Lovely little things

Sometimes you just have to take a moment to savor the lovely little things in life. My friend Laura has dedicated an entire blog to this exercise. She's a great writer so you might enjoy reading her blog too! Today I'm honoring some lovely little things in my life.

The first is my Saturday yoga class. It's a women's only class which is simply awesome. Lots of public places here are only for men. For example, there are tons of street-side coffee shops here where you can drink strong Arabic coffee, smoke argelah (flavored tobacco in a water pipe), play backgammon and hang out for hours. But only if you're male. There really aren't a lot of public women's only spaces. So to have a yoga class for women only is pretty amazing. Especially because several of the Muslim women in my class cover their heads outside their homes, but since class is women's only, they uncover for class. (I haven't tried it, but I can only imagine how tricky yoga would be with a headscarf....) Their uncovering creates a very real sense of intimacy in the class. Plus these women have created a really supportive and creative community. In Sanskrit the yoga community is called the sangha and ours is fun! Sometimes to warm up we put on music and dance around before starting our practice. :-)

Since my yoga studio is near Al-Manara, the central square in town, during yoga we heard the sounds of some sort of rally being conducted at Al-Manara and moving past us on the street and down the hill. We couldn't see them but we stopped to listen for a moment and I noticed that the Palestinians grinned with pride while they explained to me that the people were chanting, "freedom". 

While walking home from yoga class, I enjoyed the bright, low afternoon sunlight of December. I have been told that soon and very soon the weather here will turn nasty; 30 degrees F with lots of cold rain. Yuck. So I'm very grateful to savor long, bright sunshine and 63 degrees F.

On the way home from my yoga studio I stopped to get some fresh pita bread, called khobs. When I say fresh, I mean the bread man took it out of the oven probably five minutes ago and it steamed up the bag he put it in. It's also always fun to buy bread this way because the man always gently teases Megan and I for buying only a few pitas at a time. While most people here walk out with probably 30 pitas, we usually get 4 or 5. Today I bought 2. It cost me half a shekel, approximately a seventh of a dollar. I took those pita home and slathered on some lebnah, a tasty cream cheese-like substance made from plain yogurt and sprinkled it with zatar (thyme). This traditional Arab snack is simply amazing.

Here's to a lovely afternoon and the little things that make life beautiful.