Icing and the Cake

Even fresh fallen snow starts to look ugly by the end of February. There was a sort of romance to the blizzard of biblical proportions earlier this month, even though the streets were impassable and dog walking was a bit of a nightmare. But snow measured in feet rather than inches is a rare occurrence, and many of us, despite our complaints of inconvenience, enjoyed the novelty.

Enough already, though. Several days of warm weather melted many of the gigantic mounds away, and thoughts of spring began to dance in my head. I could swear I heard birds chirping. The puddles in my garage from snow dripping off my car were finally absorbed into the concrete floor, and I fantasized about putting away the squeegee until next year. Rain seemed a welcome change – an unpleasant but necessary precursor to an imminent shift in seasons.

But as surely as my dreaded meeting with the matrimonial team was cancelled, the temperatures have once again plummeted, leaving us first with the freezing rain that caused my nasty spill yesterday, and then, inevitably, the fresh batch of snowfall today. Ugh.

Last night, I ventured out in the nasty chill to teach my Monday night yoga class, even though my morning clumsiness had left me with an aching shoulder, an immobilized arm, and a stiff lower back. But my Monday evening yoga class is always somewhat unorthodox, and an instructor drugged up on painkillers and barely able to move was just par for the course.

As usual, we centered ourselves by sharing stories; last night we brought a long absent friend up to date by filling her in on the infamous session several weeks ago when one student emitted the longest and loudest bit of gas any of us had ever experienced, and another, laughing so hard, peed in her pants. As with all my classes, there was a profound lesson learned: never eat cabbage soup before yoga.

Together, we stumbled through the practice. I struggled to articulate poses without the benefit of physical demonstration, and our long absent friend struggled to keep her post-mastectomy breast implants in place as I helped her modify overly taxing stretches. As a group, we probably looked more like a triage center than a yoga class. No matter; as we do each week, we laughed at each other and ourselves.

My friend, our yoga hostess, had baked a cake so we could celebrate one of our motley crew's birthday. The cake looked like I felt: broken, crumbly, askew. But looks, as we know, can be deceiving, and the cake was delicious, much tastier than the perfect looking replacement our hostess had purchased, just in case. Like us tough broads, even a cake can roll with the punches; forces beyond anybody’s control may make us a little lopsided, but it’ll take a lot more than brutal weather or a faulty oven to destroy our essence.

Every Monday, after we say our “namastes,” I feel as if my yoga students have given me much more than I could possibly offer them. They have all struggled with challenges far more daunting than nasty weather and a few little ice patches. But despite tumors and scar tissue and debilitating chemical cocktails and, yes, a bit too much cabbage soup, they continue to work their way into the poses of the beautiful and powerful warriors they are.