Non sequitur (about a non sequitur)

I love yoga.

However, I am not a fan of Monday-night yoga at my gym. Past experience has proved that any instructor on that night must be quirky. (Do non-quirky teachers skip out in fear of cranky types like me that are also known to show up Mondays?)

I practice yoga to relax, breathe deeply, and tone my shoulders and back. I can't do quirky. So I usually skip Mondays.

Nonetheless, tonight was an emergency. My legs are sore. Wicked and unexplainably sore, as if someone took a sledgehammer to the groin and gluteal muscles of my left leg. Yesterday afternoon I was on a coffee date and after a half-mile strolling on the Esplanade my outer thigh convulsed in cramps.

I can't yet diagnose this pain. (At least I can't think of an interesting reason for it ... other than, perhaps, residual marathon weariness that continues to hinder running or as I mentioned, walking.) I also have not yet gotten myself to a health professional to aid.

But yoga has fixed a lot of things for me in the past. Tonight it couldn't hurt worse than it might help.

So I walked in, sat down on my mat, crossed my legs, closed my eyes, folded my hands into prayer, started to breathe in rhythm. And the teacher introduced himself:

"Tonight there is a full moon, big and fat there, hanging in the sky. On full moons I always like to do backbends. Tonight we will do backbends!"

Thus began .... the class of backbends: the arching one's spine and neck to the point of near-break repeatedly, for 75 minutes, for no other reason it seemed, than the lunar calendar's whim.

We jumped into 5 variations of the locust pose, followed by another 7 breathing cycles of cobra, and then stepped cold into the intricate one-legged king pigeon pose a couple times on both legs. Then our teacher led us through a sequence of bridge poses where, for each repetition, for 40 seconds unceasing, he yelled (yes, yelled) "up! up! up! up! breathe! breathe! up! up! don't stop! don't stop! get those hands back! hold it! hold it! up! up! don't stop!"

Oh my. Like a bad porno. And taxing on the spine. I exited the studio with an elevated heart rate, thighs still sore, and defined frustration that I didn't step out of that third bridge to put a hand over someone's mouth.

Sigh.

There is no good point to this story. From the moment the words "full moon" escaped my instructor's (surely) well-meaning but (surely) misguided lips, I wanted to write about the backbends. Ergo the non sequitur about the non sequitur.

Frankly, such a tactic fits my mood today. Blasé. Middling. Finishing last week's work tasks with diligence but no enthusiasm. Realizing my body is not up to running and feeling sad, but not heartbroken. Too tired to scrub the floor but awake enough to finish the laundry. Scrolling match profiles with some interest, but not enough to write anyone.

All the rote details of this life, on display, it seems. I've written about them all before. Cycling through as regularly as the appearance of a full moon.

(Which, perhaps, I can blame for this scattered writing effort?)