We start out with the best intentions, and then get way laid by life. Sometimes it’s big things, like a family that moves just as we are about to launch our stuff in the high school drama club, sometimes it’s a run-away parent, a broken leg prior to the big game, or a broken marriage.
Surprisingly enough, it can also be small things, a missed bus makes us late for an interview for a job we would clearly have hated, a flat tire takes us to a coffee shop where we reacquaint with an old high school friend. How many times do we think that we’re going in one direction and then find out it is taking us to something better? I know a man who ruined an Achilles tendon running, and then took up yoga to rectify it.
I took up yoga on the advice of a friend who said that 50+ was not too old to start! Through my 134 yoga visits of stretching, bending, and flowing, I have learned more than I can explain. That breathing through the learning really does help, how our body teaches patience and then rallies to our demands, how the joy of finally getting the asana can carry you for an entire day. Even though it’s nice to be naughty, how much are you willing to do to be good? Will you stick to the surprise ending to see how far it can take you? Even though my 184.5 hours of yoga are a far cry from Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours to greatness (Outliers, 2008), I am a better person because of it. I have a long way to go but as Rumi said "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I will meet you there."
The Universe conspired to bring a wounded runner to an unsuspecting soul, and it gave me someone who makes me smile every day.
Together we have balanced, OOOMMM’d, twisted, and seen the room upside down. We have grown stronger and more flexible together. We could sit together endlessly under a Bodhi tree. Namaste to Rob, Tamara, Tom, Deanna and many others for being a part of our story.
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