Page 35 of Big Island Weddings
Once they were equipped with everything they needed, the woman floated back up to the front of the class. She moved like a dancer, like someone fully at home in her own body, and it made Emma realize how disembodied she had been lately.
She had always lived in her head, but Adam had helped to balance that out. When he died, she’d spiraled into herself. She had climbed back out into the world these past few months… but not completely.
“Hello!” their teacher called out, pulling Emma’s attention back to the present moment. “We have a few new faces here, which is always so wonderful to see. For anyone new here – and also anyone who takes a few tries to learn a new name, I feel you, you’re my people – welcome! My name is Fern.”
She brandished the green fern tattooed on her arm and continued, “Actually my mother named me Fernanda, which means intrepid traveler. Word of warning, folks, be careful what you name your babies. Like Ferdinand Magellan, I circled the Earth. Several times, actually. I wandered nearly my whole life, and I am very happy to finally be settled here on the Big Island.”
Emma rolled her borrowed mat out next to Juniper, who was already touching her toes in pre-yoga stretches that made Emma realize how long it had been since she really paid attention to the fact that she had limbs. She’d stayed reasonably active these past few months – goats and weeds and Kai made sure of that – but she hadn’t done any deliberate exercise, hadn’t stretched or jogged or danced. All of that and just sort of slipped her mind.
She had been surviving. That was it.
Maybe it was time for something more.
“Now as I go through these poses,” Fern said, “I want you to think of them as suggestions. You’re here to get into your body and move in a way that feels good to you. If it hurts to stretch beyond a certain point, ease back. If you can go farther than me, go farther.
“I don’t believe that yoga should be prescriptive. Think of it as inspiration rather than benchmarks that you have to meet. If you want to sink into child’s pose at any point or go full shavasana, no one’s going to judge you. Only you know what your body needs.
“Okay?” Fern clapped her hands together. “Okay, let’s get started.”
She led them through a fluid series of poses, and Emma’s body slowly began to wake up to the old motions. Years ago, before Kai, she went to yoga classes in the Santa Cruz mountains three or four times a week. Even more than the exercise, she had loved the peace and community that she had found there.
Fern’s class felt the same: women moving together for the joy of it, simply because they wanted to be embodied and present. Fresh ocean air moved through the open space along with the susurrus of leaves, and some deep pain in Emma’s chest loosened.
She was still alive. And in that moment, that felt like enough.
13
Lani
Lani’s left knee bounced with nervous energy as she cruised up the highway towards Hilo.
Rory was at New Horizons, and Lani had a rare free day. She didn’t have to work at Haumona, didn’t have any murals that she was working on, wasn’t scheduled to volunteer with Pualena Playschool. Just an open day, with no obligations.
So, like any single mother, she filled it with errands.
She had a pile of picture books teetering in the front seat and a new stack of books waiting for her at the library in Hilo. The truck was nearly out of gas, so she would stop and fill up. And as long as she was in town, she might as well stop at one of the bigger stores for basics.
Sometimes it felt like she had forgotten how to enjoy herself, at least on her own. She could do fun beach days with Rory or lose herself in a painting, but she wasn’t sure that she knew how to actually relax.
Was it anxiety, that energy that moved and twitched beneath her skin? For years, she’d had real, heavy things to be anxious about: a miserable mess of a marriage, a rapidly diminishing savings account, every decision she made on behalf of her daughter.
There was always something to worry about. That was motherhood.
…wasn’t it?
Lately, she had started to wonder.
How much of her worry was justified, and how much of it was just a bad habit?
She’d had trouble learning to trust Tenn, and now she had her guard up with Lorenzo. Was that normal? Was it healthy? Or was it an insidious side effect of the years that she had spent in an abusive marriage?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know what was normal. It felt like she had been a single mother for all of a minute before moving in with Tenn. And that had felt right at the time, but now it seemed like all she did was second guess herself and question every decision that she made.
Had she rushed things, moving in with Tenn so soon after her divorce?
Was it selfish of her to choose him over Lorenzo?
She loved Tenn. She did. And she knew that he loved her – or at least he had. These days, everything between them felt so strained that she wasn’t sure. He had been working crazy hours, leaving Olivia with his parents, slipping into bed around midnight and disappearing before she woke up the next morning.
