Om

Ahhhh. Who knew I was only some triangle poses and a shoulder stand away from feeling mellow and serene, yet energized at the same time. I went to my first yoga class tonight in a looooong time. Too long. Every time I do yoga, I think "why don't I do this more often."

Well, except at the last class I attended, where our teacher had us doing this very odd "stirring a pot of oatmeal" pose. Then I thought, "I'm so not coming back next week."

And I didn't go back that week, or the next, which is why it's been almost a year since my last class. But the local high school is a site of a large number of community education offerings, so I figured it was high time to sign up again.

Every member of our family is enrolled in something for the next two months. The kids are in swimming; the teacher is trying to teach them the front crawl, to which I say, good luck. The Husband is taking German lessons since the French courses on offer were beneath him.

(This, of course, means he will be a linguistic triple threat, much like our high school language teacher Mr. Bostock, who will remain forever in my memory as the teacher who spit into a kleenex before using it to clean the overhead projector. While it was on, unfortunately, thus magnifying the bubbles in a grotesque, yet mesmerizing fashion.)

It's high time I get some zen going on. Today I felt desperately in need of one of those little sand gardens with a rake.

See, the kids and I have a five-minute window in the morning which dictates the bus I will take. If I get us out the door and to school on time, there's the 7:35, which is a long shot, but occasionally I manage to catch it and get to work with lots of time to get coffee in a leisurely fashion before sauntering over to my desk chair at 8:00.

Then there's the 7:45, which is a more realistic goal. If I jump off and dash from it to the office, much like a Floral Fern briskly completing this side of the shopping mall before crossing over to the other*, I can slide into my chair at 8:03 and pretend my clock is three minutes fast and thus leave promptly eight and a half hours later at 4:30.

But if I miss the 7:45, then I wait for 20 minutes in the middle of nowhere at the bus stop until the next bus at 8:05, which leads to a chain reaction of having to work until 5:00 and getting home almost 45 minutes later than if I'd left the house 5 minutes earlier that morning.

As you might guess, this gives me a certain, shall we say, urgency in the morning. Well and good. But, much to my shame, this urgency tends to translate into a transformation into Harpy Mother. Ever tried getting two kids out of bed, dressed, out the door, to school and seated in front of pop-tarts with 45 minutes turn-around time? It's pretty much cat-herding. And I'm less than serene while doing it.

Here's hoping a few downward dogs more in my life will help me to be a bit more calm. If not, then maybe I'll at least be a bit more fit and today's sorry episode of the bus pulling away just as I came running up will not be repeated.

GRRRRR. He Totally SAW ME...ommmmm.


*A habit of one of my BFFs is to restrict one's shopping to the stores on one side of the mall's hallway before crossing over to head down the other side. To this day, I still feel a twinge of guilt if I quickly hop over to Banana Republic because it's just across on the other side.