waking the baby cobra

Morning. I walk through a misty quiet neighborhood, an overcast sky above calling for rain. I left the house in the middle of it all to make an early yoga class. A storefront on the main avenue where I live, not a place you might imagine a peaceful Zen space to mindfully coexist with urban sounds. 

The pitter-patter of rain on the tar roof, the windows floor to ceiling crystal clear. A sisal carpet, the color of sand, flanked walls painted a dewy shade of dawn. There are two people when I arrive, a gentleman in his late 40s, a woman in her late 50s /early 60s if I had to guess.

I roll out my mat, the lotus pattern intact—and see skid marks and dirty fingertips from faraway. The clock strikes 7.45 and we begin. Sun salutations mountain pose, we work on tree and shoulder stands. I come away with an accomplished feeling, just what I needed the flow of yoga and its healing chakras.

The stroll home is in a state of bliss, and I walk mindfully between the raindrops, stopping just once for coffee. 

Baird Hersey's music accompanied today's practice. 

At home, I sit down to write and with fingers on the keyboard, feet flat on the floor, I type. Transcendent, in between spaces; I feel sleepy where the air is light, flowery. The cat hovers nearby eyeing the corn muffin in the paper bag. He can smell sugar a mile away. He climbs over the pillows and onto my lap, warming my forearm. We agree to share this space on the couch just him and I.

The coffee is like sweet water and does nothing to keep me in the moment. Instead, my eyes grow tired and listless, they begin to close of their own accord, rolling backwards as if my mind's eye has beckoned that they take another look inside. I think of no one, nothing.

~

The cicadas buzz outside the window. Two hours have slipped away. My back is glued to the cushion and miraculously my body though stiff, is not numb. My stomach grumbles. There is a radio murmuring in the distance, white noise of consonants and vowels strung together. The rain has stopped, and just beyond the curtains I can see strains of sun illuminating the garden path. The chimes rustle in the wind. 

Tigger has moved to the floor in a child’s pose at the center of the rug. He eyes me once before laying his head to rest. I can feel the film of exhaustion clogging my pores. My arms stretch, my back arches and the tender working of muscles is there, and there.

###