Flowing

I live in New York City and don't own a car, which therefore means I don't experience road rage.  What I do experience fairly often is something I like to call pedestrian rage.  Have you ever felt this?  Perhaps on a crowded sidewalk, riding an escalator, or shopping in a busy mall?

In New York, people are usually guilty of one of two things.  Either they're getting annoyed at someone for walking too slowly, or someone is getting annoyed at them for not walking fast enough.  There is no in between. 

Try as I might to be patient, I encounter some form of pedestrian rage on a daily basis.

The scenario is usually as follows: I'm walking towards the subway and hear the bell ding, heralding the impending closing of the doors.  Ding-Dong!  As I attempt to shimmy my way up or down the stairs, there is undoubtedly someone walking slowly, smack dab in the center of the staircase.  This person may be holding several bags, yapping on a cell phone, or simply not in a hurry.  (A Sunday walker.)  Whatever their motivation, they've made it impossible for me to pass them in a polite manner.  By the time I desperately blurt out, "excuse me, please!," it is already too late. 

What to do now?  Beat the person in question?  No, that wouldn't do.  I have virtually no upper arm strength.  Usually, I stew for a minute, feeling anger towards myself for running late, the other person for existing, and the world at large, merely because.

This is no way to begin one's morning.  But such is life as a straphanger.  No matter how hard I try to respect my fellow passengers, someone or something is no doubt sticking into my back, my arm, and my right ass cheek.  This, my friend, is pedestrian rage.  Some days it's hard to let it go.  Unlike road rage, there are no directionals, no brake or gas pedals, no windows to stick one's middle finger out of.  I have no horn to beep, save the tiny horn in my bitter little heart.

Is this really who I am?   

My favorite instructor in college was named Julie, and she taught a class called proprioceptive movement technique.  Julie was a beautiful, tall dancer with perfect posture and a joyful, ethereal demeanor.  Being a slightly gawky teenager, I would watch in awe as she glided gracefully through the room.  She was almost otherworldly, it seemed.  My college experience was definitely ruthless at times, but her classroom always made me feel warm and safe.  She encouraged us to weave the space with our bodies, and to feel the support of the ground beneath our feet.  She taught us to walk like the Navajo Indians, with beauty before us, behind us, and inside us.  She took us to do yoga by the Charles River.  (I saw a rat that day and screamed bloody murder, just as we were doing downward facing dog.)

During my Sophomore year I was having trouble singing.  I was tensing my neck and feeling completely disconnected from my body.  At the urging of my voice teacher, I went to Julie's house for private lessons in The Alexander Technique.  In hindsight, this changed my life.

In a nutshell, The Alexander Technique is a method developed over one hundred years ago that removes tension from one's body and allows for freedom of movement.  (We're not born slouching and tensing, we only develop these tendencies over time.)

Julie noticed things about me that I hadn't.  She was amused by the way I climbed up her wooden steps two at a time.  She told me she was delighted to see my body "waking up."  She even taught me to change the way I spoke about myself.  When she would ask me to describe how I was feeling, and I'd start to answer, "It feels like..." she'd stop me and ask me to instead phrase it in terms of "I feel like..."  After all, I wasn't an it.  I was a me. 

One Saturday morning she made an observation that I'll never forget.  "Your energy tends to be like this," she said, gently swaying her hands back and forth.  "When something external comes at you, you freeze and stop moving.  What I want for you is to be able to accept whatever comes your way, receive it, and instead of freezing, to keep moving with it.  Nothing should interrupt your flow."  She said all of this while demonstrating with her arms, flowing them from side to side in her fluid, graceful manner.  I nodded eagerly.  Was she talking about my body or my personality in general?

Either way, Julie's words spoke to me.  Whether I realized it at the time or not, she spoke to the essence of who I was and who I wanted to become.  Suddenly my world was positively oozing with possibility.  That semester I fell in love for the first time, with my future husband.

I was heartbroken and shocked a few years ago when I learned that Julie was no longer with us, having died from colon cancer just before her fiftieth birthday.  This remarkable woman was a mother, a wife, an accomplished dancer, teacher and minister.  It's a mystery to me why she was taken so prematurely. 

But I don't think of death when I think of Julie.  Among many things, I think about the person she made me want to become.  The person I already am, perhaps, but who gets lost or covered up by every day, silly distractions. 

It got me to thinking, could there be a way to perform a mental form of Alexander Technique?  A way to free my mind of restrictive thought?  After reading this interview on Buddhism in Oprah, I think perhaps there is.  In the interview, Pema Chödrön, a renowned Buddhist nun, suggests sitting with the negative feelings rather than pushing them away, and breathing.  In doing so we connect with our true selves and in turn can feel compassion towards our fellow humans.  Hmmm.

But what if the feelings I'm experiencing aren't really all that serious?  What if they can even be considered a little...embarrassingly petty?  I wondered if I should begin there, and then move on to bigger and more fanciful problems.  (Like the impulse haircut I got last Monday, perhaps.)

I decided to perform an experiment using pedestrian rage. 

Take the girl standing next to me on the subway the other day, for instance.  She was sporting a ginormous shoulder bag and had ample room to move over, but refused to, for reasons unknown.  To her, I internally whispered: wow, you're acting like a giant asshole right now.  I'd really like to slap you.  In fact, what I really desire is to swing my cute little purple handbag in your direction.  (I decided to really sit with the negativity, here, for the sake of my experiment.)

I took one, then two, deep breaths.  And do you know what?  I felt better!  Suddenly, it no longer mattered to me how this girl was behaving!  She did not interrupt my flow, not really.

I did the same thing yesterday when my landlord, Smeagol, called to ask where the rent was and apologetically told me his mother made him do it.  (In three years we've been absolutely religious about paying on the first of the month, and yesterday was February 2nd.)  Ordinarily this inquiry might set me to brooding, but I decided to simply breathe.  (OK, I allowed myself two or three nasty thoughts before the breathing and only then did I bring down their damned, stinking check.)  My point is, I wasn't going to let Smeagol ruin my afternoon, which I most definitely would have done before.

And my journey continues.  Living in New York gives me lots of people to practice on.

Chödrön says this method also works with graver, more serious issues.  Naturally the time spent sitting with the problem would be longer, the breathing deeper, but the same lesson applies.  We don't have to deny the negative, or feel guilty or resentful for feeling that way.  We just don't have to torture ourselves for being, after all, human. 

Time is precious and life can be fragile.  Life isn't tomorrow, or tonight, or next Thursday at 9:00 pm, life is right this second.  Giving in to irksome minutia can be deliciously tempting, but it's also downright exhausting.  As Julie might say, the goal is not to let the external interrupt our natural flow.  I'm trying.

The next time you feel like flipping some dingleberry the bird, why not try this instead and let me know what happens.  I'm very curious. 

Take two breaths and call me in the morning. 

XOXO

Comments

[Weinerdog]

Just thinking about Julie makes me calm...er.

I think we need to weave the space!!!

[The Odd Broad]

I was weaving internally today...when everyone was giving me crap about the Pats! I did lots of breathing.

[Weinerdog]

I'll have to remember that today, beacuse the DAMN GIANTS PARADE IS RIGHT OUTSIDE MY OFFICE!!!!!!

[The Odd Broad]

You poor girl!! I saw it on tv, and that was bad enough. Hope you were able to make it through the day without slapping anybody!! :)

[Wendy]

Hmm, I don't know if the deep breath thing is for me, but the advice to say "I feel" instead of "It feels" is TREMENDOUS. That I'm definitely going to try.