Before we had kids, the extra bedroom in our house was a yoga room. In one corner, a little purple table held a candle and Tibetan singing bowl with yoga blocks and straps under it. Another corner held rolled up yoga mats. A bookshelf by the door held three shelves filled with yoga research books. For Lent one year, my husband and I opened the room to our church as we held a meditation group. Once a week, five of us sat in a circle on the floor for twenty minutes. The room was silent, spacious, centering. 

Now the room feels cramped. The yoga bookshelf now holds toys, and the room is lined with a dresser, two more bookshelves, and large oak bunk beds. Our yoga mats live rolled up in a corner of the living room, buried by stuffed animals. 

When I do roll out the mat, my kids crawl all over me. A mom moving through cat/cow is clearly a horsey ride. Some Instagram Moms post photos of themselves using their children as yoga props: one mom lay on her back with her legs in the air, her child balancing on her feet and flying like an airplane. That’s just not my kind of yoga. 

So for a while, my yoga practice lay in the corner with my mat, buried with the Tao of Pooh Bear and collecting dust. 

…

At the same time that I was raising my babies, I began teaching a course called Writing the Spiritual, where I often assign Thich Nhat Han’s The Miracle of Mindfulness. In his opening chapter, Nhat Han describes mindfulness in action. His main example has to do with washing the dishes: “There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes.”

I am usually guilty of the first way of washing the dishes, parenting my kids, cleaning the house, grading student essays. But when I practice yoga, I am able to just practice yoga. That’s why I had to quit practicing around my kids: I was frustrated by not being able to concentrate on my practice. But what if my practice of being a parent was part of it? What if I simply had to be a parent? To not wish to be anywhere else than right here, in this space? Isn’t that yoga? What would that look like? 

One night, I came downstairs from putting the kids to bed and found an extremely messy living room. We had not picked up after we played; I had just thrown them into bed, and all I really wanted to do was collapse on the couch--which was full of plastic toys. 

In my head, I heard Thich Nhat Han: “There are two ways to pick up the living room. The first is to pick up the toys to have a clean room later. (You might be bitter and resentful while doing this.) The second is to pick up the toys in order to pick up the toys. How can you be fully alive while doing this?”

I paused and looked at the scattered toys. I picked up a piece of wooden fruit, held it. “Thank you,” I said to it, “for being eaten at a picnic today.” Then I dropped it in a bucket and headed for the next piece of wooden food. And then the plastic jumping frog. The princess.  

Blessing for Tiny Plastic Toys

Thank you for bringing my child joy
today. Thank you for the split second
that she touched you as she threw you
out of the basket. Thank you for sitting
quietly while she found something else. 

Thank you for being the MVP toy
today. For being willing to be squished,
thrown, dressed and redressed. For 
being patient until I reattached your
head. Thank you for smiling. 

Thank you for being read today. Thank 
you for the way you point my child
to God. Thank you for the way you 
made us laugh. Thank you for the way
she snuggled up against my side while
we read you. 

Thank you for being mixed-and-matched
today. Thank you for being the tallest 
tower, the scariest monster, the cat’s 
crown. Thank you for hiding under
the couch all these days. I hope it wasn’t 
too scary. 

Thank you for being made in China: bless
the hands that made you. Thank you for
making it all the way here: bless the hands
that carried you. Thank you for being
here in this box with us. 

Good night, little toys. Sleep well. 

It worked. By the time the living room was clean, my mood had lifted. It was a practice of gratitude and mindfulness. It was yoga. The room was both theirs and mine, and it was all sacred space.