Full Circle

What do you do for work/school?

What do you do for play/fun?

That was the gist of the questions we were asked to answer as we sat in a circle on the hardwood floor of Frog Lotus Yoga in North Adams, Massachusetts. There we were, a group of about 20 of us, sitting around in this introductory circle of the Yoga Teacher Training (YTT). Little did I know, I would make friendships that would long outlive the Sanskrit words I would try to commit to memory.

We went around, one by one, answering the questions posed to us and meeting the faces around the room. When my turn came, I said something like: “For school, I just graduated from college this spring and for work, I’ll be moving to Madrid, Spain to teach English next month.” I don’t remember what I said for play/fun at that time, so we’ll assume I said something original like “yoga”. I abdicated my turn and looked over at the girl to my right. J was cooler than me. I knew it by her turquoise yoga mat, her sunshine confidence and the lotus flower tattooed in white ink on her arm.

It was her turn to answer the questions. She started with something like: “For school, I just graduated from college this spring” and finished with “and for work, I’ll be moving to Madrid, Spain to teach English next month.” Here we were, me having haphazardly joined this YTT after a hungry yet brief foray into a yoga practice and J, having traveled all the way from Florida to enroll sight unseen in this training. We happened to plop down next to each other to form this circle, a formative stop on our path enroute to a gig across the Atlantic. If this was not a Witchy Moment, I don’t know what is.

Our paths intertwined in that circle nearly 12 years ago. This weekend, we are celebrating J’s wedding to M in Miami. At the end of the training, our teacher had jokingly cautioned J not to be a bad influence on me. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one aware that J was the cooler of the two. We’ve since joked that it’s now not so clear who was the bad influence on whom. To wax poetic briefly on our friendship, I will recall our ritual of lunch in El Retiro on Wednesdays after work, silly nights of beer and dancing, one hug in particular that consoled my first heartbreak, yoga classes (and more yoga classes) in studios across Madrid, Berlin, Boston, Miami and Zoom, games of phone tag that inevitably result in ruminations on life, growth, family and fear, not to mention our shared love for cachonda accessories.

I have come to liken the spiritual give-and-take of our friendship to Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumb path. J has been patiently preparing a trail for me for years. She tells me about some new experience she’s had or book she’s read. I express curiosity mixed with caution and then multiple years later, I follow in her footsteps trying that experience or reading that book. I wish there were a word to capture the feeling of gratitude to a previous version of ourselves for becoming friends. She is sage beyond her years. Her soul sparkles. She is a North Star.

I heard about M for years before we met. When we finally did, I was moved to tears by his gentle presence and the kind words he offered as a blessing before we we shared a meal together. I began to cry, which is maybe not that surprising, because I cry often and easily, but there was something beautiful about this man expressing himself alongside my friend. I felt overwhelmed by happiness for J to have a partner in M and immense reverence for the friendship that has spanned miles and años. May you bring each other as much joy, growth and abundance that J has shown me over the years.

¡Os quiero mucho!