Before It Gets Dark

I just ate my dinner watching outside from my window.

You know normally I watch a random YouTube video or my favourite series on my laptop.

Today I was like, “Actually watching outside could be quite engaging, too.” It was. In the beginning I was sceptical. I felt like I was just trying to prove to myself that I could do this. And then I thought, “Hmm, I might be inspired by this.” One thought brought another until I found myself enjoying my view. A good selection of entertainment at the park: people sitting on benches and watching around, people running, dogs chasing balls, cars overtaking cyclists. And then some other details: it’s a Saturday so the bins are full, some people’s gardens need gardening, one of my neighbours has a trampoline, the birds are chirping, the sun is going down but it’s at that sweet spot where you know it’s going to be dark soon but there’s still time to enjoy the day.

So here I am sitting in my living room after I have cleaned the whole house. And no, before you ask, it wasn’t a procrastination clean. It was a highly needed clean. And that’s a part of life, right? You eat, you watch things, and you clean your house. The cycle of life. At the weekends. Because on weekdays you must work. Good old work. You know the saying, “You can take the person out of the city but you can’t take the city out of the person.” It’s the same with hustle culture these days. You can take the person out of hustle culture and place them somewhere in the mountains and they start to think about how to make money by content creating or building an organic cow milk hair product start-up. I watched a short video of an interview with a bunch of children. The interviewer asks them what they want in life. All of them say money. But isn’t money what has brought us to the point where billionaires torture and kill children?

Yeah. I know. A dark topic. We are all surrounded by dark topics.

I have an Iranian friend. She joins my Saturday morning yoga classes. This morning after the class she just told me Israel bombed Iran. She said, “During the class you tell us to relax but I just cannot.” I just said, “But we are just trying, that’s why it’s a practice.” And I thought about this all day today. I am not saying this now about her but some of us were born into lands that left us with nothing but a nervous system that is consistently in survival mode. And unfortunately, you take yourself out of the land but you can’t take the land out of your system. This is the truth.

In some good news, today is the last day of February. Spring is here, baby. Last week I saw some tiny tulip stems, no flowers. This morning almost all of them had bloomed. I was in awe of how fast they grew. But I am terrible at plants. By the way, does anyone know how to take care of a rosemary plant? No, I don’t want to Google it.

I have been thinking about the concept of time lately. A lot. Like 2016 was 10 years ago. It doesn’t feel odd. But at the same time it feels like it was 20 years ago. I am going to be 31 soon. It’s crazy how fast things move. “Time’s existence cannot be found between the tick and the tock of a clock. It is the language of life and, as such, is most powerfully felt in the context of human experience,” says Robert Lanza in his book Biocentrism. When I have been writing this, for example, the sky changed its colours from a bright warm orange to a pale hazy purple. The night is approaching. Watching the sky change like this makes night feel less like an ending and more like a transition. “Like a finely woven shawl, Night enfolds the world in the interval between dusk and dawn. Bringing silence, healing and a cool hiatus from the sun’s burning heat and light”

Here’s another perception of night for you. Not darkness upon us but a good time to breathe and rest.

How we perceive things is our life, isn’t it? I will be vulnerable and share something a bit personal now. Someone gave my yoga class three stars on ClassPass, which is absolutely fine. I can’t please everyone, right? But my mind immediately brought this thought: You are just an average person, hence an average teacher. They gave you what you deserved, nothing less, nothing more. For a brief moment, this thought made me sad. It broke my heart. But then. But then a light cracked in from that broken piece. And I said to myself, “It’s such a privilege to be an average person because there’s so much room for growth. And oh man, I am so ready and up for it.” So yeah, here I am, writing this, maybe for growth?

I don’t know, man. Maybe if I stop thinking about imaginary catastrophic events that might happen in my life, I can find more space for growth. But this is a topic for another day.

Before it gets dark, I will actually go and do some work. Between now and next time I see you, find some space within you to grow some tulips and let them bloom.