Thoughts from Helipad Yoga 48 Stories Up (because I couldn't think of another title right now)

Well, 3 AMAZING AND UNIQUE AND SPECTACULAR months in Qatar and a whole year older (HBTM! woo!) and I felt today that I really do live here now. Qatar is feeling as home.

Apologies for not writing you at length sooner, but I tried to keep you immediately updated via the other social medias. They're better for photos and quips.

I went to Venice for Fall Break. It was beautiful. Canals, bridges, food, carnival masks, museums, piazzas, campos, theaters... Trieste was a soul searching experience. I am working on finding the best of the best stories to share with you. I am so grateful to have spent the week there.

I will spare you the exciting "there was a 5 inch mouse in my Doha apartment which created a unique series of events that evening" story. There is no more mouse, thankfully. It appeared deceased on its own accord the following weekend in the middle of my living room floor when I returned home one evening, but I digress. The rest of the story? Well, I will wait to see how time, karma, and patience sort it out. But, I did procure a mousetrap. I certainly hope it does not go "snap" anytime soon.

I have mentioned before it is now much cooler (80-90F rather than 120F in August) and it is much more comfortable to explore the neighborhood of Al Sadd. We had a three day weekend for Thanksgiving which helped spread out the weekend errands and paperwork. I was out with friends all weekend doing local and fun things. I am so blessed to have these Doha friends in my life. Sitting for conversation under a large wooden canopy by a decoratively lit fountain for a birthday. Never have I ever had more fun with a conversation after a lazy day. Rooftop city view lounges with good music. Exclusive rooftop venues with VIP access. (It me.) Discovering kitschy restaurants with marvelous food on hidden side streets and wandering Souqs (marketplaces). Laughing poolside over card games and Thanksgiving memories. Chinese food for a "Thanksgiving Dinner". I know my way around enough to know when a friend is lost driving us to back to the apartments. Saw my students at Aspire Park. Mobile ordered groceries so I didn't lose track of my work flow time. Stayed up late watching movies. Slept in.

Signed up for a 5K (the second I'll do in Doha, as the first one I did in cute little ballet flats, a sweater, and jeans is another story I will spare you, but thanks to a hotel security guard, a really sweet uber driver, a ministry building official, the US Government, and a thriller of a girls squad here - I won't have to worry about doing anything like that again. #anotherbaddatestory)

Went to a yoga. Finally.

Organized studio yoga has been difficult to find to fit into my schedule here and finding one close enough to my apartment to make it affordably accessible was a challenge. Work occupies my time from 6am until 5pm and curriculum, lesson plans, and getting myself organized into the school year, I haven't been going. I had a really unique weekend and wanted to sort out some of my thoughts about things... and to be honest, I miss my yoga mat. It's back at The Estate because in terms of adopting a minimalistic lifestyle here in Qatar, and overweight baggage fees from a certain American airline company, I didn't bring it. I wish I did, as it might have helped make the experience more enjoyable.

This afternoon, as if sent by the algorithmic gods of the digital world in which we exist, I found a full moon helipad yoga - 48 stories above the skyline - and I wasn't going to miss it.

After all, I did buy a mat at the local mall for going to yoga and I did want to get back to the regular practice routine.

But this story I will tell you starts off with the fact I couldn't find my favorite yoga shirt.

It has to be here, right? Because with a few other things I have misplaced (in this probably 300 square foot apartment) it cannot be anywhere else. I packed it. I unpacked it. I have one closet and four drawers. It is not in the laundry. I have only purchased sheets, towels, pillowcases, two plants, some placemats, two lamps, some cookware, and one pair of pants... legit nothing else. So you tell me where it could be.

The story progresses to the fact that at 48 stories high, it was UNBELIEVABLY windy and at one point I wondered if there actually WAS a helicopter landing, which would have been nice to hold down my mat and phone from blowing away because the somewhat-disasterous-but-now-comical-experience now moves into the fact that I have a crap yoga mat.

Like a lightweight, thin, flimsy (insert popular sports brand name) mat.

I miss my old mat.

I miss my jade colored Jade brand mat. The one with the footprint mark and scratch I put in it. The one that laid on my favorite spot at Backyard Ale. The Lodge at Montage that night with Kevin Paris. The Pier in Philly with my sister. The one inside the fabric bag with the toucan floral print I sewed myself. My mat.

Tonight I missed my old mat and some of my old life attached to that mat.

But it reminded me of how far I have come. How many days I have been lucky to have. How many people I have met and lessons I have learned. Tomorrow is not promised. I hope I get one though. I hope you do too.

It's really difficult to three-legged-downward-dog with a yoga mat flailing around as if taking an interview for a job as an advertising device in a used car lot. It's really difficult to complete a moon salutation if the back half of your mat is flipped over and you lunge back onto a metal grill with a rubber skid pad for helicopter landing. It is hard to get your leg through a core plank and to the top of your mat if there isn't a top of your mat because it's flipped over for the 300th time and you can't hold it down with your left pinky finger. You can't bend and twist and put your right pinky toe at a 45 degree angle to the top of your mat if there technically isn't a top of your mat because you fixed it 300 times and now you're on 301. You can't focus on any type of alignment when you're obsessing if your mat is going to fly off the top of the Shangri-La hotel, which it might as well do so because it's not doing anything except hindering you anyway.

Lesson : It's really hard to focus on anything when you're obsessing over some idea, person, place, or thing which is flailing around in your mind... and the thought isn't doing anything productive by being there anyway... especially when you notice that nobody else has a crap mat that is flipping over and getting stuck between toes, knees, wrapping around ankles, and generally making a mess of an otherwise fabulous yoga flow.

But that's life. Stop comparing yours to others.

It's hard to do that, isn't it?

It's not all glamorous here. There are certainly down-ish days. Times I miss you guys very much, like today. But I'm never sad I made the choice to move here. I never compare my life here to my life in the US. The people, the climate, the city, the neighborhoods, the souqs, the museums, the things that make a city a city - it's all so perfect for me, right here, right now.

While the voice of the yoga instructor was often tossed away from class in the gusts from 48 stories up, I did manage to sneak a look around to see how everyone else had managed to get their mats to not be irritating. (I know, you're not supposed to compare!) Yet, I took a few cues from these experience helipad yoga people and got myself settled. Not to copy from them, but to take what I learned from others here and replace my obsessive thoughts with productive information.

She was very clear as we floated between Warrior 2 variations that we should continue to take notice of what the left side felt like. What was our body response to moving on this side, without anticipating what could be happening on the right side. She always referenced to discover what was the same or different in our body response on each of the sides in each of the poses. Which side felt more of a release of energy, was more open? What could we do to make the sides match? Which poses and sides in those poses created tension?

I couldn't help but feel this was not just a yoga lesson but a life lesson.

What is creating tension for you? How do you manage it? How do you open it up and let it go? How are you comparing your life to others - and is it productive (learning how to secure my crap yoga mat) or is it hindering you (noticing that only the instructor was facing SAID FULL MOON I CAME TO SEE IN THIS CLASS and even in downward dog I couldn't see the moon BEHIND ME because my crap mat was flailing and my toe was digging into the helipad grill #firstworldproblems).

The yoga instructor helped me find a studio close to my apartment in Al Sadd, because you don't know things if you don't ask, and I remember how much The Wonderstone Gang helped me get my life back and sorted when I stood up to my inner demons and told them to take a cleansing hike off a tall mountain side. I look forward to getting back on my mat regularly - when I return to the US for a few days over Christmas break I am bringing my beloved mat back with me - and I hope you find a way to get rid of some of your tension and comparative thought processes.

But until this break, I will be off on another adventure - looking to let things go as time, karma, and patience will let them go... looking for anything to grab on to so I don't fall over the edge... and making space for the love, light, peace, and energy I find in knowing all of you.

What are you willing to get rid of to find the release? I have my list started.

Thanks for securing me so I am not like this crap yoga mat, flailing around like a wacky, wavy, inflatable, arm flailing tube man.

Sláinte.