I started taking yoga classes again which immediately threw me out of my comfort zone of doing perfect little stretches.  I’m really good at my stretches, including salutation to the sun, triangle and some back twists. I do them every morning for twelve minutes, but in yoga class we’re doing balance poses. I am terrible at these. I totter and sway and lose my balance (another teacher once told me to always go back to the pose because that’s what your body will remember).  What I really want to do is to look graceful and in control at all times. Of course I’m in class for this very reason; to get uncomfortable so I can move forward in my practice, to let myself be awkward and wobbly and not show off.

This is like writing. I’m always awkward, always falling off the page, out of the story or the essay into chaos and mess.  But this is what the practice of something you love is all about. Letting yourself be a beginner, a novice, over and over.