If It Feels Wrong

The night was cold.  The moment she stepped from the crowded dance floor and walked down the carpeted hall of dark and worn maroon carpet, the moist chill from outside hit her square in the face. The winter cold slithered quickly down her neck and spiraled counterclockwise around her unbound nipples and then traveled further, circling her hips and thighs covered only in pink and black stockings. 
She stepped into the white neon light of the women’s bathroom and was met by an open window, the night air smiling hello as she closed to door to the stall. Separated only by a metal barrier, she could hear the woman next to her on the phone- her voice was patient, slow, as she tried to explain driving directions to someone on the other end.
“You drive east on Harrison, you’ll see a light ahead of you as you approach Whole Foods. Right before the light there is a driveway on your left.  It’s a one-way driveway, but that’s ok, turn into it anyway.”
There was a pause as she listened.
“Yeah, turn into the one-way driveway.  It will feel wrong, but just do it, it’s ok. You just turn into it and continue on and turn left as soon as you can. I am just going to say goodbye to a few people and I will meet you out there. Just make sure to turn into the one-way driveway. It will feel wrong. If it feels wrong, then you are going the right way.”
The woman was silent again as she listened to the voice on the other end. Then she said goodbye, flushed the toilet and left. 
The words rung clear and true against the white walls and fluorescent lights of the bathroom. The night air rang and cried out. 
If it feels wrong, you’re going the right way. Mechanical feels right, something so smooth, without friction, without the uncomfortable anxiety pounding against muscle and bone and the very rules taught since birth.
Try walking uphill as the crowd goes down.  Try swimming against the current.  Try going against every institution perpetuated by family and state, it will feel wrong. 
It was late, well past midnight. As waves of weariness and sleep started to massage her eyes and shoulders she smiled, knowing for the moment that she was going against the signs.

Tortilla Chips, Beans And Desire

I need to eat. This we both agree on. I listen as he explains the difference between need and desire. The very early morning light finds his face through the blinds. I rarely see him like this and I watch with a smile, letting the morning unfold for me with a golden promise. My stomach aches just slightly and I sip my tea and milk as I latch onto an idea that has nothing to do with need. I do need to eat. My body needs nutrients. These soft muscles long to take the iron and deconstruct the protein and metabolize the sugar. This is a necessity, to keep working in this shape, in this small 5’3 body, I need to keep eating. I finish my teas and drive home, a particular thing on my mind.

But what I desire is specific. I don’t just want “food.” Once I start imagining particular shapes and tastes and textures, it goes from the need aspect of a body requiring fuel…to desire. And this is fixation of the mind, not even something I have created, something the world has created for me, something I latch onto and hold upon a shiny golden pedestal, the thing that will make me happy, the taste to complete the morning.

I desire a particular breakfast. I look out the open blinds of my large window and look at the long eucalyptus leaves swaying. I remember it from last week. A warm side of refried pinto beans, next to it, a modest scoop of plain scrambled eggs, they were just a shade darker than the white paper plate. Forming the perfect triangle was another side, a pile of tortilla chips covered in a spicy red sauce. It was on the verge of being too spicy, but it was just barely bearable and though my tongue stung, I went back for more.
I sat on a narrow cement bench beside the ledge of the pier. The sun warmed me and I could think of nothing better. I turned to the people sitting next to me, a couple that were as unfamiliar as everyone else in the crowded outdoor market. They shared the same dish off an identical paper plate. I watched the man push a red tortilla chip into his mouth. I stared in awe. “It’s worth every penny!” I blurted with a smile. They looked up, taking only a second to realize I was feasting on the same meal. They nodded warmly, equally as amazed with the dish. It was a perfect blend of spice. The hot tortillas chips were balanced out with the mild eggs and creamy beans. That was last Saturday. And this morning, this Saturday morning, I am hungry. I do need to eat. I have food in the fridge. Some eggs, a bag of fake meat in the freezer, a few small pieces of zucchini, I could make myself some breakfast, save ten dollars, not give into the urge I know is only desire. I am hungry. I need to eat. I desire that specific taste. I don’t need it. I just want it.

But I cannot will myself to make some food. I look at my only three pots, and they are dirty. In the sink are my only two plates and a pile of dirty forks. I am repulsed by my own filth. “If I go downtown, I’ll have time to take some photos,” I reason with myself. Bargaining with the devil. It is a lie, a perfect excuse. I need food. I desire the refried beans. I want the spicy chips. I want the same blend of perfect, on-the-edge spice.

And so I leave in a rush of excitement. Somewhat believing my own excuse, but knowing all too well what I really want.

I get on the subway. Three stops after my own, a young man gets in and sits across from me. He sniffs over and over. I think about changing my seat, but I never do. On 24th St., an old, wide Latin man enters. He stands by the front double doors for a few minutes, looking perfectly normal until he starts yelling. At first we react with wide, startled eyes and nervous smiles, but soon, no one pays any attention to him, even his cries for attention go unanswered.

When I arrive at the farmer’s market, I stand in line for the food. There are at least twelve people in front of me and I use the time to take photos, like I promised I would. When the paper plate of food arrives it looks just as it did the week before. I walk to a small cement planter box and sit on the edge. There are people all around me. Most are in groups, sharing plates of food and talking softly. In front of me is the Bay. Two small boys chase the pigeons that lurk for our crumbs. I take a bite. The chips are a bit cold. There isn’t a kick. My face melts. It isn’t the same. I keep eating, but I laugh mildly.
I had desired it so much. He warned me. He had explained it to me just an hour before. I didn’t need this particular plate of food. This is desire laughing in my face. It is not as good as I remembered. Something has changed.

No river is ever the same. No taste will ever be the same as the first time, no experience can ever be replicated, no matter how many times I desire the same meal.

Without A Body

Those little fingers move, picking up a pen. Nubby pink toes grasp the air as they move her forward, keeping balance on the large globe beneath her feet. She turns her head to the right, her eyes searching for the bright flash of red that just blinked out of existence. She is a body. A moving, flesh covered body. She walks, breathes, talks, I see her jumping on a bright green hillside, her arms swinging wildly as the soft whiteness of her moves through space. And I see her as real. She sees herself as real. For what can be more real than a body? It is the eyes she sees through, the vessel that takes her from supermarket to concert to warm bed. Is it the body that defines life? I breathe, therefore, I am. I take four steps, therefore I am. I sing a little tune, therefore I am. If she stays still. If for some reason, her body no longer responds to the command of her mind and she sits in a padded chair, unable to dance, jump or walk, is she still “here?” Her body exists, we can see it. I watch it remain motionless as four small black wheels guide her through wide city streets, but what does she feel? Is she trapped? Made powerless and motionless by the body. She can see, perhaps she can talk, but what is still inside? What is it that looks out through those eyes, what is it that still questions? Maybe the being. Maybe the still sleeping machine without mobility. I remember having a sickened feeling as I watched a man in a high-tech contraption. His head was held upright by metal poles, a tube and ventilator helped him breathe. I though to myself, “I could never live like that. Wouldn’t it just be better to die?” Motionless, still except for, perhaps, an active mind. What are we without a body? Maybe this motionless woman paints the picture of what we will all soon be without a breathing, carbon-based body. Trapped? At the mercy of something else? Is this woman with shriveled legs and skinny arms more prepared for the black spaces of the Bardo? Will she more easily recognize the falseness of the body? The illusion of the self? Or will she travel the chambers, looking for something to enter, looking for someplace that she can be “herself” again? How do we determine existence? How do we extract it from the void?

Piece Of Paper

She looked out the window and saw a small scrap of paper blowing in the wind. It was a small yellow post-it note and the wind pushed it to the fence where it stayed tangled in the bunches of wild mustard plants and yellowed bits of grass that clung to the edges of the yard. A white moth-like butterfly flew over the wooden fence and disappeared into the eucalyptus grove that covered the hillside below. She stared at it, at the little trail of darting white that had faded into green and silver. Her house was warm, and because of the heat inside, she indulged in wearing only purple panties, that had lace along the edges, and a striped purple T-shirt. Her legs were bare except for the pink slippers keeping the bottom of her feet warm. She wanted to go outside and get the little bit of paper. She wondered what it said, where it had come from, who had dropped it. Would she find her own writing on the yellow paper? She wanted to go outside, but, although the sun was out, she could see by the rustling eucalyptus that it was windy, and wind, at least here at this elevation and so close to the sea, meant chill. She was not anxious to let the wind brush past her and strip from her the warmth she had accumulated over a night of sleeping under thick blankets and warmed by space heaters in every room. But what was on that paper? How come she didn’t just look right past it the moment she saw it? How come it didn’t just fade into the other images that she took in and let wash over her without a second thought? Was there something different about this piece of paper or was she just getting fixated on something, finding meaning or hidden purpose when there was nothing there. Maybe there would be nothing on it. But why couldn’t she just stop and go back to her computer and start writing? What kept her standing here at the window, so close to the cold wind that managed to find its way in despite the glass barrier? She thought about all the things she had lost over the years. The small chunk of Tibetan turquoise stolen from her bathroom. Her stacks of vinyl records. Her purple and white batik shirt that just went missing one day, the blue v-neck T-shirt that Suki had given to her before her parents sent her to a rehab facility in the mountains. Could this piece of paper be one of those things, a precious bit of her or someone else, something that was about to drift off into the bushes any moment, only it had stopped here for a brief second, waiting by the fence and held close by the mustard stalks.
Act now! This is the chance. Move and grab the curiosity in front of you. Act now, or it will disappear forever and you will always wonder, you will always stand by the window and wonder about that thing which called to you and you did not respond.