I was grateful to hear my yoga studio was going to be open on December 25th. After tea and peanut butter toast, I drove through the ghost town that is many cities on Christmas morning. Hay Street in Perth is typically bustling with cafés and businesswomen in pencil skirts. But yesterday I drove down an empty street and parked easily out in front of the studio.
The class was packed. I asked a woman in neon orange leggings to scoot her mat forward.
The owner of the studio, a graceful, muscular woman with bright blue toenails, was teaching. After telling us to “get in whatever position feels most comfortable,” she started the class with a story about her father-in-law who had criticized her choice to keep the studio open on Christmas Day. “Sometimes people won’t understand why you do what you do,” she stated matter-of-factly without a trace of self-pity. “Move into downward dog.”
She worked us hard, and as we rolled up our mats, she put on the song “Last Christmas” by Wham!.
I sang it all the way home and was still singing when I walked in the front door.
“How was yoga?” my daughter asked. She was wearing a blue and white striped nightgown and playing with something called Thinking Putty, which is more expensive than Silly Putty because it’s smarter.
I serenaded her as I kicked off my flip-flops, “This year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to someone special.”
“Will you make me a smoothie?”
George Michael died hours later. I learned the news this morning from my friend Alex who texted me the “Careless Whisper” video with the comment, “End of an era.”
Alex and I went to high school together, when “Careless Whisper” was the last slow dance before the gym lights went on.
I spent this morning listening to Faith, alternating between crying and singing. My daughters took turns checking on me. “Mom, your face is red.” “Are all of his songs about love?”
Not all of George Michael’s songs are about love, but many of them are about sex, and when I was in high school, his music was just sexy enough for me. “I Want Your Sex” felt daring but polite. “Don’t you think it’s time you had sex with me?”
In college, I saw him perform at the Worcester Centrum near Boston. I went with a girl whose father was a gynecologist who sent her care packages in old Vagisil boxes. We sat in the balcony and screamed every time George Michael shook his butt.
This morning I finished crying and changed into my bathing suit for a family beach outing. Today is Boxing Day, and it is sunny and breezy. My daughter and I swam out past the break where we could bob up and down like marshmallows in hot chocolate. On the drive home, my husband plugged in his phone and played Faith. “I thought you’d want to hear it,” he said quietly. This touched me because Dave was more into Metallica in high school. Windows open, we blared “Father Figure,” about which my daughter declared, “This song is a little creepy.”
I guess it is creepy, but I love it. And sometimes people won’t understand why you do what you do.