The first time it really hits me, I'm staring at the peeling paint on the doorknob.
I long ago memorized the feeling of coming home – the click of my key in the door, the scent of Mom's stir fry on
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Rhonda pressed her feet into her potato gently, curling them against the warmth. It wasn't just any potato—it was a just-baked daily potato, round and sunny and perfectly plump. Rhonda needed the sun, especially at night. Her feet were always cold.
It had started off as a mild inconvenience after she retired in a blaze of mediocrity, then gradually grown larger and larger, until she found herself tiptoeing around her own feet. But solutions existed, and after meeting several doctors—who had mostly recommended socks and hot bricks—she had adopted her daily potato. Rhonda preferred potatoes. Keeping a brick within the house, in her bed no less, felt almost sacrilegious. It was practically informing her small, squat, noble house that it had failed in its foremost duty, and could certainly fail further if it so desired.
Rhonda spread her toes luxuriously against the potato.
Then, she went to sleep.
And dreamed.
She was standing in a pavilion, with arches upon arches stretched out before her as far as the eye could see. There were thousands of them, millions—infinite, in fact. Rhonda took a step forward and watched the gaps in the arches reveal more arches. Strangely enough, she knew the arches ended where she could not see them. It was as though her mind had decided only the impression was really necessary, and the rest did not exist at all.
It took away from the impression of forever, she thought—and then she was suddenly within a cave, as though her mind had realized the game was up and hastily called for a redo. A little lanky green man stood a few feet away, regarding her grimly.
Rhonda returned the look. She knew she was dreaming because this was a goblin, and she had never met a goblin. The little man's features blurred convincingly along the points of contention. A round nose? A sharp one? The goblin's nose sharpened into a little stick. Well, that was settled.
Then the goblin spoke. "Cold feet," he said.
He said it as though he were settling an argument—and Rhonda felt herself swerve into conviction. Yes. Cold feet. How delightfully convincing, how detailed. Her eyes filled with tears; she was suddenly certain of everything that could ever be, her very sense of self merging into the world. She was no longer Rhonda—she was everything, and everything was possible. She felt her breath expand outward, felt it enter another's body, felt herself going along with it—and felt—gone.
She awoke. It took a few seconds to place her warm, spread feeling, but as soon as she did, it faded into an echo, and her universe narrowed and narrowed until it could hold her stout frame only sideways.
Oddly enough, her feet were warm. She always awoke feeling as though ice cubes were melting on them, with the potato mysteriously absent—usually found under the bed hours later. Likely, the warmth came from an enlightening ray of sunlight pooling on her bed through its single grimy window.
This was a rare occurrence; her town was almost always overcast. Sensing the time for sunlight was almost up, Rhonda threw off her bedclothes to soak in the warmth more directly.
After a few minutes, the sunbeam narrowed to a fourth of an inch, and Rhonda knew it was time. She rose, made her bed, dressed (with three extra socks for the chilly morning air), sat at the dining table, and began addressing her day firmly.
She had tried various methods, and her current one was succeeding at failing beautifully, but today she felt something was different. Something told her it was time for a new day, a dawn, a new era.
Ignoring the charts and various lists sprawling over the page imperiously, she took her To-Do Green Notebook by the dog-ear and flipped to a new page. The gorgeous creamy paper crinkled beneath her fingers. She took her stubby pen and, just before touching the paper, froze.
She raised her pen and looked at it. It seemed...inadequate.
After she had dipped the top of the pen in some glossy gold paint she had recently purchased to coat a new vase, it seemed much more suitable, but wet. After some thought, Rhonda stepped out of her home at 9 a.m., a time usually reserved for breakfast.
She gently stabbed the pen into a piece of stray cardboard she had procured from the street and set it in a patch of sunlight. The gold glimmered delightfully—so delightfully, in fact, that leaving it unattended was out of the question. She sat down in the grass and watched the paint dry attentively.
And this was how, on a Saturday morning—a time when she was usually indoors and, if not in bed, breakfasting—Rhonda found herself sitting in her garden as a white car drove past, plastered with a bright poster of a little green man with a long, pointy nose stretching furiously. Below it were the words:
"BECOME A YOGA INSTRUCTOR, TODAY!"
In smaller font: "200-hour certification course! Register NOW!"
In smaller font: "200-hour certification course! Register NOW!"
Rhonda's head swiveled to follow the car's progress down the road. On a normal day, she would have paid this no heed. But this was a new day, a new pen, a new page. In fact, considering Rhonda had had a small bout of yoga a few years back, it felt like destiny.
She grabbed the pen, staining her fingers gold, and scribbled the number below the poster on the piece of cardboard. Then she set the pen down, recoated it, and sat down again—this time watching the road instead of the pen. Who knew what else might appear?
She had not lived fifty-two years without learning patience. Six black cars and a red whizzed past, one adorned with a fluffy brown dog enjoying the breeze from the back window.
About fifteen minutes later, Rhonda rose with her pen and cardboard in hand and phoned the yoga place, her fingers shaking slightly.
___
Several months later, just around New Year's, she received her certification. It had taken a bit longer than ideal, perhaps, but Rhonda was pleased. Her muscles, joints, ligaments, and various other parts had cooperated. Even more miraculously, her toes had learned flexibility and something about blood circulation, and her daily potato had turned into an especially-cold-night potato.
That was something, to wake up to sunshiny feet.
Rhonda stood from her rickety dining room chair, feeling especially limber as she admired the green-tinted gold swirls around her certificate. Then she called a few yoga studios to ask if they needed an instructor.