a gift mumbled between black lips

Two goth kids said good morning to me today.  After I said good morning to them, they stared blankly at me for a moment and then begrudgingly mumbled a response.  I was this crazy bat on a bike, dressed like a Christmas tree, with flashing lights and various layers of bright clothing that adorned me like homemade ornaments. I embodied everything they were fighting not to be.  As I passed, I slowed and threw all my positive energy toward them.  They represented my younger self, a self that ached for acknowledgement, a self that eventually grew without the acknowledgement from others.  It could have been easier for me.  But it wasn’t.  And because it was hard for me, I am filled with a desire to make it easier for others whose reaching hands have been slapped.

When I said hello this morning, I expected nothing.  Instead I was given a gift mumbled between black lips as their pierced faces scowled for a moment, before radiating tiny sparks of light.  

I can stand staunchly

I have taken the leap, and have started doing hot yoga once a week.  Hot yoga is a series of poses done in a room heated to 105 degrees.  A lot of emphasis is placed on breathing and balance.    Although I have done hot yoga before, today is my first day of making it a solid part of my life. 

These are two different pieces about hot yoga from my journal:

***

I get to the class early to acclimate to the heat.  As everyone arrives I watch as they find their special places.  One gentleman touches several nail clusters on the floor with his feet until he locates his spot.  Then he carefully lines up his mat along the nails.

***

When I sweat I feel like I add layers to myself, to the home that is me.  My worldly possessions live within my cells.  I am a place, and the place is alive, and it holds all of me.  Sweating adds strength to a home that I don’t always acknowledge.  While I live on a quaint but unremarkable street in a little city in Kansas, it is not my true home.  It houses me, sure, but it does not contain me.  My body is my true house, the structure that holds and orchestrates my pulse. Because my home is my body I am not strewn about in different places, living outside myself in a pseudo hearth.  Also, if I allow my true home to be a physical landmark I will be perpetually exposed, my strength pocked with the foul weather of people’s unhappiness. Because my body is my home, I have constant shelter, and each time I sweat I am building a stronger place to hold me, so that whenever an intrusion occurs – a dirty look, obtrusive noises, the wild winds of indifference, I can stand staunchly and sustain minimal damage.

This is why hot yoga has become a constant.  I am guaranteed a little bit of sweat.  Not to mention a stillness inspired by motion.   

tamales from a can

Today I talked to a 90 year old retired opera singer.  He had an accent that could have been the trees exchanging wind. 

A man asked if we had a Ted Kooser book.  I am reading Ted Kooser at the moment (Winter Morning Walks), and startled the poor gentleman with my sudden enthusiasm. 

I found Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake on the shelf and put it on my Staff Picks. 

I discovered a book of stamps in a Cheever book before checking it in and called the patron.  He was thankful. 

One tub of books smelled like cigarette smoke and tamales from a can and it made me think of dad, and I was briefly overwhelmed with missing him.