a lion’s breath welcome.
One sunny spring day at yoga, I let a good ol’ fashioned lion’s breath go, and afterward, the teacher said to the class, “oh, don’t mind her, she just has 3 kids.”
Once I realized the teacher was talking about ME (this took awhile), I reddened. And I wondered:
DID I LOOK LIKE I WAS PUSHING OUT A BABY? OR HAVING MONSTER SEX? OR. DID I LOOK EXACTLY LIKE MY AUNT PEG AFTER TOO MANY DRINKS?
GOD.
I poked my eyes gingerly around the room, sincerely hoping to find a buncha folks smiling softly back at me in solidarity. like, “we get it, girlfriend. this is the place you let.it.rip. way to go in there and GET IT.”
Instead, I found roughly a dozen snappy women, donning perfect ponies and impeccable toenails, gaping at me like I was some kind of mangy zoo exhibit.
Insert this THANK-GOD-OTHER woman (also with greasy hair and deflated boobs), one mat away, who started cracking up.
WHAT A RELIEF.. THE SIGHT OF HER ALONE! AMIDST A SEA OF ORGANIC COTTON AND SVELTE ARMS AND GOOD HAIR... THERE SHE WAS—ANOTHER MOM!, DONNING BUNCHY UNDERWEAR AND A WORN OUT LED ZEPPLIN T-SHIRT WITH WHAT I WAS WILLING TO BET, WAS BANANA SMOOSHED ON THE SLEEVE. EITHER THAT, OR SOME 3-DAY OLD AVOCADO.
The teacher demanded, as teachers do, the class return to the breath, the pose at hand, the sequence of things. In this case, tadasana.
“Close your eyes”, she said, in the same way I order my kids to finish their cereal. Which is, hands down, my favorite part about going to yoga in general these days: being told what to do.
For a entire hour, someone else is on duty. All I have to do is put a sock in it and do as she says. If told to try something as ridiculous as flying pigeon—or to lay down, spoon a giant pillow and let a few farts go, I’m to the point in my practice, my basic attitude toward the teacher is this: whatever you say, sister. There’s no more negotiating, no more talking myself into or out of shapes I may or may not be in the mood for. These days, I’m just happy to lay there and let someone else do the talking.
It’s especially enjoyable, I confess, when the teacher has to stop what she is doing to fiddle around with the stereo system that isn’t working. I’m always like, “yeah, now try bossing us around at the same time Daniel Tiger won’t load, or there’s a tampon jammed into the electric pencil sharpener.” Self invented or not, pitiful as it may be, whenever the teacher’s perfect-playlist-plan goes to shit, I feel truly known and held at yoga class.
But I digress, my specialty.
BACK TO TADASANA, AND MY NEW FRIEND IN THE BUNCHY UNDERWEAR. I CAUGHT HER EYE FOR ONE OF THOSE HALF OF A HALF OF A SECONDS, THEN CHIN TO CHEST, ANJALI MUDRA, WE GIGGLED SOME MORE, LIKE IMMATURE 8TH GRADERS.. ABOUT MY OUT-OF-HAND LION’S BREATH.
I wanted coffee with her after class. I wanted a cold one with her in my backyard. I wanted her annoying children to parade into my living room so she could go to the dentist in peace. I wanted to devour noodles with her in a real restaurant and talk with our mouths full, and rip on each other’s postnatal bangs, and get emotional about refugees, cancer, and ambulance rides we’ve taken with our toddlers.
Of course, class ended and POOF—-the woman I imagined being at my next home birth, whose name I didn’t even know, took off.. and I too, hightailed it home to relieve the sitter, nurse the baby, pound some coffee, prep a batch of potato salad, and careen my son to hockey practice.
I forgot all about her, until I didn’t. Until I was crouched down, manhandling my 1st grader into his hockey gear, with his little sisters, believe it, HUMPING ME—-I thought about that lion’s breath, how badly I needed another one, and suddenly remembered that woman in her mama briefs, cracking up, a mat away from me.
I shooed my son out onto the ice, and decided in the stands that night, to create coffee breath.. if for no other reason, to pool my people together.
MY PEOPLE BEING, IF I HAD TO NARROW IT DOWN:
MOMS WHO TURN UP LATE TO YOGA IN THEIR OLD T-SHIRTS AND BAD BREATH.
MOMS WHO GRAB THE NAIL CLIPPERS ON THEIR WAY OUT THE DOOR TO CLASS, JUST SO THEY CAN CLIP THEIR TOENAILS IN THE STUDIO BATHROOM.. IN PEACE.
MOMS WHO *MIGHT* SOUND LIKE THEY ARE IN LABOR IN ANY GIVEN POSE, DEPENDING ON THE DAY IT’S BEEN.
Of course, I didn’t always sound like I was giving birth while doing lion’s breath.
I USED TO FAKE IT.
Especially when it came to those pesky pranayama requests. So for those of you who stick your tongue out, squeeze your eyes shut, and try to look like a lion—-but don’t make a peep, I get it. A couple kids ago, I did the same thing.
Then there was that whole holding back phase.. when I stuck my tongue out, crossed my eyes, and managed to spit something out, but fretted the entire time about how ridiculous I had to of looked.
Now I just let the mother-effer go.
because I’ve learned, or maybe it’s the husband who has pointed out, if I don’t leave it on the mat, it’ll come out in the kitchen, at the apex of dinner-making, in the shape of an f-bomb that our sweet elderly neighbor Helen can hear, which as a general rule of thumb, I try to avoid.
But don’t let the evolution of my lion’s breath confuse you with the purpose of this space. I have ZERO intentions here—-or anywhere, to tell anyone how to “do” lion’s breath—-or any other yoga pose for that matter. Last I checked, we have plenty of folks out there telling us how it is we are supposed to arrange ourselves as mothers.
All I really want you to know mama, regardless of the shape, audacity or volume of your lion’s breath, is that I hear you.
I hear you in your silence, your weary voice, and your roar.
I am. You are.
SHOWING UP.
(in bunchy briefs and stretched out sports bras.)
and we are. I am.
one mat away.