Sans white robes and fresh out of clean headwraps, I decided to explore Kundalini yoga.
"The yoga of enlightenment," it's called, with a deeper connection to divinity.
I ordered a DVD online by Maya Fiennes. Upon reading the description, I knew this form of yoga was going to be rather different than that to which I had become accustomed: We were going to detoxify and strengthen my kidneys and adrenals. Really? Okay, why not. I mean, Deepak Chopra gave gave her a shout out on the back cover. It must be good.
I warned my baseball-playing, sports-writing boyfriend. "Babe, I'm going to strengthen my kidneys now." He went upstairs. Good. Free to strengthen my kidneys without judgment.
A few minutes in, Maya announced that the next breathing technique may make me feel light-headed. She's kidding right? I do yoga to decrease the feelings of hyperventilation in my life!
The nursing student in me started running down the metabolic consequences of breathing that quickly. The thought of respiratory alkalosis was too much. I switched off the DVD, and followed the trail of expectorated sunflower seeds upstairs to tell my boyfriend that he could come out of hiding.
Some months later, I became interested in Kundalini again. Instead of jumping in head first with Maya Fiennes, I decided to research the topic to discover what the real, proven benefits of the practice are.
The result of this research was as amorphous and "fruity" as that first DVD experience. Websites discuss the "incredible benefits" taking you to your "highest peak" and "core of your being."
Ex-squeeze me?
It's said that there are 22 types of yoga in the world, and only after mastering the first 21, is one ready for Kundalini.
So, it's an exclusive club. I get it. It seems, though, the DVDs shouldn't be available for the speak-easy that is Kundalini if it is, in fact, so exclusive that the effects cannot even be specifically discussed in a forum as public as the internet.
Does this make Maya Fiennes a rogue yogi?
In any case, I'm probably not ready for Kundalini. My kidneys will remain uncleansed, my adrenals unbalanced, my third eye crossed.
But, really, what's with the secrecy? Because I don't hyperventilate for sport.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Mouse Traps and Other Little-Known Tragedies of Divorce
Divorce is talked about so often that, even when I began the process personally, it was a boring topic. How to avoid it, when it’s time, what about the kids, kids’ books about mommy and daddy breaking up…(sidenote: I read one such children’s book as a kid for Book-It because it was short; my parents were concerned about what my teacher might think.) Of course, maybe the topic discussed most prolifically is what it’s like to go through a divorce. Funny how so many people can be wrong. Well, they’re either wrong, experienced something drastically different that what I am experiencing, are unobservant or are less willing to discuss the little demons that torment their souls.
I am not disturbed by the pitfall my credit score is about to take. I am even less concerned about whatever attachment I’m supposed to have to the house that I painted, stained, sanded, spackled, and was protected within. These, and the laundry list of other logistical problems, are not the tragedies of divorce. It is not this list that prevents sleep or disturbs one to depths not previously known.
That isn’t it, and they’ve all been wrong.
The tragedy of divorce is the little things that creep up--on a Tuesday at 745am, on Saturday at 615pm—and scar. Their weight and sharpness is often imperceptible until there have been many Tuesday mornings and Saturday’s after dinner of phone calls from all of the “mutual parties.” The auto mechanic who still has your car, the doctors’ offices, the pharmacy, ADT, the woman who found the goddamn dog lost in her yard and the tag still has your number—those mutual parties. That is the list of miniature crises which build to a weight that can crush, or, perhaps more terrifying, can mold.
You wake up. Things are “fine.” You have your mental to-do list like anyone else. You can’t figure out which jacket to wear, but that’s okay. Your phone rings. “Ooh, wonder who!” Crushing: an unknown number from your old area code. Panic. The longest 45 seconds known to man is the time between “missed call” and “voicemail.” Your heart pounds as you carefully enter you voicemail code—the code that you changed so the ex-Thing couldn’t hack in/the code that you can barely remember/ the code that makes you remember how much you liked your old code and that you feel it has been burgled from you along with your dog, a considerable portion of your wardrobe, and normalcy. It’s a doctor’s office…for It.
Your eyes scan the room dizzily, and your lungs feel like miniature water balloons. “Do I call back and be the bitter ex-wife? Do I act like an adult and simply inform them that he cannot be reached here? Do I ignore the call because, in principle, his doctor’s appointments should no longer have an influence on my life? What would my lawyer say? How could It manipulate this to make whatever action I choose a violation of the law? I have anatomy to study!! This is ridiculous.”
The decision is made—after all, you are the bigger person—and you call the office to politely inform them that It cannot be reached at this number any longer. Funny how that isn’t really the worst part.
The receptionist remembers you, and almost sings your name, “Ooooh, Abbyyy, hi, how are you?”
It’s Julie. You like Julie. You’ve talked to Julie probably 25 times being the dutiful wife which you are now accused of never having been. You imagine where Julie is right now: you know the town, you know the street, you know the way that the air smells. You know that your favorite Mexican restaurant in the world is up the road, and that 40 minutes from her chair are the trees you’ve been dreaming about ever since you became a city girl once again.
“Say hi to my trees,” doesn’t seem like an appropriate way to start. (And, anyway, you don’t want to sound bizarre on the phone since you are now conscious of preserving your “courtroom image”--sickening.) “Hi, Julie, how’ve you been?...Well, fine…Um, [It] and I are no longer together; so, he can’t be reached at this number any longer.”
“Ooh, Abbyyy, I’m so sorry to bother you then. Oh, I’m sorry.”
And she was caring?! Well, that’s how people are in that part of the country that I love…where my trees are. People aren’t like that here. Oh, God, panic.
You hang up the phone, and the whole incident had entirely too much emotion and entirely too little. Part of you wanted to talk to Julie for an hour and ask about the fall leaves and if the mountains have snow yet. And, part of you wanted her to be cold and sterile so that the emotion ended at dialing the phone.
It seems stupid to be so attached to Julie. I mean, you don’t really have many (if any) friends from that part of the world, but you have Julie-s. You have the girls at the corner store, and you know to ask for Bridget if you want your pizza made right. You know which tiny hardware store to go to in the fall to get the mousetraps that don’t gross you out. Oh, and you are convinced that you only have one mouse, and that it’s a female, and her name is Clementine. You know the members of the local band by name, and you look forward to their shows like they’re U2. Oh, and you know that you have jiggle the coin-injector at the local bar’s pool table or the balls won’t release. Sigh.
So, you don’t have “friends”, but you have Julie-s. And they keep calling, on Tuesday mornings and Saturday evenings. You know that you’d rather have Julie-s than have never had Julie-s, but they’re with your trees and they smell your air and they see your mountains—and you’re jealous. No, wait, you know better than “jealous,” and it isn’t jealous anyway. You’re just sad—a latent, dull sad. One that is also imperceptible, so that when all the Tuesday and Saturday imperceptibles join this imperceptible, it adds up to the oddest feeling of sadness (or, at least, you think its sadness) that you’ve ever felt.
But, wait, that doesn’t make any sense because you’ve read articles (many articles, too many articles…and movies! My God, the movies.) about divorced people and they’re “shattered”—they don’t need to question which emotion they’re having because they’re SO upset. Well, what about me? Is no one like me? I’m not “shattered”, but I’m cracked, I guess. I don’t miss It, even when I kind of try to. Will someone really understand that my strange sad feeling is based on missing Julie? Partly because Julie is near my trees?
Well, maybe not, but they should. Julie-s, Bridget-s, Clementine-s, and the trees in your yard (or whatever makes your home, "your home")—these are the sum of one’s external life. It’s not an address on a road, or the cars that sit in the driveway, who gets the Blu-Ray, a credit score, who started which argument, who made more money, who spent more money or depression over any of these. They’re just symbols.
Each item is a collection of memories, and my good faith in people leads me to argue that even those who think the loss of these items is a primary point of grief in divorce are, in fact, mourning the loss, not of the material thing, but of what the material thing represents. The grandmother’s vase, the end table to which you were completely opposed and then loved, the china that reminds you more of the day you went to pick it than the cost per setting. Even with this understanding, I’ve infused my feelings into other people, not end tables or flat screens.
In the division of assets, however, I don't get 50% of Julie or Bridget or Clementine. They're the intangibles. It's like arguing for 50% of a dream you had once.
They're people and circumstances you, simply, don't get to have again. They've gone the way of the memory of your first bike or the day your grandfather died: vivid and gone.
The tragedy of divorce lay not in the loss of money or possessions, but in the loss of the idiosyncrasies that made your former life your own.
And, the bliss of divorce is finding out that Julie, Bridget and Clementine--like they Mayors of Munchkinland--were meant to be in your path, and are viewed best in the rear-view mirror.
I am not disturbed by the pitfall my credit score is about to take. I am even less concerned about whatever attachment I’m supposed to have to the house that I painted, stained, sanded, spackled, and was protected within. These, and the laundry list of other logistical problems, are not the tragedies of divorce. It is not this list that prevents sleep or disturbs one to depths not previously known.
That isn’t it, and they’ve all been wrong.
The tragedy of divorce is the little things that creep up--on a Tuesday at 745am, on Saturday at 615pm—and scar. Their weight and sharpness is often imperceptible until there have been many Tuesday mornings and Saturday’s after dinner of phone calls from all of the “mutual parties.” The auto mechanic who still has your car, the doctors’ offices, the pharmacy, ADT, the woman who found the goddamn dog lost in her yard and the tag still has your number—those mutual parties. That is the list of miniature crises which build to a weight that can crush, or, perhaps more terrifying, can mold.
You wake up. Things are “fine.” You have your mental to-do list like anyone else. You can’t figure out which jacket to wear, but that’s okay. Your phone rings. “Ooh, wonder who!” Crushing: an unknown number from your old area code. Panic. The longest 45 seconds known to man is the time between “missed call” and “voicemail.” Your heart pounds as you carefully enter you voicemail code—the code that you changed so the ex-Thing couldn’t hack in/the code that you can barely remember/ the code that makes you remember how much you liked your old code and that you feel it has been burgled from you along with your dog, a considerable portion of your wardrobe, and normalcy. It’s a doctor’s office…for It.
Your eyes scan the room dizzily, and your lungs feel like miniature water balloons. “Do I call back and be the bitter ex-wife? Do I act like an adult and simply inform them that he cannot be reached here? Do I ignore the call because, in principle, his doctor’s appointments should no longer have an influence on my life? What would my lawyer say? How could It manipulate this to make whatever action I choose a violation of the law? I have anatomy to study!! This is ridiculous.”
The decision is made—after all, you are the bigger person—and you call the office to politely inform them that It cannot be reached at this number any longer. Funny how that isn’t really the worst part.
The receptionist remembers you, and almost sings your name, “Ooooh, Abbyyy, hi, how are you?”
It’s Julie. You like Julie. You’ve talked to Julie probably 25 times being the dutiful wife which you are now accused of never having been. You imagine where Julie is right now: you know the town, you know the street, you know the way that the air smells. You know that your favorite Mexican restaurant in the world is up the road, and that 40 minutes from her chair are the trees you’ve been dreaming about ever since you became a city girl once again.
“Say hi to my trees,” doesn’t seem like an appropriate way to start. (And, anyway, you don’t want to sound bizarre on the phone since you are now conscious of preserving your “courtroom image”--sickening.) “Hi, Julie, how’ve you been?...Well, fine…Um, [It] and I are no longer together; so, he can’t be reached at this number any longer.”
“Ooh, Abbyyy, I’m so sorry to bother you then. Oh, I’m sorry.”
And she was caring?! Well, that’s how people are in that part of the country that I love…where my trees are. People aren’t like that here. Oh, God, panic.
You hang up the phone, and the whole incident had entirely too much emotion and entirely too little. Part of you wanted to talk to Julie for an hour and ask about the fall leaves and if the mountains have snow yet. And, part of you wanted her to be cold and sterile so that the emotion ended at dialing the phone.
It seems stupid to be so attached to Julie. I mean, you don’t really have many (if any) friends from that part of the world, but you have Julie-s. You have the girls at the corner store, and you know to ask for Bridget if you want your pizza made right. You know which tiny hardware store to go to in the fall to get the mousetraps that don’t gross you out. Oh, and you are convinced that you only have one mouse, and that it’s a female, and her name is Clementine. You know the members of the local band by name, and you look forward to their shows like they’re U2. Oh, and you know that you have jiggle the coin-injector at the local bar’s pool table or the balls won’t release. Sigh.
So, you don’t have “friends”, but you have Julie-s. And they keep calling, on Tuesday mornings and Saturday evenings. You know that you’d rather have Julie-s than have never had Julie-s, but they’re with your trees and they smell your air and they see your mountains—and you’re jealous. No, wait, you know better than “jealous,” and it isn’t jealous anyway. You’re just sad—a latent, dull sad. One that is also imperceptible, so that when all the Tuesday and Saturday imperceptibles join this imperceptible, it adds up to the oddest feeling of sadness (or, at least, you think its sadness) that you’ve ever felt.
But, wait, that doesn’t make any sense because you’ve read articles (many articles, too many articles…and movies! My God, the movies.) about divorced people and they’re “shattered”—they don’t need to question which emotion they’re having because they’re SO upset. Well, what about me? Is no one like me? I’m not “shattered”, but I’m cracked, I guess. I don’t miss It, even when I kind of try to. Will someone really understand that my strange sad feeling is based on missing Julie? Partly because Julie is near my trees?
Well, maybe not, but they should. Julie-s, Bridget-s, Clementine-s, and the trees in your yard (or whatever makes your home, "your home")—these are the sum of one’s external life. It’s not an address on a road, or the cars that sit in the driveway, who gets the Blu-Ray, a credit score, who started which argument, who made more money, who spent more money or depression over any of these. They’re just symbols.
Each item is a collection of memories, and my good faith in people leads me to argue that even those who think the loss of these items is a primary point of grief in divorce are, in fact, mourning the loss, not of the material thing, but of what the material thing represents. The grandmother’s vase, the end table to which you were completely opposed and then loved, the china that reminds you more of the day you went to pick it than the cost per setting. Even with this understanding, I’ve infused my feelings into other people, not end tables or flat screens.
In the division of assets, however, I don't get 50% of Julie or Bridget or Clementine. They're the intangibles. It's like arguing for 50% of a dream you had once.
They're people and circumstances you, simply, don't get to have again. They've gone the way of the memory of your first bike or the day your grandfather died: vivid and gone.
The tragedy of divorce lay not in the loss of money or possessions, but in the loss of the idiosyncrasies that made your former life your own.
And, the bliss of divorce is finding out that Julie, Bridget and Clementine--like they Mayors of Munchkinland--were meant to be in your path, and are viewed best in the rear-view mirror.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)