4am yoga

It has been a while since I've been so present during the little, 15 minute yoga routine a physical therapist gave me for my back. I have yet to return to her for our last consult, 4 months overdue now, partially because I keep "falling off" the yoga horse and never seem to sustain a 2-week practice. And she said to call her once I'm doing the routine each day for 2 weeks.

I'll do it for 10 days straight, now after A goes to sleep (sometimes as quietly as possible in her room while she goes to sleep but only if she is no longer aware enough of her surroundings to pop up like a meerkat, glow-in-the-dark nuggi hanging in mid-air), and then on day 11 will just be too tired, or fall asleep while I'm getting her to sleep. And then one day missed turns into two, and then into a week.

At this point often I am still having enough events per day that could strain my back, that I do it. Last week, on a 10 day hiatus, the end of a soap foam massage at a spa saw me almost slip off the stone tablet I had been laying on and crap! Ow. Reset the clock, can't call the physiotherapist until I feel a bit better (definitely no yoga that night), and now I am on day 5 again.

But last night I was just tired. I hadn't gotten a nap. Instead, I'd been prepping for German class, which is still one of the more engaging activities in my week. Once the 11:45am drowsy wears off. The teacher is really good at using little games of socializing to get us writing and talking - yesterday it was "2 truths and 1 lie" and I managed to fool both people I was playing with. I have not, in fact, ever flown a plane for 30 minutes. I have, however, swum in the Amazon river, and almost knocked over Stephen Hawking.

So German class went by, and soon I was meeting my mother- and sister-in-law to pick up A at school, then found myself heading off for an hour's break into town so the three of them could interact. And then it was dinner, and bedtime routines and goodbyes and I just wanted to sleep as I was laying in a dark room, waiting for A to drift off.

Now it is 4:45am, and I have been awake for about an hour, and spent the last 45 minutes in the living room. Sitting in the dark, watching the lights of Zurich, eating some yogurt snack from the fridge. And generally unhappy that I was awake and seemingly not settling. So I did my yoga. It just takes 15 minutes, which although that can feel like a precious long time at 9pm, feels like nothing when you know you have at least 45 minutes before you have a hope of falling asleep again.

And it was the most present I have been in my yoga routine for, what, months? Maybe I've only felt that "there and only there, moving and stretching, breathing and not thinking about 100 other things" a few times in the 8 months I've been doing it. It was great. And then I'd notice how great it was, and bolstered by such a personal "win", start thinking of what I could do next during this awake 45 min. I'd write in my blog! And then, maybe tomorrow I'd make a few changes in my routine, in my interactions with M and it would be a great day. I'd get more work done, and oh I still haven't done X and Z! But, unlike most times, I managed to get back into that "present" of just breathing and stretching some 5 times. Which is rare for me.

Tack that onto actually feeling sunshine on my legs as I walked in town on my furlough yesterday afternoon, on a street I am usually pushing A's stroller down and not noticing much of anything subtle about myself, and having a chance to write for 15 minutes (with pauses and edits, even!) and I'm suddenly drowsy and calm.