7:30pm on a Friday night, and I found myself in a room full about 40 other people planted on yoga mats with bolsters underneath their legs, eyebags mounted atop eyes, blanketed underneath the head, blanketed on top as well. Wow, this is how London rolls. Or…I guess there are people in the world who choose to spend their Friday nights this way. I mean, every night at this point might as well be Friday night for me.

I was there for a class entitled “Yoga Nidra: How to Access Your Deepest, Wisest Self.” It had seemed good at the time when I’d handed over the 25 GBP.

As we settled in, the instructor, James Reeves talked to us about the practice of yoga nidra and how it engenders the production of alpha waves in the brain. Your brain produces beta, alpha, theta, and delta waves. To put it simply, beta is the realm of the thinking mind, the rational busy mind. Alpha occurs often during meditation, though if you’re zen enough, you can train your mind to be in this state while drinking coffee. Alpha is a zone in which you can come to sudden and deep insights. Apparently, Einstein used to sit propped at the edge of a chair holding a pencil waiting for that moment to come between wakefulness and sleep so that he could like…be smart and stuff. Whatever. Who knows if that’s true anyway, but it’s a good story and motivator! Do yoga nidra and be Einstein, eh? Theta is the realm of the subconscious, and your brain produces these waves during REM sleep in the period right before you wake up. Delta waves are produced during deep sleep and allow the body and mind to heal and repair itself.

We went through several guided yoga nidra sessions. After each one, my mind was so clear and I was so blissfully sleepy that I felt murderous when the lights came back on. My mind was emptying out into some stream, and I was floating along and connecting to the things that really matter rather than the dreams and visions I had been having about my future in the past days. I felt very connected to some “truth,” my truth.

And then before I knew it, it was 9:45pm on a Friday night. I was on the street with my hair (which had been wet previously) matted against my face, wearing flip flops and a black jumpsuit. Braless, makeupless, looking stoned, wearing an Adidas jacket, plodding along. Not even looking like I went to an “exercise” class.

I looked over wistfully at a group next to me. There were a group of girls and guys out on a Friday night wearing tight revealing dresses, hair done, and stiletto heels. That was me, I thought to myself. On a normal NYC Friday night, I might be decked out as well. It was a cold night. Somehow throughout the course of my time in London, it has gone from summer to a feeling a mid-Fall. It has been a long time since I felt conscious enough to be aware of the passage of seasons and time in this way. I felt blessed, but I also felt old.

I went “home” to my little Chelsea nest. I made myself a sandwich and sat in silence in the dark with the streetlights and moon shining through the window, grateful to be able to enjoy my own company in this way and to require so little. I could hear the cars going by and the sound of the TV upstairs. My “neighbor” Peter was also likely having his own alone Friday night moment, unconcerned with the London scene spilling out around us and below us in the night. And in that, I found some connection and company, knowing and being aware of each other’s pleasure in solitude.