yoga no go

Last night I had a yoga class at 6:15 in the middle of the city, at 16th & Walnut. The train schedule is, well, not as convenient as I'd like, and the bus takes forever (!), so I decided to hop in my car and leave 45 minutes early, even though it only takes me 15 minutes. I made great time; I whizzed straight down Lincoln Drive and opted to take Kelly Drive over the always-congested-even-at-3AM Schuylkill Expressway. I was feelin' good and was downtown in no time, but then everything came to an abrupt halt right around where the picturesque meandering Drives (Lincoln, Kelly, the Parkway) meet the grid, right around 19th & the Parkway.

Despite the mind-numbing stop & go pattern in the grid, I still had ample time to find a parking spot and get to class on-time... or so I thought. YUP! I had driven around for almost a half hour looking for a spot when I finally found one. By the time I parked, grabbed my stuff and locked my car, it was 6:15, and I had to run if I wanted to get into the class. But first I had to feed the meter, so I grabbed some quarters and as I went to put them in, I saw a flashing "NO PARKING" sign on the electronic display of the meter.

Sh*t.

In that moment, pure frustration and anger boiled up from the depths of my being. The realization that I couldn't park there gave birth to two other equally frustrating realizations:

1. I'm gonna miss the class. By the time I get back in the car and find another spot, it will be too late to get into the class.

2. I can't just chalk it up to a "whoopsy daisy" moment and go home; I have to wait. My friend Signe is in that class and I'm her ride home. Sh*t.

So in the middle of an oppressively hot city, I sat on the hood of my even hotter car in my illegal space and weighed out my options. I knew I had to stay in the city until 7:30 because I was committed to Signe and I didn't want to leave her high & dry, so I thought, "ok self, I can either be here and be negative or I can be here and see the humor in the situation and just enjoy this unexpected snafu in my schedule". I chose the latter.

I got in my car and decided to find a real spot with a working meter and walk around until 7:30, but finding parking in the city is like finding glaciers in the Caribbean; it just isn't happening. Every spot I found turned out to be "out of order", seriously, I found three spots in a row, totally legal, where the meters were broken. Way to go PPA! Once I got over the frustration of missing the class, it was hysterical -- I felt like I was being punked. Finally, around 6:50 I found a REAL spot at 18th & Locust. I did a little window shopping, did a little people watching, and before I knew it, it was 7:40 and I went up to the yoga studio to find my friend.

All in all it was a night I won't soon forget. Despite the frustrations and missing the class (that I pre-paid for, by the way), it was a good opportunity for me to get out of my head (thinking about school, work, etc.) and just to be in the moment. After all, that's what yoga is all about ;)