Breathe

That morning, I didn’t want to be there in a sunlit room with a tiny, older woman. Breathe. That is what the huge sign on the wall reads.

She thumped her breastbone with her fingers, and I could hear her exhale. This woman is a pro, I thought. A genuine yogi. I had been ditching yoga classes for several years, caught up in my writing and teaching. Ignoring my body.

The yogi nodded at me with an all-knowing look that drew me to her. I unfolded my mat next to her, determined to make good on my promise to take better care of myself. It was almost 7:27 am, and there was no sign of the instructor or any other students. “She’s always two minutes late,” the yogi explained as if reading my mind.

“I am afraid of falling flat on my face this morning,” I blurted so loudly and unexpectedly that the yogi stopped her stretching and looked directly at me.

“Hump. I fall on my face every day,” she said shrugging. I liked her immediately. Greta. Her name was Greta. At ninety-two she came to yoga every day she could.  At that moment our instructor, dressed in a white-gauze-hippie-style blouse slipped into the Breathe Room and  adjusted the music. 7:32 am. By 7:33 seven other yogis had scurried into the space, opened their mats, adjusted their blocks, and begun to stretch and pull their bodies in all possible contortions.

“Let’s begin on all fours today.” The instructor’s voice was soft but commanding. “Breathe.” I eyed the wall with angst. “Now stretch and round your spine upward like a cat and then slowly roll it down and tuck your head in for a cow pose. Breathe. Always breathe. Stand tall and lift your arms to the sky, reaching, reaching. Pick the fruit from the trees with your right hand. Now stretch your left arm even higher into the sky and continue picking the fruit from the tree. Breathe. Now stretch your hands forward on the mat and curl your toes into the mat. Lift your legs up in your favorite position. The downward dog. Breathe.”

What? No one can do this I mumbled to myself.  But when I peeked at Greta, she was doing it. “Beautiful poses. Let’s take five long breaths in downward dog. Count them to yourself.” The instructor paused and looked at me. “But please do what your body needs. You can succumb to a delicious child’s pose if you want.”

A delicious pose? I laughed aloud before looking across the room and feeling foolish. All the yogis were solidly posed in the downward dog. Since I had no memory of a child’s pose, I dug my toes and fingers into my mat and hoisted my bum into the air forming the best body triangle I could manage. One-one thousand. I counted.  Two-one thousand. And then splat!  I tumbled onto my mat, curling into a deflated ball.

In a moment I realized this was not like the time in fifth grade when I fell off the gymnastics horse. When the boys guffawed and teased me for months. When Billy Shrader announced he had seen my silly pink underwear. Even my girlfriends giggled. But this time no one noticed. No one judged me. No squeals of delight. No hurt. I inhaled.

“Ease into a child’s pose,” the instructor suggested and as Greta slowly curled her body gently onto her mat, I realized I had managed to automatically assume this position. I was nestled up in the pose a child would take. At that moment Greta looked over at me with a moon-sized smile. Then she winked.

A warm feeling flooded my body like a blanket wrapping around it. And I realized I was breathing. Deeply. I knew then that I liked this. All of it. Yoga.

As I scribbled in my journal a few days later, I would recall that when I was young, a childhood physician had told me that I had scoliosis and would probably never be athletic. That memory stuck with me. I suspect I believed him. But all these years later, as I reflected on that experience, I decided the doctor was wrong. Greta came back to yoga at age 70. Like me! If Greta, a couple of decades older than me,  could be a yogi maybe I could be. And I embraced this new and beautiful journey.

Yesterday, my instructor showed up at 7:32 in the Breathe Room. I followed her gentle instructions and at the right time, I lifted my bum into the air in a downward dog pose. Then I counted. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three-one thousand, and before I reached four, I saw Greta sink onto her mat. She was rubbing her tired feet and then gently tapping her legs. I took a deep breath and sunk onto my mat beside her.  You don’t always have to do the downward dog. I looked at this beautiful woman and tried to imitate her light-up-the-world smile. My wise yogi friend beamed her smile right back at me. All was well with the world.