Dancing In The Wind
by Molly-Ann Leikin

I'm on assignment in Santa Barbara. It is beautiful here. Gorgeous, in fact. There must be some kind of municipal ordinance against ugly 'cause I haven't seen any.

To relax from the stress of moving and living in a rented house with other people's furniture, I go to yoga classes every morning at seven.

Sometimes it's at the Y, or the Casa de Maria - a hilltop retreat in Montecito. There we spend the first half hour in the yoga room, doing gentle stretches, and the second half outside, under the pine trees. Doing the sun salutations while the sun is actually coming up is a humbling experience, and one I've tried to keep with me all day while I do battle with Bobo at GTE and Ernestine the escrow lady.

On Friday, my yoga teacher moved the venue for our class to Las Positas Beach. I've seen a lot of sand and water meeting on pretty shores all over the world, but this beach is the best of them all. The sand is immaculate, the sky is bright blue and it is so quiet, I could actually hear myself dream.

The following might sound like a failed touchy-feely show on the Hormone Replacement Network, but bear with me, okay? For the first 15 minutes, we shook our bodies - really shook 'em out, dude, all over, to release tension - and my three day headache, which had lasted six weeks, was gone. For the next 15 minutes, we danced. Since I didn't have a partner, I asked the wind to join me. Seeing my soft shadow gliding across the sand, I actually started to cry, realizing how privileged I was to be there, and not stuffed into size-too-small pantyhose somewhere in Academia, scratching for tenure and a bad HMO.

As our yoga class continued, we meditated under the palm trees for 15 minutes and lay on our backs, breathing deeply until the time was up.

I didn't want to leave. It was a perfect hour. No intrusions from old business, new business or show business. I was just a lucky woman with a happy shadow, line dancing barefoot on the beach, giving myself a morning in the sun, leaving with my pockets, my arms, my heart and my car overflowing with hope.

Twenty minutes later, at my office, I was hit with an avalanche of ideas for songs. That adventure is still going on three days later.

Try it. You'll like it.

© 1998 Molly-Ann Leikin

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