OYM Day 79: Inner Dunce Workshop

Quick project update: I can’t believe tomorrow I’ll be in the 80’s posts. Wild. I don’t think I’ve stuck to something for so long, by choice. I am loving the feedback at info@oymandtrustme.com . PLEASE keep it coming. Not just the grammatical errors, either. I know all of my posts need work. TRUST me. I want to hear what you like, what you don’t, what it reminds you of or makes you feel. I like to hear how people relate or don’t.

I just ate about half a watermelon. Thought it was worth noting.

You’d think that I’d learn after a failed reiki circle (see posts 62–64) and a slew of other disastrous spiritual quests, but nope! There I was, dressed in comfortable clothes, holding my black and white woven blanket that I picked up on some beach in Mexico. I was told yoga mats would be supplied, but to bring a blanket. A blanket? For an “inner-dance” workshop? I imagined draping it over my head like a ghost and making my knees touch my elbows. What a sight. That alone would be worth the $35.

I’d heard about the workshop from the yoga instructor the previous week. He said that a long time friend of his, Mina, would be working at the center for the next two weeks, fresh off of an intensive training in the Philippines. I should probably think about more than wild nights in Manila and child brides when I hear about the Philippines. I’m working on it.

At the time, I was voyaging. I was desperately searching for something to cling to. I was fresh off of a nervous breakdown that involved friends making frantic calls to mother on my behalf and an emergency visit to my doctor. I had, quite simply, cracked. Cracked straight in two. It was like I could step out of my shell, like a pair of snow pants, then turn around and stop to take a look at myself. My body and my mind were malfunctioning. Not like a car needing a new battery, but like a toy you get out of a cheap vending machine. It just suddenly stops working and you know you didn’t expect much quality out of it anyways, so you might as well just toss it and forget it existed. Now, how I ever thought a dance workshop was going to fix this… I’m really not sure. But I was willing to try just about anything I hadn’t tried before.

There were 6 other participants in the workshop. All women. They were all white and tired looking, myself included. I regretted being there immediately. Was I really someone that attended something like this? Am I like these women? With loud-print yoga pants and cheap jewelry? Why was I being so judgemental? Where’s the door?

Just then I heard a rain stick fall to the floor and trickle its way across the laminate.

“Namaste, everyone! Thank you for joining me and trusting me with this beautiful journey today.”

It was Mina. She closed the door and dimmed the lights. Maybe she’d turn the lights all the way down eventually and I could roll across the floor in my blanket and straight out the door, through the lobby, out the front entrance, across the parking lot, and right into the drivers side of my car.

Mina looked to be about 12 and not from the Philippines. In reality she was likely in her early 20’s and from Washington. She had long auburn hair that hung in a bouncy shag, stopping just before her razor sharp elbows. She was very slender and covered in jewelry. Leather straps, shells, feathers, stones. She jangled as she moved her hands into a prayer position in front of her chest. She wore a jade jumpsuit that tied in a halter around her neck and hung like a deflated balloon around her hips and legs, stopping abruptly at her ankles, sharing a sliver of unshaved legs and a Om tattoo. Her smile was genuine and the guru she follows in the Philippines likely was not, but there I was, on the precipice of a promised inner journey.

I told myself to stop thinking about a room full of middle aged dancing ghosts and focus on Mina’s introduction, but I’ll admit, it was hard.

Part 2 — tomorrow