Greetings (56)

I have returned to my yoga. I’d been afraid to try for a long time after my fall. My wrists were still healing. The first time I try my sun salutes, I am caught off guard by how much the bottom of my palms hurt, not just my wrists. Today is the third or maybe the fourth time I try, so I am not surprised by the pain, and now I know it will ease up if I keep going, slow and gentle. When I swoop up to standing at the end of each salutation, head thrown back, I see the fat, white crescent moon above me in the daylight sky. With each ending, there she is, her happy greeting a delight. And then when I stand again, there is my gal circling above me, my mama red-tailed hawk, as if she is waiting for me to know she is there, and the papa hawk, too. They circle twice more, an affectionate, lingering check-in, and off they go. I can’t stop grinning.

Interlude (35)

I unroll my thick green yoga mat in the small flat space beside the shallow end of the pool. It’s full dark already, but I am determined to do my yoga. I face west to do my sun salutes and picture the sun still setting somewhere beyond the curve of the world. After, lying on my back in chavasana, there are more stars in the sky than I remember seeing here before. The moon hangs above me, just to the left. I lie still for a long time, open to the sky, bathing in the silent, magic light.

Wouldn’t It Be Nice? (31)

On Saturday afternoon I run out of sun. So I move my lime green yoga mat to an odd diagonal patch remaining on the walkway to do my chavasana. Even this winter sun warms me where it slants between the liquid amber branches and falls on my legs, my bare feet, my face. For long, quiet moments I surrender to trusting. I think about how lost I’ve let myself get in resisting what is. I don’t berate myself, though. This is hard, I tell myself. No wonder you lost track. This is not the first time this awareness has managed to swim to the top in the last two weeks. I know it might sink to the bottom again. But wouldn’t it be sweet if I could just find my way to trusting this now and its unfolding? Wouldn’t it be dear to just let joy and sweetness arise again and again and again?

Together (13)

After my yoga
I lie down for chavasana
and there is a big red ant
beside my mat
where my arms want to lie.
He is hunched over
odd-seeming.
I present him
with a dry bougainvillea blossom
and he seems happy
as if it’s a new toy,
rocking the blossom
back and forth
with his weight.
Then he perches
on the top
and holds still
and all of a sudden
I am moved
by his unexpected company
my small companion
in chavasana.

Waggish Mind (3)

I lean over, rub lotion into my calves, my shins. I am behind on my sleep, tight from too many hours on my laptop. I dangle from my waist in the small bathroom, feel my spine lengthen. My body is stiff, foreign. I abandoned my yoga in January, maybe even before I got sick, and I have yet to return to it. As I come to standing, I think, I’ll have to plan to do my yoga through the next pandemic. (As if I have to wait until the next one to begin again. As if I can’t begin today or tomorrow. As if the idea of the next one is an everyday thought. As if anyone but me would think this is funny.) I look at myself in the mirror and grin.