Right off the mat, as one might say, if one were to say
such a thing, I can see that this guy’s gonna be special.
It’s yoga time.
There he is, pre-class, legs spread.He swings his arms back and forth, back and
forth.Uh-uh-uh, he grunts.He
twists his torso to the right, then to the left:Uh-uh-uh.
I lie back on my mat and close my eyes. Surrounded in my
new job – at least by my ears’ understanding – by far-flung malenprops and four-to seven-spindled farquardts running about three clicks below harmanfletcher, the
hour I spend at yoga is my buffer between work and home.
I leave everything, as we like to say, on my mat.
The monkey in my head, the one that makes fun of women in
five-inch heels and regularly suggests that I go ahead and eat whipped cream by
the fists full, has other ideas, however, and is already slapping his big heavy
palms against the inside of my skull.Get a load of this guy, he
chortles.How you gonna ignore this galoot?This guy’s gonna ruin your whole class!
I wave the monkey off.
I don’t come to yoga to talk to monkeys.
But the monkeys, apparently, have come to yoga to talk to
me.
Aside from rhythmic, steady breathing, the only sounds
are the music and the instructor’s voice, the room is silent.
“Oh, hell,” the man whispers.
“Well I can’t do that,” he mutters.
I twist from one position to the next, sometimes looking
at the front of the room, sometimes the back.
“Eueueuuchhh.”
I shudder.Someone
has just either cleared a long-standing clog, or the man on the mat to my left
and back a couple feet has a sinus condition.
“Eueuuchhhhhh.”The next position moves me to look back, in his direction, and I do so
in time to see the woman just behind him give a look of revulsion.
She sees me.
Our eyes meet, and we grin.
The monkey in my head had hoped, of course, for so much
more.But like I keep telling him: Yoga
is not a competition.
But if it were a
competition, that woman and I just won.