Day 20: Guadeloupe

Part one

Eleven days have passed.
And I have no idea how to sum them up.

Not because nothing happened but because everything was so subtle, so dense, so close to the body that words often feel too rough.
I had no language for it. But now I want to at least try.

I begin every day outside. Before six.
The birds are already awake by then.
And the light does not sneak in. It stretches slowly across the land, touching leaves, grass, my bare skin.

I walk barefoot across the still damp stone floor, the air cool but not cold.
I spread my yoga mat on the lawn, at the back edge of the garden where you can hear the sea in the distance, like a great breathing animal.

Most days I leave the mat behind and step a little further barefoot into the grass, damp, soft, alive.

I begin my practice naked.
Not to be free, but to truly be here.
I want to feel where the air touches me.
I want to feel the sun as it slowly crawls across my shoulder.
I want to know what the morning really feels like.

The first movements are slow.
Cat-cow. Waves through my spine.
I let my vertebrae speak, one by one.

I move into downward dog, let my heels sink, not to the ground, but in that direction.
It pulls in my calves. Burns a little.
I endure it. Breathe deeper.

I move through a few sun salutations, quiet, fluid.
Some poses hold me longer.
I sink into pigeon, press my forehead to the ground, feel how deeply my hips can speak when I listen.

And then I wobble.

I try a balance pose Warrior III and lose it.
I tip, land on one cheek in the wet grass, laugh out loud with the sky above me.

And in that moment, he suddenly stands there.
The gardener.

He must have come from the lower property, silent as a cat.
He stood there with a large rake in his hand and saw me. Entirely.

A brief moment of stillness.
I sat naked, twisted, laughing in the grass.

He nodded. Calmly. As if he had seen it all before.
“Bonjour, madame,” he said, with a voice like crackling leaves.

I nodded back. Still laughing a little.
Then I slowly rose, brushed the grass from my hip, and moved back into downward dog.

He walked on. As if nothing had happened.

And me?
I had never felt so much myself.

I continued. Not out of defiance, but out of gratitude.
I noticed how soft my belly had become. Not physically - inside.
How much less I defended myself against myself.

After practice I moved slowly into the kitchen.
I rinsed my hands in cold water, let it run down my forearms.
Then I cut fruit, papaya, mango, sometimes small wild bananas I had bought at the market.
I roasted coconut chips in the pan, ground cardamom, mixed cashews, oats, lime zest.

I took my time.
Every movement of my hands carried weight.

I loved how the fruit smelled.
How it stuck to my fingers.
How sweet it was before I even tasted it.

I stirred everything with coconut yogurt, sat outside on the wooden bench beneath the porch roof, let my legs dangle.

I ate slowly.
Not because I wanted to be mindful but because my body itself had slowed.

I still felt the yoga in my shoulders.
In my hips.
In the skin along my shins.

I heard nothing but birds.
And the distant surf.

Sometimes I stayed there for a long while after.
With the empty bowl in my hand, the spoon between my fingers.
Staring at the water in the pool.
Or at an ant walking across my toe.

I did nothing.
I did not even think much.
I was simply there.

And sometimes a thought came.
Not loud. Very quiet.

What if something inside me is changing right now?

Do I push it away? Or no - let it drift.
I do not want to understand what is happening to me.
I want to feel it.

There are days when I feel how much energy is in my body before I even rise from bed.
As if something inside were knocking.
Not loudly. But with certainty.

On those days I go running.
Barefoot. Along the beach where the sand is deep and soft. Where every step becomes a decision.

It is not easy running.
Not the “light-footed gliding across the sand” you see in pictures.
It is work.

My feet dig in. My calves fight. My breath is loud.
I snort like an animal.

The deep muscle groups burn. The ones that are rarely noticed.
I feel them. And they speak up.

I love that.
That honest, raw sensation when the body pushes to its limits.
When the mind can no longer interfere because it is not needed.

I sweat. Not just a little.
Sweat pours down.
Drips from my forehead. Crawls down my back.
It burns in my eyes. I blink, push onward through the sand.

I stumble, of course.
Set my foot down wrong, the sand gives way and I fall full length.

My whole body lands in the sand.
It sticks to me everywhere.
I look breaded.

I laugh out loud. So loud a gull startles into flight.

I stay lying there for a moment.
Hear my heart.
And think: this is life.

Then I rise, brush myself off, half-heartedly and walk back slowly.
No need to make up for it.
I was there. I am there.

Later in the day I return to the sea.
Not to play. To swim.

Properly. With goggles.

I enter slowly, step by step.
The water is clear, lightly stirred.
I glide in, push off, find my rhythm quickly.

I swim parallel to the shore, in water two meters deep.
I see the bottom, sand, small stones, algae, shells, movement.
A school of tiny silver fish darts beneath me.

I am no intruder.
I am part of them.

I swim long.
Not fast.
But far.

I lose track of time.

Only my arms, my breath, the steady splash, the whistle as I draw air.

I arrive deep within myself, where nothing more needs to be said.
Only being.

When I come out again, my skin is cool.
Not freezing more infused with water, light, movement.

I wring out my hair, sit down on the warm wooden jetty that leads from the house to the dune and let the sun do the rest.
The wind is mild, like silk, drying first my shoulders, then my back, then everything else.

I lean back, brace myself with my hands, tilt my head.
I am exhausted.
But not empty.
I am… wide.

My muscles hum, not from pain but from work.
My chest still rises and falls faster than usual but not rushed.
It is a quiet after-vibration.

I breathe in through my nose, long and deep, pause at the top, then let everything flow out of me in a long sigh.
And again.

The sun rests warm on my belly.
On the insides of my thighs.
On the salt on my skin, now crackling like thin crystals.

I close my eyes.
Feel the wood beneath me. How it still holds the heat of the day.
Feel my fingers slowly release.
My toes no longer tense.

My whole body sinks into itself, like into a hammock made of warmth and breath.

I smile.
No one sees it.
But I do.
Because I love being here.
Inside myself.
So still.

I stay like this for a long time.
No thought presses in.
No “What now?”, no “What tomorrow?”.
Only the hum of insects, the distant surf and my body simply being.
Like a friend who needs no explanation.

I have not overcome myself.
I have experienced myself.

After days like this I need… nothing.
No next task.
No goal.
Not even recovery.

I simply lie.
Sometimes in the shade of the veranda.
Sometimes beneath the tree by the pool.
Sometimes on the wooden lounger, a cloth over my eyes, the world at my back.

My body is still so infused with movement that even in rest it is not still.
I feel my thighs spreading over the warm lounger.
I feel my shoulders slowly release.
I feel my breastbone rise, my stomach sink, the breath carrying me.

I do nothing.
And I relish it.
So much.

It is not an empty kind of nothing.
It is an inwardly open nothing.
As if I could hear myself echoing.
Like a space that is not void but ready.

“What remains after days like this is not the salt on my skin, nor the tired hum in my muscles, but the quiet certainty that I can meet myself without needing to change.”