Michelle O'Neil,Writer

My car.

The accident was two years ago today. It was a Friday. I had just taught two back-to-back yoga classes at the beautiful beach club. I was heading south on A1A, the palm tree and condo lined road that hugs the ocean on the east coast of Florida. Blue skies. A breezy clear, gorgeous day. I was supposed to meet a friend for lunch, but when I came out of class, there was a message that she’d canceled. Driving down the road, I tried another friend and got her voicemail. “Oh well, I guess I’ll just go home,” I thought, looking forward at the road. I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat, done with it. I don’t like to drive and talk, and that car didn’t have hand’s free.

Up ahead, I saw a pedestrian tentatively stepping out into the crosswalk. There are pedestrian crosswalks all along A1A. I saw her, and slowed to a stop. And I thought, “I should not have just been on my phone. What if I had been distracted and missed seeing her step out?” I vowed not to talk and drive in the future. We made eye contact, she waved thanks.

She got across my lane, and as I took my foot off the gas,

BANG! POP! CRUNCH!

I’d never heard an airbag detonate, but somehow I knew that’s what it was. I also knew it wasn’t my airbag. I smelled something hot, and I saw blue sky as the front of my car lifted up into the air. My head lurched forward and snapped back as the car bounded down to a stop.

I was coherent enough to know I’d been hit. I was coherent enough to remember that someone hit one of my husband’s co-workers and ran off and I needed to get the license plate of whoever hit me. I grabbed an envelope from the car floor and a pen from my purse, and stepped out of the car, ready to get the information before they sped away.  I felt a brief sense of vengeance.

Upon seeing their car, I knew they weren’t going anywhere. It was smashed. A guy got out of it and said he was sorry and asked if I was okay. I assured him I was. And then, my legs felt weak. I went back to my car and sat down in my driver’s seat, with my legs out the door. Two women came over to me. One was the woman that had just crossed the street when I stopped for her. If I’d been hit five seconds earlier she likely would have been killed. The other had been either jogging or riding her bike. She’d heard the crash and ran over to help.

My head started to spin. I felt stoned. I remember the woman, the jogger/biker telling me I had to call 911. I knew she was right, but couldn’t figure out how to dial the cell phone in my hand. It took real concentration. I finally got my fingers to do what my brain was telling them to do.

Then I called my husband. Dialing was so confusing. And he was also confused. He was working nights at the time. He’d been in a deep sleep. But he said he was on his way, and so I felt safe. I knew he would handle things.

The women looked angelic to me, and I told them so. And I knew I sounded a little crazy, but that’s how I felt at the time. (If you see an accident and you stop and stay with the person until help arrives. You are an ‘effing angel. Face it. Own it).

The police and firetrucks were there. They took my keys and moved my car out of the middle of the road. They asked me if I was okay, and I assured them I was. I mean, I just got crashed into but look…I am not bleeding. I am able to walk. I’m fine. FINE!

I got into the back seat of my car and trembling, I waited for Todd.

He got there, and he handled it. He talked to the police. He got the insurance info. As it was all being handled, I felt myself drifting into sleep. Losing consciousness. I could vaguely hear everyone handling everything, but felt like maybe I’d just lie down and take a little nap. And the nurse in me was saying, no don’t do that. Don’t go to sleep. But I really, really, wanted to. I started to.

And then Todd was there again, and he told me to get in his car, no no we don’t need the hospital I said. I just wanted to go home.

And we did.

And everyone thought I was fine. Because I said I was. Because I could walk right? And no broken bones. And yes, I probably had a concussion but what would they do for that anyway? Not a thing. I just needed to rest.

And Todd went to work that night, after making dinner and doing all the stuff. I was to lay low. Light duty.

After he left, I got out my yoga mat and began to explore. How hurt was I? From head to toe I assessed, moving gingerly. Everything hurt. My head ached. My neck hurt the most. I put ice on it when I was done with my exploration.

I took the dogs out around 11PM, and marveled that I could walk down the stairs in the apartment. I walked slowly, but look! My legs worked. My back wasn’t broken. I was in a state of reverence and a bit out of time/space reality.

The words, “I stopped at a cross walk for a pedestrian,” repeated over and over in my mind.

A car hit me from behind full on, without ever hitting the brakes. No skid marks on the road. It was a miracle I was okay. I figured I’d be sore for a few days.

His car.

I had no idea what had just happened, or how much it would affect my body, and my yoga practice forever.

I hate yoga pants. I do. I feel self-conscious in them. I had a traumatic c-section where things weren’t put back together mindfully, and my belly will never be the same. Then I had another c-section. Some women come through their c-sections with just a cute little scar. Some with a ledge. My “ledge” shows in yoga pants. It feels intimate, and exposed. I make sure to wear a long-ish shirt when I wear yoga pants, in a futile effort to cover it up.

One time some of my students and I were talking before class. Four out of five of us had experienced c-sections. We shared stories. One woman said she’d had two c-sections, resulting in an “anchor.” One horizontal, one vertical scar. She won the prize that day. Anchors beat ledges, any day. What we women go through. Seriously.

Another friend hates yoga pants because she is self-conscious about her butt.

Tight fitting clothes are practical when doing yoga. A shirt that clings doesn’t fall “up” during downward facing dog. I wear the whole deal often enough when I practice in a studio, and sometimes when I teach, but really I prefer other things. Do men ever have to feel so sucked in and exposed? I mean, no one is stopping men of yoga from wearing yoga pants, but they aren’t required to. It isn’t the social norm. They don’t even have to wear a shirt!

Long nylon shorts have become a staple for me, for teaching. Hopefully my students don’t mind the swishing as I move throughout the room. Sometimes I wear loose linen pants.

But yoga pants aren’t my only first world yoga fashion problem.

Thanks to a car accident and subsequent neck injury I can no longer wear racer back tops. Racer back sports bras give me a swift headache within minutes.

So I do my own thing. My long shorts. My shell tops and t-shirts. I feel a combo of middle age invisible + total freedom and comfort.

I have my eye out for a yoga/athletic clothing line that would be pretty and functional AND not quite so naked but with pants painted on. It’s going to be a good day when I find it.

I’m writing this post using my new stand-up desk. So far I love it. My physical therapist says when you use a stand-up desk, to make sure to rest one foot on a yoga block, thus lessening pressure on your lower back. I also have a cushy pad for under my feet, so I’m all set. I feel so much better, not compressing my whole midsection in a free-fall dump (which let’s face it, tends to happen, no matter how many times I tell myself to sit up straight). Standing, I find myself moving around a lot, foot to foot. Sometimes with one foot on the block doing reps lifting the other foot up, working the glutes. Standing just leads to more organic movement. It isn’t natural to sit still for long periods of time. I didn’t pay a lot for this desk thingy. I wasn’t sure I’d like it and didn’t want to commit. But I do like it. And it’s easy to move if I want to sit at the desk. I also like that my coffee sits  underneath it. No danger of spilling onto my laptop (again). Once was enough and that’s all I have to say about that.

I’ve been learning a lot lately about how to best serve my body. I’m in the last year of my 40’s and since a car accident two years ago, I’ve had to change a lot of things. Especially my personal yoga practice. I’ll be writing more about that here.

I know I’m probably late to the stand-up desk party, and I don’t have the fanciest stand-up desk, but just in case anyone who reads this might be on the fence about getting one,  I’m all in. So far so good. It’s working for me.

After a meal of delicious Thai food, my husband and I were walking past one of those fly-by-night gyms in a strip mall the other night, and a young woman bolted out the door and onto the sidewalk. Red faced. Sweaty. She’d clearly been feeling the burn, and her self-hate was palpable. I don’t know how to describe it, I almost felt it telepathically, but she hadn’t been having any fun. I remembered exercising like this. In my teens and twenties, exercise was punishment, namely for being too fat. I did it sporadically. Abusively. Sometimes it would turn into something deeper, say when I decided to run on the cross country team in high school, I’d unexpectedly get into a meditative state, calm my nerves for a bit, but mostly I ran to change my body which I perceived to be gross (at just 5 lbs over what I wanted to weigh). And I would run with so much anger, and so little awareness, I’d inevitably end up with injuries that would sideline me.

In my early twenties, I trained in martial arts while living in the DC area. It was a beautiful way to channel my energy in a controlled environment. My teacher was so genius in her sequencing, injuries were not common. Even with people like me.

Years later, when I moved back to my hometown to change careers and start nursing school, I needed one credit to fill out my schedule and decided to try a yoga class. It was in a huge wrestling room. I was required to take a 90-minute class twice a week. I walked in blindly, not knowing anything about yoga. The practice worked its magic on me. I was calmer. My stomach stopped hurting all the time. I didn’t think about hating myself while on the mat. Had I ever truly taken a deep breath before in my life? I’d certainly never combined exercise with self-love.

A path had presented itself, but it would take me years to truly commit.

Welcome!

I am starting this page four years in to becoming a yoga teacher. I love what I do. There is so much to write about and so much going on, I need a place for it to land. I started a Yoga FB page, but after listening to a podcast about how risky it is to have FB as the only online place for your work, and how volatile it is, and how it can go poof at any moment, I decided to stop writing there, and start here. I used to be an avid blogger. For years! But I wrote mostly about my family, and that stopped being cool once my kids reached a certain age.

So here I will write about yoga. Not a how-to blog. I’m no expert. But there is plenty of material and much to explore. I can’t wait to get started.