Give her back to me.

In a poem he wrote, titled “For Jane: With All the Love I Had, Which Was Not Enough,” C. Bukowski penned the lines:

“I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know:
her dress upon my arm:
but
they will not
give her back to me.”

I lean upon this…

Yes, I know, too.

I thought about this poem yesterday because lately, I’ve found myself shoulder-deep in more than one sad, emotional conversation with friends about ex-boyfriends, lost loves, heartbreak, healing, theirs and mine.  Talks that end in tears.  Discussions that deliver us with few answers other than the obvious: Life goes on; you love another; time, God damn it, keeps moving you forward.

I forget this simple truth if I’m not careful.  Because, as I joked with my friend the other night, nostalgia is my kryptonite. When it hands me its dingy pair of rose-col0red glasses, I take them gladly, even though I know their lenses blind me to what truly is. 

I mean this even in relation to yoga—sometimes, still, even after a full year away, I compare my practice here in Boston to what I once had in Washington, DC.  I fall prey to thoughts of how much I “connected” with my teachers there, how they inspired and amazed me, how they encouraged and motivated me to think beyond my own practice and think teacher training, opening a studio, becoming a real voice for this yoga.

Before yesterday’s class began, I overheard a woman talking with one of the Boston studio teachers, who happened to be practicing on the mat beside her, about a specific piece of the dialogue in awkward pose.  She sounded so earnest; he sounded so wise; they both oozed such intense seriousness. And I couldn’t help but bite back a wistful smile, remembering all the nights I stayed 15 or even 45 minutes after class to pick my teachers’ brains about so many random details of this yoga. Remembering the special workshops I paid for with money I didn’t have just so I could spend six hours in the studio, surrounded by fellow yogis, surrendering to my mind’s hunger for greater understanding.  All the questions I asked, all the answers I sought, all the ways in which I wanted to feast on every little Bikram yoga crumb I could scrounge up.

But, not here. 

That part of me is no longer—at least not these days. 

And, even if she comes back—which, honestly, I have no doubt she will, soon—she will be of another making. She will be wiser in her own right, from her own hard work and sweat. She will be more directed, more certain, a little less wonderstruck. She will know what questions truly need answered and what questions she can answer herself. She will know what she wants. She will know what is worthwhile and what is wasteful. 

She will be—she must be—like that with love, too.

I lean upon this.

And begin again.