Melting

A few weeks ago we had a good old-fashioned January thaw. The weather warmed up to somewhere around 40 and the nice layer of snow we'd had since December began to melt. It made me sad and frustrated, as only a January thaw could do. I began to fret about two more months of winter with nothing to look at but the frozen ground and the muck of leaves covering the garden. I felt the loss of time as I considered that I honestly was not ready for it to be spring yet; time is starting to feel like a robber and I didn't want to be cheated out of February and March. And yet, despite me trying to hold on to it, the snow melted. Chemistry did its thing and the solid water became liquid and drip-drop-dripped down into that frozen ground where, I remind myself, it will wait to water the cucumbers through the July drought.

Last week I went to my first yoga class in over a year. The stretches weren't quite as disastrous as I had predicted they would be for this body that seems to creak and crack more each day. But it wasn't until about 3/4 of the way through class that I remembered about melting. Sometimes (often) the way to get deeper into a yoga pose is to allow your muscles to "melt" into it. For so many years of my life I thought that stretching was work: pulling, straining to get where you want to be. It wasn't until I began to practice yoga that I learned an important lesson: the best way to stretch is to melt. Rather than focus on the muscles, focus on the breath; let the muscles relax; stop straining; and see how much deeper the stretch becomes. How often do I forget this lesson when I am outside the yoga studio? Stop stretching, pulling, straining to get where you want to be. Focus on the breath; and melt.

A few days after my yoga class it started to snow -- and snow -- and snow. We now have almost a foot of gorgeous white powder that reflects the rays of the sun (that's finally returned from a three month absence). Sometimes melting isn't so much a loss as a step toward renewal.