Incredibly loud and extremely close?

Marsalforn is a small fishing village on the northern coast of Gozo, one of the three islands that makes up the little Republic of Malta, some ninety kilometers south of Sicily, in the heart of the Mediterranean. To the west is Tunisia, on the north African coast, and to the south is Libya. We are pretty remote here. The local language, Malti, has a strong Arabic flavour, but the culture is more Italian than anything. Although everyone speaks English and drives on the left, the telly comes from Sicily. The universal language of football binds everyone together.

In Gozo, everything is blue, more blue than you have seen before. The sky is more sky blue, more than you have seen before. And the sea is more sea blue except for the green. The water is more clear than you have ever seen. It is warm, sunny and warm, for three hundred days a year, including today. The buildings are all of white limestone, rock stacked on rock, each reaching up three floors or more to the same blue sky. Everybody comes here to dive in that perfectly blue-green clear water. Except me; I came here to read.

I sit enjoying my lunch at a small bar by the harbour side in Marsalforn and my quiet is disturbed by a great deal of shouting. I can discern female voices - lots of them it seems, and close by. So loud and so close that you might say incredibly loud and extremely close...

I put down my knife and fork and watch, as around the corner of the street appear three women and a wheelchair. The eldest woman is seated in the wheelchair and the younger is pushing her along, while a third is holding onto one of the handles and seems to be dragged along by the chair. She is limping as she walks, the chair is going just a little too fast for her. None of them are less than sixty years old and the eldest is well over seventy. They are all shouting loudly, possibly at each other, possibly to passers by, possibly to me but I cannot tell since it is all in Malti.

There is some arm waving too and this leads me to believe that the debate, if one can call it that, is regarding where they are going to sit down for a few minutes. They are each pointing to a different part of the sea front. Only the younger one seems to be providing both propulsion and direction so it is inevitable that her will is going to prevail. It does.

Crab-like, they make their way across the street towards the sea wall, where there are some benches, still debating at a high pitch, now a question of which bench. Once they arrive at a vacant bench, the noise subsides and they settle down to enjoy their view of the harbour. I conclude that they are sisters; no-one else could carry on in this way. And I suspect that this is a regular procession. It is practiced and seems to have an order of some sort in the chaos. The shouting, the arm waving, the gesticulating, all seem to be part of well rehearsed routine. I am the only person to take notice of this event; it must be quite normal. It will take more than this to disturb the quiet of Marsalforn.

Normal programming resumes and I return to my lunch.

Successful living?

I have just passed a store here in Sliema, Malta, called "Successful Living". It made me stop in my tracks, almost causing a pedestrian traffic accident as the people on the pavement behind me took evasive action. Saturday night is the night for strolling in Sliema and everyone does it.

But who does "successful living" and would we know it anyway? And more to the point, would we recognize "unsuccessful living"?

I suspect that the answer may vary by nation, or by society, or by culture, or maybe by degree of economic wellbeing. Or by whether you are above or below the poverty level in your society. Or not.

If the Englishman, when on his deathbed, can lift his head and say "well, that didn't turn out too bad", then that might define successful living for him. But that is a cultural stereotype at work and maybe that is not fair. Or then again, maybe it is.

I should have stopped to inspect the shop window to search for clues as to what the shop might actually sell to support "successful living". But the press of strollers was too strong and I was pushed on past the shop before I could identify anything. I have a nasty feeling that it might have been furniture. Not the useful stuff that one can sit on or eat off or sleep on. But the useless stuff that accumulates and makes you get storage units when you get older and move on. Stuff that should never be bought no matter how you define success.

Stuff does not define success; I'm pretty sure that most grown ups can agree on that by now. If that is debatable, then there is some more growing up to do. Stuff drags you down and drowns you, designer cushion by designer cushion, artifact by artifact, lamp shade by wicker basket.

An Indian friend of mine says that we have to reduce our stuff down to one hundred things. He wasn't sure if that included books or underwear, but I am pretty sure that it picks up cushions, artifacts, shades and baskets. One hundred is actually quite a lot when you are packing a suitcase to move from one continent to another. I certainly could not fit an hundred of anything into my carry-on from LL Bean. Do I count the carry-on as stuff?

The hundred is a guideline, a concept, an idea for us to think about, an excuse to toss out the useless stuff instead of returning it to store 'just in case'. Maybe we should think of "successful living" as a potential guideline too. After all, there a precious few absolutes in life that cannot be renegotiated at one time or another. Deal breakers come and go every day. Everything is directional - right?

Just start throwing out stuff; in time it will become clear whether the one hundred includes underwear or books - but I'm pretty sure that it does include books on underwear.

Start to minimize. I realize that is what I began some years ago. Let go of stuff, let go of the past, let go of the future and just live now. Minimize expectations and maybe things might not turn out too bad.

Now that would be successful, wouldn't it?

A letter from me to me: student to teacher

Dear Graham,

Please treat me like an adult; I made a decision to give up my valuable time to come to this hot room today for a reason. I have turned up. Give me the benefit of the doubt that I am going to do my best. You can remind me of that but don't nag me.

Give me enough heat and humidity to support my practice, but don't make it another challenge for me to overcome. It is not necessary. Teaching the hottest class does not make you the best teacher. Every studio is different, and it may need some work on your part to manage the hot room properly.

Leave your ego at home. This practice is about me, not about you. I want you to lead the class and help me do the best I can today. Show me the same respect that I show you. We are partners in this dance for ninety minutes and we each have have our roles; if I didn't turn up then you wouldn't have a class to teach.

You don't have to talk all the time; silence can be powerful. Little gaps in the dialogue are okay; I'm not going to fall asleep or stop paying attention just because I cannot hear your voice for a few seconds. But when you speak, then do so with confidence and with clarity so that I can understand what you want me to do.

Understand that my body needs a short break between every posture, not only during the floor series. I need just a little time to get my breath back and to be still. Appreciate the difference between a physical limitation and a bad habit; I may need a little extra time to move into the next posture. This is not being lazy; it is taking care of my aging body.

Be consistent, especially in the rhythm of the class. I don't care if you teach a slow practice or a fast practice, but just make it consistent. Give me the right time in each posture; don't make me stay there, working hard, just because you have more stuff to say. There is always another side or another set or another class for you to say them.

Recognize me as an individual. I don't expect you to remember my name, although it's nice when you do. Make sure that I leave the studio having felt that my presence there has been acknowledged: some eye-contact is good or a few words of encouragement now and again, especially when I am having a bad day. You don't know what else is going on in my life – I might need a little lift and you might be the right person to do just that.

Be yourself and let your personality shine through; don't try to be somebody else.  I see and listen to a lot of teachers, all using the same words, more or less; don't be a part of a white noise. A little humility goes a long way.

Please teach – don't just recite. Teaching needs observation, so look at me. Teaching needs listening, so listen to me. My voice may be silent but my body is shouting at you. You tell me that each class is different, but that should apply to you too. If I have taken three of your classes and I can practically recite your speech word for word already, then maybe it's time for something to change to keep your class fresh and interesting.

Trust me and then maybe I will trust you. Because if I can trust you to take care of me, then I can relax, let my body do its thing and have a good class.

Remind me to breathe. If I don't breathe properly then I won't be able to do anything. But I need some time to breathe so make sure that I have that time.

Encourage me to do my best. But do that with compassion. I may not be used to the overwhelming stimulation of the hot room and the yoga practice: so much heat, so many words, so much sweat, so many people standing so close to me with so little on. English may not be my first language and it may be hard for me to just understand what you are asking me to do. This experience may be totally alien to my culture and my upbringing. But I am here and I am trying. If I am not doing it right, then there is probably a good reason.  

Show me the right way with compassion, a kind heart and a loving spirit. Being a yoga teacher is a vocation and not just a job. Every time that you step into that room you have a huge responsibility to all of us in there. You can help me change my life; that's a pretty big deal in my view.

Your yoga student,

Graham

Another little miracle

My experience over the years has taught me that it is invariably a good idea to wait and think before I hit the “send” button. Today I had the same experience all over again, and I am so glad that I waited those few moments before I made the “send” or “not send” decision.

Let me set the scene: I came back from Thailand a couple of weeks ago and promptly spent five days in the hot room. I expected it would be a tough process for my body to rediscover this stuff all over again, but it seemed to be going quite well until I turned over in class one day to lay on my stomach, and that's when it hit me. Vertigo.

I have had a few occasions in my life when the room was spinning or I was a little dizzy, but never anything like this. The hot room was moving rapidly around me, the floor was rolling underneath me – it was all I could do to hold onto my mat to stop myself from rolling off the edge. And then there was the nausea. It was quite a package.

I spend the entire floor series of class lying on my front just praying for the room to stop moving. At the end of class, I wait until everyone has left the room and then shuffle on my backside across the carpet to the door. Standing up is out of the question.

At first I suspect an electrolyte imbalance – understandable given my absence from the hot room for so many months and then five classes in as many days. Yes, that's it – electrolytes. I can even feel the pins and needles in my fingers to support the case. A coconut water, and a heavy dose of potassium when I get home should do the trick.

I stand up carefully and feel much better. After a few minutes I can walk and things settle down and I can make my way home. Driving seems OK as long as I keep my head still. Later that night, as I go to lie down in bed, it starts all over again. It gets worse as I roll over to one side so I try to sleep propped up on pillows with my head upright.

I believe that things get better in time; I cannot always support this position and I don't think it will work with everything, like cholera or frostbite or a gunshot wound, but my experience has been to wait things out – be patient; don't over-react. Fortunately my wife did not have this “wait and see” attitude, otherwise my children would never have survived past infancy. An absence of medical insurance also encourages this action. So I wait.

After four or five days, there has been no improvement; I am still incapacitated and my approach seems to be suspect. The next day I start the internet research and begin to suspect some kind of problem in my inner ear.  As I read more and see more stuff on You-Tube and consult with my friends at the studio, I am convinced that I have the most common form of vertigo, called BPPV, or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. It is a relatively harmless condition caused by the dislocation of tiny crystals of calcium in the inner ear (sometimes called “ear-rocks”) disturbing the whole sense of balance and resulting in a serious case of vertigo. It is amazing how messed up one can be by just a few specs of debris breaking off from some other place in your ear and settling in the wrong place. Normal life is interrupted.

Fortunately, more research reveals that there are some relatively simple exercises that can be done to dislodge the debris and restore the proper functioning of the inner ear. I try the exercises and after about the second or third attempt, I begin to feel some relief. The exercises induce vertigo and severe nausea, but in time that all goes away.  There might have been other, more serious causes for the vertigo, but in this case I am convinced that it is this common BPPV.  

So back to today. I wake up this morning and the vertigo is so much better but I feel like crap. Some alien body has invaded my relatively healthy system: my head aches like crazy; my mind is all over the place; I cannot focus or concentrate; I feel myself slipping into a substantial well of self pity; I am miserable. I want to do nothing but enjoy my suffering.

I have promised my friend that today, ten days after the onset of this rotten vertigo and about five days after my fix, that I will go back to yoga – no backbends or movements that might induce the vertigo again, but at least I will take class. But my mind is working hard to find all the reasons why this is not a good idea.  It has only been a few days since I "fixed" the vertigo; it could easily return; this is just way too soon.  This is downright dangerous.  I compose the text message: “sorry but I cannot make it today; I feel like crap and I am not going to the 6 pm class”. I hit “send”.

On my phone, you have to hit “send” twice. The first time gets the message into a queue and the second one actually dispatches the packet of bits into the ether. I never hit the second time. I stop myself and think about it. Many years ago, when I was in the corporate world, I made a rule for me and the people who worked with me that read something like this: 

“If you receive an irritating e-mail from somebody who needs to be straightened out, and you are just the person to do it, then compose the message but wait 24 hours before you send the reply. Do not hit “send” when your emotions are high.” 

 I remember that rule today and stop myself from hitting the second “send”.

I know that once I send the message off into the ether, that would be that; I would be off the hook. Then I would be able to get deeper into my misery and refine how sorry I feel for myself. But I would not be “straightened out”.  There is a nagging uncomfortable truth that pops up in the corner of my mind and will not go away. The truth is that I know, deep inside, that I really need to go to that class. It is going to be hard work and my head will ache and I will feel sick and my vertigo will come back and I will be hot and sweaty and, and, and...

And I knew that I would feel better at the end of class. I always have and I always will. There has never been a class that I have regretted taking, and there never will be. I know that to be true. So I didn't hit the second “send”. And I went to class. And Jayna helped me. And all the students in the room helped me too. Because that is what always happens.  And the headache went away in the first breathing exercise.  

Like Robbie says, "It's only a miracle if you turn up to receive it".

It's good to be back.

Nuad Bo-Rarn

I have just finished my fourth week at the International Thai Massage School in Chiang Mai. Exams were passed and diplomas awarded, but I feel that I have barely scratched the surface. It was an amazing experience and I look forward to getting back home and practicing on some willing bodies. Because that is what I need: lots and lots of practice. Knowing the movements is one thing; making it flow together seamlessly with the correct pressure is something else. I realize that I am at the beginning of a long journey, rather similar to the feeling that I had when I finished teacher training for yoga – I felt like I was ready to start to learn. It was not the finish of a learning program but rather the beginning of a practicum.

I must say that this ancient form of Thai massage – Nuad Bo-Rarn – never ceases to amaze me. Each time that I have laid down and given my body for someone else's practice, I have closed my eyes and just floated off to some other place. As soon as their hands touched my feet, I was gone, in some other Universe. It was extraordinary. It felt like the rhythmic movements were directly in synch with the natural frequency of my body. When thumbs or fingers touched those acupressure points or stimulated those “SEN” energy lines I could feel buzzing all down my legs and arms. I walked back from class at the end of each day and my legs were like jelly. This was no ordinary massage; this was different.

At the beginning, when we practiced, we had difficulty in locating the acupressure points, since they are very precise. But now, when someone finds one on my leg or arm or torso, it is like an electric shock through my nervous system. My whole body lights up as the energy is stimulated – chi or ki or prana or whatever you wish to call it. This truly is the Universe at work.

It is at times like this that I feel a renewal of faith, a sense of comfort that at the heart of things, at the center of all of us, is an energy, a chi, a life force, a soul or spirit. It is not dependent on breath or food for its existence; it exists already. That spirit is not dependent on other people to maintain its purity or to prepare it for a better life: it needs no third party or translator. It just needs our own attention.

I believe this: we are given bodies for a while to allow the chi to move and live in a different dimension, a physical form. Then, when that time is over, there is another form, maybe the original or real form to which we revert. And that is why I realize now that I am not afraid of the concept of death; it is just a transition from one form to another. But the energy, the chi, the soul or spirit, will continue unaffected. I may regret that physical loss or even fear the act of dying, but the result is inevitable: I live now so that I may die at some future point. Bearing that in mind certainly helps me keep a perspective on the world around me. Remember the Delai Lama's comments on the humanity of Man.

There is a writing in the Bahá'i faith that draws a perfect analogy: 

“To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed after the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage.” 

A good friend of mine sent me those words after Marianne died. They helped me then and they continue to help me now.

Each time I have practiced this ancient form of massage I have been reminded that the chi is there within me. I cannot measure it on an instrument; I cannot see it deflect a dial. But I can recognize its presence in the buzzing in my limbs, in the way I feel. It is my job to cherish it, to maintain it, to protect it so that it is fit and healthy for me when I need it the most – in my next life. I hope this ancient Nuad Bo-Rarn will be another way to do that.

I did not expect that studying this ancient form of massage would bring me to these conclusions. I don't know why I am surprised. It is really just one more way to open a door to the core of our being – another way to make that journey from the outside in. It is a connection between the body and the mind and eventually the spirit – just another kind of yoga.  

Same, same but different.

The Art of Thai Motor Cycling

There are motor cycles everywhere in Thailand - from little mopeds to big Harleys. And everybody rides them.  Here are my observations on the art of motor cycling in Thailand.


1.  The little basket in front of the handlebars is for your crash helmet. If you have a helmet, do not wear it but display it proudly in the little basket.


2.  All the lanes on the road are available to you, regardless of the direction in which you are traveling.  The side walks are available to you. The inside of shops are available to you. You are allowed to tak special pleasure in whizzing up the very, very inside lane, close to "farangs" and scaring them to death. If the "farang" is walking on the sidewalk, then you may also use the same sidewalk for the express purpose of scaring the shit out of the "farang".


3.  Thais are made small enough so that three or four can easily fit on the same motor cycle at the same time.  This is to ease traffic congestion.  This would not work in America because the American butt is just too damn big.  The answer is smaller butts for America not bigger motor cycles.


4.  The space between the front of the seat and the handlebars is for very small children.  This is perfectly safe;  you can even install a special seat there.  Dogs may also ride in this space, although dogs prefer to sit on the flat platform of a sidecar so they can bark very loudly at the people next to them in traffic.  The preferred order from the front is therefore small child, driver, spouse, granny, larger child, dog.  Small dogs, up to labrador size, may also ride in the little basket if there is no helmet being carried.


5.  If no passengers are being carried, then the space on the seat behind the driver is for extremely large and heavy objects, such as propane gas cylinders, concrete construction blocks and very long steel poles.  They may be secured by a single, fragile, nylon bungee - preferably fraying at the end.  The cargo being carried should be large enough so that it will certainly kill an innocent pedestrian when it rolls off the seat.


6. You may park your motor cycle anywhere;  in shopping malls, the second floor is preferable – use the escalator for easy access.  In Boots the Chemist, park your motor cycle between Ladies intimate items and the cough sweets.


7.  When giving a ride to a "farang", never allow your speed to drop below 50 kph regardless of traffic conditions.  The relationship between "farang" passenger to Thai driver must never be less than 3:1.


8.  The appropriate rain protection for a driver of a motor cycle is a passenger holding an umbrella over the driver's head – preferably low enough so that the driver cannot see where they are going.  There is no reason to reduce speed when an open umbrella is being used.


9.  Texting when driving is permitted as long as the smart phone is held in the braking hand, not the throttle hand.  In this way, the driver can always accelerate out of a tight spot instead of braking.


10.  The appropriate clothing for a Thai teenage girl riding her motor cycle is platform shoes of at least four inches; the shortest skirt in the wardrobe; helmet in the basket; smart phone in the braking hand; and lastly, a similarly attired female passenger in case of inclement weather.  Toy dog goes in the basket if there is no helmet.


11.  Eating while motor cycling is perfectly acceptable for both driver and passenger.  That is why there are so many road side stalls selling food.  This may also explain why Thais use a fork and spoon and not chopsticks.

This has recently been posted on Facebook.  I urge everybody to read this, absorb it, accept it and then live your life accordingly.

I have read no better observation on the frailty of Man's humanity than this.  I wish I had read this when I was twenty-something instead of now when I am sixty-something. But then I am heartened by the fact that sixty-something is no age – it is just starting.  There is always time to start anew, to change, to begin again.