The Small Adjustments

So there I was.  In airplane pose.

Balanced on my right foot, left leg straight back, arms extended backwards, palms down, hips square with the floor.

It’s 99 degrees in this room, and I marvel, briefly, that the inside of my body is the same temperature as the outside of it. 

I pay for this, you know.

The sweat runs off my face and onto my mat cover.  I tremble with the effort, smile inwardly at the exertion.  I think of my father:  “As long as it hurts, you’re in good shape.”

He was talking about frostbite – a subject near, dear, and required by law, in the State of Minnesota, to be mentioned at least once a year.

The smile goes from inward to outward.

The yoga instructor pauses next to me, places a cool hand on a space at the top of my back.  “Pull your shoulder blades closer in, move them down your spine,” she murmurs. “It’s the little adjustments we make that alter our postures and bring refinement to our pursuits.”  I pull my shoulder blades closer together and feel the change.

“That’s it,” she says.  “Very nice.” 

Whereupon I lose my balance and fall to the left.

Hours later, eating green grapes and staring at the wall in my new place, I wonder about the small adjustments.  About the move from one demographic to the next, from one phase to the next.

I stand on one leg in the center of my little room, reach back with the other, and make the small adjustments.

And I do not fall.