Finding My Edges

I do a lot of yoga. I mean, a LOT OF YOGA. Every day this week, so far, and I'll have a hard time resisting Carissa tomorrow morning, especially since I crunched out two reports last night. And it's not the humming, chanting, relaxing flavor of yoga. I'll sneak in one of those classes now and then, but mostly it's a crunching, strong practice that I emerge from soaking wet and looking for a nice hot espom salt bath. Savasana is deep and welcome. And if Savasana is practice for dying, then what precedes it is my raging against the darkness - a fierce experiencing of life, of working to the places where I feel my muscles and bones, where I feel the breath moving, the blood pulsing, the heart beating, and feel with every sinew that I am truly alive.

But who am I kidding? I'm 46, carry around some extra weight, and I've never spent more than a few hours of my youth engaged in athletic pursuit. My sister stood on her hands throughout her youth. Me, I was draped over my bed, reading. So my yoga practice is, in some ways, an ongoing negotiation with my own mortality. A tweaky back: I know exactly where it hurts, what postures exacerbate it, when it starts to get warm and comforted. I feel my knees, not really sore, but definitely finding limits. Feet that cramp. Wrists that complain. A neck that I am forever tightening up and reminding myself to let go.

I walk into every class, put a blanket down, and pull up into headstand. Because I really like being upside down - and if I get it out of the way first, I can do the rest of my practice without anticipation or disappointment. And handstands are coming, I can feel it.....

Alison, down at the studio, called me a "Type A yogi" a year or so ago. Oxymoron, eh? And that was before I started volunteering down at the studio and getting my crack....er...yoga for free. I see her, and others at the studio, who seem to have found a bit more balance in their practice. Maybe I will get there someday.

But not right now. Right now there is an excitement in having finally connected with this life, this body. There is a desire to take it out for a spin, open up the throttle, see what it can do. Feel the wind in my hair (or the blood rush to my brain).

Somewhere down the road, I suspect, is a speed bump. An injury, if I am unlucky. A realization and acceptance that I've gone as far as I can, if I am smart and lucky. And I think once I hit that point, when I start to deal with limits, with edges, with my own mortality, is when the real practice starts.......