THE YOGA CHRONICLES: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT YOGI

“AMERICA’S PACT WITH THE DEVIL”

It has been said that the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his otherworldly guitar mastery. Johnson died at twenty-seven, the victim of an angry husband who poisoned his whiskey. One of the greatest guitarists of all time, he is buried in an unmarked grave, whereabouts unknown.

Dr. Johann Georg Faust’s preoccupation with the occult allowed him to summon the devil, with whom he bartered his immortal soul for twenty- four years of pleasure. After sixteen years, Faust reconsidered and tried to re-negotiate the deal. As every high schooler knows, it didn’t go well for old Johann, either.

It went only a little better for St. Theophilus, who in his desire to become an archdeacon sought out a wizard to connect him with Satan. In a contract signed in his own blood, Theophilus agreed to renounce both Christ and the Virgin Mary. Theo too rethought his whole deal and repented. After forty days of fasting, the Virgin Mary appeared to Theophilus, chastised him for his blasphemy and most assuredly busted him across the knuckles with a metric. After much begging and thirty more days of fasting, Mary granted him Absolution and promised to intercede with God on his behalf.

It took another three more days of negotiation with Satan and a full confession to a bishop before Theophilus was unburdened from his contract, whereupon he died.

In this most recent and rarest of all presidential elections, we as Americans made our own pact with the devil, bartering our immortal soul for a peek up the skirt of the Statute of Liberty to see if she’s wearing panties.

We have witnessed a political race like no other in the history of our country. It is the ultimate cautionary tale- an election to establish not who we are but -hopefully-  who we are not.

It is beyond my understanding how the American electorate can pretend to be all shocked and shaken that we could not find in all this great land- from north to south, east to west, from sea to shining damned sea- two more likeable candidates for the highest office in the country?

Having peeped through the open window of our neighbor’s bedroom for years, how can we now possibly claim to be appalled that our presidential election has devolved into a reality show?

Rather than conducting a grand national debate on the issues which could serve to better us all, we had a peep show, where we hungrily gorged ourselves in real time on an endless loop of dirty laundry.

And why not? We have greedily leered as others have sold their souls to the devil for their Faustian fifteen minutes of fame. Given our collective attention span, that fifteen minutes is now closer to three so you have to cash in while the window is still open.

We have blithely watched as mothers cash in on their children’s porno movies, turning Kim Kardashian West into a national monument.

We are amused to have the anchor of a major news channel and a former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in an argument reminiscent of Vikki Gunvalson and Tamra Judge of the Real Housewives of Orange County.

All that was missing was the smiling and smug but utterly delightful Andy Cohen.

(It is hard – if not downright gross- to imagine Tip O’Neal or Sam Rayburn saying to Walter Cronkite, “You’re obsessed with sex.”)

It is certainly the first election in which a major candidate has bragged he has a large penis. Not exactly Webster’s Reply to Calhoun.

Friends are lost because of political Facebook postings.

We’ve viewed emails, both public and private, heard about Donald Trump’s hands, Hillary Clinton’s ankles, and otherwise witnessed a shit show the likes of which makes the Hamilton- Burr duel seem downright genteel.

There is nothing off-limits. Sex. Religion. Race. There is nothing too personal to share or reveal.

Our national obsession with the profane is neither new nor even uniquely American, but we do have a new wizard of the occult, the twenty-four hour news cycle, whom we summon to conjure up demons big and small.

 We have relinquished our ability to know that some things are inherently wrong for a glimpse up the teacher’s skirt.

We have surrendered our license to think.

          I have seen the devil and it is us.

          As for me, I’ve got my own damn demons to dispel. So ninety- one days ago I decided to reset, to get back to First Principles, to try and calm the turbulence in my own small mind and soothe the unrest in my own unholy soul.

          While I cannot change the acrimony I see, I can change me.

 For I am the devil I know.

Whether as my own personal protest or perhaps as penitence, I decided to do ninety yoga classes in ninety days.

          It has forced me to discipline not just my body but my mind, reminding me that to transcend requires not only transcendence but, in fact, a starting place, a benchmark from which to transcend.

It is this part of yoga that has always held a mystical allure for me, not because of the transcendence but because it stabilizes me, it gets me back to myself- even when I’m a real asshole.

          The first principle is you have to be there- you have to show up. I have to make the time to go to class very day and I have to actually show up -because history gets made by those who show up.

          The next principle is that I have to start at the beginning, not in the middle. I have spent a lifetime starting in the middle. Whether from birth order (I am the youngest of three brothers), a nasty competitive streak, or a preternatural cosmic impatience, I have always simply wanted to be farther down the road than I deserved to.

My life before yoga was a high-wire act without a net, more style than substance and more balls than brains. It requires daring- and profound arrogance- to teach college at twenty-two and run for the legislature at twenty-three, particularly considering the fact that I was an utter fraud in both.

But on my mat, I have to start at the beginning; indeed, I have to start with my shortcomings. Not only do I have to show up every day, I have to be prepared, never one of my strong suits.

I have to get there early- not only to stretch and warm my creaky old muscles and joints but to prepare and open my mind for the challenges ahead.

To start class, I root my feet on all fours corners, grounding myself into the earth with a genuine stability I have never known. I lift and open my chest, place my hands in my prayer at my heart, and raise my head to the heavens.

All things considered, not a bad place to start for a dinosaur ex-fraternity boy from East Texas.

Throughout class, I have to remember to stay within myself even as I try to push beyond my limitations and realize that the power of a particular pose always comes in overcoming my own weakness of mind, body or spirit, not in flinging myself into them.

I have spent a lifetime flinging myself into poses, allowing momentum to propel me forward even when I was not remotely ready. But that only cheated me, depriving of discipline, focus, and, alas, genuine satisfaction.

As a result, I often find myself actually angry during class, almost always in those poses which make me fearful or uncomfortable or for which I am unprepared. Balance poses which combine any forward folding or twisting seem to positively wring anxiety out of me.

A simple half-moon can send me so far into the throes of terror and frustration that I can almost feel myself falling deeply into the abyss. A revolved half –moon can send me into years of therapy.

On my mat, I have nowhere to hide because no one is looking but me, so the demons are where they always were.

But at the end of each class, there is rest. It is more than physical recovery. For about three minutes, I lay quiet and still on my mat. The physical exertion has loosened the death grip that my fears have on my thoughts, allowing them to roam untethered, free of intent, purpose, or meaning.

In these moments, it is not simply the absence of motion but the actual presence of peace. Oddly, it is here where the yoga begins. If I transcend in these moments, it is from my own demons.

As a profoundly imperfect man, God knows that it enough.

There is no dealing with my demons. There is no minimizing them. There is no distraction from them through sleight of hand.  So I must accept it and surrender. Or get pissed off.

I have spent a lifetime dancing without a net on the wire, trying to prove my own worthiness to others even when I did not believe in it myself. A poor man’s Don Quixote, I tilted at windmills and slashed away at my demons with my wooden sword.

I cannot eliminate my demons but I can control myself- my breath, my focus, my patience, and my discipline.

This is my mastery. It may not be transcendental or pretty, but it is mine.

And I didn’t have to sell my soul for it.

           

           © Thomas C. Barron 2017

THE YOGA CHRONICLES: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT YOGI

“THE LONG GOODBYE, PART TWO: THE LONG RUN”

It is thirty-six years later and I find myself again on a synthetic track in the oppressive Texas summer sun, the heat still emanating from the ground in its familiar amoeba pattern. I am now at Woodrow Wilson High in Dallas and the ghosts of its two Heisman Trophy winners, Davey O’ Brien and Tim Brown, are keeping me company as I complete my run.

At 57, I now have an entire complement of ghosts- living and dead- to guide me through my day.

But today my heart is racing in an unfamiliar way and feel a slight skip every now and again, which will give a man my age a moment’s pause. My breath is choppy, my legs are wooden, and my back hurts with literally every step.

It is so much harder now.

But I push on, step by step, if for no other reason than I have absolutely no idea what else to do.

Just like 1981, I am running to fat again, undisciplined, and totally lacking in focus.

And I am scared to death. I am fearful in a way I have not been fearful before- not of the unknown but of the known.

I hate the things I know now.

I’m back to where this journey began, in the fervent and prayerful hope that I can reclaim some clarity and purpose.

For ten days now, I have been in what could only be called the mother of all existential funks, sleep -walking through days before falling, exhausted and usually drunk, into a fitful and dreamless sleep.

So, I’ve decided to go back to First Principles, to see if I could summon the courage to put myself together one more time from the scattered jigsaw pieces of fifty-seven years.

You see, ten days ago, I went to see my best friend.

He didn’t recognize me.

Before when I would visit, there would be hesitation and then recognition. I would sometimes actually see him mouth the words “Tom Barron” or “TC” and there might even be a slight glimmer of mischief in his eyes, as if he were remembering the nights he put the alligator in my bed or taught me to drink beer at the Deep Eddy Cabaret or found me naked on the floor of my apartment looking for a joint.

There were even those cherished moments when he could reconstruct entire episodes from our life, including several that alcohol has hazed over in my own memory.

In those moments, I thought I could see him digging into the deep recesses of his memory because it seemed important to him, as if he knew our lives were intertwined and that to know me was somehow to know himself.

But not this time. He looked at me with a vacant stare.

In one instant, thirty -nine years simply vanished- not just misplaced but gone forever.

Worse than that, it seemed as if he could no longer conjure the Herculean effort it took to try.

I made it through less than five minutes of idle chatter before I had to excuse myself. I stood in the bathroom, begging for the tears to come and cursing when they wouldn’t. I reached for everything I had in the arsenal: anger, humor, logic, prayer.

Nothing.

The last five minutes with him were a blur. I tried everything to garner some recognition. I felt like I do when I am trying to get my adorable but Buddha-like neighbor child to giggle, using whatever clownish expression I can muster without any sense of vanity.

Still nothing.

I couldn’t even find my own way out the door of his new facility, one which specializes in “memory care.”

There’s a little irony for you.

The tears found me on the way home. They were neither comforting or cathartic.

I’ve been a mess ever since, falling into fine but rigid patterns of hard-wired behavior:  withdrawal, isolation, and fear. And I have been drinking far much more than I should.

It was time to break those patterns. So, I went back to the track.

First Principles: Those things that are the hardest are best for you.

As I schlepped through the first lap, I had my first epiphany: Like him, I will never get better, only worse. Not only will I never be young and strong again, every slight memory lapse or moment of indecision will cause my heart to skip a beat. 

And I feel guilty as hell- not just for the fact that I cannot do anything for him or that I don’t see him as often as I should or even that I am still whole- but for something far more selfish and cowardly.

It is the fear I might be next.

I hate the things that I know.

It took only another lap in the hot morning sun to have another sunburst: It is not going to get easier, only harder. The drive to Austin will get longer and my visits will get shorter and decidedly less satisfying. Do I have the strength to keep doing it? What if it was me? Wouldn’t I want him to be there? Would he be? If he doesn’t know me, why go? If he doesn’t remember I’m there, why go? Does it help him? Does it hurt him? What purpose does it serve for him? For me?

I also hate the things I don’t know. And I hate the fact that I don’t know them.

I am at that point in my life where I am supposed to be wise and I am not. I am supposed to be at that point in my life where I am supposed to be able to help others and I cannot.

I hate things the things I know.

And is all this about a friendship which was- as Bill Hurt said in The Big Chill- for a short period of time a long time ago?

Or is our friendship truly enduring? Were we, in fact, born kindred souls? And does this moment define that friendship separate and apart from all that preceded it? If I fail him now, is that the legacy of my friendship?

I choose to believe in our friendship because to deny it is to truly erase those thirty-nine years.

But I also make that choice because of those people who have done the yeoman work for him, who have shouldered the load in ways I cannot imagine. Those who have been there for him are not always those who are the most demonstrably warm or open. Oftentimes, they appear just the opposite. But they have been there nonetheless, doing the hard things.

I have spoken to literally hundreds of his friends about his plight and all their pursed lips and false frowns of compassion together don’t add up to a bucket of warm spit. Their furrowed brows and mock whimpers are the same as they would have reserved for a crying baby or a dying aunt who had never been altogether civil to them. 

They are like those people who form committees to absolve themselves from further moral responsibility, who are in fact providing moral relief for themselves but very little practical relief to those who actually need it.

Epiphany number three: You never know who will who will be there for you.

This is how this one ends, my desperate attempt to understand karma and interconnectedness and that there is a tenderness in seemingly the most ostensibly hardened of us.

On Sunday, I will try to run the Too Hot to Handle 15k in Dallas, folly for even the most hardcore runner. At the 7:30 start, it will be 77 degrees and, when I finish (presumably sometime before mid-afternoon), it will be in the 80s.

Heart Attack City.

Maybe I am running precisely because it is hard, pushing my outer limits again because I owe it to him to do what is hard.  Maybe I am punishing myself. Maybe I am doing it because I need to know I can still push my own limits, that I can summon the will to get off the mat one more time.

Maybe this track is somehow a road back to a place where something good started years ago. Just because the track is a circle doesn’t mean it doesn’t go somewhere.

Or maybe I am just a lost pilgrim staggering toward redemption.

I don’t pretend to know. I know only that I am sad.

I hate the things I know.

© Thomas C. Barron 2017

"The Long Goodbye"

“THE LONG GOODBYE- PART ONE”

His hands tremble and he shuffles rather than walks. He remembers events from thirty-five years ago almost seamlessly, yet he claws desperately at recent memories. He has not been able to drive a car for some time. He no longer can manage his cell phone. He can no longer even live on his own. I now have to help him negotiate his seat belt. He lives in a nursing home.

He is sixteen days older than me.

He is my best friend.

            You see, my best friend is sick, very sick, and has been for some time. The doctors are now calling it dementia with Lewy bodies, but in truth they don’t really know what the hell it is.

For almost forty years, there has not been a significant event in our lives that we were not standing side by side. 

I was there when he got the news his father had died. I was there the morning he met his future wife. I stood best man at his wedding and him at mine. He is my son’s godfather and my wife is his son’s godmother. My mother calls him her fourth son. He drove all night to be with me the day we buried my father.

Now when he first sees me, there is a dark uncertainty in his eyes and the recognition comes slowly, a faint echo off some distant wall.

He is the most magnificent bastard I have ever known. Tall, dark and good looking, he had a devilish twinkle in his eyes said to be irresistible to the ladies. A spectacular vocal mimic, he was capable of bursting into a serviceable Sinatra medley at any given moment and could imitate the rhythm and cadence of almost anyone’s voice to great effect. He had great comedic timing and an edgy, razor-like wit, against which there was no known demurrer.

He was the top fraternity rushee in the state in the summer of 1978 and quite literally could have walked into any house on the University of Texas campus and gotten a bid. He became our fraternity State Rush Captain, overseeing a summer budget of almost $50,000.00. He was “tapped-in” as one of our representatives to the Silver Spurs service organization, a much-coveted honor. He once made an A in an upper division German class which I knew he had never actually attended, except for the spare forty-five minutes it took him to blitzkrieg the final exam. He helped elect a governor, was a real estate guy in 1980’s Dallas, and worked for one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the state. With the possible exception of his seemingly genetic inability to shoot or dribble a basketball, I have never known anything that he couldn’t do.

He made a rather remarkable entrance into my life, not unlike a prison break or a South American soccer riot. In fact, he did not so much enter my life as I was swept up into his, a maelstrom of drunkenness, spontaneity, and hilarity which has lasted the better part of five decades and which has seen us through his father’s early death, college, law school, careers, wives, ex-wives, children, and now… this.

My first image of him was prone on his back beneath a stripper, a dollar bill folded long-ways and jutting upward as she gyrated above him while seventy-five fraternity boys and would-be fraternity boys whooped and hollered as only fraternity boys and would-be fraternity boys can.

He was wearing the most perfectly wrinkled blue oxford cloth button-down shirt I had ever seen, one which had never seen anything resembling an iron and which strongly suggested he may have slept in it. His sleeves were rolled up in the most elegantly haphazard manner possible, portraying that elusive go-to hell attitude I so greatly admired. His enviable military –grade khakis were not only baggy but slightly pegged at the cuffed and frayed bottom and were a trifle short, displaying lots of ankle and a pair of a splendidly worn Sperry Topsiders.

He was also wearing a Vantage Blue in his right hand and a longneck Budweiser in his left, balancing it all – as ever- in a sort of perfect disharmony which was already something of a trademark and which had already made him, even at eighteen, something of a legend.

That first night, as he charmed the pants off the stripper and everyone else in that room at the Albert Pick Motel in Houston, he was everything I aspired to be: independent, carefree, cocksure, and, I would learn, utterly brilliant, with a genuine intellectual pedigree which consisted of, among others, a firebrand civil rights lawyer, a University of Texas department chair, the Dean of the U.T. Liberal Arts school, and the first female member of the Wisconsin Bar Association.

I found it inconceivable that all these disparate elements could be amalgamated into one actual person. To combine them with a debonair style was beyond my ability to comprehend.

The truth was I was almost afraid to talk to him, fearful my own anemic credentials could never pass close scrutiny in such a world.

I had never met a boy my own age who intimidated me- the mere thought of such an admission could send one tumbling precariously down the Darwinian ladder of locker rooms and fraternity houses. On that first night, I simply assumed he was already an active member of the fraternity.  When I realized he was a mere rushee, I was all the more intimidated.

But my best friend has never been “mere” in his entire life. Hell, his fears, insecurities, and failures are large enough to put most people’s lives in.

The following morning we were both on a bus from Houston to New Orleans for the annual New Orleans State Rush Party, an event which often determined the fate of guys whose brothers had not been back- to -back state rush captains, as mine had. If one emerged unscathed from the Hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s, the rather shopworn strippers, or the lure of the more forbidden delights of side- street hookers, one just might be asked to pledge. Ironically, it is sometimes the more calamitous behavior of some rushees which actually guaranteed their place in the pledge class, as the trip is the stuff of which legends are made.

In retrospect, it seems improbable if not downright suicidal that I would be reading Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World on a bus full of drunk frat boys rambling toward New Orleans, but that was precisely what I was doing. It was not that I was not against drunk fraternity boys nor morning drinking- it was simply that I did not drink beer, an admission I disliked making to anyone because it made me seem weird and unmanly, as if the whole reading- Aldous Huxley -on -a -bus -full – of - drunk -frat -rats thing hadn’t already sealed that particular deal.

Shockingly enough, the seat next to me on the bus was open, allowing me to read and smoke in peace. He appeared out of the void, plopping down luxuriously onto the seat beside me, bumming the first of thousands of cigarettes and giving me a graduate –level synopsis of the book and of many others. I learned that day that he could ad-lib with actual and presumed authority on almost any topic.

We talked all the way to New Orleans from Houston and discovered in due course that we both were life-long Democrats, that we were both to be liberal arts majors, and that our greatest aspiration in life was to be burnt –out trial lawyers, fighting the good fight to the bitter end, at which point we would die early in a blaze of glory, having thrown ourselves unflinchingly at the injustices which only we, in our infinite wisdom, could properly redress.

Before we had even gotten to New Orleans, it had already been decided that if we were to change the world, we would need a partner.

For good or for ill, we have been yoked together ever since.

Even in the dark days long before “bromances” and “man crushes,” our relationship would ultimately morph into something resembling that of an old married couple.

This would never be more evident than the night I laid twenty-six points on the Navy ROTC guys in an intramural basketball game at old Gregory Gym, wearing Stevie Wonder sweepback shades and a bandanna tied around my head. He had just pulled down a rebound, if in fact that’s what you call it when a basketball, as if on its own accord, happens to drop into your hands under the basket. As he had been strictly forbidden by me to ever even consider dribbling, I called for the ball as I drifted back for the outlet pass.

Rather than pass me the ball, he simply let it loose and dramatically called a time-out. I was immediately summoned to the bench and obliged to enjoy a short walk down the sideline, away from the others, when he stopped, looked me dead in the eyes, and with an uncharacteristic resignation in his voice, said, “T.C., you know I love you, right? But you’ve got to quit calling me ‘honey’ in front of the sailors.”

For the balance of the game, I, of course, launched into what would now be considered a politically incorrect falsetto every time he got the ball, until he eventually began throwing the ball out of bounds rather than throw it to me.

I tell him these stories now and sometimes I know he is feigning remembrance, but other times he contributes details cut out of whole cloth. He seems content then, if only for moment, but there is also frustration and anger in these moments of clarity, as if he realizes he is supposed to be someone else.

He is lost now and so am I.

This is usually the place in the blog where I transition into a discussion of yoga but I am at a loss as to how to do so, but this is a disease which allows for no smooth transitions and even fewer answers.

And then it hit me.

It is like those days when I find myself adrift on my mat, wondering why I do not feel inspired or even particularly grateful. While I would like to say that in every class there is always a moment of clarity or insight, that is not always true.

There are those days when I leave as empty as I entered, my practice devoid of meaning or purpose. And then there are those days when I find the deeper expression of a pose or some peace in a transition that had confounded me or perhaps even just the resignation that I must accept that a modification or the use of props to assist me in my journey.

Sometimes it is satisfying and sometimes it is not. But whatever my limitations, it is always a gift.

            I have to remember that my best friend is still a gift and that I must strive to find meaning and purpose in this newest incarnation of our friendship, even if that means- at first -as little as simply showing up.

And while I will miss the deeper meanings and expressions of our friendship, I am obliged to accept it as it is now and I pray we can modify our friendship to accommodate the limitations which confound it.

            The last time I went to see him, I took him a picture my brother had taken of the two of us on the bench the night we played the Navy ROTC guys. It was a picture of two guys who planned to change the world.

            I had placed it in a frame so he would have it for his room.

But he didn’t know where his room was.

© Thomas C. Barron, 2016

"Get This Fat Girl Off Me"

“Get This Fat Girl Off Me”

            With three letters and a mere syllable, I watched the weight of the world’s judgment descend upon my daughter’s ten year-old shoulders. It was as if a giant fist had seized her and literally squeezed the crocodile tears from her eyes.

            There has been a collision under the basket of my daughter’s ten and -under summer coed basketball league and my daughter had landed on a blonde boy, who had deployed the word out of embarrassment and frustration at having been man-handled by girl all game long.

Having volunteered to coach the summer league team, I had watched her confidence grow with each game. She was asserting herself more and more on both ends of the court and, more importantly, her self-assurance off the court had skyrocketed.

            But with the deployment of one word, this all disappeared in an instant. As she ran off the court with a splotchy face and tears in her eyes, my sad rage was the only thing maintaining my own humanity. Had I been able to unloose the gates of hell at that moment, I would have gladly done so.

            When she said she was quitting, I was very nearly blinded by anger.  I was struck by the metallic sound of my own voice.

            “No, you’re not,” I said, “go wash your face,” was all I could think to say.

            Her teammates- tough, inner-city kids quite fond of their designated rebounder, pick- setter and defensive stopper- were prepared to make the offender disappear on the spot.

            As a father, I was at a loss as to what to do. A post-game dissertation on institutional prejudice and the objectification of women seemed altogether inappropriate. Punching the coach was another option considered and ruled out as too indirect. A scathing op/ed piece in The Times was too remote.

            Thank God I was standing on a basketball court because, as a basketball guy, I knew exactly what to do.

            So when she returned, I said this to her, “We may both get kicked out of this sumbitch, but the next time he comes down the lane, drop him like a sack of ashes.”

            I know. Father of the Year.

            Her teammates were admonished to open the lane to make an inviting target and the blonde boy dribbled directly into the kill zone, whereupon my daughter drilled her shoulder into his sternum and sent him crashing ignominiously to the floor, his perception of fat girls forever and inalterably changed. 

            My sense of satisfaction almost made me sick.

            All of a sudden, eighteen kinds of hell broke loose. The blonde kid crying. His parents screaming. The opposing coach calling for my ouster and banishment from the league. The referee actually making the foul call.

            And in the midst of the chaos, I glimpsed my daughter observing the scene with the wizened countenance of a major league pitcher who has deliberately hit an opposing batter- all business. I was almost as proud of her teammates for masking their glee. I do remember them surrounding her like a pride of lions, their wary looks telling the ten year –old hoops world a new enforcer had been born.

            I distinctly remember the opposing coach insisting she be ejected immediately and perhaps burned at the stake. The referee’s reply was the one I had hoped for:

“I heard what he said.”

While I am not proud of my behavior that day, I am less ashamed because the incident seemed to propel my daughter’s self –assurance into another dimension. She had taken their best and cheapest shot and emerged a larger, more complete young woman.

In that moment, I believe she ceased being a fat girl. In fact, her already bigger-than-life personality has become even more robust and expansive in the twenty years since the incident. It is as if her shape and size had been sculpted from the inside out to accommodate her grand spirit. In that moment, she began to grow into herself.

The fat girl has done okay: she played in a Dallas Parochial League basketball championship, swam in two state high school swim meets, joined a college sorority and was invited to join the Dallas Junior League- all supposed bastions of mean girls with reputations for intolerance. 

More importantly, she has earned her college degree, is wildly successful in a job which perfectly suits her talents and personality, works tirelessly for charity, is a true and loyal friend, and is fiercely protective of family and friends.

She has taken on the role of enforcer in all aspects of her life as a natural extension of her own empowerment.

And she has found love.

And it could have been so different.

 

It has been my experience that one does deploy the word fat by accident. It is a tactical nuclear strike designed to cripple one’s enemy.

The word carries with it a payload of institutional negativity so profound that no one dares even challenge the underlying (and fraudulent) notion that bigger women are not as beautiful as smaller women.

As shown above, there is no room for a proportional response. The only proper counterstrike is carpet bombing the enemy.

My yoga practice has allowed me to see true beauty- the beauty others see in themselves. The internal focus of a yoga practice radiates beauty both inwardly and outwardly. There is no greater interpersonal gravitational pull than a confident woman- yet it is an attraction that only a strong and secure man (or woman) can truly appreciate.

In almost any yoga class, traditional definitions of beauty are thrown to the winds, giving way to the tightly controlled dance of concentration, balance, focus, and power that is in all of us. Beauty is not always found in the yogis who achieve the fullest depth of a pose but rather in those yogis who stay within themselves, accepting where they are along the path.

True beauty resides in the peace of that moment of acceptance. For in that moment of acceptance is the ever-hopeful notion that there will be another moment, that their journey will continue, and that they will continue to evolve in their wisdom and in their beauty.

That beauty exists in the eyes and in the countenance. It exudes from the spirit within. It is a beauty borne of hard work, discipline and self-sacrifice. It is beauty that not all can accept. It should not be easily squandered.

There can be no lying or falsity in that beauty. There can be no objectified physical ideal of a woman. There can no airbrushing, photo-shopping or touchups.

And there are no fat girls.

"Lamentations of a Fifty-Something White Guy"

THE YOGA CHRONICLES: CONFESSIONS OF A RELUCTANT YOGI

“Lamentations of a Fifty- Something White Guy”

            My once fabulous gay friends are now paunchy but adorable as they excuse themselves early to relieve the babysitter. The President of the United States is a black man. My daughter is a high- powered business woman. Computer geeks are the richest people on the planet.

But I was born into a world run by fifty-something white guys. And while we no longer live in that world, my expectations of myself are premised upon the notion that I should exert authority, wield influence, and be financially stable and secure, an unerring source of protection and comfort for others.

            Growing up, I was told one should bear up manfully against all manner of crises and dutifully shoulder the load so as to be a “good provider” for my wife and family.

            Anything less was utter, abject failure.

            You first learn that boys don’t cry. Tears were the acceptance of failure. If you cry, you’re a sissy and acting like a girl. Which would mean you couldn’t be in charge because women can’t be the boss. It could also mean you’re gay. And if you’re gay, you can’t be big and strong and have muscles and exert authority and power. And if you’re gay, you can’t have a family because only straight married men can have families.

            In fact, boys of my era were not allowed the luxury of any emotions except hubris and anger. If you won, you got to gloat but it was better if you didn’t. If you lost, you were pissed off. And you used that anger as fuel to win the next time.  

            All other human emotion in boys was superfluous and the subject of intense scrutiny- not to mention anxiety. Sensitivity and creativity was suspect as unmanly and irrelevant. Even intellectual curiosity was regarded with some suspicion, a way station for selfish and unproductive behavior.

And in the midst of all this, I was told I had the advantages as a white male.

But for me, this advantage was the privilege of suppressing any independent and creative urge I had, rigidly adhering to strictures of race, sex and money I found repugnant, and otherwise living a life of mindless conformity- all so I could cling to some fraudulent posture of prosperity inexplicably reserved for white American males.

And for far too many years, white males were the beneficiary of some sort of unexplained cosmic largesse. 

Bu there was this:

            “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

I think that’s from the gospel of Luke.

I think.

 

And this:

“‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.’"

Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby.

I know that one for sure.

For me, these advantages came with unwanted responsibility and unintended consequences.

No matter how hard I worked or how far out of my way I went to disavow these advantages, it was always assumed that I had attained what I had through privilege and station, not hard work, discipline or even creative sunburst.

Yet the truth is I matriculated into a world without a Good Old Boy Network.

Even more galling is the notion that I could actually be part of the problem, the attempt to associate me with an “establishment” that no longer exists in any identifiable form.

The true irony in this is that I have tried to help-in word and deed and spirit –to dismantle these archaic notions throughout my life.

My bona fides in this regard are beyond reproach- so don’t even try:

The worst -kept secret in Tyler, Texas in the late seventies was that I had a black girl friend in high school- a place and time you could still get lynched behind that shit.

I survived the “Political Correctness” rhetorical movement in graduate school in the early eighties, where I took more than one punch for opening a door and lighting a cigarette for female classmates.

I was part of the first law school class in SMU history with more women than men.

My church would not be happy with my views on gay marriage.

My general attitudes and outlooks about the world in general were shaped more by literature than business, more by Fitzgerald and James Baldwin than Lee Iacocca (for my younger readers, think Donald Trump).

I did all this in times and places where it was neither easy nor popular to do: locker rooms, country clubs, fraternity houses, and deb parties.

Before you even say, Oh poor Tom, he had it so rough, my father was a poor boy Golden Gloves boxing champ from North Tyler who fought and charmed his way from Homer Hester’s corner filling station to the country club in one generation.

The charter given to my brothers and myself was production. “Putting something back in the pot,” a mandate my Depression-era born father was more than fond of pronouncing.

My parents saw to it that we performed. My brothers and I navigated the shark-filled waters from junior high school football to frat –boy politics to debutante balls to law school because we felt the obligation to carry the torch onward and indeed tried to do so without the awkwardness or crassness of first generation wealth.

We didn’t just have to do it- we had to make it look easy.

The mere introduction of a discordant note in those circles could have moved things back decades if not generations.

Sensitive boys who want to go to Paris and be writers had best button their lips.

You might not have to hide your Playboys but you damn well better not get caught reading something that was not on the Honors English reading list, much less something written  by a gay black revolutionary.

Hiding behind my Economics textbook was not a centerfold but James Baldwin, Jerzy Kosinski, Amiri Baraka or Erica Jong- the kind of seditious literature that could get your ass whipped quickly if not permanently in East Texas.

Accordingly, I am a servant of two masters with equal presumptive rights to my soul, the one to which I feel a certain obligation and the one to which my allegiance naturally gravitates.

The yoga practice I have differs from the yoga practice I want because one part of me requires performance while the other part is willing to accept the consequences of failure.

My practice remains a microcosm of the pitched battle being waged for my soul.  I have never been fully rid of the expectations I have of myself, which intrude daily into my attempts to accept failure as a means of growth and which explains the rage I cannot entirely control.

Yoga is a means to sort out the inherent contradictions in my life. I would have feared much less in my life –and, ironically, succeeded more- had I accepted failure early on.

Had I known early on that falling out of a balance pose builds the muscles and the muscle memory to ultimately achieve the posture, I would have known that most things in life are not heaven-sent and didn’t always have to look easy.

My inability to stand on one foot is a mirror into my soul: Do I stand here cursing myself for my failure or do I concentrate on why I failed? Was it my failure to maintain my gaze at a fixed point? Did I forget to stand on one foot as if I were standing on two? Did I draw up chest higher to lighten the load? Did I simply forget to breathe? Too much coffee for breakfast? Or was I just plain trying too damn hard?

Or am I simply unworthy and helplessly broken?

Yoga has given me insight that my self-loathing and anger has become not just irrelevant but dead weight slowing my journey.

I’ve spend a lot of my life trying – in one way or another- to stand on one foot. When I failed, I cursed myself for failing despite the advantages that I have had. Failures have sent me into downward spirals which take weeks and months to correct.

I have never been able to simply trust in these dark times that my failures cleared the path for peace, self –containment, understanding and enlightenment: a path forged by me alone, where my feet were sure and light and the road ahead less frightening as the challenges had already been faced directly rather simply providing an excuse to descend into meaningless self-pity.

Yoga has taught me my failures are not the result of my fundamental unworthiness and that dwelling upon such things will not forward this pilgrim’s progress one step as I continue my wretched stagger toward redemption.

Next time: “Get this fat girl off me.”

"SEX TAPES AND CHRISTMAS LIGHTS"

“SEX TAPES AND CHRISTMAS LIGHTS”

 Before the Kardashian sisters oozed their way into the American spotlight, the gold standard for dark-haired, doe-eyed beauty was set by the Evans girls of Fry Street in Tyler, Texas: Shelley, Kelley, and Holley. If you were a male born between 1955 and 1972, you more than likely had a serious jones for one or more of the Evans girls.

            To my knowledge, the Evans girls still hold the southern regional record for Cut-Off Levi Wearing, Sister Division. They babysat, waterskied, went to sock hops, raised money for charity by doing car washes, dated quarterbacks and pitchers, and learned hand to hand combat in movie theaters and parked cars.

            And they had the absolute, ultimate, greatest Christmas light show. Ever.

            As in the entire history of Ever. It was massive display of lights visible from space long before Google Earth. It was the capstone of Christmas light viewing, which in Tyler, Texas is rightly considered an art form.

            And not one of the Evans girls earned their reputation by doing a below average homemade sex tape with a third-rate rapper, whose real claim to fame was being the brother of a second -rate pop singer. (When Aretha Franklin or Alicia Keys tells me Brandy is an R and B singer, then I’ll take it under advisement.)

            Unlike Kris Kardashian Jenner, whose own claim to fame was being divorced from one of O.J.’s lawyers, Maxine Evans is one mother who would have been heard on the subject of a sex tape and I can all but guarantee the phrases “not one of my daughters” and “take her over my knee” would have been deployed early in the conversation. And I can’t even begin to conceive of the medieval shit Everett Evans – a bruiser of a guy seemingly built to be the father of three pretty girls- would’ve come up with in this situation.

But we live in a world of “brands” and not dignity, a world where a mother would not only countenance her daughter’s homemade sex tape but use it as a stepping stone to pimp out the balance of her clan.

The sad thing about it all is that it wasn’t even Kris Jenner’s idea in the first place. The publicity arc of homemade sex-tape gets leaked/beautiful girl becomes famous for being famous/ starts perfume line/gets appearance fees for showing-up/has reality show/dates a series of rich guys had already been charted by another genius, Paris Hilton.

Just one look at Bruce Jenner‘s face should tell you everything you need to know about Kris Jenner in the first place.

What does all this have to do with yoga?

Nothing. And everything.

You see, my dear old friend Holley Evans is among my small but deeply disturbed readership. She had lost a leg thirty-four years ago in a boating accident.

After my last installment in which I implored everyone to attempt a yoga pose at home, I got a message from Holley which assured me that my wise-ass old friend had not changed much over the years.

She asked simply: Should I try it leg on or leg off?

I could actually see the smirk on her face and the evil twinkle in her eye when I read it.

I replied that she was still one of my favorite smart -alecks and that she had found her inner yogi. I may not have been kidding.

In typical Evans Girl fashion, she didn’t ask if, she asked how.

The essence of a yoga practice is having the dignity and courage to accept who we are and to modify or adjust our true selves to achieve any pose. It is only from a fearless physical inventory that we are able to achieve the poses we are attempting.

Legs are too short, arms are too long, and shoulders are too wide for certain poses, forcing us to modify and adjust our stances with our feet, the position of our hands or the alignment of our head, hips, shoulders, or arms. Shoulders do not rotate enough, hips are too open, and -wait for it- some people are too limber.

A month or so ago, I was next to this clearly advanced yogi who had to be constantly adjusted in order to reach the full expression of poses because she suffered from what the swami calls a “bendy” back, i.e., she is too flexible and can in fact get injured just trying to get any stretch at all. Throughout the class, she was adjusted and modified in order to get some stretch and not injure herself.

For a man quite proud to simply touch his toes with straight legs, this is not exactly my problem.

Throughout most of my classes, I mostly hear but do not see my fellow yogis, but this day I could sense an advanced practice next to me: the steady flow of breath, the smoothness of transitions within postures and from one posture to the next, the stillness and strength in the holding of poses, and the lightness of movement that comes from strong, engaged muscles and a properly focused mind.

The irony came at the end of class when she was putting on her hoodie.

She had one hand.

I was truly disappointed that I had missed seeing her practice because I missed the modifications necessary for her to do poses. I am far from a formal student of yoga but I am a true fan of the practice and this would have been a treat, watching her smoothly transition through the advanced stages of poses with one arm. 

Like watching Kevin Durant win a three-point shooting contest- with one arm.

Later, it struck me that Holley and this woman actually have a certain advantage in yoga as they are exceedingly cognizant of their own unique physicality and have spent a lifetime adjusting and modifying as a matter of course.

So when I asked my teacher, Jennifer Hensley (periodically referred to herein as simply The Swami), about how one would do a lunge with one leg, I should not have even been mildly surprised when she immediately asked about the nature of Holley’s prosthetic, its range of motion and ability to rotate and then proffered the solutions of using a chair or a bolster to modify entry into or holding the poses.

It took about thirty seconds, start to finish. Within three more minutes, she provided a variety of adjustments and modifications which could be used as Holley’s practice progressed further.

(I had forgotten that Jennifer and Lotus Yoga had begun a yoga class for veterans under the auspices of the Wounded Warrior project and as such is particularly attuned to dealing with adjustments and modifications of this sort. Interesting, Holley’s son is a soldier recently returned from Iraq safe and sound.)

Like the rest of my journey, I was amazed at the simplicity and practicality of it all.

But it was more than that.

Holley’s unique physicality underscores all our uniqueness.

Perhaps for the first time in my pilgrimage, I came to actually accept there is no perfect pose for the cover of a yoga magazine, those Kardashian moments of air-brushed, beatific-faced fraudulence which hide more than they reveal.

A perfect yoga pose is what is perfect for our own bodies at that moment in time and nothing more. Everyone achieves their depth in a pose in due time, aided by teachers, modifications, adjustments, props, patience, discipline and a honest appraisal of our own weaknesses and strengths.

This was yet another moment when my practice reached across time and space, harmonizing my past with my present. I am proud of my old friend, my teacher and myself, where I came from, where I am and where I hope to go.

One last thing. I think yoga magazines should show people falling more.

It may be the only way I’ll ever make a cover.

© Thomas C. Barron 2014