Going to a yoga class has become a beacon to a fulfilled life, having a home yoga practice an enlightened life, and a yogi way of life a pathway to the sacred. But yoga classes are more often miserable in multi-dimensional ways.

Other reasons yoga class may be miserable:

• it was the kind started by that serial rapist
• it was led by a Gwyneth Paltrow wannabe who sneezed namaste at you and you gave her a tissue to cover her energy away from you
• it was too hot, too cold, too light, too dark
• the person next to you smelled terrible, the person in front of you farted in your face, the person behind you was staring at your ass
• the pseudo-spirituality ruptured your inner peace
• the poses were impossible, the poses were too easy
• too much breathing, too little breath

Tonight my yoga class was miserable because of the dumbass anglo-file poor translations/inventions of sanskrit words. And nothing deep like that the idea of a soul holds a universe of difference between a Hindu culture and where I was practicing. It wasn’t a chant I could only hum to. It was that dang staple of positions, the one every yoga class includes – downward facing DOG.

At the first round of forward bends, hands planted down, hips lifting I saw my doggie coming and sitting on my mat. My doggie is Remy and he pretty much hates yoga. My only interpretation of his animus is that if I am going to be down on the floor with him it can only be to play or pet. But his life is approaching it’s end. He has a neuromuscular degeneration that has been chipping away at his quality of dog-ness.

I pity this new teacher, with a student she had just met, tears rolling down her face – plot another drop on the mat, gasping at each inhale and choking on the exhale. “Now just feel yourself in your dog” Oh lady just twist the knife why don’t you.

So Yoga was full of crying, and not the emotional release that the twists are suppose to untether, just crying…as my thoughts were only hearing myself read this book over and over to my niece where she happily yelled out, “Sammy you are the best hound dog in the whole wild world!” as her little brain processed the story about a family losing their dog. And I am going to be so sad without my dedicated friend, mental health crutch, face licker, built-in heater, the only reason I would go out into the world many days.

And if you think feeling this much for a dog is incomprehensible, then you should probably get your sorry ass to a yoga class.