Naps, Yoga, Dreams

Tonight I had plans to go to an Iyengar yoga class at my gym at 8:00. I've never been to that particular kind of yoga class. The description made it sound very much less active than the vinyasa classes I usually go to, more about stillness. There was also something in the description about the class's allowing time for moments of getting centered. I thought, I could use that.

But, alas, I couldn't coordinate my napping desires and my yoga desires. I was exhausted when I got home from work--haven't been sleeping too well at night--so I took a nap. At about 7:10 I woke up briefly when the phone rang but I sensed I wasn't going to make it to yoga without a huge effort to rip myself away from the seduction of sleep. So instead I dreamt that I went to the yoga class.

In the dream, an acquaintance of mine, someone I've actually been wanting to get to know better, was teaching the class. She described one option for the class with a word that I can't remember but seemed to signify a statue, like maybe one of those Hopi kachina dolls. But it also made me envision a silhoutte of someone holding a yoga pose, maybe eagle pose, where you're kind of twirled around yourself and bent forward. I asked her more about it, and it seemed that in this type of yoga class you had to hold that one pose for the length of the class, 75 minutes! (I guess I had that stillness thing in my head.) I said that I thought that was a little too much for me, that I needed more activity. So she said okay, and then the class began, and it was a little odd, not really yoga but kind of twirling around.

When I woke up it was too late to actually go to the class so I went out and ate sushi instead. Maybe next week I'll find out what Iyengar yoga is really like.

Saturday at Home

I have been home from work for the last few days, working on my apartment (i.e., cleaning, throwing away things, organizing). I took Thursday and Friday off so I could do all these things and also get some rest before the semester--and my life of having two jobs--starts in earnest. Trouble is, I have gotten so relaxed, well, today I have anyway, between yoga and the rain outside and lying on the couch all afternoon reading a novel, that I seem to have ground to a complete halt. So I thought I should at least sit up, plant myself in front of the computer, and see if I have anything to say to all of you out in blogland.

The novel I read was Anita Shreve's Light on Snow. I was a little afraid to read it (even though I picked it out for myself at the bookstore and even though I like Shreve's work) because I knew from reading the blurb that it had to do partly with an abandoned baby, and I thought it might be too sad or too lurid or something. But once I started reading it, I was utterly drawn into the world of the book, entranced and delighted. The story is told from the perspective of a 12-year-old girl, who, with her father, finds the abandoned baby in the snow-covered woods out behind their New Hampshire home. Various things happen after that, which I won't give away. The story is both suspenseful and tender and very much a coming-of-age tale. The girl's voice rings true and the setting--the extreme conditions of a New Hampshire winter--is compellingly rendered. The center of the story is the relationship between the father and daughter and how it has had to take shape in the face of loss.

So, there you have it. A book review.

It's funny how, if I think I have to do work on a Saturday afternoon, a nap seems unavoidable when I get back from yoga. But, today, since I decided I could read a novel if I wanted to, the nap was totally avoidable.