Thursday- drive to NY – sit 4 hrs, arrive at hospital, sit 2 hours
Friday – hospital all day – sit 12 hrs, go home, can’t sleep, up until 3am – sit 5 hrs
Saturday – hospital – sit 9 hrs – go home, sit 5 hrs
Sunday – sit 4 – hrs – go to b’day party – sit 5 hrs, come home, sit 5 hrs
Monday – watch tv – sit 9 hrs, go to grocery store, come home, sit 5 hrs
Tuesday – drive 4 hrs, sit 3 hrs
There are 120 hours in five days. I sat for 72 of them. I was broken. By the time I arrived back home at the cape today, both mind and body were completely obliterated. There was only one way to put me back together. I so know how Humpty Dumpty felt.
I headed to 6 pm yoga. Got there at 5:30 and laid in the hot room before class. Immediately the stress fell away. When class started, pranayama breathing released everything the sitting had squashed inside both my body and my mind. As my body stretched into the oh so familiar poses it missed, my mind went on that 90 minute vacation they talk about in the book. The big moment that reversed all the effects of the sitting was camel. I really think I could’ve done a one minute camel tonight. Sipping coconut water on the way home, listening to Xmas music, I actually caught myself smiling. Pulling up to the corner of my street, the wreath on the side of my house greeted me saying “home”. The icing on the evening was pulling into the driveway and seeing the huge orange moon hanging over the ocean, lighting up the marsh in front of my house. I stood in the driveway in complete awe of how lucky I am to live on this sandbar. Then I thought of last night’s blog and burst out laughing. No, I can’t be that girl behind the glass because there’s no snow on Cape Cod.
Kind people gave me great advice how to beat the Xmas blues, but really all that was needed was one Bikram class and I was all fixed. Now I’m home, beside my tree and manger, and though my Xmas spirit may be quieter this year, it is truly, truly happy.
After all, Jesus didn’t come into this world with huge fanfare. He came as quietly as a winter snow. His birth was His first message to us. Stillness. Stillness and awe. Just what I felt when I stood staring at that moon, listening to the waves pound the dark shoreline.
And so, as another day goes by, tonight I give thanks for the wonderful healing to be found in Bikram yoga – my body is loose and relaxed, and the screws that were loose in my head are now securely tightened, and…..I have written.
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