YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS "HAVE MAT, WILL TRAVEL"
I took my yoga mat (a gift from a former love named Gina Sermione) along on a trip from Cayucos with dog Wilbur up to Mendocino County and intended to use it every morning to start out my day like a good yoga knucklehead. This would be my first attempt in over a year of continuous yoga to “execute a yoga session by myself.”
It was kind of scary, because even though I can remember small details of things I did and said and heard and observed over 60 years ago, I cannot remember much of what happened an hour ago, much less yesterday. And I should be able to pretty much recall what my instructor Reggie has put me through for over a year, but since I can't, I wrote it all down in my spiral notebook on which I will also take notes of my trip with Wilbur. In this notebook are about 20 plus exercises or poses which I felt I needed to keep from getting stiff all over and especially in the lower back from driving my 2002 Toyota Camry up the coast.
My first stop was Gualala, a tiny hamlet above a pristine cove with a beach cut in half by a river ending in the sea. I stayed at the Surf Motel and brought in all my baggage and took Wilbur for a walk along the ridge, then took a walk through town, had a beer at a bar/restaurant, noticed a yoga studio in a small complex, returned to the motel, took Wilbur off the leash, and had to corral him out of two open rooms where ladies claimed their adoration for his cuteness. I spent the evening watching the sun go down, had a sandwich from a deli, watched a basketball game, slept well, woke up and had breakfast with some nice young people at the outside tables, walked Wilbur again, packed and left, and didn't realize I'd forgotten about yoga and never took my mat out of the trunk until I entered Point Arena and discovered a yoga studio on highway 1.
I spotted women in there and felt guilty, even though my back felt loose and relaxed despite driving over 340 miles the day before. I vowed to do yoga at my next destination, Mendocino, which I reached at noon and, since rooms were so expensive there, I found a good deal at another motel that took dogs in Fort Bragg 7 miles up the road and returned to spend the day in the golden benign light of Mendocino, where I observed at least 4 yoga studios—one of which seemed of Sanskrit description—and many ladies ambling about with yoga mats, which indeed made me feel like a guilt-ridden shirker.
After walking Wilbur once on the beach and later through this charming quirky town, I found a bar where Wilbur and I made friends and achieved a pretty good buzz. Later, on another walk, I met a 50ish woman in town who was taking pictures with a high powered camera and tried to convince me of a conspiracy of lawyers, judges and bankers and global politicians taking over the world. She was extremely paranoid and quite strikingly attractive and voluptuous, with a shawl composed of yellow cloth flower petals, but her dog, locked up in her car, continued barking viciously at Wilbur, who stuck his snoot near her crotch as she mindlessly stroked his neck.
I asked her if she did yoga and she just stared at me, so we parted amiably and I had dinner and returned to my motel and turned on CNN and discovered Trump had fired the head of the FBI, Comey, and I stayed up most of the night rejoicing in Trump's punditry thrashing over his abject lies and craven behavior, and was so exhausted I forgot about yoga in the morning and headed south.
I ended up in Stinson Beach in a tiny room much too small for my yoga mat, which so far had never left my trunk. Though Stinson Beach is tiny, I did spot one yoga studio and regretted as I walked Wilbur around that I had no room in the tiny cramped alcove in the old B & B that seemed in extreme disrepair, scaffolds on all sides of the old extended Victorian along highway 1, the brick courtyard, although shaded with fine trees, cluttered with mismatching patio furniture, paint cans, bar b cue, park bench, and various debris. The proprietor, Alphonse, a short dark swarthy man in his late 60s who loved to talk and immediately offered food and drink and was of Guatemalan extraction, was constantly hobbling around in an ugly knee brace while executing a haphazard method of working. He did not seem the type of person who would understand my taking a yoga mat onto his patio, for he talked of his tough, chaotic youth and having a son who was shot by gangbangers down south.
Alphonse said he'd owned this place with his wife for 30 years and I had the sense that the Victorian had been a private reclamation project this entire time.
I was relieved not to have to do yoga on the patio and since Alphonse was an amiable sort who like me liked to talk (he noted that nobody liked to talk anymore they all talked to their phones) and not listen even if he did ask a lot of questions. I sat on the park bench with Wilbur and Alphonse and I had great fun exchanging stories of partaking in dangerous and violent acts as kids and young men while his wife, a substantial white lady, shook her head in derision. When Alphonse was out of sight, I asked her if Alphonse and Danny, his assistant, who moved in a slow-motion stoop, wore a beanie and parka and refused to talk when we were introduced, were two thirds of the three stooges. She threw up her hands in frustration and nodded, disappearing into the Victorian, which had a few patch-work blown glass windows among regular windows and a movie poster of “Casablanca.” I was seemingly the only guest but for a grizzled man who claimed to have thumbed here from North Carolina after his car broke down. He had the deluxe larger room one room over from the room Alphonse and Danny were repairing or remodeling or whatever as the wife continued to shake her head in futility at their piddling progress.
My tiny garret, no more than 80 square feet, had 7 lights and lamps, most of which were dim and some of which didn't work, a bed with 4 pillows of various sizes and different colored pillow cases, and a weak shower that took 2 minutes to get hot water, was nevertheless serviceable and in the morning, as I began to leave, Alphonse, dental floss sticking out of his mouth as he talked, informed me I was welcome any time and be sure and bring my girl friend, who is so touchy about accommodations that she needs a full accounting of amenities and complains about the size of towels, and would have been appalled that all I had was a hand towel in the microscopic shower room but was wise enough to bring my own bath towel.
By the time I returned to Cayucos, after a long, stressful drive, I was stooped and stiff and moving like a decrepit 90 year old. After piling all my baggage and Wilbur's blanket into the cottage, I spread my yoga mat out on my deck and lay on my back with the notebook of my yoga directions, but Wilbur, still frazzled from the trip, lay across me, his 90 pound body like a huge medicine ball, and I gave up.
Next morning I showed up at yoga class and Samantha seemed to be torturing me. Every joint and hinge in my body shrieked with pain. For the first time ever I felt an urge to quit early and creep out with my tail between my legs. I bounced off the wall repeatedly during TREE and WARRIOR 3 and grew so frustrated I cursed too loudly under my breath. I was humiliated, hurting, and ready to cry. But I hung tough and was thankful nobody witnessed my pathetic ineptitude far in the back.
I limped out, much looser for it, though realizing yoga did not go well with the road so far, and in the future I would have to show more discipline and will power if I ever wanted to grow out of being a yoga knucklehead.
It was kind of scary, because even though I can remember small details of things I did and said and heard and observed over 60 years ago, I cannot remember much of what happened an hour ago, much less yesterday. And I should be able to pretty much recall what my instructor Reggie has put me through for over a year, but since I can't, I wrote it all down in my spiral notebook on which I will also take notes of my trip with Wilbur. In this notebook are about 20 plus exercises or poses which I felt I needed to keep from getting stiff all over and especially in the lower back from driving my 2002 Toyota Camry up the coast.
My first stop was Gualala, a tiny hamlet above a pristine cove with a beach cut in half by a river ending in the sea. I stayed at the Surf Motel and brought in all my baggage and took Wilbur for a walk along the ridge, then took a walk through town, had a beer at a bar/restaurant, noticed a yoga studio in a small complex, returned to the motel, took Wilbur off the leash, and had to corral him out of two open rooms where ladies claimed their adoration for his cuteness. I spent the evening watching the sun go down, had a sandwich from a deli, watched a basketball game, slept well, woke up and had breakfast with some nice young people at the outside tables, walked Wilbur again, packed and left, and didn't realize I'd forgotten about yoga and never took my mat out of the trunk until I entered Point Arena and discovered a yoga studio on highway 1.
I spotted women in there and felt guilty, even though my back felt loose and relaxed despite driving over 340 miles the day before. I vowed to do yoga at my next destination, Mendocino, which I reached at noon and, since rooms were so expensive there, I found a good deal at another motel that took dogs in Fort Bragg 7 miles up the road and returned to spend the day in the golden benign light of Mendocino, where I observed at least 4 yoga studios—one of which seemed of Sanskrit description—and many ladies ambling about with yoga mats, which indeed made me feel like a guilt-ridden shirker.
After walking Wilbur once on the beach and later through this charming quirky town, I found a bar where Wilbur and I made friends and achieved a pretty good buzz. Later, on another walk, I met a 50ish woman in town who was taking pictures with a high powered camera and tried to convince me of a conspiracy of lawyers, judges and bankers and global politicians taking over the world. She was extremely paranoid and quite strikingly attractive and voluptuous, with a shawl composed of yellow cloth flower petals, but her dog, locked up in her car, continued barking viciously at Wilbur, who stuck his snoot near her crotch as she mindlessly stroked his neck.
I asked her if she did yoga and she just stared at me, so we parted amiably and I had dinner and returned to my motel and turned on CNN and discovered Trump had fired the head of the FBI, Comey, and I stayed up most of the night rejoicing in Trump's punditry thrashing over his abject lies and craven behavior, and was so exhausted I forgot about yoga in the morning and headed south.
I ended up in Stinson Beach in a tiny room much too small for my yoga mat, which so far had never left my trunk. Though Stinson Beach is tiny, I did spot one yoga studio and regretted as I walked Wilbur around that I had no room in the tiny cramped alcove in the old B & B that seemed in extreme disrepair, scaffolds on all sides of the old extended Victorian along highway 1, the brick courtyard, although shaded with fine trees, cluttered with mismatching patio furniture, paint cans, bar b cue, park bench, and various debris. The proprietor, Alphonse, a short dark swarthy man in his late 60s who loved to talk and immediately offered food and drink and was of Guatemalan extraction, was constantly hobbling around in an ugly knee brace while executing a haphazard method of working. He did not seem the type of person who would understand my taking a yoga mat onto his patio, for he talked of his tough, chaotic youth and having a son who was shot by gangbangers down south.
Alphonse said he'd owned this place with his wife for 30 years and I had the sense that the Victorian had been a private reclamation project this entire time.
I was relieved not to have to do yoga on the patio and since Alphonse was an amiable sort who like me liked to talk (he noted that nobody liked to talk anymore they all talked to their phones) and not listen even if he did ask a lot of questions. I sat on the park bench with Wilbur and Alphonse and I had great fun exchanging stories of partaking in dangerous and violent acts as kids and young men while his wife, a substantial white lady, shook her head in derision. When Alphonse was out of sight, I asked her if Alphonse and Danny, his assistant, who moved in a slow-motion stoop, wore a beanie and parka and refused to talk when we were introduced, were two thirds of the three stooges. She threw up her hands in frustration and nodded, disappearing into the Victorian, which had a few patch-work blown glass windows among regular windows and a movie poster of “Casablanca.” I was seemingly the only guest but for a grizzled man who claimed to have thumbed here from North Carolina after his car broke down. He had the deluxe larger room one room over from the room Alphonse and Danny were repairing or remodeling or whatever as the wife continued to shake her head in futility at their piddling progress.
My tiny garret, no more than 80 square feet, had 7 lights and lamps, most of which were dim and some of which didn't work, a bed with 4 pillows of various sizes and different colored pillow cases, and a weak shower that took 2 minutes to get hot water, was nevertheless serviceable and in the morning, as I began to leave, Alphonse, dental floss sticking out of his mouth as he talked, informed me I was welcome any time and be sure and bring my girl friend, who is so touchy about accommodations that she needs a full accounting of amenities and complains about the size of towels, and would have been appalled that all I had was a hand towel in the microscopic shower room but was wise enough to bring my own bath towel.
By the time I returned to Cayucos, after a long, stressful drive, I was stooped and stiff and moving like a decrepit 90 year old. After piling all my baggage and Wilbur's blanket into the cottage, I spread my yoga mat out on my deck and lay on my back with the notebook of my yoga directions, but Wilbur, still frazzled from the trip, lay across me, his 90 pound body like a huge medicine ball, and I gave up.
Next morning I showed up at yoga class and Samantha seemed to be torturing me. Every joint and hinge in my body shrieked with pain. For the first time ever I felt an urge to quit early and creep out with my tail between my legs. I bounced off the wall repeatedly during TREE and WARRIOR 3 and grew so frustrated I cursed too loudly under my breath. I was humiliated, hurting, and ready to cry. But I hung tough and was thankful nobody witnessed my pathetic ineptitude far in the back.
I limped out, much looser for it, though realizing yoga did not go well with the road so far, and in the future I would have to show more discipline and will power if I ever wanted to grow out of being a yoga knucklehead.
