October 13, 2002 ~ Two Contortionists
Sunday.
Morgan and I have become contortionists. But first I want to tell you about our weekend.
I wanted to spoil Morgan rotten this weekend, because he had endured a rather stressful and mind-numbing training all week for the tech support job. And, besides that, I missed him. I wanted to drink up his presence and not waste a single moment.
Since I have Fridays off from work, I committed the day to cleaning the house and finishing up a few projects so that I would have the weekend free. Morgan gets depressed and stressed out if the house is messy.
I was joyful at the news that, since Monday is Columbus Day, my paycheck would be direct deposited to my account on Friday instead. This was an incredible relief, considering my checking account has had a balance of $0 and Morgan's has been overdrawn for the last two weeks. We were buying groceries on the last $100 of my credit card. The arrival of my paycheck doesn't mean that we are in the clear, but I figured that, for this weekend, a small amount of frugal splurging (see me oxymoronify--and use non-existent words) would be feasible.
When Morgan walked in the door, tired, the floors were drying, and I had water ready to boil on the stove for pasta. Without saying a word, he gathered me up into a long hug with a mumbled, "I love you."
A play at the college, a lunch date at Salsa's, grocery shopping, and lots of cuddling at home made for a fantastic weekend. (Hey--grocery shopping is fun for us, with the wonderful co-op and our mutual love of cooking).
Saturday afternoon, we sat together talking. I was talking about all of the hiking that I have been doing recently, and I mentioned how much more fit I feel from it, how much my back problems have improved, and how my muscles must be toning well, because I'm starting to fit into my clothes better again.
"I'm a little jealous," said Morgan. "I'm so out of shape."
"I'd love it if you'd hike with me."
"Maybe I should go back to doing some exercises in the evenings. That did help when I did it."
"If you want, we could start doing Yoga together in the evenings."
I was mostly kidding, because Morgan is one of the least flexible people in the world, but, to my surprise, he responded, "Yeah. I'd like that."
I used to do Yoga every day. I used to have perfect posture and balance, along with excellent flexibility. I probably should have kept it up. So that evening, I pulled out my old Yoga book. We spread some mats on the floor, and flipped through the book.
Morgan looked horrified at several of the positions. "There is no way in Hell I'll be able to do that!"
I smiled. "It just takes some practice. I used to be able to do that."
His look said, Yeah, well you used to be a masochist, too. Something tells me that the photographs in the Yoga book gave Morgan a picture of his Saturday evening that was slightly different from his expectations.
The first night's exercises were not overly demanding, however, and Morgan did well. The strange thing about Yoga is that it doesn't appear to be something that one would do to improve one's health or fitness. You don't break a sweat, you don't raise your heart-rate, you don't do any lifting or weight training--and yet, it is the best thing that I know for gaining excellent posture, balance, and muscle tone, not to mention heightened control over the way that I move in general.
Yoga in practice looks like a precise, slow motion dance done by contortionists, with several moments of complete stillness when holding a position. It integrates body movement with a form of physical meditation. It is very relaxing, but, at the same time, you feel as if every muscle in your body is being used to its maximum limit. It doesn't leave you particularly sore, but you still notice the difference in your body immediately.
After finishing our second session this evening, Morgan said, "You know what I love about Yoga? It feels as if every single muscle in my body has been pulled taught and then loosened."
Indeed.
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