Clean and Elegant

Clean and Elegant
Showing posts with label hip. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hip. Show all posts

Wednesday, 11 November 2015

Now I am in Delhi

Now I am in Delhi.

How and why did that happen?

For months I have been meaning to tell you about “fuck blinders.” According to the urban dictionary, fuck blinders is a phenomenon that occurs after fucking very profusely. When the profuse fucking is over, people afflicted with fuck blinders are unable to see, find or accomplish very much of anything. They walk around in a daze, as though they have blinders on. All this may be true; however, the Urban Dictionary doesn't know everything. I happen to have a very dear friend who was crowned Queen of the Butt Club in Mysore last year. She and I have our own special definition of Fuck Blinders. According to us, fuck blinders occur pre-fucking. So you meet someone and this person permeates you with the feeling that the two of you must absolutely have sex, despite obvious reasons why this is a horrendous idea. Popular reasons include a lack of emotional availability, incompatible values and lifestyles, and/or geographical distance. Fuck blinders render you blind to all these issues. So you have sex anyways. The act of sex tends to have a solidifying and adhesive effect on fuck blinders, though everyone is different.

Fuck Blinders are hard to attain, especially post break-up. Amazingly and pathetically jaded, these days, I often make speeches about how relationships are beautiful lies with inevitable expiration dates. Loose-fitting and slightly transparent fuck blinders may materialize when the option is nearly impossible and the expiration date imminent and evident. Such fuck blinders are rather short-lived.

And well, all this relates perfectly to buying a one-way ticket to Delhi.

Since August, I have found myself sadly low on the Mental Health Spectrum. (Or high? I’m not sure. The Mental Health Spectrum is another invented entity whose definition you can probably sort of guess.) On August 1st, I moved downstairs from the apartment I was in and immediately felt terrible. I felt like I was staying in a grey soulless hotel. As far as apartments go, it was somewhat decent besides being a little messy and infused with the smell of weed, both things ostensibly temporary. I even had my own yoga room. And yet, right away I craved an exit strategy.

I called a friend who had just had a baby. (Not the Queen of the Butt Club.) The baby slept peacefully in her arms as I wept in the most distressed and un-delicate fashion possible. I wailed that I should probably move to Nicaragua.

“I’ve been waiting for this phone call,” she said. The reality of breaking up with the Boatman, moving away from Halifax and a million other changes was sinking in. From her perspective, I was doing reasonably okay. From my perspective, I felt like a broken disaster. Somehow I made it through the month of August. Over the summer, I completed more freelance translation work than I’d done in the entire year. By the time that was over, I was totally strung out and distraught. I dreaded going home to my soulless grey hotel room of an apartment. In my desperate misery, I felt like I was too much of a burden on my friends. I became increasingly isolated and lonely. One night, I barged out of my apartment onto the streets of my Montreal neighbourhood, where I cried inconsolably and unapologetically. As I reached a corner, I saw my friend riding his bike.

“I’m super high,” he said. “How are you?”

I proceeded to melt down even further.

“You can’t just cry in the middle of the street!” he told me. I would argue that this is a matter of opinion. But my friend strongly urged me to seek out professional help. A rather obvious recommendation; however, I found it frustrating since I have been going to therapists and expensive friends since I was thirteen years old. Plus a decade of wholehearted yoga practice. And some daily meditation. Butt exercises, manic walking, spirit walking. I have tried ten million things. Prozaac didn’t work. Probably there was no more hope.

As it turns out, every neighbourhood in Montreal has a crisis help line. I called them in my distress. It was a good opportunity to practice French. They were helpful in a generic kind of way and I got an appointment within three days. I am glad that such things exist.

Although I was grateful for the outlet, alas, the days of crying in the streets were not yet over. A few weeks later, teary in an alleyway, I called my super trendy and hip friend Fern (STAHFF) who works in advertising in New York. I mourned over my sad aimlessness and incapacity to manage the details of life.

“Dude,” she said. “Why don’t you go use my flat in Delhi?” Fern used to work in Delhi and then she switched to New York. (See how trendy and hip Fern is? You should see her wardrobe. More on that later.) Her apartment would be empty and available until the end of December.

And there they were. Fuck Blinders for Delhi. Sometimes it’s good to try and look beyond your fuck blinders. Other times, just let them do their magic and mask your doubts. The hell with pros and con lists. Look straight ahead. Move to a dirty, crazy city, fuck an impossible match, and/or make a baby.

Oh yah, Fuck Blinders are entirely necessary for planning to have a baby. Baby Fuck Blinders, it’s called. Essential.

Anyways, I made it to Delhi last Friday.  What a crazy world.

Thank you to everyone for their support. And huge gratitude to Fern.  This apartment is extraordinary.

Much love. Oh, and Happy Divali and New Moon!

I will do my best  to blog as much as I can. As you might have noticed, I have tons of things to say and seem to be oversaturating my pen pals.

The End.

My Magnificent Bed

A street near my house. Not a good place for crying.
What have I done?

Day Before Departure. Delhi Fuck Blinders Firmly Secured

 Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, by Erica J. Schmidt
Day Trip
Brand New Mysore Clubs

Business Ideas on a Tuesday
How I am violent

Where is Emma Fillipoff (One)
 

Sunday, 5 October 2014

Mysore Update: The Lady with the Stick

I have moved out of Pushpa’s house, and into a slightly more modern apartment. The apartment is upstairs to the home of a middle to upper class family. I have a little more space than I did at Pushpa’s, though the laundry situation is approximately the same. So far, I have done laundry on the rooftop two times. I have borrowed some official laundry soap from my vegan British roommate. It is liquid and organic. Sometimes I am skeptical of the efficacy of pure organic things and so I continue to use my bar Ivory soap in the hopes that it will improve the overall odour outcome. So far, some of my clothing smells quite nice, while the mildew lingers on in a couple of items. I am doing my best to make friends before the mildew becomes overpowering.
Laundry at my new place
It took me some time to figure out the closest and safest way to get to the shala.  I scored a 4:30 start time for led class, which we have until Tuesday. For my few readers who aren't Ashtanga geeks, 4:30 shala time, means 4:15 for the rest of the world. My alarm goes off around 3 a.m. Once in Halifax, I woke up at 3 a.m. in order to practice before subbing for a yoga teacher. It was one of the greatest accomplishments of my life, and I spoke of little else for several weeks afterwards. Perhaps my whole life has been preparation for 3 a.m.
The obligatory selfie with registration card
Our first led class came the morning after an enormous thunderstorm. The stray dogs close to my apartment were pretty riled up and barked quite emphatically as I walked by.  The ten or fifteen minute route seemed excruciatingly long, and I felt nervous. Three dogs ran towards me as I walked passed a field, where people milk cows every morning. For quite a few blocks, they circled me, and one of them took my flowy pink hippie skirt and purple shawl into his mouth. He didn’t seem malicious at all and reminded me of when my Big Black Dog used to run after me in the house. Still, I remember that once the Big Black Dog accidentally bit me in the butt while he was fooling around. Not knowing what these dogs have been through, the last thing I wanted was a dog bite. Finally, as I got closer to the shala, another yoga student appeared out of his apartment and the dogs found him to be more exciting than my pink skirt.

Although I arrived at the shala well before four a.m. already there was big crowd in front of the gate. A major part of the practice here is trying not to get pissed off at the bizarre line up dynamic. So far I haven’t seen anyone be horribly obnoxious, but it is definitely a rush to get in. Being Canadian, I refuse to push and try to be polite about letting people go ahead of me. For the first couple of days, by the time I got in, the room was pretty full. Lucky for me though, for three mornings I squeezed into an excellent spot next to the door. There, it is slightly less hot which is good for Canadians. Also, I got to practice behind Miami Life Centre’s Daylene Christenson. She is one of the cool kids, and she has a beautiful and majestic practice. Of course my drishti was perfect and I didn’t watch her at all, but I think just having her in front of me inspired my latissimus dorsi, among other things.
 
Some people blog extensively about their practice and all of their body parts. Others feel this is somehow taboo. I will just say that I have recently diagnosed myself with an eighty year old hip. I arrived in Mysore with much trepidation, wondering if maybe I should only be doing Surya Namaskar A. The first day, some Sharath slash Mysore magic kicked in and my pain seemed minimal and manageable.  That said, by the end of the week, the hideous and sketchy clicking returned during practice and especially during the day. This is not just bubbles of synovial fluid popping. Something is off. Rubbing oil on my joints is soothing, but not a cure. And so, the ego will have to bleed to death as I bid farewell to a buffet of postures. Honestly though, with the 3 a.m. wake up, and the dogs and the crowd, postures have been the very least of my worries.

I came home from my first practice distraught and overcome by the fear that the next morning, the dogs would bite me and I’d get rabies. I Facetimed Robbie in tears.

“Yah, if they’re right on your skirt, that’s a bit sketchy,” he said.

My landlady could hear me crying and came upstairs to see what was wrong.

“Oh, I will give you a stick,” she said when she heard. “And if they keep bothering you, I’ll have them poisoned.” To many of the people here, the stray dogs are like rats. It’s sad. They don’t give me any problems during the day. At night they are just protecting their territory. They aren’t trained or loved. What can you expect?

All day I obsessively asked everyone I ran into what I should do. I posted on the Facebook page about a walking buddy, but no dice. I can understand people have enough to deal with at 3:30 in the morning. Many people suggested I get a scooter; however, I feel this an even greater hazard as I am a terrible driver. Robbie thought maybe a rickshaw driver could pick me up, but it would be hard to find someone reliable and it could also be expensive. Anyways, after hours of consulting and redrawing maps, I finally figured out a route that cut down my walking time, almost by half. And it didn’t pass any fields or garbage. I decided I would carry the stick and try the new route the next day.

So far I haven’t had any problems. The dogs I pass on my new route are usually sleeping. The ones I do see veer off whenever they see the stick. Sadly, they are used to being hit and they’re afraid.

On Friday morning before practice, Sharath announced that we should be careful about going into the city this weekend. Because of the festival, it is a crazy weekend in Mysore and foreigners tend to “get snatched.” Sharath also said we should walk in groups because there have been some incidents of people being attacked in the past.

“And I saw a lady with a stick,” Sharath said, looking at me. So now I have a claim to fame. The lady with the stick. After practice, some vegan dude warned me of the angry vegans who would judge me for hitting dogs.

“Pretend it’s for the men in the dark corners,” he insisted. Well, let’s hope I don’t end up having to hit anyone.

Today, Sunday, is our rest day, changed from Satuday, as all the yoga blogs have so thoroughly discussed. I slept in until 7:30. Sleeping here has been a bit rough. For a few days, I attempted to follow the trend of not eating dinner or at least eating light in the evenings. Perhaps it was worth a try, but ultimately this has simply resulted in angsty, hungry insomnia. Food theories are  an inevitable part of the yoga world. I tire of it rapidly, and it remains a constant battle to ignore what’s not helpful and honour my needs. Oh well, I will get the hang of it. (More on this and becoming a peanut butter sandwich person in the upcoming vipassana diaries. These have been put on hold as I struggle with a post that may offend three and a half people, should they choose to read it…)

Speaking of food, I think it is around the time to go off in search of lunch. If you have made it this far, thank you so much for reading.  Drop me a line if you’re in Mysore, and you don’t find me too dorky to hang out with. I would love to meet you.

Much love, The “Exuberant Bodhisattva.”

The End.

 

The Cow wanted in.

Exuberant Bodhisattva on Facebook
Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
I Let Go, my $2 self-help book

More on Going to India:


Our lives will never be the same
Vipassana Diaries