Like when the light turns yellow and you’re driving maybe a little faster than you should be and your mind goes, “Slam on the brakes? Step on the gas? Hurry….chooooose!!”
I live in a large high rise, with a gated parking structure underneath the building. I was walking outside earlier this evening and decided I wanted to go to the store, therefore, I needed to get to my car. Realizing I didn’t have my gate opener with me, I could have simply gone back INSIDE the building and down the elevator to the underground parking structure, and all would have been well in my world. But noooooo.
I was about to turn the corner on the sidewalk, at which point I'd be a just a few steps away from the garage gate entrance to my building . If I'm a lucky person, it will be open from a car having just gone through and I will be able to effortlessly stroll into the garage and down to my car. As I made the corner, I heard that familiar noise, the metal and springs creaking and the motor kicking on to begin moving the gate. It had been opened only moments ago, so it was now beginning its descent. You might see where this is going…
Can I make it??!! Is there enough time? Calculate!! If I sprint, will I make it or will I simply end up the not-so-proud recipient of a 2009 Darwin Award?
No decision.
Only another split second of hesitation.
That hesitation cost me. My choice was now doomed from the moment I heard, “Run!” in my head. My wavering prompted an erratic, frantic, completely hysterical dash toward the rapidly closing gate. Arms flailing, legs moving, but as though they were not connected to my body or even to each other for that matter. My heart pounding in my chest, the gate was stopping for no one! All of a sudden, my knees buckle…
...and I fall.
Half in and half out of the garage, I lay sideways on the concrete, my life flashing before my eyes as I watch the metal bars coming closer and closer to terminating my very existence. (Well, at least I’m wearing my favorite sweatshirt.) The rattling and screeching of the moving parts pressed on and seemed only to grow louder and faster as I decided that I really didn’t want to die (or be horribly mangled) today. And, just then…as in every single action movie ever produced...when [insert name of action hero here] is mere centimeters away from being dismembered by a gate…drawbridge…spaceship hatch…big rock, I fling my arms and legs long (my flip flop flies off in the process) and I barrel-roll to safety into the garage!
All was suddenly quiet. The gate had descended to its resting place. I mustered the energy to barely sit up. One shoed, I looked around for the other one. And. There it was. On the OTHER side of the gate. I crawled back to the unmerciful barricade, grabbed a bar with one hand, reached my other arm through as far as it would go. JUST out of reach.
Humbled, hobbled, exhausted from the adrenalin rush, I picked myself up, dusted myself off and made my way down to my car another level below. Didn't even bother to take off the one shoe I still had left, I just walked like that. Flip. Flip. Flip. I got in my car and drove back up to the 'scene'. I watched as the gate opened. Suddenly seemed it was moving a lot slower than before. My very confused flip flop was grateful to once again be with its partner, I was grateful that I was driving my car with all my limbs intact instead of trapped under a gate, mumbling something about just wanting to go to the store to buy some chocolate.
Moral of the story:
Yoga is good for you. Indeed, when one thinks of yoga and its practitioners, typically words like graceful, fluid, elegant come to mind. Bikram yoga on the other hand, as I repeatedly tell my students in class…makes you a superhero. Or at the very least you feel like you could be one.
Afterword:
My iphone survived the entire stunt without so much as a scratch and I walked away with only a bruised knee. There is a chance that surveillance camera footage exists of this entire episode. One can only hope.
