“A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”
― Ian McEwan, Atonement

As I sat on the porch with my grandmother, watching the slowly drying results of a morning spent hunched over giant pans of sun-warmed soap water, I realized that the largest difference between my life in the US and my life in Ghana is its exposure to the sunlight. That is – in the US, I spend a lot of time in manicured interactions, on my own terms and much of my life is private. I’m socially anxious about the manufactured conversations and small talk that, like a lukewarm microwaved lean cuisine in an empty apartment the day after a family reunion, seem grossly inappropriate.

In Ghana, my laundry flaps in the wind, gets an extra rain cycle rinse and finally is sun-bleached dry. If you don’t pay attention to the wind or wait to late, you are S.O.L. Washing is not a private, routinized process of hiding dirty things and stuffing them into a machine only to think about them 45 minutes later – it’s a physical and public process that is open to the elements.

I’m turning 28 soon, entering my fourth cycle of 7 years, the one that Carolina Shola Arewa, all around guru about confluence of African and Eastern spirituality, calls the time of creativity and life purpose/childbirth. Now, I’m not planning to have a physical child, but I have talked for hours with friends, family and the amazing life doula, Ashiya Swan about using these next few years to start sewing seeds and fertilizing new projects and visions.

I started the work with McEwan’s quote about the fragility of being human and the further fragility of being a human surrounded by the common comforts of the global North with no need to be aware of how the earth moves. One of the beauties of this yoga project is that I realize that my own practice, like so many others helps me draw closer to an awareness of the earth and reality, even as I move in a manufactured world.

Unlike just “exercise” which might get the same cardio results, or “prayer” which is a one directional conversation the beauty of yoga is the process, the intentional connection and waiting on the sacred Word. I notice the weather, how it impacts my body, it influences my practice not only where I chose to practice but how my body actually flows through postures. While I move my way into postures and wait for my body and mind to calm down and my breath to flow perhaps I am washing, washing, and squeezing, washing and squeezing and scrubbing my soul clean. The life I live is me flapping and waving in the wind, proudly exposed to the elements without fear of being seen because I am a work in process, but as clean as I can be because I did the work myself. I also become more resilient and proud of my patches for they are signs that I have, indeed been mended.

Today, sitting beside my 70-somthing year old grand mother, speaking our made up language that is a hybrid of random sign language,some Dangme and some English and lots of hand holding to make sure the other is really there, I am proud to watch my size 22 panties flapping in the wind.

This week my mat meditation is about the process of cleaning and shining light on things that are dirty or that need mending. How do you deal with those aspects of your life that are dirty or torn? How much energy do you put into hiding those parts of yourself vs. letting them see the sun?