Hope & Yoga

"And hopefulness is really, for me, is not optimism, that everything’s going to be fine and we can just sit back. And that’s too much like pessimism, which is that everything’s going to suck and we can just sit back. Hope, for me, just means a Buddhist sense of uncertainty, of coming to terms with the fact that we don’t know what will happen, and that there’s maybe room for us to intervene. And that we have to let go of the certainty people seem to love more than hope, and know that we don’t know what’s going to happen."  - Rebecca Solnit in conversation with Krista Tippett for "On Being"

On Saturday mornings, I pour my coffee into a paper cup and take myself to yoga. Hair disheveled, almost the way my pillow left it, on winter mornings the same leggings I slept in the night before, warmer mornings a pair of cotton shorts, an oversize t-shirt perhaps still wrapped around me from the night before, and a clean sports bra, always. To get there by 8am is the only goal, "Get onto your mat, Emma," I prod gently to avoid the whirlwind of morning demands. 

And I do. 

I get onto my mat and stretch and reach and let myself be. Cranky some mornings, bone-marrow sad on others, lightly refreshed, energized, scattered, sore, head-chatter too loud, weak, tired, annoyed with myself, all of it, I let myself be. Reach into the pose, not able to reach as far as..., let it be. To reach is all I ask. Let it be. Balance on the tiny places my body connects to the earth, the right foot, the left hand, falling, trying again, falling, laughing. "Play here," she instructs, and I listen. I play and laughter follows, and it's more than I could ever wish to ask for on some mornings. I play with the greatest stretches, the most tenuous places to find balance. "Find your down-dog,"she guides us to find the stability. I breathe in, I breathe out, release it all out, release, out, out, release, move into child's pose. Rest. 

Let it be. Reach. Play. Rest. 

I walk home on warm mornings, with my yoga mat slung over my shoulder, and headphones in my ears. The volume low enough to catch the hellos from the stoops and the good mornings from the sidewalk and toss them back. The week gone and only the block ahead in front of me. On each block, hope finds me well. 

Not Just A Paper

Three cop cars, a van, seven police, two undercover, arrested two boys under my window this afternoon. Mid-sentence, typing, at my desk, The Racial State section of my dissertation, a few paragraphs above the role of defense counsel in juvenile delinquency court, I heard the woop-woop of sirens that don't intend to travel far, feet against the pavement, a scuttle, a man's voice command, "Get him down," and a boy cry, "Why would you do that?" 

I made a bee-line for my window. They had him down on the ground in handcuffs. Pinned tightly to the pavement below. Shoving hands in his pockets and patting down his thighs. He cried, "Why would you do that?" I held my breath, waiting for the gun. There wasn't one. 

Two undercover cops wearing bullet-proof vests walked the other boy within feet of the one held against the ground. "Why would you do that?" "Why would you do that?" The seven police officers put the two boys into the van and drove away. 

Boys. 

I sat on my bedroom floor, under the window, and exhaled the tiniest sob. Without tears. Without a second. Walked myself back to my computer and continued typing. 

The racial state. The role of defense counsel. Boys. 

Two boys. 

Values

They're written on a pink post-it note on my bedroom mirror. Only three of them so far, hard earned already – I'm turning right, they're steering left, bringing me to my knees, I have to show up for myself as myself, again and again and again -- hard earned. And yet, when I live them, with integrity, despite fear paving the way, they hold me, calmly, sweetly, gently, giving me back to myself.

Look for the Light

Cold, rainy day. Not enough layers to wear and too many for May. Chocolate ice cream for dinner, but when I step out the front door the mist looks like snow in the streetlight. The drenched sidewalks glowing golden under the streetlight, forgetting to be gray.

“We can do hard things,” she shares time and time again, these past months. I match my breath to my movements, let it unravel on the mat, and follow her lead, this wom_n who walks the same path, the one lit by the starlight in the darkest nights.

We can do hard things. We can show up in the dark, in the rain, and look for the light.