about yesterday

... i awoke to an email telling me that "Paris is freezing and foggy."
Alain Resnais would agree, but this is beside the point.

the point is that i took my yin to the airport yesterday, and i got up at 5am in an attempt to maximize our time together before her departure. she is spending three weeks in India, with a brief layover in the Charles de Gaulle airport, and woke an hour before me. she's been rising early (earlier, actually) and taking melatonin to help shift her circadian rhythms to India time, which is 9½ hours ahead of eastern standard time. i'm still trying to figure out that half hour, but rather than researching it i've decided just to chalk it up to another scar left by the British.

whatever the reason, we were both up stupid early yesterday morning and left the house before sunrise. she dropped me at school so i could teach my 8am class, and she went to teach her 7:30 client. she picks me back up a little before 10am. we go to Whole Foods and buy bananas. the total comes to $1.08, and i tell my yin, "that's auspicious."

she smiles and we eat our bananas in the dining area under a too-loud speaker that's blaring out Eighties pre-hair metal rock. it seems an odd choice given the venue, and by this point the sadness of our coming farewell has fully descended. we hold each other some.

this scene is repeated two hours later in a busy restaurant.

she asks me if not going brings up thoughts of the past. i tell her no, that school and money and any of a dozen other arbitrary things make my going with her impossible now. it is not just a matter of karma, but of dharma as well. i used to believe that karma is that which compels us to do our dharma, now i know it.

i tell my yin that my thoughts are of the future, that i want to share such experiences with her and hope we can make a living that will afford us such opportunities, while still allowing us to live with ourselves. i believe the term is called 'right livelihood.'

we split a veggie burger and some orzo, and between the bananas and the burger is a trip to a thrift store. it smells terrible – like a fart – and we choose not to stay long. her phone rings in the parking lot; a friend in Miami orchestrates a transcontinental call with the half-Canadian she's meeting in India. plans are made. he tells her to tell me that he loves the way i mistrust him. i appreciate the gesture.

after lunch we continue south, and it's raining as we drive down A1A looking for a cup of tea that never arrives. traffic worsens as we near Miami, and we cut west at Aventura, just south of the hotel where my yin attended a yoga conference some years ago. i remember helping her with her scholarship essay. our respective circumstances were so vastly different then. sometimes it's hard to comprehend.

i drop her at the airport around 2:45 pm. we kiss and hug and hold and each tell the other, "i love you."

i drive home in the rain, headaching from the overcast and sadness. the sun hasn't shown since Monday. no tears fall. i take the Turnpike to avoid traffic; perhaps i run a toll booth without realizing it. a school board meeting for Miani-Dade County is being broadcast on NPR. i turn off the radio and chant:

i nearly miss my exit in Boca and turn on music to help me reground. i still have one more class to teach and speak to my yin at 4:30 to make sure she made it through security. i wish her un bon voyage. she tells me she was dialing my number when her phone rang. we chant three rounds of gayatri together. no tears fall.

i go teach and my headache subsides, thankfully and temporarily; perhaps it was the green tea and pineapple.

back in my car the headache returns. i eat some leftover baguette from the day before. my yin had bought it for me, along with a big block of cheese, so i could sit around in my underwear and eat it while she was gone. she knows all about the metaphorical block of cheese, but it's the furthest thing from my mind on the drive home. the baguette is purely medicinal, and i hope that its thick crust will help to discharge the tension pent up in my jaw. it works some, but when i look down at my shirt i see a million tiny crumbs. it reminds me of the night before, when a similar hyperbole caused me to react to a close friend. he told my yin to tell me he loves the way i mistrust him. i appreciate the gesture.

(is repetition ever anything but intentional?)

i get home and take ibuprofen, turn of the lights and meditate. the headache recedes for the night, and i force myself to stay awake a little longer. i watch Last Year in Marienbad, which is stunning. even my fatigue and sadness are unable to diminish its impact; perhaps they enhance it. i jot notes that will become a poem, noticing how the world of Resnais seemed to seamlessly collide with my own.

or was it 'the world of Resnais seamed to seemlessly collided with my own?'

i never speak to my half-Canadian friend and turn off the computer just before 10pm. the next morning i awoke to an email telling me that "Paris is freezing and foggy." Alain Resnais would agree, but this is beside the point...