Rocketship Underpants

I probably should have been studying vocabulary words, re-learning about isociles triangles. I should have been writing and reading. I could have spent more of the day cleaning. We are out of milk completely, and it would have been helpful if I had gone to the store to pick some up. But I didn’t.

Instead, I met some strangers at a wooded park. And in the middle of tree pose I realized that for a focus point I was using an actual tree. Which made me giggle a little right there.

It was an hour and a half of very inverted poses, quick, flowing transitions that made me feel exhausted and energized and perhaps like I might vomit (always a good sign for me in yoga). Today it has made me sore. All I want to do is go back. Again! Again! Like a little kid on the roller coaster. I’ve always hated roller coasters and I’ve always loved yoga.

I started doing yoga when I was eleven. My mom saw something in how much I casually threw a leg up on the kitchen counters to stretch the backs of my thighs, with the way I tried to balance in the most ridiculous positions. The only thing I hated about ballet was the discipline. And the people. On the whole ballerinas (and the teachers) sucked the fun right out of the twisting, wobbling, flexing. So, my mom handed me an old book she had from the seventies and I practiced in our spare bedroom. Then, when I was twelve I discovered the local YMCA and they held kundalini classes. They were all taught by Sikhs. Eugene has a very prevalent Sikh community to whom I owe about a thousand thank you’s because for about $16 a month I was able to attend three classes a week that kicked my ass in a way I never knew I liked. Running has always tried my patience and exercising at home with a video always seemed so sad. But yoga? Has always been an joint poppingly amazing experience.

And yoga in the park? By myself with strangers? And trees? It was heaven.