American Girl” (was being the key word there). I start planning a February trip to India or South America or Mexico. I think about the dozens of Facebook “Friends” who own yoga studios in Madrid and Lisbon and Paris and South Africa. I wonder what my actual friend Elsa in Lima is up to. I want to be anywhere but here.
The problem is, I always want to be somewhere else. I moved from New York to San Diego because I needed warmer, sunnier weather. I moved from San Diego to San Francisco because San Diego was too sunny. I moved to Marin County because San Francisco was too foggy. Mysore, India, was too Indian. Goa, India, too humid. Ubud, Bali, too Balinese or not Balinese enough, depending on my mood and the amount of Gamelan music going on. I headed back to San Diego—still too sunny and also way too much traffic. And now I’m back where I started, my hometown, Scranton, PA, the first place I longed to get away from.
Except now I know the problem is not where I am physically, but where I am mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The problem is not Scranton, nor northeast Pennsylvania, nor the United States. The problem is me.
In self-help parlance, instead of facing myself and the parts of my life that are not functioning sanely, I cope by pulling a “geographic”—moving. For me, the grass is always greener. I keep forgetting that wherever I go, there I am, still me.
My friend Kathy pointed out the irony of my yoga practice, that yoga is all about staying still with the discomfort of being still. But I know I’m just a slow learner. My daily yoga practice is what enabled me to see this aspect of myself, my craving physical movement so that I can avoid the discomfort of staying still, so that I can create a ton of drama and busy work in order to avoid the real transformation work that only happens in stillness.
I have, on rare occasions, sat still longer than I wanted. I was ready to depart Bali a good two months before doing so; I’m already back in Scranton nearly an entire calendar year. I know that on those rare occasions when I focused on making internal shifts, my externals also shifted as a result. When I change my thoughts, my life changes.
Beyond the clouds outside my windows I see a small ray of light, a tiny opening of blue within dense, oppressive gray sky. I want to run towards that light, jump in my car and drive there. Instead, I’m staying right here, learning to face my anxieties without creating diversion. I’m back in my hometown; it’s time for me to grow up.
