This is Crazy

Sometimes, when I am about to open a yoga class, I feel like Clark Griswall.

You know the part in Vacation when Clark is about to join (less dressed) Christie Brinkley in the pool at the roadside hotel. All is quiet, or for the moment. The surrounding rooms are dark and the curtains are drawn. Steam is coming off the glowing pool and also just for the moment, the water appears warm and inviting. Gorgeous mystery woman played by Christie Brinkley (who, is it just me, always looks 30) beckons, mirage-like from the water. Clark swings his arms from back to front and catches palms. He rocks back and forth on his feet and chants, "this is crazy. this is crazy" with a wide, wild grin.

Sometimes I feel like I am too far in left field with my little, silly antidotes about strawberries or bubbles or raindrops. Often, students are freshly changed from a long day at the office and they've handled a multitude of contemplations and decisions. They've tackled a whole day of rolling calls, blasting emails, fulfilling meetings and a dice-rolled commute. Sometimes students walk in with a visible lean because for the last nine waking hours they've met children's paws, plowed through errands, puttered about and they are here now in a quiet space sitting, but their bodies still carry the day's weight. Students have allocated the time and showed up to class sometimes with carried tasks, done or still lingering, and they don't want a story. They want to move. I know, I've been there.

So why do I teach a yoga class that begins with a story about the sweetness of strawberries as eaten on the sunlit kitchen counter on a particularly warm spring day? Because while you, as a grown up, may no longer take to sitting up on the counter to dine, I am pretty sure that you know what it's like to really enjoy your favorite food. And I am pretty sure that you and I can relate to the great relief of the warm sun after a particularly long New England winter. Right? Or if you would rather live in an igloo (have at it, by the way), can we relate to the idea that while sweetness is relative, it's depth and concentration can pass practically unnoticed or it can knock your eyes wide from a graze, we all have something, someone, someplace that brightens every fiber of our being and reminds us of what it feels like to whole-heartedly love?

What's warm and candy coated, may hit like more a Mac truck (or an ice cold hotel pool) when senses are incorporated into a pause. So call me crazy but let's take a moment before the next move, to make a deep end connection.