The Unbearable Lightness of Being

For the last year or so, I had been thinking about taking yoga classes. Last week, I finally decided to take the plunge. First, I did a bit of research and learned that there are indeed many types of yoga. One in particular grabbed my interest: Bikram yoga also known as hot yoga. It is a series of 26 postures executed in a room heated to 108 F (42 C). It sounded like the most extreme of them all which appealed to the masochist in me. I thought it would be perfect: the suffering combined with light-headedness would make my mind transcend into mystical exaltation. This romantic fantasy died abruptly in the first few minutes of my first class.

Anni, our instructor, greeted me at the front desk. She smiled serenely as she said, "Nathalie, the heat is very difficult to handle for first-timers. Don't worry if you struggle. Your only goal today should be to remain in the room for the whole 90 minutes. Just try to stay inside." I smiled back, thinking about how sweet she was to set such low expectations for me.

I was covered in sweat before the class had officially started. Not far from me was Jack, the only other first-timer among this group of 22. The first posture is really a breathing exercise that makes you bend your neck backwards as far as it will go. I was dizzy within minutes. The second posture, the half-moon, wasn't bad and I was briefly hopeful that things would be okay. By the time we had finished the third posture, I thought I would die. My muscles were aching already but it was my pride that was hurt the most. The heat was too much, I had to sit down. I stole a glance at Jack, hoping to find him passed out on the floor, but there he was like a trooper, twisting his suspiciously limber body in the "awkward pose." Our eyes locked and I could have sworn the corner of his mouth twitched smugly for an instant. I gathered my courage and stood up, perhaps a bit too quickly. I felt like all my blood drained out of my body in a downward rush which I knew  to be a sign that I was about to lose consciousness. I ducked just in time to save myself from the ultimate embarrassment. As I lay down on my mat, I caught a glimpse of the clock on the wall: 70 excruciating minutes to go. The unbearable lightness of my being reminded me of Milan Kundera and I too, asked myself some existentialist questions, such as "What the hell am I doing here?" and "Am I insane?"

For the next 30 minutes, I attempted about half of the poses, having to rest frequently. I kept looking at the clock more and more often, inwardly chanting my mantra: "Stay in the room, stay in the room, just stay in the room." The door was calling to me, the sweet conditioned air awaiting just on the other side. I resisted, somehow. The second half of the poses was done lying on the floor, and I tried to participate a bit more. In one of them, lying on the stomach, we are to raise our legs and torso to mimic a plane taking flight. "You are a 747 taking off," Anni urges, "lift that chest, higher, higher!" I look at Jack. He is soaring like a bald eagle and my two front wheels won't even get off the runway, if you know what I mean. I am seething, a mixture of shame and envy raising my body temperature yet another unneeded degree. I grit my teeth. "Just stay in the room, just stay in the room."

I did stay in the room for the entire 90 minutes. Jack spent the last 3 poses lying down, but I couldn't even summon enough energy to draw any satisfaction from it. As we lay on our backs during the relaxation period at the end, I felt like an empty shell. I had nothing left. I wondered if I would have to literally drag myself out of the room, miserably clawing my way across the carpet. Anni's soothing voice floated to my ears: "It has been my honor to be your instructor today." Two small tears escaped the corner of my eyes and rolled down the sides of my face.

Later, in the shower, the cold water strengthened my resolve. I had to come back. I didn't want to, but this was a chance to push myself beyond my limits, way beyond, and something in me hungers for these challenges. I thought, "I don't care if I must lie down for 90 minutes, I am coming back tomorrow. I'm coming back, I'm coming back, I'm coming back." Near the front desk, as I was walking out of the studio, Jack was sitting on a chair, leaning forward. Softly, he was repeating to himself over and over: "I'm coming back, I'm coming back, I'm coming back." I smiled to myself.

I played that tape in my head for the next 22 hours. When I showed up at the studio the following night, Anni gave me a wide smile. That time, I was able to do all of the poses and, although not always correctly and rarely ever gracefully, it felt like one of the biggest victories of my life. Mystical exaltation was still out of reach, but perhaps not as far away as it had seemed the day before. And where was Jack on that second evening? Why, no where to be found.

Soothsaying Octopus

If you have been following the World Cup, chances are you have heard of Paul, the German octopus who has accurately predicted the outcome of all 6 of Germany's matches. If you haven't, do take a moment to Google him and perhaps watch him in action in one of the videos showing him making his prediction. In one article clearly not written by a gambler, we are warned to use Paul's auguries with caution, for he only got a success rate of 80% in his picks for the 2008 European Championships. That should draw a smirk out of the gamblers, for they would be thrilled with such results. I have been participating in the annual Peter King Challenge for the past two years, in which I pick the winning team of all NFL match ups every week. The first year, I did extremely well, even finishing in the top 50 nationwide (there is a time for humility and this is not it). Last year, I didn't fare quite as well and so, reading about Paul, it occurred to me that I should perhaps get my own clairvoyant mollusk.

Naturally, I spontaneously turned to the world's biggest marketplace: eBay. I was slightly shocked to read "0 results found for soothsaying octopus." Really? Now, Paul may very well be unique, but I at least expected all sorts of charlatans to rush out of the woodwork peddling prescient squids, divining calamari or myriad other prophetic cephalopods. Fortunately, eBay provides a handy link that reads "save this search and alert me later," so I at least should be among the first to find out about any new invertebrate psychics. I removed the soothsaying part and tried again, not really hoping to find anything but lo and behold, I came across the fantastic mug depicted above. I have a thing for kitschy mugs and I am just enamored with this one. It is listed for 32 some dollars + shipping, a bit steep even for this kind of love. However, should a generous reader want to offer it to me as a gift, I would cherish it for the rest of my days and pass it on as part of my estate.

But back to the topic at hand. In lieu of acquiring my own fortune-telling mollusk, I have decided to test the two resident felines for potential psychic abilities. Belle and Mr. Cocoa will be casting their own predictions in the 2010 Peter King Challenge, for all the Steelers' games. The parameters will be rigorously controlled: identical food dishes marked with the teams' logo containing precisely the same number of kibbles will be lowered at the same time and in an equidistant feline-to-either-dish location. The results will be filmed and recorded. Who knows, perhaps in the wake of the next Superbowl, the most popular eBay search will be "soothsaying cat."

Esperando Esperanto

When I was about oh, eight years old, I remember complaining about some grammar rule being stupid. My mom laughed and said, "You should learn Esperanto, then." She explained that it was a created language meant to be simple and easy to learn. I thought that was a neat idea, and forgot all about it for twelve more years.

I must have been about twenty when I finally had a computer with internet access in my apartment. Esperanto was not the first thing I thought to research but somehow, it did surface pretty quickly. I was thrilled by what I found. There was an abundance of information out there, a lot more than I expected. I found Esperanto translations of famous literary works, I found original Esperanto works (tons of poetry) and many websites that offered to teach the language. I quickly signed up with one and was assigned a tutor. The learning was fun and rewarding.

I am very passionate about this topic. When I bring it up, people usually get very defensive and negative. I have heard it all; we, Esperantists, have heard it all before. "It's useless." "Nobody speaks it." "English is the international language." I could go on and on. Now, I do think that Esperanto is unlikely to catch on as an international language ever, for a number of reasons which I will not cover here. I think it is doomed to hobby status for travelers and idealists, but this article is not about the advocacy of a language.

This article is about communication. What makes Esperanto so easy is its agglutinative structure. Words are constructed from roots, prefixes, suffixes and endings. By mixing and matching these, one can easily and rapidly construct words that express a very specific idea that is immediately understood by any other speaker of the language, even if they have never heard the word before. This is extremely liberating. After experiencing the freedom of this language, I realized that for years I had been bending my brain to fit my ideas in the narrow confines of my complex and outdated mother tongue. Language is a tool belt to help share ideas with others. Isn't it nice when that hammer you need is right there instead of having to figure out how to nail down a plank with a saw or a screwdriver?

I speak French and English fluently and use both daily, in my work and personal life alike. Words come to me in either language, whichever corresponds better with the concept I am trying to express, for there are often no precise equivalent in another language, or simply the one more readily available for the snatching at the time. This bilingual speech irritates some (mostly French) purists. I am often scolded, corrected, stared at or made fun of for using two languages in the same sentence. Could I constrain myself to stick with one? Absolutely, but why should I choose the hard way if the easy way does the job, and arguably a better one at that? I understand the importance mastering a language, especially if intending to use it as art in written form. Sometimes, one needs to communicate artfully, but often, one just needs to communicate at all.

Regularly my coworkers make up words. They take a noun, for example, and convert it to the adverb they needed, with a slight frown on their face, suspecting that the result is perhaps not in the dictionary. Their listeners do not react, because they understood perfectly. This happens daily. We all do it, in fact, because it is a natural pathway for the brain. Take bits you know and put them together to build something new that everyone who knows the bits will also decode easily. Isn't that what an efficient language should be like? What they are doing so effortlessly is applying the Esperanto concept to another language, and it amuses me greatly to see it done daily by the biggest of Esperanto detractors.

I love languages and will keep learning more of them, but the foolish idealist in me will always be there lurking, secretly waiting for the rise of Esperanto.

Atonement

There was an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" from 1985 titled "Final Escape." In it, a jailed woman plans to escape by bribing the mortician who will make it possible for her to climb into the coffin with the next dead prisoner. Buried alive, she would wait for the mortician to come back later to dig her out. The plan goes well until she starts wondering why the mortician is taking so long. Lighting a match, she discovers that her coffin roommate is in fact said mortician.

That ending terrified me (and apparently thousands of others, according to google) to the very core of my being. I can think of no worse way to die. It is purely psychological. There is no physical urgency, no adrenaline rush taking over. Just you and your sheer terror, in full control of just how fast you will run out of air.

This episode briefly crossed my mind last week when I heard the faint "click" of a door latching behind me, a door without a knob that left me stranded in a windowless room. The only items in the room were: a pan full of paint, a paint roller (also full of paint) and a 1000W work light. I broke several nails and almost broke a pinky before I decided that I had two choices: wait for someone to rescue me or break down the door. I opted for the rescue. With music unnervingly blaring from the other room, I started passing my life in review, scouring dark corners in search of regrets.

I don't know how other people define it but these are the two questions I ask myself to evaluate if I regret a choice. Before making the decision, did I consider my options and their consequences carefully, with all the information available to me at the time? Did I make what I truly believed to be the right choice for me in that particular circumstance? If I answer yes to both, then it cannot be a regret. People say, "If I had known then what I know now, I would have done things differently." So would I, but that's not fair game and it cannot be called regret.

I sat there and thought of one of my ex's. Super sweet guy, bad breakup. I thought to myself, "If I make it out of here alive, I'm going to track him down, even if I should make it my life's mission, and right this wrong." My spirits bolstered by my new focus, I rose, ready to kick the door to splinters. I let my foot drop away limply mere inches away from the wood when an idea occurred to me. I unplugged the work light and bent the two rectangular prongs toward each other to create a makeshift flat screwdriver. I stuck it in the latch and turned carefully, relieved to hear the "click" that set me free.

Tracking down the ex took about 1 minute with Facebook. I typed up a heartfelt apology for the way I had treated him, my relief growing with the paragraph. The next day I had his reply, and his forgiveness.

I believe that regret makes people age faster. It creases their faces with deep lines and makes them bitter. For these reasons, I try to steer clear of impulsive decisions. I love to carefully consider the smallest of choices, and consequently I have very few regrets (and hardly any debt). After all, if in the face of certain death, all I could come up with was being a bit harsh in a breakup eight years ago, I think I'll be just fine.