DAY 43 - THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES...!!!

Finally, the blog goes on... there's been some delay, as the days are flying by and the half-written entries are piling up on my desktop, but here's a quick status update and stay tuned for more!!! (Also, I have to admit, I became addicted to FB last week so if you're on there look me up by email: shelley@playyogamagazine.com)

I'm doing great. Practice is amazing - after a month, it really started progressing all of a sudden. Well, I guess it's been progressing the whole time, since I've moved through the rest of the series (Matthew had just given me Badda Konasana the day I left for Mysore... now I've completed Primary!), but last week I really saw some exciting things happening - I got to start standing up and dropping back (with help) and I walked in and grabbed my ankles (!) and i bound my hands by myself in Supta Kurmasana for the first time EVER!!!!! I want to stay here and practice like this forever! I love the energy and the intensity and especially the heat. I'm so grateful for this time to be dedicated solely to my own practice... I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE teaching yoga and am grateful every day for the way this path has unfolded for me, but it's also so good to have this time to just be a student again.

Everything else is good, too... it's been super-fun lately, but I think I'm in need of a little more quiet time. In the last week or so, I volunteered at a fundraiser party and met about 100 people and sold a million raffle tickets, got talked into going dancing (this also involved my first wild scooter ride through the crazy nighttime mysore traffic - so fun!), saw a bollywood horror movie in hindi and ate mysore masala popcorn, attended my regular sanskrit classes, a yoga sutra class, meditation classes and cooking classes and kirtans, caught another cold, spent lots of time at the pool - actually, both pools, and I'm moving again, to a sweet new hot pink house where I'll live with a couple of friends for the rest of my stay. There was a full moon last Monday, combined with a lunar eclipse, and I think it contributed to a whole lot of craziness that was going on around here last week - I know it sure made me a little restless.

Yesterday at breakfast there was a lot of complaining about people being sick of things here in Mysore and missing home and their usual lifestyles. It seems to be in the air right now - many people are experiencing tension and frustration in one way or another. I feel a little bit the same way and think we probably all go through it here, up and down. It's funny, though, because even as I'm thinking about how I'm tiring of the scene here and I miss my beautiful friends and family and teachers and students (and yes, my favorite pizza place) at home, I'm making plans to stay a little longer. I'm not ready to end this journey quite yet!

Last night was one of those typical Mysore "busy for hours trying to do a bunch of simple little stuff" kind of nights. Needed cash but ATM was out of service (probably out of money again). I ate a late dinner (ohhh, 5pm!) since I wasn't practicing this morning, and then met a friend to help her move an extra mattress I had in my old apartment. We piled the thing on top of a rickshaw and took it to her new home. Then I'm off to make copies of my passport and visa and... hey! Looks like the ATM is working now. Wait in line and try a couple of transactions, but no luck. Walk to the copy place, no luck there either. Walk to another copy place in the other direction, laugh out loud when the guy tells me it costs 1 rupee per page (that's about 2 cents) and get my copies. Well, I'm out and don't need to get to bed early, so I decide I'll walk to the other kinda far ATM by Barista and try there...

It's dark and there are always lots of people out in the evenings here. I put in my headphones and tune out the Mysore noise and smile, inside and out, while I wander through the beautiful commotion on the streets on the long walk there and back. People are eating food, drinking chai, shoving up to the grocery counter to shop, stepping inbetween holes on the sidewalks, dodging inbetween traffic on the streets, talking and yelling on phones or to each other. Cars and bikes and buses and scooters and rickshaws and pedestrians rush around me on the road in an endless flow of noise and movement and somehow harmonic madness. On my way back I'm overwhelmed with love for this place; I stop in the street and just stand, pausing for a moment to bask in this comforting chaos that has become so familiar to me. I'm filled with joy, grateful to be here, totally flowing with life in Mysore, and for now, I feel like I'm right at home.