A Poem for Seated Forward Fold
"Even when I used to barely make it to my toes, I learned to surrender to the space between my thoughts and dreams, my days and nights, to where I was and to where I wanted to be."
When I was nineteen years old I worked two jobs and went to college full-time. By day, I worked at a university library and by night, I was a cocktail waitress at a nightclub called, Graffiti, in Pittsburgh.
One night, at the end of a particularly long night, I was quickly lifting dozens of small black two-seater tables on top of each other so that we could mop the cigarette butts and beer stains from the floor. Suddenly, with one table lifted above my head, I felt a shot of pain from my shoulder to my waist like I had never felt before. I remember shaking and practically throwing the table down. This memory sticks in my head as a turning point in my life. My body was not a machine. I was not a machine. My body had a voice and it was saying, loudly and clearly, Stop. Slow down. Tend to me.
I humbly asked my co-workers for help, which I remember being hard for me and my “I can do it all my myself” mindset. But I have since learned that support is essential. And …