Territorialism in Morro Bay

March 30, 2023

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “Life On The Mississippi, 1969,” is currently on Amazon.

By DELL FRANKLIN

Samantha, my very popular and in-demand and beloved yoga guru, so far seems thrilled I have signed up for another month and attend regularly three mornings a week. She occasionally smiles at me as if I am now a charter member of the local yoga coterie. I feel also that I am easing into this small part of a blooming yoga culture in Morro Bay, where several studios are thriving.

I have also noticed that several of the ladies come early to stake out the same areas every session, and that the middle-aged woman who had previously staked out my position beside a partition had to move over (because I came early on purpose to secure her spot so I could hoist my legs up on the partition) and up from me so she is scrunched against the wall.

When Samantha announced we needed three foam rubber blocks, and this relocated woman was smothered in blankets on her back with eyes closed and only had one block, I fetched her two blocks and placed them beside her and she opened her eyes and issued me a barely audible thank you before closing her eyes.

I understand, she is forgiving and transcendental about her yoga.

Across the room, to my right, against the narrower wall in the rectangular room, three women always set their mats beside each other, like a club, and I wonder how they would react if I arrived here before they did and placed my mat in the middle and made the usual mess of things with my blocks and blankets and belt and cushion, etc, sort of invading their space, as it goes.

Of course, I dare not carry out such a maneuver as these 40ish ladies are cheerful and excited about their yoga companionship, and one even smiled at me and said hello when I showed up in the little office-like room in my flip-flops.

Everybody has been exceptionally nice to me and I am not used to it, and am rather disoriented from such treatment.

Two of the men, one around 50, the other at least 65 and white-haired, both in baggy shin-high pants and baggy long sleeve T-shirts, lay their mats down along the opposite wall, across the room, closer to me, but seem not as engaged in the territorial imperative. The 50-year-old has a way about him indicating he might have been to an ashram in India, but what do I know?

The third regular male, a guy around 40 who is beyond supple (he does the splits during certain poses) is clearly so deeply into the spiritualism of yoga that he doesn’t care where he is, and last lesson, when the relocated woman showed up late, and he was in her new spot, and the room was packed with 23 people, he quickly picked up and set up beside Samantha in a sacrificial gesture I found classy and generous of soul.

Clearly, he has probably been to India and finds American petty alpha territorial tactics and aggressive behavior lame and gross and I cannot blame him, and feel like a lesser man in his presence.

My instincts tell me he sees “the big picture,” and eschews our viciously competitive money-grubbing capitalistic tendencies and is at peace with himself—if humanly possible.

Also, he is such a thoroughly obliging and considerate person he seems almost unmanly, though that may be because my judgment is clouded by associating yoga with femininity in the case of men—a way of thinking I should surely abandon and probably will after I am further indoctrinated into the culture.

Already I’m mellowing, and see this gentleman as a normal good guy though still somebody I could never get drunk with at Schooner’s Wharf and discuss baseball and Donald Trump and other scabrous subjects discussed by bar reprobates like myself.

Yes, as I look around, and Samantha occasionally glances at her tablet-size computer so as to consult poses, and welcomes and addresses us, I straighten up in my brutally uncomfortable (for me) lotus position on a cushion (for added comfort), and instead of listening to her talk about being in tune with our inner selves and our hearts as we feel our breathing, it occurs to me that far more than half the 23 people in here have staked out territory and would be miffed if anybody attempted to encroach upon it, no matter how mellowed out they are from years and years of yoga to balance their lives and find peace of mind by embracing fairness and selflessness.

I’m hoping they realize that with the exception of religion, love and money, territorialism is the reason people fight and have wars and kill each other. How does this equate with such a non-aggressive exercise and philosophy like yoga?