“If you’re struggling at your edge,” Sidra instructed, “don’t fight your breath. Soften.”
It was a word she used a lot, but he had yet to fully grasp her meaning.
“Soft” had never gone well with heavy metal. “Soft” was the ballad that destroyed his friendship with Adrian and strained his marriage.
No, you wanker. You did that all on your fucking own, with your hard heart and stubborn exterior.
She moved them into a deep forward bend, then instructed the class to clasp their elbows and let their heads hang heavy. “Nod your head yes,” she gently intoned. “Now shake your head no.” A wave of emotion followed Rick’s movements, surprising him. He felt as if he was giving himself the green light and saying “fuck off” to the rest of the world at large. Fancy that, he thought. When was the last time I allowed that to happen? Tears pricked at his eyes. He was so tired.
Sidra wove her way in between each student, checking their stances, suggesting adjustments and modifications where needed. “If you are holding on to any anger, resentment, fear, or anxiety, yoga offers the opportunity to let it go.” Rick had a hard time keeping his eyes off her.
Half-Forward Fold to Plank, Plank to Down Dog . . . He was getting the hang of this. Moving through Chaturanga Dandasana like a pushup and transforming into Cobra. “This is great for strengthening the muscles across your back. The latissimus dorsi.”
God, he loved when she spoke Latin. At her bidding, he folded, along with the other participants, into Child’s pose.
“Let’s focus on some different kinds of breaths.”
Sidra had already taught them Ujjayi breathing, with a constricted throat. Otherwise known as “ocean breath,” she had told him during one of their private sessions. He liked the thought of the ocean in his breath, and he had even used it with success the night before, when the panic threatened to sift down from the darkened ceiling like a burial shroud and smother him in bed.
His twisted mind had tortured him with the same horrible dream again. In it, he was dressed to the nines; it was his wedding day. He was happy. Simone was waiting for him at the end of the flower-strewn aisle. Dress, veil, everything perfect. He couldn’t wait to get down the aisle to be with her. But his feet moved so slowly; it seemed he’d never get there. He kept stopping, seven times. Then he’d notice there weren’t rose petals at his feet. Just a trail of dirt, leading up to . . .
To have and to hold, to love and to cherish . . . till death . . .
That was always the part that wrenched him to waking, back to reality.
“Lion’s breath,” Sidra was saying now. Her voice sounded sacred, assured. “This is a great one. It may look silly with your tongue hanging out, but no one can see you. It gets rid of tension in the face, and it feels great.”
She instructed them to widen their mouths and loll out their tongues. With his head to the mat, Rick could hear his own breath roaring in his ears as he took his first lion’s breath. Then another, and another.
He saw himself leaping through the surf of the rolling blue Pacific, scooping up Jonah and sailing him, like the dove of his Hebrew name, high overhead. “Me next, Daddy! Now me!” Rick had deposited his youngest son, dripping, laughing, and fearless, into Simone’s arms, and had reached for Ari next. Unlike his twin, Ari was pensive, cautious. The quiet middle child. He, too, had wanted to fly, but once aloft, he was scared. “You won’t drop me, will you?” “Never,” Rick had promised, swirling with Ari in his arms as the sea churned below them. “I’ll never let you go, my little lion.”
He missed his family so much.
“Stay with the breath,” Sidra was saying. And she was saying it directly to him, for he had stopped; he was holding it deep within his lungs. “Stay in the present moment,” she added as she brought them to a kneeling position and her gaze met his.
* * *
Your old dog is learning some new tricks, Simone. My body is learning a whole new language through yoga. Yes, laugh all you want. Roll in your grave, my love.
My favorite new vocabulary word, I have to say, is scapulae. It’s fancy talk for shoulder blades. If Digger and I were to part ways once more, I think I would form a new metal band called Scapulae.
My instructor is very good. She works us hard, harder than I ever imagined I would allow. There are times I’m so grateful for prayer stretch, I feel like weeping. She tells us to let gravity do the work. What a revelation! All this time, it never occurred to me. I’ve always clawed my way to the top in an attempt to fight gravity. No, to defy gravity. Now, I revel in Child’s pose. The feeling of my forehead on the mat humbles me. It’s very grounding.
Did you know there’s an edge you reach in yoga? She tells us the body’s edge is the place just before pain, but not pain itself. And that our body knows to automatically steel itself, to protect us? Apparently, in time, we learn to listen and trust and move ourselves past it. Both mind and body.
I’m quite addicted to breathing now that I know how to do it correctly. How we cheat ourselves of, yet take for granted, the air that’s there. It’s as heady to me as whipping a crowd of ten thousand into frenzied applause, a quality high no drug can compare to. Sidra—that’s my instructor’s name—gives us these breaths as a gift. Then she takes them away, telling us to fit our breaths in the spaces left open by the twists, between the knots. Bloody hard, but I spend so much time on my body and my breathing, I forget about the outside world and I truly relax.
She’s saving my life.
Please don’t hate her for it.
* * *
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot,” Rick groaned. They were in Pigeon pose, side by side. It was a grueling hip stretch. When Sidra had first taught it to him, he had likened it to a self-guided tour of a torture rack. Someone shoot me now, he had thought. Put me out of my misery. His left leg was out straight behind him, pubic bone pressed to the floor, while his right leg was bent, practically parallel to the top of the mat, beneath his torso. Who would willingly put their body through this? But now, as he settled into the pose, minding the bits and bobs, he marveled at how his body had allowed him to take it deeper over time. It was just their third private session.
“Why dove?”
“Come again?”
“Your focus word. Dove.”
“Dove,” he grunted, propping himself up on his elbows and swaying his top half gently, “is for my son Jonah. It’s his Hebrew name.”
He gave a small sigh and slowly dropped to his forearms. Just past the edge of comfort. Sidra was a step ahead of him. She had walked her hands out in front of her and practically brought her torso to the floor over the bent knee.
“I love this pose.” She inhaled deeply. “Kapotasana.” With her left ear down on the mat, she regarded him with those bright, intense eyes. “Kapota actually means both ‘pigeon’ and ‘dove.’”
There were so many things he wanted to ask her. Like whether that wanker with the guitar and the cheap cracks, Charlie, meant anything to her. And how did she end up here, behind a record store? Who was this girl, beneath all her Latin and her Sanskrit and ancient knowledge?
“Why do you ask?” he questioned instead, lowering his head in increments until he was able to meet her face-to-face.
“Because it’s my mantra, too,” she replied quietly.
Sidra
Reverse Warrior
She could see curiosity in his eyes as he tried to unearth more of her secrets with his stare. Why did I just tell him that? she chastised herself. My mantra has no bearing on his practice. She could’ve kicked herself for opening up. She would’ve, had she not been in Pigeon stretch.
It was the type of pose the body just knew when it had had enough and couldn’t stand it a minute longer. She pushed up and out of it, back into Downward Dog. He followed suit.
A son. He’s a dad. Downward Facing Dad.
Sidra shook out her leg in Dog Split and jumped to the top of her mat. Now, with each pose she led h
im into, she could feel his eyes. It was unnerving.
“Warrior One. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m your drishti.”
His brow wrinkled quizzically.
“Your gazing point,” she supplied. “Warrior Two.”
He adjusted his stance and glided his arms into position, but his eyes remained on hers.
“Maybe you are,” he murmured, that ghost of a smirk ever-present.
Sidra felt her face heat. This guy needed to back the hell off. “Reverse Warrior,” she commanded. “One line of energy, from fingertip to fingertip.” The pose caused him to drop his back arm to his thigh and reach for the sky with the other, forcing his gaze upward. She circled him, checking his alignment, making him hold the position a bit longer than necessary. There was a fine line between enjoying a counterpose and discomfort. But she needed a moment for composure and to recover herself. She struck her own Warrior, straight as an arrow, next to him, wondering who would quiver first. “Well, find a different one,” she finally managed. “I’m not always going to be there for you.”
Rick
Shedding Light
Rick watched as Sidra patiently and thoughtfully gave modifications to her current pose. She seemed to have memorized every student’s ailment or quirk, like the most sought-after waitress in a restaurant could remember how each of her customers took their coffee.
Not that there were many students on a day like today, Rick observed. He had forgotten the sauna-like conditions Manhattan could push to. The climate-controlled recording studio hadn’t been a bad place to wait out the heat of the day, but the air had still been oppressive as he made his way down to the not-so-climatically-disciplined yoga studio that evening. Sidra had the ceiling fans, as well as floor fans, going strong, and the air-conditioning of the old building was churning out a bit of relief. But Rick had noted the concern crossing her face each time the lights would dim and the motors would hum instead of purr.
Her Friday evening Hatha class was gentler and seemed to attract mostly seniors. And the occasional rogue rocker, Rick humored himself.
“Do you mind if I . . . Your Dog isn’t quite . . .”
She was next to him, smelling like mandarin oranges and buttercream frosting.
“Not at all,” he murmured, wishing he could see her from the downward facing position he was currently holding. Delicate fingers found his waistline, and with a strength he didn’t realize she had, she pulled him higher to God. It wasn’t a natural position to be in at all, he marveled, with his arse in the air and the rest of him bent like a triangle, but it felt surprisingly good. And her hands now gently holding his rib cage felt even better. “Believe it or not, it’s a recovery pose,” she said breathily, as if she were the one in the compromising position, defying gravity. Rick cocked his head and watched, through shakily supporting arms, as she moved on.
He thought she was beautiful, even down to the star-shaped sweat mark staining her shirt at the small of her back.
The lights flickered once more, and everything in the room seemed to give a dull hum. “Brownout,” the lady called Vivian announced. She popped out of her Downward Dog position and calmly began rolling her mat. “I need to get back to Jersey while I still can.”
A few others murmured in agreement. “This area is prone to brownouts,” Sidra relayed. “If you choose to leave, I understand. But we’ve already punched cards and are halfway through the class.”
“That’s all right, dear. Carry on.” Vivian gave a wave, a few of her posse following close at her heels. The lights of the yoga studio continued to burn at the normal dim rate, but Rick noticed the motors of the cooling systems were struggling. He didn’t even want to consider how suboptimal voltage could affect the recording equipment. You’re not in the studio, he reminded himself. Not in your studio, anyway. Relax.
The word no sooner came to his head than the room plunged into darkness. Bleats of surprise could be heard from the few students left. “Careful, everyone. Slowly come out of Dog, recover in Child’s pose,” Sidra calmly dictated. “It’s probably a rolling blackout. This area is prone to them as well.”
“Rolling!” An older man huffed. “We’re always the first to lose power and the last to regain. Mendez could give a fig about her constituents on the Lower East Side!”
“Less politics, more yoga, Morty.” Sidra was trying to keep control of the situation. In the shadow of the few emergency lights, Riff could see her moving through the room with purpose. She propped open the exit door, which allowed natural light to stream in, but provided no relief to the mounting heat.
Like moths to a flame, Rick observed. The majority of the class fled, all eager to get home before Friday’s rush hour to check on their own power situations. Only he and Benny remained. Rick only knew the bloke’s name because he consistently referred to himself in the third person, mostly to complain about something.
“We can still work,” Sidra said slowly. “Let’s just take it easy. We can pretend we’re in a Bikram class.” Rick had no doubt the room temperature was pushing into the nineties, so it was more of a reality than a joke.
“Sid, you okay back here?” A hulking shadow appeared in the entryway. “Freakin’ Con Ed. I’m gonna close up. No registers, no AC. I’m dying up there.”
“We’re good, Mikey. Just finishing a class. You can lock up the front.”
The guy, Mikey, turned and gave both Benny and Rick a stare-down before turning on his heel and leaving. Rick was familiar with the type. Lord knows he had had plenty of brawny Irish men working crew for him over the years. A hardchaw, he decided. That was the term. He suspected this guy was full of bark and not much bite. He wondered how long the bloke had known Sidra, and felt strangely envious of the way he looked out for her.
“Shall we, gentlemen?”
“Benny’s fine with that!” The old man scrubbed his gray mustache with the back of his hand. “I like to get what I paid for,” he confided in Rick with a wink, his eyes magnified to almost cartoon character proportions behind thick glasses.
Rick wanted to laugh, or at least catch Sidra’s eye and share a private smirk behind the old guy’s back. But she was struggling with a long wooden pole, trying to raise the shades on the windows that were easily thirty feet above her. “Can I help shed some light on the situation?” he asked, hopping up to help her.
“Thanks. Not sure if any of them open as well. You know, to release some of the hot air.” She raised her brow, and he figured she was referring to Benny.
Most were leaded glass, stained in hues of beautiful blues and greens that literally took Rick’s breath away. They reminded him of the darkest shards of sea glass found washed up from the ocean floor. A shame these windows were covered most of the time, he thought. It wasn’t until he backed up to wrestle with the last shade that he realized there were Stars of David in intricate patterns on each one. “This was a synagogue!” he marveled.
“Of course, any meshuggener knows that!” Benny clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “So many old tenement synagogues in this neighborhood. ’Cuz we were here long before your people, missy. Am I right?” He turned to Rick for backup. “My parents belonged to Temple Beth-El. This one had a fire. The congregation rebuilt on Amsterdam Avenue.”
“So that explains the ner tamid.” The look upon Sidra’s face told Rick she had no clue what he was referring to. “Your lamp up there. It never goes out, does it?”
Her gaze followed his pointer finger, and she allowed a slight, baffled smile. “I’ve never been able to find a switch for it. I figured it was on the same circuit as the emergency exit signs and stuff.”
“Gas!” Benny exclaimed impatiently. “It runs on gas. If you could switch it off, it wouldn’t be eternal, now, would it? Can we get on with things? Benny’s not getting any younger!”
“All right, Benny. Shall we move into Crow?” When the older man balked, Sidra continued, “Let me demonst
rate.” Within a half minute, Sidra was defying gravity in a move neither man would ever achieve in their lifetime. “From here, it’s fairly easy to move into a headstand.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Should we try something so advanced, and under these conditions?” Benny gestured around them.
Sidra slowly lowered and righted herself. “You know, I think you’re right. In fact, I don’t think I should really charge you for a class under these conditions, Benny. Here.” She scampered to a small table in the corner of the room. “Here’s a new punch card. It’s my new five-class card. On the house. Or should I say, on the sweathouse?”
“Well, that’s nothing to sniff at.” Happy his perseverance paid off in spades, Benny rolled up his mat. “You get the power fixed, and I’ll be back. None of that Blimblam hot yoga nonsense for Benny.”
“Now, what about you?” Sidra turned to Rick.
“What about me?”
“There’s twenty more minutes of class. Want to call it quits?”
Rick couldn’t read her. “Stone the crows! Time flies when you’re sweating half to death,” he murmured. That got a smile out of her. “I mean, seriously. No Crow. But I would like to try something less death-defying, more calming. I had a really shitty day at work. But if you’re ready to knock off . . .”
“No, no, we can work through our vinyasa,” she mumbled. “But you sure you want to stick around? It’s going to get really hot in here.” She paused a moment, then peeled off her damp top, revealing just a sports bra underneath.
“Really.” You’ve obviously never played the Cotton Bowl in Dallas during 104-degree heat in leather pants, he thought. “I’m sure.”
Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel) Page 16
