Day 40: Corpse-itus Interruptus

It’s almost as unsettling as having a kid barge in on an intimate moment.

There we are, lying in a quiet darkened room, seeking transcendence and peace. It’s the end of an hour-long yoga session. The instructor has worked us hard. We have earned our final reward, five minutes of savasana – resting there dead to the world in the corpse pose.

The health club is busy, but the gym we’re in is quiet. It’s a private class sponsored by my employer. Outside, the next group is chomping at the bit to get in. That yoga class is a public one. I’ve rarely seen women more aggressive than those who troop in the moment our instructor says Namaste, fencing with their rolled-up mats for the prime spots we’re still sitting in.

Our teacher has turned off her plinkty-plink eastern music. She has lowered the lights. She has advised us all to relax our eyeballs and sink into the earth. We don’t worry too much about our eyeballs. We’re just grateful to have gotten through the class.

Then the door bangs open and someone in loud clogs clumps across the hardwood floor. We hear her stepping over bodies. We hear her drop her stuff in a pile. We hear her rip open the Velcro straps securing her mat, which she then shakes out. We hear her arrange all her crap and sit down.

Twenty pairs of eyeballs strain to see who has so rudely ruined the end of class. One person yells, “Really?” Then all our heads poke up like prairie dogs. We glare at the intruder, who is of course a lovely lithe little thing with the oblivious air of a queen.

Clueless, or arrogant? That is the question.

I’m betting equal parts of both. It’s not the meek who’ll inherit the earth.