Struggle for the good.

Many wise men believe that struggle is good for you. Maybe they are just telling us this to try and make some light of a horrible situation, but you just have to look at the Dalai Lama und you will believe it works. At least in theory. Maybe you actually have to be a bit holy to start with.  

Bikram, though nobody but himself would count him into the same category of wisdom as the Dalai Lama, believes it too. Not involving hunger, oppression, and forced migration in the struggle, hi just happens in the quaint, contained environment of a yoga mat. Which, if you do yoga, you will know, can be the most liberating of all places, but also the most scary. Quite often changing on a daily basis. He doesn't mind that inconsistency and he doesn't mind the scariness. It all comes with the struggle and struggle is good. Usually during locust he will actually animate his students to struggle harder like struggling is your new best friend. If you get uncomfortable in any posture really, well, just struggle some more and believe in the old-fashioned slogan of what doesn't kill us, makes us harder.

Another yogi friend of mine puts it a little less harsh and simply says that you gotta put in effort till it becomes effortless. On the mat or off I think that applies to almost anything in life. Some things ain’t easy and we need to work hard to get through. Which we usually try to avoid, because we like the way of least resistance. I think struggling has become a lost art in our world of 90 day marriages, 2 minute noodles, and a whole lot of general quick fixes. Maybe we should reconsider and try to relearn this art and actually bite our teeth into something else than a fast-food burger.
Instead of letting it all go and having it easy, maybe we should struggle a bit harder? After all the Dalai Lama is quite awesome, so wouldn't it be neat to be a bit more like him? Or at least manage a perfect locust one day?

In case you do wonder what brought on all these questions and less than happy thoughts… it wasn’t my perfect locust posture. I have just struggled a lot lately with life and on the mat and am trying to make sense of it. My yoga practise always seems a nice metaphor for what is going on in my life. Yesterday again I had such an intense class, my blood felt it was boiling and I could hardly lie still for a breath or two and I really, really struggled. Thinking about it and how it made me feel, I realized that it might not be a bad thing. That in fact a bit of struggling might just be exactly what I need to bring out some good – on my mat and off.

Not funny.

So apparently I'm funny. A lot of people tell me after reading my blog. I guess I'm not as funny live. Not sure what this says about me, but I tend to be a glass is half full kinda person so I just take it as a compliment. There is also the usual amount of suspects that pretend to be amazed to find out that I am German. What? A funny German? Never heard of that! It's like an English man with good teeth. (In all fairness I personally know plenty of funny Germans and no English man with good teeth, but I would hate to feed the stereotype.)

These days I am not feeling very funny though. I don't want to constantly mope, but life is just feeling niggly at the moment. Though post-Morocco depression is slowly vanishing, it seems to just have made space for dull, everyday normality. Summer still far away, money from the travel agent of doom still not transferred, and my date request still unfulfilled, except for my aunt mentioning a nice guy Dude, who I will only be able to meet next year and whose real name she can’t remember. Hey Dude, want to go for a drink? Bleh. Can you tell I am having a hard time spicing things up? So I do what any sensible person would do, I drink more, but besides that this statement makes me sound like a true alcoholic, I feel dreadful the next morning with my bikini figure slipping further into the bottle.

The one and only thing that really helps right now is again yoga. Unfortunately not in the comforting, peaceful way, but in the let me kick your ass really hard way. Everything feels more intense than usual in my practice and I often get a simple feeling of well, if I survive this, I can survive anything. Yesterday when I had this thought I almost started to cry. Then we went into camel and it kicked my ass right out of it. Try it – next time you feel like crying for no stupid reason or other – do a camel. The crying I postponed instead for when I was in bed. No idea where it came from, but it actually wasn’t so bad. This morning when I found the tissues and remembered, I couldn’t actually remember what initiated the little outbreak. Oh, well. Sometimes you need to cry and sometimes you need to be kicked in the ass by a camel and if you really lucky the sun might just shine when you wake up.

Golden and grey.

In case you wonder what I did this weekend… on Friday afternoon I went to Wine at the Mill to buy something nice to drink away the sorrows I have due to the travel agent of doom. That worked so nicely that instead of just buying one bottle, the owners and I drank one right there at the shop and I walked out with another four. What can you do?
That night I went to Toffie’s pop-up dim-sum dinner with a room clad in gold and more gold a.k.a. Chenin Blanc in our glasses. And of course no one wanted to go home and be sensible after this so we went to a house party. House party as it was hosted in a new bar called Peter’s House. Tada!
Saturday I woke up with a big fat hangover, a class to teach, and no wallet. I did not feel golden anymore and looked a bit grey too. Not an ideal combination, but somehow I managed to survive class and my wallet managed to survive a night on the backseat of Claire’s car in Obz. To show my joy of reunion I took the wallet to the market where I bought - well, everything that my hangover stomach demanded: crepe with ham and cheese, sushi, and for some reason or other cake pops. All of which was quite delicious and got me safely fuelled to Betty’s Bay. There I spent the next 48 hours hibernating with my aunt and uncle in great stormy weather. It was impossible to do anything useful but lie on the couch in front of the fire, entertained by movies, the Kindle, and little naps. I didn’t write except for a few tweets which all included the joys of chilled bubbly and were probably quite repetitive. I didn’t even feel bad about it. I just enjoyed the calm and ease, which was only disturbed once by the excitement brought on by double yoked poached eggs for breakfast.

Much more exciting than silly, old green eggs I think!

Last night I went to the meat-eating side of the family and was fed an entire, yummy animal of some sorts. This in combination with the left over relaxation from the weekend has calmed me down so much that I didn’t even yell too much at the travel agent when I finally got a hold of her this morning. We shall see how long it lasts… In the meanwhile I will use the good vibes and finally spend some time on the mat and hopefully type some clever thoughts as well.

Chicken McNuggets.

Morocco is many wonderful things, but it didn’t seem very animal friendly to me. I’m not a vegetarian so I didn’t mind that the only meat free food option was overcooked vegetable couscous. I did however mind seeing little monkeys on a leash, horses in front of carriages baking in the sun as well as chameleons and tortoises in cages at the beauty stalls in the souks. I didn’t dare to ask what they were used for, but imagined their ultimate purpose to be horrible concoctions of ground chameleon powder and made by order tortoise combs. I thought it saver to refuse to buy anything at any place with still-alive animals. In case you wonder why I didn’t feel sorry for the snakes and I guess to be PC I should – I don’t like snakes and don’t care for them at all. Sorry.
Then there were all the little donkeys, carrying heavy loads and sometimes us lazy tourists, goats tied into a tree for a picture-taking-money-making-scheme, and the scrawniest little kittens, which I wanted to take home with me. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. The scrawnier and smaller the better as the more I would be able to fit in my luggage. And so everybody back home could get cute little kittens as presents and not rely on my non-shopping abilities at the souks. In the end they were all too cute and I decided to rather take none than leave any kitten behind.
And if all of this wasn’t disturbing enough, we then found these little chicks in Fez:

Since posting this on Facebook they have created a storm amongst my friends and to my astonishment conquered many hearts. The general mood goes from WTF? to How do they do that? and then to I want one!. Well, at least my friend Alex expressed these three stages in one comment. Yesterday Julia and I were simultaneously browsing through my Morocco and skyping.

Julia: Ooooooooh. What is that? 

Me: What is what?

Julia: The little coloured things?

Me: Oh, they are chicks.

Julia: Ooooooh, how cute!!! But why are they coloured?

Me: So kids will buy them. For 1 dirham. They are like live Tamagochi. Isn’t that horrible?  

Julia: Nooooo, they are sooooooooooooo cute. You should have totally gotten one!

Me: But it’s horrible! I almost called PETA. They even put them in little plastic bags with only tiny holes when you buy one. 

Julia: Jaaa, but not for long, only till you get home. You should have gotten a pink one!

Me: And then what? Hide it in my shirt and take it on the plane?

Julia: Yes, totally!

Considering that I wanted to take a gazillion scrawny, little kittens home hidden in my luggage and my cousin once carried her rat in her jacket pocket from Cape Town to Germany this request is actually not as outrageous as it may seem.

Me: Taking a pooping, little chick and put it in my shirt for a 30 hours plane ride? Are you serious?

Julia: Yes. (Pause) Okay. 30 hours might be a bit long, it’s so little.

Me: Yes. So that’s why I didn’t take one. Plus it’s still horrible.

(Pause)

Julia: I wonder what it will be when it grows up.

Me: A chicken?

Julia: Will it still be pink?

And that leaves us with the question if also a chick needs to get its roots done every four weeks.

A date request.

I am aware that this might make me sound a bit desperate, but still, I will just put it out there: I need a date. Vacation time is over, summer isn’t here yet, I need something fun to cheer myself up. No worries, guys, I don’t want to marry you or make you the father of my future children or otherwise entrap you in any way. I just want a date. I want someone to take me for a nice dinner, a little stroll through the park, and maybe some light yet steamy midnight snogging. No further obligations, you can just call me the next day and tell me you are leaving town to join the Peace Corps. I will believe you and you don’t ever have to see me again. Unless of course you are stupid like the guy who told me he was moving to Houston and still managed to run into me in NYC two months later. Then rather tell me you are not over your ex yet. That excuse works like a charm and I’m well used to it, in fact I can take it without any tears. 

 

What kind of guys need apply? 

• Due to recent circumstances I have lowered my age range (Cousin, do you read this?!). So with just 25 years of age, you are good to go.
• Mind you, please have some sort of a job so you can pick up the bill. Don’t tell me after dinner that you really would like to, but unfortunately can’t pay for me because your parents’ cheque hasn’t cleared yet (yes, that has happened more than I would like to admit). Also asking me for petrol money to get home is a deal breaker. 
• It would be nice if you were taller than me so I can wear heels without making you feel, well, small.
• Don’t mention of God or Jesus over dinner. Or after. Especially not when we get to the snogging part. 
• Photographers and general creative, I dig you! But I can also tell the good from the bad and the ugly. If you are a photographer, you should be able to take pictures that will remind me of the days when I had a crush on Nathaniel Goldberg or even better remind me of my brother. Which is not that weird as it sounds. He is just very brilliant and may have spoilt my aesthetics for life.
• Don’t wear white shoes. I hope I don’t need to elaborate this one further. 
• Be a bit daring. You could even suggest going to the movies. Though you will know that I generally hate going to the movies and so your only option is to lure me to the Labia via strawberry gin slushies.  
• Which brings me to: Do not not drink. We simply won’t get along. I have tried the AA/teetotaller route many times, it just doesn’t work for me.
• Last but not least: please have a sense of humour. If you are reading this and don’t get offended by me writing a list (and don’t be fooled, all girls have a list, I just happened to put it online), if you might even crack a smile here and there, yes, that would be a good start.

Thank you for your consideration; you know where to find me.

 

 

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