YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS #14 "CELEBRITY VISITOR"
Before Reggie's Hatha with singing bowls class began, I was on my back on the mat in my usual area beside a wall in back, tossing a tennis ball up and catching it, tossing it higher and higher, almost to the ceiling, and still catching it, testing my hands, realizing they were still soft and sure, actually praising myself for still having some co-ordination left at my advanced age, when a pair of legs in black pajama-like pants passed close by and a soft female voice said, “Hi Dell.”
I peered up to see Ethan's wife Contessa, my hair stylist, unrolling her mat a few feet away and off to the left of me—breathing distance. Contessa is petite and supple, with long dark wavy hair and a pleasant pretty face and looks at least 15 years younger than her 60 years, even though she frets over the aging process when she cuts my hair. Contessa usually attends another studio in town where the instructors are more like exacting gurus and everybody seems more advanced, including Ethan, my tennis partner, the two of them often driving many miles to attend yoga retreats in paradisal areas.
This was the first time I'd run across Contessa when I wasn't sitting in her chair at the salon after a six to nine month absence, except when I dropped by unannounced to visit Ethan at their modest home in Morro bay and Contessa was cooking, always generous and accommodating and trying to feed me. Everybody likes Contessa because she is forever sunny and eschews negativity and cynicism and pessimism and, because of this, and her agreeableness, Ethan confides in me that her customers confide in her their most intimate juicy personal stuff, and besides being an expert yoga maven, she is the most in-demand hair stylist in the area, an artist and excellent cook, a person who always needs to be busy doing something creative and constructive.
Contessa seemed pleased to see me in yoga. She and especially Ethan had been urging me for years to attend. Recently Contessa had gone on a trip with a coterie of girl friends to Nepal and Asia, so I asked, “How was Nepal, Contessa?”
“Wonderful. Beautiful. We loved it. We had a great time.”
A couple women who had set up their mats along the wall to my left quickly came over and hugged Contessa—possibly customers of hers—and wanted to know about her trip. One of the huggers was the lady with the silver white helmet hair who complimented me on my progress in yoga. Reggie, stretching on his own mat up front as he prepared for his class, rose and came over to Contessa with a big wide appreciative smile on his face. He was literally beaming (her sudden and unexpected presence was a real feather in his cap) and welcomed her to his class, which I quickly determined was a first. I wanted to pursue my conversation on Contessa's trip to Asia, but it was obvious as Reggie and she exchanged celebrity chit-chat like two stars meeting after a game of professional football that she was busy dealing with her admirers, both as a yoga headliner and star hair stylist.
I was out of their league and perhaps everybody's and kept to myself on the mat as other ladies matriculated over to acknowledge Contessa, who is a very modest person possibly unaware of her celebrity status in Morro Bay and to her credit demonstrated true graciousness and patience and even joy at all the attention she was receiving and not the truculence and rude haste we often see of movie stars and athletes always cloaked in sunglasses and ear phones, as if they are closing their world of adulation off due to jaded attitudes of blasé world weariness and egoism.
We'll have to discuss this predicament next time I get my hair cut, when I will be sure to bring up her star acknowledgment and treatment in Morro Bay, which will surely embarrass her, especially because my voice is loud and other hair stylists and customers will hear me. Often, when Contessa cuts my hair, I purposely make negative statements about subjects and people she likes, and she tries to fend me off. For instance, when she claimed her beloved Ethan looked “so young for his age and was so handsome,” I said very loudly that even though he was five years younger than her, he looked over ten years older because he is prematurely gray and his Scottish-Danish heritage makes people of that ancestry look aged long before their time, and “he looked pretty weathered and withered to me, and was going bald, and she might as well shave his head instead of cutting his hair.” She was pretty defensive of Ethan, not knowing whether I was kidding or not, but anybody who knows these two people recognizes Ethan as extremely youthful and appearing perhaps ten years younger than his true age.
Anyway, the hug-fest finally ended and Reggie hit his singing bowls and I felt proud to be so close to Contessa as class started.
Well, I could see right off why Contessa had star yoga status—there was just no comparison between her and even the most advanced yoga people in this class. Ethan admitted to me that Contessa put him to shame in yoga, and he was very, very advanced and flexible, possibly more so than anybody in this class, man or woman, young or old. There was a distinct preciseness to her poses unlike what I'd observed so far in this class, as if a dedicated perfectionist of monumental talent at her craft was at work. I felt further diminished in her presence. Peeking up at her as my entire body wavered during a down-dog movement where I had to lift one leg, there was no doubt her flexibility belonged on a televised yoga class among those who'd spent years, life times in the practice.
Truthfully, it felt rewarding just having Contessa acknowledge me when she first appeared, so that I was just as accepted as the superior-to-me-at-yoga women who had been hugging her on this Monday morning. In fact, as I sat on my bolster late in class with my legs spread as far apart as possible and reached out to touch my toes and bend forward, Contessa, actually peering back as she did the splits, a rather facetious smile on her face, twisted her body as if it had no joints and squeezed my toe in a playful manner and chuckled, as if to support and humor me.
Well, I was thrilled, and swelled with pride at being not only acknowledged, but treated as an equal—almost. In fact, after this acknowledgment, I was inspired to go beyond any progress I had so far achieved, hoping Contessa would peek back again and see just how far a recalcitrant klutz and negative isolationist had come in yoga. But of course she did not, so immersed in her yoga, especially in the end, when she went to her “head-stand” with the perfect steady posture of an Olympic diver entering a pool of water with nary a splash for a gold medal.
During this time, because of my bad neck and shoulders, I could not even do a “shoulder-stand,” much less a headstand, and merely lay on my back with my legs propelled upwards, a real joke compared to all the panting folks completing their head and shoulder stands.
Afterwards, as class ended and people milled around, returning their yoga props and mats, I still wanted to pursue my conversation with Contessa on her Asian trip, but she was again too busy with her friends, fans and customers, but I was reassured I could pick up where we left off in a month or two or three or six when I got my next hair cut.
One needs to be patient for their turns with celebrities.
I peered up to see Ethan's wife Contessa, my hair stylist, unrolling her mat a few feet away and off to the left of me—breathing distance. Contessa is petite and supple, with long dark wavy hair and a pleasant pretty face and looks at least 15 years younger than her 60 years, even though she frets over the aging process when she cuts my hair. Contessa usually attends another studio in town where the instructors are more like exacting gurus and everybody seems more advanced, including Ethan, my tennis partner, the two of them often driving many miles to attend yoga retreats in paradisal areas.
This was the first time I'd run across Contessa when I wasn't sitting in her chair at the salon after a six to nine month absence, except when I dropped by unannounced to visit Ethan at their modest home in Morro bay and Contessa was cooking, always generous and accommodating and trying to feed me. Everybody likes Contessa because she is forever sunny and eschews negativity and cynicism and pessimism and, because of this, and her agreeableness, Ethan confides in me that her customers confide in her their most intimate juicy personal stuff, and besides being an expert yoga maven, she is the most in-demand hair stylist in the area, an artist and excellent cook, a person who always needs to be busy doing something creative and constructive.
Contessa seemed pleased to see me in yoga. She and especially Ethan had been urging me for years to attend. Recently Contessa had gone on a trip with a coterie of girl friends to Nepal and Asia, so I asked, “How was Nepal, Contessa?”
“Wonderful. Beautiful. We loved it. We had a great time.”
A couple women who had set up their mats along the wall to my left quickly came over and hugged Contessa—possibly customers of hers—and wanted to know about her trip. One of the huggers was the lady with the silver white helmet hair who complimented me on my progress in yoga. Reggie, stretching on his own mat up front as he prepared for his class, rose and came over to Contessa with a big wide appreciative smile on his face. He was literally beaming (her sudden and unexpected presence was a real feather in his cap) and welcomed her to his class, which I quickly determined was a first. I wanted to pursue my conversation on Contessa's trip to Asia, but it was obvious as Reggie and she exchanged celebrity chit-chat like two stars meeting after a game of professional football that she was busy dealing with her admirers, both as a yoga headliner and star hair stylist.
I was out of their league and perhaps everybody's and kept to myself on the mat as other ladies matriculated over to acknowledge Contessa, who is a very modest person possibly unaware of her celebrity status in Morro Bay and to her credit demonstrated true graciousness and patience and even joy at all the attention she was receiving and not the truculence and rude haste we often see of movie stars and athletes always cloaked in sunglasses and ear phones, as if they are closing their world of adulation off due to jaded attitudes of blasé world weariness and egoism.
We'll have to discuss this predicament next time I get my hair cut, when I will be sure to bring up her star acknowledgment and treatment in Morro Bay, which will surely embarrass her, especially because my voice is loud and other hair stylists and customers will hear me. Often, when Contessa cuts my hair, I purposely make negative statements about subjects and people she likes, and she tries to fend me off. For instance, when she claimed her beloved Ethan looked “so young for his age and was so handsome,” I said very loudly that even though he was five years younger than her, he looked over ten years older because he is prematurely gray and his Scottish-Danish heritage makes people of that ancestry look aged long before their time, and “he looked pretty weathered and withered to me, and was going bald, and she might as well shave his head instead of cutting his hair.” She was pretty defensive of Ethan, not knowing whether I was kidding or not, but anybody who knows these two people recognizes Ethan as extremely youthful and appearing perhaps ten years younger than his true age.
Anyway, the hug-fest finally ended and Reggie hit his singing bowls and I felt proud to be so close to Contessa as class started.
Well, I could see right off why Contessa had star yoga status—there was just no comparison between her and even the most advanced yoga people in this class. Ethan admitted to me that Contessa put him to shame in yoga, and he was very, very advanced and flexible, possibly more so than anybody in this class, man or woman, young or old. There was a distinct preciseness to her poses unlike what I'd observed so far in this class, as if a dedicated perfectionist of monumental talent at her craft was at work. I felt further diminished in her presence. Peeking up at her as my entire body wavered during a down-dog movement where I had to lift one leg, there was no doubt her flexibility belonged on a televised yoga class among those who'd spent years, life times in the practice.
Truthfully, it felt rewarding just having Contessa acknowledge me when she first appeared, so that I was just as accepted as the superior-to-me-at-yoga women who had been hugging her on this Monday morning. In fact, as I sat on my bolster late in class with my legs spread as far apart as possible and reached out to touch my toes and bend forward, Contessa, actually peering back as she did the splits, a rather facetious smile on her face, twisted her body as if it had no joints and squeezed my toe in a playful manner and chuckled, as if to support and humor me.
Well, I was thrilled, and swelled with pride at being not only acknowledged, but treated as an equal—almost. In fact, after this acknowledgment, I was inspired to go beyond any progress I had so far achieved, hoping Contessa would peek back again and see just how far a recalcitrant klutz and negative isolationist had come in yoga. But of course she did not, so immersed in her yoga, especially in the end, when she went to her “head-stand” with the perfect steady posture of an Olympic diver entering a pool of water with nary a splash for a gold medal.
During this time, because of my bad neck and shoulders, I could not even do a “shoulder-stand,” much less a headstand, and merely lay on my back with my legs propelled upwards, a real joke compared to all the panting folks completing their head and shoulder stands.
Afterwards, as class ended and people milled around, returning their yoga props and mats, I still wanted to pursue my conversation with Contessa on her Asian trip, but she was again too busy with her friends, fans and customers, but I was reassured I could pick up where we left off in a month or two or three or six when I got my next hair cut.
One needs to be patient for their turns with celebrities.
