dre poetic: words by adrien salazar

I went to a yoga class for the first time at Yoga to the People in Berkeley yesterday. My body is now more awake than ever. Mind you, this is my first exercise in years that isn’t walking to and from the BART station.

Smart choice I made — it was the most intense workout I’ve had since endurance running cross country in high school. The class is power yoga in the vinyasa-style and by the end I was covered in sweat in the hot room, while at the same time calm, relaxed, and energized.

This is the metaphor of my life right now. After months and months of reflection, I’m going live. Full immersion-style whether I like it or not.

Last week I went to Chicago for a Neighborworks America conference on social media and community. The conference was a wake up call for me, not so much for its content but for the very fact that my work sent me to the conference. I didn’t expect to be attending conferences in my first year of work as an admin assistant. But here I am.

What I’ve realized now is that I sit atop a mass of opportunity and life experiences that are at my fingertips if I wake up from my self-induced slumber and start making some bold choices.

Philosopher Alfred D. Souza wrote,

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin – real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

I haven’t felt obstacles so much as a lack of direction. Life would begin when I decided what life I wanted to live. And it dawned on me — this is my life now. The figuring it out, the experiments, the missteps — all this is my life. It came to me like lightning that I know how I want to live. I have known this for years. I have been moving in this direction the whole time.

I am a community builder and a writer. I am an activist and a scholar. I am an artist and a history-maker. It’s taken me a while to visualize the path of this life, but I realize that the way is right in front of me. I work for the Chinatown Community Development Center for gossakes.

I have been taking the steps all along. But now I move decidedly, with purpose. I am making the life I dream of real. I am awake now. My life is moving in waves whether I feel it or not.  I am taking hold of the surfboard and diving in.