You Have Tons of Space

The Calm Before The Heat

Had weird, intense dreams about my car. In one part of the dream, my car just stops all functions and everything goes dark and when I try to restart it, not a light or spark. Nothing. Later, some relatives come to tell me that my rental car has a flat tire...


I bought a group coupon back in May with the intention to try hot yoga at this studio in the fall. Going on Sunday meant that I would have to give up Pure Yoga ’s Sunday class but it’s good to try new things. Right? Except, there are days when I want to blend in and be anonymous which is hard to do when you barely have hair and your skin tone is quite brown and I had a feeling that I was going to stick out at this studio. Everyone was, of course, super nice.

I arrived early in order to register and I asked this woman about the locker room and she said that there wasn’t really one and that if I were leaving the class I’d better put my mat down first and it did end up being a sardine-like situation but no one seemed to care.

It was a Vinyansa –type class: chaturanga, cobra or up dog, downward facing dog etc. I have long known that my downward facing dog leaves a lot to be desired. The teacher, Seabrook, came over and placed her feet on my hands then tried to adjust my arms. Oh, you’re a strong one, she said. Yeah, I’m kind of like a tree in that way...

The next time Seabrook came over she helped me twist. I immediately told her that my shoulders were tight but I still got adjusted. You have tons of space, she said. The lesson from that interaction is that I should at least attempt things before I give up on them.

I kept thinking that the hour was a very long one but when I looked at my iPod I saw that class had been one and a half hours even though the schedule, I thought, said one hour. Thanks to my neighbor who asked me if I was okay when I showed signs of staggering...

Later On In The Day

When I arrived at my massage therapist’s office, she checked in with me as usual. I told her that I had migrating neck and shoulder tension. She wanted to know if it was from day to day. No, from fifteen minutes to fifteen minutes, I told her.

As I’m on the table, my mind is going 100 MPH. I tell myself: the face is soft…the face is soft…let go, yadda, yadda, yadda. Then she stretches my neck from the center to Timbuktu and I wonder if necks are supposed to stretch that far even though I’m confident that my MT knows what she’s doing. As my neck is in the Timbuktu region, I inexplicably and suddenly relax but feel like crying. Don’t cry I tell myself. Too late. They are tears of the silent kind that roll out like water from a faucet with worn washers.

My MT encourages me to let whatever it is come to the surface. I eventually ask for some tissue because where there are tears, there’s snot. I was going to offer to put the tissue on the floor and then pick it up later but she told me to give it to her.

Me: Thanks

MT: Wherever you are -- that’s where I’m at…

Went to see Pilobolus yesterday. They were brought by Dance St. Louis and, before the show, DSL put up  facts about dancing and it makes me want to pull out my workout DVDs that incorporate dancing and it also makes me want to finally take a Zumba class.

One quote on the marquee still sticks with me: Dancers are the athletes of God. After seeing Pilobolus, I can’t disagree.