Tales from the Yoga Studio (25 page)

Lee tries not to think about that period very often, but when she does, she thinks mainly about the horrible cold she always felt. Even when she was in the big, overheated, overpopulated apartment. When her weight dropped below one hundred pounds, it was as if there was nothing between the raw wind and her insides, and no matter what she did or how many clothes she piled on, how many cups of chamomile tea she sipped, she could never get warm. The more she felt herself slipping away, the less she cared what happened to her. If anyone commented on her pallor or weight, she'd turn on them with the ugly defensiveness of someone who understands she's in the wrong. And yet, underneath that, she had an inchoate longing to be rescued.

Rescue came in the form of Jane Benson. Plain Jane, as the roommates in the apartment called her, a Columbia Law student who was so ordinary and unmemorable, people pretended to forget she actually lived there. One Thursday afternoon when Lee was folded into a ball on the living room sofa nursing a cup of tea, Jane asked her if she'd like to go to a yoga class with her. Lee had known some dancers who did yoga, or claimed to, but the word still had a slightly exotic and esoteric sound. When she thinks about it now, Lee can hardly believe that she went with Jane, and she doesn't know what motivated her to do so. It seems as if fate lifted her up off the sofa and pushed her toward the door.

There were yoga studios in the city in those days, although nothing compared with the number and variety that have arisen since Madonna and Gwyneth made yoga mats and sun salutations trendy. But the class she went to with Jane was held in the drafty meeting room of a Presbyterian church off Amsterdam Avenue. There were maybe six or eight students sitting on blankets on the floor, none of them especially fit looking, and Lee felt too young and physically out of place, gaunt and drained. The teacher herself looked like a glamorous former dancer with long gray hair she had woven into a braid draped across her shoulder. She had beautiful blue eyes that Lee still remembers to this day, and when she first cast eyes on Lee, Lee felt as if she was seeing right through all of her defenses, as if there was no point in trying to hide from her. Lee let her vulnerabilities show.

She had had no idea what to really expect, but somewhere in the middle of class she felt more challenged than she'd felt in a long time, not because the physical demands were so great but because for the first time in a long time, no one was demanding anything of her, no one was judging her. The teacher saw through her, all right, probably knew exactly what she was feeling, how cold and numb she felt, but she neither pitied her for that nor condemned her. She only asked her to sit and experience herself in the moment. She only asked her to be still and—and here was the most difficult piece—to have compassion for herself.

It would have been nice if Lee's life had turned around right there and then. It would have saved a lot of time and a lot of anguish. It was a slow and gradual change, so slow Lee didn't even realize it was happening until she woke one morning and understood that she had let go of one dream and had started to pursue another.

She'd studied enough to know that the chemistry and science behind a lot of the claims made by yoga teachers was shaky and insupportable. According to the textbooks, the body and the inner organs just did not respond the way the instructors said. And yet, she herself was experiencing a transformation, born of the connections she was beginning to feel between body and mind and spirit that simply could not be denied. If the holistic attitude toward the body expounded by her yoga teachers made no sense to her brain, it made complete sense to her gut. She felt it.

And this, she realized, was what she'd been looking for all along—not a science to help people cure their diseases, but a system to help them live their lives in a way that made sense.

The foundation of everything she does in classes, the core of everything she teaches, is what she learned from that very first yoga teacher—compassion for self, flaws and all. Flaws
especially
. Everything she has to teach starts there.

She hears a shriek from the next room and runs in. But it's just the twins playing in a gleeful way with a big balancing ball. Michael actually helped his brother get up on it and is pressing into his back so he doesn't fall. Unnervingly atypical, but best to leave well enough alone.

Plain Jane never commented on how bad Lee looked at the start or how she began to improve, but Lee knew she witnessed it. She went on to finish law school and moved to New Orleans, and then Lee lost track of her. Two years ago, Lee started to look for her online, to thank her for what she did for her. Eventually she learned that she'd been in a car accident and had died after a long struggle. She wished then that she'd hunted her down sooner, so she could tell her how she'd helped her.

She goes back to the dining room table and takes out a fresh index card and starts all over. She'll begin with love and compassion as guiding principles. She'll start with that simple, clear feeling she had at the beginning of that very first class in the church basement. She'll begin with Jane.

W
hen Imani first started going to yoga classes with Becky, she was a little turned off by the conversations. “Conversasanas,” as she called them.

Fascinating!

Me, too! Only I think those were “branches” we were opening.

Honey, my ardha chandrasana's been off for years!

It reminded her of how she feels when people sit around a dinner table and discuss their dogs for thirty minutes. Or when she hears traffic reports in a distant city. Dogs? Love 'em! But what the hell is a follow-up question to a report that Dippy was a little moody this morning? And sorry to hear that the I-95 connector in Denver is backed up. And that's relevant to my life
how
?

And so Imani surprises herself when, over coffee, she hears herself telling Becky, “You know, I really loved the way I felt in utkatasana today.” (What? Who said that?)

“You're kidding,” Becky says. “I have never liked that pose. I always feel so cramped and boxed in somehow. And I hate sticking out your butt like that. My knees go out of alignment, and I feel as if I'm going to tip forward onto my nose
and
land on my ass at the same time.”

“I know, but when I tucked my pelvis and dropped my shoulders, I felt my whole back straighten out.” She keeps thinking of how Lee, in that very first class, kept telling her to “knit her pelvis and her lower rib cage together.” It made no sense at the time, but she keeps coming back to the image as a way to better align her body.

“It was wonderful,” she goes on. “Like when you're listening to a piece of music and it ends with this chord that pulls everything together. Just . . . click, and . . . ahhhh. It all made perfect sense.”

“I always feel that way in trikonasana. I love it when I reach, reach, reach and then just lower my arm down. Everything feels as if it falls into exactly the right place. And your thighs feel great! ”

“That's the triangle one? I could use a little more practice there.” Okay, she really
is
having this conversation. These words really
are
coming out of her mouth. And she even means them!

“Not that I was noticing, but your crow is just getting so freaking good, I might have to kill you,” Becky says. “Not that there's any competition.”

“Hell, no. None. And just FYI, I held that damned stick thing, warrior three, for the entire time. Arms straight out in front of me.”

“Uh-oh,” Becky says. “You are officially hooked! I can so tell! ”

“No way! Or maybe just a little. If you promise not to tell anyone . . . I dreamed I was doing poses last night. How sick is that? I used to dream about Hugh Jackman. And the worst thing is, when I woke up, I felt all off balance because I hadn't done them on both sides.”

“Oh, my God. I've created a monster. I have never dreamed about yoga. Or about Hugh Jackman. Those tiny little eyes? No, thank you.”

For an awful long time now, Imani has been using her cynicism and irony as a shield. She's been in enough therapy to know that. So it's a little strange to her to be talking about this in such an earnest way. Not that she objects. A couple of days ago, she was in a class in which the teacher was talking about “letting go.” Nothing unusual there, since they all seem to talk about “letting go” at some point or other in class, at which point, Imani usually expects to hear a chorus of farts.

But that day, her defenses were so broken down from fifty minutes of going into poses, the words sank in in some way they hadn't before. And she did let herself drop the tension in her muscles and sink into the floor, and she did think that if she could take this feeling with her somehow (“off the mat,” as they were always saying, another expression that had initially set her teeth on edge and now makes a lot of sense to her) her life would be better in some small but significant way.

“When does that movie start shooting?” Imani asks.

“Two weeks,” Becky tells her. “But there are a few readthroughs next week.”

“I'm losing my yoga friend!” Imani says. “What am I going to do?”

“It's a temporary loss. Why don't you start reading some scripts? You have the time. You don't know when you might find one that's really good. You have to get back on track.”

“Before I'm forgotten, you mean.”

“Look, we all run that risk. If you're out of the public eye for more than ten minutes, you start to grow mold. It happens to everyone. Just
begin
. Don't have any expectations; do as much as you can do.”

“It's beginning to sound like conversasana.”

“Right. And you're the one who started singing the praises of your chair pose. So use it. And listen, you don't need me hauling you into yoga classes. I got a tweet last night about a class at the YogaHappens in Beverly Hills. Some hot teacher is giving a ‘Deep Flow' Something or Other class. Everyone's talking about it. You should go.”

“I'll take it into consideration,” Imani says. “As long as I don't get my back knocked out of joint.”

“The teacher is a woman. And the whole thing is described as a journey . . . oh, I don't know . . just go. I'll send you the link. And remember to book it in advance. It's definitely going to sell out. There's a huge amount of buzz.”

S
tephanie heard about Lee's class at YogaHappens from Graciela. Graciela and Katherine are going together to support Lee since she's a little nervous about the class. New studio, high stakes, Beverly Hills, all that. It strikes Stephanie as a little odd that Lee never mentioned it during any of the classes she's been attending at Edendale, but then, she might not want to give business to a competing studio.

Ever since
that day
, Graciela has been calling Stephanie pretty much on a daily basis, usually with some little piece of news or some question that is clearly an excuse to check up on her. Not that Stephanie minds. She appreciates the attention, and in a way, it makes her feel less ostracized by the events of
that day
, as if it's just one more mistake that no one is going to forget but everyone is going to get past.

On the whole, Stephanie has been doing amazingly well at getting past things in the last few weeks. Past the shame, past the anxiety, and past the little waves of desire for a drink that occasionally wash over her. True to her word, Sybille Brent cut her a check for writing a draft of the screenplay, and so, for the moment, Stephanie's life has fallen into a nice, simple, well-funded rhythm. Up at dawn, write for two hours at the table in her newly spotless living room, yoga class at her gym, writing and lunch in a funky hamburger joint around the corner from her apartment, drive up to Silver Lake and take another yoga class with Lee. Coffee and a little more writing, if she has the drive. And then, turning in early with a book.