Leaving is easy.

1. Teagan.

Yin and InnerYoga class in San Francisco, December 2014.  I am folded into an intentionally uncomfortable balasana.  I am wearing a shirt with a thankfully small Philly PowerYoga logo, Steve’s picture and all – got it on an impulse to hold onto something as I was leaving.  I remember Teagan.  I went to Teagan’s classes back in Philly weekly for nearly three years.  In 2010, I tried a forearm stand for the first time and collapsed all over the place, despite Teagan lifting me by my legs.  Late 2012, in Teagan’s class, I got into my first forearm stand, unguided albeit supported (don’t tell Steve we use mirrors for support).  Teagan too talked about emotions rising in uncomfortable hip openers.  Teagan was intense, thoughtful, bright.  Teagan devised mind boggling sequences.  Teagan’s PhD was about Philadelphia cuisine some 200 years ago.  When I last saw her before I left, I thanked her and embraced her, and that had significance of the end of an era.  And I left.  Now is another era.

2. Wanderer.

One of your last house parties, as they were.  A few people ever show and they come and go.  We all dance a little bit.  I dance a little bit, go, come back, dance again.  Your young friend comes by, the three of us chat.  I say something about broken hearts and what not.  Your stare lingers on me longer than I speak, I look back into your grey slanted gallic eyes: yes?  The young friend goes, it’s just the two of us, not counting the Artist somewhere in the back of the house.  We dance.  You kiss me.  We dance more.  The Artist brings champagne (what?), disappears.  We kiss.  I am going home.  “May I come with you?” you ask softly.  No, you may not.  Because you are leaving.  Where were your eyes and your kisses as long as you stayed?  I am here to stay, and I’ll have none of this at your terms.

3. Tigger.

Tigger recollects, bewildered, how all the girls were all over him when he was just about to leave the Tiggerland.  Mhm.  I too remember playing with fires recklessly just before I left home.  Because I was leaving.  I could break hearts, and did.  Because I was leaving, and because everyone who left before me did as well.  As well as Tigger, I carried on playing with fires, breaking stuff, at new homes, and not caring, because I would leave again.  As well as Tigger, I got scared once I realized I might be staying – in the middle of the destruction.  “Can I count on your complete discretion?” he begs.  No, you cannot.  Some discretion – perhaps, as I please, but it’s your destruction to fix.  I am here to stay, and I’ll do none of your sweeping under carpets.

Leaving is easy.  Whatever meant the world, will no longer.  Breaking hearts, burning bridges, not caring is easy.  Leaving is easy.  Now, how about staying.  How about caring.