Much to consider.

For tai chi, no music. Tai chi was about meditation. In her opinion, participants achieved more without music for that particular class. Other instructors might use music during tai chi, but Chiyo did not. She taught the moves and the language of the moves until the two came together in a kind of music of their own. She did not tamper with what had been created a thousand years ago. Swallow skims water. Dragon creeps down. Lying tiger listens to wind. Why would she heap anything on top of that? Anything added would only take away. She wondered again about the overactive Hopps, who was slated to be in the new class. She hoped he’d be able to settle in, settle down. A challenge for her, and for him, too.

For yoga, the music she chose had no lyrics. Her playlist included flute, oboe, koto, shakuhachi, occasionally harp or violin. She preferred wind instruments to start off the class, ending with violin or strings of some sort. Classes were forty-five minutes in length, all classes. For stretch and strength, the participants liked Elvis, the Everly Brothers, “Stand by Me,” the inimitable dusky voice of Cher and always ABBA. For young groups she sometimes used top-forty lists. For all, she mixed in Spanish music, Latin, more oldies. There was plenty of choice. She could tell when students were responding and enjoying themselves.

The selection process, however, required effort, not to mention time spent on purchases, permissions, downloading from computer to iPod. Along with even more time listening and eliminating. Something she expected to be suitable for yoga might turn out to be busy, plinky, not soothing at all. One piece she listened to began with sounds of tranquility, a soft wash of waves. Without warning, the waves uttered a hoarse croak. Well, not exactly a croak; it was as if a pig and a goose had found themselves in an ocean, and gave off a combined honking snort of surprise while being tossed by the same wave. As for the busy section, the sound of raindrops falling softly suddenly turned to hail bouncing off a tin roof. Chiyo had learned the necessity of listening to the end of every selection.

She thought of Addie, who’d confessed that she played the Emperor Concerto while she dusted. Chiyo had never considered a connection between Beethoven and a dustrag in someone’s hand, two centuries after the composer’s death. Good way to get through mundane chores.

She looked around the room. Staying on in the small bungalow was convenient, but it was work. All in all, positives outweighed negatives. Her taxes were low. She was getting used to living on her own. She had privacy. Spence could and did visit. They were considering merging their two households but hadn’t come up with a workable plan. Not yet. But they would; Chiyo was confident they would.

She would like the group at Cassie’s to meet Spence sometime. The Company of Strangers, she thought. A quirky film she’d come upon in the library and brought home to watch. The members of the company at Cassie’s were strangers no more, but she wondered how long they would be connected to one another’s lives. She liked Addie, a person who had also spent much of her time caregiving. Maybe they could go out for a meal sometime. She had also begun to think that the group wasn’t about grief at all. They were linking up, talking things through, telling stories. Each was discovering how to start anew. Maybe even learning that there was a selfishness to grief. Chiyo considered her own experience. How, for a time, she’d thought that grief belonged only to her. And then she was forced to acknowledge that others were in the same place. We’re not allowed to have it to ourselves, she thought. Grief will not be contained and owned. It spills out and joins streams and rivers of grief that are already out there, heading for an ocean of sadness that never makes its way onto a map.