Remember how last week I missed my yoga session with my 3rd graders? 

Due to the fact that my head wasn’t totally attached to my body and all?

(Which, I’ll note, is kind of ironic since yoga means union. You know, of body, mind and spirit.)

Maybe if I hadn’t spaced out on that session, I would’ve become centered and serene, and I wouldn’t have left the power cord to my laptop in my hotel room in Corpus Christi, or mixed up a couple of important dates on my calendar, or poured water instead of milk on my daughter’s cereal Monday morning.

We’ll never know, will we?
There are no re-do’s in real life.

That said, I was sure not going to risk my karma or state of mind anymore than I already have, so today I was at school right on time. The teacher was sorting out a bit of wild trouble that had unfolded in the lunchroom and as soon as that was done, we were ready. 

My daughter and her classmates grabbed their towels. We spread out across the grass, stepping into Mountain Pose. 
We moved through Sun Salutations and a few different Warrior Poses, Plow, Bridge. You get the idea.
And the whole time, one of the little guys who’d been involved in the lunchroom situation grimaced. 
In his brow and on his lips.

So, at the end, as everyone folded their towels, I went to chat with him. 

“Are you blue?” I asked.

Yes, he nodded.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

No, he shook.

“OK, let’s do a 5-breath,” I said, which is a slow, controlled inhale followed by a slow, controlled exhale that I swear could slow down a freight train if you needed it to. 

I held up my hand to count out the length of the breath on my fingers and he did, too.

And somewhere, in the middle of the exhale, he started to cry.

He cried just a little, and in the meantime he nodded and shook a little more and I figured out that he’d really like to talk to his teacher, so I left them to it and headed home.

I have to say, it was a beautiful and tender thing.
I mean, don’t get me wrong.
I don’t want to leave a bunch of weeping 3rd-graders in my wake, but school these days is an intense little village, and I figure any opportunity our kids are given to feel or articulate what they feel is a good thing. Because I’m pretty sure that’s part of educating the whole person. Or, rather, it oughta be.
  
Namaste.