and breathe...

So I just tried out preggo yoga for the first time. (That's prenatal yoga for some of you.)

After nearly an hour of "what doctor do you have?" and "second-time moms tell us about your birth experience" chit chat, we settled down to a few warriors and downward-facing dogs. I knew right away I was different. First, I brought my own mat. Second, I didn't want to talk about doctors and birth experiences. Oddly, I wanted to do yoga.

Despite the fact that the instructor had just the right soft, but raspy voice needed to direct us into impossible poses and distract us from muscle spasms, doing yoga was not easy. For one, I haven't done it in months and I'm way out o' shape. For another, it's a bit hard to Zen-out with a dozen pregnant women constantly leaving the proceedings to pee in the ajoining room. It goes something like,

Instructor: "Deep breath in. Fill your lungs. And, slowly, out..."
Student: [Flush!]
Instructor: "Can you drop down into your sensations?...What are they saying?"
Student: [Flush!]
Instructor: "Check in with your body. Can you soften your jaw? Release your shoulders a little more? Let the tension dissolve..."
Student: [Flush!]

As the class broke up, the others were predictably huddled in groups talking about i dunno what, while I acted the loser from middle school and sulkily packed up my gear. They were headed for things like dinner and relaxing evenings in front of Nightly News (sic). I, on the other hand, would shortly find myself hosting a poetry slam in front of a coffee house crowd yelling into a mic things like "Are you having a good time?!!" I returned my pillows to their cubbies and the cliques began to dissipate. As we left the building, I could see I didn't even park in the same place as these women. Does "societal outcast" skip a generation?