Early Pandemic Reflections
Today, my age is 33.3... In other words, I have been breathing on our planet for 33 full laps around our favorite star, and today marks the ⅓ point of another lap. For many reasons, this feels like the right time to provide an update to family and friends on my life:
Firstly, I am in Cocles, Costa Rica and it is unclear when I will be able to return to Boston or Botswana. Background context for why I am where I am begins with my family...
In January, I flew to the USA to celebrate my grandfather's 100th birthday. I have always felt a close connection with "Papa" Littman. Our birthdays are a day apart (I turned 33 the day prior), and he and "Neenee" fostered my love of the natural world, creativity, and adventurous spirit throughout my childhood and teenage years.
My fondest earliest memories are of walking along beaches, rivers, and streams of New England with Neenee and Papa admiring and collecting rocks, shells, and driftwood for Papa to incorporate into his art pieces. Papa is an artist, and his signature medium during his career was "Unique Assemblages of Found Wood". All Littman and Littman-Quinn households are adorned with beautiful artwork and furniture (e.g. white framed piece behind my head in the video, dining table under the cake) composed of thoughtfully-arranged fragments of our natural world.
I could not be more fortunate or thankful to have celebrated our birthdays with our (growing) family in January.
My goodbye exchanges with most people in the photo above included something along the lines of "seeya in April for the wedding!" And their response being, "Enjoy Costa Rica!"
When I learned the dates for Papa's birthday celebration and my cousin's wedding, I decided to go to Costa Rica in between for a 200-hour yoga teacher training and to volunteer on permaculture and biodiversity regeneration projects.
My Costa Rica trip is part of a "professional pivot" I started last year... I am pivoting my energies away from mobile tech innovations exclusively for human health towards broader innovations that regenerate human, animal, and environmental health (i.e. "Planetary Health" or "One Health").
In mid-March, when our world started locking down in response to the global pandemic, my cousin postponed his wedding and my yoga training ended abruptly.
All my flight options home or to Boston were a mess and my immune system was compromised, so I decided to join the quarantine with the permaculture community. As the local lockdown lifted, I transitioned out of the jungle to a nearby tourist town, where I have been based for the past month, stabilizing my immune system and feeling out my next move.
My immune system has been struggling with a variety of issues, but homesickness is by far the worst. I have found the most soothing therapy is practicing yoga with driftwood on the beaches. Whenever I am present with driftwood, I feel a connection with Papa, family, and my creativity.
I started referring to this routine as my “Driftwood Practice”... Most days, around sunrise or sunset, I saunter to the beach and play around with creative combinations of my hands and feet on pieces of driftwood, which are arranged differently daily due to the tides, erosion, and weather. I explore the edges of my range of motion in whatever poses suit the wood arrangement, my body, and the elements (I love practicing in the rain and amongst the waves, but then I need to mindfully adapt my movements to the slipperiness).
I always pause to balance and explore new perspectives of the groovy wood around me, and whenever I see an insect, snail, bird or crab nearby, I will intentionally observe it from various angles.
Sometimes, I enter a flow state, where I allow creative self-expression and pursuit of new perspectives to guide my movements. When flowing, I am constantly moving and undulating my body to a rhythm, while feeling out options to embrace the wood from creative angles or climb higher off the ground.
Some days I feel as light, balancy, strong, and/or playful as when I was younger... Other days I feel as heavy, achy, stiff, weak, gentle, and/or wobbly as I may feel more frequently later in life.
Regardless, I practice presencing, creatively exploring the edges of my physical abilities in relation to my situation, and experiencing beauty and awe... a foundational practice that will serve me well if I am so fortunate to live as full a life as Papa.
Over the months I have jotted down notes in my journal to guide my Driftwood Practice. They are now guiding principles as I pursue my professional pivot and navigate the uncertainty of a life currently straddled between Costa Rica, Boston, and Botswana...
Seek Sun
Sync & Observe
Prioritize Posture
Begin Balancing
Embrace All Angles
Explore Edges
Pursue Perspective
Strategically Strain
Mind Momentum
Identify & Release Tension
Appreciate the Grooviness
Maintain Faith in the Flow
Sit with the Awe
Keep Climbing
My driftwood practice deepens my connection with myself and our natural world. This blog (or some variation of it... I will be launching a website once I reconnect with my laptop) is my practice for deepening my connections with you, my amazing global family and friends.
I will be posting more life updates and reflections here as my journey unfolds... Keep it real and keep in touch.
Peace. Love. Driftwood.
Ryan
P.S. If you would like to see images of me with driftwood captured by super talented friends/yogis/photographers, you can view them
and
.