Yoga

Well, it had to happen eventually. I hurt my back doing hot yoga. It's my own fault. I twisted myself into a pretzel and I knew, even as I was doing it, that I was going to far. I was frustrated, and should have found some zen-like way of purging instead of snapping my back out.

Last time I went, the teacher was remarkably kind and patient - kind of loving, actually. She spoke slowly, demonstrated the moves, described them clearly, and then left lovely silent pauses while we adopted them. Then she'd encourage and correct in the most gentle of tones. She's the one who quoted Rilke, and the one to whom I promised the Dragon Princess.

By contrast, today's teacher was a Nazi. She barked out the moves, chattered incessantly while I struggled to keep up, and constantly corrected everybody, and in the snarkiest, most hectoring of tones. It was like being in a Grade 4 spelling test: "Hold the pose! Keep your eyes to yourself! Don't fidget! Don't drink your water. Focus on yourself, not on other people."

So there I am, in this 105 degree heat, no room left except at the front where, not only can I not see anyone to use as a guide to the poses, but my shakey, stumbling, falling, sweating, wriggling performance is blocking the other, more adept practitioners from examining themselves in the mirror - a key component of the process.

In fact, several times I wobbled out of control and stumbled, breaking the pose and landing flat-footed with a 'clump'. Worse, this seemed to set off a domino effect, destabilizing those behind me, one at a time, until even the most experienced students (one, a teacher herself) stumbled too. My uncoordination was infectious. And if I hadn't been flushed and sweating already, I might have blushed.

So, when it came to the seated, pretzel-bending poses - the one thing I can do better than even the teacher by virtue of my double-jointedness - I puffed up my chest, grinned stupidly at the teacher, bent myself in half, and felt a ripping pain drive itself through my entire upper body.

And I couldn't move. Not at all. Shit, I could barely breath, it hurt so much. So there I sat, holding this incredibly awkward, and now painful pose, while everybody moved on to the next one. I slowly, gruntingly, unfolded myself and rolled, defeatedly, onto my back. That's the pose I held for the rest of the session.

The poses all have names: The Eagle, Warrior, Warrior Two. And now, Awkward Asshole Injured In His Arrogance.

But, to yoga's credit. I'm still up and walking around. That's not normally the case with one of these events. So maybe, before I damaged myself, the yoga had begun to have a salutary effect. To be honest, other than the bleeding spine, I feel really good. Considering that I've only been twice, the yoga seems to be having a remarkable effect, on my energy level, on my weight, and on how I feel merely walking about.

Remember the Pilades classes at the university that we talked about attending together? Maybe I should have made a real effort to go. The new cute Barista at Starbucks noticed that I was wet from head to toe, a soaking so complete that my grey shirt appeared, not wet, but a darker, heavier version of itself. She asked about it - probably afraid that I was in the midst of a heart attack, and hardly needed a jolt of caffeine to speed my imminent demise - and so we got talking (something I have been trying to engineer, without success, for a couple of weeks). She's at the university too, and took the Pilades classes. She recommends it highly, and suggested it might be a bit easier on my back. Lower impact which, right now, seems like a good idea.

Still, if my back heals a bit on the weekend, I'm still going to try the yoga thing again. I want to see if I can make any progress at all during the week that I've paid for. Ripping my back open was not the kind of progress I was hoping for.

Now, as for you, my dear...I am still floored by our conversation last night. I spent a good part of the day feeling bad because I hadn't given you credit for your intelligence but, upon reflection, I don't think it's entirely my fault. For a couple of reasons.

Reason #1:
How was I supposed to know you could write like that? Years ago, you pretty much refused to write, and would often do so only after I'd left - and then hand in your work before I had a chance to see what you'd done. Besides, you never really tried too hard, so what I've read has never really been your finest effort.

And then there's the email dilemma. Every so often, I get foolishly optimistic and write you a long, detailed email and not only do you almost never respond in kind but, mostly, you never even mention having received one. (yes, there was the long one from your sister’s, and it was fabulous, but you were drunk at the time and your writing talent was a bit hard to assess). So, maybe, if you had ever written me a string of coherent thoughts in an email, I might have had an inkling. Or, if you had ever let me read your blog.

Reason #2:
How was I supposed to know you were that smart? I get this weird sense that you have the most ferocious intelligence - genuine brilliance - and that you mask it entirely with silliness and distraction. You see, when I first met you, despite being quite captivating, pretty and funny, you seemed pretty superficial and giddy. A bit lacking in substance. Cute enough, and obviously smart, in a manipulative kind of way, but nothing completely out of the ordinary. And then, over time, these little comments slipped out. Little perceptions, sudden insights. All of which intimated that you might be a lot smarter than you'd seemed.

But still, I figured, surely if you were smart - really smart - eventually you'd show your hand. Surely you'd get tired of being treated like a child, and failing at things you could do in your sleep. But nope. No big reveal. Just a slow unfolding of your intellectual depth. Interest in an uncharacteristically serious film. A surprising political insight. A sudden, unguarded, penetrating comment. And with each of these, a revision of my assessment, and a deepening of my affection and respect.

But I still had no idea. How could I? When you allow your searing intelligence to show, it either manifests itself in flashes of anger and impatience (and is too easy to dismiss as 'bitchiness' and cruelty), or it's tossed of in a tangential, dismissive way, bound on either side by text messaging,cell-phoning, crushes on bois, Converse envy, and iPod covetousness. Not that any of these things are out of place in the character of a young woman but, I swear, you use them, as you do your 'like'-peppered conversational affectation, your flirtatiousness, and your angry avoidance of everything smacking of commitment, seriousness, and ambition (like slapping me verbally in the LCBO that time) to deliberately mask your grace and brilliance. Why, for god's sake. I gave you credit for lots of intelligence, and a kind of natural creative aesthetic, but I gave you no credit for competency because you never let me see any. Other than an ability to figure out computers and (occasionally, when you aren't deliberately trying to crash) driving. And, although you haven't let me see it, flying and scuba. But you dismissed even those.

And so, in some corrosively subliminal and unconscious way, maybe I came believe that at least part of your intelligence was pose. That maybe you were playing at being smart and creative, using brief flashes because that was all you had. And maybe I stopped expecting more from you, not because there wasn't an ever increasing flow of intelligence from you, but because it was so fitful, so inconsistent and so unreliable.

Sure, I encouraged you, claimed faith in you, and tried to stand by you in any endeavour to decided you might actually apply yourself. But, and I hate to admit it, I now realize that I had capped your potential in my own heart. How foolish of me. I should have known better. I am sorry, Beauty.

And that leads me to...

Reason #3:
For the moment, let's leave my best friend out of it, cause he's in a case by himself.

I've met a lot of smart people. I went to school with the people who have become Canada's novelists, filmmakers, pundits, journalists, poets, radio and television personalities, researchers, etc. They were all smart. And I've dated smart girls: a teacher, a book editor, an author and professor. (Julie was smart, maybe the smartest, but not in that easily visible way.) And they could all write. Kind of.

Here's the embarrassing thing for me to admit, especially given that I haven't written very much and have published even less: I am not that impressed by their writing. Arrogant, I know, but true. But when I read their stuff, I'm always surprised that, despite being bright people, they can't write any better than they do. This is very hard to admit. In fact, if I have an overarching flaw, it's probably this arrogance, and if I am destined to be reincarnated as a meal-worm, this is probably why. Nevertheless, it is how I feel, and have felt, my entire life.

So, I have less experience with competence than you might expect. And I don't, despite my arrogance, have a very good impression of my own. I am very needy and insecure. To give you just one example, I've always figured that you didn't respond to my blogs because they were so bad and so boring. (hmmm, if you haven't made it this far, I'm in trouble)

So how could I possibly have credited you with the kind of intelligence and competence you've so often, and angrily demanded? I've never credited anyone else with it, not even myself. And what right did you have to demand it when you've worked so assiduously to mask it, deny it, undercut it, and sabotage it.

Fuck you, Beauty. You could have given more than the barest of hints, you know. It would have saved a lot of time, doubt, and heartache.

You could have talked to me like an adult (me, not you!) more than a couple of times, at least. You could have let your intelligence fly unimpeded. You could have focused on a conversation as though you valued ideas as much as food and clothing. You could have....

You could have revealed yourself, is what you could have done.

Not in little dribs and drabs, but in the occasional shining burst. I mean, at some level, how can I complain? There's no one I'd rather do things with, share with, appreciate with, enjoy with. But, shit, now I have this awful feeling that there has always been so much more. And how do I access it? I've tried just shutting up and waiting. But that doesn't exactly provoke you to expand on your ideas. More likely, you text message, jump on the internet, or make idle chitchat. Not that every conversation has to be serious and exhausting, but don't I deserve to know what you think, and who you are? And if I don't, doesn't someone? Which leads me to...

Reason #4:
Which isn't really a reason at all. It's a question. It might be rhetorical, but I don't whether it is or not. Cause its rhetoricalness depends entirely on the nature of your answer. The question is this:

Does anyone know?

Is there a single person on God's green earth who actually knows how intelligent you are. Do your folks? Does your boyfriend? Do your friends? Does anyone?

Please say yes. Tell me that it's just the nature of our relationship that leads you to hold back so much, to hide yourself behind affectation and distraction. Promise me that you have someplace to go where your competency is merely assumed. Where you can express yourself to the full depth of your ability. And where it would not come as a shock to someone who had heretofore, foolishly, thought they'd you figured out.

I'm sorry, Beauty. I won't make this mistake twice. But, to be honest, I don't know how to talk to you any more. I don't know how to NOT be impatient with you now. Lord knows, I was already impatient before. What to do now? What to fucking do now? How do I get you to talk to me like I know you can, and like you should?

I know you probably think I'm making to much off this. That I'm projecting.

You're wrong, and I think you know it.

That's why you are so angry so much of the time, isn't it? Cause you know you are smarter than everyone you talk to. And it exhausts you. Maybe that's why you distract yourself with a passing parade of flirtees. Because you've given up being regarded in the way you'd like. Maybe that's why you consistently invest your unresolved crushes with such power - in the hope that they might actually turn out to be your intellectual and creative equal. And when they fail, you merely adopt another hapless victim. Maybe that's why you suffer fools so gladly.

If I am wrong about this, you should really let me know. And if I'm right, you should let me know too. Or, do whatever the hell you please. Cause, despite how much I'd love to help you, it's clear that you don't need my help. Your Queen street journal laid it out pretty clearly last night. And with such clarity, grace and insight. You know already.

I had a dream last night. I was lying on my bed. You were on top of me. I wasn't moving. It was like a game. You made me stay perfectly still. You were breathtakingly gentle and tender. You kissed me, and held me, and slowly intertwined your arms and legs and fingers with mine. You didn't speak, but somehow you let me know, without it seeming ridiculous at all, that this was an kind of yoga - and that it was important for me to remain absolutely immobile, relaxed, open, and calm. And, as a reward, slowly and miraculously, you wound yourself around me, bound yourself to me, drew me in towards you, and pulled me tight until our limbs locked, knot-tight. And I could no longer move, even if I'd wanted to. And with your nose pressed against mine, your eyelashes fluttering against my lids, you opened your mouth and exhaled into mine, and I felt your body collapse against mine, into mine. And just like that, with nothing more - just the taste and feel of your breath - the dream went on and on. And then I woke, as slowly and carefully as I ever have.

Beauty, in some way that I can barely express and barely understand, you have pitted me against myself, disabled my ego, exposed my illusions, and directed my soul.

And you have taught me, rather belated, what respect in a relationship means. I love you for that, and I love you for yourself.