The Broad Blue Horizon

Helios returned – possibly coming over from nearby Rhodes, an island he personally claimed as it was created. Yesterday was dominated by rain and cold winds – so much so that by 3 pm, Skala was empty and I went home to hole up and get a jump start on heating the apartment for the night. Therefore, it was a surprise to wake up to not just sunlight – but the fully radiant Greek sun restoring the water to its most brilliant Greek blue and adorning sparkles. The energy of the island was jump-started and in the warmer weather and brilliant light, Skala filled with everyone – including an increasing number of tourists both Greek and foreign. French people on cell phones, lanky British with backpacks, Canadians putting sunscreen on children (one of the clearest signs someone is not Greek). 

Different places are good at different things. New York, London and Hong Kong are great at being a world cities. Paris is the epitome of Frenchness and romance. Las Vegas is hedonism. India is a living swarm of humanity. Bali embodies spirituality, divinity and everything gentle. And Patmos is great at being a Greek island. Uncompromising in its classic-ness, unyielding in its simplicity, radiating with every drop of sun it receives – Patmos is ready to jump start itself into your Greek island fantasy any chance it gets. Patmos cleverly uses its beige hills to enhance the intense blue of the sun and sky such that Pantone ever sent color-police out into the world, they would arrest Patmos for stealing PMS 2935.

Amazingly, Patmos and I were at about the same register at the same time. Since coming here, my body has been changing – becoming less tense with my neck and back opening up. Yesterday's yoga video included gorilla pose – one that is somewhat atypical. Because of that, I often forget about gorilla pose (deep forward bend with hands under feet), but I shouldn't – it's one of the best for really reaching into my upper back. Yesterday, something happened and in an extended gorilla pose, it felt like my upper back was stretched apart like fake Halloween spider webs or cotton candy. I held it for as long as I could until I almost collapsed on the floor. There was a change – like everything came out. Since then, my entire upper back – where so much tightness and strain usually reside – has been open, upright, straight and without pain. By nighttime, several tight spots in my neck released and I feel like I can't remember having felt in years.

The first flirtation I ever had with yoga was in 2001 when – talk about worlds colliding in ways that almost don't seem real or possible – my friend Alex tried to teach me some postures in my Bubbee's bathroom at my grandfather's house (we needed a mirror and at that time, Grandpa barely used that bathroom – it was pristine). My hips and lower back were so tight I couldn't get into chair pose and Alex abandoned his plan to share his love of yoga with me. 

Four years later, I took my first yoga class at Bali Spirit yoga – the predecessor to the now famous Yoga Barn. The studio was light, beautiful and breezy with a stunning view. Nonetheless, I was a sweaty, uncoordinated mess who at several points thought they were joking when they called certain poses. Whose body can do that – and why would anyone want to?! But despite the struggle and disbelief, the feeling afterward was unlike any I had experienced and so I returned for more punishment. My relationship with yoga has been on and off since then. I had a year in Seattle where I went to yoga six days a week partly inspired by a teacher who despite her better judgment at first decided to take me on as the big oaf who could be yogafied. By the end of that year, I really liked yoga and I may have been one of Kitty's career accomplishments – especially once I could do headstands and standing half moon. She had a special smile reserved for when I did what I would describe as pretty normal yoga.

This time around, I have been doing yoga consistently for a little more than three years. Sure, there was a break in January for Omicron. But for the most part, I have done five days of a yoga a week most of those three years – including hot yoga. I did yoga at home, in several parks, in a tent in a parking lot and at a community pool house for the year between March 2020 and March 2021. I followed Ross, my favorite yoga teacher and some of his colleagues who led us wherever the yoga took us on what I think of as "The Long March of Yoga". Summer 2020 involved swatting ants of my ankles during standing poses and eventually making citronella bug spray part of my pre-class preparations.

Throughout these three years – and despite a once shocking moment when I flipped up into a tall two-legged half locust that stopped the class – my body has never felt quite like this. In fact, for the past year and a half, I have done "angry yoga" where all of my anger comes pouring out in down-dog and the yoga has really just helped me tread water.  Sometimes yoga has been where ideas and important insights have come to me – things which have helped navigate this tumultuous time and given me new things to try. I have made a lot of progress – my hips and hamstrings are more flexible and there are a lot of postures that were once painful that are now easy and fluid. But the tightness in my back, shoulders and neck have persisted – through massages too. And then somewhere in gorilla pose yesterday, something unlocked like it never has before. In fact, it was so profound and made that area so tender, that I took some ibuprofen just to make sure it didn't get too inflamed and worsen again.

Today I woke up feeling amazing. During yoga, I had to stop myself from back-bending too far and potentially straining the areas that had just come loose. Yoga was the easiest I can ever remember it. And after a nice hot shower and glimpse out the window, I was ready to join Patmos in its radiance.

Sure, the fact that my shipment of kombucha hadn't yet come into the organic shop was a downer. But I survived that.

The conclusion I draw – if there is a conclusion to be had – is that this time is working for me. The past year and a half has been a crucible. I have been stressed, trying to keep everything together, shoulders massive responsibility, accommodating at great cost and in a defensive posture. No one can make good, clear life decisions from a defensive posture. My life here is simple, like Patmos itself. But that was what I needed to start to regain myself and therefore my vision. 

Patmos does not encourage you to look up. It wants you to look out to the broad blue horizon, to a world spreading out before you filled with calm blue seas and myriad gentle sloping islands. The Greek seas are not the seemingly unending expanses that Magellan and De Gama knew. They are filled with islands – a series of places in which groups of people have long interacted and co-existed. To the Ancient Greeks, the Aegean and Mediterranean were a world of possibility and adventure. A world with strange and different people who were also in many ways the same. 

So the world looks to me today – full of options and possibilities to be pondered, and full of people – both thriving and struggling. I am doing both – which is exactly right.