bubbly bubbles.
A student of mine gifted me a bottle of really nice champagne for my birthday back in July. When I saw the gold-foiled top of the bottle amidst the tissue paper, I smirked in delight. After class, I found out that this was no arbitrary bottle of champagne – it was a bottle she had been saving for her wedding anniversary. As her husband had just recently dropped the heartbreaking news that he wanted a divorce, my student had been wondering what she would do with the bubbly so that it would not go to waste. She had determined that I would be the most likely to do it justice and find just the right opportunity to celebrate. She told me that knowing it was in my hands gave her joy. And suddenly, I had never been so intent on effectively drinking a bottle of champagne.
A month later, I popped the cork. And I feel like I really did it justice – I had been up crying, worrying, fretting and stressing on a Thursday night about the fact that I had overwhelmingly decided that I needed to quit my job. I woke up Friday morning, still in tears, stomach bottomed out and not quite sure what was going to happen. All I knew was that I had to be early to a meeting so I could catch my boss for a smidgen of alone-time to tell her of my completely unanticipated decision. There I was, feeling like I was about to break up with my most intimate of lovers, one of my longest romances ever being of that with this yoga studio and the people and my teaching… and worried because the last time I broke up with someone, it ended so horribly…
I had been anticipating the worst the entire time but instead, my resignation was accompanied by the best-case scenario. My boss (/sister/mentor/friend) told me she loved me and she supported me and that she was always there for me, no matter what. It was the longest Friday of my life. I taught a class that afternoon, feeling 1008 pounds lighter than I ever thought I would feel again and worked until the early evening, feeling weak from all the residual effects of worry.
After work, I drove home, picking up a Lil Caesar’s pizza (and crazy bread, duh) and a bottle of Gewurtztraminer. I walked in the front door of my empty house, opened the wine, started a bubble bath, set the pizza box on the floor by the tub and stripped down to sit in the water as it filled up. Once the tub was filled though, I realized… I had a bottle of champagne that I had been entrusted to drink on a very special occasion… and if there was any better time than that very moment, I could not think of what it might be.
Still covered in bubbles, I dribbled my way into my bedroom and grabbed the bottle (still in the box and hidden in one of the drawers of my dresser for the most perfect auspicious moment), put a couple ice cubes in my goblet (yes, goblet, and yes… ice cubes. Blasphemy, I know), and slinked back into the sudsy tub.
I can assure you that I did that bottle justice. And I cheers’ed to my friend every time I refilled that goblet.
“To letting go!” I giggled.
“To being scared!” I chanted.
“To new beginnings!” I sang.
I ate all but two slices of the pizza and drank the entire bottle of champagne by myself – in the bathtub. It was the most purely delightful Tantrikan celebration. And I sat there past the point of reasonable raisin-ing of the fingers and toes for an hour and a half, singing at the top of my lungs along with Mumford and Sons and Florence and the Machine, feeling lighter in my heart than I had in ages. Sure, maybe it was the bottle of bubbly, but I know I could have laid there, drunk, without having had a single drop and have felt just as ecstatic.
To being afraid to let go but knowing that you are never alone as you take that first step toward a new beginning – cheers.