Deep into January

It's cold in the big city. I've had a couple of days off from work, today and yesterday, and have been puttering around the apartment, downloading music onto my computer, picking up drycleaning, that kind of thing. Last night I went to yoga, to the latest class of the day, which ends at around 9:30, and then made my way home by bus (two buses actually), all bundled up and shivering while waiting for the buses. I think I might stay home tonight.

I've been reading, too. I'm on the last book of Mahfouz's Cairo trilogy, Sugar Street, and I don't want to finish it, because I've come to feel so close to the story and the people. In a part that I was reading last night, the patriarch of the family runs into his two teenage grandsons on the street and they greet him respectfully. He is happy to see them and asks them, "To where from where?" and somehow that little phrase seemed inordinately moving to me--so familial and informal and a sign of how much the character of the grandfather had softened in the course of the story, changed from being the tyrannical and distant figure that his own children knew. Also, I wondered if the phrase was a translation of a common phrase in Arabic--it carried, to me, that whiff of a foreign idiom that helps one to remember, oh, yes, this book was not originally written in English.

Speaking of troubled patriarchs, I went to see the revival of A View from the Bridge on Broadway two nights ago, with my friend M., who got tickets for us on the spur of the moment after reading the rave review in the newspaper. It was tense and riveting, funny and heartbreaking.

That's all for now.

Happy...

To have at three-day weekend in front of me, to have plans for the evening, and that it has warmed up a little bit outside, so that one could maybe take a walk without sixteen layers of clothing.

I have been going to yoga a lot during this break from teaching. Two nights ago, Thursday, class was ending, or had ended, actually, but I was still coming out of the slowed-down mode of the last pose, shivasana, as the teacher put the lights on and the next group came pouring in, all eager to get started, getting their mats laid down as we were still putting ours away. As I was moving, dreamlike, to start folding up my purple mat, a guy appeared at my side and said, "You may as well just leave that there, I'll use it."

I looked up. He was very, very cute--dark-haired, tall, athletic, wearing a white T-shirt--and I immediately looked away again, flustered. I was faintly scandalized (and also titillated) that he wanted to use my mat. Even though I know that we all use each other's mats (those of us who don't bring our own), I always try to pull one from the bottom of the pile on the shelf, thinking that at least I won't be having an intimate experience with someone's recent sweat. But here was this guy (and, as I said, a very attractive guy) seemingly unbothered by that prospect. I tried to think of something to say. "Enjoy my sweat" seemed a little too suggestive, while "I didn't sweat too much" would be an out-and-out lie. I finally came out with, "Okay--have a ball," trying for a slightly ironic tone and shrugging my shoulders, still without looking at him. Then I asked, "Do you want the strap, too?" gesturing toward the purple strap, uncurled across the front of the mat where I sometimes use it under my hands to keep them from sliding. "Sure, sure," he said, now sounding a little constrained himself. I picked up the third block I keep near my mat, as a prop for my glasses and earrings during class. "This is an extra one, I'll put it away." "Thank you," he replied.

As I was leaving the room, I paused in the doorway to put my small silver hoops back in my ears. I glanced back toward him to find that he was looking at me.

Sigh.

Of course as I left the building I was feverishly planning my next move--switch yoga classes next week, go to the later one (inconveniently scheduled, wrong level for me, teacher I'm not so crazy about), track him down. With the clear light of day, though, those impulses pass.

Sometimes one has to let fleeting encounters be fleeting encounters. Or perhaps blog about them.

Fib Poem Philadelphia

At
the
bar in
the hotel
lounge we threw our coins
into a fountain. My wish had
five syllables, a perfect fit: reciprocity.



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What's a fib poem? Follow the link at the end of this post, and the links that link takes you to.

More soon.