things that suck | Emma and Toad

It was a very long night, and this morning is not looking much better.

I’m oscillating between Debra and Maya Angelou; between Fuck absolutely everything and Oriah Mountain Dreamer; between running home to Canada, and staying here to fight for what I believe at my core is the right thing to do.

Hey, I never said I was perfect. Zen Bitch, remember?

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou, 1928 – 2014

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

The Invitation

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

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Oh Canada, I love you and I miss you, but there is more work to do where I am.

And I wouldn’t be a yoga teacher if I didn’t tell you to breathe. Slowly and Deeply. Repeat.

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Things That Suck Today
(things that suck big hairy sweaty balls, to be specific)

– thinking that those pesky periods have finally stopped and then – nope
– when you notice the nope in a yoga class in light colored yoga pants
– when you’re not quite over that recent inconvenient yoga pants fail and then … nope happens
– when you’re still stiff from that damn Bar class that you can’t do a damn thing without falling over in yoga class
– when you keep falling over in yoga class, and then notice the nope

– when there are no goddamn cookies in the house, and all you want is just a little bit of sugary goodness, is that too much to ask for?
– when there are no lemon tarts, no coffeecake, no scones in the house either
– when you end up eating gluten free cookies and sugar-free chocolate
– when you realize that what you are grumpy about is a beyond superficial first world problem, and still decide to stay grumpy

– when that guy honked at you, for no good reason, okay maybe the very slightest and unimportant reason, but really there was no need for honking. honestly

L24IaWs – when you go solo to a couples party of 90% young hot 30somethings
– when you weren’t planing on going solo, but the date you chose doesn’t show
– when you almost asked a good friend to be your date, but then decided to ‘go for it’ and ask the ‘great at no showing’ guy, when you should have bloody well known better than to even consider him
– when you’re having a great hair day and get stood up
– when you wore the cute short dress with the boots, and still got stood up
– when you even put on motherfucking eyeliner and lipstick, and still got stood up
– when every one at the super fun party was snuggly with their date and you get super tight with the dessert table and then almost aspirate on a cupcake
– when you sit there and seriously wonder why you even try and really seriously consider that future that involves cats, housecoats, and crazy hair
– when you say forget cats, I’m getting chickens to peck at anyone who tries to visit me, and then you say forget chickens, I’m getting Emus. I’m getting Emus with the worst possible attitudes and I’m keeping them in my front yard.

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-when you get a Starbucks card and it has Year of the Monkey on it and you start crying in front of the kind gift giver, because your brother was a Monkey
– when you realize that this year of the Monkey would have been your brother’s year

l1iHINO – when you’re happily sitting as far away from other people as you can manage at church and they make the announcement to stand up and greet the people around and you realize that you didn’t get far enough away and you have to chat with people

– David Bowie is dead
– Alan Rickman is dead
– and just fuck all things about that, but especially idiots who say mean shit about mourning some celebrity you didn’t know
fuck those people

– when you can’t format bullet points and have to use “-”