What Does the Full Moon Do?

Recently, I went on a trip to a resort that had sprung up around a natural hot springs. When I was a kid, the place had allegedly been a bit podunk, but now, it is built up. It's got a spa with offerings like blueberry body wraps and gentleman facials. You can rent pickle ball racquets, but only until five pm, and occasionally, they offer full moon yoga. I wasn't at the resort for a CBD infused massage, or a chance to play pickle ball at 10,000 feet, I suppose the options were nice.

While standing in line to get a towel (because we were there to sit in some hot water and maybe read a book while doing so), a woman in her sixties came in and butt the line ahead of me. Since I was on vacation, I willed myself to not react to having to wait even longer for the desk woman, who might have been part glacier, to give me a towel off the stack behind her.

"When is the full moon yoga?" said the woman who had cut me.

The desk woman, a severe, petite woman with ice-blond hair shellacked to her head said, "Seven."

"And it's really happening, right?" the older woman asked. There had been a bit of a bobble in the resort guest activities. The yoga instructor had stopped showing up for the relaxation pool yoga, and printed yoga schedules with no yoga teacher was something not easily hidden. Not when women willing to butt in line were waiting for the yoga class.

"Yes." The desk woman did not smile.

"Okay then," the other woman said.

When it was finally my turn, I asked the desk woman what full moon yoga was.

"It is yoga during the full moon."

She had a slight accent. Having spent time in my twenties working a resort with international workers, I guessed her to be Eastern European.

"But," she continued. "I don't know what the full moon is going to do."

Ahhh, yes. For sure, Eastern European.

"Is it in the pool?" I asked.

"Yes, but the full moon part... What will the moon do for the yoga? I don't understand," she said, still not a trace of a smile.

"It's at seven? It's still light at seven," I said.

"As I said, it makes no sense."

"Do you recommend it?"

She didn't bother to respond.

That night, we ended up back in the relaxation pool, just after eight-thirty, and in the pool were about forty women, all holding their hands over their head. Apparently the yoga instructor had shown up, and full moon yoga was happening, albeit not at seven.

"It's all women in there," my husband said.

"I bet they let you join them."

"I don't do yoga."

"Spoken like a truly inflexible man."

We got in the pool and hung out a the side. The moon wasn't up. A few yellow lights burned under the water, and the mass of women at the pool's center were reminiscent of twisted swamp trees. The women were mostly silent, and with the splashes of water and weird shadows, it was unsettling in a compelling way. It wasn't a normal activity or time, and somehow this made it more vivid, even if I was only watching the scene and not practicing chair pose myself.

Watching this random group of women, some of whom I knew were wound tighter than a watch, I realized, the full moon let them step out of their rigid little worlds in a safe and short way. Usually these women were probably on a schedule, efficiently managing life and other people, but right now they were up and outside past dark, mingling in a random hot spring in a tucked away corner of the Rockies. It didn't matter the moon wasn't up, all that mattered was it was an excuse to do something different. To exist outside of their boundaries.

Maybe the front desk woman needed some full moon yoga. Maybe I did. I watched the group raise their left arm out of the water and grasp their right foot, tipping forward in a statuesque pose.

And suddenly, I was doing it too.