I am participating in a yoga class when someone asks me what I am reading.  I show her one book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.  She says it sounds like a strange title and why would anyone want to read about motorcycle maintenance.  I try to explain to her that the book is about being in the present moment, about learning how to say two things to your children:  I love you and I'm sorry.  To say both without ever adding a "but" after the phrase.  I love you, period and I'm sorry, period.  Then we notice in another part of the classroom people are talking more loudly and I turn to listen to them as the young woman reads the blurb on the book cover.  The other conversation is gossipy and cruel, about someone else who is participating in the yoga retreat.  I try to return to the other conversation, the one I was having about the book, but the other young people in the room are already more interested in the louder conversation.  I take back my book and consider showing the young woman what else I'm reading but she's already talking to someone else so I just try to ignore everything and return to the present moment, to become the still point of the universe.

In the room is a scraggly pine tree--very young and not very large.  On it are hung different ornaments.  I am curious about this because it is summer and why is there a decorated tree but I realize that many of the people in the room, especially the very pregnant woman sitting in meditation on a rattan seat, may not be here in December.  So the other participants have either made or added their own ornaments to the branches as part of a mid-year celebration, to blow off a little steam..  This is also why they are gossiping, I suppose.