Breathing Into the Sensation
Breathing Into the Sensation
When I was an 11-year-old boy an idiot adult misguided me into the
conviction that real men fix their own bicycles. Still malleable at 11
I found myself a week later on a walk to the neighborhood bike shop;
bicycle frame over my shoulder, a bag of unaccounted for spare parts
dangling from my wrist. I mark the bike mechanic’s smirk as the
beginning of my destructive self talk around mechanical matters.
Not that such talk is off the truth. Years later my wife and I move to
California, where a colleague at my new job brags that real men
protect their families against earthquakes by bolting book cases to
the wall. Overcompensating for the bicycle affair I bolt our
Scandinavian ceiling-height book shelf with integrated liquor cabinet
to our dining room wall. The Loma Prieta earthquake finds my wife and
our two toddlers under the Scandinavian dining room table, which
strains under the Scandinavian shelving that has crashed upon its
surface. In American houses bolts need studs for the desired effect.
Meanwhile, much older now, I have taken up Pilates with Karen, my
instructor. Twice a week I breathe into ‘sensations’ towards which she
maneuvers my body with help from her gleaming, steely equipment. It’s
all good. It’s why I’m there. The problem isn’t her or the
equipment. It’s her husband Bill. I’m not after his wife. The issue is
that he is a mechanical engineer. I barely know him. But he is the one
who attached the vertical wooden ladder to the wall in Karen’s
studio. My full weight can tilt away from that ladder. It holds. It’s
anchored in studs. Its solidity stimulates destructive self talk.
I wake up at night from torturous dream-borne fantasies. In one of
them, Bill has ingeniously constructed a tandem bicycle with ‘his’ and
‘her’ comfort adjustments. Like the sleep number bed mattress and its
separately adjustable firmness settings, the tandem’s suspension is
independently tensionable under each seat. The mattress sponsors NPR
shows, which is why I know about it. The tandem is Bill’s patent. In
the dream I attempt to adjust the tandem for my her. But I can’t
puzzle out the mechanism while Bill stands by, shaking his head. I
awaken when my her decides on him as tandem partner; in case she’s
uncomfortable during the ride and needs adjustments.
During last week’s lesson it all comes to a head when Karen has worked
my body into a position where steel springs will play a role. She idly
asks whether a short spring is necessarily stiffer than a long
one. The next few minutes of my life’s comfort will depend on the
answer. I blurt one out, and we proceed. But the moment my calf
tendons stretch like violin strings being tuned I realize… Karen is
going to discuss this spring question with Bill tonight. Over dinner,
or worse, cuddled in bed when the difference between knowledge and
ignorance of studs truly counts. They’ll have a good laugh. “The long
spring your client said? Ha!”
Overcompensation is an issue with me. In Karen’s studio I find myself
back peddling on the spring question. Remembering something from the
70s, I mutter about the constant ‘k’ that goes into the question.
But Karen has none of it. “Stretch those tendons; breathe into the
sensation.”
Nixon on UA681
I am en route from Chicago back home. Aisle seat. Floating towards me
on her way to asking passengers at the emergency door about their
willingness to help is the most gorgeous flight attendant I have ever
met. The photo does not do her justice; not to a half measure. Her face
is expressive as a movie while she serves drinks. And her
haircut is the cutest. A perfect cut for her. When she smiles, she
truly smiles, when she puzzles over the credit card machine, she
truly puzzles. Surprise mirrored on her face evokes twenty birthday
parties. I’m in love with her.
As she ever so slowly works her cart towards me during a final
beverage run I can no longer hold myself back. I must have photos of
this woman. The lighting is dim, and my iPhone does not do well in
low light. But I click away. The camera loves her, and so does its operator. She pretends that she is oblivious, but she
would have been 3/4 blind not to notice me.
Yet, I’m not a people photographer. Pointing my iPhone at another
human being embarrasses me deeply. When she is close enough that I can
get a reasonable portrait of her, I mumble something about wanting to
show her haircut to my girlfriend. That would be true if I had a
girlfriend. She responds with something I cannot quite catch, but
which ends in the phrase ‘others would not be so lenient, but it’s
OK.’ And she steps back to pose for me.
It happens thirty seconds later, when she and her cart are finally right
beside me, serving the opposite seat. My embarrassment over
having taken these pictures rolls over me like a wave of molten
lava. And I hear myself say to her: “I am not a creep.”
My flashback to Nixon is immediate, and shames me into the
ground. Because I realize that my beautiful flight attendant is
experiencing no such flashback. Her mother was a child at the time.
Uber Woman
A friend told me that I could sit in front when traveling Uber. So I did. Young woman? Short shots, and otherwise wonderful. I don’t know how she could concentrate, but I couldn’t. So hard to look at her face.
Phantom Jetlag
After friends at the conference pointed it out to me, I feel it too:
jetlag. That’s from flying between San Francisco and Vancouver. Now I
feel it again on my return. In spite of not crossing time zones all
the stimuli are there: getting ready for the airport. The flight,
hotel, taxi. Jetlag. Look for it next time you fly.
Overwhelming Niceness
I board the plane that will take me from Vancouver to SFO. A
60-something lady is already installed in the middle seat. No problem
for me; I have the aisle. But when the young woman for the window
arrives, and points out the need to reach her seat, the middle seat
lady does not budge. She wants to see the window woman climb. When the
young woman refuses, middle seat reluctantly frees up the path.
Some time into the flight I am yanked from sleep by middle seat
pushing my elbow energetically towards my body. Asleep, I seem to have
slipped into her airspace. I apologize. But now I’m annoyed at this
person. However, I want to try the evolved path. I will be so nice to
her that she will feel deadly ashamed. I will be so nice that she
will begin to suspect the world to be a nicer place than she had
thought. I will in fact be so nice that she’ll smile.
So I keep my elbow squeezed between my body and the armrest, yielding
our entire contested border region to her. Then I hedge a devilish plan. Upon
arrival I will help that bitch get her luggage out of the overhead
bins. That’ll teach her.
The time comes; we are parked at the gate, and a Ding frees us to
crowd uselessly into the aisle. Which I do with alacrity. I open the
bin above our row, remove my backpack, don it, and then begin my
assault.
I smile at middle seat, and point repeatedly between a piece of
luggage up in the bin, and her. She nods. I pull down the wheely, and
her black scarf. I step back behind our row, wrestling open a space
for middle seat to stand in the aisle with her luggage at the ready. I
have solicitously extracted the handle from its sheath; ready to go.
I wave middle seat into the little aisle space, that I gallantly
created just for her. She slides onto the aisle seat; I lift the
aisle-side arm rest for her. She looks at the wheely and shakes her
head. Not her luggage.
The line begins to move towards the exit. The wheely is in my way. I
shove it forward, past our row, and dump it between a couple of rows
further up. Me? I leave the plane.
Yet Another Alzheimer’s Self Test
Inside the Vancouver terminal on my way back to SFO I decide to yet
again test myself for Alzheimer’s disease. I decide to memorize my
gate, and not ever to look it up again. Easy to enforce, because for
the first time I carry only an electronic boarding pass on my
iPhone. For 20 seconds I stare at the departure board. E86; E86; E86.
Then off I go through a maze of old and new experiences. Starting out
smart, I unnecessarily stand in a line that’s blocking my way to
security. I would have had to press past them. When I finally reach
the front, the clerk tells me I don’t need this line unless I have
baggage to check. I had suspected this a little, but was too polite,
well, timid, to go to the front and ask the luggage scanning lady for
guidance. I fear disapproving eyes from out of queues.
On to security.
“Your boarding pass, please”
I pull out my iPhone, tap to home button, slide to reveal my boarding
pass. Beep. Continue to line 10.
Line 10 is the one onboard luggage station where two opposing queues
hit face on, vying for plastic buckets. Space is confined enough that
two people cannot stand next to each other. I finally reach the bucket
stack, and more or less undress to avoid complications. Anything
remotely metallic I throw into the bin. The passport seems to have
metallic stripes. In it goes. Cardigan and jackets on top. I finally
reach a lady who guards the X-ray machine’s gaping mouth. Your bins do
not slide by her before:
“Your boarding pass, please.”
I dig out my iPhone; push, slide. Beep. Thank you. iPhone back into
the bin. My stuff and belt enter the X-ray machine, I walk through the
magnetic metal detector right in parallel with my things. No
alarm. All good. The woman on the other side nods her OK, then:
“Your boarding pass, please.”
Ï swallow the remark that my boarding pass has just been checked and
beeped literally 10 seconds ago—within her sight. I’m sure they know
what they are doing. But, I explain, my iPhone is in the X-ray
machine. So no boarding pass at the moment.
“Step aside please.”
The X-ray man is learning, his instructor next to him. Takes a
while. Then, finally I get to push the iphone button, slide, “Here you
go, Ma’m.”
I get dressed, and proceed to the US customs area. We own half the
Vancouver airport, I’m happy to say. A beachhead of sorts, should we
decide that Canada is a problem region. At the entrance to the area, a
lady.
“Your boarding pass, please.”
Tab, slide. I flash my phone, and am funneled into a pen of
computers. I pick one, and stare at the instruction-providing video
screen. Like a magician executing a card trick, the video flashes a
hand holding a passport, then flipping it around, and sliding it into
the scanner that is replicated in physical form below the
screen. However, I can’t easily turn objects around in my head. So
I need to air-practice holding the passport in the required initial
position, and turning it just the way the scanner wants to see it.
I repeatedly miss the video second when the illustration passport
trick begins on the screen. So I wait for the video loop to
repeat. Twice. It then takes three trials to have my passport scanned,
after which I am to
“…look at the camera with a neutral face.”
Which damn camera? OK, I find it, and force a neutral face. Not too
neutral, so they don’t think I’m hiding anything. Success! A receipt
is printed, sporting my neutral face. I get to proceed to the customs
officer himself.
“Boarding pass please.”
You’ve got to be kidding! Can’t you talk to the five ladies who’ve
looked at my bloody boarding pass before you? But I know my
place. Don’t ask questions, don’t be unusual. You’ll pay for
that. They don’t appreciate unusual.
Tap, slide, show iPhone. I pass! I slip past an outpost of Canadian
police (What are doing in our terminal???). Opaque sliding glass doors
slither open, and I emerge into a gleaming shopping area that is ready
to collect left over Canadian dollars.
Now. My gate number? Damn. It had an 8 in it. I know that! The gates,
I see, run from 73 to 90. Was it 87? 84? Right above me a large,
brightly lit, tempting E87. But no! I’ll have to go with E86. I’m
almost sure. But to test for Alzheimer’s I’ll have to commit. E86 it
is. Win or lose. I decide to go to that gate and only check my choice
there. As punishment if I got it wrong.
And so I walk, dreading. Past Victoria’s Secret, which I’m tempted to
probe. But the suspense is too much. I keep walking, when suddenly I’m
at 79. I break down and check: E86! Yessss. On the other hand, I just
walked an entire terminal in the wrong direction. E86, it turns out,
is next to E87.
Now, my zone and seat number. They are on my iPhone. I should memorize
those, shouldn’t I. Just to be dead sure.
Vomit Comet Taxi Ride
Took a cab to the airport. You need to know that I get car sick on
slight provocation. No map reading. I settle into my back seat, and
then I realize. Courtesy of modernity the back of the front seat
headrest is a TV screen. It’s on. Repeated searches for an off button
fail. First on the program: fast-cut sequences of fashion
shows. Followed by the calmer, sustained shot of a rat like dog, tied
to a luggage wheely, which he is pulling down an airport concourse;
sans owner. I can do this. It’s just a half hour to the airport.
Then, an old fashioned turntable spinning, spinning. And a cat next to
the apparatus, investigating the arrangement. Sick fascination glues
my eyes to that turning disk. Wouldn’t you know it, that cat steps
onto the platter, yielding a rotating cat. Round and round she
goes. Round and round and round. The rotation mixes with the car’s
lurching to a stop at a light. I make a decision. I strike up a
conversation with the Sikh cab driver. Leaning continuously to the
left so as to clear a straight ahead line of vision I try to decipher
from a heavy accent the tenets of the Sikh religion, starting with the
17th century. Way beats spinning cats, I can tell you that.
Having arrived at the US departure terminal I pay with shaking hands,
and step into the fresh air. My inner ear revels in the rock solid
horizon line. I close my eyes, enjoying the planar pavement. Then it
occurs to me! To any security camera I look as in prayer before
entering the terminal for my final act. Not good. I swallow all bile,
and enter.
Maybe a Little OCD
Most of my friends know: I avoid germs. Maybe a little too much.
When I left California, people were dropping right and left with some
pretty nasty stuff. I escaped that wave. But now, at the Conference
for Computer Supported Cooperative Work, people are coughing up a
storm. Blowing their noses during talks, and putting the Kleenex right
next to them on the table for others to enjoy.
So here is my confession. I know, it’s mildly over the top:
– Pushed elevator buttons only with a knuckle of my left hand.
OK, sometimes I slipped and used a right hand knuckle.
– Opened doors by pulling my sleeve over my hand, grabbing the handle
under protection of that sleeve.
– Never touched my face with my sleeve.
– Picked my nose or rubbed my eyes only after washing my hands with
warm water. (Hint for my readers, wet fingers take away from the
experience.)
– Surreptitiously soaked my hands in Purell after each handshake.
When a table was available, I did it under the table; else
stealthily in a corner.
– Same routine after having to tap on a public touch screen.
– Ate conference break pastries with a fork.
– Never put my silverware on the table, only on napkins.
– Told colleagues who suggested ‘family style’ during a dinner that
I’d go along if they promised to refrain from double dipping. (They
did).
– Ran to the restroom door on my way out if it was just swinging
closed after someone entering or leaving. I would re-open the door
by grabbing the wood high above the handle. You have to judge the
door springs, though. Some doors close in non-linear patterns, with
sudden acceleration right at the end. Bad for your fingers.
Major problem for people like me: for reasons of hygiene all
conference break food was equipped with tongs. Don’t want people
grabbing at the food. But: now you’ve got those contaminated tongs. So
I always grabbed those implements as closely to the front as possible,
where I assumed nobody else would have touched with their teeming
fingers.
So far, so good. But maybe it’s just that I have a functioning immune
system…who knows.
Normally I’d Ask My Daughter
The specialized hotel boarding pass kiosk won’t cough up my boarding
pass. Air Canada, however, sends me an email inviting me to check in
online, right on my iPhone. I figure, why not? Modernity; got to keep
up. Sure enough, I end up with a nice bar code on my screen. But, at
the top I see two options ‘Print’ and ‘Add’. I can’t print, given the
absence of a printer. But Add to what? I timidly tap on Add. Nothing
seems to be happening. I’d call my daughter for advice, but being in
Canada I would be roaming, and roaming scares me.
No choice but to swallow my pride. Among the Westin Hotel registration
desk windows I pick a woman about my daughter’s age. I usually get the
information I need from Steffi; maybe these young women kind of all do
and know the same things. I grit my teeth, approach her window, and
ask her to explain my iPhone to me. She doesn’t blink an eye. ‘Add’
means to add to my passbook. What the fuck is my passbook, and how
did I get one?
“Go ahead, tap on ‘Add’ it’ll work,” she reassures me.
I tap.
“OK, I tapped. Now what?” (more teeth grinding at the humiliation of
it all).
She shows me: on my little tiny iPhone desktop: a consistently
overlooked icon that says ‘Passbook.’ And it contains my boarding
pass. Well, I’ll be damned.
Andreas Paepcke 