I’d hung out with a few of her friends here and there, but never all at once. It was one thing to be thrown in the middle of my boisterous family, and another being dropped into a group of friends that I didn’t really know.
I sighed. Julia really did know how to get her way.
“Okay, fine,” I said.
“Yay! Okay, I promise you we’re going to have fun. If all else fails, you can hang out with Paige and Esme’s animals,” Julia said.
That was good to know.
“You’re probably going to get along with Alivia. She’s into fitness and she’s more chill than a lot of us,” Hollis said. “And Gray, Linley’s husband, is really great too. He’s a phlebotomist, but he also makes these amazing little carvings.”
I tried to keep everyone straight in my head, but it was a lot of people.
“It’s fine, we’ll make you a chart,” Julia said.
“I think I’m going to need one,” I said.
I didn’t mind waking up early to teach on Wednesday. I was so used to it that it wasn’t a struggle to turn off my alarm and get dressed in the dark. It was still cold, so I pulled a sweater over my head. The house was quiet as I tiptoed downstairs and out the door. I turned on the wipers to clear the dew from my windshield and turned on the heater. The forecast was for a balmy day, but we weren’t there yet.
I shoved a protein bar in my face and tried to hydrate before I got to the beach. A few cars had already parked, probably for early morning dog-walking. I always wanted to arrive before my students, but there was usually one or two who beat me, and I saw two people with yoga mats had already staked out a place on the sand before me.
“Good morning,” I called, putting a smile on my face. Both people turned and I realized it was Charlene and Ramona, two of my regulars. They were retired, but packed their lives with so many activities that they were busy all the time.
“Hi, McKenna,” Charlene said, and we exchanged chitchat as we waited for the others to join us.
We watched the sky lighten as others trudged down the sand to join us. I recognized just about everyone and made sure to give them all a warm greeting. The class was free, but donations were encouraged, so I put my phone on silent as the payment notifications went through. I’d also handed out my card with the payment link for anyone who was new.
Two of the last people to arrive were Natalie and her fiancée Emerald. Natalie smiled and pulled her wild curly hair into a bun as Em yawned, her eyes puffy.
I greeted everyone and started the class, making sure to pitch my voice over the sound of the waves as I weaved in and out of the yoga mats, calling poses and offering alignment suggestions. Each student was given a disc, about the size of a coaster, that told me whether they wanted hands-on or hands-off adjustments. Most people were fine with hands-on, but I always wanted to give the option.
Since this was an all-levels class, I kept the poses and sequences fairly simple, and left space for the more advanced students to do their thing. Every now and then I’d have a student who didn’t seem to be listening to me at all and just did their own class. I figured since it was their time, they could choose what they did with it. I stopped taking things that happened in my class personally roughly in my first week of teaching.
It didn’t escape my notice that Em had been yawning the entire time and was moving slower than some of the other people. I didn’t want to call her out, but I also wanted to give her the space to do what her body needed.
“And if today, your body is asking you to slow down and rest, slow down and rest. There’s no shame in giving your body what it needs in this moment,” I said as I passed by Natalie and Em’s mats.
“Thank god,” I heard Em say under her breath and she went ahead and just laid down and closed her eyes.
Class was interrupted momentarily by a runaway dog who decided to join us for a moment, but the rest of the time was smooth sailing.
“Thank you everyone, I hope you can take some of this energy we’ve cultivated today with you. If you have any questions, let me know. Once again my name is McKenna, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day,” I said, and several of the students clapped before brushing the sand off their mats and started to roll them up so they could get back to their regular lives.
“I’m so sorry,” Em said as she came up to me with Natalie.
“Don’t worry, I don’t take it personally,” I said, laughing as I sipped on some water. I drank a lot of tea with honey to keep my voice strong for teaching. I’d definitely lost it before from teaching too much.
“I just don’t think that morning yoga is for me,” Em said, resting her head on Natalie’s shoulder.
“You tried it, and that’s what counts,” Natalie said, kissing Em’s head.
“An attempt was made,” Em said through a yawn. “Can we go home now?”
“You get to go home. I get to go to work, but I’ll see you tomorrow, right, McKenna?”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” I said as Natalie dragged a half-conscious Em over the sand.
Several of the students stayed to chat, and a few would head to the Castleton Café or Sweet’s Sweets Bakery and get a post-yoga breakfast. Sometimes they asked me to join, but I usually declined.
I did dip my feet in the ocean for a few minutes before heading back to the farmhouse. Amanda always saved me something from breakfast if I got back after everyone else had eaten. She seemed to want to mother me as much as possible, and it was pointless to fight her on it.
Amanda was vacuuming the living room when I got back, and I made sure to get as much sand off my feet before I tracked it all the way through her house.
“I’m just going to take a quick shower and then I’ll be down,” I told her.
“Of course, I’ll make you a latte and heat up a plate.”
Honestly, this level of service was above and beyond.
I took a leisurely shower and ran a brush through my hair before I headed downstairs to grab my plate. I felt a little awkward sitting at the breakfast bar, so I took my plate into the living room. Amanda was so nice, but she had gotten the message that I needed my space sometimes. That had been true when I’d lived at home with my family, and it had been rough. As a birthday present one year, my dad and oldest brothers had made me what they called a tree house, so I’d have some place to escape. It was only a few feet off the ground, but I guess it was technically built around a tree, so it qualified. That had been the place I’d gone to read and to be alone with my thoughts. I hoped my niblings enjoyed it now.
I finished my frittata and latte and chased that with a few of the vegan energy balls I’d taught Amanda how to make. I wasn’t a chef by any means, but I’d shared some of my favorite recipes with her, and she’d seemed receptive. She’d also somehow gotten a hold of my mom’s white bean and kale soup recipe and had made that as a side dish one night.
The rest of my day was spent with unglamorous things like comment moderation, bookkeeping, video editing, voiceover recording, and planning. My second class with Piper was tomorrow and if my brain checked out again, I needed a plan. I went back through some of my old class notes and came up with two different class plans for whatever mood she might be in.