Oh, the weather outside is frightful
I woke up much earlier than I usually do on Sunday morning. I took a nice hot shower and took my time drinking my tea. Enveloped in my bathrobe, I meandered quietly through the early morning dark of the house. I finally wandered back into my bedroom, beginning to think about putting on some stretchy pants when I saw my Blackberry flashing. There was an email from one of my students:
“Goodness! Today is no day for commuting. Will you make it up for class?” Confused, I looked at the time. 6:45am. Still half an hour until I usually leave to make the drive from Denver to Boulder. Perplexed, I finally opened the curtains of one of the windows. Outside was a fresh new cover of snow and more was falling, anxious to add to the growing mess.
I rushed into stretchy pants, pulled on three layers of shirts and slid out across the snow to my car.
The commute was a disaster. I’m not one to worry about driving in adverse conditions, but I found myself getting very worried on multiple occasions. I don’t think I ever got to going over 30mph, and there was never a spot on the highway that wasn’t packed with snow. I yelled at every car that passed me for being impatient, I tried in vain to stay between what may or may not have been lines and prayed that I wouldn’t get stuck behind any semis.
I couldn’t imagine I would make it to church on time (aka, my 8:30am Sunday morning class). When I finally slid into my parking spot at the Boulder studio, it was seven minutes past class start time. A small handful of students were waiting for me at the front door of om time. They cheered as they saw me walk up, so genuinely glad to see I was safe. I was shaking as I tried to unlock the door and scoot across the floor without slipping to turn off the alarm.
One of my students noticed I was shaking and suggested I run my hands under some hot water to warm up. “I’m not cold,” I said. “I’m just shook up.” It had taken me an hour and a half to get to Boulder instead of the usual forty-five minutes.
We all unrolled our mats together, taking our time to get acclimated to our own thawing bodies. I sat down on my mat and looked around at the ladies.
“So…” I said, finally able to authentically smile at each warm face. “Who’s teachin’?”
When you find yourself on a difficult path, what keeps drawing you forward? There is somewhere that your heart is leading you and even in the moments when you can’t see clearly where you are, it calls out its promise to continue forward. And no matter how hard the going gets or how unsure of how you will arrive in your destination, there are those who wait patiently for you. They are the people who endlessly support you, root for your success and pray for your safety. And when you arrive, no matter have far you may have strayed from them, no matter how lost you may have found yourself, no matter if you turned down any of their offers for help – their arms are open and they hold you fiercely to warm you back up.