the weekend that wasn't

Yogis,

If you live on the east coast you probably felt and lived through what I am writing about today.  If you don’t, you have at some other point in time.

Everything was planned. I was to leave town Friday at 1. All of the schedules set, bags packed, reservations made and my vision of the weekend clear. Then Hurricane Joaquin came into our lives.  She set change in motion.

The weekend that didn’t happen……..

But honestly it wasn’t even Joaquin. It was the nor’easter ahead of her and the flurry of news reports surrounding the approaching weather.Talk of heavy rains, wind and flooding. Warnings and dire predictions.

So the hemming and hawing began in earnest on Thursday. Should we go? Should we cancel? What if we go and have to come back? The back and forth of calls and emails. The uncertainty. Everything now up in the air and me blowing in the wind. And it certainly wasn’t just me feeling it. Cancellations of most activities, events, and even the moving of college football game times. The winds of change had arrived.

So in the blink of an eye, once the decision to cancel was made, I went from a full weekend to a completely blank two days ahead of me.  Absolutely nothing on the agenda. Nothing! Joaquin had cleared the slate.  Saturday and Sunday staring at me and asking what choices I would make to fill them. The Weather Channel's 'Cone of Uncertainty'- I emotionally was in it.

I wanted to choose with purpose. So what did I do first? I headed out to do all of the things I don’t enjoy and had been putting off. Got the hair colored and cut, spent an hour and half utterly overwhelmed in a shoe warehouse, and went bra shopping (the absolute worst!!!!). But because I chose to do these and there was no clock to live by I could move slowly, with purpose and watch. 

Sunday I chose to face a couple of small fears and raised my hand to guest teach in a new yoga studio in the city this week so headed down to get the lay of the land, and then took Phoebe for a long walk in the woods were I could test her off leash.

I gave an impromptu healing session to one friend and had another over for some tea and soul searching. I took all of the veggies in the frig and made soup.

How often do we have that chance?  Extended time with absolutely nothing we have to do and nowhere we have to be.  Receiving the gift of mindful choosing. I feel as if I chose well. 

Om,
SARAH