It's A Long Way to Namaste

I went to a yoga class last night .... Something I hadn't done in a while, so I'm not exactly at my most flexible. But the teacher was good and it went well ...

UNTIL he said, "Put your right foot on your left thigh. . . . Now if this is ok for you, take your right hand and grab you right toe. . . . Now if this is ok for you, straighten your right leg."

Needless to say, it wasn't ok for me. The foot on thigh move was no biggie, but the toe thing took a little work and the straight leg option was not a reality I could even imagine attempting.

And I didn't. And it was ok. Because he had already stressed that this wasn't a competition, that what we could do this day would be different from another day and all that mattered was what we could do in this moment.

Good news for me since I'd already surveyed the room and determined that I was his oldest pupil and one of his chubbiest. But something happened in that class that never happened for me before -- I didn't care. OK, maybe I did but not like I once might have. I didn't bemoan my status; I celebrated it! I was the oldest and I was there. I wasn't as thin as the model/dancer on my left but I was there. I couldn't do all the moves but I was there.

And I'll be back . Sure, I'll keep falling to the right when I'm supposed to be a tree and putting the wrong foot forward when I'm supposed to be a warrior and looking more like the arrow than the bow. But I'll go and I'll try and someday soon there'll be more than desire at work . . . there'll be ability. So with the wisdom and patience that comes with age -- my light within -- I'll wait.