Doing yoga while the cake is baking....


Breathing deeply. Inhaling the whiff of the cake baking. Nerves a bit tense.. not only the unfamiliar cake recipe which is my mother's favourite, but also from weeks of weirdness in which the past seems coming up as often as I try to let go.

Breathing deeply and stretching. I am glad my mind is on the cake. My mind is not on the late night phone call from the loved one which ended in the quarrel and the painful hanging up and painful sadness of unmet expectations on both sides. Mind is on the cake and the irony of yoga for health with cake. Mind is not on the wishful conversations I could have had with the loved one about health and well-being and resilience and fantastic work.
Mind is not on the other things which wind the body up.

Mind is on the postures, and trying to do them in time for the 30 to 35 minutes of baking time which is needed.

Back is not bending as it used to.. Pains are there again and I know that some of them have nothing to do with muscles but with the mind.

Woman laughs as she says "How old are you.. late forties.. I was in my prime when I was your age" and I remember that indeed she was busy and active and dealing with early menopause and healthy and even now she still seems busy and active and knowing how to pick and choose. I was explaining my inability .. "I am older, slower, things take longer to do.. and I can't switch from the caregiving duties rapidly to deal with other things"
Hands sometimes feel weird and things drop out of them. More because I am not concentrating on the things in them. Letting go is a deliberate mindful action, not the same as dropping things mindlessly.

I jump up and go check the cake. A few more poses, and then check again.

As the cake cools, I do the last pose, the corpse pose.. cooling, settling like the cake .

Body stills feel stiffish as I get up. That's okay though as I start to feel the kind of exhaustion which comes from the release of the muscles which were tense. Maybe if I did the yoga with the mind not on the cake then it would have been better.

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