Day 81 Thanks, Mom

A couple of years ago, in a moment of complete and utter self-delusion, I bought my parents a gift pass at a local Iyengar yoga studio. Now, Iyengar yoga is not like Bikram, lest you think it was an assassination attempt. Iyengar’s all about recovery, regaining normal function, and uses a lot of props. Belts, blocks, bolsters, blankets, folding chairs, anything to help you get into the posture safely, without hurting yourself.

My parents are at the age where mobility is getting to be an issue, and the instructor promised me it would be a beginner-and-senior-friendly class. I warned her that my parents would be… reluctant learners.

She told me she was looking forward to meeting them.

As it turns out, they went to one class, the instructor mentioned something about a Buddhist monk and that was it.

“I liked the exercise part,” Mom said. “I just ignored the rest.”

“I didn’t want to hear about some monk,” Dad said with what I thought was unnecessary malice.

They never went back. Oh well. They get points for going at all, in my book.

Actually, if I think back, I have my mother to thank for my interest in yoga. Yes, my Mennonite mother introduced me to yoga, via the television show, Kareen’s Yoga. Apparently I’m not the only one who remembers this BC celebrity. From an article by Pamela Post, in Today’s Vancouver Woman:

For a decade, from 1970 to 1980, Kareen hosted a national daytime show, Kareen’s Yoga, on CTV. She was like a lithe, spiritual Elke Sommer with her blonde hair, German accent, and awesome ability to bend into the full pantheon of yoga poses. She brought yoga, meditation, and whole food nutrition into the living rooms of ordinary Canadians. Folks with a penchant for Kraft Dinner and Hockey Night in Canada began doing headstands and eating whole grains. Depressed Canadian housewives got off their meds and started meditating.

I remember a ridiculously small black-and-white TV set with rabbit ears balanced on the top, and my mom on the floor, following along. I remember Kareen’s black cat, Mouffie, who practiced with her on the show, except that in my memory, Mouffie is a Siamese. (It was probably the cat that got my attention; I was always angling for a house-cat in those days. In my family, cats lived in the barn and ate mice, and the farmer squirted milk into their mouths directly from the teats of the cow.)

My mother, it seems to me now, must have been something of a rebel amongst her brethren and sistern. Kareen’s Yoga, after all, showed a bare-limbed woman moving her body with joy – even smiling – with no husband in sight anywhere. It certainly warranted suspicion right up there with further education, Roman Catholicism, liqueur-filled chocolates and The Naked Heathen. Plus, Kareen was meditating. That was a lot like praying. Except it wasn’t!

But what do I know? Maybe Mom only had the TV on because she was waiting for Hymn Sing or Tommy Hunter.

There’s more to most mothers than meets the eye of their offspring, though. Mom as a 1970’s-yogini? Why not? That what I choose to believe.