Musings: At Home at the End of the Road Lisa Holt

AT HOME AT THE END OF THE ROAD

BY LISA HOLT

On an out-of-the-way wall of the studio where I practice yoga is a framed newspaper article with the headline, “104 and Not Too Old For Yoga.” Below the headline is a faded, color photograph of an old woman, looking bird-like somehow in her seated twist, one elbow hooked over a bent knee, her other leg stretched out before her. I smile every time I see it. It’s inspiring to think that, if I live to be 104 and keep practicing, I will still be in good enough shape to do some yoga.

That is, after all, part of the reason I originally decided to learn yoga— to keep myself in good enough shape to do the things I like to do for as long as I can. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that reaching certain mileposts on the road of life can trigger some anxiety. These mileposts are the subtle and not-so-subtle signs reminding me that this road doesn’t go on forever. For instance, there was the moment when I noticed that I was

Illustration: Curtis Settino

regularly borrowing my husband’s reading glasses, and the day I realized that instead of looking forward to my kids’ bedtime, I was looking forward to my own.

I sprinted along the first half of my life without knowing what it meant to slow down and was baffled by the concept of hiking poles. Here in the second half, however, I find myself relating strongly to Yoga Sutra II.9, most certainly afflicted by my desire for self-preservation. But if I am attached to life, at least I am in good company since, according to Patanjali, even the wisest among us begin to look for ways to maneuver a U-turn or slow our roll to the inevitable end.

Enthusiasts will tell you that yoga is an effective brake in the aging process, and a quick Google search produces a long list of articles touting yoga’s effectiveness against things like Alzheimer’s and atherosclerosis, and as a tool to build strength and maintain a straight spine, good posture, and unfailing balance. While I can’t personally corroborate the former two, I have found the latter four to be delightful side effects of a regular yoga practice, and indeed, they are among the things I cite when I recommend yoga to friends and colleagues. I might also tell them that what’s good for the heart is good for the head, and while that may sound at first like a platitude, when I reflect on the reasons I have continued my own practice, I realize that for me, that’s actually closer to the truth of it. It’s about harmony. Underneath the sore neck and back, stiff knees, slumping shoulders, and poor circulation that go along with a full-time desk job, without yoga, my body develops a dissonance. It’s subtle at first— a sluggishness that I’ll shake off with a brisk dog walk or weekend hike— but it gets louder every day that I decide in favor of inaction over action. I’m tired, but I don’t sleep well at night; I’m hungry but don’t have much of an appetite; I should really get on my mat and at least do an Adho Mukha Svanasana or maybe just one Sirsasana, but instead I keep sitting. It’s as if something inside me splits in half and those two halves immediately start bickering, like a quarrelsome child and an exasperated parent. They go round and round and get louder and louder until finally I can’t stand it anymore, and I go… to my yoga class. During class I may discover that I’m not able to do as much as I could before the inactive gap and that with some poses I’ve regressed back to near-beginner status. But regardless of what I can and can’t do with my body, by the end of class, it is always more in sync with my mind. Harmony is restored.

The further I get down my own road, the more I like feeling at home in my skin, and I feel more at home when there is harmony in my house. A regular practice that includes pranayama and meditation creates an interesting and satisfying sense of self-containment within me, as if I am fully occupying and filling the space beneath my skin. In this state, I know that the word “yoga” means union, not because my teacher told me, but because I can feel it. If I read in the sutras that yoga is the stopping of the movements of the mind, so that the yogi can dwell in his or her essential nature, my practice has allowed me to feel the truth of this, even if only on occasion. These occasions of visiting my “essential nature,” along with that immediate sense of internal harmony, become for me a sort of positive feedback loop: the more I experience them, the better I feel and the more inclined I am to experience them again. This then is why I do yoga. Not to defy the aging process but to embrace a practice that makes the concept of aging a nonissue, so that 104 is left alone to be what it really is: just a number.

Lisa Holt works and writes in Bellingham, Washington. She has practiced Iyengar Yoga at Yoga Northwest for seven years. With their nest now only half full, she and her husband are beginning to get used to the idea of it being empty.