Watch things appear and disappear.

The first time I read that (again, from one of Larry's manuals), I didn't quite understand what that was about. It sounds metaphysical; it sounds long-ball, lifetime, sort of shallow-yet-deep wisdom from the ages, that you get from that bearded person on the mountain. Does s/he EVER know what s/he's talking about, or is s/he just pulling your chain? It had that kind of feeling.

As an aside, I'm being suprisingly chatty late in this month, don't you think?

I just did standing to half-lotus forward bend (with no forward bend) and that was sufficient practice. That's enough. The half-lotuses crack into my pain centers (outer hips) just enough to say hello and get a little release. And beyond that, those brief poses, I'm surfeit enough on pain to not need more.

True, in December I was in a studio room when no one showed up for class, and I touched my feet by myself in Kapotasana, which I refer to often as "the hardest pose in the universe." But then I went to see family and that shattered my practice ritual in a way that I have not recovered since. Then January was long, dark, silent agony until classes began, and then it was hectic, and then on the very first Thursday of classes (about ten days ago) my car was crashed into.

This morning, an insurance adjuster told me that the car would be a total loss, and that they would give me a good piece over two grand for it, and then tow it away. So be it. I took my parking pass and my license plate and went on my way, only hours later somehow thinking of Steve Martin in _The Jerk_.

Now that insurance and the authorities have decided "what happened," the story is this. Have you noticed, by the way, that in auto accidents, what "happened" is not really up to you, rather it's up to insurance? What happened is what they are able to conclude, not what you experienced. An auto accident is a lesson to be learned about the fluffiness of subjectivity, the way in which subjectivity and memory are nothing but a pile of feathers before someone turns the standing fan on.

Anyway: I was going north on a two-way street, crossing a four-lane one-way street going west. I got into that intersection and then was snowplowed by a van; I remember being "pushed" at least 8 feet westward. Then rationality took over and I drove out of the intersection and pulled over. The van's driver immediately insisted that I'd hit her (huh?). The damage on my car was full-on side impact between the passenger side wheels. I didn't (per the rules) say a thing about fault, either hers or mine, until the cops arrived, but later, I remember thinking, "Wait a minute, *I* hit *YOU*? How the fuck is that even POSSIBLE? What did I do, turn the wrong way into four lanes of one-way traffic and somehow THROW my car sideways into the front of your van?"

Further anyway: both the cops and the insurance company found her story to be ridiculous and told me so. But the damage overwhelms the car's value and so be it.

I bought that Saturn in January 2003, so we had a six year run. It was my Insanity Mobile, my Declaration of War on All Things Boring and Ignorant. This was 2003, mind you, and if you know my history, that was immolation time. Flame on. Burn it all down; somehow live through it and otherwise burn it all. Change life.

I had a night job for seven months during that time, and I used to drive all night on weekends, in part because of the job schedule and in part because I was processing madness. I remember chasing a train in the woods with that car, and sitting watching dawn happen over a college town strip club's veneer. I remember trips to Chicago and to Louisville, to commit things I'll not discuss in detail here. That car took me to my climbing gym probably a thousand times. That car facilitated my relationship with my current partner. It got me through the Bush presidency. And so be it. Some random 24 year old liar, on her way to see her parole officer, driving someone else's van, can take it, can end those adventures.

I have three job applications to write and five classes to plan lessons for. Ideas for a new car for the household are on the way (our remaining car is a Honda from the early 1990s).

Just a dash of ashtanga yoga is enough now. Larry used to say that 10 sun salutations was the minimum daily requirement. I need just a little ember-like glow of SF to get me through this. Springtime will come; it will.