When you first meet her, Doris does not strike you as a natural yogini.
Curly of hair and stiff of limb, she appears to live in a world of her own. She is in a consistent state of confusion and has some trouble telling her left from her right. But once she gets a posture down, she rocks that posture. Rocks it, as in, Gandhi himself would be so jealous that he would lock himself into a McDonalds and embark on an all-you-can-eat cheeseburger binge out of sheer frustration.
The rest of us in the weekly subterranean yoga class are not so lucky, or rather, gifted. It must be said that our yoga teacher, the lovely Helena, is ridiculously encouraging. "Yes," she clamors ecstatically as we grunt and groan in downward dog position, "Beautiful, very pretty!" I venture a glance in the ballet-style wall-length mirrors and see a sweating, red-headed lawyer with shaking knees and an oddly angled behind stare back at me in obvious physical pain. Beautiful indeed.
Of course there is a reward. It comes in the form of 7 minutes of utter relaxation at the end of each class. Brutally stretched and involuntarily subjected to positions that Mother Nature couldn't possibly have intended, the body is in such shock that it happily submits to a state of semi-slumber. A true yogini can achieve such Nirvana even without the physical exertions that for a beginner necessarily precede it. For now, I'm just happy to get my ass kicked by Helena so I can enjoy 7 whole minutes of Nothingness.
After class, I float back up to the 18th floor, visualizing my inner smile and greeting the yogini deep inside as instructed. The problem with Nothingness, I find though, is that it is a pushover in the real world, having little means to occupy space or mark its territory. It is, after all, Nothingness. How do you protect Nothingness from all the Somethings that encircle it, itching to step in once the 7 minutes are up? Timid, spineless, flabby Nothingness cedes its place faster than chocolate melts in the bain-marie.
And so the day continues.
Secretly yours,
The Undercover Writer.
