Photo by Joanna Darlington, DC November 2014
Why am I here?
I’m moving through sun salutations as this thought keeps popping in my head along with a bad crowd of mental fluctuations like the mean text I’m going to send my husband for making me late (because isn’t everything ALWAYS someone else’s fault) and how the usual lovely white noise that is the mysore room undulating with breath has been replaced in my ears by what sounds like the loudest broken vaccuum cleaner and now that it’s fall there’s a light on right above me probably exposing a goldmine of previously undiscovered flaws in my face and jesus it’s so bright I feel it’s heat like the frog I was once asked to dissect in biology and suddenly the neon lighting in every dressing room I’ve ever changed clothes in strikes me as downright romantic and jesus f*ck how is it 7:45 already I’m late! Why can’t I get here a damn ten minutes sooner and god YOU ARE SO NOT SUPPOSED TO BE THINKING LIKE THIS DURING SURYA NAMASKAR ESPECIALLY NOT WHEN YOU ARE IN A MYSORE ROOM FOR F*CK”S SAKE and God this morning is a f*cking disaster I should just pack up my mat and tell the teacher sorry, I’ve got to run. Run!
Perhaps I should back up a bit.
I wake before my alarm with moments to meditate on my breath (I’m so f*cking holy), French press coffee waiting only for me to push it to splendid completion (thanks early riser husband), canines awaiting poop pick-ups by someone other than me: I am so getting in the car before 7. Mental high five!
….Until husband jumps in the shower and the kid wakes up just as i’m about to walk out the door. When I finally put the car in drive I’m so f*cking mad. This is my day! Why does he wait ’till now to shower!! I’m so busy flustering myself I barely notice as I get on the highway in the wrong direction adding to my already delayed 23-minute trip and I can’t hold it in, I start cursing at the top of my lungs in my car and driving like a girl who grew up on Long Island who is busy mentally blogging about how if you want to make a conscientious objection to the speed limit you better not f*cking do it in the left lane and then, oh then, I notice the irony of driving to yoga like Brittany Spears of the shaved-head-baseball-bat-to-car-era so I turn my attention instead to Fifty Cent rapping in my car, which negligibly soothes my neurotic, assholian soul.
Why am I here?
I notice the pummeling thoughts and the self-judgment riding on their devil wings and get my sh*t together on this patch of Manduka.
I am, so I don’t get to practice only when there is perfect. I start to move away from this “little hell”** and into now, into the second series and man, that teacher better be back before I do kapo (wait did I write that thought out loud) because I don’t need help there I just want to be seen, to be doing something right for once, and then it’s back to get your sh*t together breathing, focus on serving my favorite mysore room compatriot as he works it and with my eyes and a whisper I tell him it’s awesome and I can’t fight it anymore, I am in flow, I am in forever, I am in this moment, then this one, then this, the beauty of this kind of practice perhaps existing not in “the next posture” but in always having a challenging posture***, and for me, it’s more a parade of all the postures that come after the big intermediate backbend and man, I love them for that. Let me struggle into the calmest, Alex Honnoldian breath I can find to keep me here, upside down on my forearms. Let me struggle into the stealthy contentment of right now.
Trying, being, serving** –Right into the final backbend. “I think That’s the best we’ve ever done” says the teacher. And then I’m off, deciding to forgo a complaintext to my husband– and lo and behold who’s getting tailgated now? I guess I’m not concerned about getting anywhere anymore.
And what was that pestering question? I forget. I forget the “Why.” I forget the “I.” All I can remember is–
Here.
* * *
*Just want to give proper credit– this quote is from Ellie Wannemacher’s interview with Ashtanga Parampara and I believe Ellie is quoting Magnolia Zuniga.
**These quotes are from one of my favorite reads, the InsideOwl blog “Love of Practice” by Angela Jamison.
*** This blog is from Ashtanga Dispatch, another goodie.
Oh, let’s go gratitude crazy and let me thank Alex Honnold for my karandavasana, my husband for putting up with me, the breath and Alessia Cara for bringing something new.