Corpse Pose

I went to yoga this morning instead of Church. This is a very bad thing for a Catholic to do - we are not to miss Mass for trivial things. If we do, we are to go to confession before we can receive communion again - we are “ex-communicated”, by our own selves. It’s a light ex-communication - removal from communion. By placing something over meeting Christ in the Mass, I break communion. 

I couldn’t go today, though - I am in a mess of turmoil, and I wanted yoga.  Which is silly because I can’t really do any yoga right now - my heart is pumping so poorly that it’s not safe for me to exercise, or to be in a very hot room (hot yoga) so I mostly stretched and sat on my mat and a friend placed a fan right in front of me. Yoga is so hospitable - a place is set for me, I am greeted with love that really has no conditions, I am attended to and cared for. For just $25. Haha. 

At the end of every class, we lay in corpse pose (just how it sounds) and we meditate, and the instructor gives a mantra. She says the mantra in Sanskrit, which is a very giggly-sounding language, and I always want to repeat it in a funny muppet voice. I was impressed that the room full of teens didn’t giggle. Todays mantra was “open heart, I am love, I am joy”. Eye-rolly silliness, like a “live laugh love” sign, but also not at all.

Open heart. 

Heart. 

We thank it for beating. We imagine ourselves separating from the body in light, joy, and peace, our minds looking down and seeing the beauty of our body below as our mind goes out into light. We imagine the earth below holding us, creating a perfect cradling space fit to our unique bodies. 

I practice dying. I practice being a corpse in a casket. This sets my mind off to the practical things I may need to do, if I am, after all, not ridiculous and this goes poorly. I start to think about how an open heart surgery (probably won’t happen, shut up, drama queen brain) is terrifying, all that openness, all that air where it should not ever be. At night, I sleep just a bit at a time, and I have variations of this dream where I am alone in a cold, bare, shiny-tiled hospital room, opened up, with a snake roaming the floor, and I have no way to tell anyone that it’s there. My heart rate on my watch beeps and I come back to meditation. 

We practice dying at Mass too, especially in Lent, but the words go past me there and my mind feels heavy and sad. It’s so much like the world there. 

After surviving my heart attack, I felt so proud of my heart for a bit. An underdog, but it came through with strength. It saved me. Now that it’s sloppy with a new, not commonly Scad-related problem, I feel angry at it for being a crappy supporter, a friend that is fickle and unsturdy. It isn’t up to the task of my life. It wants to quit early and can’t handle me, just as I feel I’m figuring out who I am some.

But then, open heart. Open your heart. This can be a good thing. Mine will be wide open. More than ever before, open. 

Corpse pose is so good. It’s un-scary and restful. I hope that death will be like this, earth holding a space for me, safely tucked in, rather than smothered as I usually imagine. While we are meditating, I am checking to be sure my heart rate is recovering, eyes open, looking at my watch. I see the others in my class, mostly teens in their newish bodies, lying like corpses. This is the natural resolution for us all, young or old. 

A strange thing about being sick is that I can’t decide what to do with my time and it feels extra important as it’s (possibly) short before me. Should I be very good? Should I do more things that I want? I’ve always been very good and have sometimes looked back and wished that instead of good, I’d have been authentic and really deeply human. Like the thing Sylvia Plath says, something like “I want to feel all the human things and experience all the things, good, bad, all.” 

Should I do things I want to do, knowing that I have a poor pumper and no energy, that breathing is a little hard and I don’t have the health I want to do these things? Remember that country song about living like you were dying? Some man, I don’t remember who, sings “I went sky diving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing…” how did he do that? I can’t walk to the beach. Kenzi, gorgeous blonde yogi, tells us to get rid of ego - if your body cannot do something, no shame. You don’t do it. There is no guilt. We honor the limited body. I honor it.

I guess. Fake it til I make it.

This is a weird kind of sick. I bet all the kinds of sick feel weird. I am unsure about how serious this is, unsure how I ought to react, careful to try at least, not to catastrophize. Be optimistic. I also want to be prepared for what is certainly, at least, semi-serious. I want to write letters and tell my friends how much I love them, but that might scare them or it might be so ridiculous of me and how embarrassing to be so sentimental and so reactionary and also maybe it’s inappropriate. I have a note in my phone with a few funeral thoughts, which I have been thinking. I want to tell my five kids that they are the best, coolest kids and the most wonderful humans (really they are - they’re so funny and amazing - you should meet them) and that I plan to haunt their enemies and use a really scary ghost voice if anyone is ever mean to them. 

I’ll know a little more on Monday, I hope. Thanks for being with me in it - feels a little like at yoga today - when someone stops for water, everybody feels a little more like they can take a break.

Or something.