From Comfortable Distances (27 page)

Neal laughed. “I didn’t think you
did.”

“I thought about asking you to leave
all day.”

“You didn’t ask me to leave yet,” he
said.

“The night is still young,” Tess
said.

He leaned in towards her so that
their lips were close, their eyes intent on one another.

“I’ll leave whenever you want me to,”
he whispered.

Tess’s heart began to beat faster,
and her breath grew heavy. She nodded her head. She was inches away from his
lips. And then he was focused on the food again, reaching for the plates and
serving Tess and himself more.

When they were finished eating—Tess
pushed her plate away and shook her head, “No more,” she said—the day was at
its moody moment, the sun lingering, night ready to take over. The heat of the
day had lifted. A faint breeze rustled the trees. In the next half hour,
twilight would dawn.

 “Shall we move to the deck?” Neal
said.

“You have it all planned out,” Tess
said.

“Unless you have other things to take
care of now?” he said.

Tess smiled. He was sincere; the
night could end right now if she said so.

“I’d love to sit on the deck,” she
said.

Neal was up and pulling out her
chair. He grabbed the unopened bottle of wine, motioning for Tess to take their
glasses, and with the lighter in his free hand, he was on the deck lighting the
candles.

“This is nice,” Tess said, reclining
a lounge chair. She circled the rim of her wine glass, taking in the sky. Neal
pulled his chair beside hers so that if she wanted, she could reach over and
touch him. She couldn’t remember ever being out on her deck at night, relaxing.
It felt good to leave all the dishes where they were, to truly not care about
anything other than the moments at hand.

“In Saskatoon, this was my favorite time
of day during the summer. I liked how the whole world softened, the temperature
fell, the prairie grew silent.”

“It must be hard to leave a place
after you’ve spent so much of your life there,” she said.

“You adapt.”

“Your mother doesn't think you did
the right thing by leaving.”

“My mother doesn't like change. She
had me all tucked away in her mind as being safe at the monastery. And now here
I am.”

Tess put her glass down and turned on
her side to face him.

“Thank you for making me dinner,” she
said.

Neal scooted down in his chair and
turned to face her. “It was my pleasure,” he said.

They sat staring at one another for a
few moments: his eyes were the color of the sky at that moment, his eye lashes
perfectly curled. Tess felt like a little girl, safe and loved. She curled her
knees up closer to her chest and smiled at him.

“What shall we do?” he said.

She shrugged her shoulders. She
didn’t feel the need to move right then.

“What would you like to do?” she
said.

“How about giving me my first yoga
lesson?” Neal said.

“I don't know that much,” she said.

“You know more than me,” he said.

Tess set up the mats so that she and
Neal faced one another on the deck. Tess laughed each time she looked at Neal
on his mat.

“You'll have to take off your socks,”
she said. She was tipsy. She didn’t know how long she’d be able to stay on her
feet without falling over. She laughed at herself.

“Oh.” He sat down and pulled off one
sock at a time.

“Okay, let's start by setting an
intention. Stand at the front of your mat,” Tess said. She brought her hands to
a prayer at her chest and nodded for Neal to do the same. “Close your eyes,”
she said. “We're going to repeat a mantra three times—
Lokaha samasta sukhino
bhavantu
. It means
may all beings everywhere be happy and free.
Let's
say it together now.” Neal whispered the words along with her. She cleared her
throat.

“First pose is mountain pose, or in
Sanskrit,
Tadasana
,” she said. “It’s the basis of all yoga poses. Stand
firm, engage your abdomen—it should feel like you're doing a sit up or pulling
in your stomach, only you're breathing—and try to feel all four points of your
feet pressed firmly into your mat. I like to think of it as the east, west,
north, and south of my feet all grounded. It helps to lift up your toes and
feel each part of your foot planted down.”

Neal lifted his toes and rooted them
firmly into the mat.

“Nice,” Tess said. “Do you feel
strong?”

“I suppose so,” he said.

“A few things to remember,” she said.
“Keep engaging your abdomen; keep your shoulder blades down and on your back;
your chin should be parallel with the floor; oh, and your legs are engaged—your
thighs strong and your knees lifting up.”

“Are you studying to be a drill
sergeant or a yoga teacher?”

“I know. It's a lot. It's one of
those seemingly simple poses—you look like you're doing nothing and yet you’re
working hard.”

Neal looked like he was about to step
into a strait jacket and she laughed.

“You can relax a bit,” she said. “Let
yourself ease into the pose.”

“Sure, now you tell me,” Neal said.

“Imagine yourself a mountain,
standing strong and tall; a wind might blow, but you remain firm, rooted. You
should feel strong and light. It comes with time, of course—yoga is as much a
mental practice as it is a physical practice.”

Neal relaxed and he seemed firmer
now, more grounded in the pose.

“Good,” Tess said. “You got it.
You’re a natural! Let's do a sun breath in honor of the fading sun.”

“What about a night breath?”

“No night breaths, but there's a pose
called half-moon or ardha chandrasana, but that one is a bit difficult for a
first timer,” Tess said.

“Forget I suggested it. Let's go for
a sun breath.”

“Watch me first,” Tess said. “Inhale
your arms down, around, and up to the sky. Look up at your thumbs, and exhale
as you dive down toward the floor. Your hands come to your shins; or, if you
can, they touch the floor and then on an inhale, reach your arms down, around,
and up and look past your thumbs again. Exhale, your arms float by your sides
and come into prayer position, or namaste. It’s like swimming,” Tess said. “Ready
to try?”

“We're done with Tadasana?” Neal
said.

“Ah,” Tess said. “We're never done
with Tadasana; in fact, it should be a part of every pose. You're always in
Tadasana when you practice yoga. A simple translation is that every part of
your body is engaged and that your hips are in one line with one another.”

“Got it,” Neal said, feeling his
hipbones and adjusting his torso. “I think I liked you a lot better when we
were relaxing on the lounge chairs.”

Tess felt light and free on her mat.
She laughed, so that her whole body moved.

“You asked for yoga, you got it!” she
said. “I was happy doing nothing.”

“I didn’t realize you were going to
really turn into a yoga teacher, or I wouldn’t have gotten myself into this,”
he said.

“Try a sun breath. Come on. I'll do
it with you,” Tess said.

Tess led them through one sun breath,
and then another. When they landed back in Tadasana, Neal asked, “Why are you
breathing like you swallowed hot coals?”

“It's called Ujayi breathing. In
yoga, you inhale through your nose and filter your breath through the back of
your throat. It should sound like you’re saying hah as you breathe. It's to
build heat, steady your heart rate, and to keep you from hyperventilating.
Here, listen. Tess breathed in and exhaled three breaths, accentuating the
hah
sound in the back of her throat for Neal to hear. “Now you try,” she said.

Neal focused on Tess and breathed in
through his nose and imitated the sound she made, although he sounded like he
was gurgling something in his throat.

“Perfect,” she said.

“Why do I sense your laughing at me?”
he said.

“Well, you shouldn’t quite sound like
you're using mouth wash,” Tess said. “It will become more natural over time,
less strained,” she said. “Ujayi breathing slows down your brain waves. It
helps you to stay focused and steady. The breathing is actually what
differentiates yoga from aerobics or calisthenics. And, if you pay attention to
your breath, and keep coming back to your breath each time your mind wanders,
you can learn a lot about yourself. If you're breathing fast, for instance, it
might mean that you're anxious. If your breath is steady, it tells you that
you're calm. Your breath is the link between your body and your mind.”

She supposed she sounded like an
advertisement, but the teacher trainers went over it so much that the phrasing
was stuck in her head.

Neal sat down on his mat. “I feel
like I should be taking notes,” Neal said.

“I’ll be quiet.”

“No, please, don't. I like listening
to you.”

Tess sat down on her mat now, too,
facing him.

“This one you'll be able to handle no
problem. Lie down on your back and let go of everything,” she said.

Neal settled back.

“You don't have to worry about your
breath when you're doing shavasana,” Tess said. “It translates to a little
death or corpse pose.”

He closed his eyes and Tess could see
his abdomen rising and falling.

“Shake out one leg,” Tess said. “Then
shake out your other leg. Lift one arm and then let it drop to the mat. Lift up
your other arm and let that drop. Move your neck from side to side, and then
tuck your chin towards your chest. Now you can let it fall wherever it feels
comfortable.”

With her hands, she pressed his
shoulders down. They were strong, muscular. She hovered over him, watching him
with his eyes closed, before she moved around him, and cradled his neck in her
hands, massaging it gently before she placed it back on the mat; how easy it
would be to lean over his face, kiss his lips.

“I like shavasana,” Neal said and Tess
watched his lips move. He was so vulnerable at that moment.

“Rest,” Tess said.

She traced his eyebrows with her
thumbs and with her index finger she pressed lightly on his third eye. His face
was calm and clear.

“I ordain you my favorite yoga
teacher,” Neal said.

Tess laughed. “And I ordain you my
first yoga student,” she said as she made her way to her own mat and lied down,
inching her way up, so that the top of her head touched the touch of his head.
For a moment, she wondered if her curls were coarse against his scalp, but let
it go; he could move away if he wanted. Her eyes open to the falling night sky,
the world seemed large to Tess right now.

“It's such a big world,” Neal
whispered.

“Yes,” Tess said.

“At the monastery I used to look up
at the night sky and imagine myself living far away, on another planet, without
the other monks.”

The crickets were chirping in full
force now.

“Do you know what I used to say to
myself each night when I looked up at the sky?” she said.

“What?” Neal said.

“That my star would shine bright yet.
I don't know when I stopped saying that. Maybe I just got tired of looking for
my star and not finding it.”

“Do you know which star in the sky is
yours?” Neal said.

Tess shook her head. She liked the
way their heads were touching as they lied on their backs facing opposite
directions. It was as if their minds were connected.

“If you don't know you're star, how
would you know if it was shining bright or not?”

Tess closed her eyes and opened them,
and the first star that came into view she designated as her star. She liked
that there was a chance that at that very moment Neal had chosen the same star.
She shivered.

“You're cold,” Neal said.

“No,” Tess said. “I'm fine.”

Neal started to say something and
stopped.

“What?” Tess said. “Say what you were
about to say.”

“For a long time, I wished that I
could get closer to the stars, but at some point, I came to like the distance.
In that distance—from earth to the stars—I imagined that anything could happen.
Over time I've come to believe that it takes a comfortable distance to be
objective. When you see something from a distance, you see it for what it is,
free of fear and desire. The closer you get to something, the less you see,”
Neal said.

The stars seemed to dazzle brighter
as Neal spoke.

“Do you think that there are
uncomfortable distances?” Tess said.

Neal paused so that for a moment Tess
wandered if he had drifted off.

“I think that an uncomfortable
distance is the result of running away from something. There's a difference
between running away from something versus letting go of something. You need to
be careful about running away. When you run away, it’s fear that guides you.
When you let go of your need to own something or control a situation, a
comfortable distance blooms,” Neal said.