Anointed

            Larry clicked on his flip-flops clumsily as he approached the beach town’s 1970s community center. His feet were too pale and soft for this: decades spent in socks, protected by footwear, suddenly called upon to be exposed to the elements. He was uncomfortable having his big and middle toe split by the chafing nylon sandal strap. But in every picture he’d seen of people doing yoga, they all had bare feet, so he had to soldier on.

            The allure of yoga intrigued him. TV and print ads always portrayed a pretty Asian or Latin girl (or some sexy fusion) with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, in tightly fitting athletic clothes with arms stretched upward, or saintly in a prayer pose, looking peaceful and serene.

            His interest in yoga was rekindled a month earlier by the arrival of the city’s recreational catalog in his mailbox. Thumbing through the pages, he imagined himself participating in all the listed activities. 

            Country Line Dancing?  Never been a good dancer, Larry thought, but the real deal breaker was the class description: “Heel, toe, do-si-do…come on, let’s go!” 

            Kill me now, he thought. 

            Karate and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? He could smell the sweat already. Larry recalled when his brother took karate as a kid. His class took place in a stifled little room, and the stench of man-boy exertion was overpowering. In the winter, the windows would be fogged up so bad you couldn’t see inside. 

            Tennis? He played a bit in college and enjoyed it, but his knees were about 35 years younger. 

            Then he saw the ad:

            HATHA BLEND YOGA. Join us in this powerful learning                         experience combining traditions of yoga in which you will rediscover your body, how it works, and your connection to it. Focusing on proper alignment of yoga asanas (postures), and breathing technique. Beginning with the basics but not stopping there. You will leave feeling lighter, calmer, and stronger. 

            “Well that sure ticks all the boxes,” he mused. Who doesn’t want to reconnect with their body? Or feeler lighter?

            So here he was, walking into his first Thursday 10:05 a.m. yoga class. As the automatic doors opened, he nervously eyed a circle of women, mostly in their late 60s, clutching yoga mats and shoulder totes. 

            He was the only guy. The women looked at him with quizzical half smiles. They seemed to know one another. But they certainly didn’t know Larry.

            Eyeing the restroom doors, he passed the group and found refuge in the men’s bathroom. A homeless guy (he guessed) had left his overstuffed backpack outside one of the stalls and was behind the laminated wood door grunting. 

            Larry took a leak at the urinal. As he washed up in the nearby sink, he stared at himself in the dull mirror. He was dressed in pajamas, essentially, out in public. 

            “You god damn idiot,” he addressed himself. 

            Another voice answered: “Huh?” 

            It was the guy in the stall.

            “No, not you, sorry,” Larry shouted around the corner to the stalls. At least the transient didn’t have to concern himself with something as new-agey as yoga. He was content to just take a crap on a real toilet in peace. That was wellness to him: free toilet paper in the community center.

            Larry psyched himself up and exited. The women had streamed into a room where the class would take place. The meeting hall was an enormous rectangle, with a beamed ceiling and an imposing red brick fireplace at the far end. The room was painted in a two-tone horizontal dark brown and gold scheme. Over the fireplace was a mediocre painting of a grey-haired white man, posing stiffly in a dark suit jacket. He was not the Dali Lama or the Yoga King, Larry mused. The women expertly set about rolling out their mats. The accidental male yoga student imitated their actions, and tentatively sat on the mat, docile, Indian style.

            Coins fell out of his stretchy pants pockets and rolled around the wood floor as loud as manhole covers. A couple of women looked over at Larry, as he sheepishly smiled, collected the change, and stacked it next to his mat. Not a good start, he thought.

            “Good morning,” a kind female voice called from the back of the room. “Is everyone here for the Hatha Blend Yoga Class?”  Larry stretched around to see a stout, sculpted woman, maybe thirty, with dirty blond hair pinned up in a messy bun walking toward the fireplace. She was barefoot (and a little pigeon-toed) wearing skin-hugging tights. “I’m Nancy, and I’ll be your instructor.” She nodded in recognition to several of the women who were returning students.

            There were seven women. And, he observed, fourteen wrinkled feet.

            “Let’s start on our backs,” she instructed, as she took a seat on her mat in front of the fireplace. The dead man in the painting above stared indifferently. She reached for her phone and pecked at the screen, and gentle synthesizer music drifted out of a wireless speaker she had placed next to her mat.

            Larry was lying down staring up at the ceiling. He was trying to relax but the sounds of children screeching out in the hallway of the municipal center were distracting his focus.

            “I want you to notice your breathing,” Nancy said soothingly. “For the next hour, I want you to be present, and let the worries of the day, your shopping list, and everything else, fall away. What’s important now is your practice. By practicing on your mat, you’ll learn to tune out the distractions and notice your body. Notice what it needs and how it responds to our movements.” 

            God, he felt silly. He was lying on the floor with a bunch of old ladies in spandex. What would his macho brothers (no doubt in their offices at this time of day) think of their brother rolling around on the floor?  He would get endless grief if they ever found out. His burly college buddies, mostly fisherman and hunting types, would pile on at the next get-together too. Then again, one of them recently keeled over from a heart attack at 52, so maybe getting limber was not an unforgivable sin considering the alternative. His mind was wandering, but he did start to consciously notice his breath for the first time in five decades. 

            Nancy guided the class through several yoga postures: happy baby, bridge, child’s pose, downward facing dog, warrior two, and reverse warrior. “Who the hell came up with these names?” he wondered, as he swan-dived into a forward fold pose. He looked through his legs, upside down, at his fellow students. One grunted more loudly throughout the class than the homeless guy in the bathroom stall.

            “Now I want you to lay down on your backs, for final savasana,” Nancy offered.

“Arms and legs relaxed, with your palms facing upward. Close your eyes and relax. Focus on your breath. Let everything go.”

            Larry felt himself relax. At rest. He was right back at nap time in kindergarten. 

            He could sense someone moving closer to him. Nancy knelt by his side and whispered sweetly into his ear: “Would you like some oil?” He nodded, not knowing what she meant. The yogini gently rubbed her thumb on his forehead. A pleasant aroma of orange wafted down to his nostrils, and he did not want to be anywhere else.

            He had just been anointed a yogi.