Yoga on my mother's rug

Erin after yoga class

     After yoga class I forget about The List for a little while.   The List is with me from  an hour after I wake in the mornings until I am too tired in the evenings to think about it anymore.  There's nothing exotic or even interesting about The List; it's just a litany of things that need to be done.   It often amazes me that I pay such constant attention to something so boring.
 Yoga opens my mind while it strengthens my body.  Erin, our teacher, guides us through warm ups, poses and relaxation with humor and a sense of wonder.  We creak away and don't complain. I feel great afterwards as I haul my mats, strap, and cushion to the car.    Last week I came home from class and announced to Judy, "If anything will free me from my inner tyrant, it's yoga."

Not what I look like

     At home I do stretches and a few  poses  most mornings  on a green and orange hooked rug that my mother made in the 1960s.  When my Maryland sisters were clearing out my parents' house, I didn't want that rug.  None of my sisters or my brother or any relative or neighbor wanted it either.  The rug was on the list of homeless treasures that my sister Florrie tried so mellifluously to persuade us to take.
     She started with, "Maggie, that big ugly gold mirror would look perfect in your house."
"Florrie, you've never seen my house."
     "I know, but it would look good in your hall.  If you won't take the mirror, at least take the rug."
     I intended to give the rug away to a young  relative who had just set up housekeeping.  Something made me hesitate.  The rug stood rolled in a corner for years, until I began to use it for yoga.  Now I treasure it, and think every morning of my mother and  the many women (Auntie Ellen, Aunt Faye, Aunt Jeanette, Aunt Sister, Aunt Helen, and more) who cared for me.

My mother's hooked rug

     Ordinary objects, even things that are new to me, are beginning to take on value from my encounters with the people who have owned them before.  I bought tablecloths for the wedding from a young woman who advertised them on Craigslist.  She was  happy in her life and in her memories of her wedding.  She  enthused about two old women getting married, "I hope my grandchildren will look back and say, 'What was the big fuss all about?'"   I look forward to using those tablecloths and to passing them on.  Now they have a history; they are more than just covers for tables.