Valentine's

Class: 8:15-9:45pm, Lotus Flow 2/3, Sheri.

Synchronicity. Coincidence of events that seem to be meaningfully related.

Example: walking to yoga class, feeling wide-open and full of breath and thinking "today I am going to dance through class--that is my intention--to dance dance dance" and to get to class and have your teacher weave Dancing Shiva throughout and in-between the asanas and to hear her call out, "Dance! Make the asana your dance!"

Those are the moments when I realize that the universe is big and open-hearted.

Still I am resisting handstand--there is an electrified fence in my consciousness, just beyond it lies that big chasm Out-Of-Control. I want to get there, but am still tender to the fence's little zaps.

It was Valentine's Day and I was struck by the monument of that holiday--for me it has never been much to fret over--but Sheri spoke at length about having to let go of her distaste for it. I never much worried over love, not until I found it, that is. Now the day means more to me, though for the last two years, P. and I have officially celebrated Oregon's Birthday (also February 14th) instead of Valentine's Day. I bake a green velvet birthday cake in the state's honor, and this year we even blew out one tiny candle and sang Happy Birthday Oregon--pulling down our smirks all the while.

My shoulder seems to be healing, though it still tweaks a bit in Upward Bow, and I'm trying to watch out and be tender with it, as I don't want to risk a more serious injury. I have this entire diagnosis in my head and feel that I am strengthening and then resting the tired muscle--over and over--in order to both heal and advance. I have no idea if this is physically sound, but it seems to be working so far.

I clean at Laughing Lotus now, once a week, in order to subsidize my classes, and so thursday nights, after Sheri's class, I stay late and scrub bathrooms and vacuum floors. When I first started doing this I would get very tense and nervous once everyone had left and I was in the darkened studio all on my own. I found myself jumping at the bangs of the radiator and the various creakings of the building settling after hours. But now, I have come to look forward to this time in solitude. The smells of the studio are so soothing--I'm pavlovian in my response to it now--and silence descends so quickly once the closer has locked the door behind her. As I clean and vacuum I feel I am somehow bonding with the space--solidifying the bond I have begun as a student--but now more intimately, with a silence that is private and, somehow, feminine. Many nights I have been tempted to stay and practice once the cleaning is done, to take advantage of the wide-open empty studios and to see what comes, but I am nervous. What if it's not allowed? What if I hurt myself? What if, what if, what if?

Once I took out a block and sat on it to meditate for a few moments, but I felt rushed and obligated--knowing that P. was waiting for me at home and fearing the fickle subways. One night I will do it. One night I will tell P. I won't be home until late and I will stay and see what comes. And I will keep my fingers crossed that what comes is not the Bogeyman.