a prayer for Daddy

It might be possible to make too much of the fact that I can bend forward easily enough but not backwards. In my yoga training it has been implicit that I would bend over backwards to please my teacher, since she has done so much for me. But in that direction my stiffness can attain comical levels.

With my teacher, I have been able to perform supta virasana [sitting on knees, then lying back (not illustrated: that over on the left is a bad version of vrksasana)]with only one bolster. But now I can't help wondering if that one bolster weren't a little puffier than the ones I use these days. True, with my teacher, supta virasana would throw my legs into a nearly immediate combination of numbness and pain. The miracle was less about doing the pose than about the fact that it didn't do me permanent injury.

Lately I've taken to sneaking a rug and a sofa cushion onto the top of two bolsters. Embarrassing. But at least I'm doing the pose. And if I can shut off my brain and its fancies and fantasies for a moment and simply do the pose, so much the better.

Today while I'm in the pose little Liam comes and stands on my legs as I've taught him to do. My eyes are supposed to be shut, but just as in the days of public prayers in Christian church I would sometimes peek, so here I watch him through half-closed eyes. He sucks his right thumb and strokes himself with the other hand, balance impeccable, dreaming a world for both of us.