Things I love about practicing yoga at home:
I don't have to arrange my day around a yoga studio's schedule
I don't have to pay for it
I don't have to spend half an hour on the road (plus $4 in gas) getting there and back
No vaguely New Age music
I can wear shorts and my most comfortable, least supportive tops and no 20-year-old will glance at me and possibly wonder (a) if her skin's going to get all crinkly like that when she gets old, or (b) why don't I cover that shit up
Nobody to get arrogant about their space or feel entitled to "accidentally" thwack me if they feel like my mat's invading their territory
I don't have to pray to become invisible during backbends so that the teacher doesn't come over and help me, when really all I want is to be able to struggle through, no matter how ugly what I'm doing may look
Things I don't like about practicing at home:
I can't put down my mat next to advanced students and use them for motivation
Yes, well, sometimes it's nice to have a little help with backbends
Those 20-year-olds are a good reminder that it's totally appropriate for me not to be as flexible as someone half my age
Hippie music camouflages the unhappy noises my body makes sometimes
My home practice space is small and I often accidentally knock into chairs, bookshelves, stray shoes, or other detritus that has nowhere else to go
Then of course Peewee cries and harrumphs outside the door until I open it and let him in
And then he wants to lie on my mat and make it impossible to do anything
Speaking of Peewee, it's his birthday today. He's four in Earth years, but if you give him five human years for his first two, and seven human years for everything after that, he's actually 24. Like many people that age, he's into high-risk activities:
Unlike many people that age, he naps five to six times a day and eats out of a bowl on the floor. Happy birthday, Peewee! We will continue to enjoy having you around for as many years as your genetic programming allows for, and we will try not to think about how much longer that will actually be.
This morning during all of our separate trips outside, each of us noticed the dirty twin-sized mattress leaning up against the wall next to the garbage enclosure. And then we had to talk about it.
Me: "Is it so hard to stick that in the dumpster? Assuming you're strong enough to haul it all the way out to within a foot of the dumpster, can you not go the extra mile and push it up into the trash? Absolutely no one is going to recycle that, it's disgusting."
Jack: "Jackson said* maybe a hobo could use it."
Me: "You think? Hobos need to stay mobile."
Jack: "Maybe an immobile hobo."
"The Immobile Hobos" is either your new band name or a class of Coach bags that weigh 500 pounds.
* Jack has to take Jackson to school for an entire week as payback for missing the MANDATORY PARENTS NIGHT last week, which I went to, and which resulted in me volunteering to help with something like six different events this school year. I did it to make up for the last two years of book-related absence on my part. Do you want me to participate in something? Try guilt! It works like a charm.