Tonight I needed yoga more than I have in a long time.
I got a ton of work done for the apartment today. When I go upstate to the ashram it always gives me a shot of energy to refresh what I am doing in the city. So today I left the house early for Manhattan Ave. to look for a hardware store. I ended up finding 2 within blocks of my house; Greenpoint is such a great community. I ended up going to a lumbar yeard on Clay Street—right on the Riverside. There was a daper older woman at the desk of the quiet warehouse of wood. I didn’t assume she was the woodsmith, and was surprised when she asked for the measurements of my shelves and put on her work gloves to get ready to grab the planks and take them to the table saw. She was really pleasant, a true Brooklynite, maybe inherited the business from her family. She was wearing a button down salmon oxford shirt and pearl earrings. She was annoyed by people calling for exotic woods—that’s not her expertise, if they want Redwood they should move to Caslifornia—amen sister. She was not a soured soul though. She was happy to share her fascination with a local puppeter who comes to her for weathered antique wood and mahogony—he carves marionettes the old way. She told me his finished characters are hanging in a nearby restaurant that is only open when the chef feels like cooking. I walked back home with my two planks and my brackets, excited to further compose my microcosm of a bedroom.

I went on to start brown rice in the rice cooker, go back out for paint supplies and groceries, cook a burrito for lunch and paint half the bathroom.

After all this activity I was in a weird space, worn out, out of my body. I had fun doing all this material stuff but I definetley lost my connection to spirit. I made it out the door just in time for 6:30 class and was so revived by the teachers offering. I remember now how powerful it is to be in someone else’s hands and to let them bring you back to the point. The class started simply with breathing and sitting. I needed that. That was all I really needed, someone to hold the space, to remind me and allow me to open back up, because all day I had been gradually collapsing into broken records of thoughts and schemes (and probably high off paint fumes!). So the child's pose melted me, and downward dog was a revelation! I remembered my body and I was so ready to move. I love being in the body! And like the Sufis say, union is beautiful but the longing for union is also beautiful. When you are not in it it makes it all the more gorgeous when you get back your yoga bhav. Om shanti