Take a Deep Breath…
For the last 3 days I’ve been trying to meditate before I walk out of the apartment where I’m staying in Pittsburgh–I really need to get on the relaxation thing now that I’m going to be here for 5 weeks–not because the city isn’t cool as can be…but because I’m staying in a very Sports Bar-laden area of town. Every few steps I’ll think, “Oh somebody spilled their soup again..where is this popular soup place around here that clearly doesn’t have good lids on their take out containers?” Then I realize that it’s not spilled soup–it’s frat boy throw up everywhere….
Since I’ve been here, I’ve been having these moments in the middle of the night where I’ll get up to get a drink of water…and as I stand in the dark of the kitchen I’ll start to wonder if ghosts are real. Then I think about the twins in The Shining who wanted Danny to come play with them “forever…and ever…and ever”…then right from there I start thinking about the word “eternity”…and then I’m so crippled with existential angst I wish ghosts did exist to give me something else to think about.
“You’ve got a letter here from India,” my boyfriend called to tell me. My Xanax had arrived at our home address in Santa Monica “What?!” I feigned confusion. “India? You’re kidding. Well, just send it to Pittsburgh and I’ll check it out…huh.” He was very upset by the rough little exotic brown envelope that was hand addressed to me. So I told him “Just take it easy…I’m sponsoring a child and he sends me fake Xanax whenever he wants to thank me.”
I accidentally had my Indian online doctor send my pills to relax to the wrong address. So I may be forced to learn to meditate.
Years ago I went on a three day silence and meditation retreat called “The Places that Scare You.” You were supposed to let yourself go right into your greatest fears, let yourself really look at them so that they wouldn’t hold so much power. Since my greatest fear was cheating on my then-current relationship, I was able to really bring that fear out of the shadows and into reality–I acted on it the day after the retreat ended.
Since then I’ve used that as my excuse as to why I don’t meditate: “I better not–I’ll have an affair.”
Speaking of affairs, my boyfriend–the most nervous person I know–has done transcendental meditation for years. He actually comes out of his meditations more stressed out than when he went in. I think he uses his meditations as a chance to construct his side of the argument for whatever fight we may have been in the middle of. His eyes will pop open and he’ll immediately say, “hey, you know what? I did pay that bill but they must have just sent out the notice before they got the check–I can show you online…I paid it and…”
“Go back inside…I don’t think your meditation ‘took,’” I tell him.
“Last night I was able to do it for 4 minutes. I used the very powerful mantra of, “ohmmmmmm–please let the people in India get a label maker so it doesn’t look so suspicious…and please let them get it soon…ohmmmmmm.”
Weedman was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart and lived in New York City right up to the time the Iraq war started. During the Gulf War she lived in Amsterdam and learned Dutch and did odd theatre. When the Iran contra thing was happening she was growing up in Indiana listening to Bowie and Costello. After Kurt died she moved to Seattle and lived there for five years as a writer/performer. She is most well-known for her AWARD winning self absorbed solo shows. Her book, A Woman Trapped in a Woman’s Body, was recently named by the Kirkus Book review as a “Top 10 Indie Book of 2007”. Now she lives in Los Angeles and has had a dreary day appearing on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and played “hysterical woman” on several episodes of “Reno 911”.
www.laurenweedman.net