Totem

All through the time that Margo and I have gone to the Boston Bikram studios, there’s been a tradition of snapping a Polaroid of each person who signs up for the 30 Day Challenge and attaching it to their check off sheet.

That is, until this 30 Day Challenge.

That’s right—Margo’s been going to the studios for four years, I’ve been going for 18 months, and the first time one of us signs up for the 30 Day Challenge, poof—gone go the Polaroids. Damn, double-damn, and a side order of hell.

In fairness, Polaroid instant film (specifically the Polaroid 600, the format the studio had been using, and which Polaroid stopped making film for) has gotten prohibitively expensive. One of the studios co-owners, Brad, told me that they thought the money would be better off going to some worthy cause—the food drive I mentioned yesterday. And since a pack of ten exposures goes for between $36 and $100, it’s hard to argue with that.

So I decided to make my own Polaroid totem. Finding a template was exceedingly easy, but I went with the one self-described geek Jon Dyers linked to at his blog. I actually just dropped the photo of our cat Mama over the template and cropped and resized it till it fit. Then I scanned the words of wisdom Mama imparts, which riff off a favored phrase of Rich, one of the studio’s many excellent teachers, who frequently intones, “Connect to the breathing.” This advice has its applications outside the hot room, especially on Memorial Drive at rush hour.

Mama was not my first choice for the totem, but once we had to put her to sleep she was really the only option. (At no point was I actually going to put my own goofy face up.) One more reason to go to the studio every day: giving her picture a little head-to-fist bump after I check off the day’s class.

This was originally going to be my totem. No, seriously.

Next: Pranayama Deep Breathing (with special bonus song)