Anything

Normally you like the rain, need it even, the way it fills the air with noise and silence at the same time, the way it makes you slow down and listen for the space between the drops.  But today you’re cold and tired, and the idea of soggy feet makes you want to go back to bed.  No running today, then.  But you know that staying still can make you static in all the wrong ways.  You need to move.

So you unfurl your yoga mat on your bedroom floor.  Leave the lights off, turn your music on.  Let the rain wash down on the trees outside.  Let the shadows dance across your walls.  And you move.

Mountain pose, and chair, and eagle.  Up down, down dog, warrior, crow.  All the names in your head and the feeling of a big sky, even as you stretch your palms to the earth.  You can be all the things.  You can be whatever you choose.

At night you tell this to your daughter as she glues autumn leaves onto a cardboard display.  You can be anything.  She smiles at you, rolls a ball of glue between her fingers.  Help me with this, she says.

Okay.

Later she tries on her Little Mermaid Halloween costume.  You can be anything.  This year she wavered between a white goat, a bear, and a mermaid princess.  She chose the green dress, in the end, and now in the living room she spins in circles, flashing smiles and fish scales and tulle.

You smile to yourself.  Sometimes you need a reminder – it’s not just for Halloween.  You can be anything.  Every day you get to choose.