Savasana hatha vishnu blah blah blah...

Last night I started a yoga class again. I was kind of nervous because the teacher, in regular life, is a little too Yoga Talk for me. She gets all 'Making space within your breath' and 'blah blah blah inner spiral' even outside the studio, so I necessarily thought this would be an over-the-top class.

Turns out: not so much. It was terrific.

I haven't used all those muscle groups in a very long time (without simultaneously having a penis somewhere in me, which has a completely different fuck goal). This morning I felt as though I'd been hit by a truck and only wanted to sleep and sleep in my cozy little coffin of pillows and blankets.

Emotionally, the experience was profound as well. When we warmed up, we kept moving in and out of Child's Pose, which looks like this. As we relaxed further and further into our breathing and calming our minds, I felt this overwhelming swell of sadness. It completely engulfed me and tears fell onto the mat under my face. Stillness had transported me, or quieted me, into myself. And yet, hello, this is a yoga class with other people and although it seemed, prima facie, a supportive environment, outright weeping would have been excessive. I pulled myself together through the next poses, but the next Child's Pose had my eyes leeking again.

Let me also say here: Baby, I can bend. This is not my first class, but it's been at least three years since I've practiced regularly. My faculty for the stretches and my strength at holding poses surprised me, leaving me feeling flexible and powerful at the same time. Groovy, no? At one point I was able to do this. Do you think that was easy? It was not.

When I got home my husband asked about the class. He had been watching a movie, and as I spoke to him, his thumb hovered over the 'play' button on the remote. Clearly, my time was short but I was not deterred. I disclosed all the thick juicy stuff: the emotional conflict, the overwhelming sadness and grief, and the alternating power of my body. He asked what was the male to female ratio. And you know what? I felt so balanced at that moment that I wasn't mad or sad or anything else, but only thought to myself, 'Right. This is the way he is. This is the problem.'

I went upstairs, checked on the boy, and got cozy in bed. The wind and rain gusted at the windows but I was warm and dry. I slept.