Sitting in Parking Lots
Sometimes it takes years to walk through the door.
Once again, I sat in my car with the engine off, staring at the entrance.
It was an athletic club in the suburbs with a couple gyms, a pool, and a weight room. Soccer moms. Little kid swim lessons.
I think this was the third or fourth time I’d done this in the span of a year. I wanted to go in. My body was craving it. But my mind wouldn’t let me.
Where are the mats?
Where do I put my shoes?
Is this the right class?
Am I wearing the right thing?
Wait…should I bring my own mat?!
And on and on in the overthinking way my brain had operated most of my life.
For years, I had wanted to attend an in-person yoga class. I even owned Gaiam’s Yoga for Beginners on VHS. In the early mornings before my kids woke up, I would sneak down to the basement, pop the tape into the VCR, and slowly work through the poses. So I wasn’t completely new to yoga…but I’d never made it to an actual class.
And I was convinced that the people inside that class would be serious yogis who wouldn’t have patience for my beginner attempts to keep up.
Never mind that this was a suburban gym outside Portland and not a candlelit studio on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Didn’t matter. Real yogis were definitely in there.
And with that thought, I turned the key and drove home.
Five years later (yes, five years), we joined a different gym closer to our house in the city. One of the first things I did was check the class schedule. One caught my attention: Saturday, 8am, Expanding Practice Yoga for Beginners. Sounded perfect.
Before committing, I decided to investigate first.
One Saturday morning I arrived early and went searching for the class. The building had been expanded so many times it felt like a maze. I found it in the sub-basement (literally the basement underneath the basement), near the building’s mechanical systems in a dimly lit gym with fluorescent overhead lighting that stopped just short of flickering. From a dark doorway down the hall, I watched people arrive. Mostly older adults. Good, I thought. No serious yogis.
At 8:00am the teacher closed the door. A few minutes later I crept up and peeked through the window. Mats, blankets, blocks. People spaced around the room. And still, no serious yogis. I’ll be back next week. I’m doing it.
I actually showed up the following week. I got there early to gather supplies and claim my spot halfway back along the wall. I settled in and watched the room fill.
Next to me a grandpa slowly set up his mat wearing a cotton T-shirt and gym shorts that appeared to be from the 1970s.
Phew, I thought. Surely I’ll be better at yoga than this guy.
The teacher closed the door. The room hushed. Everyone sat cross-legged so I followed suit. She turned on some ambient yoga music to drown out the 1980s fluorescent lights gym vibe.
We began with deep breathing. Arms up. Arms down. Mountain pose, baby backbends, swan dive. I was softly smiling to myself. I’m doing it. I’ve got this. The old guy next to me was keeping up but surely, once we got into more difficult poses he would have to dial it back.
The teacher said something like, “Okay, are we ready to flow?” And the class responded with smiles. I wasn’t entirely sure what was coming since “flow” was not on my Gaiam Beginner Yoga tape.
The beat of the music picked up and the teacher said, “Let’s dance.” The class moved in unison from mountain to Warrior I, Warrior II, to Warrior III, then poses I had never seen on my VHS tape.
Balance poses, crow, and headstands.
I found myself barely able to keep up, continuously falling to one side or the other. We had definitely gone beyond my VHS education.
And for me, even putting a little pressure on the top of my head hurt too much to attempt a headstand.
Meanwhile, the old guy next to me? He held crow pose and then went right into a headstand without a single bobble. Definitely. A serious. Yogi.
(I still did want to have a chat with him about the shorts though.)
Eventually the teacher guided us down to the floor. “Savasana.”
The lights dimmed. Soft music played. We lay quietly on our mats.
And in that moment, seemingly out of nowhere, I felt warm tears slip from my closed eyes and run down the sides of my face.
It hadn’t been pretty. I had a lot to learn, and I was clearly very mistaken about who was and who wasn’t a serious yogi. But after years (YEARS!) of sitting in parking lots…I had finally made it to a class.
I continued going to that Saturday morning class until I eventually joined a bona fide yoga studio in Portland's Pearl District.
Those classes carried me through the pandemic years, and changed me in ways that go well beyond fitness.
If there’s something in your life you feel drawn toward, something your body or mind aches for, but you haven’t yet gathered the courage to begin…
Don’t lose faith.
Sometimes it takes years to walk through the door.
But when you finally do, you’ll be so glad you did.
Cheers,
Carrie