Picture me running down Boundary Street in West End, Birkenstocks slapping as I dodge kerb-side tables and sandwich boards in my rush to make it to yoga on time.
Summer still burns at full force here and this mid-morning run reduced me to a wet, panting mess. Not a good way to start yoga. But parking is tricky and I’d left home later than intended.
Before you wag your finger at my tardiness (“What about that new watch you have?”), in my defence I’d been delayed trying to pay for yoga.
Obviously you have to do that online. Which means choosing a class package, adding it to your shopping cart, then backtracking to register as a customer because your credit card is no good unless you’ve registered first.
Armed with this information, I dutifully backtracked and entered a dozen personal facts to register so I could pay so I could drive and then park and then, hopefully, practise yoga.
Only mid-way through registering I confronted this hurdle.
Trying desperately to register for yoga at a suburban Brisbane studio but feeling too damned Anglo pic.twitter.com/jfMLPR1dwg
— Angela Bensted (@branchearner) February 5, 2017
Defeated, I threw in the towel. Which is a shame because half an hour later when I arrived at the studio, dripping, I could have used that towel.
Peaks
Fortunately the yoga teacher is more relaxed about payment than the online system suggests and he welcomed me with a chuckle and a namaste.
Then, with a handful of other devotees, I left my worries outside as we put our brains and bodies in gear, working the gray matter and gross muscles in equal measure, yogaing my way to midday.
Zen achieved.
Troughs
But within minutes of the drive home the Baby Sister called. She was sad. Very sad. The siblings and I had failed to keep her in the loop about our mum’s birthday celebrations the day before.
The Sister lives out of town, way out of town – and we knew she couldn’t make it to lunch. But it should have occurred to us to let her know what was happening. We didn’t. We just published pictures on the internet for her to see how much fun we were having without her. She is deeply, deeply hurt that we gathered without her knowing; she said learning about the party through social media was like being dipped in a vat of Saxa salt (I might be paraphrasing). She cried deep, gulping, guttural tears which probably had more behind them than a communications oversight but still, the exchange stripped me of my zen.
So the peak was short lived and I spent the rest of the day in a deep, deep trough.
For the record
That article I submitted for publication is gathering dust in a generic inbox. I’m going to have to get creative. And then take it elsewhere. Or maybe just give up. Not sure yet.
