It was a free day from work for me. Well, not exactly free. I OPTED not to go to work. My youngest son, M2, had just arrived early this morning (as in 3 AM) from China. He was gone for 6 weeks so I wanted a day to be with him, bond a bit, and run some errands that were long postponed due to work.

Chona and I had agreed to catch our 6 PM yoga class with Pio. Yes, that was the plan. Unfortunately, plans do not always pan out, if you have the Christmas traffic to contend with.

It began with bumper-to-bumper traffic along Wilson St. going in the direction of Greenhills Shopping Center. Then I got even more delayed coming out of a bank. I still had grocery shopping to do and it was already 4 PM. How was I to finish all that and get to my yoga center before 6?

I thought, ‘Jane, you’ve got to be flexible!’. And THAT did not refer to BODY flexibility. Even schedules needed to go with the flow. So, I called Chona to forewarn her I probably could not make it and that instead of trying to brave the traffic in Ortigas and stress out trying to make it to yoga, I would just finish up my grocery shopping and do self-yoga at my gym.

I’m glad I did because that decision allowed me to slow down, finish up my groceries, and go to the gym where the crowd was fairly thin. Did some laps on the treadmill first to warm up. I also had a room all to myself (the class that was supposed to end 7:30 ended much earlier), allowing me time to go through my routine unhurriedly and at my own pace.

Part of me was waiting for the leg pain on the right to act up again during wide-angle seated forward bend, something that had bothered me the other week. Surprise, surprise. No pain! And I made it to the floor all the way. My chaturanga transitions to upward dog were still weak owing to days of absence but I was relieved to feel that in other asanas, the flexibility was still there. Relief, relief!!!!

There is still this resolve inside me to try and make it through the Christmas traffic to whatever classes I can catch with Pio. This is quite a challenge as I am also trying to squeeze in as much progress in my work as I can in anticipation of my holiday leave. But today just showed me that when faced with such situations, I could either stress out getting to yoga in Ortigas (which is actually counterproductive to what yoga is supposed to achieve) OR go for the option I went for today — to get yoga in, even if I had to go it alone.