Later that night, after the visit of Joe’s mom, the sound of laughter filled our
Happy Home: Photo Credit- freedigitalphotos.net
living room. I was the butt of everyone’s joke. Hubby, the kids and my sisters, all joined in to make fun of me.
Everybody thinks I’m pathetic and a wimp, because my tears flow freely without much prompt or provocation. Lies! All it takes is for anything or something to go wrong and I become a whimpering mess. Okay, I do turn on the water works, rather too quickly, but what is a woman to do if she is made this way? Everyone, including Su’ and Bubb, when we spoke, all had a good laugh at my expense.
Yoga Pose
I don’t blame any of them. I’m too busy being glad. Numerous incidents have taught me that the man upstairs has my back, but alas, I’m a doubting Thomas. It does not take much for me to revert to type. But for Grace and Mercy—loving friends of mine—I would have driven myself with wild abandon into hypertension, many times over. This time around, I was obsessing over what reactions may come out of this terrible accident, my mind conjuring a thousand and one ugly scenarios, all ending with me being at the receiving end.
While I was busy worrying and driving myself insane, Joe’s mom was overwhelmed with gratitude and goodwill towards me. Her reaction about the incident threw me off-balance. She believes the way I was concerned for her son; I very well might have been his mother. But I am thankful for two things: Joe was able to communicate the love and concern shown to him by me, and my fear and tears is what saved me from facing a lawsuit, so you see, my excessive fretting and crying has helped, ha!
How was I to know this little boy felt love from all my fussing? Don’t mind me. I had to take my little glory; after all, I was the butt of everyone’s jokes. Gert, oh Gert was brilliant that day, I saw a real pro at work, the way she distracted him and made it all about doing it right. She kept telling Joe how great he was doing that day.
This is another mystery about motherhood we’ll never solve: the manner in which senseless things just make all the sense in the world, to us. Only a mother would know what it feels like, to feel like she let her child down. Joe’s mom was just glad a mother was there for her son, when she could not be. I marvel thinking about it all, anyway, not to deviate from the main subject of my story, Yoga.
The time for yoga came. It was 4pm on Thursday and the usual suspect turned up. Kimmy made a confession before class began: she had taken yoga classes in the past—no wonder, she maneuvered just a little better than the rest of us.
The beauty of this lifestyle is the repetitious nature of it; you simply relive stuff until it becomes second nature. So as with our first day, we began with the basics; stretches and Sun Salutations, repeated over until our bodies warmed up, then the real fun began.
Raquel tells us our class is a quick learn, we don’t get what she means, but she’s smiling, so we all smile too. We began to learn the names of movements and poses, and surprisingly discover that each yoga movement is geared towards healing or enhancing an internal organ. Hard to believe, but trust me, the moment we went into those sideways deep twists and fire-breathes, the colon got the message and the toilet called for some! Gert in this instance was the victim…she poops like a puppy, lol.
The very start is the Salutations; we began with Hatasana, a pose where you clasp both hands together to your chest standing still. The core thing here is breathing, remember to fully breathe in and expel all air when you breathe out.
Then we do the Flat back, bending down until your hands almost touch your toes, while keeping a flat back, then up again. Next, we do the Lunge…a deep split with one leg bent in front, while the other is fully extended to the back and both hands on either side of the bent legs: then you rotate the other leg as well.
From the Lunge, we go into the Plank, where the body is fully extended in a push-up position, but the core strength lies in the arms and toe. This is leads into a Chaturanga: a final descent, where the butt is pointed up and the body slowly lowered to a rest or you take the optional Cobra or Baby Cobra pose— another great strengthener for the arms and spine.
Folks, these moves are killers! Bear in mind, you repeat these movements about three times during each session. The entire Salutation takes about 9 poses. When you finish, you take the much deserved Child’s pose, and this involves, kneeling with legs apart and resting the belly in the middle; a very comforting and relaxing pose, after the torture of Salutation.
Raquel is kind. She encourages us to take as many Child poses as we want. You can bet I took as many Child poses as possible; after all, I am a mere beginner, lol. Class finally ends after an hour and as we rest for the last meditation, she encourages you to cleanse yourself at this point. I used to wonder how this was possible, but believe me, after a rigorous work out like this, you will need no bidding to find your zone. Your body naturally gravitates towards calm and comfort. The combination of her soothing voice—thanking us for allowing her share our spiritual and physical space, coupled with subtle background music—definitely helps us find nirvana sooner than later.
The Child poses saved my life on this day, I think I prefer child poses, lol. We tidied up after class, which takes place in our office. We now close the office an hour earlier on yoga days, to accommodate the classes, which are held in my part of the office. I had the most open space available.
“Y’all know ReAlign Yoga has a Facebook page right? Please can everyone go and like us there” Raquel announces, which evoked another topic for conversation among us. Another twenty minutes went by as we got to know a little more about our teacher on a personal level. She’s real…warm and wholesome in that earth mother sort of way.
She talks a little about how she got into Yoga and who her mentors were, it turned out we know one of her mentors, Mitzi. We met Mitzi about two months before, at a seminar in a downtown club. Fran pointed out she wanted to sign us up with Mitzi, but after leaving several messages without any response, this led to her finding out about our Raquel through a friend of a friend. It turned out Mitzi never got the messages, so she was not able to respond, this we found out later. So like everything else in all our lives, we came to accept there were no coincidences, we were all meant to be here as we were.
We agreed to be friends on FB, those of us who did FB that is; Gert is not a fan.
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