Before Class Starts
These yoga people. They get on my nerves. Rolling their special mats out, like their butts are too good to sit on the free ones that come with their gym membership. No, they have to have purple and pink mats that match their special purple and pink outfits, their striped leggings, their purple sockies with Velcro ankle straps and slots for their individual toes to slide in (Why? Why? What the fuck for?), their layers of crisscrossed bras and tight tops, their matchy-matchy little jacket wraps, their purple water bottles.
Not me. I use the free mats and wear basketball shorts a decade old, from when I was the top scorer on my women’s basketball team in community college, and a baggy gray T-shirt that says Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian. The yoga people don’t make eye contact with me, but I don’t give a shit. I’m only here to prove a point to my soon-to-be-ex who says I have an anger problem, and I never grow, and I’m not in touch with my emotions, and she dared me to sit in a yoga class just once, for one hour; she said no way I could do it because I’m a raging pile of reactions, and I don’t have the inner patience and emotional maturity of an eight-year-old, because I can’t ever sit down calmly to talk things over; I stomp around my apartment like a caged animal, and she can’t take it anymore; she says you can’t have a healthy relationship with a caged animal, and if I don’t learn to make peace with my past and my inner demons, she’s out of this relationship. But she gives me one more chance to act like a mature grown-up and learn how to be happy and face things, goddamn it, not slam things around and shout like a child, not hide from happiness because you don’t know it and trust it.
Stop analyzing me, I said. You always do that, and you don’t know a thing about me, really. I’m sorry I ever told you about my childhood. I wish you didn’t know anything because it has nothing to do with anything. I moved to Philadelphia as soon as I could and left it all far behind me. The 21 foster homes spread across South Jersey, the 16 school systems, the hundreds of foster brothers and sisters I slept with, ate with, cried with, got my period with, and who I’ll never see again; I can never ever find them because I only knew their nicknames, not even their real first names, and no last names. How am I gonna find kids like SaySay, NayNay, PopTart, Stumpy, ChippDog, QueenReen, Doodlebug, Catty, Big Jaz, Little Jaz? I was only a kid at the time. A kid who got yanked out of home after home, once on Christmas Eve after I lived there for a whole year, because (my theory) that cheap-ass foster mom didn’t want to buy me a present because I was only a foster passing through, so she told the social worker I tried to strangle my foster sister, but I didn’t; I didn’t do anything wrong but wrassle with her for fun, but still they hauled me out of that house on Christmas Eve with my clothes in a trash bag. I’m sorry I ever told you I was given up for adoption at birth by my white mother because (my theory) I had a black father, and I was never adopted by anyone black, white, or in between, even though they took my picture when I was three, five, and seven and put me in the newspaper three times under the headline Bring Me Home: Children Available to Adopt. This really nice lady who lived all by herself in a house with five bedrooms took me home after she saw me in the newspaper; I liked her, and she liked me, and she started to adopt me but then she got cancer and had to give me back, so after that I went to foster children picnics where people watched us like animals in a zoo as we played on swings and threw softballs, trying to look like normal children who would be good for adoption; like puppies in the pound, they tried to see who was trainable, who would shit on the floor or in the bed, who was the bad puppy, who would turn out to be a drug addict, who would rob them blind or shoot them in their sleep. They watched us, these middle-aged couples with failure tattooed on their faces, desperate for a normal family, so many miscarriages and failed inseminations, so desperate they’d consider a foster child to adopt, but only the foster child who wouldn’t turn out bad from our early traumas: the abandonments, the backhanded slaps that made us bleed from our ears, and, worst of all, the name-calling, that old black lady running a foster-care dorm in the woods, with twelve retarded adults we were scared of and a gang of black kids nobody else would take, and we all knew she did it for the money—it added up big time, because she got a state check for each one of us, and she fed us slop, so she didn’t use the money on us, that was for sure—yeah, it was her who called me filthy in front of my social worker, who was a nice helpful person who didn’t know what to do when the old lady said that, because my social worker was white, and it wasn’t respectful to correct this ancient black lady, to say, Don’t call her filthy; that’s bad for her, and she’ll remember that always. So my social worker got all red in the face and put her arm around me, and that felt wonderful. That was all she could do, I guess. I appreciated it. It felt good, like she was really on my side in secret.
Class Begins
This is some weird-ass yoga, not the regular kind. Kundalini. I chose this class because I like the sound of that, reminds me of cunnilingus. I smile every time I think of that. Oh yeah, that’s why my girlfriend isn’t my ex yet. She loves it as much as I do.
The class starts with a chant. I have to sit in a cross-legged position, which my basketball-damaged knees do not appreciate, and sing a fucking chant: Ong Namo Guru Dev Namo, whatever the fuck that means. Me, I’m a good sport. I take coaching well. All my basketball coaches said so. So I mumble-chant along like the good sport I am.
I can already tell who the assholes are in the class and who the real people are. That’s one good thing my shitty childhood gave me all right—the ability to sort out the assholes. That’s why I want to keep my girlfriend this time; she’s real. After a long, terrible dating history, I finally found a real one. The psychic told me I would. She told me I’d find the woman for me, and we’d be really happy.
I believed the psychic, because she knew all about my exes without me telling her a thing; she described them all like she was watching a horror movie of my life. That one with the pent-up dog, that big dog in that little crate, the psychic said. I’d like to send the Humane Society to her door; I’d like to pen that woman up in a cage with no food and water and let that poor dog go free; people like her don’t deserve to live, she said That one with the leather pants—she was loads of fun but not for you, the psychic said. You never had anything to talk about once you got out of bed. So true, but I hated to admit it. The psychic knew about the ex who had a new face sewn on her when her real face got ripped off in a bicycle accident, said she liked to keep me on my toes, yanking me this way and that, said I never knew which end was up with that one, and she was so right. I just felt sorry for her because she missed her old face, but that wasn’t enough in the end. The psychic even saw a dead ex, Suicide Suzy, the woman I dated for two years, the one I brought to the emergency room ten times for fake suicide attempts, but the one time I didn’t come fast enough when she called, she drank acid and died. I think she didn’t really mean it; she was only trying to get my attention, but her stunt backfired; she thought a sip of acid wouldn’t do anything that bad, but it took her right the fuck out.
I hate the hipster dude in front of me. He keeps grunting like he’s working harder than the rest of us, and he wants to make sure we all know it. Man bun on top of his head. What a jerk.
I love the old black lady next to me. She reminds me of a neighbor lady who lived next door to one of my foster homes; she baked cookies and slipped them to me every day after school, asked me to show her my good grades, so I started to get good grades so I could run home and show her the big red A on my paper and get extra cookies. I loved her. This old yoga lady next to me throws her legs up in the air and farts. That’s okay by me. At least she’s honest with her farts, doesn’t squeeze her ass together to hold them in so no one will know she’s human. We smile at each other. I might fart later, who knows? I never took a yoga class before, so maybe it won’t agree with me, and I’ll let one loose, and now I know the old lady next to me won’t hold it against me if I do.
Ten Minutes In
This is boring. The music is creepy. It’s all this guru language while we hold our arms out stiff for like five minutes; it’s not easy like it sounds; my shoulders are hurting like a mother, and we breathe in and out real fast through our nose; breath of fire the teacher called it. She said it was extremely detoxifying, that it would cleanse us emotionally and physically. Meanwhile, this Indian guy on her iPod is chanting what sounds like:
pranayanaBLAHBLAHBLAHANA
omnamanna OBLAHDIBLAHDAHA
hairyhairyhairyGovinda
All I can think of is a woman named Govinda who doesn’t shave her armpits and legs; I like a hairy woman; my girlfriend does shave her armpits and legs but leaves every other hair on her au natural. Thank God—I hate women with groomed pubes. It’s ridiculous. It looks so stupid. Before I sleep with a woman I want assurance that she looks like a woman down there. If I get down there and see otherwise, I sit up and say, Sorry, I’m not into this; I changed my mind. If they ask why, I tell them, I like a natural woman. Maybe in my own way, one by one, I’ll help stop this horrible fad of women waxing off their pubic hair.
Say what you will about me, but I do try to be honest. I don’t lie to women—never have, never will. The rest of the shit I get charged with is true, though. I’m not reliable; I don’t commit; I hold back my true feelings; I don’t trust. Hey, nobody’s perfect. At least I do know how to show a woman a good time.
There’s no one in this class who appeals to me. The women are all too skinny or too old. My girlfriend is quite perfect. She’s so crazy beautiful with her wild hair dyed all kinds of colors: blue, green, blonde, red; her hair makes me happy just to touch it, and I love her sparkly blue eyes; she’s so excited to be alive that she shines; I swear, she smiles as much as she breathes. I don’t know what she sees in a broken-down jock like me who works construction when I can get it and landscaping when I can’t, but she has mentioned that she likes me in my leather jacket, pulling up on my motorcycle and saying, Get on, woman. We go for long rides down to South Jersey, head for the shore, walk on the boardwalk, eat beach fries and pizza; now does anything on earth taste better? We have so much fun together. This is my dream life I’m living with her right now. Everyone fights, right? She says I don’t know how to communicate with her, and I need to figure that out before we can live together. When I’m upset, I need to tell her. When I’m angry, I need to say why. When I’m not comfortable, I need to say it out loud. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about, but I really want to know. She says go deep inside, figure it out, then come back and practice with her. She says, I’m wide open for you. God, that melts me down to my core. I want everything with her. I’m in fucking yoga class for her.
Twenty Minutes In
This class is never going to end. Now the teacher has us dancing. You heard me. Dancing. She turns up this crazy Indian music, and we all have to stand up and twirl, first our arms swinging around like we’re little kids on a playground, and then our whole bodies hopping up and down and moving to the music. She says try to keep your eyes closed, find your inner solid spot, and let the earth hold you up. I can’t. If I close my eyes and twirl like an idiot, the earth doesn’t hold me up; it tries to throw me the hell down on the floor, so I keep my eyes open a little tiny bit. The music is beautiful, but I don’t understand what the women are singing; they make no sense, but I can kind of see them in my mind, a whole room full of women dressed in soft robes holding their arms around each other and smiling at each other. It sounds like they love each other very much and they are very happy right now to be singing, and they sing this jaunty good-feeling meaningless song right at me. I don’t know why my eyes are filling up. Crazy guru shit coming down on me and making me emotional. I have got to get out of here, but my girlfriend is waiting outside, so I don’t sneak out early and cheat on our bet.
Forty Minutes In
I am not making this up. I am sitting cross-legged AGAIN—thanks a lot for the stabbing knee pains—holding my arms out and my palms up, chanting Ra Ma Da Sa Sa Say So Hung. That’s supposed to be a major healing mantra, but it feels like torture to sit here with my eyes closed and try to keep saying the same thing over and over like a baby; the sounds are like a baby girl trying to learn how to talk when no one ever leans over and talks back to her; her Ma and Da are out of there, and strangers pick her up, and the baby girl looks back at them with so much need they hurry and put her down again; they are afraid that she’ll clutch on to them and never let go. She’s so scared, that baby girl, but she’s smart, too. Soon she’ll learn to stop showing so much, stop feeling so much; you make out better in life with a shield over your tender parts. Act tough and you at least have a chance. Shut the fuck up and keep your head down; that’s what that baby girl learned by the time she could walk.
Fifty Minutes In
We are squatting and standing, squatting and standing, squatting and standing, and I feel every muscle in my legs protesting, but I can’t stop, even though the teacher says do only what you can, listen to your body, modify if you need to, but I can’t stop, because the old lady next to me is doing it and hardly even breathing heavy, so what the hell is my excuse? Squatting makes me feel shame; I don’t know why. No one squats in modern-day America. It’s a move you see on travel TV shows, by members of primitive jungle tribes, sitting around a fire, picking bugs off one another, and eating meat with their bare hands. I feel like someone could push me over when I squat; I feel weak and vulnerable to attack. Like someone in this pussy yoga class would attack me. I grew up being attacked, so you’d think I’d know when it was really coming, that punch to my chest, that pillow over my face, that kick, that hair pulling. I look around at all the other people in my yoga class, and I see them struggling to squat and stand, squat and stand, squat and stand. No one is coming for me; they’re all too busy trying to do what the teacher told us to, because she said it’s a chakra for creation, desire, and relationships, and who doesn’t want all that? I sure as fuck do.
The Last Pose
Corpse pose; I can do that—flat on my back at last. She calls it Savasana, says relaxation is harder than it sounds, that it can be the hardest pose of all for people who don’t know how, who’ve never in their whole life been truly relaxed and at peace in their bodies. Not me; I got this. I can play dead like a pro; I can close my eyes and listen; I can wait this out.
No one has to know I’m as stiff as a board on this mat, feeling like I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s a really bad idea to lie down with your belly exposed like this, your tenderest organs only a thin layer of skin away, skin that can easily be ripped away. I open my eyes and see everyone else doing it, no one else has rolled over on their belly to protect themselves, no one else has crossed their arms over their breasts to shield them, so I take a deeper breath and focus on stopping the tears from rolling down my face. Why are they here? I’m only lying here like a corpse. Why am I crying for my life?
The Fucking Sunshine Song
Teacher says we close every Kundalini class with the Sunshine Song, because our guru wants us to. So, like none of that other bullshit was enough, now we have to sing along, like a kindergarten class learning our ABCs. We put our hands in the prayer position, folded across our hearts, and sing about sun, love, light, and finding our way home, and it hurts to sing those words; it hurts my mouth; it hurts my eyes; it hurts my heart so much.
After Class
I burst out of there like all the ghosts, demons, and the Jersey Devil that roams the South Jersey Pinelands are chasing me, and she’s there, just like she said she’d be. My girlfriend is outside in the hallway, waiting just for me; I push her right up against the wall in front of everyone; hold her around the waist, burrow my face in her neck, breathe in all her smells; I am holding on for dear life; there are no words to tell her all the things I’m feeling, but she doesn’t seem to need them. She holds on to me as tight as I hold on to her; she feels like a big strong tree I have barreled into, a beautiful solid tree you can fucking count on, and that was my first Kundalini class. Hell yes, I will go back.
Kathy Anderson is the author of the short story collection, Bull and Other Stories (Autumn House Press, 2016), which won the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize, was long-listed for The Story Prize, and was a finalist for Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year, and the Lambda Literary Awards. Recent short story publications include Barcelona Review, Los Angeles Review, Popshot Quarterly, and Litro Magazine UK. Her home is in Philadelphia, PA, where she’s working on a second short story collection and novel. To connect: Website, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
Photo by Hipnosapo Peres on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND