The Yoga Class

A recent sunrise rainbow over my neighborhood in Portland, Maine.

There are five of us, purple mats perpendicular to the walls, our pink-haired instructor in front of the window, facing us. We are sitting cross-legged, torsos tall, palms together and fingers spread. It is a somewhat painful and awkward position for me. Should my eyes be open or closed? Should I be relaxed, or stiff? The instructor is murmuring softly about each palm feeling the other, and I am trying to ignore the pain in my left ankle in its position under my right knee. Suddenly she instructs us to “om” three times. I cringe reactively, but as we all take a collective breath in, I shake off my preconceptions and prepare to do it anyway.

I can’t help but feel that attending a drop-in yoga class is one of those required rites of urban life. Like outdoor summer concerts, or an evening reading at a local bookstore. It’s taken me 11 years of city living to do it, but on a whim a couple of weeks ago, after a night of sciatic nerve pain and hot flashes, I googled “yoga classes near me” over my morning coffee. I was surprised (and slightly dubious) to find one in a studio not just in my neighborhood, but across the street and four doors down.  There are a handful of classes on the booking calendar, but the one that works with my schedule is appealingly titled “Restorative Yoga” and the description includes photos of tee-shirt and legging-clad bodies lying prone and smiling in a sunlit studio. The Friday class begins at 9, runs for 90 minutes, and describes “using props to rest the body in yoga positions.” To me, it sounds like an opportunity for bodily improvement while napping, and I’m sold.

With the exception of our instructor’s peony-hued bob, we are a silver-haired crew. There are no Lulu Lemon divas here. We are woolen-socked and slightly saggy, and carry a 9am world-weariness that hints of having already digested coffee, muesli, and the morning’s bad news. In fact, as we help each other gather props, there seems to be a collective plan forming to drown sorrows in buttery pastry at a nearby bakery after the class.

Once settled, our instructor makes introductions, and then begins to guide us into a relaxed, but alert sitting position. The “om”ing shouldn’t have been a surprise. It’s not as though I’ve never taken a yoga class, or sat around a dinner table with a bunch of new-age chiropractors.  But it is just so far outside the lines of my daily experience of late, that I found the invitation startling, and as I mentioned before—highly aware of my membership in a western, white, middle-aged demographic—slightly cringe-y.

But as they say, in for a penny…I breathe in, and instinctively listen for the instructor’s intonation. We fall into the chant at different times—each a fraction of a second behind the other, until we are not only vibrating collectively, but also—I realize with pleasure—in perfect harmony. The chant fades naturally, we breathe in, and intone again. Then, once more.

And, together, we begin.