The smell of Mysore

Today was my last Mysore class. I wondered what I would remember from this trip. How the morning smelled like burning sugar. How a cockroach walked toward the kitchen, stopped when it noticed me, and then continued on its way. How my shoulder felt in ankle grabbing--like the whole world was tied in a knot next to my left ear. The way I feel like I'm walking on air when I step out of the shala, and then get a little nervous of falling down the stairs. The ugly dog that hangs outside of the shala, and how I avoid it as I walk up the hill toward my house. How lying in my bed after practice, I drift off to a half-sleep where the sounds of birds become like voices and I wake up feeling like I should know the words. Or even if I could put the feeling of getting used to a new pose into a jar: the wave of sensation that lingers over the body as it adjusts to the new challenge.

I am not sure if I'm getting a little sick or if I caught some back bend fever. Yes, this really happens. After intense back bends you get sick for about 24 hours with flu-like symptoms and then you're good as new. I've gone through it a few times in my life as an ashtangi. I feel like maybe it is happening again. I feel super tired and drowsy, my back is sore, everything is achy, my throat scratches. A friend told me that she actually went to the doctor for this and he told her that this was as very real diagnosis and that it happens because the muscles in the back have a huge spasm. Sometimes this spasm around the spine is so big, that it affects the nerves and this could effect the immune system.

We said goodbye to Pete yesterday, who had been here for about a year. He was the last person who has really been here the whole time that I have. Its easy to get very close to people here. It is like dog years or summer camp. Its this violent explosion of relationships that last for a week or a month or sometimes just one special day. It seems strange to paint the picture of this place in my mind without the people that I have met in it. I can understand how it is very hard for the people who really live here long term. All the time it is like the ghosts of the people you were close with are always floating in the air, just beyond your reach. Their house hovers in the direction you remember, but the weight of knowing the emptiness weighs on your heart. It is so amazing to me how you can come here knowing no one, and leave with a network of friends smiling as they wave goodbye.

I still have four days here in Mysore and two more led classes with Saraswati. I'm slowly crossing things of my Mysore to-do list, and also deciding that some of the things aren't really important to do. Mostly I'm just being here and totally in awe of this crazy life as I look down to my feet, through the earth, and imagine myself and everyone I know standing on the other side.