taking a field trip to the marina- no dancing tattoos to be found

It was familiar, yet it seemed strange as I walked in to this yoga studio. Away from home. Neighborhoods beyond my reach beyond my comfort zone. I enter the yoga studio on union street. I walk slowly up the stairs unsure of what will be the scenery at the yoga studio faraway from my mission home. My roots of home easier to stand upon that mat. There. So as I find myself in the population of unfamiliarity, I find myself there because of a friend and a great deal. I couldn’t pass up. Great deals allow us to forget the rolling eyes and annoyance that can exist for the dislike of what a neighborhood of pleasant richness ville that is so cookie cutter you feel something begin in your stomach and move up. They welcome me and I sign up. But they give you freebies here unlike the studios I call home. Free towels. And oranges.
I walk into the room. I am in lake of blonde. I have never seen so many blondes in one place in years. I feel safe among my fellow brunettes. I don’t dislike blondes. But I do hate so blonde. So blonde. Platinum. There is still warmth that exists from the class before. It is like walking into the steam of someone else’s shower or entering a room after someone else’s romp. It being your own shower or sexcapade it doesn’t feel foreign but walking into someone else’s heat makes the humidity of a stranger unbearable. Many ladies in this room are small child make. Skinny here is not like skinny elsewhere. The chatter shakes among the voices of predominantly white folks, mostly females, a token male here and there. They seem less gay then the guys I see at the mission spots. White and female I can’t pretend like that is an oddity. The privilege of practicing. Shouldn’t be. But is. Still.

There is a loud noise around me. And for once I want to sit quiet. Breathing in and out my back pushes into the mat as the mat presses into me. My feet find home on each other and my knees reach for the distance beyond me. The air travels slowly from the bottom part of me to the top. The noises of the radio of others dims. At least for now. Me the talker quiet. Quiet. The rarity. Exists. But really I am usually quiet during yoga. Don’t speak. I once sat next to a couple that kept on talking in yoga and I almost laid into them. Me the non-stop talker. But even I need breaks. And yoga is one of them. I am upside down and seeing my fellow yogis. No tattoos dance around their parts as my home. I am usually the odd man out tattooless. But today. Today in this new studio. I just move. Move and pretend I am home.