I bake bread.

Sunday, March 15, 2020.

Talked with my sister on the phone.

Talked with two other yoga studio owners, one in Michigan and one in Minnesota.

Decided to close the studio to protect our yogis.

This was not an easy decision. Some of our people depend on us to be there for them.

Not as much for the workout

but

for the community

for the stress relief

for a safe place to be.

It was a hard decision.

It was scary.

I baked bread.

I always bake when I am anxious, nervous, stressed, angry – any of those feelings that make me feel out of control. When my daughter, Samantha, was about 10 months old my I started baking bread. My ex-husband was in the military and gone for 7 weeks. Samantha was walking and kept me running. I have always been a cook but never a baker. The kind of bread that has to be kneaded and set to rise. I would put Samantha in her highchair, in the kitchen, and tell her all about baking bread. I told her we would learn how to make bread together.

I would explain to her about the different kinds of flour. I use bread flour when I bake loaf bread. The amount of protein in bread flour is higher so it works better with yeast to help the bread rise. Samantha would sit and nod her head, letting me know she was listening.

I told her how and why you do not sift the flour for baking bread, but you do for baking a cake, she loved to sift flour. Sifting the flour for a cake helps to make the cake light, the yeast does that for bread, I told her. I let her play with my sifter as I added flour to the mixture.

I told her that yeast is the magic that makes the bread fluffy and yummy.

That we add sugar in the bread to make the yeast work. Sugar feeds the yeast helping it to rise.

When I first started baking bread Samantha couldn’t help me, but she had fun playing with the dough. I taught her how to knead and roll the dough when she got older.

At the time, I didn’t know I was meditating when I baked bread. I didn’t think about the fact that I was creating a memory with Samantha. Those were not my goals. I was alone, with a baby and needed something. I wasn’t sure what it was that I needed but I felt I needed a way to release stress. I taught aerobics all the time, so I got an exercise release, but we needed something to bond over.

Something to do together.

We baked.

We baked all the time. My neighbors loved it.

Baking bread helps me when I am stressed. It is a meditation for me. I bake bread quietly now, with purpose. I will be baking bread while the studio is closed for the coronavirus.