One summer morning

I've been getting telephone calls periodically from a certain Geneviève in Béziers, France, who once tried Bikram Yoga in New Zealand and wants to become a certified teacher, open a studio, get rich and live happily ever after. I gave her the straight deal. The only place to get certified is with Bikram, in LA or wherever he happens to feel like holding a certification. In order to get there, you have to practice his yoga regularly for a minimum of six month, dish out a bunch of cash you consider an investment for the future. I felt it best to hold on to the information that in addition to the two Bikram classes a day in a burning hot room full of some of the most intense people you've ever met, you have to stay awake as Bikram talks about Peace, and Happiness, and Money, and Fame and Women until three in the morning. I told Geneviève to come and see me and we'd talk more in depth.

Two months later she called again. "Does it really have to be six months, or can I just practice a little less? If I go to the certification, am I guaranteed to get certified? Then can I open my own studio?" I haven't met her, so I re-state the six month requirement firmly. I tell her most people that finish the 9 week certification leave with a certificate. I ask her what her reasons are for choosing Bikram Yoga.

"Well, I did some research and the Bikram certification is the quickest one."

I realized she wasn't calling me for information regarding my certificate, but desperately seeking assurance that everything will be alright, and that it will be alright right now!

Goodness, I know how she feels. I know very little about her and I know nothing about her current situation, but I have been guilty several times in my life of reaching out to people I hardly knew because of their apparent success or experience or motivation, even sometimes good looks, seeking a reading of my future in which I am successful. It's what most of us would refer to as being lost; more consumed by the contemplation of the action than the action itself.

So what has brought me to this point, in which I hold the crystal ball? I suppose it is because I am being consumed by the action. But all Geneviève sees is the action, and not that I'm being consumed. I am the owner of a yoga school. After years of scattered pre-meditation, I opened it. Here, I teach Bikram yoga.

I'll cut to the chase. Though I was granted permission by Bikram to teach his very unique form yoga, I don't have permission to open a Bikram Yoga school because I don't have a lot of what's included in his brand name. Mainly, 300 square meters or 3,200 square feet of space all dedicated to nothing but Bikram Yoga. I was also pre-occupied up until recently applying for permission from France to teach any yoga at all (see previous entry).

In the seasonal town of Aix-en-Provence, where the population is small or twice as small depending on the time of year, I'm posing my own questions about success.

But what does this have to do with yoga? I'm interpreting what Geneviève needs, based on the unspoken, but I want to tell her that everything is going to be alright. Everything is always alright. Yoga comes into play when we don't know when.

Patience and perseverance. The progress taking place in our lives is, most of the time, invisible. But it's happening ever so subtly under the surface, even when we are suffering, or especially when we are suffering. And in one night it will bloom, like summer in Provence. In the morning you wake up and the Hawthorn tree has buried the cars parked outside in thick pink blossoms.

So, I got married

I changed the title of this blog from "Changing, Never Ending" to something less subtile and philosophic. "Southern French Hot Yoga Life" is simply what I'm living now, and all the rest, Changes, Endings, Beginnings, Happiness, Loss, Loneliness, Love, Etc. Etc. are evidently a part of this experience. I also hoped that by putting "French" and "Hot" in the title, this blog might reach more people.
When I last wrote in June 2010, I was in Vienna, sitting on the floor finishing off a bottle of leftover Prosecco. Since then, I have returned to France, opened a yoga studio in Aix-en-Provence, moved to a bigger studio and gotten married.
I got married two months ago and though I grow happier about that decision daily, I still find it completely bizarre. When asked for my last name, I say "Gaubert" and then smirk. I cannot keep a straight face. I am by now able to fairly smoothly say "mon mari" when talking about "my husband" but have trouble saying it in English or writing it without the quotes.
We were engaged three and a half months ago. After months of living with me as I awaited an official decision regarding my application to stay in France to build my own business, my boyfriend at the time got sick of putting up with my stress. As I remember it, he backed me in to a corner one evening when I had barley stepped in the front door and said, "We're getting married." I took a breath and said, "Okay." I stood up straighter so I would feel more serious and adult, and said "okay" again. Then I called my mother and said, "We're getting married." We decided to get married in a hurry. I was able to lure my immediate family to the South of France a month and a half later with the excuse that I was getting married. So, at the end of March, we had a lovely small wedding, whipped up to perfection in an instant by my mother-in-law.
All the excitement and optimism that leads up to a wedding can only be followed by a down-turn. I was glad our wedding was so quickly planned and over with. I cannot imagine what kind of depression brides that plan their wedding for a year must feel when it's over. Both "my husband" and I were feeling a bit glum afterwards, but thankfully, we were stuck with each other to ride the wave back up again.
We recently went out to eat at a restaurant that we frequent with my mother-in-law. The chef came out of the kitchen to chat with us as he always does. When we told him that we had gotten married, he looked at us wrinkling his forehead for three quarters of a second and then said, " People are still doing that?"

"In America they do it all the time."

I was anti-marriage before I got married. That's why I moved to France. The rising current is vastly more anti-marriage here. Having kids is reasonable and expected, just don't get married to have them. I thought, Americans are so idealistic and naive, stuck in a tradition that no longer serves our society. In America, people of even my generation are getting married.
But under my certain circumstances, I found myself surprised to enjoy an optimism marriage brought my family, still, though they've witnessed the fall of such alliances. This incredible optimism that is deeply ingrained in my culture, that's what I miss the most about America. And if there is one thing I find deep within myself from my culture that I hold on to, I hope it is the optimism.