finding space

The above is my favorite spread from Susannah Conway's book, This I Know, which a marvel and a delight."Slow down. Listen in. Create space." A mantra for these drifting days.


I've been slowly coming back to my evening yoga practice. Over many weeks it went dormant: my studio, the only room in our house that doesn't have an A/C unit, is unusable in the summer, and without a regular space to anchor it, I more or less lost my way to my mat. Habits are funny things, aren't they? No matter how well established, the slightest change--like needing a new space--can derail them. But with the general lack of structure of my summer days, in which everything depends on the boy's wake-ups and naps, and these are moving targets at best, I find I need some solid ground upon which to release and unwind. So I've been unrolling my mat right in the middle of the messiness of our bedroom and stretching out, letting go of some of the day's tension. My body is tight, tight, no doubt a result of my trying to hold on to something, anything stable and permanent. I'm uneasy with these days' drifting. I feel my need for order and predictability rising in the face of my shifting schedule, a no-win situation. In those moments I have been giving myself over to the mat at night, some of those tight knots are beginning to loosen. Not unraveling just yet--but finding some space inside the tightness. A little more room for breath. I need all I can get.