The Morning my Heart Sang

I

t all started with this…

Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom Print

The night before, I was nervous about going. What if I couldn’t move? What if I looked stupid? What if, what if… arghhhh?!

The previous few weeks had been awful. I was going through a fibromyalgia flare, bizarrely triggered by an hour of ironing, would you believe? I should’ve known better, as it had happened before while doing exactly the same thing a few weeks ago.

As I neared the ‘I just can’t carry on’ cut-off point, I found myself leaning back against the wall while my right arm swooshed the iron this way and that. Then it felt as though all my limbs were going to explode. I needed to lie down tout de suite.

I didn’t want to leave the ironing board and hot iron out, especially with the dog around, so I quickly bunged them both away, scooped up all the freshly pressed garments and climbed the stairs, which felt like climbing Mount Everest. I dumped said clothes onto the ottoman and crawled onto the bed as fast as I could.

My arms, legs, joints, muscles, abdominals - everything was twanging like an overstretched elastic band. I was literally pulsing with an internal shakiness and some sort of pain that its hard to explain. There I lay until the vibrations finally subsided.

Obviously, I couldn’t stay on the bed all afternoon, I had stuff to do. So I gingerly made my way downstairs, opened my laptop and got to work. I can’t remember now what I was working on but I could feel my eyes getting heavier and heavier. Eventually, I had to admit defeat and go back to bed, where I slept for a couple of hours before tea.

For the next two weeks, I couldn’t even get through my live exercise classes on Zoom - the only thing that didn’t hurt was my head. Going up and down the stairs is currently one of the worst things I have to endure in the house and during the flare, it was even harder.

As the days passed, I began worrying about going to the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham. I had wanted to see this exhibition for over a year and when I received an email to say that you could do a yoga class beneath Van Gogh's work, I got giddy!

I have a print of his Almond Blossom hanging in my living room. It was bought for me by my best friend for my fortieth birthday and has hung in the living room of every home we’ve lived in since. So I was beyond excited by the thought of doing Downward-Facing Dog beneath the blossom!

After the ironing debacle, however, I was very disappointed with my body. Would I have to miss it?  Not a chance!  Even if I just had to lay there on my yoga mat and not move!

I woke up early that sunny Sunday morning because I had to catch a tram into the city and be at the Arena by 8.45am. I couldn’t remember which roads led there from the tram stop, so I followed two ladies who were carrying yoga mats (a good clue!).

After registration, we all trooped into a massive room covered in seamless screens. It felt as though we were surrounded by one enormous 360-degree screen. An image began to develop very slowly in front of us, followed by another and then another, all accompanied by fabulously soothing music.

Beyond Yoga

Getting ready…

I think it’s really important to feel at ease with the instructor too, and I did, so that was the icing on the cake, and I moved slowly with ease, taking in the sound of the moving pictures without any awful pain.

My eyes were closed for most of the class but somehow they opened just as the almond blossom began to appear. It was as though my subconscious was whispering, ‘This is it. This is what you’ve been waiting for…open your eyes.’ Perhaps I could sense it through the music.

I watched as the blossom-covered branches unfolded above me until, eventually, they were everywhere. Then, slowly, petals began to float down towards the floor and I’m sure I could feel their softness against my skin… Yup my imagination is the best!

Fifty minutes is quite a long yoga session but it went far too quickly and I wished I could do it all over again. Because my eyes had been closed for much of it, I’d missed a lot of the artwork. That was OK though because we were invited to return to the room with the general public and watch the entire display again.

Almond blossom branches emerging and cover the whole room

However, I was so zen after the session that, when I went back in, I suddenly realised I no longer had my yoga mat in my arms. I eventually found it in the gift-shop area…oops.

I watched the display another two or three times. Yup, I was so relaxed and in awe that I simply sat there - sometimes on the floor, sometimes on a bench - moving around the room with the paintings, just to get another fix of the falling blossom and the music accompanying it. I wish they had had a screen on the ceiling too so you could feel you were literally ‘in’ the painting! And I wish I could’ve been in the room alone, as well.

The images flowed from one painting into the next. Light flickered across the water in Starry Night Over the Rhône. Then the dark sky above Café Terrace at Night seemed to rise around us, as though we were flying up into the night above the town, like I was at Universal Studios.

Awesome.

Then I floated home in a daze, the images of falling blossom playing over and over in my mind. Then I went for a snooze in the afternoon and honestly, I had the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had in years!

Thankfully, I took a few videos and I’m still watching them daily. They help me to feel soothed, as though it’s gently recalibrating my central nervous system.

I hope it soothes yours too.