Windblown Tree

My mom likes to make a point of fighting me for the computer, even when she doesn't actually need it. She sees me on it and says, "I'll need that in a minute!" even though she was nowhere near it before she noticed me there. I figured, she needs the computer in the morning, what better time for me to do yoga. She figures, A.'s doing yoga, what better time for me to sit there and go through my mail, read the local paper and talk to A.

I'm in windblown tree pose when she asks me what "slouch" means. I tell her (translating); she doesn't get it, so I say "to not stand up straight." She says, "this person is sitting." I say, "okay, then to not sit up straight." She's still skeptical, so she says, "this article involves marijuana." I start to think that I see no contradiction between slouching and marijuana, and then I think, I shouldn't be thinking about that at all-- I should be concentrating on my windblown tree, so I say, "could you please let me focus on my yoga? there's a dictionary right next to you." She gets defensive and says, "I just want to know what the word meant," and then, with a tone of almost teasing, daring, baiting, what have you, she said, "besides, I thought this was easy for you."

Which is just unnecessary because that's not the point. Windblown tree is not the most challenging of poses, one could probably do it while talking, but one shouldn't, because yoga is not about partial concentration. It's not something you do while you're having side conversations (in spite of what you may see on Sex and the City). It's about focus. It's also not about competition or being good at it-- it's about working toward the pose by concentrating. Do you notice that I've said variations of "focus" and "concentration" repeatedly?

I mean, I am quite the multitasker. Some have said I've turned ADD into a lifestyle; Kevin is no longer surprised when he sees me brushing my teeth and programming the VCR at the same time; he's probably surprised when he sees me doing only one thing at a time. Unless that thing is yoga, because yoga is about... you guessed it-- focus and concentration.

There's another aspect to this: because I am such a multitasker, yoga is the one activity in which I truly make myself focus, and it's healthy, especially for someone as neurotic as I am, to focus.

So I ignored mom's unnecessary and childish attempt to bait me into defending my yoga prowess, because that's antithetical to what yoga is about, and continued on with the program. I was doing a sun salutation, completely focused on my breath and movements, when I was abruptly torn from my concentration with,

"What a bunch of idiots!"
"MOM!"

She stopped talking after that, but I was already thrown off and only partially able to refocus on the yoga.