One week remains before I catch the bus to the yoga training retreat . I can hardly believe I am doing this. I feel very nervous… perhaps because of the daunting programme, perhaps from worrying what it will be like and how the people will be, perhaps because it has been quite a while since I studied anything, or perhaps because I have invested much hope in this venture and I fear disappointment. Will it be the transformative experience I desire? Will it be the beginning of a career path? I never imagined it as one until recently,  and it still feels somehow strange to me. Will I be satisfied? Can I really make a living teaching yoga? What other things do I really want to do? How am I going to make the most difference to this world while making the most difference to myself as well? Is it possible to love one’s everyday routine?

Questions have been appearing almost constantly in my head of late, and I weary of them. It is easy to overthink things, which ultimately seems to separate a person from what is actually going on. Then, feeling a bit removed and disconnected, the mind spins even faster, because it is like watching a reflection of life off the mirror of the mind (or through the “vrittis”—whirlpools of the mind, mental activity—according to my yoga text). Well, surely three weeks of early morning meditation will help with that.

My vrittis are in full force these days and I feel easily distracted and often uncertain of what I ought to be doing. Strangely enough, all this whirling activity leaves me feeling like I have nothing much to say this week, and I must admit how challenging it is to maintain a weekly blog. Yes, I knew it would be hard, but contemplating a difficult task is a far cry from actually doing it. The real live act involves a lot more stomach than I expected: a twisty, churning feeling, that physically tightens and agitates the solar plexus as the end of the week approaches.

When the mind’s waters get choppy and the stomach starts doing gymnastics, it generally helps to just start moving—and the most therapeutic method of movement for me is going for a walk. If I don’t feel like going, I know I need it especially. Far away from the forests and shores of home, it is the riverside here that beckons my footsteps.

The charm of stone streets and narrow alleys remains undisputed, but Sevillan architectural beauty would not have quite the same effect if this city were not cloven by the elegant, gently-flowing giant, the river Guadalquivir. Apparently the name comes from Arabic, al-wadi al-kabir, which means either ‘great valley’, ‘big riverbed’ or ‘big wash’. Here in Sevilla, it is wide and calm. It is always peppered with rowers and kayakers, and every hour or so, a pack of tourists on a big oldfashioned-looking riverboat, that broadcasts information about the city over a loudspeaker, echoing in different languages across the water to the runners, cyclists, and walkers on the paved banks.

I find myself somewhere along that waterway almost every day. It feels like a friend, like a steady presence I can count on. I always feel better, at least a little, after a walk by the river.