Spirit Bird
True Fiction Project
“Put your ass up higher, push your hands deeper into the ground, feel those hamstrings stretch like rubber bands, I want to hear you moan!” said 35-year old Mahesh with intensity as he adjusted a 22-year old woman’s position by grabbing her hips firmly and lifting, she let out a gasp.
Saira rolled her eyes as she watched her husband’s hands lingering on the woman’s ass for just a beat too long. She averted her gaze, took a deep breath, and said, “In ‘adho mukha svasana’, or downward dog pose your heart is above your head, this encourages blood flow, which energizes and calms your body. In Yoga, it’s important to listen to your body, you should be able to do the poses with a smile on your face. Yoga is a sacred relationship with yourself that -”
“But it’s also going to give you sexy buns,” interjected Mahesh while he shot Saira a look that said cut out the boring stuff, a giggle rippled through the class.
Saira felt heat rising up to her face. It took all of her energy to slow her breathing and refocus on finishing the Hatha yoga 101 class without letting tears spill out of her eyes.
When the class was done, she started to roll up her mat, Mahesh was swarmed by a group of sycophantic young women who apparently couldn’t get enough of him. Saira put her mat under her arm and exited the wood-paneled, yoga studio onto the busy street, she walked fast, the more distance she put between Mahesh and herself, the easier her breaths came. She couldn’t wait to get into her car and listen to her Krishna Das chants, they always centered her.
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She dug around for her keys in her overstuffed bag, she started to empty out its contents on the hood of the car, her wallet, a bag of almonds, yoga pants, a wooden mala, slippers in a zip lock bag, a water bottle, and a well-loved copy of Pema Chodron’s ‘When Things Fall Apart’, but no keys. Exasperated, she began to walk back the three blocks to the yoga studio, she probably left her keys on the countertop when she was checking people in. She was in no mood to see the disparaging look on Mahesh’s face when she came back to get her keys, but there was no other option, she would have to grin and bear it.
How had they come to this? ‘The Yoga couple’, beautiful on the inside and out, toned and gorgeous, the ‘it couple’ in Singapore, with cover stories in health magazines, endorsement deals, over a million followers on Instagram, and month-long waitlists for their yoga classes. It all looked so perfect on the outside but the reality was far from the facade.
Mahesh and she had started bickering about small things at first, who cooks, who does the dishes, who balances the checkbook, who racked up the credit card bill, an endless stream of mundane bullshit that had sucked the passion out of their relationship.
They had fallen madly in love at a yoga retreat in Thailand five years ago, they had been inseparable for the entire two weeks, sharing dreams, meditating, laughing, making love, drinking wine, and soaking each other up. He loved her with all her flaws, told her she was beautiful over and over again until all her insecurities faded away. In Mahesh’s loving gaze, she had felt like the most beautiful woman in the world.
That was then, and this is now, four years into being married, running a yoga studio together, and being the most sought-after yoga couple in town. Their success exhausted her, but seemed to energize Mahesh, he couldn’t get enough of the adulation, the money, and the yoga groupies in their crotch hugging lulu lemons and minuscule bandeau bras.
She missed ‘them’, their practice, their journey, somewhere along the way their spiritual path had turned into an all-consuming empire she never wanted, she would trade the facade of tranquility for inner peace in a heartbeat. Maybe she could convince Mahesh to take a sabbatical for a couple of months so they could reconnect. She texted him in a wave of emotion, “Sorry I left in a rush, I just needed to clear my head…I wish we could get away from it all — just the two of us.”
As she walked up to the door of the studio, she was breathing deeply, she had transformed her negative mental state into a positive one with breath and intention, she would be ok, they would be ok. She pushed the door of the studio to enter but it caught, it wouldn’t open, it was locked. That’s odd, she thought, Mahesh has a class in 10 minutes he has to be close. She needed to get in to get her keys, she decided to wait until he returned. She browsed her Pinterest boards, her eyes lingered on her pins of nurseries, she couldn’t wait to be a mother, to have a little Maheshs or Sairas running around, that would reconnect them…She wanted a doula and her mother by her side when she gave birth…Hey lady let’s get pregnant first! Talk about a monkey mind!
It was almost time for his class, Mahesh should have been back by now. A click brought her attention back, the studio door opened from the inside, the 22-year-old with the tight hamstrings opened the door and stepped out into the street with disheveled hair and a smile on her face, Mahesh was close behind her, his hand on her waist. Saira felt her heart drop into her stomach, Mahesh looked up from the girl’s ass and saw Saira, his hand jerked away from her waist. The young woman waved awkwardly and almost ran down the street. Saira looked right into Mahesh’s shifty eyes, “Hey…what…what are you…I thought you had an appointment?”
Saira continued to stare at him, until his words dried up and he averted his eyes from her steely gaze. Saira felt her heart start to pound against her rib cage, she felt like she was at the bottom of a deep, dark well filled with quicksand, she was sinking fast.
“Saira, I was just showing her the correct posture for..”
“For coitus?” snapped Saira cutting him off.
“Saira! What the..?”
“Save it, Mahesh, just fucking save it, I’m not an idiot. This is over.” Saira hurled.
“Saira, let’s talk about this,” pleaded Mahesh.
“Mahesh, I’m done talking, and listening to you, and shutting down my inner voice. Do you think I don’t notice how you look at your students? How you ‘adjust’ them”, Saira shot at Mahesh as she put air quotes around adjust. “You’re a fucking animal and I’m done. I should have spoken up sooner, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt, I second-guessed my own instincts — well, no longer. Mahesh Rao, we are done, you are no longer welcome here, build your own fucking studio!”
“Saira, you can’t do this!” yelled Mahesh, “This is my life!”
“You should have thought about that before fucking a girl in my studio!” Saira hissed. She grabbed her keys from the countertop and walked resolutely out of the studio.
She felt surprisingly calm as she walked towards her car, she felt lighter, as though a rock had been lifted off her chest. She felt the wind in her hair and heard a trumpet playing a mournful tune in the distance. It felt good to trust herself again. She was reminded of a time, 10 years ago when she was dangling above an arena in a sequined bluebird costume, her heart pounding in her chest, her mouth dry. There she was, a spirit bird in Disney’s Lion King show, perched high up, deathly afraid of heights. When the ‘Circle of Life’ began, it was time, she leaped off her perch and flew through the air as the audience below gasped in unison. Once the wind hit her face and tousled her hair, she felt a surge of courage, her inner voice clamoring, “You’ve got this! You’ve got this!” Her giant wings would catch the breeze, as she floated above an awestruck audience. Saira, you survived flying despite your fear of heights, you will survive divorce despite your fear of being alone, you’ve got this, you’ve got this!
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