Page 56 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
‘Prema?’
‘It means “love” in Sanskrit. I do not think,’ Sandrine says with a wink, ‘it was her original name. She was not Indian. But she had been to India, to study. That was a few years ago. Can you imagine? No women did this. Not even now. She was remarkable. So she inspired me to keep going to class. Then she told me to become a teacher. She trained me. That is how it goes: the teacher picks the next.’
‘There was no school you could go to?’ Patricia asks.
Sandrine laughs. ‘That would be easy, no? But there was not. In India, one teacher chooses one student to carry on their work. So that is what she did.’
‘And where is she now?’ asks Grace Maud.
‘Still in Brisbane.’ Sandrine smiles. ‘But she told me, “The student has three jobs: the first is to find the teacher, the second is to love them, the third is to leave them.”’ She pauses and looks down. ‘She knew before I did that I needed to leave.’
‘Leave Brisbane?’ Dorothy asks.
‘Leave everything. My husband, my life.’ Sandrine throws her hands in the air. ‘Even my children. They are adults – I have to say this.’ She laughs. ‘And I did not abandon them. My daughter has even moved up here. Although she does not come to class – she thinks yoga isboring.’
‘That’s a significant amount of change in one life,’ says Grace Maud.
‘It was. But it was necessary. And it happened in the right way. I kept going to yoga because I was in pain – physically. Or I thought it was just physical. I was a dancer for many years. I hurt my knee and I could not continue. I tried so many treatments, but only yoga healed that pain. Do you know why?’
She looks around the table and Patricia and Dorothy shake their heads.
‘Because it comes from love, not punishment. Everything else was a punishment for having been injured in the first place. Yoga taught me to love myself. To love what my body can achieve. Also to know that there is no such thing as perfection. We are all perfect. And we are all imperfect. You see?’
Grace Maud doesn’t see how an ageing body can be perfect when it restricts a person so much; when all it does is remind them that they’re not young and agile any more. But she presumes Sandrine won’t figure that out until she too is in her seventies, by which time Grace Maud will likely be in the ground. Or in ashes. She hasn’t decided her preference.
‘So – if you don’t mind me asking – why did you leave your husband?’ Patricia says.
‘Ah, well – I was in pain there too,’ Sandrine says, although she looks quite cheerful about it. ‘My spirit was broken, just like my body. Once I healed the body, my spirit started to heal. And I knew I could not bear to stop it – which is what he demanded.’ Her face clouds temporarily. ‘Sometimes we are so scared of being alone we will put up with terrible things to avoid it. But it is not scary.’ She looks directly at Patricia, who glances away.
‘You’ve been alone since?’ Dorothy enquires.
‘Well, that is the funny thing – I moved here and met a dashing young man.’
‘Young?’ Patricia is quick on the draw.
‘Younger than me.’ Sandrine shimmies her shoulders. ‘And quite delicious.’
‘Oh!’ says Dorothy, looking almost shocked.
‘There is life out there to be grasped,’ Sandrine continues, looking at each of them and stopping at Patricia. ‘Our story is never over until we are. And yoga helps us write that story.’
Patricia colours, then picks up her coffee and holds the cup at her lips.
Grace Maud isn’t sure that she personally needs a lecture about these things, nor is she a fan of this hippy type of mumbo-jumbo – but perhaps it helps the younger two. Therefore, she will keep her mouth shut, and keep going to yoga for the way it makes her feel in her body. Her spirit she can take care of herself.
CHAPTER THIRTY
‘How’s your yoga going?’ Patricia asks Marjorie as they take up their station for lunchtime playground duty, knowing full well that Marjorie wasn’t at the Saturday class Patricia attended. She’s still feeling slightly guilty that Marjorie introduced her to yoga in the first place and then Patricia switched classes.
Marjorie shrugs and gazes at the students in their clumps of twos and threes and fours. ‘I haven’t been going.’
‘Why not? I thought it was doing you good.’
‘I find it hard to get motivated sometimes.’ Marjorie lets out ahuhhsound. ‘I know it’s good for me, but I need someone to keep the pressure on me to go.’
She glances at Patricia then looks away, and Patricia realises that Marjorie’s motivation for inviting her to class might not have been friendship. How self-centred of her to think that it was about her; how selfish of her to not consider that her colleague might need help.
‘I’ve always been like it,’ Marjorie says in a rush. ‘I was a really good runner at school. Then I stopped school and didn’t run any more. My dad said it was because I was lazy, but I think it was because I didn’t have a coach any more!’ She laughs, high and forced. ‘I really need a coach!’
