Savasana

I practice on my mother’s purple yoga mat. It reminds me of her spirit, how she fell in love with purple just before her ALS diagnosis, obsessed with purple, as if the universe was preparing her for what was to come. She chose a purple front door for the house, painted terracotta flower pots purple on the porch, found a purple speckled metal bird and a purple gazing ball to put next to the purple front door, and then she found words stamped in iron: Live Laugh Love. Of course, she painted them purple too, then hung them above the terracotta flower pots.

Before her diagnosis, she bought this purple yoga mat. When I practice, I remember her capable body before the disease, before she was given five years to live. Before her legs stopped lifting, before her arms stopped moving, before her diaphragm stopped pulling her lungs out into deep powerful breaths. When I practice on this mat, it reminds me of my capable body, my blessings.

I start a sun salutation and work my muscles into a rhythm, into Runner’s Stance, then arms swinging up and wide into Warrior II, breathing fast, muscles burning, and when I stop, Downward Dog, face toward the mat, shoulders quivering. I breathe heavy, and I remember I am able. I am strong. Stretch, breathe. Bend, lift. Hold and quiver. Release.

Breathe in. Stretch up. Bend further… release. Breathe out. Keep going. Breathe. Stretch, bend. Release…breathe.

My instructor tells me of all of your work, all of the long minutes you are ready to live, to leave for work, to make that phone call, to pay the electric bill—all those moments must wait. All of your work, your breath and muscles moving, quivering, all of your practice is preparation for its end. For Savasana.

For rest. For meditation.

Lay down on your mat. Hug your knees to your chest. Stretch your limbs long, long, then let go. Relax.

I try to let the mat absorb me. Deep breath in. Fall deep in repose. I try to harness the moment from many practices ago, when I found that place, the quiet. Empty. At rest. Absorbed in nothing. But thoughts press in, thoughts of her heavy body, of how she bought this mat after a pre-diabetic diagnosis. My mother, who drank saccharine and diet soda, and loved dessert and was fifty pounds heavier than she needed to be. She worked so hard, reversing the diagnosis without medication, doing yoga, taking walks, eating cinnamon and flaxseed and yogurt every morning, shedding the weight, finding a stronger version of herself. Of her capable body. And then on those walks, not a year after, her foot started drooping. Dragging.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Let the thoughts wash out with the release. Let go. In savasana, thoughts come and go. I try not to fight it.

Mom, who was in her wheel chair, with one working hand telling the doctors what she could still do at our monthly ALS clinic visits, glossing over the problems that had to be addressed. Mom months before that, who bought three sparkly canes to match her outfits, holding on fiercely, hobbling crookedly long after she should have used a walker.

The goal is to let the thought go, to let it all out on your breath, like a wave. Like a cave on the ocean, waves crashing in and going out. Let go.

Breathe in.

Most of the time we were just figuring out how to help her with all of her new handicaps. The stairs, The silverware. The car. A pen. Most of the time I was just trying to get groceries and make supper and get her to bed and figure out the caregiver’s schedule and Mom’s medical appointments and the rest of my life. And then there was that day at my morning boot camp, a hard I-cant-do-it-anymore moment somewhere between planks and burpees. The leader shouted encouragement, helping us push past our sweat and breathlessness. Keep it up, Ladies! she said, We’re going to need these bodies when we’re 60! I dropped the plank, all the losses rushing over me, couldn’t hold it, walked out, straight into the bathroom, into a stall. I cried silently, forehead on the cold metal stall. Wept for all of the losses, for what we never got to be, for Mom, cheated in her early sixties. A body that didn’t reward all those walks and yoga and cinnamon and flaxseed, all that effort, all the determination. A body that could not be fixed. Not by the best doctors in the world.

Breathe in. Let go. Breathe out. Drawing classes. Yoga. Pottery. Felting. In a year, she crammed them all in, chased by the growing weakness in her hands.

Our bodies leave us in the end.

I try to let go, to find that moment many practices ago, back in the middle of a yoga studio in California. The moment I found it:

Peace and the truth of our bodies.

We are only light and mineral.

Breathe in light. Light of my breath, my spark, my life force, my belly.

Breathe out. After the light, I am only elements bonded together. Carbon and iron and hydrogen and oxygen and the rest. Formed into muscle and bone.

Breathe in the starlight spark within all of us. We are light.

Breathe out. We are muscle and bone and carbon, part of the earth. The part that will cycle back into dirt again, and drawn up by the grass, washed into the ocean. Here. For millions of years. What remains.

Breathe in the light of the sun. Movement. Energy. God’s light humming through me, through the elements, through the minerals and compounds and muscle and all that will break down and return to the earth.

All that we are: light and mineral.

Like a cave on the ocean, breath coming in, and thoughts washing out.

Breathe in. Life force. Breathe out. Feel my body, feel my bones.

Light and mineral. Light and mineral.

Light. Mineral.

Light.