Eventually

Thursday mornings usually bustled with twenty women, and two men, rushing to find their space in the yoga room where they could lay down their mat. Occupying the massage rooms were middle aged men with recent joint replacements, women that needed to “just relax,” and young athletes hoping to prevent injuries. The place was how I imagined it. A community that had grown into a family.

On Thursday, March 12, 2020, one of my regular students bounced in, yoga mat tucked under her arm, the first to arrive.

“Hi Ann! Glad to see you.”

“I wouldn’t miss it.” She said placing her shoes and jacket into one of the Ikea cubbies lining the wall. “Makes my day tolerable.”

 “Quiet today.” I said stating the obvious.

“I thought it might be. The virus and all.”

We sat in the silence waiting but nobody else came. Ann offered to skip yoga as not to take my time just for her. Normally, I’d insist that she stay. But that day I didn’t argue.

After Ann left, I sat alone in the studio for an hour. I said nothing. I read nothing, thought nothing. I waited until it showed itself. The thing that had been chasing me all week. It had finally caught up with me. The decision, I hoped I would not have to make.

  On the business Facebook page, I typed a short note and posted it. “As you know, the safety and wellness of our clients are our biggest priority. After much thought and consideration, I find it necessary to temporarily suspend all group classes and workshops from the period of Thursday, March 12, 2020-Sunday, March 22, 2020.”  Ten days. I thought. That’s plenty of time to figure this virus out. Anyway, ten days was all I could afford. I was in the middle of leading a yoga teacher training and couldn’t fathom a longer shut down. People depended on me. They paid for a service. They put their trust in me to deliver them into Yoga Teacher status. Ten days of no revenue would set me behind on the rent. Two Weeks Tops. I thought.

Before I made the decision to close for ten days, I had tried everything within my power, to stay open. My business’s Instagram page showed me and my granddaughter, proudly holding up freshly washed yoga blankets, the kind round face of the laundromat owner waving behind us giving a thumbs up. The caption read, “Having fun with Izzy the owner of the greatest laundromat ever!! Washing studio blankets for your safety.” And then I tagged the laundromat.

“Thanks for keeping us safe, Linda.” The first response said.

Twenty likes later another response.

“Do you think you will stay open?”

“We are doing our best.” I replied.

  Thirty-nine likes.

               But the virus had already loaded onto boats, and planes. The heaviness had already taken root. Yet, I pushed forward. I covered all the large rectangular yoga bolsters in white cotton king sized pillowcases, that I overnight ordered from Amazon. The hand sanitizer would have to wait. There was none to be found on the shelves of CVS, or on the expansive online marketplaces.

The next Facebook and Instagram post showed me holding up a freshly covered bolster, with the caption. “For your safety, the bolsters will now be covered with a fresh pillowcase with every use.”  That one received a couple of likes and no comments. The next day, with all the new precautions in place, I was ready. While I cleaned the studio, the news reported, but I didn’t watch. I was too busy doing what business owners do. They answer questions and settle problems. They make everything all right because they can. They make the final decisions because they own the place.

When Ann showed up alone that Thursday, before I realized nobody else was going to show, I wondered why she had come. What made her among all the others brave the broken air around us?

She later told me that like me, she didn’t watch the news. She couldn’t. It was too exhausting to try. It was the one thing she could do for her mental health. It was the one thing she could control.

On March 20, 2020, two days before I had originally planned to re-open, Governor Wolf ordered all non-life-sustaining businesses in Pennsylvania to close their physical locations.

The day non-essential businesses closed; I realized that I didn’t make all the decisions for my business after all, but I could at least do what I could.

 The yoga teacher trainees, eventually graduated via zoom. I delivered flowers to each of their doorsteps, staying true to my vision of creating a place that was special. Those months were difficult. I no longer made the decisions because there was something bigger at stake.

One night, I broke down and watched the news. I had been spending all my energy trying to hold onto what I had built, that I didn’t see it. What people were going through. I was frantically trying to keep my little world safe, when the big world was asking more of me.

Exhausted hospital workers needed me to make the decision to quarantine if I was sick. The overcrowded hospitals were begging me to wear a mask so they could house all that needed their walls. This I was asked so that the nurse who worked twenty-eight hours without a break, could eventually be safe enough to go home and hug their babies again. I made the decision to do these things so a daughter didn’t have to facetime the last words she would ever speak with her mother.

My business wasn't the same after the pandemic. There are no more walls holding us together. But what was left was something a building could never hold. The spirit of a community that still thrives. Friendships made that can't be broken. What we have together is a community built from my vision, sustained by and their decision to stick together.