Stormy weather

Low pressure systems and leadership vacuums

Out in the rain I keep on walking
Out in the rain like the brokenhearted do
I could be wrong but that's where you'll find me
Out in the rain just looking for you

An old Julie Miller song I used to cover, ‘Out in the Rain,’ has been jogging around my brain as I’ve been timing my walks with the forecast, even though I’m not feeling so much brokenhearted as wary these days. 

“Rain will stop at 10:16am” my NOAA weather app advises me, as I debated whether and when to get outside. The streets of Alameda were wet and the air filled with the sound of chainsaws. We’re on the outskirts of the winter storm now pummeling northern California, but any loose or weak branches broke during yesterday’s high winds and the storm drains are still a little clogged with fallen leaves. I checked and double-checked the sump pump lines, wondering if I should or would need to call Public Works about the storm drain… and would they answer, glad I am not afraid to wield a shovel. 

Fall 2024 has turned into a season of looming or sudden leadership vacuums and continual reminders about self-sufficiency. Between the election outcome and the recent spate of the president-elect’s cabinet picks, the weather, and sudden changes in two communities with which I associate, nothing has felt very solid.

Last week, I was saddened and shocked to receive the news that yoga teacher Sharath Rangaswamy Jois, the grandson of Pattabhi Jois passed away suddenly at age 53. Mysore-style Ashtanga was a huge part of my life for nearly 20 years. I practiced with Jois and Sharath in New York City amid during 9/11, on multiple trips to India, as well as at many US workshops throughout the years. In the wake of revelations about Pattabhi Jois’s sexual misconduct, coupled with my own age-related changes, my yoga practice has shifted away from the world of Mysore-style Ashtanga over the past decade, a whole other process of grief and letting go and learning to listen to myself. Still, I’d had a bit of FOMO earlier in the month, when a friend from those years told me she was flying to Virginia for Sharath’s workshop. A huge part of the draw of Ashtanga was belonging to a dynamic, international community. Many lovely people I used to know had kept on with their devotion to the practice and its teachers despite the less-skillful ways Sharath and many others had handled those #Metoo years. My heart and prayers went out to Sharath’s family and the global Mysore community who would be feeling this sudden and unexpected loss most acutely. 

Meanwhile, back in the US, my fall has also been colored by an unexpected shake up in leadership at Golden Gate Raptor Observatory, where I’ve been Hawkwatching during the annual fall migration season for a dozen years as part of a robust volunteer community. Amid a lot of confusion and program pauses, sadness and unanswered questions about the future of the organization, volunteers quickly mobilized to keep the count going — the birds, after all, were still flying — and prepare for an uncertain outcome.

While this process hasn’t been without grief and worry, it has shown me that a community’s strength is indicative of the quality of its prior leadership as much as the subject of its organization, be it a form of yoga, conservation or politics. If one has been given a structure, has assimilated the core information and there are enough people who can step up and work together, not all has to be lost. 

This is how I’m staying hopeful, if grimly, as the January inauguration looms. Time is short and life goes by fast. I’m not taking anything or anyone for granted.