I’ve been staring at the computer screen and listening to Beethoven for I’m-not-sure-how-many minutes now, trying to figure out what to write about here on JALC (or even if I was going to write at all).

Ultimately, I decided to give it a try—in part because I want to postpone the wheels-falling-off-the-cart moment I feel almost inevitably coming down the pike at me. It’s gonna be an intense few weeks at work with various deadlines to meet, so I foresee a number of missed blogposts in the near future, as I will likely have to set JALC aside in order to devote my evening writing time to job-related stuff.

I’ll be doing some of that tonight, but first: a super-quick post with some more yoga observations I forgot to include last night.

I’m still (re-)learning how to pack for a trip to the yoga studio. When I left for work yesterday, I planned far enough ahead to throw yoga clothes into a tote bag. But I forgot my yoga mat and the extra little hand towel I use to keep my hands from slipping on inverted poses like downward dog.(1) I’m tempted to just start keeping an extra mat and towel in the car, but I’m afraid the cold temperatures of a Boston March would cause damage to the thing.

For all that the yoga journey is often a pathway for self-acceptance, I’ve been amazed at how all the forward folds and such have made me uncomfortably aware of my complete laziness around shaving my legs during the winter. Like: completely self-conscious.

I know I’m not alone in that habit, and I know the whole cultural expectation for women to shave their legs is yet another piece of the misogynist miasma we live in. Still, it’s a cultural expectation I give into more often than not, so the combined effect of all my workout leggings being capri length and my ankles being so very hairy is causing me all sorts of shame and embarrassment. Still, my workday morning routines are always so damned hurried that I haven’t yet had the time to address the source of my discomfort during the morning shower.

For all the ways I’m nit-picking about different areas of discomfort I’ve been observing in these last couple yoga classes, I’m also pretty satisfied with how it’s going. I’m proud of myself for going back class again this week, and also for going to two classes instead of just one. I’m not even remotely limber in any of the poses, but I’m also a little more flexible than I’d feared would be the case. And some of what I used to know about the form of these poses is coming back to me in a good way.

In this life, I believe in celebrating any win you get. So I’ll take this win with gratitude.

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(1) Some women perspire; others “glow.” I just plain sweat.

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Image credit: Flickr user McKay Savage, via a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.