The Sound

Savasana. Corpse Pose. Dead Body Pose. Savasana is a position of total relaxation where you ground your body into the earth. In stillness, you move toward the end of life while returning to its beginning. I am lying on my back in savasana, waiting for yoga class to begin. An unexpected sound makes me twist my head to confirm with my eyes what my ears are hearing. A sound. The Sound.

No, I wasn’t imagining it. Snoring. Yes, someone in yoga class is sleeping and snoring. Who falls asleep in a yoga class? It’s early in the morning. But not that early. This is the 9:30 AM class. It’s Monday.

The Snorer is a guy. He’s on his back in savasana, and his chest rises and falls as he sleeps. Did he party through the weekend? Was he at a club all night and then decided to throw on sweats and use hot yoga as a detox?

I look around, and no one seems to notice that this guy is sleeping. Is everyone deaf? Or are they all stoned from their medical marijuana prescriptions? Goddamnit, am I the only serious person in here? Yoga is a serious endeavor. Right? Right? You’re supposed to strain, focus, and OM your way to enlightenment. No?

Before I heard The Sound, I was contemplating the meaning of life. What is my purpose? Why am I here? Existential stuff. Now I have an answer. Lighten the fuck up. It’s only yoga.

Strangers on a Bus

Two weeks ago, I had a fun start to my day thanks to this crazy guy on the bus. His non-stop monologue went something like this, “And the rich have achieved their maximum of wealth. They can’t get any richer. Now we’ve reached the crest of the economic wave and then they will tip down into the trough of poverty. You see it turns around and turns around and turns around. The wealthy get poorer, and the poor get wealthier. We, the people, want to start a movement where every human being is aware of their capacity to merge into a group consciousness.”

On and on it went. Fifteen minute ride with fifteen minutes of this stuff. The guy was deep and at times brilliant, and he never stopped talking. I mean it. He. Never. Stopped. Talking. No pauses to gather his thoughts or to sip from a bottle of water. He spoke like he was reading off an invisible teleprompter.

At the next stop, an old black guy sat down next to me and said, “Skinny guy squeezing in.” An old white guy said, “You’re welcome to sit down as long as you don’t start talking.” They laughed. I smiled, then put on my game face and plugged in my  deaf-to-the-world Dr. Dre’s. Tried to keep up the don’t-talk-to-me attitude but Crazy Guy was killing me. My shoulders started to shake, my face twitched. I was busting with laughter. So hard I almost cried.

Un-fucking-believable. Crazy Guy made my day. In fact, he made everyone’s day. Strangers spoke to each other, started making eye contact with each other. We became a community, merged into a group consciousness.

A while back somebody asked me why I still take the bus. This, my friends, is why I take the bus. Not theater-in-the-round. It’s theater-on-the-go. All for a buck fifty.