Yoga Class: 1973

My mom clears the clutter from the living room, hiding piles of papers and books in other rooms. All that red carpeted floor. And the students arrive. And I am a student. Eight of us filling the room. A kind of quiet party. We stand and we bend over and we fly up and we bend over again. This is the start of the Sun Salutation. We are bowing to the sun. Hello Sun, we honor you. I follow my mom’s movements, crouching and bending, twisting and stretching. My favorite yoga pose is the Lion. It’s all face. My eyes get wide, my mouth stretches open, my tongue reaches out, down trying to touch my thin. Growl! We relax, and do it again. Then we all lie down and breath, but I can’t get myself to breathe deeply enough to feel my stomach rise and fall, like my mom tells us to do. I pretend to breathe, pushing my stomach out and sucking it in. Then we sit up ever-so-slowly. I pretend like I’m in slow motion on television, letting my head come up last. And we sit in the lotus pose, which is kind of like sitting Indian style, but your feet are on top of your knees instead of underneath them. And we close our eyes. And we Ohm three times. And it goes slow, like this Ohhhhhhhhh-mmmmmmmmm. I can feel the m tickle my lips.