Nicole Sheldrake

His willowly mother stretches her lengthy legs along the street bench. A flash of pink knickers. Sand coats her face, blown from the construction site across the road. He watches her movements, tiny adjustments of clothing and limbs for comfort, his lips pursed. She’s trying to embarrass him, draped over the bench like a leopard on a tree branch. He steps from the shadow of a tiny alley between shops and shuts the wrought iron gate behind him. The screech of pavement being bladed open drowns out the crashing of waves on the beach. His eyes dart to the left. No cars. He locks his gaze on the woman who birthed him and strides into the street. He plants his feet in front of her, frowning down.

A finger lifts to tip her sunglasses up, revealing caramel eyes. “That colour is shit on you. You should only wear black.”

“Sit up. Behave like a lady.” He reaches forward as though to grab her arm and haul her into a more proper sitting position.

Her left leg moves quicker than his hand and her foot knocks his arm away. “You do not get to touch me.” Back straight, ready to pounce.

He stumbles back, eyes blinking at a furious rate, mouth puzzled. The scent of baking waffle cones competes, and loses, with the gusts of seaweed-infused air from the beach.

“This guy bothering you, ma’am?” A low voice on the edge of anger. It’s owner, large, black-skinned, slouches in the shade next to the antiques store, his chunky hand resting on low shelf of dark, heavy wood from the Congo.

“He’s my son,” she calls back, never taking her eyes from the male fruit of her loins. “I can handle him. Thank you, though.”

“You can’t stay here, mother.” He will not plead. He sits down, imitating her erect posture. “Come back and stay with me.” He hears the tremour in his voice. They both do.

“My son.” The wind swirls another layer of sand onto her face. His mother rises, cups his cheek briefly, and crosses the street, moving with the wind toward the pile of sand next to the construction site. As she walks, gusts of wind grab at her brown dress, whipping it like leaves in a gale. The sand on her face rises up in the mini-storm. Now there is no face beneath the sand. She is all sand, disintegrating in the wind.

The son lurches to his feet. My heart is like a sand castle before the waves. A garbage truck passes through his line of sight.

A spotted brown dress, empty, drapes over the pile of sand across the street.

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I have always ended my classes by asking students to think of something or someone for which they are grateful. Studies done about the effects of gratitude have found that not only does gratitude have a positive effect on emotions, it can also have a positive physiological effect. Check out this blog post on HealthSkills for more info if you’re interested. To me, this moment of gratitude is important because it makes me take stock of who and what are important in my life. It’s interesting to note the people or situations that are front of mind and which change from one day to the next. If I have something to be grateful for, well and good. If not, then what do I need to change about my life? And how do we change our lives when we are such habitual creatures? Where do we get the perspective needed to say, I need to change this but not this?

My answer of course, is yoga. In fact it’s the answer to most questions people ask me. Where do I buy dried pears? Yoga. Are aliens invading Vancouver? Yoga. Is the seapool being cleaned? Yoga. What tool can I use to change my life? Yoga!

Yoga is simply a tool, teaching us to see the world in a specific manner. The core of yoga is mindfulness, otherwise known as being in the present moment. But why is mindfulness important? What does it mean?

Christopher Germer, Ph.D. provides an excellent explanation in his article entitled What is Mindfulness?:

“Obviously, if we are less upset by events in our lives our suffering will decrease. But how can we become less disturbed by unpleasant experiences? Life includes pain. Don’t the body and mind instinctively react to painful experiences? Mindfulness is a skill that allows us to be less reactive to what is happening in the moment. It is a way of relating to all experience—positive, negative and neutral—such that our overall suffering is reduced and our sense of well-being increases.To be mindful is to wake up, to recognize what is happening in the present moment. We are rarely mindful. We are usually caught up in distracting thoughts or in opinions about what is happening in the moment. This is mindlessness.

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The Pirate Diaries have ended and so has my sojourn into creative writing. I may go back to the creative writing at some point or I may not.

This means that this website will now focus on classic hatha yoga of which I am now a teacher. Yay!

Thanks for reading!

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