Been over a year since we fled NYC for the quietude and peace of a beach side town in CT. Really, it’s not all that different than city living.
Fine it’s completely different.
But in little ways. For instance, kids love when I call them ‘lil homey’ as they get off the bus. Their parents love it when I call them ‘Rebecca, Michael, Robert and Lillian’. Parents love being invited over for frozen margaritas. Just not at 11:30am on a Tuesday.
Its all good, I’m getting the hang of it. I even joined the Y. Settled into a sweet 6pm yoga class. Me and the mommies getting our downward dog on. Woof. Felt good, so I joined the Sunday morning yoga-Pilates. Figured if I could learn yoga in one class, adding a hyphen shouldn’t stop me from becoming a Pilates master too.
Quickly discovered Pilates is to Yoga what a Marathon is to say, jogging around the block. Just because you’re good at one, means you probably suck at the other. 10 minutes into class I was half-pretzeled raising one leg behind me in tiny, soul-crushing increments. I was in pain. But the pain resided in muscles I didn’t know existed.
Like the asslegknee. Its a muscle group just below the chestgutrib. And mine felt like someone was crushing it in a vise. So between asslegknee raises I plotted my revenge. Hard to remember all the details but in a nutshell it was basically a Unabomber campaign targeting nationwide Pilates studios. Between coughing fits I remember thinking I’d skip the manifesto writing part and just go for burning shit to the ground.
After class my teacher thanked me for coming. She’s French and has a great accent. We fell into an easy discussion about hip-flexors. Which could’ve been mildly sexy if she’d been in like, fishnet stockings blowing lazy smoke rings from her Gauloise cigarette.
Instead she took my leg and bent it out of sight, showing me ‘all zee relief is here, no?’. I couldn’t have agreed more – no. Before passing out, I made a mental note to make sure my firebombs contained a chemical accelerant so the studios would burn down before the fire trucks could get there.
Then, blackness. I woke up later, at the front desk of the Y. Asking if they had another yoga class. Not instead of, but in addition to. My inner-Deepak Chopra had been activated. I would not give up. No, I would excel at Tuesday night Yoga with Karen. I would rule Sunday morning Yoga-Pilates with Giselle.
And now, just to show they’d pushed me too far – I added another Yoga class. Wednesday nights with Nancy. ‘Revitalize and relieve the day’s stress with stretching / yoga’. Perfect. I showed up five minutes early on Wednesday, popped into the studio with my yoga-mat.
‘Hi, I’m Nancy – are you joining us tonight!’ the single process fifty something blond was perkier then a.m. coffee. ‘Would love to – bring in my mat, right?’.
‘You betcha! And grab a step…’.
Which should’ve been my first warning sign. The north of forty crowd all had long plastic step thingies. They were doing calf raises, so I grabbed one and did a calf raise showing off my new flexibility.
And then Nancy turned on music. They always vibe something kinda new-age-y in the yoga class. Stuff that sounds like a pair of turquoise dolphins with angle wings soaring over a blue ocean knitting Christmas scarves. But this wasn’t new age. It was trance. Trance not like, lulled into a peaceful coma. Trance like drop X and rave all night Trance.
Seemed weird. I mean, you can’t really stretch or do yoga to music that you’d play at a Prague disco while some girl with an eastern bloc accent gives you a blue pill with a tiny dove on it asking if you can get her and her cousin back across the border with you. Sorry, that’s another post.
Anyway, the music was too loud for yoga. Which now made sense because Nancy wasn’t yoga-ing. She was yelling. And dancing. ‘New faces tonight, say hello to – Dana and Gail!’. Nancy was marching in place rapidly like the Energizer Bunny.
I smiled and gave a little wave, not sure what was happening. Then she barked something like ‘…and, cross-step up, back step down, sidestep two three four, repeat…’. While doing some kind of hybrid River Dance, disco-cardio foot weave all up and over the step thingie.
I saw my reflection in the mirror and got confused between my left and right feet. I finally got my left foot onto the step when Nancy got to ‘…and repeat’. I did not hear Nancy say ‘And now, gentle warrior pose. Laying on your back, close your eyes and drift cloud-like into a place of loving peace’.
Which is why I joined yoga. I like being a cloud. Clouds don’t feel like they’re getting their sphincter muscles spanked with a snow shovel. Clouds don’t do Prague dance moves with fifty-year-old women with the energy of teenagers. Clouds float.
Nancy was not floating. Nancy had gone onto ‘…and grapevine walk, count of 10 and 9..and…8…and 7…c’mon, work! And 6…’. I frantically followed Nancy / my mirror reflection across the room laterally. Turns out I rock at grapevine. Its got a kinda Latin vibe – you just walk to the side, moving one foot behind the other while staring at your confused reflection which is trying to figure out if mirror left and real left are the same.
But I did it. And it was only my first three minutes in class. I briefly considered not firebombing Step Class Studios. Pilates joints were toast, but I might spare Step. Feeling revitalized and sexy and all grapevine walk, I threw a little hip into it. You know, work it a little.
‘…and squat to floor, hands up high and football shuffle count of 10, 9, 8, 7…’ Nancy and mommies were shuffling laterally across the room. Shit. I remembered this from H.S. I hated it. And that’s was 30 yrs ago. When I had the body fat of a #2 pencil. And on it went. Grapevine walk lost all its new and shiny fun after doing it like 9 times without stopping combined with football shuffle.
I was sweating like a baseball player on steroids before a Congressional hearing. My eyes were burning. I ran across the gym and grabbed a paper-towel from the dispenser, wiping the sweat from my face. I may have tried to kick someone’s step out from under them. Hard to remember. But yeah, probably.
‘Way to work, Dana!’ I heard Nancy cow-bellow across the room. If by ‘way to work’ she meant ‘Yay for you, that was your spleen falling out of your back!’, then yeah – yay. I could feel my pride hitting the floor in big, wet, salty sweat drops. Then, the big finale.
‘Great! Now grab your body bar, raise it out in front, squats on 8 and 7, and 6…’. Body bars have one purpose in life. They don’t rescues orphans. Or clean wildlife after an oil spill. Body bars want to hurt you. I was squatting. And bar-ing. And wanting to cry. I felt sweat run down my back, but didn’t rule out spinal bleeding.
Then I saw Helen from my Tuesday night Yoga. Helen’s about 104 years old and as thin as a swifter. And there she was, lifting her little body bar away ‘…and six and five and four, three…’. The difference was, Helen was using one of the lightweight bars made for women – it had little pink caps on the end and was way lighter then mine. Which had – pink caps on the end.
Hmmm. I looked again through my sweat-stung eyes – maybe the pink on mine was darker, signaling how much heavier my bar was. No. Same bubblegum pink. I watched as Helen pumped her bar up and down like it was a Q-Tip. Then coming up out of her squat she threw in a little Broadway style, chorus line kick. Essentially I’d been lapped while running by a senior pushing a walker. Awesome. ‘Good for you Helen…’, I thought. You’re gonna need that cardio because I just added senior centers to my firebombing list.
‘Great job, cool down – lay your mat on your step…’. Yoga, finally. Helen may have been old enough to help build the pyramids, but no way she could cloud like me. I was born to cloud. I lay on the mat, closed my eyes and pictured Nancy comforting a weeping Helen ‘Now, now – Dana’s probably been floating like a bunny cloud for years honey, its fine…’.
But Nancy’s yoga, like Nancy’s stretching, was vastly different. In fact, it wasn’t really yoga. It was vertical leg crunches to a 16 count. 4 Sets. I tried to reach my body bar, thinking I could club Nancy a little bit and make her stop. But I couldn’t lift the bar while lying on my back.
And then we were standing, clapping, wooting like we’d all won free pedicures. Class was over. I sat in my car, sucking down buckets of air. I’d done yoga. Pilates. Step. And sure, it was all a little more then I’d planned for, but I’d hung in there. Learned about hip flexors. And body bars. Even silently applauded an old woman’s success. I’d been a good week. There was only one thing left.
I turned up the A.C. in my car, looked at the clouds form lazy, beautiful shapes in the blue sky and pulled up Google on my blackberry. Then I punched in ‘firebombing+accelerants+homemade’. My fingers were nimble, each one a little ballerina dancing on the tiny keys. My mind was clear and extra focused as I navigated link after link ‘Unabomber…firebomb composition…ignitable liquids’.
Say what you want, but apparently nothing helps your concentration like a good Step class.
