Learning Curve

On Thursday nights there is a class called Toning. It is a sound healing class wherein you focus on each individual chakra and imagine a specific color while "singing" on an assigned note and vowel. For example, the first chakra (tailbone) is associated with the color red, the note "A" and the sound "ooooo" as in tool. You spend about 5 minutes on each chakra and the sound and vibration are meant to increase circulation, energy and vitality in the organs or parts of the body represented by each chakra (the first being adrenal glands, legs, feet, bones and large intestine). The first week I was here I decided not to go since, for one thing, I had a colonic scheduled right before the class started and, for another thing, I couldn't make sound anyway. Last Thursday, however, my throat was still feeling open and relaxed from the raike-type session the week before so I decided to go since it was supposed to be healing and, hey, that's what I'm here for. So I oooooed for the first chakra and I ohhhhhed for the second chakra and somewhere in there my throat completely tensed up and went back to its old habit of carrying the weight of the world. I tried breathing into it, trying with all my might to relax. I stopped producing sound because clearly I wasn't ready to do so, but my throat remained in an upright and locked position. So I just laid on the floor, listening to everyone else aw ah eh ih ee and aum while tears streamed down my face.

My grandparents had a dog named Muggins when I was growing up and I'm not sure exactly when he died, but I haven't thought about that dog for over 15 years. For some reason he popped into my mind the day I got to OHI. Laying on the floor during the toning class I had a vision of a line-up of people (among others were all three of my deceased grandparents, Mandala - the dog my family had when I was a kid, the Verizon guy [no joke], the woman I picture as Divine Femininity) and in this vision I went to Muggins and put my arms around him, just a little hug, and for some unknown reason that image and the feeling it invoked started me sobbing, while frustration and anxiety kept me sobbing. Unable to relax my throat and frustrated that the mere production of (what was supposed to be healing) sound undid an entire week's worth of relaxation, I was reminded that silence and a healthy throat are only the beginning of my healing process. Lifestyle changes will continue to be made while I start the learning process over from scratch; I have to learn how to talk and breathe and sing as if I've never done it before. I have to remain constantly aware of how I'm using my voice and will most likely need help from chiropractors and acupuncturists and massage therapists to ease the tension that haunts my upper body. I have a long road ahead of me. But hopefully not TOO long! I shall pray to the learning curve gods.

As I went to sit by myself at lunch the other day someone called me over to sit with his group. I sat down and he said, "It must be so hard in a new place not to be able to talk. I mean, you want to be accepted and all that. You must feel a little insecure walking around, not be able to talk to people." I shook my head with a positive smirk on my face and wrote, "It's a nice change of pace for me. I'm a big talker." He guffawed as if I'd told the best joke EVER and said, "Really? It's hard to imagine that!" It's so interesting to hear people's perceptions of you when you can't talk. During my first week I befriended a guy named Eric, a lovely soul from Philly. He asked me what my voice sounded like and before I could answer he said, "You have the voice of a pixie, don't you? It's a little high?" WRONG. It's surreal to get to know people and not really be able to reciprocate. In a group, conveying sense of humor is out of the question. By the time I've written my extremely witty response to something they're on to the next-next-next thing. So I'm being impeccable with my silence too, it would seem. Eric got to know my sense of humor a little bit as we ate lunch together one day on the raggedly uncomfortable reclining lawn chairs. From that moment on we delighted in telling each other horribly wrong and/or dirty jokes but he very rudely left OHI at the end of my first week. Fortunately he didn't leave without talking about a magic chiropractor in town that we just HAD to go to, so Ray and I went together last week. Magic indeed. I wrote Eric an email that said simply, "I love Dr. Charlie. He is my hero." He wrote back and asked if I was going to see him again before leaving and suggested that I sing Wind Beneath My Wings to him on my last day. I was reminded of my first public performance when I was eleven or twelve singing that song in an auditorium for reasons I do not remember. I wrote him back and said I still wouldn't be producing sound then, but I'd do an interpretive dance instead. "Tell him to leave whatever misalignment makes you so damned funny," he replied. Man I wish I could have laughed out loud just then. What a great thing to say to the poor silent girl. Best line ever.

If nothing else, this place has done wonders for my confidence in other, unexpected areas. I have received numerous compliments on my state of fit-ness, which is something I've never felt good about. Yesterday I was surrounded by a small group of women after the stretch class who were gushing, saying I was beautiful to watch and calling me the yoga master. Today a man with whom I've never interacted came up to me after the exercise class and told me I had great form and he was really glad I was in front of him so he could try to mimic my moves. I have never been esteemed for the way I move, in fact most of my life I've felt frumpy and clumsy and not at all graceful. In college dance teachers yelled at me; nothing I did was ever good enough, graceful enough, sucked in enough, straight enough (I have double-jointed elbows and they look crooked even when my arms are straight). Now all of a sudden the way I move my body stands out in a crowd and people aren't afraid to say so. (And not a single person has commented on my crooked elbows.) It makes me wonder if I've changed the way I move or if my audience is friendlier and, perhaps, a little less discerning. Either way, I'll take it.

I hate to admit it, but I have short-timer's disease. I am quite ready to be home and able to communicate again, but I am also trying to make the most of these last couple of days. Classes (for third-weekers) are over so I'm going back to the classes I liked last week, just to make sure I'm not missing anything. Tomorrow will be a great day. To start, we third-weekers have spent all week making lunch for the second-weekers which we'll serve tomorrow, and I had the honor of naming our cafe. It is called ExtRAWdinary Cafe. Unfortunately I can't say it out loud and for some reason people are having the hardest time pronouncing it. "Say it with a New York accent!" I want to say. People are stumbling like they've never spoken more than 2 syllables at a time. Extrarawrrrrdinary, Extrastrawdinary, ExtRARdinary. Pretty much everything but ExtRAWdinary. Ah well, as long as the food is good (or as good as possible under the circumstances). Then I have my very last colonic (waaaaaaaah) and THEN I will break the silence.

Every Friday night there is a talent show at OHI called Friday Night Live. I have refrained from performing for the last two weeks, of course, but I feel like it's the perfect way to break the silence. I'm not even going to introduce myself, I'm just gonna walk on stage with Chief (my guitar) and sing. After that I'll have someone tell me a joke so I can laugh my ass off and the breaking of the silence will be complete.