A handful of years ago, I joined a new yoga class. I entered the space, rolled out my mat, and sat cross-legged on the floor in between a woman on my left and a man on my right. It was an unusually small class—just the three of us. We practiced yoga for about an hour, following the voice and movements of a young Japanese woman. We practiced, indoors, without music, to the backdrop of silence. At the end of the session, our teacher led us into what is usually the final pose in yoga—the corpse pose, a pose where students simply lie motionless on their backs for about ten minutes or so. After awhile, she called us to sitting position, but she did not then dismiss the class with a typical “namaste,” (the Sanskrit word meaning “I bow to you”), but remained in her sitting-still position, her eyes and mouth closed. After about five minutes of silence, I slowly opened one eye. Why wasn’t class over? It should have been over once we moved out of corpse pose. I looked at our teacher, her palms pressed together over her heart. I looked at the clock on the wall. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, ten more minutes had gone. I looked left; the lady’s eyes were closed, her lips ever-so-slightly bent in a smile. What was going on? I hadn’t signed up for a meditation class! After yet another ten minutes, the man to my right stood up, rolled up his mat, and left, letting the door swing softly behind him. I looked at my yoga leader expectantly. Since there were now only two pupils, she would surely call class to an end.
But she did not. She continued to sit. I noticed that I had been sweating, although sitting perfectly still. I felt angry. I felt I couldn’t take one more moment of this stupid silence! My mind raced: wondering if this teacher had lost her mind, wondering if there were hidden cameras in the walls, wondering if I was the butt of some joke. Was she in control here? Was I at her mercy? Could I leave if I wanted to? Who was the leader here? Who was the student? What was the point of this? Then, I closed my eyes and made a decision.
I gave in.
Deciding to fall into whatever this was that was happening, I consciously let go of my discomfort at the fact that this class was 1) not proceeding in the conventional way, 2) taking up the precious minutes of my very-busy day, and 3) not providing a comfortable end-point. Despite these anxieties, I waded into the silence, allowing my mind to wander and relax. When our leader finally called class to a close—the class had taken a total of two hours!—I surprised myself by lingering and asking this yoga teacher about her life. Somehow, we started talking about religion. With tears in my eyes, admitted that I hated Christians…and that I hated hating them. I told her that my prejudice was a big problem in my life, and that I had been trying to empathize with all choices of living. That I’d been trying, so hard, to love them. In response to this, she shared stories about her spiritual path with me, which had, serendipitously, a Christian core. She told me about the recent birth of her son. She told me that in that first moment of looking into his glistening eyes, she knew that God was real.
I didn’t fight her. I listened. Then, she asked me what I knew of spirituality, and I did. At the end of our conversation, I knew that we had both stretched the walls of our hearts and our intellect. In talking to her that day, in laughing with her and really listening to her, there on the dusty floor, I felt open, timeless, and free. I felt that a part of the hate that I hated had died. As I drove away from that yoga class, the June sun shining down on my car, I realized that I probably would not have been able to feel free enough to have such a conversation with a teacher had it not been preceded by a long—at first highly uncomfortable—silence. That day, I learned about how to better practice yoga (the original plan for the class), but I also learned something else, something that had been brimming in the perimeters of my mind. Silence helped bring it out. Silence, the space of ambiguity, of restlessness and of settling…silence, a place that sets the stage for the unexpected.
I do not know what it is about the film Elegy. I think I have seen it about ten times now. Is it that it was based upon The Dying Animal, by Philip Roth, a book which I also so love? Is it the fact that Ben Kingsley and Penelope Cruz are so luminous?—that they do not act but are the parts? Is it the general air, the general mood of the piece—the mist, the rain, the piercing dark clarity that can cast new depth upon even the raw-est and rarest of shadows? Is it that I identify with both the professor’s character and the earnest younger lover? Is it that the film always brings new light to what I have recently read?...having come from a frenzy with the philosopher Eckhart Tolle, I now re-see the film’s discussion of old age (of retreating from the variety and rush of form, of moving away from outward expansion and dominance) from a different angle? That I now see Kingsley’s character as being closer to my own previous sadness but less a part of my new peace? And how odd does that feel, to move apart from a (fictional) person I loved. A new beautiful.
As I continue to revisit this film, how is it possible that it catches up my breath, still? That there are moments in which I feel am in the story—that the story is, somehow, inside.
When I try to describe Reiki, it is like trying to describe the sea…where would I start? Should I begin with the sound, with the incessant drumming in the ears? With the crash and swell of waves, as I drift to sleep, sprawled out, drunk on love and light, atop the sand? Or would it be good to begin with the feeling of mist, of moisture on my face, as I walk the edge? The pinch of rocks under heels. Or perhaps to start I should tell of the way that my whole body responds to the water—the pull. The need. The desire to say "fuck all" and give myself up to it, never going back to the mad places. Maybe I could tell about how when I swim, the salt stings my eyes, or how fish swim past me, tickling my legs. How my heart catches at the idea that I cannot see the bottom and do not know what's swimming all around me...the mystery. How should I describe the grains of sand under my toes, either wet or red-hot and sun baked? How should I tell of things that cannot be told of?
Emily Dickinson wrote of the sublime. That was her topic. I suppose my topic, Reiki, is also the sublime…for it cannot be measured out in language. Words cannot do it justice. No, not utterance. Only being. Only in the doing. The gentle pulsations…I could try to describe (heck, I just did), but the descriptions do not, cannot substitute for what Reiki feels like. It is odd that I wrote poetry, just a different sort of poetry, as I practice Reiki. I have transitioned from that art to this art, and can still call what I do poetry. Funny how love works like that.
I sing in praise of this.
While some women may truly find smooth legs an internally pleasing action or state—I never quite have. I have never looked down at my hairy legs, usually grown long during the winter months, and thought “I should really remove that hair in order to make my legs beautiful.” I have felt the same way about my arm pits, either. The only thing I don't find beautiful, curiously, is too much hair on my eyebrows or upper lip; I personally draw the line there.
I can imagine some women deriving pleasure from shaving their legs and pits. The feeling of the razor gliding over foamy, scented lather. The feeling of lotion being smoothed on glistening legs, after the shower or bath is complete. I can imagine this being a moment of reverie for some women…perhaps a moment of meditation, a “break” from the busy world. I think of spas, of places with water fountains and New Age music and cucumbers for the tired eyes. I think of how some women might want to shave; about how these women have considered how shaving makes them happy and not given a crap about the fact that this act has been culturally mandated. For these women, shaving--though normative--has become a transgressive act through the pure conscious choice of doing so, because the positives outweigh the negatives. For these women, time eradicating hair is well spent.
Recently, however, I have realized that I have never stopped to think about options regarding my appearance in terms of body hair other than the hair on my head. I have, in the past, enjoyed shearing my head short. (And I cringe to imagine being born into a past era when “manly” expressions such as having short hair and wearing pants were unacceptable for women!) However, I have always shaved other hair…well…just because. Because that’s what women do. Because I got the sense that if we/I don’t, we/I are considered unattractive. Lazy perhaps. Gross. Overly-masculine. Weird.
Folks, I am going to stop shaving my legs. I'm starting now, a handful of days before the new year! I feel liberated by this!
I take this action for two reasons. First, for political reasons. I want people in my life to do a double-take when they see my legs. I want them to think more about the default action of shaving. I do not necessarily want to rid the world of the desire, the wanting to shave…rather, I want to help women who—like me—don’t desire to shave. I want them to know that it's okay to not do something which seems totally "normal." Butch lesbians have known this for awhile. More straight women (and bi and queer women and other women) who aren't necessarily identified as butch need to think about this, about how not shaving is an acceptable choice. Yes, it is a choice! ...Which brings me to my second reason: For me, the countless hours I’ve spent shaving and maintaining a lack of hair on my legs (and pits) now seems like wasted time. So I’m done. I’d rather spend my time in another way.
I will undertake refraining from shaving for a year. After that, I may shave sometimes, occasionally, (or maybe not!), but only as a conscious act. I will shave in the way that I wear makeup—which is hardly ever, and totally dependent upon mood. Just as I now consider bra-wearing a conscious act of drag, of playing with gender, of embracing my queer side, so too will I consider shaving an act of drag (for me). When I do it, it will be a transgressive act, a unique, out-of-the-norm act (for me). When I do it, I will want to do it…and it will no longer just be some thing I feel compelled to do because “that’s what women do.”
