Page 116 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re not going for that long anyway, and you deserve a holiday!’
Dorothy almost squeaked the last part out and Patricia could imagine her exasperation. Dorothy had given her a similar lecture when she was still tossing up whether or not to go at all.
‘We’re both too responsible for our own good,’ she’d told Patricia. ‘So please go and be irresponsible for both of us.’
‘Sandrine was in a mood, wasn’t she?’ Grace Maud says, snapping Patricia back to the room.
The other students are packing up their belongings and gliding out quietly, as so often happens because they’ve all just emerged from lying on the floor in relaxation and no one wants to break the spell.
‘It was tough,’ Patricia says, bending down to pick up Grace Maud’s mat.
‘She’ll miss you,’ Grace Maud says. ‘As will I.’
‘I’ll miss you too.’
‘I doubt it. You’ll be too busy. Then you’ll be back. You won’t have time to miss us. And that’s just fine.’
Grace Maud puts her handbag over her shoulder and they walk together to Patricia’s car.
‘Who’s going to carry my mat for me?’ Grace Maud says.
‘I thought you said Cecilia would be coming along?’
‘She’s coming to the Thursday night class because Luca can come with her then. She may or may not decide to come on Saturdays as well. I’m going to try doing both for a while.’
Patricia feels slightly hurt. Not that she has ownership over Grace Maud, but she does feel like the classes are their time. Grace Maud didn’t tell her that she’s gone back to Thursday nights. It means their experiences have diverged, and …
And she’s being ridiculous. She’s about to travel to another hemisphere to practise yoga with some expert she knows nothing about but whom Sandrine swears is ‘amazing,chérie, really’. When she returns she may not think Sandrine’s class is right for her any more.
Now that is a thought to almost make her stop in her tracks. She considers Sandrine to be not just her yoga teacher but her guide. This class has led Patricia to paths in her life that she would never have found otherwise. Yet what had Sandrine said to her in the café that day?
‘The guru says to the student, “You have three jobs: the first is to find me, the second is to love me, the third is to leave me.”’
Patricia hadn’t understood it at the time because it’s so different to her own experience of being a teacher. Yet she appreciates it now. She found Sandrine and her class right when she needed them both. She loved Sandrine even when she’d wanted to scream to the heavens because what Sandrine was putting her through hurt so much. Now, in making the decision to leave, she is declaring that she’s ready to stand alone. This doesn’t mean that she won’t return to Sandrine – but it may mean she doesn’t return as the Patricia she was before. Because she knows now that it’s not necessarily Sandrine she is leaving. It’s the version of herself that she no longer has any use for.
Another time, after one of the students complained that Sandrine wasn’t ‘nice’ to them and wasn’t yoga meant to make people nicer, Sandrine had said: ‘Yoga does not make you nice. It reveals more of who you are. It helps you shed the layers, my darling. Why should that mean you become nice? Nice only serves other people, not yourself.’
It was the line about yoga revealing more of who we are that stuck with Patricia. She opened herself up to the practice and, week after week, she sloughed off her skin. Soon she will leave it behind. The person who emerges will still be her, but newer, shinier – and more vulnerable. But she is ready for it.
She can almost hear the crinkling of that old skin as she and Grace Maud get into the car.
‘You’re quiet,’ says Grace Maud. ‘I hope it’s not because you’re moping about that being the last class.’
‘No,’ Patricia says with a laugh. ‘It’s because I’m thinking about what that class has meant to me. I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m about to do without it.’
‘I don’t know that that’s right,’ says Grace Maud as Patricia drives the familiar route to her house. ‘I think you’re very able to do many things. But if this class has helped you find that out, it’s served a good purpose.’
They drive in silence for a few seconds.
‘What has it helped you find out?’ Patricia asks boldly.
‘That you can teach an old dog new tricks,’ Grace Maud says wryly. ‘And … well, I found you and Dorothy. I didn’t expect at my age to meet anyone who could intrigue me. It’s so much easier to not even attempt to find out.’
‘I don’t think that has anything to do with age. People are difficult to get to know no matter how old you are.’
‘You’re not difficult,’ Grace Maud says with something that sounds like pride in her voice. ‘You’re very easy to love, Patricia. And I count myself fortunate to have the chance to love you.’
