nonessential information

...live with no regrets. Fly!

And if you are blown off
course, just change your
destination. Choose to
land wherever your two
feet are standing.

-"Turn Your World Red" by Danna Faulds (from Go In and In: Poems from the Heart of Yoga)

A little backstory - which may or may not be useful to share - but it's been on my mind lately and it acts as my reminder whenever I slide into forgetfulness or lethargy.

Close to twenty years ago (twenty years?!), way back when I was still an unformed and uniformed being if you will, I had an a little accident which really turned out to be a massive awakening.

Okay, it wasn't so little ... I broke my neck. More exactly, I broke the C-2 vertebrae which is the bone that allows the head to move from side to side. Go figure, I broke the bone that lets me to shake my head "No."

Other trivia delivered to me as I lay in the emergency room was the colorful term The Hanged Man's Break. "That's the bone that would snap when someone was hanged," a rather excited nurse informed me. Probably while I was using the bedpan because, well, waiting for the neurosurgeon to drill holes into your skull for a halo brace requires some waiting and lots of time for people to share with you just how lucky you are to be both alive and not completely paralyzed.

I think there are mountains of moments when we dodge proverbial bullets, but very few opportunities when we are left to grapple with that fact. With a broken neck, you have a long time to sit and think about it all, and here's what I learned about myself:

I would have been extremely pissed off if that had been it. Of course, if I was dead being angry might not have been an option. But after disbelief (No, really, I'm okay I just have a little neck ache) comes denial (this is some crazy dream; pinch me harder, I'm not waking up) and then for me, pissed-off-itude.

Anger, I've learned, is when something is so uncomfortable, it is better to try and deflect that emotion outside of myself. But with time, I came to understand the one I was angry with was myself. Because I realized I had put off so much living using the excuses "when the time is right" or "I'm not ready yet" or "one day, but not today" as means of escaping the truth that I just didn't take myself or my life very seriously.

Almost loosing everything, I recognized it was time to really embrace it all. To embrace myself. To stop avoiding what I most wanted to experience, which was full-throttle living. Making a difference. Making my mark no matter how small, to say "I was here. And it matters."

Shortly after that accident I dropped out of graduate school (my little slice of hell) and we moved from L.A. to Nebraska. I started studying and practicing yoga, went into therapy (examining a subject infinitely fascinating and perplexing- me!), took up a job in a total unrelated field to anything I had done before and got down to the business of making a life.

Any significant decision or action I've taken in the last 20 years is the result of my accident. It has been my greatest teacher for it woke me up out of a stupor and gave me the gift of knowing I am the one who is in charge of creating my life. Anything remotely resembling bravery on my part is really the product of believing "If not now, then very possibly, never."








This is what drives me to continually strive to Wake Up to my life. This is what propels me into action: painting, writing, taking pictures, skipping out on dinner duty to fly a kite. Each day is a gift I try to cherish to the best of my abilities. And each time I fall down, I remember getting up is cause to celebrate another chance to live.