My Safe Place

The last few minutes of yoga class are laying on my back, towel over my eyes (the instructor can't change the lighting in the room, something she complains about every single time we do the corpse pose).

"And now, you're going to go to your safe place. Forget about whatever else you have to do. Forget about your concerns. Put them away from your mind. Your safe place. Picture it. Hold fast to that idea."

And I think back, and I grab hold of images of my grandparents' summer house. A tiny two bedroom cabin set on the barest imaginings of a peninsula; one good summer storm away from being an island. The path from the dock is no wider than two feet; a few bridges that cross what might actually not be a damp spot in the trail, but merely a very aggressive bush that holds one side of the land to the other.

I can see the docks. The front deck. The tuffets in the back of the house. (Did you ever wonder what Miss Muffet was sitting on? I don't. I've seen them... they're round domes of moss, almost perfectly round, like a seat cushion. You can pick them up, they're dirt on the bottom, and move them somewhere else, and they'll just continue to do their thing...)

And yet, I'm seeing everything from a bird's eye view. A perspective I've never actually seen these buildings, structures, trees. I don't see any people, although I was never there when there was less than four people in residence, and usually there were more. I've never seen the house from the top, nor peered down at the back yard from the roof.

I can't seem to picture myself there. Not in a deck chair, or lounging on the deck, or swimming in the back bay, or walking in the shallows over to the Point.

It's strange.

But I'm not in my safe place at all.

No one is.

Slack? Not Me!

I've been "on vacation" for the last few days. What started as a reunion party for my college's science fiction club has become a full-on yearly summer party. Starting some time around the 4th of July and running full force until about the 12th, it's nothing but people, drinking, food, visitors, food, drinking, reminiscing, getting to tell the same old stories to new people... and hey, did I mention the food?

However, I've been pretty good with the food. Well, except for yesterday... I don't think I ate MUCH yesterday, but what I did eat was almost entirely chips. And salsa. But since I didn't eat the whole bag of chips, I think it was good. Well, not good, but not totally throwing myself down the stairs. When I'm chasing the last few tomatoes around the bottom of the salsa jar with a Popsicle stick, I might need some help.

And I've been working out... not at the gym, but I did walk a LOT, and did some running around in the park.

Despite that, my weight's up a bit. Probably all the salt.

Went to Yoga again today. Oh, I love it! My instructor was very impressed with me. Today's class structure was Abs, butt, and balance.

"Are you sure you're a novice?" she asked me after class. "You had your foot way up there during tree. And your balancing tiger? that was excellent. That's a really hard pose!"

Seriously, I love the gym, I've been enjoying my classes and the workouts... but if I had to pick why I'm staying at the gym, it's yoga class. I was sweating like crazy, but I feel soooooo good afterward.

Zoooooooooomba

I tried Zumba yesterday.

The operative word being "tried."

Yoda, with his "do or do not" obviously never attempted any baking, since we all know you can try to bake a cake, and sometimes you just don't succeed.

The class was HUGE - quite a shift from the morning Yoga class - something like 40 people were crammed into the same room. The instructor was very tiny. Not just thin, but the kind of woman that the slang word "shawty" was made for. I mean, I'm not exactly tall, but this girl was... maybe 4'8"? Given that the class was so large, this made her extremely difficult for me to see, even when she was standing on the stage.

Also, there were four new people, of which I was one, and most of the rest of them were very familiar with the class. She didn't call out moves or anything. Often she made a hand gesture over her head when we were getting ready to change up moves, but since I'd never been to a class before, I didn't know what any of them meant.

Now, don't get me wrong, none of the basic moves were all that hard. I've done regular dance aerobics before, and these were just modified steps like I've done before. Except with a lot more hip and leg movements. And for instance, when I started rhythm boxing, I was remarkably uncoordinated the first few dozen times, but I kept at it, and eventually I learned. Well, the basic steps, at least. I'm just not up to shaking what my mamma gave me... I think the instructors hips are attached to the rest of her with string, like those little toys, you know the ones, where you push the button on the bottom of their stand and they collapse like wet noodles?

And I learn pretty fast - it's one of the advantages of being a genius (which is completely countered by being socially inept and uncoordinated!) - so usually within a series, it wouldn't take me long to get it.

I ended up leaving the class after 40 minutes, when it was a 60-minute class, but that was because all the jumping around had annoyed my bladder (one of the joys of getting older and having babies that no one ever told me... ) and I had to go visit the ladies room. Next time, I'll remember to go RIGHT before class!

That's right, I said NEXT TIME.

Despite being relatively uncoordinated, I had a good time for those 40 minutes.

(to make up the cardio, I hit the elliptical for 25 minutes after I used the facilities before heading home...)

I also got macked on by someone who overheard me discussing raiding with Drew. (one of the guys from the gym that I've talked to several times... we discuss Warcraft, which is actually kind of fun to talk about while on the elliptical... PS - it is also very funny to be listening to mathematical formulas while doing cardio... badass fucking fractal!) Ok, dude. Seriously. Yes, I'm a girl. Yes, I'm a gamer. No, I'm not going to sleep with you. Go away.