by cheri block

This morning, and I might cheerily add a glorious morning in downtown Los Angeles, I left my hotel in search of an authentic breakfast burrito.

In case any of you are wondering if the modifying clause in the previous sentence might have been sarcastic, banish that thought from your cynical mind and take the sentence for what it is: the truth.

After a rainstorm on Monday, downtown Los Angeles is as clean as a whistle. Even the gutters are tidy. Everyone is smiling this morning. Cabbies honk just a little bit. Why, when the doorman opened the door for me, his teeth reflected the sun in a sparkly hopeful sign that Life is Good. And it is! Why only yesterday,  I was a coed at USC and would search out here in downtown LA.the best Mexican food north of Mexico City

At least that was the feeling I had when I walked into the Grand Central Market, as I said, in search of a burrito muy muy muy bueno. The Grand Central Market did not disappoint.

Before I reached the entrance to the market, I had to side-step a Hollywood movie shoot going on with extra wannabees milling around, hoping some slick casting agent will catch their eyes and sign them up for instant stardom. Now that I look back, wearing my enormous Kate Spade sunglasses, I did look incognito as if I were trying to conceal my identity.

At the crosswalk in from of the Million Dollar Theatre, across from the Grand Central Market, wherein my burrito was only moments away from the grill, a tourist pulled me aside at a traffic light and said, ” Hi, I know who you are. Can I have your autograph?”

“Who do you think I am?” I coyly asked, sotto voce.

“Dana Delany,” she stated with authority.

“Shh…don’t tell anybody please. I’m on my way to get a breakfast burrito, comprende?”

Inside the market, I felt at home, mainly because I understand and can speak a little Spanish.

There I sat at a little Mexican diner with red seats, red-checked menus, and three of the most splendid people cooking the most comforting food south of USC.

I tried to shoot the bull but my Spanish is not idiomatic enough.

I tried one of my favorite idioms.

“No entiendes ni jota, ” I said.

“You want beans in your burrito?” asked Alejandro, the cashier.

Ha! Alejandro!

I was just practicing my Spanish. That phrase means ‘You don’t know beans!’

Yo soy una maestra de Ingles! How is my Spanish? What grade would you give me?

To be truthful, I’d give you a B, Alejandro answered.

Oh.

by cheri block

There are some men who know how to pack a car and others who don’t.

I am married to an amazing packer–the Honorable S. Queez Itin.

When our children were infants,  he masterfully layered a plastic infant seat, a bale of diapers, and a playpen into our tin can that was the 1971 Dodge Colt.

When our teenagers (and their friends) needed transportation to sporting events, he jammed soccer balls, filthy cleats, and seven live midfielders into the back of our GMC Suburban, along with three coolers overflowing with orange slices and at the bottom, one lone beer.

One would think that as the children left, his days of wedging stuff into all available trunk space would be over. Not quite.

Last weekend, in a test comparable to Odysseus’s battle with Penelope’s suitors, the Judge faced   the packing challenge of his life.

It must be noted that unlike Odysseus, the Judge chose this challenge. For her part, in weighing in about the potential for packing success, Penelope referred to Cheri Sabraw’s List of Criteria for How to Live a Real Life, choosing to adhere to Rule #2 (Listen, Don’t Talk) and Rule #5 (Let Go of Control).

The problem presented itself at Miner’s Nursery in San Luis Obispo where the Judge found the 27 Olallieberry plants that he had been searching for. For every three plants bought, one 60 pound bag of organic mulch came along free! Whoopee! He agreed with Norma, the master gardener facilitating this purchase, that this heavy load of bagged manure would fit perfectly in my luxury car.  (I again deferred to Rule #2).

When we arrived at our central coast home and were ready to head back to the Bay Area, his packing artistry began.

First, he collapsed the second seat in the car. Into the small space went the following items: six bags of mulch (three would ride on the roof), two bags of golf clubs, several pieces of soft luggage with my clothes and toiletries, a small cooler, the Judge’s  briefcase, my briefcase with computer and wires, 27 Olallieberry bushes (with thorns)  in one gallon cans, and…..a live yellow Labrador Retriever, her leash and chew bone.

Could he do this?

In my warm house so close to the pounding of the Pacific Ocean, I listened to the heartbeat that is Mother Nature’s. The dog and I made eye-contact, she misjudging it for “treat time.” She rose, nosed over to the cupboard where treats sit and pointed at the cabinet, all while wagging her strong tail like a rudder heading into port. I gave her a treat and then ate one myself out of nervousness.

Meanwhile, Odysseus set to the rigging of the ship.

When Penelope, looking very rested I might add, came out to inspect the packing job, all met with her approval.

“Let’s go!” she said. “What an amazing packing job, Ody.” She kissed him in glee.

Over Highway 46 we sped, on our way home. I exhaled a big breath of relief and glanced back into the space to see how Dinah, the dog,  was coping. She was nowhere to be found under an earthy thicket of thorns and the richest of loam. I guessed that she was rolled into the tiniest ball in the southwest corner of the car, probably licking the mulch bags.

Once in the valley town of Paso Robes, His Honorable Odysseus S.Queez Itin suggested,  “We should stop here for a nice dinner, Penny.”

“What about the dog?”

At the restaurant Artisan, parked and ready to go in, I wondered what would happen if the yellow Labrador Retriever, wedged between cow manure and berry bushes, might have a panic attack. Clearly, I was projecting my own potential, were I in her paws.

“Have a glass of wine, Penny. It will all be O.K.,” soothed Ody.

I took his advice, adhering to Rule #5 (Letting go).

When we left the restaurant, I didn’t bother to inspect the cargo until we arrived at home and unloaded the dog, the plants, the clubs, and the manure–all in tact.

There are some men who know how to pack and some who do not.

Rule #6 ( Set those in our lives free to be who they are!)

by cheri block

From Ivan Ilych to Bob Miller to Sir Thomas More… I continue to assess their lives by comparing my criteria to their life experience.

Here is my bit about playwright Robert Bolt’s characterization of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons. I have removed page numbers for smoother reading. I have also left my text in big blocks since I have always wanted to be a big block.

Sir Thomas More: The real deal?

               American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce wrote in 1903 that our beliefs are not true beliefs if we do not live them. We can say that eating too much fat is bad for our health, but if we eat so much as a cookie crumb, we don’t truly believe it. Only one character we studied—from start to finish—had what Peirce would call true beliefs. Of all of the other characters whose lives we have examined, including Siddhartha’s and Cordelia’s in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Sir Thomas More’s life stands out as the most genuine and actualized, especially when juxtaposed with my criteria. His devotion to noble principles, his patient manner of speaking and listening, his concern for life beyond his own, and his dignity in the face of betrayal make him the quintessential mensch. Uttering the names of Ivan Ilych and Bob Miller in the same breath with Thomas More’s seems sacrilegious.

As the play A Man for All Seasons unfolds and Thomas More’s untenable position against the King becomes the crux of the drama, even novice students of literature might smell the winds of betrayal, but do we in the audience fear for his life? Do we scream out, “ Sir Thomas, beware of your self-serving steward Matthew! Watch out for that smarmy weasel Richard Rich!  Be wary of your jealous enemies, your cowardly friends, and your King who may value your ‘…honesty…and…truth’ !! Watch out for King Henry, who will bed the woman of his choice, not the one of his vows, the same King whose court will try you for treason!”  To my knowledge, no viewer in any audience of A Man for All Seasons has interrupted the play in this way. Why? The answer to that question is that we believe Thomas More will distill all complexity—in his social, political, and familial obligations—to simplicity. For example, he tells his son-in-law Roper, who wants Richard Rich arrested for being a spy in the More household, that no law exists to justify Rich’s arrest.

ROPER. There is! God’s law!

MORE.   Then God can arrest him.

ROPER.  Sophistication upon sophistication!

MORE.  No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what’s legal not what’s

right. And I’ll stick to what’s legal.

More goes on to relinquish his influential position as the King’s Lord Chancellor in a demonstration of true belief, rejecting the vanity that comes with power. Even the Pope’s man in England, Cardinal Wolsey, demands an explanation as to how England will secure an heir with the King’s barren wife, Queen Catherine.

WOLSEY. …Now explain how you as Councilor of England can obstruct those measures                 for the sake of you own, private, conscience.

MORE. Well…I believe, when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the

sake of their pubic duties…they lead their country by a short route to chaos.

To fully appreciate the glorious real life lived by Thomas More, his environment should be taken into consideration, and in light of his courageous decisions he made and acted upon. In the 16^th century, capital punishment included burnings at the stake and decapitation. This he faced. Electricity had not been discovered; prison towers were rat and flea infested, unbearably hot in the humid summers and bone-chilling cold in the winters. This he endured. He was a Man for All Seasons. Food was often raw, uncooked, stale, and rancid. This he ate. Men in court, dressed in clothes that had not been washed in weeks, stunk of body odor and urine. These are the foul-smelling witnesses to his final court appearance. When prosecutor Cromwell’s case becomes as thin as the gossamer wings of a fallen angel and his only recourse is to call Richard Rich to perjure himself in a false allegation against More, the following dialogue summarizes More’s real life:

MORE. I am used to hear bad men misuse the name of God, yet God exists. In matters of

Conscience, the loyal subject is more bounden to be loyal to his conscience than to any

other thing.

CROMWELL. And so provide a motive for his frivolous self-conceit!

MORE. (Earnestly)  It is not so, Master Cromwell—very and pure necessity for respect

of my own soul.

CROMWELL. Your own self, you mean!

MORE. Yes, a man’s soul is his self!

Needles, California

by cheri block

When Scotty McLennan assigned Jane Smiley’s novella Good Will as part of the curricula for his class The Meaning of Life: A Spiritual and Moral Inquiry Through Literature, I had never heard of the book.

I began reading it one afternoon after balancing my checkbook, an enjoyable exercise that satisfies  my need for order (and balance..)  And I thought I needed order to stave off anxiety!

Few characters have gotten under my skin as Smiley’s Bob Miller did. I read the text twice to make sure I hadn’t misjudged the guy.

Did he live a real life? Here’s my hit. I’ve removed page references for smoother reading.

What About Bob? *

               In his famous treatise to life among the Cypripedium, Walden, Henry Thoreau echoed the mantras of many New World explorers when he wrote “ I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”  Perhaps the protagonist/antagonist in Jane Smiley’s Good Will, Bob Miller, had taken a dog-eared copy of Walden to Vietnam as a sort of holy book carried close to his heart, reminding him of a peaceful, isolated life when he returned. Or perhaps it was his self-help book—the remedy to that “…frustrated yearning” which filled him at all stages of his life—all until he went to the woods with his wife Liz. While there, like Mr. Thoreau, Bob Miller itemizes how he spends his money down to the penny, catalogues when seeds sprout from one year to the next, and we can assume, would return tools in better condition than when they were borrowed. The difference between Henry Thoreau and Bob Miller is that Thoreau lived a real life. We all know HDT  lived simply, reflected, set millions of 60’s high school students free from the obscenity of materialism, became intimate with the flora and the fauna, and one could make the case that he was a mensch. What about Bob? Was he living a real life?

It would seem logical that most people like the Millers, who choose to live in nature outside the community, do so because they value simplicity and a shared familial intimacy away from modern distraction. Are they living a simple life? Are they intimate with each other? From the onset, Smiley contrasts appearance with reality, perception with truth. The interview with journalist Tina Morrissey, who is writing a book that features innovative gardeners, exposes the way Bob Miller’s mind operates. In a few pages, we learn that he rejects all things modern—money and schools for example—in favor of barter system and home schooling. It sounds good, especially when we consider the price of goods and the weak public school systems today.  But we must see the Miller farm for the complex organism that it is, led by what today’s psychologists might label an obsessive-compulsive and narcissistic father. Bob’s life is anything but simple, a point Smiley makes with Bob’s over-analysis and perfectionism. And what about shared familial intimacy?  When only a damaged chapter of the book arrives at the Miller postal box, Morrissey’s characterization of the Miller family may be Smiley’s own polemic against controlling parents who do not understand that to live a real life and raise healthy children, they must allow for some freedom in the grey area and let go of their rigid control. The grey area does not exist in Bob’s black and white world of right and wrong. Ironically, it is his neighbor Dr. Lydia Harris, a black woman whose rich life of work, color, modern conveniences, and laughter, undoes Bob’s hermetically sealed weird world with its widgets and homemade cane chairs. In the end, the Miller’s pony Sparkle—symbolic of the joy of letting go, intimacy, the natural world, and their son Tommy’s hopes, drowns in an icy lake and Tommy then burns the Harris home to the ground to get even with his Dad.

Unlike Ivan Ilych, Bob Miller did spend an inordinate amount of time evaluating and reflecting upon his life experience, but when all is said and done, what type of life is it?

In placing him next to my criteria for living a real life, he seems to display a number of admirable traits, but in the end, his shortcomings override his strengths. Smiley does this by opening with a well-engineered sleight of hand, introducing us to a man whom we observe to be an insightful and creative, albeit quirky, individual. Very quickly, perhaps within a short span of five pages, his stream of conscientiousness narration reveals the mind of an oddball—a selfish, smug, insecure survivalist who will sacrifice his son’s well being for individually nicked carrot seeds. We realize at the end that unlike Thoreau, Bob’s life in the woods has failed and though they both end up as “…sojourners [back] in civilized life…”  after their grand experiments in “fronting only the essentials …”  Bob Miller is one of those “mass of men who lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Should he be faulted for his efforts to design the best life he can literally make for his family? He values hard work, education, simplicity, and family time. Or does he?  He loves his wife and his son, but as the story unfolds, he doesn’t listen to wife Liz or son Tommy, rejecting her need for organized religion and Tommy’s desire for satellite television. And yet, his willingness to share his fears and machinations with the reader contributes to our hopes that the life he is creating will be realized in a healthy marriage and well-adjusted child.

The rest of the story has not been written, but at the conclusion of the novella—with his son a recovering arsonist, his farm sold, and his life in denial “…loitering at the bottom of the ladder…”  Bob shows almost no personal growth or meaningful reflection other than his recalcitrant compartmentalization of the shattered pieces of his life. Bob fails miserably to live a real life. It is no accident that in his new urban life, Smiley sets him down in a biotechnology center—the hub of progress and change—and has him setting “…concrete forms…”  for minimum wage, a perfect complement to his resistance to change, his comfort with the concrete, and his thrifty way of life.

• With appreciation to Touchstone Pictures and Bill Murray.

The Mohave Desert

by cheri block

Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych is worth the read. In my paper, How to Live a Real Life, I evaluate Judge Ilych’s life (which is really a death)  and his death (which is really a life).

Here is a piece of the paper. Note, I have removed page references for smoother reading.

The Short Happy Life of Ivan Ilych*

The cluster of Russian lawyers possibly afflicted with the same maladies as Ivan Ilych, living self-centered and distracted lives directed toward social position and its accouterments, learns without surprise that Ivan Ilych has died. “What was really was the matter with him?”  one of them inquires. It is this question and the answer to it that reveal the meaning of the story. What was the matter with Ivan Ilych?  What killed him? Was it a floating kidney? His vermiform appendix? He seemed like a regular guy:  busy and productive, engaged in work, home improvement, and bridge games. Middle son in a family of disappointment, he rose above his station, albeit securing his fortune by social connection. He marries, father children, dances, and entertains. He is leading a life, but is it real?

The last three days of Ilych’s life, from his self-crucifixion of screaming pain to the light of his resurrection, may explain the expression on his coffin face characterized as “…a reproach and a warning to the living”. The warning concerns we who may also find ourselves wrestling with the specter of death, looking for that light that may never shine. As time grows short for Ivan Ilych, his insistence that he control the circumstances of his own death stalls the possibility for a last-minute reprieve. This stance he justifies “…by his conviction that his life had been a good one”.  And then it happens.  A suffocating “force” hits Ilych in the chest—we can guess in his heart—at the same time his son approaches his father’s deathbed. Ilych actualizes with his son’s kiss, his legacy who now may change from one who had “…the look in the eyes …of boys who are not pure minded” to one who will embrace a real life. With that kiss, Ilych pops through “the black sack of death”  into the light of the spiritual realm.

We can overlay my criteria on the rest of the story.  In the radiance of this light, Tolstoy beams new life into Ilych’s dis-eased body: he becomes reflective in this light, asking himself, “ What is the right thing?” He stops screaming to listen. The reflection continues. He asks for forgiveness although the words jumble. The meaningless complexity of his life, symbolized by the pink cretonnes and squeaky pouffes in his home, by the depth of his spiritual chasm, and by the sterility of his passionless marriage, is “…reduced to its simplest form [sic]”, ironically the exact method he used as a judge, by “…eliminating all considerations irrelevant to the legal aspect of the case…” . This complexity is simplified at his death. “ How good and how simple!”  he observes and dies two hours later. Based on my criteria, Ivan Ilych managed at death to become real. He reflects, he listens, he simplifies, he allows intimacy, and in doing so, he may have set his son free. Death forces him to let go and fully accept his own mortality.

Was Ilych’s actualization complete? Not quite. He died a vain man. What ultimately killed him physically—the internal damage done by his falling into a window knob while hanging curtains in his house designed and furnished to impress—is not nearly as poisonous as the toxicity of his vacuous spiritual life, his recognition of his “real” life, one through which “…the poison did not weaken but penetrated more and more into his whole being”.

The peasant Gerasim, symbol of simplicity and spirituality, is the antidote to the poison, the mensch who presided at Judge Ilych’s death.

• With thanks to Ernest Hemingway, for his amazing story, The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.

by cheri block sabraw

For the first forty years of my life, I operated on automatic. Whatever needed to be accomplished, I did. Serious problems–financial ruin, death, divorce, betrayal, disease–only occurred in the rich literature I was teaching to my high school students and in the lives of other people.

I began to reflect about the meaning of life when lung cancer forced my father to drop out of the earthly life experience, but even then, I was busy, so I jumped back into my English saddle and cantered on my rocking horse facing the wall. I continued to produce, to meet the needs of others before my own, to base my worth on my work and my appearance.

About five years ago, my handsome husband took a new exciting job far from our home, at the same time I was hitting menopause. I began worrying about how I looked, dressed, and appeared to him and to others. Thoughts that had never entered my mind, did. For the very first time, I realized that I was aging and would look different from the person that others had been attracted to for my figure, my face, and my enthusiasm. What would be left of the essential Cheri if her face looks old, her figure sags a bit, and her enthusiasm wanes on occasion? Would I still be attractive in a different way?

All of these questions terrified me.

Then my mother moved to town and had two strokes within one year, leaving her a changed person. My mother is alive but is not the same person I knew. This grief I shared but didn’t fully process.

Joe died last year and with his death, I lost a husky male friend who could help me understand what older men might be experiencing themselves. Our conversations were rich with authenticity.

My friends, many of them, moved away.

All of these events forced me into a deep contemplation.

Deep contemplation at the Rancho is possible because of the silence here.

I stopped talking so much and started listening to my inner voice.

I stopped jumping through every hoop in a childish need for approval.

I stopped trying to control the comings and goings of my family members.

I  stopped cheerleading (after 40 years of it).

I started thinking of important things in life that had nothing to do with me, my happiness, my appearance, and my ego.

Then, I enrolled in a class at Stanford that helped me integrate many of these feelings into one paper entitled How to Live a Real Life.  I got an A on that paper but it wouldn’t have mattered if I had gotten a B+.  

I’m going to post the criteria I included in that paper before I post a few selections from it.

Criteria for living a real life: A cumulative list

1.  Reflect.  We must be willing to examine the truth about our lives and to change, if necessary.
2.   Listen. We talk and interrupt. We miss messages sent from the self, from other human beings, and from Life (God, Divine Mind, Higher Power, The River).
3.     Simplify. We must be willing to clean out clutter from the external self—things and obligations, for example—that contribute to the preoccupation and distraction that camouflage the present moment.
4.    Move away from vanity. Modern culture worships youth, skin, breasts, hair, and clothing. While looking our best contributes to self-esteem, making physical appearance more important than spiritual and moral development is self-destructive.
5.     Let go of control. We can control very little in our lives. This realization and practice removes some of the stumbling blocks to being authentic such as anger, narcissism, and fear.
6.     Set others free. Although a by-product of #5, choosing to set our spouses, children, siblings, parents, and friends free from our controlling thoughts releases both the captive and captor.
7.      Accept loss. As we age, we lose people we love. Some of us lose parts of our lives that we naively hoped would last forever: physical health, sexual attractiveness, professional acknowledgement, personal freedom, and intellectual acuity.
8.      Practice intimacy. When we love and share our thoughts and fears, we create connection, that which we desire the most.
9.      Be better than you really are. We are imperfect but we can transcend this imperfection, if for only a moment.
10.   Become a Mensch. If we practice the first nine criteria, we will be able to devote our time to other people and their needs. We will be righteous, unselfish and honorable. Our nature will be to think of others before self.

If you would like to add or amend any of the criteria, let me know. I’m open.

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is perhaps one of the greatest plays ever written. I cried unabashedly when I read it as a high schooler and could never teach it without breaking down several times (this became an urban legend at the high school where I taught…).

It captures the essence of my list.

May your holidays be introspective. The cold winter is a perfect time to do this.

by cheri block

I wore a sleeveless dress to a holiday affair last night.

For that newfound freedom, I thank yoga.

I’ve become the most obnoxious kind of convert, telling everyone, including Joanie, the Chinese owner of USA Cleaners, about the benefits of yoga.

 Hi Cheri, how are you today? she asks.

Oh, I am just terrific, thanks Joanie, I reply.

I pull seven shirts out of the Judge’s laundry bag and do the counting for her. One, two, three..oh by the way Joanie, have you ever taken yoga?

I did when Froggies Yogurt was next door, Cheri. I like yogurt,  she answers but laments,  too bad the greedy landlords wouldn’t lower the rent in such a bad economy. Now we have no yogurt shop. You were smart to sell your business and get out of here!  Her sweet almond-shaped eyes take on a sharp look and I mirror her expression.

No, Joanie, not yogurt. Yo-gah. Yoga! (Richard was right…I’ll never retire from teaching.)

Joanie repeats after me.

Yo-gah! Oh!!! she laughs and her almond-shaped eyes widen. Her eyebrows arch with the humor of the moment.

I proceed to proselytize.

Her business partner, Jackie, comes in. She has been practicing Tai Chi, as she does every morning, outside the laundry door.

Hi Cheri, how are you? Jackie asks. Did you ever find those shiny buttons you were looking for?

No, I haven’t located those buttons, but I was just telling Joanie about yoga, I reply.

Jackie agrees. Oh, I know. It’s so sad they closed. Those landlords are so greedy.

In about an hour, I will walk into a small classroom. Eight students will be (eagerly) waiting for me.

“Good Afternoon, everyone!” I will say.

“Good Afternoon, Mrs. Sabraw,” they will perfunctorily respond.

And the lesson will commence, but not before checking in with everyone for a “status report.”

“How are things going with your lives?” I’ll ask. “Anything come up in your regular English classes that you would like to share? What are you reading this week? Have any writing assignments been returned?

“OK, The Pearl, No” most will say, too shy or lazy to engage.

“On the emotion-o-meter, are you happy, angry, bored, sad, or tired?” I will ask, folding my arms into a meter and raising one elbow as it registers.

“Tired!!!” will be the unanimous cry, my elbow will almost dislocate,  and off we go to a final quiz on subject-verb agreement and pronoun usage.

I am 61 years old but strangely feel 41. The lines in my face tell a different story. Today is my last hour of doing what I love: teach, teach, teach.

In 1971, I walked into American High School in Fremont, California at the age of 21, ready to teach English. Joe Tranchina was my principal. I put my long hair in a bun and wore a shapeless dress.

I looked twelve, so the English Department had assigned me to freshmen English.

My knees knocking behind the desk, I called roll for the first time as a real teacher. Last name, then first name.

When I scrolled down to the M’s, I said,

“Marrymee, Mark?”

That wisecracking Mark Marrymee was waiting for this moment like a big-game hunter out for a gazelle.

“Sure, he said, but aren’t you already married?” The class roared. This was a practiced dialogue, like a Knock Knock joke.

The rest of my 40 year career is filled with stories like that.

This is it. ( Unless Stanford begs for my services….tee hee)

Thank you for the privilege of guiding so many wonderful human beings on their road to authenticity.

by cheri block

Had his lungs and heart held out for just six more months, Joe would have been eighty years old today. His presence in my life was like a bonfire that burned for forty-five years with an endless supply of fuel.  A brilliant philosopher and literary critic, a bombastic Sicilian, my tutor, at times my surrogate father, my weekly lunch date and my friend, Joe died last year while waiting for the ambulance in the black of night on the Ides of March. And it is no coincidence that I would be called from my memories of him today to attend class tonight for the purpose of discussing Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.  Joe was my Vasudeva. From him, over the course of four decades and from among the many pieces of wisdom I absorbed, two stand out as mantras for living in the present: Qué Será, Será and Baby, I don’t do nostalgia.

They segue right into the story of  Siddhartha. “Ceasing to fight against one’s destiny” is one of the most powerful sentences in the novel and it naturally comes at the end. By the time we have witnessed Siddhartha’s journey (which reminds me, oddly, of a year in the life of a high school junior), we expect a fusion of all things.  But are all things one? Am I part of the creek that runs through our Rancho? And more importantly, do I have a destiny? I have an obligation to be a steward of our little creek and mighty oaks, but I am not part of them. My destiny is largely what I make it. I will not sit by the creek bank and wait for destiny to come to me. Was Siddhartha an enlightened one? Or was he just a fella from the upper class looking for a feel-good philosophy to explain away his past actions?

by cheri block

In the yoga studio last Tuesday evening, I moved to a new location—the front row.

My mindset went like this: I must displace the large Czech women who like to dominate that front row.

My strategy will be simple: arrive earlier than they  and unroll my green mat directly in front of the teacher. Upon arrival, they may be so engrossed in discussing Mosel glass and Pilsner Urquell  that they will not notice the coup of one about to happen.

My tactics will be sneaky: unfurl my mat and stake out my territory. Then,  close my eyes and begin limbering up, pretending to be lost in the State of Flexibility. Down, my spine bends to my thighs: up, my arms stretch in a salute to my toes. Sweeping to the east, my salute continues. I am not thinking about the Czech Republic, about the old Czechoslovakia, about tall handsome young men and large breasted (from the beer) Czech women.

The door to the Om Studio opens without warning.

They arrive in a dominant way. In a yoga studio, dominance can be asserted by talking too loudly or laughing or taking the names of the yoga sutras in vain or discussing whether a Lara Bar is more flavorful than a Clif Bar.  This they did. In Czech, of course.

I continued my meditation but in truth, I unsoftened my eyes to glimpse their march into my space.

They were not deterred by the castle my body had become, as they infiltrated  the territory they had staked out eight weeks ago.

In a power play, they flanked me, boxing me in between them.

And then they began their talk, in Czech of course.

“Кто она думает, что она? (Who does she think she is?) questioned the big one, looking at me like an East German backstroker in the next lane.

“Она – маленький человек, легко над которым доминируют,” (She is a small person, easily dominated), answered her friend.

I closed my eyes and focused on my breath, inhaling while making space for my lungs and then exhaling while shrinking my waist to my navel.

Then, listening to them solve the problems of the yoga studio in their language, it hit me.

“В следующий раз, сделайте, поскольку мы сделали в 1947: движение в ее место. Конечно ее циновка станет серой, (Next time, do as we did in 1947: move into her space. Surely her mat will turn gray)” the older one asserted.

Olga and Irina are not Czech! They are Russian.