Page 29 of Your Echo
A private show.
“I’m comfortable if you are.” He lets his smirk drop. “You can tell me if you’re not. Really. I can find someone else to be my coach, no questions asked.”
Comfortable is the last word I’d use to describe myself right now, but deep down I know he’s being genuine. He wouldn’t hesitate to leave if I told him to.
I let myself sink into my own chair.
“Let’s give it a try,” I offer, “but if I catch you with your eyes open when they’re supposed to be closed, we’re done.”
“Got it.”
“And I don’t do refunds.”
The smirk is back. “Got that too.”
“Good.” I tug on the hem of my shorts. “So I planned on starting this first session with a discussion about your expectations—you know, why you’re here, what you want to get out of meditation, how much you’ve meditated before. That kind of thing.”
After four years of teaching at the dance studio and two years of volunteering with the AMM, slipping into Instructor Mode is something of an instinct for me. I can feel my focus coming back with each sentence I speak.
“Honestly,” Ace answers, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, “I’m here because I have to be. My manager dropped me off at this place and then literally hung around in his car to make sure I went inside. This is part of an...arrangement with my record label.”
That explains a lot. His band mates practically frog-marched him to that session in the park. It makes sense that he’s only taking these classes because of an obligation. Still, I feel a weird pang of disappointment to know he doesn’t actually want to be here.
“No onehasto do anything,” I tell him. “That’s one of the most important things I’ve learned here: you always have a choice. The consequences ofnotcoming to classes here might be so bad they make you feel powerless, but they’re still an option. You just decided this one was better.”
I remember the day Guita first introduced me to that concept. I stayed behind after the group session to debate her on it for almost half an hour, and I left still not believing it was true. It was only after a few months of meditation that the idea really sunk in.
Everything is a choice: our thoughts, our feelings, where we go and what we do. Even if the only other option is giving up, it’s still there, and there’s a certain power to that.
“You believe that?” Ace asks me, his arms still crossed in front of him. “You believe there’s always another option?”
“I do,” I answer without hesitation.
There’s a challenge in his tone when he asks, “Is breathing a choice? Is the urge to swim to the surface when you’re drowning, or...”—he pauses and shifts in his chair—“or to pry a pair of hands off your neck achoice?”
“We’re talking about rationality here,” I protest, ignoring the shiver creeping up my spine. “Those are survival instincts. They’re—”
“You don’t think human beings can feel something so deeply itbecomesa survival instinct?”
My counter-argument dies in my throat. His words clang and echo in my head with a deep kind of truth I want to reject but can’t. He tilts his head, inviting me to contradict him.
“What do you love most, Stéphanie? What do you want so much you can’tnothave it?”
I’m the teacher here, but somehow he’s asking the questions now.
“Think about that and then tell me again what your opinions on choices are.”
What do you want so much you can’tnothave it?
I knew the answer before he even finished the question. I would move a mountain just to be able to dance. Ihavemoved mountains, in my mind at least. Even when I swore I was done with it, that I’d never slip on a pair of ballet shoes or turn another pirouette again, the need to move to music—almost primal in its urgency—never left me. It clawed at me from the inside out until I had to let it escape.
Is breathing a choice?
“We’re getting off track,” I say, and Ace doesn’t bother hiding his satisfaction. “Let’s talk about your history with meditation. When did you start?”
“Last Sunday in Parc Lafontaine.”
“That was your first time ever?” I ask.
