Tales from the Yoga Studio (10 page)

W
hen Lee walks into the lounge at the studio, Tina is loading a carton with tank tops and yoga shorts. They're from a small local company that makes simple, nicely designed workout clothes in cotton. They've been after Lee for months to sell their line and, given the quality of the clothes, she's disappointed to see they're going back.

“No interest?” she asks Tina.

“Not in these.”

Lee takes a tank top out of the carton. It's a beautiful shade of light blue, and the body is long so it goes past the hips and doesn't expose your stomach when you're doing inversions. “It's too bad,” Lee says. “They're nice.”

“It's the company's own fault,” Tina says. “I told them they wouldn't sell, and they sent them anyway, and now I'm the one who has to ship them back.”

“And it's their own fault because?”

“Because they sent a bunch of mediums. Do you think anyone in here is going to buy medium? They really need to size them right.”

Lee thinks it over. She's proud of the fact that her classes attract both men and women, and people of all sizes and shapes. “I'm sure a lot of people would fit into these.”

“No kidding. But I told them that women who do yoga aren't going to buy something labeled ‘medium.' It's like a slap in the face. Even ‘small' is beginning to get iffy. They have to start at XXXS. Some companies have what they call 4XS.”

There was a time,
Lee thinks,
when this kind of thing made sense to me.
But fortunately, that time is over.

She goes into her office and tries to focus. It's shaping up to be a full day. She has a class in twenty minutes and after that, she has to head up to the house to meet with Alan and the business-people from YogaHappens for a preliminary discussion.

She used to prepare for class by making notes on index cards with poses she wanted to cover, metaphors she wanted to use, and, sometimes, a quote or part of a poem she wanted to read during savasana. She trained with a yogi in New York, has all that med school anatomy background, and studied dance semiseriously when she was in college. But she's convinced that what makes her a good teacher is a strange ability she has to look at someone's body and be able to tell where they're holding tension, where they're being fearful, and how they could let go of both. She doesn't make as many notes anymore, preferring instead to have a rough outline of what she wants to cover in her head then simply going with what feels right during class.

There are only eight people in the room today, Graciela included. Lee knew she had potential, but she truly didn't expect her to be as diligent and restrained as she's being. Lee sits on the floor at the front of the room, rests her hands on her knees, and says, “Does anyone have any issues or injuries I should know about? ”

In the silence that follows, Lee hears a voice from somewhere inside her own head saying:
Me! I have injuries. You should know about them. I want to be taken care of! Give me a modification and an adjustment. Me, me, me!
But she does her best to ignore the voice and says, “Remember, this is your practice. I'm just here to guide you and take care of you when you need assistance. Let's begin.”

U
nder Lee's guidance, Graciela has been sticking to restorative poses. What this translates to is settling into a pose—one that wasn't that hard to begin with—for a
very long time
. While the rest of the class is doing something else (like moving!) Lee keeps checking on Graciela to make sure she's . . . restoring. The weirdest part of the whole experience is that it's physically some of the easiest stuff Graciela has done in years, and, at the same time, relaxing and remaining quiet and patient feels almost impossibly difficult.

She's lying on her mat now, propped up with a bolster under her hips and a block under her forehead, both of which Lee put into place. Basically, she's not doing
anything
. She didn't even have to do much to get into this position since Lee manipulated her arms and legs. And yet, she's having such a hard time remaining still, she's afraid she's going to burst into tears.

“Whatever comes up for you in these poses,” Lee says, “try to let it go. Maybe anxiety? Maybe sadness? Anger? They're just thoughts. Let them go. They only control you and have power if you let them. They're parasites—they can't live on their own.”

In the time she's been coming to the studio, Graciela has started to wonder if Lee is a mind reader. In many ways, she's better at judging Graciela's moods and feelings than the tarot card reader she goes to.

“Remember
The Wizard of Oz
? ‘Your magic has no power here. Be off with you!' Negative thoughts? Fear? Self-loathing? They have no power here. Be off with you!”

What's coming up for Graciela is Daryl, and more specifically, what really happened when she screwed up her Achilles tendon. The way he pushed her, the way she's pretty sure it wasn't really an accident, the weird way his face got contorted right before it happened and she found herself on the floor. Or is she just imagining the whole thing? Did she just trip? Was he just trying to help her, like he claimed? She felt that pop in her ankle and the combination of pain and awareness of what it meant for her whole career just took over and everything went a little fuzzy.

Lee comes over and lays her hands on the small of Graciela's back. Just her touch—warm and reassuring—is enough to make Graciela let go of the tension she's been holding in her shoulders. Her weight drops down onto the bolster. Okay, she thinks, she's going to let the floor do its work and her body melt. It's so bizarre to be in a room with people doing physical activity (the rest of the class, anyway) and not have any competition or showing off, not even having the
option
of showing off or strutting your stuff that it's almost confusing.
Yoga's about union
, Lee once said.
Union of mind and body. But not your mind and someone else's body
. That was a revelation. And now, really, this is
all
that's expected of her? Sink? Drop? Let go?

But thinking about that, feeling a kind of crazy gratitude, all while Lee is pressing into her back, tears start to come. And before she knows it, she's all-out weeping. Actual sobs. There's no way Lee can miss this, but somehow, Graciela has enough trust in her to just let it go.

“Were you in pain?” Lee asks after the class.

“No,” Graciela says. “I mean, I haven't been in pain—much pain—for the past week almost. I got a little emotional.”

Lee is looking at her with a smile, her head tilted, almost as if she's asking her for more information. Unless maybe she really
can
read Graciela's mind and is sympathizing with her. Lee has some crazy combination of wholesome beauty—the clear skin, the bright eyes, the fine bone structure—and an undercurrent of quiet fire that makes it hard to take your eyes off her. She
looks
like she came from Connecticut, as Stephanie told her she did. Not that Graciela knows anything about Connecticut. She's spent her entire life here in L.A.

“That happens,” Lee says. “It's not a bad thing. Just let it all out.” She touches Graciela's hair and winks. “It'll help heal your ankle.”

Graciela is tempted to say something about Daryl, but she feels funny already about accepting Lee's generosity. She isn't going to exploit her kindness any more by laying that on her.

Lee looks at her watch and does a little double take. “Shit,” she says. “I have to run. I'm due at the kids' school in half an hour and I don't want to be late.”

“Let me give you a lift,” Graciela says. “Please.”

“Are you going in that direction?”

“Whether I am or not,” Graciela says, “I wish you'd let me.”

Before coming to yoga, Graciela hadn't spent any time in Silver Lake, quite possibly hadn't even been to this neighborhood. She and Daryl share a loft downtown, in a great old building that gives them more space than most of her friends. She's been there for five years and let Daryl move in when one of his roommates got married. It was supposed to be for a couple of months, but it has pretty much worked out. As much as she likes the grit and old-L.A. glamour of downtown, she has to admit it's nowhere near as relaxed and welcoming as this neighborhood.

Graciela's still driving the beat-up VW Golf one of her girlfriends sold her for two hundred dollars right before she moved back east. Graciela doesn't even know what year it is. She looks inside as she's unlocking the door.

“Sorry about the mess,” she says to Lee. “My boyfriend's a deejay, and he tends to leave a lot of stuff in here between gigs.” She tosses a box of CDs into the backseat. Maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to offer Lee a ride.

“I have twins,” Lee says. “You call this a mess?”

“Yeah, but kids are supposed to be messy. It smells like he was eating popcorn in here, too. Sorry.”

“You are so hard on yourself, honey. Will you stop?”

Graciela wants to apologize for that, too, but manages to keep it in check.

“How long have you two been together?” Lee asks.

Graciela fills her in on the details as they drive down around the reservoir, the sun glinting off the silvery surface of the water, the air hazy and warm. As she's talking about Daryl—mother with drug problems; made a career for himself with raw talent, charm, and drive—she feels a swell of pride and love for him and, at the same time, has the uneasy sense that she's leaving out the most important details.

When they get to the school, Lee asks her if she'd like to meet her kids.

“I'd love to,” Graciela says, “but I'm supposed to go visit my mother. Since I was forbidden to rehearse for a while, I've been trying to help her out. She's going through a rough period. My stepfather died last year, and she's still trying to make sense of things.”

“I'm sorry to hear it,” Lee says. “And Graciela, honestly, I'm proud of what you're doing. This is going to work out fine. Believe me. And I love your car! Popcorn and all.”

As Graciela is driving off, she calls Stephanie, but once again, her phone is shut off. She's been trying to get in touch with her for two days. Usually she's the type who's glued to her phone. It's also starting to worry her that she hasn't shown up at the studio in almost two weeks.

S
o what do you do in these yoga classes?” Conor asks. “Is it like aerobics or Tae Bo or something?”

“I think you're just going to have to come to class and find out,” Katherine says. She looks across the table at the restaurant and smiles at him, then bites her lower lip. She either hates or loves the fact that she feels so flirty with this guy, in a silly way, almost like she's back in high school. It's got something to do with his combination of burly, towering machismo and shyness.