in alignment

You know how some days the stars just seem to align and a spooky sort of symmetry prevails? Doesn't happen very often at all any more, but today it kind of did.
I decided to get take-away for dinner (while I'm at work) from the Hare Krishna cafe, which always makes me feel very calm and at-one-with-the-universe, especially if the lovely little monk-like man behind the counter smiles serenely at me when he asks "Pappadum?". Anyway, I digress. So there I was in the peace cafe, ordering my meal, when I saw a pamphlet about yoga classes being run in Newcastle. I am in the market for a good yoga class, having found one that was very convenient and run by a lovely 70-something-year-old lady named Shirley but then having to schedule swimming lessons for Freya on the same day, at the same time. The physiotherapist I've been seeing has recommended I return to yoga "as soon as possible". When she told me this, she gave me a concerned look that seemed to imply I might a) be completely incapacitated by back pain and general inflexibility; or b) have a nervous breakdown if I didn't heed her advice.
The very exciting thing about these new yoga classes, run by another monk-like man, is that they are on several different days and at different times (excellent for my no-routine type of life). I have not yet run this idea by my dear husband, but there seems a definite possibility I will be able to attend at least one yoga class a week! How very decadent of me.
This seems particularly decadent because I have just started an eight-week singing course, because it is something I have always wanted to know how to do properly. Apparently anyone can sing, or so the course outline says. We shall see. In the meantime, it is nice to see it as an emotional outlet, a way to be joyful, a social activity and even a two-hour reprieve from the daily grind. Of course all this is tempered with the mother guilt, the curse of selfishness, the washing that still needs folding when I get home.