Ella's thigh was
trembling. She stood on her left foot, heal of the right foot raised.
Her right arm wrapped under the right thigh, while her left hand
twisted itself around her curved back to grasp the fingers of the
right. Her left hand felt as if it were grasping for dear life onto a
body dangling over the edge of a building.
Sweat rolled down her hair
line to the ridge of her nose, a human mini river of effort.
Her exhale became long and
hard until she heard the teacher's voice as if from another space and
time.
“Inhale..go into you.
Center and calm through the breath.”
She looked up slightly,
off to the distant sky. A bird glided past both teasing and inspiring
her with it's freedom. She smiled as if she had just heard an ironic
story.
Pressing deeply into the
earth with her left foot, she lifted her chest upward and the right
leg that she carried seem to move higher with her. Her body wobbled
for a moment and her feet and heart recalled learning to walk. Hold
on, hold on. Yet she was up, awkward but up. Happiness tilted her
cheekbones towards her eyes.
Beside her a tanned woman
seemed to pass her in height, hold her leg higher so the brown toes
just entered her field of vision. Ella's breathing paused and time
froze for a moment of jealousy.
Her body called her back
as she began to loose balance. “Shhhh. Stay with me. Stay here.
Lets play” Ella felt her heart beat, the sweat, her shoulders being
pulled back trying to expose her heart and lifted for just one more
breath.
Shaking yet holding on,
she lowered her leg and unwound the arms and folded her body down
onto her mat. Her body in fetal, her forehead on the mat. A sigh of
satisfaction slipped out of her mouth. Ella felt like Ella.
