The brochure promised I would "reconnect with myself," which struck me as odd, since I never once lost track of where I was. But my wife booked it, so here I am, sitting cross-legged on a rubber mat in a room full of strangers, all of us breathing on purpose.
The instructor keeps telling us to feel gravity holding us to the earth. She says it like it's a gift we've forgotten to notice. She's not wrong. I have felt the exact opposite of this, strapped into a seat while the planet let go of me, and I can tell you gravity is the most reliable friend any of us will ever have.
It never once left. These people paid four hundred dollars to be reminded of something that has held them their entire lives without asking.
We inhale together. Twelve people, one slow ragged breath. The air in this room came out of a planet whose entire atmosphere, top to bottom, is thinner than the shell of an egg. Everything any of us has ever breathed came from that one fragile skin. And here we are, spending a whole afternoon learning to do it slowly, like it might run out.
At the end she has us lie flat and close our eyes and imagine we're floating. I keep mine open. I've done the real version, and it is nothing like this. Floating is not peaceful. Floating is your body quietly informing you that nothing is holding it.
So I press my back into the mat. I feel the floor push up. I let the whole weight of me be caught by the ground, the way it has been every single day of my life, and I do not fake being anywhere else.