By Jen Pastiloff.
I am working on a book of essays called You, Of All People. Shitty Advice will be a chapter title as will I’m Sorry, But.
Anyway, I’m up early.
Me, of all people.
Early– Ish.
Ish is one of my favorite words. My sister and I always say we are more Jew-ish than Jewish. When I teach yoga and I ask my class to go into a dolphin pose or forearm balance or I always add or “ish.” It’s like 9 am-ish (okay, it is 9:59) but I was up real early at 2:45 when I couldn’t fall back asleep due to the heat (and maybe the one too many glasses of rosé I drank with my Irish friends at 4 p.m.)
Nathan Connelly and Jonny Quinn of Snow Patrol and me (not of Snow Patrol.) Check out Nathan’s band Little Matador, too. It was so hot that I think Sun Patrol is a more apt title.
I was in bed by 9 because this old lady can’t day-drink that much and continue it (it meaning staying awake) into the evening. So now I am up and thought maybe I should blog because it has been awhile and I always swear to myself that I will blog more frequently but apparently I am a big fat liar to myself. So. Anyway, happy Saturday.
Last weekend I was in Chicago. It was my first time and was a bit of a bucket list thing for me. Growing up on the east coast, it always amazed me that I had never been. Just like as a Jew(ish) person from Jersey, having never been to Florida until I was a grown ass adult was just plain weird. But I have fixed both things. I have been to Florida and now Chicago.
My workshop in Chicago was, as someone said in a note they left me, #fuckingawesome. It was hashtag worthy.
People drove from all over (Indiana, Ohio, Florida, Minnesota) and the room was light and bright and filled with beautiful people who trusted me (and themselves) enough to show up even though they had no flipping’ clue what the heck my workshop actually was. (Most still didn’t even after it ended and tears were streaming down their faces and they all stood clapping. They just nodded yes yes yes and This was everything even though they had no idea what to call what just happened.) It felt like an outer body experience for me in many ways and I truly felt grateful that I get to do this for a living. I have no idea what the future will hold, if I will have a baby, how I will continue on with this travel schedule, this site, bla bla bla but hey, I am here now and enjoying the ride and isn’t that something?
What if we stopped and just went, “Oh yea, this is great. Right now.” I may not know what next year will be like (who does?) but that is what usually gets us into trouble, isn’t it? Stopping ourselves from being in the moment by going, “What if this doesn’t last? What if the other shoe drops? What if?”