Not long ago I discovered that if you just sit in a quiet place, sit straight, connected to the ground by sitting on it, and just breathe, something moves. Sometimes for me a lot moves, even scary at times.
I haven't done that in a while. Perhaps I should. I did a lot of that when I was coping with the final breakup with the girl I went to India with. (Perhaps I should just name her India girl.) I don't remember how I figured it out. I guess I had so much pent up in me that my body really just wanted to release everything. I also learned a lot about breathing exercises when I was doing yoga, but that was a long time ago and it was for yoga, not some psychological therapy.
After spending fifteen minutes breathing, I feel more at peace.
This is one of the survival mechanisms I come up with to cope with the barely intolerable. I think different people come up with different ways. Even if it's breathing also they might choose a different place, a different time, a different regiment. Another more recent thing I discovered was scribbling. I would take a pen and a piece of paper and aimless make a continuous line. My eyes would start following the tip of the pen and notice the brief distance of line it traces. And by doing so my mind starts to be set free. Perhaps that's a way to release the pressure: free my mind. I have a similar feeling, though much less intense, when I see other people doing things I want to do, such as making adventures in China, either on the high Tibetan plateau or among the glass jungles of a bursting city. Free my mind, remembering the simple things, remembering the broad possibilities.
Otherwise, my mind sometimes tries to do complicated things. Last night I didn't want to go dancing. I was too tired. I got very little sleep Sunday night after dancing. But my guest, who has only ventured out to the scary New York City subway once in her life before and got traumatized from getting lost, was bracing herself to have to go to the milonga by herself. In the end, I don't know why, I agreed to go with her. I don't even like this girl very much, but I did it. Chivalry or gentleman? Not sure. Either way, in retrospect, it seems stupid. Stupid only in the sense that I wasn't taking care of myself. I don't know if it's generosity that I learned from my Dad, but to use the word "generosity" would imply that I am happy about it. I am not. I think it prevents me from taking care of myself. I think I need to stop having guests so often, especially those who can't take care of themselves!
Yesterday I was going to write about writing on this blog. Meta-writing, I guess. But I ended up talking about connection and my family and sister. I wanted to say that especially in recent entries, I have turned the blog into some ventilation for my anguish and anger and angst. I should have done that in my personal journal that I write with a pen. But typing is faster and more tempting in channeling out the emotions. I remember my first blogs were very descriptive, didn't talk about me directly. I remember writing about the snow, the morning that gradually got brighter and brighter, the observations about the New Haveners that I would soon no longer see. Observations.
Observing others. Observing my surroundings. That's another powerful way for me to cope. It isn't so I can forget about the pain. It isn't so that I can see things in perspective. I think the act of observing details of my environment is itself a channel for my emotions. It's as if I am building a little tube to each little thing or person I am observing, and letting a bit of steam out through that tube. I do that a lot in the subway. I have mentioned several times that I don't listen to music or read when I am in the subway (and obviously not typing on my fancy laptop). I observe a lot, unless sleeplessness overwhelms me. Every face becomes a breeze through the window of my observation, a cool breeze from the outside to cool down all the frustrations, all the anger.
It's when I write about these observations I feel the greatest sense of relief. I don't feel very much better after I write a long diatribe about why life sucks. Why I don't do it more often? The temptation to yell and scream is simply too strong. I don't always have a shoulder to cry on. But I count myself lucky that at times I do. Last Saturday night, after dancing, I was very shaken, like volcano. I wanted to scream. And there she was, one of my closest friends, holding me, and then still letting me hold her as I squeezed her with all the anger that bubbled up. I am lucky.
But I don't have to keep venting whenever I feel the pressure.
I saw in the subway a mother with her son next to her, his head buried in her arms. The sun was setting behind them, shining its iridescent rays through the subway car's window. She looked glorious, almost like La Pietà (that's the famous statue of Mary holding the body of Jesus). And then as the train slows down toward the next stop, she woke the boy up, revealing his sleepy face. He was disoriented. I knew that feeling. When I was a child I had to be woken up too, by my Dad, for whatever reason. While being woken up is not a pleasant feeling, I thought of something warm. It's so nice to have someone to count on waking you up so that you can freely sleep without worry. I can't really nap. I am always worried something bad would happen in my irresponsible nap. I miss the days when I had my Dad to be in control, to wake me up when I needed to, but otherwise I could sleep. The boy reluctantly stood up, half asleep. The mother, being beautiful just because of her maternal makeup called love, took one of the boy's hands and led him through the crowd of strangers.
My world remains full of storms. There are many decisions to make, and there are many consequences of previous decisions I have to face. But in the end, I hope to be more connected with myself and not be too bothered with the overcomplications of the world. I am getting better at saying goodbye, I realize today. That, hopefully, translates to more time for myself, more love.
I just want to add that I was half-way to tonight's dancing when I realized I might not have shut off the stove! So I actually got off the train and waited for one on the opposite direction. That meant I couldn't go out tonight, but it does mean some time alone for myself. Like writing in this blog. Remembering that mother and the son. Maybe even call one of my friends to see how she's doing. Connection. It's what defines our humanity.
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