I Am a Vessel. A Slightly Cracked and Momentarily Unfocused Vessel.

It was at the yoga studio, yesterday, that I was blessed, if you will, with the gift of distraction.  That is, distraction reared its shaggy, diverting head, and I managed to decline.

A yogic victory!

I did, of course, file said distraction away in order to write about it later.

You see, when you are in a yoga studio, it is because you truly want nothing more than to focus on movement and breath, to lose the many chattering monkeys that have taken residence in the brain. 

When you are in a yoga studio, mat stretched out afore you, your hair plaited into submission, mind on the hour ahead, one of the last things you need – aside from the realization that the bean burrito was a bad idea – is the groaning newbie next to you.

Look at him over there, vigorously swinging his limbs.  He wants you to know that he played sports as a youth, is ready to beat this next hour into compliance. 

And for the next hour, he grunts.  In a room silent of participant vocalizations outside of steady, exaggerated breathing, he moans.  He mutters “Oh, gosh”.  At one point – no lie – he growls.

Growls.

I allow myself one glance. It is, as it turns out, to be a glance executed at the same time as the woman on the other side of him.  Our eyes meet, widen.  A subtle shake of the head is shared, and we return to our asanas. 

And this is what yoga teaches us, grasshoppers:  The world intrudes, despite our sometimes ardent wish that it would not.  It is up to us to decide if it will affect us.

“Bite me,” the world says.

“Make me,” I say.