Tuesday Is Not Wednesday and My Arms Know It

May eighth. Wednesday's class was full, I checked the community center schedule Monday night and there it was, that little grayed-out button that might as well say 'sorry, you waited too long, try another configuration of your week.' There was a Tuesday morning class at the same level, same instructor, one slot open. I registered before I could think about what a Tuesday morning meant logistically.

It meant the same thing it always means: I got there early enough that the room was still quiet, just the squeak of the wood floor and the dusty morning light coming through those high windows. I like that part. The part where you roll out your mat and it's still possible to believe you are a person who has her act together. That part lasted about eight minutes into the class, which is when the instructor said 'open your chest and press your triceps back' and my arms filed a formal complaint.

I should say: I have been going to this Wednesday class since January, give or take a week, and I have never once left it feeling wrecked. Tired in a clean way, yes. That specific hour where your mind and body reach some temporary agreement about what they're both doing, that's real, I've written about it before. But today was different. Maybe it's because Tuesday me is not as prepared as Wednesday me. Maybe the instructor had something to prove. Maybe I just wasn't ready to hold Warrior II for what felt like one full geological era. Whatever it was, I spent the last ten minutes of class in a kind of negotiation with my own shoulder blades.

I took a photo of myself on the floor afterward because it felt like the honest documentation of the situation. Carol's letter is on my counter at home, I read it the same day it arrived, which I'm still a little surprised by myself about, and the letterpress workshop is this Saturday, and in the meantime I am lying on a yoga mat in a community center on a Tuesday morning with my arms extended like I have surrendered to something. I probably have. Happy to report the floor is very comfortable.