Chapter 11 Yoga
We spend the following day relaxing with coffee and tea, enjoying our day off.
Each morning since moving in with Vee has been a joy.
I enjoy the comforting warmth of my teacup as I noisily sip my favorite Earl Grey tea, happy at the freedom I have to pick it each morning.
While Vee is absorbed in her phone, I begin making pancakes.
“Nooooo! I’m not ready,” I wail. I’ve been getting stronger and have had no aches, pains or swollen joints for weeks, but yoga with people watching?
I’m sure it will be mortifying. Vee gives me a fake pout and says, “Please. I promise, you will love it.” The thing I don’t share is that MS doesn’t do well in heat.
After my mother was diagnosed, her doctors required that she stop working in the hot kitchen of the bakery.
I sit quietly and turn over the pros and cons in my head.
Vee watches me clearly seeing the conflict play out on my face.
Ultimately, I land on taking the chance.
I gave myself these six months and I’m not going to limit myself from one potential experience even if it is something as scary as freakin’ hot yoga.
Vee immediately claps her hands together. Able to read my face like a book.
Two hours later, we are out on the street making our way to the Hot Asana Yoga lounge.
Underneath my sweats, I’m wearing a pair of Vee’s yoga shorts if you can call them that, feeling like I’m buck naked.
They fit, but I’m very uncomfortable wearing something so revealing.
They are skintight and come down to mid-thigh.
Of course, Vee is wearing a matching pair and hers are even shorter, but she can pull it off.
“Hush up you look adorable,” she scolds.
I yank the loose-fitting sweatshirt down lower. The sweatshirt covers the half bra, half tank top thingy she gave me for my top. I’m glad she knew not to push me on baring my midriff.
She sees my discomfort and states serenely, “You do your own practice in class. Stop worrying. It will be fine.”
“What happens if you don’t have a practice? What do you do then?”
She laughs. “Don’t worry, the heat makes you more flexible. Wait and see how much better you do at ninety degrees than in my sunroom.”
I shake my head in despair. “Nothing is better at ninety degrees. I’ve worked in a bakery my whole life, and in the middle of summer, it’s always ninety degrees, and no one ever said, ‘Why don’t we start a yoga class in the kitchen?’”
Vee gives me one of her classic snort laughs and swings open a door. “We’re here.”
Before I enter, I try to peek through the frosted window and my palms feel clammy. Vee glides in with her yoga bag slung carelessly over her shoulder and I follow closely behind, feeling like a complete imposter, clutching my borrowed mat and slouching in with my borrowed clothes.
I step into an open and airy lobby; chimes sound softly in the background. I imagine a Buddhist temple and feel a slow release of the muscles in my shoulders. The soft lights glow and flicker like candles leading you from the lobby area into the high-ceilinged classroom.
Settling into a spot in the back of the room, I look around.
No one is looking back. Everyone seems to be in their own little world.
Some are lying prone while others are curled up in child’s pose.
The heat isn’t as hot as it is in the bakery kitchen in the middle of summer, so I’m pretty sure I won’t pass out from it.
I may survive this yet. When I gather my courage to look at myself in the mirror, I don’t look different from the others in class.
There are people of all shapes and sizes.
I take a deep breath and sit up straighter saying to myself, I can do this. Vee’s been telling me about the importance of positive self-talk, and this seems to be a good time to practice.
Closing my eyes, I inhale lavender and some other citrusy smell. We make a roll at the bakery that includes a bit of lavender and orange zest, and my anxiety eases as I picture the familiar bakery.
The instructor walks in with white tights that fit smoothly over the most womanly but athletic body I’ve ever seen. She’s barefoot and looks free of any makeup or other artifice. I stare; she could be Mother Earth incarnate with her grace and her strength.
She comes over on cat’s feet and gives Vee a big hug, then turns to me and does a little bow. “Welcome, I’m so happy you are here. I’m Jasmine.”
Good vibes fill the whole place. The combination of the chimes and the aromatherapy wafting through the space gives me permission to quiet my mind.
Jasmine tells us to start in child’s pose.
We slowly work on stretching every part of our body and then move to sun salutations.
My cheeks turn pink and the sweat drips down between my breasts.
I look around embarrassed, but see everyone has sweat dripping down some part of their body and some have pools around their mat.
Everyone is wiping themselves with the little towels they handed out when we checked in.
I take mine and drag it across my face and neck.
I can do most of the basic postures and stick with the easier version of the trickier ones.
The instructor’s voice is encouraging and soothing and she is like breath itself—filling you up and letting you release with her words.
She instructs without judgment, telling folks to stay with the version of the pose their body needs today.
Vee and a few others are doing the more advanced side crows while I stay in side angle, but no one is even looking around except me.
Vee was right. Everyone is doing their own practice.
I hit a wall thirty minutes in and worry that I may have made the wrong decision, but as if sensing my rising panic, the class shifts to balance poses and a ton of core work which is more in my wheelhouse.
I swell with pride when I hold tree longer than Vee, then feel bad at my petty comparison, as it doesn’t belong in this space.
Vee’s eyes are closed throughout the class, and she looks at peace. Free despite the sweat and the shaking of muscles as we hold a chair pose forever. I breathe deeply and think I might just be enjoying this yoga class.
Vee and I get into a groove. On workdays we go to her scheduled photoshoots, and on off days we squeeze in yoga and cooking in between meetings at her agency to work out future jobs and scheduling.
Sometimes at shoots, I’m sent to get a different pair of shoes or a handbag from wardrobe; once I even had to run out to a trendy shop in the Village to buy a replacement for a belt the director found wanting.
It was a thrill to see my selection being modeled by Vee.
I can see how Vee’s mother could get swept up in being part of this action. It’s captivating.
I make sure Vee eats and drinks and gets a break when she starts to fade.
I take notes in the meetings and point out conflicts or issues with the proposed schedule.
I’m being useful, and it turns out that is what a PA does.
Vee calls me indispensable, and while that is an exaggeration, I think I’m doing a good job.
We spend a lot of time together slowly revealing our secrets. Sometimes Vee seems on the verge of spilling more but then retreats, after which she gets sad for a while.
The other night she told me about a male model she dated a year ago and how he was more insecure about his weight than most of the female models.
I laughed and shared, “I’ve never had a boyfriend. The closest I ever got was an almost kiss at a wedding when I was fourteen.”
Thankfully, she didn’t make a big deal about it, but I notice she now occasionally looks at me kind of speculatively, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle and is looking for clues.
I immediately get uncomfortable when she looks at me like that, but she never responds when I ask her pointedly, “What?”
I’m continuing to do my own yoga practice.
The studio is a special place, truly a no judgment zone like Vee had promised.
I’ve stopped watching the others and comparing myself to them, instead I spend the hour trying to listen to my body and pushing it sometimes and sometimes stepping back.
What a wonderful, novel idea. I’ve always watched the world and therefore watched others.
Now I’m thinking about me and what my body needs and where my head is at.
I’ve learned that breath can ground you and focus you to help reduce anxiety and keep your mind from racing too far ahead.
Even some sayings and readings the instructors share each class start to make some sense.
Walking home after class today, Vee asks, “You know the message Jasmine shared today during class about masks?
I can get behind something like that. It makes perfect sense. Don’t ya think?”
“Hmm, what was it?” I ask. “We’re all the same when we are born . . .”
“And only as we go through life, we start to put on our masks that cover our sameness,” Vee finishes.
“I love that. I believe that, more than I believe any of the dumb sermons I listened to when I was growing up. We are all alike, some just have put on masks that make them appear different and it hides the real person.” She grows more animated by the second.
“If you got to pick one of the yoga beliefs Jasmine teaches, which one would you pick?
You know, what one should they teach in church instead of all the crap they try to shove down our throats?
“You can’t do that,” I blurt. “Yoga isn’t a religion.”
She chuckles, taking my hand, “I’m just asking, if you were to believe in something other than church—or if your God wanted to know which yoga belief you really liked, what would you tell him . . . or her?” Vee’s eyes
are mischievous.
I can’t help it; a smile tugs at my lips. Vee looks so happy and earnest.