upward-facing dog

I can't lift my toes. A gentle hand, the color of a creamy cappuccino, rests two fingers on my knee, forcing it farther into a deep bend. “Relax your face,” the yoga instructor says, in a voice that evaporates some of the pain. Her face creases with an open, simple smile, aglow with the first hints of sunrise. The room breathes: in, out. In, and out. With a movement like opening a door, we swim into a new pose, rising to the balls of our feet and stretching our hands in prayer. We salute the sun. There is a pause; we share the space of a whole note, and the lady instructor pads back across the mat, leopard-like. The lily-pink pads of her fingertips pry at my big toe, forcing it to arch to the ceiling. With a shiver, I accept the new pose, clamping down hard on an urge to cry out, fall over, and curse my mother, who is balancing serenely in front of me on her broken leg.

My mother's hair, a steely silver in the morning light, bobs slightly as she finds her center. Her palms curl to the left, pressed outward as she lowers into a tight squat with élan. “Lift your toes, warriors,” the yogi says, in a voice like hot chocolate—“lift your toes and BREATHE!” She says the last word as if it will get us into heaven, and in the mirror in front of us all, thirty chests spasm, clutch, and gasp open. In, and out. A few intrepid toes shove off from the floor, as the bend lowers. Somewhere, behind me (could it the pregnant lady in the umber leotard?) a knee pops.

A morning passes in an hour; led by our yogi, we become Downward-Facing Dogs, Balancing Crows, Happy Babies, and twelve other oddball constellations of limbs. I find new muscles to cry about. My mother attempts the standing split. Beside her, her secretary balances on one wrist. I get the feeling that everyone in the room is looking forward to retirement soon—not just because the room is a half-century my senior, but because in this stillness, in this nothing, chime the echoes of everything.

Afterward, with the music subdued, we allow our brains to reboot. They come online slowly, arthritic in their morning haze, grumbling about the hot, liquid feeling of joints, or the slick sheen of sweat that has taken hold of our skins. In slow, religious movements, we roll the mats, and return them to a shelf. With the hesitation of a heretic, a woman says something conversational—“well, that was...”—into the stillness. The spell is broken, and babble laps at the walls, as the morning's class dissolves. “How did you do?” Mom asks, her hazel eyes limpid and almost vibrating with force. “Fine,” I grit out of the side of my mouth. I have a feeling that if I unclench my left ass-cheek, everything will hurt worse. I hobble out of the room on her heels, leaving the damp half-moons of a barefoot pilgrim behind me.

It is the fourth day of following my parents to the gym; it isn't getting any easier. Pilates, step classes, yoga—it's all surprisingly taxing, if you aren't used to breaking off your sleep to put your legs through their paces. As I sink into the champagne waters of the spa, intent on stretch my calves out, I paw lazily at my day. There is a lot to do. There is time. I reach for my ankle, mildly surprised to find that my wrist shoots past my sole without too much effort. Smiling into the bubbling jacuzzi froth, I flex my toes, curling them toward my dampened head.


*

This is the only way I can explain to you what is happening: I am learning, steadily, to lift my toes. My summer at Stanford was cut from incredible cloth: the rhythm of each week was studded with adventure, raucous debates, difficult projects, and the steadying rush of adulthood. I lived, and loved, my house. I replaced the toilet-paper; I helped with dishes; I carpooled; I mopped; I did laundry; I wrote, and wrote, and wrote; I coded a website; I mused on our porch (our porch!); I hailed our West Coast Family; I hailed our West Coast Life. I bolted Heinlein's Stranger in A Strange Land; I digested it; I got indigestion. And from Heinlein—and from his Mike Valentine—I learned how to govern myself; I learned how to breathe while stretching; I learned how to lift my toes.

For the people who did not live at 2465 Alpine Road, you will never know what you missed. In all truth, we made something mysterious and gem-like out of our two months together: for the fourteen souls who crashed, and worked, and whooped it up on our Cooch, or Porch, or in Sheila—I don't think we will ever get a summer like that again. We rode into the mountains on the back of a Prius, and sailed across the open face of Shaver Lake. We installed summer squash in the Burghers of Calais. We drove (well, almost) across the Quad. We saluted the Perseids from the crest of La Cañada. We spent Sundays in Carmel and Wednesdays in the city; we baked on the shores of Santa Cruz, and held court on the Oval. We launched software products; we weathered visitors and parties we never saw coming; we breathed together on the Porch. In, and out. I wanted nothing more.

Except.

I'm giving it all up for a quarter abroad; in five hours, I leave for Lisbon, and Madrid. I cannot say that I will not miss the House, who do not need to be named, because sometime in August, I shamelessly adopted, or enfolded our group. I am probably useless without them. Without us. Or whomever we are, because somewhere in the breath between our years, we did become a solid thing—tangible, nameable, and permanent. I salute us, and give thanks.

I grok that I am about to learn to lift even more; the Quarter Abroad is rumored to do more than salt your accent. If this were last year; if this were Perú, I might be able to write something spicier, something that rang out with all the hot pride and fear of my young self. But I can't; maybe this is the fault of Michael Valentine, or Robert Heinlein, or Joshua Khani, or Carl Case, or Keegan Poppen, or Justin Costa, or Yu-Jin Lee, or William Rowan, or Jamie Morgan, or Michael Ramscar, or Mia Khani, or everyone who I hugged in the month of August, or my brother, or Ravi Parikh, or Jason Chen, or my newly dead dog. I don't know what shifted, I don't know who tilted the balance; all I know is that I have been sliding, for some time now, towards a separate peace. Towards flexibility. For those who are keeping an eye on me, and for those who I watch in turn—we are molting as we grok. I promise to keep you posted, if you promise to stay on your toes.

[a poem:] “telling time”

tick tock go my
father's calves, from
under the belly of his muscle-car
they say: he is not here for long.

and his face: that rich chocolate tone
those teeth that flash, and flash, and
open for you, just for you, just to
say:  “hello, I missed you: first-born son,
hope of your mother and pride of your
brother, I made your sandwich like
you like them—sloppy with extra jam.”

tick tock goes the cat's tail at midnight,
unafraid of my dog's ghost, unafraid of this
stranger who wears skinny jeans and
smells like buses and walks like a stranger
in his own house. she says: “step lightly,
amigo, your breath does not carry over here.”

and we fold back together, better than before,
simpler than before; we rock together, knitting
our smiles desperately, hopefully, back into Family.
tick tock cheeps the blackberry from the counter
tick tock waves the pencil in my brother's cramping hand
tick tock goes the back of my father's musclecar, the only
panther on this dappled Maryland lane, torquing, mamboing;
the artful footwork of a man who only
wanted to grow up to be his son.