Speaking for Sarah

Tonight I bought my second pair of hiking boots in eight months. The first pair, which were the first ones I ever bought, don't fit me as well as I would like, even after wearing them on several hikes. So tonight I went through the agony and indecision of trying on several pairs in the Big Overpriced Sporting Goods Store in Trendy Downtown Neighborhood, the same place I bought the others. Just walking into that store is enough to give a person an anxiety attack--the variety of outdoor garments for every season and microseason, the shoes, the flip-flops, the boots, the socks, all divided into endless categories: women's, men's, walking, running, trail walking, light hiking, serious hiking. It's all very alluring, and there are many things I need (or think I need) for an upcoming trip, but also, like I said, anxiety-provoking. Too many decisions to make, too much potential for overspending.

At any rate, I forced myself to go through the ritual of trying on boots in different sizes to try to accommodate my inconveniently wide feet. The boots that are wide enough tend to be too long, alas. And then I'm still not really sure how they're supposed to fit. So, after much deliberating and consulting with the helpful but harried clerk, I settled on a really big size that I think will be okay with inserts in the sole. Who knows, though? Also, just as I was deciding to get them, a woman who was also trying on boots asked me about where they "fell" on me. I couldn't even understand what she meant at first--then I realized she was asking if I thought I'd be okay with boots that did not go up really high around the ankle, as the ones she was trying on did. I said I thought they'd be okay. Then her boyfriend, or husband, piped up in that annoyingly authoritative way some men have. He said, "Well, those are okay for relatively flat surfaces, but for anything steeper, like rock scrambling, you need something something with more support."

Great.

I sought reassurance from the clerk, as he was putting them in the box. "These are good for, like, going up and down, right?"

"You mean, like on the trail?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"Yes," he said, "as long as you're not carrying more than 30 pounds or so on your back. They might even be a little overkill. It's kind of like taking a motorcycle to a bicycle race--but like I always say, would you rather bring a motorcycle to a bicycle course or a bicycle to a motorcycle course?"

I wasn't sure this really helped me, but I had spent enough time in the store. (How much, you ask? Probably an hour and a half, all told. It was kind of a madhouse, actually. I was heartened, somehow, to see that the economic crisis wasn't stopping people from buying hiking boots.)

So I packed up the new boots, and the inserts, and the cargo pants that I also had my eye on, paid for them, and got out of there.

Now I'm going to sleep, because shopping is exhausting.

Yesterday there were only three of us (besides the teacher) in yoga class. It was a beautiful Saturday afternooon, the first official day of summer (as opposed to the unofficial first day, back in May), and I guess a lot of people wanted to be outside, at the beach or the park. But I was glad for the cool studio, the quiet voice of my yoga teacher, and the opportunity to stretch.

Towards the end of class, after the breathing and thinking about breathing and standing poses and lots of moving through downward dog, plank, chataranga, up dog, and back to down dog, after the handstand practice at the wall, and another exercise with our legs bent against the wall that made my back, which had been sore, gratefully able to flatten against the floor, after all that, after we were back in the center of the room, the teacher said we would do a hip opener.

"You have a choice," she said, "Globokasana [sp.?], ankle to knee, or pigeon."

I made my decision instantly.

"What was that first one?" someone asked.

The teacher demonstrated globokasana. (I guess I should look up the spelling, shouldn't I? It always sounds to me like she is saying either "globo" or "global" as in "global warming," which kind of makes me laugh.) Anyway, that's the one where you're seated with legs crossed way over each other, one leg bent below the other, knee over knee, ankles pulling outward. Then you raise one arm, bend it at the elbow (okay, where else, I guess), and reach back down towards your shoulderblade. The other arm goes out to the side, you rotate it so the palm is facing backward, and then you bend it and your hand goes along the side of your back, still facing outward. If you are really flexible (or young), perhaps your hands will touch and you pull them against each other. If you can't reach (like me), then you use a strap.

This pose I find okay, but I don't like it half so much as either of the other two the teacher mentioned. My arms don't reach around so well, and it feels like a struggle, or like something is happening in my shoulder socket that is not great--more pain than anything else.

The second pose, ankle to knee, I find okay also. I think my hips are more flexible than my shoulders, so anything focusing just on the hips I am able to get more out of.

But neither of the first two poses are as satisfying, as tension-releasing, as pigeon, where you are lying flat out on your stomach and draw one leg under you, bending it at the knee so that your shin is as near parallel to the front of your mat as possible. You start out up, perhaps in downward dog, then draw the leg forward, turning it, and then rest yourself on it, letting your upper body fold downward so that you are on the side of your thigh and your shin. Hip opener indeed.

After the teacher offered us the choice of the three poses, all three of us started preparing to go into pigeon. The teacher laughed and said, "I guess it's a consensus." Then she turned down the lights, since we were going into the relaxation part of the class.

In pigeon, it helps to have some padding under the hip of the leg that is bent, especially if the hip doesn't touch the floor. I've discovered lately that a second yoga mat, rolled up, works best for me. I feel most balanced if I let it go across so it's under the working hip and also the other side of my body. But still, it's hard to feel like your body is straight, which is the goal (or one of them). Also, sometimes I get a cramp in the foot of the leg that is stretched out, unless I keep the ankle bent and the toes tucked under. Yesterday, I was having that cramp in my foot, and I kept moving the foot around, trying to get the cramp to go away. (As one of my other yoga teachers once said, memorably, "I think the hardest thing about pigeon is trying not to squirm.")

The teacher came over and did something to my hips and thighs, gently manipulating them with her hands so my body was straight. Miraculously, the cramp in my foot disappeared and I stretched my foot out, then lay perfectly still.

We all did the pose on the other side, and again, the teacher came over and nudged me into the right shape. I found myself thinking about how good the pose felt, and then wondering about what a hip opener is anyway, and why it is considered so important in yoga classes, almost spoken of with reverence, or taken for granted as a goal, but you never hear about it otherwise. Is it something that has other benefits in life, I wondered?

Then I told my mind to shush so I could experience the stillness of the moment, all three of us lying there in the semi-darkness stretching out our hips.


Edited to add: Of course the Sanskrit name I was trying to convey above is neither globo or global kasana, but . . . . Gomukhasana. Otherwise known as cow-face pose.

Tonight when I got home there was a brand new grey metal circuitbreaker box planted in the wall, replacing the old fusebox. The plaster around it had been smoothed and painted over, and the exposed wires were no longer visible. I don't know if this means I can now go out and buy an air conditioner and plug it in--I'll check with my landlord. It would seem almost miraculous to have that possibility, after twelve years here of steamy summers.

The workmen left a fine coating of white dust all over the floor in the vestibule where they had been working, and also in the entrance to the living room/kitchen area, where they must have been tramping in and out for some reason. I just vacuumed most of it up, unfortunately introducing particles into my lungs in the process--I can feel them now as I'm breathing. Because my things tend to be scattered about, some of the dust had coated my backpack that was lying on the floor. When I picked it up to brush it off, I was reminded, unavoidably, of the way my backpack had looked after the long odyssey home from Lower Manhattan, where I work, the day the towers fell.

So, despite progress on the air conditioning front, I am feeling melancholy tonight. But I also know it will pass.

Dear Readers,

Just so you don't worry, here I am, healthy and happy. So far, I have been enjoying the summer, despite alternating days of horrendous heat and torrential rain here in the City of Humidity and Nonstop Activity.

The very good news is that the 100-plus-year-old brownstone that I live in is finally getting wired for air conditioning. (Sometimes patience, or inertia, does pay off, it seems. I've lived here for twelve years. Every summer, when the heat comes, I think about moving. Then I look around a bit at what apartments cost around here and I resign myself to another summer of panting in front of the fan.)

I came home tonight to find that the maintenance crew had made their way up to the fourth floor, where I live, and had broken through the baseboard in a wall just across from my doorway. Protruding from behind the bookcase that sits against that wall is the end of a coil of metal tubing. Also there is a carton with what appears to be a fusebox of some sort, waiting to be installed. I'm not sure how this is going to resolve into a setup that will allow me to have air conditioning, but I am taking it on faith that it will.

Also I'm embarrassed that the workers got to see the disarray in my apartment, but I suppose they'll live. As will I.

I have been seeing friends, playing volleyball on Wednesdays after work and Sundays in the afternoon when I can and when the weather is good. And going to yoga. Last Tuesday evening I went with a friend and her husband to hear a group that does sea chanteys at the seaport. (Say that five times fast. . . .) On Thursday I went with another friend to hear someone we know read from her novel-in-progress, as part of a group reading. Then I realized that I had done those exact same two activities last June, with the same friends. Continuity, once again. I kind of like it.

I had a good day with my brother recently, too. The weather was beautiful and we walked all the way to the beach from where he lives, me pushing him in his wheelchair, about three miles, I think. He has been in better spirits lately and seemed to enjoy the day. I pulled out my newish digital camera and asked him if he wanted to try taking a picture (he did a lot of photography before he got sick). No, he indicated good humoredly, I should take some pictures. I did, and showed them to him on the little screen. Then he indicated that he wanted me to take a picture of us, looking at the camera. So I put my head next to his, put one arm around his shoulders, stretched the other arm out as far as I could, and snapped. The first one was a closeup of his forehead. We both laughed, and then I took another one. I got both of our faces, but his was too close to the camera, and pretty distorted. He liked it anyway. Then I took a third one--the money shot. My face is not completely in the frame, but his is, in the center, and there is a tree on the other side of the frame. "Look at that," I said, "pretty artistic, huh?" Agreeing, my brother laughed and said, "Oooooh" (think long u sound), which is one of the few things he can say, but which he manages to use to convey a range of reactions, from enthusiasm to irony. This time it was pure enthusiasm.