Things You Can't Know

By the time you read this I will have been in Portugal for six days. I’ll have a little over two days left before my retreat ends and I fly back to Paris. I’ll be there for two nights, and then I’ll be heading home to California on July 1st. I know it sounds glamorous, like I’m this world traveler who can just hop flights from LAX to Paris, Paris to Lisbon, and then home again. But I’ll be working my ass off I assure you, it’s just my “office” is going to be 25 miles south of Lisbon at a stunning venue surrounded by eucalyptus trees, and my work is rewarding in ways that are hard to describe. It's not like sitting under fluorescent lights at a job that’s sucking the lifeblood out of me, or bartending until 4am, or dealing with an abusive boss, but it’s also not like I have a 401k, benefits, or any kind of retirement plan. This essay is getting weird, but there are tradeoffs to everything, that’s what I’m saying. I’ve somehow managed to keep a roof over my head and provide for my family doing the things that light me up - writing and teaching yoga - and I know what a gift it is. I had some truly awful jobs in my teens and twenties, I’ll tell you about it sometime, probably in the memoir. In any case, I don’t take it lightly when a large group of people say hell yeah, I’ll meet you on the other side of the globe. That’s a lot of trust to extend to someone, and I always want to be as sure as I can that trust will be rewarded.

I’ve been planning this retreat for over a year, trying to make sure every detail is covered, every excursion is planned, everything at the venue is going to be just right, everyone has given me their food allergies and restrictions, the schedule is a good balance of cool and interesting things to do and see, lots of yoga, and enough time to do nothing at all but sit by the pool or go for a walk. I go over this stuff in my head a million times, running different scenarios so there’s nothing I’ve forgotten to think about, even though you can never think of everything especially when you’re going somewhere you’ve never been. For example, there’s fortified wine for sale on the boat that’s going to take us out for a spin on Thursday - and if scheduling essays to publish this far ahead actually works - there’s a chance I’m on that boat right now, while you’re reading. Actually, that’s not right, I’ll be back from the boat trip assuming you’re in the states, but it will still be Thursday. Maybe I’m eating dinner right now. Isn’t that weird, that I’m in Santa Monica, writing about something that might be happening the moment you’re reading this nine days from now? I will not have had any wine on the boat, that’s the only thing I can predict this far in advance with any certainty. 

The wine is Moscatel which I now know is a very aromatic grape variety with floral and citrus undertones, ideal for fortifying with cognac or brandy. Portugal is known for it. It’s sweet and I feel certain if I drank it on a boat, I’d definitely get a massive headache and possibly want to hurl. Do people still say hurl, or is that a purely Gen X thing? I don’t think I could drink Moscatel on land, either. I can’t drink anymore, not that I’ve ever been a big drinker, but I used to like a glass of prosecco once in a while. Now if I try that, it’s 50/50 whether I’ll start to feel awful pretty quickly, and who wants to play those odds? I’d rather be sober and feeling good, than get a little tiny buzz and pay for it with a migraine. Thanks, anyway. I think it’s one of the fun effects of perimenopause - hormone fluctuations and how they affect the way I metabolize alcohol -  along with never knowing when or if my cycle is coming. It’s good times. I can drink beer though, I found that out when I went to Austin. So if I drink at all these days, I have a beer. I should probably have a beer right now, because I don’t know where the hell I’m going with all this, but I’d be grateful if you stick around so we can find out together.

Getting a headache looking at it. Photo credit: WineAnorak.com

Okay, so right now I’m sitting on my couch in my den in Santa Monica. I just measured my carry-on even though I know it’s the exact right size for carry-on bags on international flights. I’m a little paranoid about it because some heinous French witch made me check my bag at the gate when I was flying back from my Tuscany retreat in the summer of 2022. I’m sorry, I probably shouldn’t call her a heinous French witch. Being French had nothing to do with it, she just happened to be French. The heinous witch part was all her choice, though. I’d been flying with the bag in the overhead on multiple flights already with no issue, but she wouldn’t even let me put it in the ridiculous contraption they have where you slip your bag in this tiny postage-stamp-sized holder, and if it doesn’t fit, you’re merde out of luck. She just yelled at me that if I wanted to get on the flight, I was going to give her my bag, and since there were a bunch of people behind me who also needed to get on the flight, and since I was already dealing with some vulnerability from having my wallet stolen the day before in Siena on the last day of that retreat, I gave it to her. I was so caught off guard that I didn’t think to grab my laptop out of there, or my toiletries or medication for my kid or anything else, I just let her tag my bag and take it. And I didn’t see it again for three-and-a-half weeks, long after I’d given up on ever seeing it again at all. Which kind of sucked because I arrived at Heathrow with no wallet, no laptop, and nothing to wear. It’s hard to buy stuff when you don’t have a wallet, you’ve had to cancel all your credit cards and you don’t have access to your bank account because your laptop is gone - and you still have eleven days left of your trip. Anyway, I don’t want to do that again. I have a different bag now, even though the one I had should have been fine and was fine. I can’t look at that bag anymore, I had to donate it. The new bag is smaller and it’s cloth, not a hard shell. And I’m under-packing so it won’t be stuffed. 

That whole Tuscany trip was a giant lesson in letting go. My mother had passed away six months prior and I was not okay. I was okay in the sense that I could get up and do the things I needed to do to make sure my kids were good and my business was running, I was okay in the way that you can be to run a retreat and focus on everyone else being okay, but I was not okay in the sense that I hadn’t wrapped my head or my arms or anything else around the fact that my mother no longer put her feet down on the same planet where I lived. Twelve hours after she died, I had my first panic attack. I suddenly realized she would never walk through the lobby of the building where I grew up again, she’d never walk down the block, or hail a taxi on the corner. I couldn’t call her, I couldn’t see her or hear her voice, she was just … where?? I started yelling for her in my head, and every other thought or word I had just evaporated. The only word I had was MOM! MOM! Mom? Ugh, great, now I’m crying. I’d brought some of her ashes with me to Tuscany. Her best friend has a chateau in France and he told me to go there first, before the Tuscany retreat, and rest. See? French people can be fucking magnifique. So I scattered some of her ashes around a tree there at his place, because I knew she would love that, and then I scattered the rest around an olive tree in a beautiful vineyard in Tuscany at sunset. I’d already scattered some in my backyard at home and made a little Buddha garden for her, even though that’s more my kind of thing than hers. I think she’d like it, though. I also lit candles for her at a church in Florence, and another in Greece last April. I don’t know where she is, so now she’s everywhere. 

Get thee a close family friend with a chateau.

She ended up in an MRI machine with me when I had to get a scan, this was before Tuscany. That’s where I had my second panic attack. I thought I’d be fine, and they slid me into that machine with a little rubber ball in my hand in case I needed to squeeze it to alert them that I needed to come out. The loud noises started clacking away and all of a sudden I thought, what if I choke? I won’t be able to sit up, I’m strapped down and I’m in this tube. And I fucking panicked and squeezed the ball and it took about thirty seconds for them to get me out. I was stunned. I’ve never been claustrophobic and didn’t think this was going to bother me at all. The technician was very kind to me. She’s already shot me up with dye, but she said I could leave, reschedule and come back, and my doctor would give me xanax. I thought about it for a minute, and decided after thirty years of yoga I really ought to be able to meditate my way through it, or at least breathe deeply, so I went back in the tube. And suddenly it occurred to me that this was the kind of thing I’d call my mom about after so we could have a laugh. Like, mom, guess what? I went for a scan and freaked out in the machine, isn’t that weird? I started worrying about choking, like…why would I choke in a tube when I’m not eating or drinking anything? And I could almost hear her laughing. I decided to imagine the rubber ball in my hand was actually her hand. I know it’s out there, but it occurred to me and I went with it and it worked. And I managed to breathe through the rest of the scan and they got the images they needed. The next time I needed a scan I took the xanax, so don’t get too excited, just enjoy the story I told you. I can’t always pretend rubber balls are hands and I don’t have to prove anything to myself or anyone else about my yoga practice. I think what I’m really writing about here is time and space, and things you know and things you can’t know.

I used to think you could know more than you can. I thought if I imagined every possible scenario and read up on local wines and planned things to a T, I’d be safe, and everyone I love would be safe. I’d be able to predict what was going to happen, and prevent painful outcomes if I just planned hard enough. So maybe the person who slipped my wallet out of my bag in Siena, and maybe that heinous French witch - maybe they were actually teachers. This is not me saying “the universe” sent me teachers. The universe doesn’t have time to worry about me and what I’m figuring out or not figuring out, it’s too busy doing its universe things like, existing in the space time continuum and expanding beyond anything we can even grasp. I’m saying, maybe the lesson in that crappy twenty-four hours was one more opportunity for me to see that you can’t control anything, but you can lose everything - your mom, your wallet, your laptop, your words - and still, somehow, not disappear. Succumbing to a total loss of control and realizing you don’t die is maybe something I needed to experience. If that didn’t cure me of wanderlust, nothing will. 

I want to experience this wide, beautiful, wild world. I want to soak it up while I’m here and see how other people live and speak and love and do business and nap in the afternoon because rest is important and being open to sell, sell, sell every possible minute of the day is so America and so exhausting. I love teaching and talking and laughing and hugging and connecting with people in person, so why not do it somewhere we’ve never been together even if completely unexpected things happen? It has to be good to take in new oceans and vistas and colors and cobblestones, like soul-food for the eyes, ears, and mind. It has to be good to taste new food, to immerse yourself in local flavors. It has to be good for your brain to hear another language, to pick up on a different rhythm, to see that people live differently than you do. And even if I think I like to know what’s coming next, the truth is that’s just an old story. I used to like to know what was coming next because I’d had enough of chaos and uncertainty - they scared me when I was little - but now I feel like chaos and uncertainty may be new friends who excite me and teach me new things about life, and about myself. I’m suddenly and happily inspired by not knowing. I love adventure even if the lead-up to it awakens all my old tendencies and fears. Plus I like to do things that are hard for me so I can keep working on getting comfortable with not knowing and learning how to roll with things more. I’m pretty positive it makes life easier and more fun. We can’t always see the sun when we look up, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. Next time I write to you, I’ll be back in my den in Santa Monica, but I’ll know more about whatever is going to happen and has already happened between now and the next time I’m sitting here. And so will you. See you on the other side. 

Photo credit: me.

As I sit here, it is my intention to record the companion podcast about things you can’t know before I go. But right now, I can’t seem to know for sure if this is realistic. So I will just say that it’s more likely than not the podcast will arrive in your inbox Saturday, but I guess we can’t know for sure. I love you, though, know that.