I’m in a snit.
Yes, snit. I cannot find another word to describe this. I
don’t feel happy, sad, blah, blue, up, down, left or right. I definitely don’t
feel right. I don’t want to eat, drink, sleep, work, exercise, read, write.
Nothing I don’t want to do anything.
But I need to get this snittiness out of me and end up sitting
on a foam block, in a dark room, on a yoga mat, saying “Namaste”, cringing when
all the non-desis around me pronounce it wrong. Whatever, stop focusing on pronunciation.
It is not like you Hindi accent is spot on, is it? I ask myself. Oh! Just shut
your eyes and stop thinking, I tell myself. Over-thinking more like. ACK! Stop
thinking about over-thinking.
I get up and move through a few downward dogs into
chaturanga. We do some trees and eagles, and normally my balance is for shit.
But today, since everything else seems to out of balance, my actual balance
seems okay. Better than okay, good actually.
I really don’t like yoga, but I really love the idea and lesson
of yoga. I like the thought of using my body as resistance to push my limits. I
like the mental release of thought and the world in search of simply being. But
the reason I don’t like yoga is sometimes it makes me feel like a cliché,
Indian girl doing yoga. Then again since my thoughts have not stopped racing
and I am debating my grocery list as we move through triangles and warrior
poses, I think I should not worry about being a desi cliché, since my American
mind won’t shut up.
As I move into lizard pose, I notice the woman next to me.
She seems fixated on something. We begin the lizard. At first I think I am
delusional. But it seems every time we hold the pose she seems to inch a few millimeters
deeper into the move than me. Is she competing with me? In yoga? I brush the
thought away, as absurd but then we go into chair and I swear to God she is
trying to out-chair me.
Now I am annoyed with this nameless faceless person who is
trying to out-yoga me. I am fine with the competitive and high paced nature of
New York when it comes to getting groceries, catching the subway, hailing a
taxi, washing laundry. But not in yoga.
I continue to move my body with my breath and this woman
continues to irritate me until my mind snaps, this is not about her. And so
what if she thinks yoga is something to compete in. This is about me. Something
inside of me is out of order. I am here to achieve something mentally and physically
through my practice today. I am not in the mood to compete.
When the time comes to do headstands, I move to the other
side of the room, away from. I don’t need her bad aura messing up my karma. I
need to get the snit out, not keep it in.
