The Beauty In Broken Things
On witnessing female rage and Black joy.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I signed up for “yoga dance.” It was the only yoga class available in our short lunch window on the first day of our Cheryl Strayed writer’s workshop (the author of Wild) at Kripalu, a yoga retreat center in the Berkshires. I didn’t expect I’d walk out an hour later with goosebumps on my arms and my face wet with tears.
For the first half hour, 50 or so of us women danced in circles around the room to music that was a bizarrely satisfying combination of dubstep EDM-meets-spiritual yoga hymns. Most of us didn’t have rhythm so we resembled adult-size toddlers oscillating between having temper tantrums and running away from our mothers. Once I let go of caring what I looked like, it was a liberating sensation. And I could see the other women, at least the ones who didn’t have their eyes closed to spare us all the embarrassment, felt the same way.
But the real climax of the unexpected spiritual journey came two-thirds of the way…