MY yoga instructor Dale has been teaching me the power of positive visualization. He’s so inspirational. It took me a while to work up the courage to go up to him after class. So many reasons not to—like I feel bloated today, or these are old lululemons, or this new haircut looks pretentious. I can’t even count how many times I’ve walked up to him, opened my mouth to say something, then deked out of the studio before he could notice.
Take the cutesy innocence of Zac Efron, mix it with the dark sexiness of Johnny Depp, throw in some Deepak Chopra, and you’ve got Dale. His body looks like a Medieval painting. Like he’s this sculpted, muscular warrior out to battle a dragon. The way sweat dangles on the tips of his hair, it makes me want to swoop up and catch it in my mouth.
That was creepy. I know that was creepy. I’m really not a creepy person.
My boyfriend told me I can’t practice my postures in the living room while he’s watching TV. It distracts him. Our studio is such a dump, though. Neil just tosses all his garbage in there. No, seriously, don’t worry about it. I’m just trying to achieve Enlightenment here.
I give myself at least half an hour at home to practice every day, but I can’t seem to get this posture. I’ve been trying to do a solo headstand for about three months. We do it with partners during class and if I have someone there holding me up I can do it, no problem. I get upside down and it’s like everything is silly and far away. Nothing else matters.
The trouble is, I’m dropping nearly two hundred dollars a month on this class and I really can’t afford it working in a loan store. Mr. Money—we get you cash. Fast. Sometimes I feel like if I have to spend one more hour in that place I’m going to pick up the coffee pot, right when it’s full to the top with scalding hot coffee, and bust it over my manager’s head.
“I’m going to need those inventory sheets by 3:00,” Mitchell says. Like working at this job is the most fulfilling and meaningful thing he’s ever done. Like he’s more important than me, even though he lives at home with his Mom. 32-year old jerk-off who probably didn’t have friends in elementary school. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate him.
There’s only one customer I’ve liked. Her name was Dolores and she was this cute old woman that brought me candy every second Wednesday. She wore this shawl over her shoulders and had this huge, packed shopping cart she pushed around. It made so much noise. She had these beautiful eyes. Like Meryl Streep or an older version of Maria from Sound of Music.
The job is only temporary. A means to an end. I’ve been working there for three years but I’ve also been taking night classes across the bridge at Langara. It’s okay money but sometimes I feel like I’m handing out little pieces of my soul, just scooping them up and tossing them to whoever. Quick, catch!
The first time I interrupted someone shooting up in a doorway, I apologized. Like sorry I interrupted your little tragedy. Now I don’t even bother. You have people just sprawled on the sidewalk all down East Hastings. I’ve stopped wondering who’s dead, who’s alive, and who’s just really high.
So I enrolled in yoga because I just need to cleanse myself of all this. All this negative energy that slowly tightens its grip around you. This little voice that whispers that’s going to be you one day.
But sometimes I imagine that Dale and I will go out for sushi after class. We’ll keep it professional at first, you know, just a teacher and his student talking about our practice. But then one day he’ll confess to me, he’ll look into my eyes with a spicy scallop roll pinched with his chopsticks, and he’ll say “Vanessa, I’ve tried to keep these feelings clamped down but I just can’t hold it in anymore. I think I’m in love with you.”
• • •
My blanket, when I was younger, was this frilly pink knitted thing with teddy bears on it. My grandma sewed it for me when I was born, and I had it until I was about eight. All the stuffing inside was gone and I could crawl inside, pull it all around me like I was in a truly safe place. I loved that blanket.
One day my Dad picked it up off the living room floor and threw it in the garbage. Didn’t even think about it. My Dad really didn’t have time for kids. He was way too busy with his grown-up job and his grown-up life to even notice all these tiny humans he’d brought into the world. By the time I noticed my blankie was gone, it had been two or three days. I imagined it lost in those smoky mountain piles of garbage, totally covered in banana peels and old toasters and thrown away bicycles. I begged my Mom, I said we should go to the dump and look for it. Nothing, nothing, nothing was more important. She said she’d buy me a new one.
My parents just didn’t get it. Sometimes you just need something to be yours. I’ll share and I know we need to be compassionate and put that positive energy out into the universe. I know all that. But we all need those little things that are ours, and ours alone. This yoga mat, this blanket, this boy, this house, this whatever—this is mine.
That sounded selfish. I know that sounded selfish. I’m really not a selfish person.
• • •
At the beginning of our relationship, I try bringing Neil to yoga with me and he just doesn’t get it. He has no body awareness. He just drags his arms and legs around like they’re extra baggage. He poisons himself with cigarettes, drugs and alcohol. He doesn’t exercise, he doesn’t shave regularly or even brush his teeth everyday. When he cuts his nails, he just sits there on the couch and snips and they fly all over the place, like they get lost in the carpet or under the cushions.
Before he moved in with me, he lived in this bachelor pad near Commercial Drive that everyone called Fort Awesome. It was grotesque. He used to get really mad at me because I wouldn’t sleep there, but it was dank. There were beer cans everywhere and dirty laundry and I just felt like the energy in that place was so negative. If anything, I’m proud of myself for cleaning him up a little bit. I feel like I brought him out into the light.
He’s a musician, so I can’t really blame him for the way he is. But how can he possibly understand what’s going on in the echoing caverns of my body? How can he understand my exploration, my soul? How can he follow me if he doesn’t even know where I’m going?
When I look over the counter at these people that come into my work with their ratty backpacks and clattering shopping carts and old clothes, it just reminds me that I have to be true to myself. They probably started off doing okay, but maybe they lost sight of who they really are. Half the people that come in, despair and helplessness are like this heavy cologne they sprinkle all over themselves.
I can’t be like that and honestly, if someone’s not going to be supportive of my process and not going to be there for me, then I feel like I need to leave them behind. They have their own journey, and I have mine.
• • •
Next yoga class, I’m going to ask out Dale. It feels so weird to admit that. I know he’s like ten years older than me and probably every girl in class has tried like a billion times, but if I don’t do it I know I’m just going to hate myself. He’ll be standing there, maybe picking up his water bottle and fiddling with the music and I’ll walk right up and I’ll say:
“Dale, would you like to go to lunch with me?”
No, okay. I got it:
“Listen, Dale. I was wondering if maybe you want to take me out sometime? Like to a movie?”
I’m not sure what I want to go for. I could do the whole confident, powerful, independent chick thing or I could do the mousy damsel in distress thing. I have a feeling he’s the kind of guy who likes powerful girls. You know, girls that can share his understanding of the universe, and know about our inner lives and about energy and whatever.
I was born in the Year of the Dragon. I know this because my parents used to take me to this little place in Chinatown, the kind of restaurant with those spinning tables. We get those placemats that show the Chinese calendar and I figured out that my birthday—March 26, 1988—puts me in the Year of the Dragon. My little brother’s a rat and my older sister is a pig. According to the placemat, being born in the Year of the Dragon means that I’m honest, sensitive and brave. It also means that I was most compatible with rats, snakes, monkeys and roosters. I checked it out: Neil’s a pig. Dale? Rooster.
Sometimes I dream I’m soaring over this little Chinese village, slowly batting my giant scaly wings, and watching over the earth below. I’m not an evil dragon, I’m not going to kill humans or burn people up with my fire breath. I just patrol the night sky, this silent force high above, keeping everybody safe.
• • •
The first time I unroll my yoga mat and sit down in class, I feel really alone. You have to learn this whole new language, you need to slow down, calm yourself, empty your mind. I actually brought my iPod to my first class, because I thought it was going to be like working out. I am such an idiot.
Dale walks in, in his bare feet. He turns on some music, lights a candle. He’s not wearing a shirt. His hair cascades, just hangs and sways like vines over a cliff face. We start doing Downward Dog and that one where you balance on one foot and do the Sun Salutation. I’m so lost. Like I’m ready to leave. Like I feel like I’m going to fall down and break my arm and everyone will laugh at me and my whole life will be ruined. But then Dale comes up, he gently put his hands on my hips from behind me. “Breathe. Breathe. Just breathe, be here in this moment.”
I didn’t even realize—I’m holding my breath. My legs are trembling and I’m all off balance but something about the way his hands support me, the words he’s saying, they bring me into the earth and I feel the air coming in and for just a moment I know what everybody has been going on about. I’m really here, really in the now, experiencing this moment. Just breathing. Inhale in. Exhale out. Inhale in. Exhale out.
All these people, the ones all strung out and twitchy that you see on East Hastings, they’re all addicted to drugs and they’re chasing after that first high. You know, the first time they shot up on heroin or whatever. If only they knew that there’s like this whole other type of high. Like sometimes I think we shouldn’t be doing soup kitchens or welfare or anything. We should just gather up all these people and make them do yoga all day, every day.
• • •
I got a new lock for the studio door and Neil hates it. I don’t know what he’s so uptight about. Does he think I’m going to steal his drums or something? He doesn’t understand my process. He’d just interfere in my exploration. I have important work to do here. I used to build these forts when I was little and I would imagine I was a hibernating beast and if anyone came close I would charge out and roar.
One time I made my Mom bring me food. She came upstairs and put a plate on the floor for me. I waited until she’d left the room and I came creeping out on all fours like a dog. I didn’t even use my fork. I just face-planted in the mashed potatoes and sucked up the green beans and licked up the gravy and the cauliflower and just munched and chewed and chomped. I was a beast. I was a big scary monster in my cave eating my dinner.
No one can mess with me in my cave.
When my family fought, I just stayed in my fort and read my books and listened to the slamming doors and pretended like nothing else existed. That was all there was, just me and my cave. I was so alone.
This sounds really anti-social. I know it sounds anti-social. I’m really not an anti-social person.
I finally ask Dale on a date. What an accomplishment. This guy is basically a God walking among us. His arms look like a safe place. Everyone else is picking up their mats, wrapping towels around their necks. My stomach aches like I haven’t eaten for three weeks and I don’t want anyone else to hear me mess this up so I just stand there waiting and finally as he’s fiddling with the music I walk up and I just blurt it out:
“Hey Dale, I don’t mean to bother you. Yeah, hey, sorry. No, class was great. Really. I was just wondering if you’re not busy Friday, maybe you want to get some sushi?”
Am I talking too fast? I sound like an idiot. I must sound like such an idiot.
He looks at me. Shrugs.
“That sounds superb. Let’s do it.”
Neil’s on this bluegrass tour on Vancouver Island for a couple days so I know this is my chance. Dale says he’ll pick me up, take me to this little place on Davie Street. All week I’m rehearsing in front of the mirror, like for real talking to myself in the mirror and trying to fix my hair and then I get it cut and everything’s just too much and it’s coming but I’m so excited this is going to be perfect and maybe I’ll be moving my stuff again and I won’t have to deal with Neil’s ignorance and I’ll do yoga like every day. Maybe we’ll move to China and adopt a bunch of little Asian babies and I will be so happy.
• • •
Every second Wednesday, I would look forward to when Dolores came in to the loan store. She was so nice. She had this quiet, murmuring voice like a little bird. I wanted to come around the counter and hug her.
“Oh, hello there, dear. Too bad you’re cooped up in here all day. It’s lovely outside. It’s a lovely day for a walk. How are you doing?”
I just loved that she was so homeless and she was asking me how I’m doing. She always brought me these little old-person candies and I always said thank you so much, I totally appreciate it, then I hid them in my pocket and threw them away. I don’t want to be mean but who knows where that candy has been. Seriously.
She had this cat, Bubbles. This tiny little gray cat and I just loved that Dolores basically had no money but she still bought it cat food and it had this little sweater and it sat in the cart and meowed happily. I felt like me and Bubbles could be friends.
The other thing I liked about Dolores? She didn’t mooch. She was obviously on welfare but she didn’t beg in the street or live off other people’s charity. One day when I was walking home from work I saw her with her cart. She had draped this big tarp over herself and made a little home. That’s where she slept. Part of me just wanted to crawl in there with her.
• • •
Dale picks me up in his little car. I knew for sure he’d have something environmentally friendly. When I get inside it smells like incense, like the studio. I’m in a car with Dale. This is really happening. He’s gelled his hair back, so it looks wet. He’s wearing a shirt with buttons, a collar—not like the droopy sleeveless shirts he wears in class. He’s spritzed himself with cologne and his skin looks tanned and there’s this little vein in his bicep that bulges seductively.
Dale: “We had some terrific classes earlier today. Too bad you didn’t make it, Vanessa. The energy in the room was electric. I like having you there. You bring a really unique energy to the space.”
Me: “Wow, thanks. I’ve been really taking a lot from your classes. I feel like I’m close to something big, you know?”
Dale: “Vanessa, I’ll tell you what. You can experience anything you want to if you’re just open to what the universe is offering you. Believe me, I’ve had my struggles too. But if you stay in your body and really focus on the moment, there’s nothing you can’t do.”
So, pretty much, we’re not even at the restaurant and I’m just dying. Like if I was having a dream I don’t think I could invent anything more perfect. Well, okay, we could ride horseback, on this wild stallion clomping along Granville Street. Taxis are honking at us and cars are swerving out of our way and we’re just galloping along carefree. That would be better.
• • •
I saw this story in the news months ago. We had record-breaking cold on the Downtown Eastside. I called in sick for work for like a week straight, just stayed in bed and watched movies with Neil. Then there’s this story on TV about this woman. Apparently she showed up at the shelter because she was freezing and they wouldn’t let her bring her stuff inside. They said they didn’t have anywhere to store it. On top of that, they’re not allowed to have animals. No cats.
So she went back on the street all by herself. She set up her little home, huddled in her blankets, hugged her cat close to her. Then she lit a little candle. She probably held it close to her face. To her fingers. But then her shelter caught on fire. They say it happened fast. Before she could do anything she was batting at the flames and they just engulfed everything and she couldn’t get away. She was on fire and there was no way out and it just covered her whole body and she tried to stand up but the heat was too much. They rushed her to the hospital but she was already dead.
This guy on TV said something that kept repeating in my head over and over. He was some advocate giving a speech and he explained how the government was abandoning these people and he said they had blood on their hands. He said a lot of stuff. He was talking about police shooting people and hospitals giving up on these drugs addicts and then he said that we, the population, are showing a contempt for human life by letting the Downtown Eastside thing happen.
I thought about Dolores and Bubbles and all the smelly people that come in to Mr. Money. They’re all just looking for a safe place.
• • •
I go back to Dale’s house after dinner. I know I look good. I barely ate anything. This dress shows off my new push up bra cleavage. We have a couple glasses of red wine. We chat about the yoga studio and about our practice. And then we start making out on the couch.
Dale: “Vanessa, you are such a unique woman. I really feel a connection to you. Do you feel it too?”
Me: “I do, yeah. Totally.”
But I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right. He’s kissing my neck and his hand is on my stomach and then he’s sort of caressing my tit and I just realize shit, I can’t do this. I feel like I need to be true to myself, and true to Neil, and I know we’re not perfect but I just think maybe this is moving too fast.
Me: “I’m sorry Dale. I’m sorry. I have a boyfriend.”
Dale: “Don’t worry. It’s okay.”
He’s a lot bigger than me and I don’t know what to do. I’m trying to pull away but he’s still kissing me and he’s tugging at my dress. Then he’s unbuttoning his pants and he’s pulling up my dress and he’s grabbing at me and I don’t really have time to think but he’s so strong and I thought I wanted this but it feels weird and I’m scared but I don’t know what to do so he just kind of grabs me and I just let him take me and I close my eyes and try to focus on my breath.
• • •
Neil brings me flowers. I haven’t left the studio for three days, so he obviously knows something’s wrong. I wait for him to go to Starbucks then I scurry out to take a shower and devour some cereal. I don’t want anyone to see me. Then I open the door and see them. I don’t even like flowers. Why does this make everything better?
It sucks when you try to have a pity party and you realize you’re just being a baby. Like I have my studio and I have my yoga and I look outside at the people with shopping cart houses shooting heroin and sleeping in dumpsters and I realize I’m being a total narf. I could be a crack whore with AIDS getting kidnapped off the street by some bearded weirdo with a lazy eye. I could be that guy that got shot to death in an alley by the police. I could be one of those kids without any shoes, the ones with little cardboard signs that just say “help.” And that makes me feel worse.
Oh yeah, I got fired.
Turns out if you don’t show up to work for like a week without calling in sick or telling anyone, then you get fired. Like hey, I’m having an existential crisis and I’m questioning my entire existence so it’d be nice if you could cut me some slack. But no, Mitchell doesn’t operate like that. I’m done there anyway, that place was holding me back as a woman.
I can see myself flying into Mr. Money flapping my wings. Papers fly everywhere and people scream and I roar out all these hell-fire flames and Mitchell’s hair catches on fire and he runs around with a trail of smoke following him and then I gather all the money with my talons and I soar out over East Hastings and just let loose with this rainstorm of money. The bills float down out of the sky and land in people’s laps and everything is okay again. I didn’t even go in to get my last pay cheque. I bet you Mitchell’s hired some new little blond girl to ogle at and he’s probably going to live with his Mom until he dies.
After Neil brings me the flowers, I finally venture outside and go back to yoga. I put on all my best gear and I do my hair and I march down there. I’m a woman on a mission. I make sure that it’s one of the classes that Dale is teaching. I make sure I get there early enough to be in front row. I make sure he sees me as soon as he walks in.
Then there he is. He stops for a moment when he sees me, gives me this weak smile. His hair looks like tangled seaweed. His shirt looks dirty. I make sure that I look him right in the face. Then he starts the class. We’re doing level 2, so we’re practicing our headstands with partners. I help this girl Leanne, I breathe with her and support her legs and tell her she’s doing awesome. And when she’s ready, I let go. Then it’s my turn.
I feel weak and there’s that moment, just like always, where the world feels upside down and wrong. But slowly, as I stay with my breath, I feel the world turn right-side up again. I know Dale is watching, but I’m not here for Dale. I feel Leanne’s hands on my legs and I ignore Dale’s instructions as he struts up at the front of the stage and I let myself be here. I let myself be upside down. I’m not stuck. I’m exactly where I need to be.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Will Johnson is a writer, journalist and photographer from Victoria, B.C. He lives with his girlfriend Darby and his pet budgies Hemingway and Miriam.
LF #011 © Will Johnson. Published by Little Fiction | Big Truths, April 2012.
