Page 9 of Your Echo
“You don’t seem like yourself today, Stéphanie. Usually you’re smiling and chatting and dancing when you come in here after your class.”
Guita is one of the most observant people I’ve ever met. After learning her life story over the years I’ve been coming to the AMM, I realized that figuring people out quickly is practically a skill she needed to learn to survive.
The thought puts my issues today into perspective. I shrug.
“I just couldn’t focus as much as usual. It was like I was back in the early days.”
We share a small smile. Guita was the one heading the Sunday sessions in the park when I first started coming to classes. She’s been dropping bits of wisdom into my life ever since.
“I’m going in the meditation room myself for a bit soon. Why don’t you join me?”
I agree without hesitation. Just being around Guita has already made me feel better.
The front room of the house is part lecture hall, part library, with a few crowded bookshelves and a pile of folding chairs stacked in a corner. The second room is for indoor meditation classes. It’s decked out with a plush carpet and big patterned cushions scattered all over the floor. Two huge potted bamboo plants flank the doorway, and artwork done by another one of our volunteers hangs on the walls.
Guita claims a pillow for herself, sinking to her knees and straightening the paisley skirt that matches her deep blue headscarf. I take the pillow across from her, and without a word to one another, we both close our eyes and start to breathe.
Thisis why I meditate.
I slip right into that deep level of concentration I couldn’t reach today in the park. The sound of Guita’s humming fades, then the room itself, and eventually even my breathing seems distant—separate from where I am right now. The sensation is like sinking and flying all at once. It’s the same heated rush of power combined with a cool sense of control that I always feel when I’m the middle of nailing a dance routine.
When I open my eyes twenty minutes later and stretch my arms up above my head, my mouth is pulled up into a smile I didn’t even realize I was wearing. Air pumps in and out of my lungs. Blood throbs in my veins. My muscles flex, ready to take me wherever I need to go.
I am strong. I am capable. I am at peace.
You’re here. I feel the words of my mantra vibrate through my entire body.You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re here.
