Full of Hot, Sweaty Air

Here we are, almost half-way through January, and the newly reformed have yet to give up.

The yoga studio is packed. Inches away from my fellow man, I practice patience.

It’s all part of the practice, I think to myself. He/she doesn’t know an outward expression of calm is part of it, that his/her heavy sighs and grunts are distracting to others, doesn’t know to be cognizant of where his/her feet/arms are in relation to his/her mat…

It’s enough to drive me/you/one mad.

It’s a New Year’s resolution of theirs, no doubt; and I’m sure all across the world something or other is full to bursting in January only to return to normal operations by mid-February.

Not that I don’t wish our newly arrived brothers and sisters success! Of course, I do! Anything else would be stingy and mean-hearted, and I am neither of those things.

True, I once told a panhandler to “touch me and I’ll scream”.

Oh, and it’s possible that I have wished ill upon droopy-drawered men, their pants belted just inches above their knees.

And then there was this one occasion where I screamed, from my second floor porch, at a man in the park, a man who consistently failed to pick up after his German Shepherd to “…never come back here! I know who you are!”

Hmm. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen that guy or his dog in almost four years…

OK. So I’m not stingy, anyway.

Still, attendance at the yoga studio will be like last year, and the year before. They come in, riding the high of heartfelt resolutions and tingly with the excitement of that first, free week of yoga and in short measure discover that a hot class makes you sweat by the bucket, that holding a position until you tremble is hard work, and that the firm young bodies surrounding them are a blow to the ego.

In time, however, should they stay, come the discoveries of the truths in yoga: that one adapts to the heat, that the mind gives up long before the body, that the nubile youngsters lack the determination of their elders and give up easily.

And that surely there’s nothing that feels as good as successfully doing the splits next to someone half your age.

All of these things are true and will come with devotion.

And stop calling me Shirley.