30 consecutive days of yoga, day 23

Breakfast on the deck of the lodge at Esalen

When I'm at Esalen for Soul Motion workshops, I pop awake at about 4:30 in the morning. It's still really dark outside, so I sneak out of my room with my pre-packed bag and wander down to the lodge to make coffee in a travel press. I check email on my phone, have a couple of sips of coffee, and then continue on my way down to the cliffside baths. Usually there's almost no one there, so I fill a white metal tub with hot springs water and slide in. I stare at the ocean or the stars, or close my eyes and fall asleep a little bit. Eventually, the sky and the water turn slate and more people come wandering down. When the sun is fully up, I shower, get dressed and trudge slowly up the hill to breakfast. I'm usually pretty hungry by then. Every day it's the same marvelous thing for breakfast for me: two hard-boiled eggs, a bowl of 7-grain hot cereal topped with homemade granola, yogurt, and shredded coconut, and a couple of prunes. If I'm feeling frisky, I'll eat an orange. I'll chat with people in my workshop, good friends from around the world I've come to know well over the years, even if we only see each other every 12 months. And then we dance.

I tell you all this to describe the very specific feeling of waking up slowly, centimeter by centimeter, and in particular the moment when I am finally awake, which is when I'm walking up the hill, hungry and happy. This is exactly how I felt leaving the 6:30 class this morning. What a wonderful way to begin again. The only problem is that no one had breakfast ready for me.

What happened: I miss Esalen. A lot.