The Best Laid Plans

The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew

 - Robert Burns

Day 2

The plan was to go to 10am yoga and meet some of friends, one of whom was from out of town, at the Met to see the samurai exhibit.  For dinner, we would go to a Japanese yakitori for some beer and grilled goodies. 

Today, I woke up and said, "uh oh."  My body was achy and my throat sore.  I was fighting a bug since Wednesday and all the running around this past week finally caught up with me.  My body proclaimed its revolt.  I still toyed with the idea of attending the 10am bikram class but when I didn't feel better, I pushed it back to 12noon and then to 4:30pm.  The Husband thought I was insane.  "You have a fever!" he exclaimed, incredulous at my stubbornness or delusion, I couldn't tell.  "Do you want to rest today, get better so that you just miss one day of yoga or do you want to go, push yourself, get even more sick, and miss several days of yoga?" he asked.  He was my voice of reason and as I looked to my bedside table, I saw the signs -- a mug full of hot water, lemon, and honey; echinacea; cough drops; kleenex -- and knew he was right.  I acquiesced to staying in bed.

When my mind remained undecided, I felt restless.  Even though I was trying to get some rest in bed, I was anxious.  My mind raced.  You have to go to yoga.  You committed to going 101 days straight.  You can't quit now, it's only the second day.  You are not determined enough.  Think of the disappointment you'll feel if you don't go.  Those thoughts and all sorts of others whirled through my mind.  They came to a complete stop after I agreed to stay home.  After that, I finally managed to close my eyes and go to sleep.

The Latin word caedere means to cut, to kill.  English words that end in -cide have their root in caedere (my HS required us to take two years of Latin so thank you to all my Latin teachers for teaching me this fun fact).  The more widely known words are suicide, homicide, genocide, pesticide and fungicide.  There are hundreds more words that end in -cide but the one we practice daily in our lives and in our yoga is this one:  decide.  When we make a decision, other options become irrelevant.  Today, I decided to honor my body and give it the rest it deserves.  In doing so, I silenced my mind.

In bikram, we practice silencing our minds using pinpoint focus and breath.  We decide to let the teacher lead us.  We decide to stick a pose and commit to it.  We decide to listen to our bodies in order to go deeper or to back off.  We decide to find stillness in between postures.

I would be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed about not going to yoga today.  But I have decided to look on the bright side:  missing yoga today is an opportunity to do a double, something I have never done before.