I heard an interview with the author of “Poser. My Life In Twenty-three Yoga Poses.”, Claire Dederer, on the radio. I was instantly embarrassed by my self-absorbed connection to this book. I probably heard the interview on NPR, which just added to the shamed feeling of entitled explorations into my inner soul that sometimes visit me when in the yoga studio. How lucky are we, that we have the opportunity to sit and contemplate ourselves and our place in the world.
Deciding to drop the shame, I quickly fell into the story that Dederer, who comes from the Pacific Northwest, was telling. She was telling a story common to many 30-something women with a kid or two, a husband, a comfortable life and well-worn yoga mat. Survival needs met, we get confused about our existence, our happiness, our desires, and finally what our needs are beyond survival. Do we need organic sheets for our newborn? How do you explain that your bottle-fed baby will survive without your nipple? What happens if I only go to yoga once this week?
I grew up in New Jersey. When my daughter was a baby, I returned to New Jersey for a few years. I don’t mean to reinforce any Jersey stereotypes, but I did not feel the above pressures as a young mother. Maybe I should have had an SUV, and I probably should have had a husband, but cloth diapers were not an expected accessory. I was the hippy, odd ball momma, and to this day, I still have romanticized visions of living in Seattle or Boulder and most recently, Asheville, where your neighbor raises chickens and the whole family rides their bikes to the co-op together.
But back to the novel. I don’t remember the last time I bought a new book. After hearing the radio interview, I so badly wanted to read my story (which was improved by taking place in romanticized locales), that I went to the bookstore and bought it. It was only in hardcover it was so new.
The book is full of gems. Dederer is a fantastic writer. Her story is common, but her writing is not. She nails so many of the experiences we have as we aspire to be yogis, mindful parents and partners, while still balancing a career. I would read any book she wrote. Her word craft could make any story hilarious, devastating, and moving.
Her book is a collection of teachings neatly woven into novel form so that we may float on the poetry of her words. As a yoga teacher, I gained insight into what can make a skillful teacher. Dederer says of yoga practice, “don’t make your feet or your body go anywhere. It’s sort of a radical idea: to be unready, to be immovable. Inertia, you realize as you stand there, is a kind of power.” Discovering a new teacher she shares, “Spellman said sitting in meditation worked just the way the tracker described. If you’re still enough, the wild mind, the mind that isn’t preoccupied with oughts and shoulds and the minutiae of life, will approach you and make itself known.” After being with her idea of a genius, she says, “His teaching …gave off a kind of heat. It was crucial, what he was transmitting. He had to get it off his chest.”
Dederer’s book captures us as we move on our yoga mats and through life with too much thought and too much self-awareness. The book is a mirror and a story. We are not being told to do anything. But we are listening and we can see our reflections.
“I didn’t know it at the time, but it was at this moment, when I decided that I couldn’t be bothered to learn the right way to do yoga but that instead I would continue doing it, following my teacher and doing my work…Submission, trust…imperfection, the release of ego – these were the things that would save me from myself… You can’t go deeper and know what you’re doing the whole time.”
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