East Grove Blues

My my last day of work has come and gone, and while I am sad to say good bye to my students and fellow teachers, I am very happy to be done with teaching for the moment. Teaching is a lot of fun, but it is also exhausting. I came away almost everyday drained and tired. That means that I put my all into what I was doing, which made me a fairly decent teacher I believe, but I didn’t have enough time to recuperate. By the end of the week I would wake and drag myself out of bed. Not because I hated what I was doing, but because I was still tired and wanted more sleep.

Some people are gifted with boundless energy. Some people can feed of the energy of others. I draw my energy from myself. I can get a boost from an energetic class, but only while I am around the kids. As soon as it ends I crash. On friday I got out of class and shamelessly fell asleep in a chair in the teacher’s room. A lot of time all I need is that nap. When I woke up a half hour later I was ready to go and play again. I just needed that time to recharge.

It has been a great time. I have learned that I do love to teach, but I want to do it on my own terms and by my own schedule. I somehow need to figure out how I can teach Yoga part time and work with trees on the farm. If I can do that than I could perhaps have found a little heaven on earth. So that is what I am working on right now.

Today is my last day of teaching Yoga here in Japan. I asked my students if they wanted to have a party or do yoga. They all said they wanted to do Yoga. That made me ridiculously happy. It seems most everyone’s favorite pose is happy baby pose. I could speculate as to why that is, but I will let your imagination fill it in. It will be hard to say good bye to my Yoga students. I feel bad leaving them without a teacher. I hope they continue on their own or move over to the Tai Style Yoga class on friday.

Wednesday will be hard as well. It is my last music night in Miyako. I have had a great time playing with the Ramblers and my voice has noticeably improved over the last year. I am starting to find my own voice, the one that is unique to everyone. I will keep singing until I have it down and being the lead singer in a band has been invaluable to me. In some ways it will be the hardest to say good bye to the Ramblers. They are like family to me.

After a some very interesting dreams and a thorough cleaning of the system this morning I am feeling much better. In fact I feel pretty amazing. My energy levels are back and I have a general feeling of euphoria that is not that common. It’s like I had a cold yesterday and felt horrible, and today the cold is gone and I feel like I could conquer the world.

I had a much needed night by myself last night. I got a little walk in and I did some internet research. The research was fruitful and has helped me in my my mood and well being. The internet is such an amazing tool, but like all tools it can be dangerous. I have to remind myself of that so I don’t get carried away by someones opinions that are not actually based in facts. That is part of the reason I got carried into the mess physically that I am.

This is my current theory and is subject to change. It seems that I trained to long and to hard, like three to five hours everyday to hard. I upset a careful balance and I am paying for it now. I worked so hard that it is likely that I was deficient in many vital vitamins and nutrients. That is not a good way to stay healthy, and I didn’t. I am attempting to reverse the effects with better diet and proper exercise. It might be a while before I run for two and half hours again. A half hour yes, an hour maybe, but no longer. It’s not needed and it does more harm than good. Sometimes it takes a whamping for us to know our limits. I have repeated this process more times than I would care to admit.

There are some things on the emotional side as well, but I am not willing to go into those until after I work through them. As seriously as I take them, it shouldn’t effect my everyday mood or how I will act towards people. I tend to keep my demons to myself until I can work ‘em out. I am sure they will find a way out here after a while, but I am not ready for that kind of openness or what it might mean.

I had some cool dreams last night that really helped to identify a lot of the issues I am/need to work with over the next couple of months. I don’t know what it is about my dreams but them seem awfully prophetic to me. Perhaps I am reading into them to much, but anything that can help me be a healthy stable individual is welcome.

I have Yoga tonight and that always makes me feel better. If I feel any better I might just start dancing.

I went into Miyako feeling a little off today. It got worse as the night progressed, and culminated right before eating dinner. It was weird. I was sad and feeling lost, but something happened that hasn’t in a while. I started writing things out on whatever paper I could get my hands on. For nearly an hour I wrote out little bits of poem, random paragraphs and basically spilled my emotions onto the papers in front of me. It didn’t make me less sad, but it helped me understand some things I had been holding onto and needed to let go of. Its weird to be sad, but to also be really happy to be writing something again. I haven’t done anything like that since the Peace Corps. If I am really lucky I will get a song out of it, or at least parts of a song.

Anyway after eating and writing I went onto Yoga class. I didn’t do my best today, my mind was distracted, but as the night went on I became more and more focused. By the time we were wrapping things up I was ready to really get into it. Hopefully I can continue it tomorrow. Anyway, at the end of class I felt a lot better. Writing had started a release that was finished with Yoga. I love Yoga, it is so awesome. I always feel better after doing it and I can’t imagine my life in the future without it.

One thing I was reminded of today is the importance of having a teacher. I always realize this after I have gone without one for a while, but it was really driven home today. I am flexible and fairly strong, but today we stretched a muscle in my foot that had never really been stretched before. I love finding new places to work on. It makes me a more balanced person. Without my instructor it is likely that I wouldn’t have found that little spot, and could have eventually led to some sort of injury.

It also reminded me that I have a long ways to go to become a good Yoga teacher. Yeah for life long activities. (Like music and eating!) I have infinite room for improvement and many chances to become humbled. I need to be humbled like I was today. Otherwise my head gets to big and I end up acting like a dick.

So if I am ever being stupid, just tell me to do some Yoga or something. I know I will feel better for it. I sure did today.

I explained how I felt about coming home, but now I’d like to explain what led me to the feeling.

Japan has been good to me. I have had a good job with great kids. I live in a great place, nestled in the mountains next to a bubbling river. I am only a short drive from the Pacific Ocean and some of the greatest seascapes that I have ever seen. The weather is almost exactly like home, but perhaps is a bit wetter. I have lots of friends and I am usually doing one activity or another. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

The thing is though, even though I am doing all these things, there are a few that stick out that I would like to be able to do more of.

Music is one. I play once a week with a Blue Grass band from Miyako. I was surprised and very pleased to join and be able to play so often with other people. It has been a great experience. I have gotten a lot better at the banjo and guitar. I have written several new songs and have a few more in the works. I have learned so much from the group. I want to play more and I want to learn more. As much as I get from them I, I still have problems asking how to do things, and that frustrates me. I know I can learn a lot more, but it would be a lot easier at home. I would like to be near a music scene that is alive and full of people closer to my own age. I like blue grass, but my playing style is more related to folk than to anything else. I don’t want to have to drive forty minutes to be able to see or play anything with other people.

Another activity is Yoga. I love Yoga. It is the glue that keeps all my other activities together and focused. It helps with everything; from running, biking or swimming. (Not including my everyday life.)I have been doing it for over a year and a half and I can both see and feel the change that my body has gone through. Recently I have been lucky enough to be able to both teach and have a teacher. This has improved my Yoga tremendously. Having a teacher has really shown me how much I can improve and where I need to improve. I love doing Yoga by myself, but I work myself a lot harder when there are other people around. I push myself to new levels. I really want to start focusing more on my Yoga. I enjoy doing it and I enjoy teaching it and I want that to be a larger part of my life than it is now. I am starting to do that now, but I know I could do so much more. I want to be around an area that has more days that I can take Yoga with a group. I also want to be around people who can explain to me things in my own language and where I can do likewise. I honestly don’t have the desire to get my Japanese to that level. Language is not something I have ever been good at. (This is true for English as well as any of the others that I have tried to learn.)

Ever since the Peace Corps my diet has changed a lot. I used to be a meat and dairy man. Now I rarely eat either, if at all. I would like to cut out meat all together. (For reasons I will post later.) I can’t do that here. I eat at school and I think it would be too rude for me to say to the Board of Education that I no longer want to eat the food they provide. I get weird looks as it is when I don’t drink the milk. Living on my own, with out a provided lunch would go a long ways towards accomplishing my goals.

To be honest I would like to be close to my family more. I have lived most of the last four years away from home. I think I would like to be closer to everyone. I can do that and still be far enough to not go to crazy. No one is getting any younger and I would like to be around more to help out when I can. I can’t do that at all when I live in a different country. It doesn’t mean I will stop traveling, but it does mean that I might take a break for a bit and reassess my options.

I know that it is a little strange to leave a decent paying job that I enjoy, but when my gut tells me its time to go I always listen. It knows better than I do and it has never lead me astray. It just feels like the right thing to do. I have put here just a few of the many reasons. These just stick out a bit more than the others.