Theresa’s in town for holiday, and it’s so wonderful to have all of Sarasota surrounding me, my home, and the effervescence of a good friend all in the same place. palm trees plus her powerful laugh do a happy moment make.

Friday morning we took a Bikram yoga class. We pulled up right at 10am, and I was really hoping that the doors were locked. I was not really in the mood, and was more inclined to sit outside the breakfast café and drink coffee than I was to do intense yoga in a heated room with a dozen other sweaty strangers. So I dropped off Theresa and parked the car, leisurely walking around the studio building to the back door, where I was faced with 20 half-clothed men and women, stretching out, some sweating already. I joined them, feeling out of place in my gym shorts and tank top, laid out my mat, signed my name on a waiver, and waited for instructions.

An hour and a half later, I was lying face-up on the same mat, not sure if I had been beaten or shown God. During the class, I had been so close to a woman next to me I could see the beads of sweat collect on her thighs. When I looked around the room, I would catch the movement of a lithe, sinewy woman that sent a stream of sweat down to her towel. The instructor had helped a man with an extremely defined upper body, to push his feet behind his back, nearly touching his head. All the while, I stared at myself in the mirror, feeling slightly pudgy, pale, ungainly, wondering where this self-effacing has come from all of a sudden. The beauty of bikram is that the poses flow so quickly, there is little time for my head to get in the way. That said, the judgments pop in so fast it’s hard to catch them.

Judgments or no judgments, we took brunch at C’est La Vie, the French café on Main, and then showered and finished the day shopping, taking Pho at PhoCali, and meeting Tim at Shakespeare’s for some billiard late that night.