Today, I took off my glasses during yoga. Usually I keep them on. Understand, I take chair yoga at my mother's residence with a group of eighty and ninety-year-olds. And the teacher is no spring chicken her own self!
When I take off my glasses, everything is fuzzy and a little out of focus. I can see well enough, and as my eyes adjust, everything clears up to some degree. But it leaves me with that soft focus the camera uses sometimes in the romantic or dream sequences. Today, that's just what I needed.
Sometimes, life is a little too clear. The edges are too well defined. I can see too many details. Sometimes, I prefer to be a little blurry.
Since there were several people missing today, our instructor spent extra time with each person, helping us improve our postures. With people of such advanced age, there are many limbs that don't move well, ears that don't hear well, minds that don't understand directions. It is to her great credit that she simply takes people wherever they are and gently coaxes a little movement from reluctant bodies. As I watched her work with the woman beside me in the circle, I noticed a glow that began and grew, enveloping them both, but particularly the student, Erna's face. It was indistinct to my blurry vision, but beautiful enough to bring tears to my eyes.
It's not the first time I've been aware of the beauty of these women. I see it frequently. It is as though the outer appearances of age and the limitations of movement soften and are absorbed by a much stronger essence of that very distinct person. This class, these women, are a great gift to me. They call me forward on the path I already tread. Without even knowing, they urge me to inhabit my physical self in a new way, and expand beyond those boundaries of wrinkles and bulges and aches and pains that I focus on too minutely.
There's plenty of time for clear vision and finite thought when I'm dealing with practical realities. I'm happy to wear my glasses to drive and read. But there's also a time for melting into the beauty and radiance of the universe. Right now, I'm much the better for both.
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