THE HARDEST YOGA POSE

In 2008, Chris and I had tickets to see Feist in concert, a concert playing at the Starlight Theater in Kansas City. This was well before we knew that we would eventually be moving to that area. We decided to go to Tulsa the day before the concert and spend the night at my parents. Tulsa had recently opened a new Whole Foods and since Chris and I were all into grocery stores, we wanted to go check it out. As we drove down Peoria, we passed a scooter shop and sitting out front were two scooters, an orange one and a blue one. Chris and I looked at each other and did an illegal u-turn and parked in front of the shop. It was like they had parked us out in front. Chris and Cindy. Orange and blue. My credit was so bad that my Dad had to drive down to sign the loan papers. Before signing, Dad looked at me and said “Is this what you really want?” I replied with my whole heart “Yes. Yes, this is what I want.” He laughed and signed the papers.

There are so many things about that day that stands out in my memory. The perfection of that moment. Chris and I had been eyeing scooters for some time and here we had stumbled upon the most perfect scooters. They were Vespas in our colors. Dad, who I would never in a million years thought he would approve and agree, signed the paperwork to make it happen. There was only one moment of hesitation for me and that was when they delivered our scooters and I realized that I had no idea how to ride. I immediately almost ran into a parked car, but I knew without a doubt that I was meant to ride a scooter. I studied the motorcycle licensing book that tells you all the ways you’re going to die on a motorcycle. I went to a parking lot in the neighborhood every day and practiced turns and stops and driving in a straight line. I passed the motorcycle driving test with flying colors.

My scooter is more than a fancy Italian name with an engine and two wheels. It has been a source of joy since the moment I laid eyes on it. It taught me perseverance. It made me more observant to my surroundings. It has been a comfort in real shit times and it has become an extension of who I am. And on Friday afternoon, two men drove into the parking garage at work and loaded my joy into the back of a van and drove away. Just like that. My V is gone and I have no hope of ever seeing her again. I filed a police report with a very apathetic and robotic woman holding down the front desk of the local police department who couldn’t find my vehicle in the MO registration because she kept typing it up as a Vesta. I never spoke to a police officer. So, I feel certain that V is gone forever. I’ve had a whole weekend of moping about and leaky eyes over the whole thing.

I’m sad.

I’m broken hearted and defeated.

At dinner that night, our conversation turned to yoga and I told the Cabbage that the hardest pose in yoga is savasana. What makes it so difficult for most people is that it requires you to be still with your own thoughts. The true practice of this pose is really hard because the true pose is practicing the art of dying. It is saying goodbye to everything in your life. There are times when I think that I’ve got this pose mastered. It has gotten easy to say goodbye, or so I thought. This current goodbye was so unexpected, such a shock to the system, that it is going to take some time and practice to settle back into stillness. Michael is already talking about my next scooter and of course, when the time’s right, I will get a new one. But for now, I need to spend some time saying goodbye to all of the things that this scooter, my very first scooter, represented in my life. The emotional value of this scooter far exceeds the monetary value of the scooter.

And there’s no replacing something like that so quickly.

BECAUSE OF YOUR AGE

Piosonberry

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I have a doctor's appointment coming up in a couple of weeks to see how things are going with my cholesterol medicine. To prepare, I had to have some blood drawn for my visit and while I was in the lab, the technician handed me a cup and said "your doctor has also requested a urine sample." I let me lip frown to one side when the technician said this. I had not prepared for a urine test (not because of drugs). I had prepared for the blood draw by doing a twelve hour fast. I only had a little bit of water that morning to wash down my vitamins. I looked at that cup and thought I would be lucky if I could give them a teaspoon. Also, I looked at the cup and the three vials of blood they took from my arm and got a little nervous about all of this testing business. When I voiced this nervousness to Michael, he said "It's probably just because of your age." which made me kind of want to shove him down a flight of stairs.

I say 'kind of' only because I do not have the energy to care for his invalid ass. 

I am not an old person! Forty one is not old! Maybe it's a little bit old. I have noticed that there's an increase in the white hairs on my head. There's a grouping of white that is starting to form a streak through my bangs, but I think it is pretty cool. It's like having highlights without going through the process of getting highlights. But we all know that graying hair is not indicative of age. Sure there are days when I feel like an old woman. I look at the things that have happened to me in my life and it seems like all of it should not fit into forty one years of life. This makes me feel older than my actual years and disappointed that I am not really all that wiser. Then there are the days when I crawl out of bed to the tune of my cracking joints and I have to gimp my way to the bathroom and think "Jesus! Have I been abducted by aliens and returned to earth as a hundred year old woman?" Then I look out the bathroom window toward the skies and beg them to come back and get me and return me back to my supple youthful body. 

As if I have ever had a supple body.

I'm still very much young. I speed to work every day on my scooter. Last week I performed a perfect cartwheel with out incident. In fact, just the other day, I had a total childish impulse to steal something from Target. Our Target could use a little feng shui help in the area of their front doors. When you walk in the doors, the shopping carts are immediately to your left. Four steps across from the carts is that area where they have all those dollar items of kid things and crafts. Immediately to the left of the shopping carts are the exit doors. See...it seems like I've already cased the joint. To replace your shopping cart correctly back in any kind of order out of the way, you have to walk back through the dollar section. On Saturday, I paid for my items in the self check-out line and then pushed my cart towards the door. I paused and looked around at the already scattered carts and decided that I was going to return my shopping cart to its proper place in the cart corral. Then, as I passed a rack of various dollar craft items, I had the most sudden, intense urge to just grab something and stick in my shopping bag. I thought, very matter of factly, "I'm going to steal something." 

I did NOT steal anything, but the urge to do so was so shockingly intense. It was the most compulsive urge that I still can't believe I walked out of there without slipping something into my shopping bag. Something is cracked in my brain or maybe I'm just in a place right where I'm all "fuck it!" I just don't care. Crap...I just realized that's not a youthful feeling. Teenagers care about everything. I don't really care about anything. Well, that's not really true. I care about what I can do in my neighborhood to fight racism; I'm calling my local community center to see about teaching a yoga class there. I care about the environment and equal rights. I care about the masses of uneducated, misinformed Americans because their ignorance led to the election of Donald Fucking Trump as our president. But apparently I don't care if I get caught stealing a dollar item from Target. At least, that is what my brain was telling me on Saturday.

Maybe it is because of my age. Because of my age, I care very little about what others think of me. Because of my age, I have a little bit more wisdom. Because of my age, I'm becoming a klepto.