They’re proactive in your progress, the (Recovery) circles are, they’re good, they’re great.  And even if you don’t talk, just show up, you benefit.

"I have always had such a real dislike for my story," Tauna Rose tells me.  This statement is in juxtaposition to Tauna herself, sitting comfortably in her skin, the energy and ethereal radiance of a pixie.  She pauses and looks up with a gleeful smile.

"I’m not there anymore,   I’m in yoga.  I decided I wanted to be a yoga instructor, and I started telling everybody (about it).  I want to talk yoga, and if I can’t talk yoga I don’t want to talk," she says impishly.

"I teach yoga over at the mental health facility, and that is the coolest opportunity you ever saw in your whole life.  They’re homeless and all kinds of stuff.  But these people, they don’t always come to my class, but when they do, they sit  on chairs, they don’t take off their shoes, they don’t take off their coats cause they’re scared, they’re cold, but they’re confident enough in me that they ‘ll sit down and they’ll stretch for half an hour or so.   But more than that, I see a lot of these people on the street.  And they don’t hesitate to come and talk to me.  And a lot of time we talk yoga, hoping they can breathe better or feel stronger  just," Tauna sighs, the blessing of the breath.

She does tell me about her life after she situates herself straight in her chair. 

"I was born in Ogden Utah, in 1948.  I was the 9th child in a family of 10 children.  We lived on a small piece of property with a house and a barn with the cows, chickens, pigs, cat and dog.  This piece of property was part of the original homestead that my grandfather had received when he had migrated to the United States, and he was a dry farmer.  Anyway they broke up the land and all kinds of stuff because the cities grew and all of that.  Anyway we lived there for a while and then my dad-- well let me tell ya’ about my dad.  He’s from a family of 14 children.  Mormons.  We’re all Mormons."

Tauna had spinal meningitis when she was four years old.  She tells me it created a rift between her and her dad; he felt the hospital had robbed him of his money.  He called Tauna  his “little criminal.”     She shifts again in her chair.  "Didn’t do well in school, school was always hard for me’ cause I had to study so hard and it went faster than I could keep up with it.  But I worked at it.  I almost failed the second grade because I couldn’t stand the number eight “up.”  She giggles and leans back.

There were conflicts in her family, she tells me, but here she pauses.  "We have the DNA of Brigham Young in our genes and so you know the rest of the story.  He’s my great grand uncle.  I liked my dad, and he had a hard job.  He did.  I always remind myself, he just didn’t know any better.  Nothing you can do about it.  Thank goodness for yoga.  But yoga!  Yoga is helping me to understand the ego.  The ego can be disciplined.  The ego can learn boundaries.  That’s what addiction is all about , letting the ego have its way."

"You’re familiar with the story of  Joseph--the coat of colors?  The brothers threw him into the dungeon and then sold him into Egypt.   I had that experience with my family, and it was so heart wrenching to feel like you’ve been thrown in the pit.  Cause there was that much animosity towards you.  I cried about that for awhile.  I cried and cried.  And then I said 'You know what?  That’s how Joseph felt; you’re okay."

"Families will turn on each other.  It’s easier now  in my mind to say 'plink!' and eliminate it."  Tauna pinches the air with her fingers and flings her hand open.  She smiles a wide smile.

"Anyway, when I did not die from my addiction to alcohol and methamphetamine,  I concluded it was time for me to get over the fact that I was pissed off at God, because at four and a half, I requested to return and he said no.  And so, one day--I didn’t write the date down--I decided that I could let that go.  And be okay.  And, it’s no longer an emotional struggle:  'You’re in for the duration.  You didn’t die from the meningitis, your addiction didn’t get it done, you ‘re in for the duration, so you may as well do it in good health.'  And so that’s kind of been where my focus is:  good health for the duration. I’ve had it in my head for a very long time, I have an idea I’ll live to 127 years old."

She sighs.  "My hardest journey through my whole life has been seeking for my purpose or my path.  And  since coming here to the Café, with the help of Killian’s guidance and the other people that are here, with the kind of humanitarian compassion and genuine concern, I’ve been able to soften my attitudes towards my father.  I’ll be 64 years old this year, and I feel like I’ve finally come alive."

Tauna lifts her head up and laughs and laughs.

"They’re proactive in your progress, the (Recovery) circles are, they’re good, they’re great.  And even if you don’t talk, just show up, you benefit. I started at the Café. . . about six weeks after it opened on 2nd and Bell, Killian was one of the teachers at the outpatient treatment I was at. She invited me to participate in a women’s circle.  Tauna pauses and makes a face.   That was probably the most significant thing that happened to me, was my disgust for my own gender.  And probably I have to credit--it’s  just the Recovery Café is kind of like my second name.  Couldn’t have done it without her.  Killian just invited, she didn’t crowd, she didn’t coerce.  She said 'Tauna, we’re going to try an experiment, and it’s in community, and we’re confident that its good.  We’d like to invite you to go with us.'"

"The best thing I ever did--besides yoga-- was get over the disgust I had for my own gender.  As a young kid, I worked with my dad, I laid brick, I poured concrete, I did trees.  I did all the stuff men do.  I never did figure out why I was a girl."  She lifts up her chin and laughs.

I ask her about the future, and she says she wants to do yoga with Bill Gates.  She fully supports his mission to eradicate polio. "That’s where I’m at.  It includes everybody.  That’s my goal.  That’s for me the center line of the whole thing, is inclusion." And, she lifts her finger up in the air,  "I still do cartwheels, just to make sure I can."