A couple lifetimes ago I used to be an admission counselor for a small liberal arts school. I would fill my fall and spring weeks with travel from one Drury Inn to the next, one Casey’s Convenient Store to the next. I spent my days visiting high schools, meeting with some students who were interested in the school I was talking about, meeting other students who were grateful for the pass from class that hour. In the evenings I would stand behind a table in various hallways and gyms with pamphlets and a passion for how my alma mater might be a match for the curious parents and students browsing about. Being a ‘W’ school, and often in the gym’s back row or back hallway sans A/C, I had to keep my smile strong, my brow mopped from the sometimes sweating.

In the afternoon hours when I wasn’t following up on work, I’d sometimes haul out the VCR I’d packed, call the front desk for help with cords, and pop in the Ali McGraw yoga DVD I brought along. A friend of friend suggestion, this was my intro to yoga. It felt like the perfect way to stretch out a road warrior body, and I grew to appreciate the bolted into the floor beds on either side of me as I attempted tree pose, with eyes soft, looking at a focal point, but still falling more often than not.

Trees and I have a thing. While I especially adore their fall splendor, other seasons grow on me too. There’s a magnolia out back that reminds me of their fleeting beauty. One year my daughter picked the first bloom off of it. I was a touch annoyed at first, but when the wet cold came in the night I realized that she seized the chance to hold what was lovely while she could. She’s also the kiddo who says that when she has her own museum, “EVERYTHING will be touchable art, Mom.”

There’s one at the park I often loop that has this heart shape that I caught when it was freshly cut. Years later, one can still see its weathered loveliness after seasons of tucking away from the path, but still being present with every walker, jogger, stroller passing by. I think it must love sunrises with its gaze to the east.

At the same park is this one that’s always caught my eye. So often it’s reminded me of life’s immeasurable sorrow with the one limb that just kind of falls to the ground—in grief’s submission, in prayer, in hopeful bending. And the other branches? I see community, I see promise, I see those who can stand tall, look up, lift up while still sidling up next to the one in their midst. Sturdy base, many branches, heart center.

This one from our cabin up north might be one of my favorite ‘while out walking’ finds. The abundance of trees along that gravel road and of all glances into the woods, I spied this beauty. Bark peeled back, perfect placement. I have a thing for hearts like I do for trees and this peek-a-boo gift of a discovery put a skip in my step all the way back to the cabin.

The other day I was out walking with a dear friend and looked across the way to see another gem in my life posted up on a blanket with one of her daughters under the tulip tree in her front lawn. It was stop and take a picture beauty, those two tucked into whatever chat and people watching they were taking in, but kindly pausing long enough for a snap and a quick chat. That tree must have felt like the Giving Tree with these two coming to sit under its splendor, like maybe they have before, like I bet they will again and again.

This one here made me pull the car over. It was the day before my appointment to lop off my long-loved and lived in curly mane upon my head. A painful shedding of told me it was time to lose the locks in this part of treatment, and after taking some time with this part of the tour I was ready. The pared down pale backed by the beautiful blue caught my eye. Had my kids or hubby been in the car with me there might of been an understandable, ‘here we go again’ roll of their eyes to go with.

Tree pose.

Tall.

Eyes soft.

Focal point ahead.

And the prompt from that VHS tape that I always remember at the most timely ‘about to lose my zen and balance’ effort of stretching tall, “if you start to fall, don’t give up… trees s w a y….” It sometimes gave me the church giggles, it sometimes helped me zero back in on the pose.

One of my back at it somethings as I clear out of this initial fog and into spring is reuniting with my local yoga studio. Westport Yoga has become a beautiful space for my spirit, my body, my heart. Doing solo sessions with Lisa, the owner, has been a gift in this time of transition—in reconnecting parts of the new me to the what was me, in embracing another season, in welcoming what’s to come.
“Healing in, Grace out…
h e a l i n g in,
g r a c e out…” we’ll say.

The wood floor will creak under my feet, the body will bend and fold in, the heart will expand and breathe out.

And I smile thinking about those first fumbling tree poses, and I think about the living in the years since, and I cherish those practices—be it faith, walk routes, yoga—that always feel like a haven, a home.

“Breath for b o d y,
breath for m i n d,
breath for s p i r i t . . .
may we always be happy, healthy and whole.”

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(Westport Yoga is set to open new doors May 5th at 59th Street & Brookside Boulevard)