When I got up this morning, I was thinking about writing about yoga. I went to two classes this week and I was feeling fantastic. I�ve been thinking about why I�m enjoying yoga so much and I�ve discovered it�s not so much about the fact that it makes me feel physically strong, but that it appeals to the control freak in me. It�s the same thing I used to love when I was logging a million hours a week in the ballet studio in my youth. It�s partly about strength and grace, but a lot about feeling control over your physical self, knowing that you can make your body do what you want it to. Bodies are messy and disorganized. There�s something satisfying about the control.

But I�m also worried that I�m boring you all with this yoga talk, because really I don�t think it can be very interesting to anyone but me. The pleasure I get from yoga is inherently non-verbal. Which doesn�t make it easy to write about.

Then I went to drop AJ off at school. I ended up staying for a half an hour talking to some of the other moms. The mother of AJ�s friend S. was talking about her husband, who cut off one of his fingers and seriously injured two others while trying to fix his lawn mower last weekend. Then I talked for a while to my friend A., the mother of AJ�s friend N., to make arrangements to bring N. home with us to play after school. N.�s the one whose father has a brain tumor. I know that I�ve written about him before. His father is not doing well. He�s finally been forced to take disability. He can hardly walk now. Things are not looking good and it is the saddest situation I can think of. Every time N. talks about doing something �when my dad gets better,� my heart nearly breaks. His dad is stubborn and desperately wants to see his two adorable children, ages 2 and 4, graduate from high school. He�s just determined enough to do it. But at the moment, it�s not looking good. I�m sure A. (N�s mom), doesn�t hold it together all the time. She�s a nurse � she knows exactly what is going on, but she usually seems so calm and hopeful. She�s been working part time and staying home with the children, but now that her husband�s on disability, she needs to try to go full time and she�s not sure how she�s going to make it work. I wish there were more I could do to help. All I can do is lend an ear to A. and offer to watch the kids when I can. This family has had to face more than any family should. N�s father is no more than 30.

N and AJ had a great time this afternoon. They ate their lunch side by side, each trying to make the other laugh so hard that he�s spit out his food. After more food had been consumed than spit across the room, we went outside to play. N is fascinated with the wooded part of his yard � he lives in a development on a golf course, and doesn�t have anything like this in his area. We hunted for dinosaur eggs, tracked deer and raccoons, had races in the woods, fed grass to the horses, who followed us around the fence looking for even more handouts. We came back and he and AJ raced around the driveway, AJ on his bike and N in his foot-powered car, until N�s mom came to pick him up.

This evening, if the rain holds off, will probably have AJ running around outside with The Girl Next Door, who is finally back from vacation. With any luck, I�ll be watching from my balcony while sipping mojitos and listening to them play and the birds sing and feeling very, very lucky.

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