Finally made it to yoga class, so at least that was a success. Unfortunately I made it to yoga class for seniors. I kid you not, we spent 5 minutes opening our eyes as wide as we could and looking in each direction, right/left, up/down etc. we even held a finger in from of our faces and moved it back and forth starring at our digit. Not that I had the highest expectations in the world, and I do appreciate the fact that I ended up in the "adultos major" (older adult) class but I might mention that Life in Motion where I take- nay took yoga in New York had set the bar high. One of the things I really liked and now miss, about LIM was the fact that we started and ended each practice with chanting- my first class I found this a little strange, since by that point I had been practicing yoga for a few years on and off, and had never had chanting as part of the experience, but I soon found that it was a really great way to bookend your practice, and it sort of got everyone on the same page. Yoga, for me, is not a way to lose weight, or for exercise- stretching my limbs and getting (mentally) strong is certainly a part of it, but my purpose tends to fall more in an active meditation practice, and I love it. I also love that the last two weeks in New York I was working out at the gym a lot and lifting weights, so I was starting to be able to do really fun stuff; I've always been flexible, but rarely strong and I was hoping to continue where I left off. So imagine going to Spanish Yoga class, and discovering that all the yoga we were going to do that day, was going to be in the first 15 minutes of our 2 hour class. In hatha yoga you do a sort of routine, we did a sun salutation, downward dog and upward dog, for about 10 minutes and then we did a few push ups, sit ups, and then time for showers! I was totally confused, our yoga teacher, said I didn't have to take a shower, it was optional. Um, ok, well, I think today at least, I will opt out, since I didn't bring my shower sandals and all. I stayed on my mat and worked on crow pose, wondering if I went to the wall and did some head stands, if I would get in trouble, I likely wouldn't know what anyone was saying to me if I got shouted at, because so far all I really understood was cambio (change) and various body parts doing things to the left and the right, he kept telling us to do everything profundamente which I interpreted as profoundly but Sylvain told me later it meant deeply. Still I would probably be able to figure it out by the tone of their voice and any wild gesticulations that might accompany their anger. So I stayed on my mat and considered doing a wheel, but soon the ladies were back, and we did our corpse pose. Class over I figure- corpse pose is where you relax lying down on your back and empty your mind- after an hour + of difficult yoga practice, this feels great, but after 15 minutes of yoga warm up, and a shower, this felt all wrong. After corpse pose class did not end, we then had an HOUR of mind numbing stretching to get through- this would include the eye rolling section. Abuela next to me told me later that the "mas fuerte" classes are in the afternoon, good to know.
After class I went to Jumbo, bought groceries and managed to find coconut milk- expensive but oh so worth it. I met Sylvain for lunch at his university and we ate at this place above the market that had cafeteria quality food for like $2 and change. The options were pescado frio and lasagna. The food was decent and there was a lot of it, but little would I know, I would soon be having my second lunch of the day in Spanish. When I got home the cleaning lady was over again- it didn't surprise me that she still had cleaning left to do, but she was cooking lunch again and we chatted about how I had just posted my new fliers around Sylvain's school as I was looking to get some extra tutoring work. She told me about a website and then invited me to eat with Sarah and her, I tried to tell her I had just eaten, fried fish no less, but she insisted I join them and I knew there would be no way of getting a way with having a "small" piece. So we ate and for the first hour, it was a great because I was speaking Spanish and understanding a lot of the conversation; by hour 2 I couldn't take anymore Spanish but was stuck because frankly I didn't really feel comfortable leaving my dish there, even though by this point I had come to understand that I wasn't going to be allowed to clean it. Hour two from what I could divine involved Sarah and Pauloma discussing the suckiness of Pauloma's baby daddy. I should mention that in Latin America, as Catholic as they are, marriage isn't really part of the story- it's not as in America where you have random baby daddies and baby mommas all over the place, they more or less hook up young and stay together, but either because it isn't deemed culturally or socially relevant or the cost of a wedding makes it impossible, you have more of the common law living situations. In this case Pauloma has been with this guy for 14 years, they have 3 kids and she has left him 5 times. Marriage certificate or not, we've all heard this story before, and they all more or less end the same... Sadly.
This photo is from the house across from ours; this cat is always sitting on the window sill looking in.
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