Waheguru! -- Devon, England

Waheguru is a term from Sikhism meaning "wonderful teacher". It's what everyone around here says whenever something pleasant happens. Arms are thrown into the air and "Waheguru!" is exclaimed. It's the American version of "that's AWESOME!" 

 I'm starting this post from one of the two beanbag chairs in the living room area of my B&B home. The large windows behind me are spattered with rain and dotted with yoga posters, but the grey light that filters in is more than enough to write by. A large cup of raspberry lemon tea sits to my right (a cup that contained steaming Green and Black hot chocolate a few minutes ago) and the house is peaceful and quiet.

I haven't heard a honking horn in three days now. C'est incroyable.

Yesterday was bizarre and beautiful and delicious. I woke up at seven o'clock (I'm trying to give myself more sleep at this placement) and wrote a few words. Then I grabbed my sweater, popped in my contacts and went upstairs to the "yoga sanctuary" to lead the American volunteer in a 60 minute yoga vinyasa routine.

It felt incroyable to be able to teach again. To lead someone through a flow that I knew would leave them energized and refreshed. It was also encouraging how quickly I fell back into my comfortable style of teaching.

My body has memorized yoga the way my mind memorized Shakespeare in university. The rhythm of the movement (like the rhythm of iambic pentameter) has helped the postures to sink in and to sink in deep. I feel like I was born moving like this. Speaking like this. 

Kayla smiled the brilliant "my body feels fantastically exhausted and beautifully stretchy" smile and gave me some enthusiastic feedback about my approach to yoga.

I don't care what else happens today. My day is made. Made, I tell you. If I can help one person feel good in their body, it's more than enough for me.

But the rest of Thursday just got better. Harriet asked Rosie to make a batch of celery, wheatgrass, cucumber juice and sent Kayla and me on an errand to the local shop to purchase some fresh ginger. We chatted and shivered on the way down the High Street and I learned that Kayla used to be into finance and left everything behind to travel with her partner.

And absolutely loves the new life she's found.

Nary a root of ginger was to be found at either shop, so we shivered our way back to the B&B with empty hands. Rosie was still stalwartly stuffing stinky celery down Harriet's Green Machine, so I offered to take a turn as she finished washing the persistent, resistant slugs out of the remainder of the organic celery leaves.

This. This is what makes me think of home, I grinned as I picked a sneaky black slug from behind a mottled leaf and shoved the stalk into the grinding gears. I wonder how many of those guys have found their way into my juice. 

Harriet asked if I'd vacuum and dust the living room and be in charge of lunch.

"YES. I WILL COOK. I WILL COOK WHATEVER YOU LIKE WHENEVER YOU LIKE ALL THE TIME."

Maybe I overreacted a little bit.

"Okay, well why don't you make some slaw and do something with these potatoes?"

"And do you have sweet potatoes?"

"mmm..."

"Because I could make a really nice sweet potato dessert that my mom does."

"Mmm?"

 "Yeah, you chop them up into small pieces and mix them with raisins --"

"Mmm!"

 "--and walnuts and apples --

"Mmm!"

"-- and cinnamon and honey. It's a great comfort food."

"Mmm. Yes, I can just feel all the good energy! Yes, yes, you must make that. Sounds absolutely delicious, mmmm."

"Also..." I faltered, not wanting to ruin my luck but wanting to make sure I communicated well enough to set myself up for a good experience. "I'm someone who works best when I have a few set jobs every day. Like always cooking in the morning. Or always cleaning the sitting room in the afternoon. If I could have a few jobs that stay the same, that would make me really happy and I would be most efficient."

"Thanks for telling me that, Aimee. You know, since cooking seems to make you so happy, why don't you stick with that?"

So that is what I will be doing for my month at this B&B in Devon. Cooking vegetarian meals and  teaching the occasional yoga class. In return, I will be able to take classes in Kundalini yoga, meditation, some sort of yogic dance, have the coast of Devon at my disposal, and learn all about extra-terrestrial communication from Mars and Venus and how Jesus somehow fits into that equation.

I call it a good exchange. 

My new home. Yes please.

Halfway through my slaw, a surprise visitor turned up. A helpxer who had been missing for two weeks finally arrived on Harriet's front door in the middle of her "coffee morning". I won't go into too many details here, but the police showed up shortly afterwards (Harriet asked if they'd come for her coffee morning activity) and did some friendly interrogation over cups of black tea. As they do in England. Apparently the missing helpxer had recently been in some sort of mental institution and had, umm... ended his visit a bit prematurely.

After the police finished their tea, Harriet introduced me to Michael -- a lanky, easy-going looking bloke from South Africa who'd been to just about everywhere.

I don't care what's going on with this fellow or what the police were discussing over tea. He seems 100% pleasant and perfectly sane.

"Michael, this is Aimee," Harriet gestured to me. "She's making us lunch."

"Nice to meet you," I shook his large hand.

"Good to meet you too, yeah," his voice was breathy soft and sounded extremely out of place coming some such a large individual.

"Aimee's making us lunch," Harriet reiterated. "I'm sure she could use a lot of help, couldn't you, Aimee?"

"Sure. Want to cut the apples for me?" I nodded at a bowl of bruised, half-rotten, organic apples out of which I'd laboriously removed all the nasty bits.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay."

So I chatted with Michael as I finished cooking the slaw, baked potato wedges, baked cauliflower and sweet potato dessert. He was born in South Africa but had moved to the UK with his family when he was fourteen. He spent his early adulthood in England and had gone to university to pursue medicine and sports education, but never finished his degree because he decided halfway through that western medicine was largely a load of bollocks and went off to volunteer growing squash in South America.

These are my people. Squash growing rebels of the world, unite. 

Harriet's ex-husband turned up early afternoon and puttered around for a few hours, tinkering with plumbing and electricity and talking to me about how all Americans should be armed against alien invasion. Or the government. I can't remember which.

"Well," I interjected as tactfully as I could, "I think that gun control in America could be a little more strict. People can just sell their used guns on the local newspaper these days. Anyone can get their hands on assault rifles or pistols and I don't think that's particularly healthy for a society."

He said something else about aliens and conspiracies and how all shootings in America are staged by the government to strike fear into the hearts of the public and to take away their rights, and then puttered on to tend to the garden. I wish I could remember the exact conversation, but I was so startled at the fact that a European was advocating gun ownership, that I mostly just stood there with my mouth hanging open in a completely dumbfounded manner.

What do I... God. What do I even say to that? 

I'm really trying to keep an open mind here, but am finding it challenging to be completely open to ideas I'd never even considered plausible before.

Aliens. Yeah. I could be open to aliens. Jesus from Mars. Errr... why not?

Yes. Reading "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" was perfect preparation for this place.

I attended an hour long meditation class with Harriet that evening directly followed by an hour and a half Sivananda yoga class with a local teacher.

Three yoga classes in two days. Two chances to cook. Four hours of writing and one beautiful walk along the coast. This is the life. This is what makes me feel alive. This is what brings out the good in me. 

I ate hidden, forbidden chocolate with my roommates and fell asleep to the very mature sounds of pillow fights and giggles.