Be calm. It’s what she said, over and over. She had a voice like an easy breeze through leafy trees – a whisper of sound. “Be Calm – Breathe. Feel the air move in and out of your nose and move deep into your abdomen – don’t lift your shoulders; expand your lower abdomen. BE CALM!” The over and over became counter-productive. I wasn’t calm, I was stressing about being fucking calm. Leave me the hell alone; fuck calm. Okay sorry, just breathe – b r e a t h e, you’ll find your way there.
I could smell odd incense floating about in the air. I guess it was to help becalm the other senses, but with taking deep breaths, I was feeling smothered in some current version of patchouli oil. I know it wasn’t patchouli (strong enough to cover the scent of weed), but it was such a claustrophobic smell – enough to make me a bit woozy, while being goddamn calm.
I think it was my heart guy who suggested I go to some meditation group or yoga (like I have any flexibility left at my age) so I could learn to generate alpha waves in my brain and ease my stress and blood pressure. You have got to be kidding me. My problem is I lack stress in my life and that alone increases my agita. I used to work in child welfare managing 80 plus staff, making tough decisions (removing kids from abusive parents, returning kids to better parents, while others around you are yelling about it - grandparents, youths, agencies; all hollering for attention – deserving or un) for 60-80 hours a week. In all those mad moments I was placid – the quiet voice in the storm – saying “be calm we’ll get through this”whatever THIS was.
Now I work no more – yep, retired – it does sound a bit like something you should do to an aging car – “oh, yes I had it re-tired, they were bald and unsafe”. It is not something you should do to yourself. What the hell does it mean, anyway? Well, there was a point in my youth when I was really tired. Then I got better. Now I am old, so I got re-tired.”
There is the encouraging among friends touting the standard mantras – ooh you’ll find your calling; just pick something to do, don’t just sit in front of the TV – (even if that’s my calling?), you must have a purpose in life. I think it was Sylvester the Cat who said “ I did, I did, I did saw my purpose in life.” – a good Lutheran purpose – WORK UNTIL YOU DIE! Then, after so many years someone provided an epiphany. I could stop – I had a pension – someone would actually pay me not to work. Get the fuck outta here!
I stopped – seventy and I stopped – and my blood pressure went up, my agita increased, my erectal dysfunctioned and I am now sitting with pained hips on my ass being so hellaciously calm if I were prone, I would be asleep or dead. Yeah, that’s not true; I do wonder if I have any capacity to get to whatever calm is, without just being dead.
In my writing group this morning I picked a random word out of a grab bag – my word for the next year – it is better than Be Calm. It is BECOME. I can live with such a concept. It clearly circumscribes the fact I am not there, yet. It leaves ample room for not even knowing what there looks like. It opens a wide arc for exploration. I could become anything I want, within reason – certainly not going to be the People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive for 2020, even if that is who I see in the mirror some mornings. I’ll become a better husband and father. I’ll become a more prolific and powerful writer. I’ll become a reprobate – well more of one, now that I have no job responsibilities. I’ll become in love, engaged, engorged, enfolded, encompassed, enraged, enlivened, enduring and find my way to becalmed, like a skiff on easy waters sailing toward a setting sun with a red sky at night.