I woke up late today. I meant to get up at ten, go to yoga at noon and be off on my day but that shit didn’t happen. Instead I woke up at 1:30, made breakfast and read. And then read some more and tried to talk myself out of going to yoga but I knew it would make me feel better and it wasn’t writing, which I have spent the last twenty four hours avoiding.
So I went.
It’s been a long time since I went regularly – a year maybe. Not that regularly was more than twice a week but considering I was in the gym as well during that time, I could see the effect it had on my balance, my flexibility, my mood and my ability to stay out of my head. As the past few days and weeks have shown me, I could use this more than I want to admit.
Outside my natural inflexibility and balance, breathing for me is the hardest part. Balance and flexibility do not come naturally to me but thankfully, yoga allows me to stretch the limits of where those are and get lost in the interim, which at least for me, is the whole point. I can quiet my brain because touching my toes requires so much of my capacities that I can’t really think about anything else. Breathing is the thing that takes me out of it – there are times where I just plain forget to do it. The instructor will be talking calmly about inhaling on a motion and then exhaling on a motion and in that span of time I will breathe twice, thrice or more.
And you’re suppose to sweat and all, but christ, I drank a liter and a half of water and didn’t piss for hours afterwards because I sweat so profusely when doing poses. I actually have to stop my practice at least twice during the hour and wipe both myself and the mat down or I start sliding all over the place. The last thing I wanna do is fall out of a pose and end up at the emergency room because I didn’t towel my mat down – and yes, that is the kind of stupid uncoordinated shit that would happen to me.
I fell asleep in shavasana for a couple of minutes, like I usually do when I haven’t gone in a while and when I got up I felt pretty damn good. I hit the market for some fruit, came home and drank some green tea and read some more. I thought about what I wanted to write, and what wasn’t working about what I had written and I found myself drifting back to my book instead to take my mind off of the piece I’m going to read that has been driving me nuts for days.
I listened to a little jazz, I sipped my tea and I read. I essentially did nothing all evening except treat myself kindly and after all of the stress I’ve put myself through the last week, I feel fine about that.
And now, speaking of treating myself kindly… I’m off to bed.
All that stretching made me tired.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
