My favorite word is the Sanskrit word prana. It knocked out the other words I had fallen in love with over the years. Words which I loved how they felt as they rolled across my tongue, pressed along my jaw, and fluttered on my lips, like acquiesce, poignant, and significant. Then I met the word prana and I had only eyes for the five-letter word. It was incendiary, sparking something inside me, reminding me of what I had always known, but forgotten along the way. Force. Life. Life Force.

Almost all the important choices I’ve made in my life have appeared to unfold by happenstance. Yet, I suspect something greater at play, spiraling throughout the universe, everything occurring as it should. Yoga has been no different. In 1997, all I knew about yoga was how mystical and mysterious it appeared, shrouded in a lure only the skinny and the rich could access. Later, when I would begin to study yoga, I’d learn that for thousands of years Yogis in India have probed the mysteries of the mind and consciousness. According to Mami, it was for Hindus and not for God-fearing people like us, Roman Catholics. We believed in martyrs with gouged-out eyes, stakes through hearts, breasts cut off, and heads chopped off. All acts suffered happily in the name of Jesu Cristo. Bestowed on them in the afterlife, like a The Price is Right consolation prize, hearts which beat to a bright glow on the outside of their chests, halos over their heads, some even with a wick of flame instead. They were holy. Los Hindúes prayed to: elefantes, una mujer con ocho brazos, which Mami declared no son cosas de Papa Dios. I wondered if a Hindu mom ever looked at our statues of sad saints, crosses, and ashes on foreheads and pointed out the weight of guilt saturating them all.

The first time it was suggested I consider yoga was by an overworked woman at the bursar office at Hunter College. Exhaustion had affixed in pissed-off expression across her face, looking up at me and the never-ending line of too many college kids, signing up for too few classes. Disappoint by being locked out of my major courses and the electives I was looking forward to, the cost of being an underclassman, I signed and asked for help. When she mentioned yoga for credit and how it fulfilled an elective, I agreed, but not without a lot of reluctance. She looked at me before turning towards her screen. What do you have to lose?

A lot, I wanted to tell her. I suck at sports. I can’t even get coordinated enough to drive a bumper car, I can only dance freestyle. I still don’t know my left from right. None of this I spoke aloud, my list echoed only in my brain, as dread poured into my stomach. Wasn’t college to learn? Why would they offer yoga as a class for credit and a letter grade?

On the first day of class, my teacher, a former dancer with wiry hair and dressed in a black leotard walked in front of an auditorium with bare feet, her toes fanned out with every step, instructed us to keep a journal of our experience. We according to her, we’re embarking on a journey. The journals would serve as our maps, to be collected and graded, along with two research papers, everyone was expected to enjoy the process. I rolled my eyes, but sat and listened. When she pointed to a closet where mats were kept, I grabbed one. Then made my way to the front, hoping despite the leotard and stack of mats, most of the class would be a lecture. I pulled a pen out of my backpack and a notebook ready to take notes, while those around me stretched against a bar, dressed in leg warmers and sweatshirts with collars cut off, and walked in their body with ease I envied. I looked down at my baggy sweats and oversized Charlie Brown shirt. My stomach knotted into a fist as I realized clumsy and unathletic me was surrounded by dancers. I swallowed, contemplated marching to the bursar’s office and dropping the class, but not before cursing out the worker who advised me to enroll in Yoga 1.

Right away I was told to sit in an easy seat. I placed my pen and notebook by the side and watched everyone sit in the center of their mat with their legs criss-cross applesauce, their palms on their thighs, head forward, eyes straight ahead— focused gaze, their faces lit with smiles. We practiced breathing for what seemed like a long time and while I kept my eyes open I felt my shoulders soften. By the end of the class, I had found myself on all fours with my ass towards the ceiling, my legs spread in a stance on the mat, arms stretched to a T, and other twisty and bendy poses. Keeping track of my left and right side sent my heart fluttering, as I scanned the bodies next to and behind me, to make sure I was on the right side. I noticed everyone preoccupied with their own poses. At the end of the class, we laid on our backs in what was called a corpse pose. I closed one eye, not sure what it was that I liked about the feeling washing over me, but I wanted to find out.

Class after class, I actually found myself smiling at my body’s response, as it bent, twisted, and leaned into poses. Maybe, just maybe I was not a clumsy, unathletic, gordita. Perhaps, I had what I thought long evaded me, grace. What else could explain me getting into camel pose with the agility of a gymnast? At the end of the semester, I handed in my journal, two research papers, and had perfect attendance. I signed up for Yoga 2 for the next semester, pleased with my A, and comforted by the movements of the poses we practiced. After my two college courses in yoga, it would be a few years before I took another class.

Yoga studios began to sprout in Brooklyn in the early 2000s, and while many eyed the studios with suspicion, I did not. This must be like what people felt when a soccer game at a picnic or an impromptu volleyball match at the beach assembled. Excited, I wanted to show off my skills. I walked into the nearest yoga studio and asked for a schedule. I thought about the ballet lessons I wanted or the karate classes I fantasized about too as a kid. Both an unaffordable dream for me to have, as Mami never failed to remind me we barely had the money for rent let alone dance lessons and karate was for boys. Swimming lessons were vetoed too, but Mami’s reasoning was altogether different, she worried about me drowning and being molested by the instructor during this hypothetical rescue. Petrified of this deadly and potentially traumatizing scenario I did not persist. While many took up sports in middle school and high school, I comforted myself with writing poetry on the cover of my binders, carrying a duffel bag of books to and from the library every two weeks, and refusing to participate in gym class. Arms akimbo, I sat on the sidelines, and when a gym teacher insisted on my participation, I made no effort and eventually was told to sit back down.

With cash in hand, I waltzed into one of the many yoga studios in New Brooklyn, my back straight, I dared anyone to ask me if I was new to yoga. I had already taken yoga, and unlike dreaded gym classes, I didn’t feel awkward and unsure of what to do. Instead, I felt like Denise Huxtable, my favorite television character growing up, the second oldest daughter in The Cosby Show. At the time, Bill Cosby was everyone’s favorite sitcom dad, decades later he would be revealed as a serial rapist, but at the time he was Denise’s funny dad. Her mass of wild curls bounced and glimmered, unlike my frizzy and dull mane. Then there were her funky outfits of bright colors which decorated her slim body, while my baggy and dark clothes hid my curves and fat. She screamed artsy. I screamed depressed. Yoga made me walk like I too was dressed in flowy skirts, bangles covering my wrists, and scarves tied around my hair. I wondered if this is what it felt like to belong in your body. Was this what I really liked about Denise Huxtable after all, her presence, everything else was extra?

Once on the yoga mat, I continued to stumble over my left and my right side, moved out of the poses out of sync with the rest of the class, and often found myself daydreaming through the sequences. Yet, my flexibility was that of a Cirque Du Soleil performer, I often impressed myself, and my chest filled with pride I’d look over at people as they struggled to fold over their legs, reach the ground with their hands, and arch their backs in bends. In the mid pose, I fought the urge to turn to the person on the mat next to me or across from me and reminisce over my past. I used to fall all the time when I was really little, I would start my monologues in my head. My mom would scream at me in front of everyone and make fun of me. Later when it was discovered I had flat feet and wore corrective shoes most of the elementary school, I was certain my feet only knew one sound: – CLUNK CLUNK. On the mat, my feet felt small and quiet as my toes spread to find the corners of my sole to balance in tree pose with my other foot pressed on the inside of my calf. I once fell off the parallel bars in front of my freshman gym class, flashing everyone my underwear as I shook with fear to hoist myself over a bar. On my stomach, I reached for the sides of my feet and pulled my legs up, my head and chest in one swift move. My body shaped into a basket. I rolled on my pelvis and turned to my sides; I wished my high school self could see me now. Later, much later, after many classes, my two hundred hours, ninety-five hours of Kids Yoga, and fifty hours of Yin. I realized bodies store memory, keeping a score the mind refused totally. It was my younger self who rolled out her mat with a quick snap ready to start class, no different than the excited second-grader at recess.

I kept up with yoga on and off, even practicing prenatal with my first pregnancy. I’d move through the poses delighted at the idea of my daughter experiencing yoga in utero. I prayed silently she would not have to wear corrective shoes, instead, her feet would come into a pointe, not unlike Barbies. Preoccupied with motherhood and teaching, less and less time was made for yoga. By the time I was pregnant a second time, there was no prenatal yoga class, I was busy taking my daughter to her tiny tot yoga classes at the YMCA. It would be years before I practiced yoga again.

Almost twenty years after I took my first yoga class in Hunter College, I walked into Dorian’s yoga class at the gym after spin class on a Tuesday evening. He was the first person of color I had encountered in yoga and felt excited about experiencing yoga with him. I grabbed a mat from the stack and sat in an easy seat. I watched him at the front of the room. He looked so at ease. I thought of Denise Huxtable. I wanted what he had if he owned calm. Despite being in an easy seat, my mind barreled through an endless stream of traffic, my body felt like it had been electrocuted, I blamed the three cups of coffee or the loud music from spin, but I suspected it was something greater as if my body was trying to scream something at me. Dorian turned towards the class and told us this was vinyasa flow and it would go faster than Hatha. I knew hatha was yoga, but didn’t know what vinyasa was, but would soon find out it was a more rigorous and faster pace yoga. I didn’t have much time to think about it because Dorian was speaking again.

“Yoga is the journey in but through the body. We go through a series of asanas to control the fluctuations of the mind.” He turned on the music, a compilation of 90’s alternative music, and proceeded to have us go through an exhausting seventy-five minutes of one yoga sequence after another. He would walk offering hands-on assists. Huffing and puffing through sun salutations A and B, various warriors, endless spinal twists, and finally relaxation. Sweaty and already starting to feel sore, I sunk into my mat for savasana. On my back, staring at the pockmarked gym ceiling, Dorian read from a book, which I would later understand to be the Sutras. Tears slid down the side of my face, glad for the dimmed light. Something felt like it was cracking inside of me. A sensation I would describe in my journal as a familiar stranger. It would be like that for years, I’d cry at every relaxation. As I grew to understand that familiar stranger was a journey back home to me.

Later, much later, I understand that the word yoga means union, it’s the act of yoking, the body, mind, and spirit as one. That namaste means the light in me sees the light in you. It would lead me to compassion for myself and others, and to see the magic of the universe. After two hundred hours of yoga teacher training, ninety-five hours of kids yoga, and fifty hours of yin training, I realize how much I am eager to learn. My journey with yoga started out as a convenience, then it became something I could brag about, like picking up eating with chopsticks after one try, reading a novel in one sitting, but later it would be something else – a map to find myself. The Connie who was before the world rushed to tell me.