Your yoga teacher makes Triangle Pose look easy: raise your left hand, lean to the right, touch the floor. But after weeks of practice, you can barely reach your ankle.

“I just can’t get to the floor,” you sigh.

Your teacher’s unmoved. “I’ve been to the floor. There’s nothing there.”

Pamela Bloomfield is an independent consultant to governments and nonprofits. Her stories have appeared in Parhelion, Rivanna Review, Foliate Oak, Molecule, and other journals.