Driving to Toronto

My husband and I seem to go more for mini breaks than vacations. The first weekend in June was allocated for Toronto for a friend's weekend. Up until a few days before we left, we didn't know if it was an extremely quick trip up and back or an extended day due to his project deadlines, nor did we plan any other activities. By Friday morning as we started driving the scenic drive to Toronto, we decided that we would give ourselves the extra day (driving back Monday) and we had plans. Friday evening we would join my husband's parents and aunt and uncle, Tony and Margaret for dinner. Saturday morning I would do yoga. Saturday evening was the wedding. Sunday morning was yoga for me and the afternoon was taking in an art gallery.

My husband and I are as similar as we are different. While I may not always succeed, I enjoy self-reflection. He wants to pretend there is no such thing. However, we both make a concerted effort to be good mellow people-except when trapped in a car together for ten hours.

Between rush hour traffic mixed with a wrong exit or two, the drive would normally only take eight hours. We started the morning with having to turn back home as he forgot his blazer and I forgot to go to the bank to make a deposit. Knowing that our pattern is fun talk, lots of laughs and then ready to choke each other over the smallest detail, I slept and I read magazines.

I was already getting car sick (soon to become a migraine) with his method of driving. My husband is a great driver. I have many phobias and issues with driving, so I usually keep quite except for a few things like “Break” (said in a calm soothing voice when the line of cars in front of us is at a standstill and he is still gunning it and about thirty feet away). Or “Was that the exit you meant to take?” (this has to be said after the exit is missed because saying it before an exit was missed would induce a major argument and after would only create irritation at me and himself for missing it). When we are in the city, I might say “Person” indicating a person is ten feet away from our car and you may be running that person over soon (that usually gets an exasperated comment or two). 
 Men reading this right now are imagining the entire car ride being like this. However, ladies, ten hours with less than ten comments-I'm biting my tongue. 

So, back to the car sick. I usually don't get car sick sitting in the front. However, when my husband drives, and talks simultaneously, he does this foot action that can bring anyone to a state of queasiness. It's the break-gas, break-gas, break-gas, until he is done talking (which can be awhile because he loves to talk). About six hours into the trip he asked me (again) if I was mad at him (when I get quite, he assumes I am mad at him). I mentioned I had a migraine. He then said “Why don't you take some ibuprofen?”

“I've taken six so far.”

“What brought on the headache?”

“Car sick.”

“What made you car sick?”

“You did the...” at which point I pantomime the action of break-gas, break-gas, break-gas.

“Why didn't you tell me I was doing that?”

“Because I didn't want to start an argument.” At which point this starts an argument and he has forgotten the previous ten conversations over the course of our marriage that when he talks and drives, we the passengers get the break-gas, break-gas, break-gas.

I had a client who brought me a 2010 issue of a vedic magazine. I had never seen that publication before, so it was my primary magazine for the ride. Sitting in the car I read about why all beings need to bring in shakti into their life, and how negativity can seed in the mind and spread without pruning, as well as how to let go of things that are not good for us. My husband and I even conversed over these subjects, both feeling zen after doing so-for a total of twenty minutes before we started to argue once more. We love each other, but know each other well enough to know that even though we may be emotionally scared when we park the car and get out, we still love each other, flaws and all.

When we finally reached our destination, we sat in the parking lot looking to resolve our last argument. After that didn't happen it seemed best to exit the car in lieu of spending all night in it. As we walked towards our accommodations, our argument turned into another one at which point I turned around to walk back to the car. Feeling compelled to stop, I did so next to a group of large rocks. It did not fall upon blind eyes to find the humor in this. My husband pointed out of all the places I decided to stop, it was near a 12 hundred million year old rock. I always tell Matthew he reminds me of rocks. They never move (or at least in their one dimensional world, perhaps move millimeters on their own over the span of millions of years). He is a Capricorn with a Virgo rising (for those not astrologically adept, that means very slow moving grounded people). For him to make a decision or commit to anything is like expecting a zombie apocalypse to actually happen. So, I stopped to think about my argument with my husband at a direct representation of my husband to me. That broke the tension.

We marched on to check into the dorm to find a power outage. My husband being practical, frugal and adventurous, booked us at the University of Toronto. I was up for this, believing it would be like an upgraded hostel experience. 
 

Ten hours from leaving the house, missing dinner with his parents (they had already left the restaurant), we ascended five flights of stairs to our floor, walked over students studying in the hall, and after fumbling with keys, poured into the room.

In our dark room, we put our luggage down, looked at the CN tower and decided to head out to find a phone to call his parents to apologize. (At this point we discovered the phones did not work in the room, the ladies bathroom was on the other end of the floor with guys also using it and not flushing the toilet.)

At the front desk, we were told power would be back on in one hour. As we walked around with the tension brimming from a long day, I stood in front of a RBC bank, laughing. I'm sure Matthew thought I was at my wits end having completely lost it. After a few moments I said, "Look at this. What seems odd to you?" From an outsiders perspective, tissue boxes sat upon pillars in-between each teller station as if ready for your tears with every bank transaction.

We then headed to see where I would take yoga the next day, stumbling upon Papa Geo pizzeria. The older Italian man behind the counter briskly said “next” indicating it was our turn to order even though no one was in front of us. We eyed our options. Aside from the typical pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza, there was a Tina Turner pizza, an Al Pacino pizza and a Charles Bronson pizza. The one that caught my husband's eye was the Roberto Benigni pizza to which he asked the Italian man if Benigni had ever been there (thinking the actor/director never filmed anything in Toronto). However, apparent he did visit the pizza shop. We decided on the pizza Margherita.

This greasy, but not oil dripping pizza, had the perfect amount of sauce that stood in the background while the front runners were the mozzarella, slices of tomato and basil. Yum! We each ordered a slice not realizing a slice meant a massive triangle sliced in half-one for each of us. I brought my second slice back to the dorm.

After eating the best pizza Margherita I ever had, I decided that on Saturday morning I would go and experience my first puja and follow it up with a yoga class at the same studio. I had been torn between that or a kundalini yoga class, but I had not experienced puja before and I would be able to take a kundalini class Sunday morning.

We walked back to the dorm to find power still out, thus walking the five flights of stairs to our room. I hiked to the bathroom on the other side of the building where after walking in, paused with the door still in my hand, looked at the sign on the door (making sure I was not so tired that I read the sign wrong), and proceeded past the teenage boy brushing his teeth in the ladies bathroom.

We pulled our single beds together in the middle of the room after having turned the light switches on to wake us up when power was fixed. We crawled in and slept. The lights were on a few hours later. I pulled my dead mobile in, set the alarm and crawled back to bed. (Thank goodness for not having had too much to drink otherwise I may have spent my entire night hiking to the bathroom, peeing, walking back to the room and starting all over again.)

That morning I awoke to a gray, cool morning that the groom to be referenced as “Smarch” on Facebook the day before. I took a cold shower as the spiket would not go past the midpoint between hot and cold, dressed, kissed my husband on the forehead and took the elevator down.

My maiden name is Murphy. When I have the start of a Murphy's law moment, it exhibits its true Irish nature and stays with you until the bitter end. My husband reminds me that Pathos is so close to comedy, so I am not without a sense of humor at these moments. I had a momentary hesitation that morning whether I should go to kundalini yoga instead of puja, but I quickly squashed that inclination. When I arrived at the studio, the lights were out and I felt an energy saying “Closed.” I stood at the edge of the steps unsure of what to do until a woman walked towards me, swooped in front of me, unlocked the door, and walked in. She turned to look behind me, kept the door open and walked to a back office. I followed her in, mimicking her practice of removing her shoes.

After a few minutes of waiting near the door, I started forward towards the a counter where the woman spoke with a man about the weekends retreat. She was saying that he needed to call some woman and tell her she must come in even though many people were away. I stepped forward, waited until one of them would address me, and then asked if there was class at 10:30am since there was a retreat this weekend. She said yes at which point I asked if there was puja at 9am.

“Everyone's at a retreat. It's only me doing the puja.” She paused and continued “I'm only doing it fast and quick. You can come back for class at 10:30. See you then.”

My verbal cue of “Closed” pushed me out the door and across the street to kundalini yoga. I stepped into the clinical looking studio seeking where to go. I took off my shoes and hesitantly started opening a door that said “Lotus Yoga Studio.” (The other signs said “massage” and “shiatsu”, and “In Session.”)

I heard a “come in,” and entered into a breathtaking peaceful room with a teacher and one other student. I was three minutes late and immediately thought of the sign at the other studio that read “If the class has begun and you are late, do not enter” and felt a pang of guilt for interrupting.

She directed me towards the mats where I grabbed one and a pillow. I set up my space and sat down in modified lotus. “Have you take kundalini yoga before?” asked small framed brunette framed in all white with a gray camisole peaking through. 

 

“It's been a few years,” I replied, having last taken kundalini yoga from a former teacher at my studio.

“Welcome.”

We started class with my intense co-student kicking into high gear with loud fast breathing and me having to stop and start over again and again. By the time we got to standing asanas, I was in much better shape with breath and movement, taking breaks as I needed them. I started a conversation with Yogi Bhajan, a deceased Master of Kundalini Yoga, in my mind. At first I was thinking “Damn. Why the arms? Why the arms again? Come on Yogi Bhajan!”

When we started a form of Utkatasana moving into bow pose with extended arms, I was in my groove matching the other student. Yogi Bhajan was proud and I felt him there cheering my on, guiding me over the next few asanas, being my cheerleader. He showed me a snake with him indicated this was opening my kundalini energy, letting it rise. It would be good for my creativity. When I became tired, he started telling me how many more I had to go. And sure enough, as I counted, it helped and the teacher stopped when he said she would. I felt myself smiling in my asanas. Yellow golden liked streaked through with a feeling of complete happiness.

After standing, we sat for a few more asanas, challenging my vocal cords with repetitions of the mantra “Satnam.”

After the mantra “Wa Hey Guru” we went into Savasana. My allergies kicked into gear clearing out from the heavy breath work from the past ninety minutes. I hardly relaxed wanting to remove my itchy eyes from my head. Upon sitting up for final meditation, I saw white light. The golden color was gone with everything purified.

After class, I bowed to my teacher and made small talk with the other student. My teacher, Prabhu Sahej Kaur, was kind with her time telling me she lives in the Guru Ram Das ashram nearby and the center I was visiting has come full circle with its ownership. It went from an owner to a writer/teacher who after fifteen years wanted to move to Montreal to write full time and gave the business to the original owners daughter, Gurushabd Khalsa. Mary Paterson wrote many books including “The Monks and Me” sharing details of her stay at Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery in France. Prabhu Sahej Kaur just started her commitment to the studio just days ago, like many of the other instructors.

After we said our goodbyes, I walked next door to Tic Talk cafe with beautiful brick walls and a narrow space filled with small tables and chairs. You could hop on wifi there, which I thought later I might do with Matthew. I read the chalk board for breakfast options deciding to stick with a coffee until Matthew woke up later.

An Asian gentleman was reading his paper on the side of the counter. A few minutes later, he looked up smiling at me. I asked for decaf coffee and he mentioned something about a latte. I must have looked confused because a moment after calling into the kitchen, he was back to his paper and a pleasant smiling Asian woman came out. She said she didn't have decaf but could make me a “Decaf American Latte.” Did I have American written on my forehead? Must have because I then stumbled trying to remember what a tooney looked like in my wallet while she poured me a cup of regular coffee in a to-go cup. She pointed to the sugar, I poured and walked back towards the dorms.

There are things I miss about cities. I miss the diversity of being in a coffee shop run by an Asian couple with a white person at one table and a lady with a burka at another. I love that I walk (not drive) down the street to go to yoga, and a coffee shop, passing a bank and a book store. I love the recycle bins on the street with the plenitude of bike racks. I love that the kundalini yoga teacher said the ashram is just a five minute bike ride away (even though I can't ride a bike). I love the business man standing in his suit waiting for the light to change next to a runner spandex-ed out. I love the rude Italian pizza man with the best pizza that reminds me of New York and the pigeons reminding me I am in a city.

Matthew reminds me that life is always greener on the other side. I know this to be true. My saying for myself is “halfway between here and there.” Some days I wish that, if I could, I would live half my year in a city and the other half in the country. But for today, I'm enjoying the city.