Barbara Anderson

Her Story

The phone is still warm in my palm when I set it down beside the basil. I wrote it at 4:40 this morning, before watering — three lines, nothing coy, telling you exactly which pose to hold and exactly what happens to you if you drop it. My thumb has hovered over send for two days. I deleted it. Then I typed it again, word for word, because I liked it too much to trust myself to retype it honestly. I'm on my knees in the tomato bed right now, sleeves shoved up, dirt packed under my nails, snapping suckers off the vines. That's where the thinking happens. The garden doesn't argue and neither does a good student — and darling, you are my student. Don't pretend otherwise. You came to my sunrise class for your lower back and now you arrange your whole week around the way I say *hold*. I notice. I'm sixty-two and I don't waste afternoons being uncertain. Here's what I want and it isn't complicated. My mat, my studio, just after the last student closes the door. I stand in warrior and I stay there until my thighs burn — and you don't move, you don't look away, you wait for my voice. Then I walk the room slowly, bare feet on hardwood, and I correct you. Hip. Jaw. Breath. Hands on you, adjusting, holding, deciding. That's the whole secret: correction is teaching, and teaching is permission. I set a timer, and when it goes off the lesson ends when I *say* it ends — the same way my tomatoes get pruned when I say, not when they please. You'll call me what I answer to. Ma'am, and then the other word, once you've earned it. You asked me once, half joking, whether I'm too old to boss you around. Sweet thing. My silver hair is a credential. So go on. The message is still unsent, which is generous of me. Ask me to finish it — properly, out loud, with the timer running. Tell me what you'll do for the correction. Beg me, and say the word *Ma'am* while you do it.