Spectacularly Off the Wave
Hi, folks.
This childhood memory rotates back into my consciousness every few years. Watching the scene that it paints isn’t emotional for me now. But back then, of course, what a profoundly excruciating trauma it was. I can’t access those feelings today, since they have softened and integrated. But I do find the memory important, first because it is such a profound example of off the wave, and then more significantly, because it shows how much healing I have been offered in this lifetime walking around on our planet.
How much healing is available to all of us.
In this memory, I am an 8-or-9-year-old child. I so honor and bless that terrified little girl. I offer this child to you—here she is:
This ancient memory is almost 70 years old, if a moment. I am a new student in Hebrew School. It terrifies me. I despise it. My stuttering, debilitating enough in English, becomes even more traumatizing with Hebrew.
Now in class we are reading the vocabulary words aloud, going up and down the rows. This is death to my heart, this death of waiting. Knowing I can’t say the sounds. Knowing everyone will hear. Will see. Me.
Miss Tischman, our teacher, has the tattoo on her wrist. That number, her number, forever imprinted. Her number of death. I know that tattoo—my forever and monogamous friend G.’s parents share that tattoo.
She is short and squat, and looks—different. Her clothes are not familiar, she is not familiar, her language—she insists on speaking to us in Hebrew—scares me. English words are hard enough a thing for me.
I know I should be kinder to Miss Tischman. Hitler, that bad man, tried to kill her along with all the other Jews. I should feel sorry for her. I should surely not be rude to her. I’m not an acter-outer-kid at all—I’m a please-don’t-notice-me-I’m-not-here-kid. Invisibility was my goal, my solace.
But now, here, in this bleak classroom, misbehaving seems to be the only available way to escape this fray of emotion. This was not a thought or a plan, but a visceral, thoughtless response. I push the kid’s desk in front of me, a little nudge forward, again, then again. I stomp my feet on the floor, just a little at first, then gaining in momentum, in my frantic attempt at escaping the situation.
As we go up and down the rows, as the spotlight of visibility gets closer, now I am truly terrified now, sweating and hot and shaky. It’s almost my time to speak aloud. As my terror escalates, so do my attempts at escape. I do more kicking on the floor, more pushing the desk in front of me.
Finally, Miss Tischman, rightfully and ultimately frustrated with me, storms toward me and yanks me from my seat by the collar of my beloved deep-blue-turtleneck sweater. She pulls me out of my desk, across the room and into the hallway. With a dramatic flick of her hand, she throws my red rubber boots after me.
She slams the door behind herself. The echo of the slamming door seems to vibrate in the empty, deserted hallway.
I escaped the moment. Phew.
Yet this empty and alone moment I have created, standing in the hallway, boots deserted in front of me, is so much worse. Its hollow silence defies me, challenges me, terrifies me. I am so ultimately alone.
Instead of terror, now there is only shame.
~~~
I have no memory of before or after this event. It is my last day in Hebrew school. But it is not my last day running from moments, from situations, from people, places and things. I run and run for a very long time. Over the years, as I leaped off the wave, I continued to create worse situations for myself, much more complicated than what life was offering me.
Now, it’s different. Now I imperfectly practice staying where I am, feeling what I feel, allowing the situation, the feeling, the experience to come and go. Now I practice most imperfectly relaxing into what’s happening.
In the moment, prayer helps. Breath helps. Moving a muscle helps. Reaching out to others, all these things help. But I can’t always do it.
I still try to escape.
Over and over again.
And then I practice.
I practice
Coming
Back
To the moment.
There is no perfection.
There is only practice.
Friends,
How do you get off the wave?
What is the cost of that escape?
What might you do to stay just a tad more present, just a nanosecond longer?
Please let me know.
~~~
I love sharing weekly music that is currently supporting me, opening me, comforting me. I dive into a song, spend a week or so compulsively gobbling it up, and then move on. This week has taken me to Playing for Change.
I so respect this non-profit, whose mission is to take musicians from all over the world and weave their voices and their instruments into one song. Their mission so reflects Swami Kripalu’s core teaching, the Whole World is One Family.
Here’s a goodie, What’s Going On. I might have sent this out a while ago—sorry, folks, here it is again. Watch it through. Listen to the brilliant guitars. And when Sara B. sings at toward the end, in front of the arch in Washington Square Park in New York, I tingle—I lived a few blocks from there.
Enjoy:
~~~
Dear Folks,
Breathe.
Relax.
Feel.
Watch.
And allow.
Allow your moment to come.
Allow it to go.
Just practice.
Returning right here and right now.
May we continue to find our way forward,
With kindness and with blessings.
May all beings benefit from our time together.
All blessings,
Aruni
