Savasana

Flat out on the yoga mat, my body tells me again: enough. I'm sore from yesterday's class, and it feels hotter today, pushing 110 degrees. Sweat pours from me like a waterfall, preventing combustion. My muscles feel strong and I complete a few of yesterday's elusive poses, but after each one my heart thumps and my breath is hard to catch. Above me is a fan, set to low, in the center is a reflection of my limp lying form. Beside me, just outside of center, is rara, dripping but still working.

The fan swirls.

Sweat rolls unrelentingly. I try to get up. My heart pins me down. I acquiesce. Back inside the fan, back to purgatory. Ceramic space heaters blow with prejudice, cook fuckers, cook. I focus on a single blade. My eyes spin in their sockets.

The fan churns.

I remain still, staring. Yoga is completely different from what I know. It follows the body's kinetic chain, strengthens connections, and stimulates, encouraging peace. It is lack of peace that pins me to the mat. My heart, aerobically trained, feels out of sync with my body. Connections are cordoned off, impassable, forcing me to recall another time, when I fancied myself a bodybuilder. But in reality, my body flowed with the fuel of insecurity. I force fed myself to pack on size, to survive the unpredictability of an alcoholic and a sadist.

The fan agitates.

I wish I gave myself a break then, as I do now. I wish I never pushed against gravity, the weight of my depression, weights too heavy for my joints to bear. I am paying the price, taking that break too late, the damage is done...maybe...

Prison Laundry

Ideologically, I'm changing. Things matter to me more now than they ever did, like my carbon footprint. I find myself conscious of the things I do everyday that might make it a little deeper, or etched. We don't use plastic anymore and try hard not to purchase things that come in petroleum laden casing. We don't cook with it or use the microwave as much, if at all (Although I do use it to time my recipes, like the chicken pot pie that's in the oven right now).

Take laundry. We tried countless times to use only organic detergents. Tide and the like are poison to both us and the environment. But each time our clothes ended up smelling like a wet dog. Not the best scent for trying to keep clients, but I did fit in better on the T. Once again, at rara's behest, we are trying a product recommended by a fellow crunchie, I'll keep you posted, or maybe you can just approach me and take a whiff.

But as with all things, rara has taken laundry to a new level, preferring to take garments into the shower to clean. I have the utmost aversion to this, not because I don't applaud her efforts but because of the trauma it evokes. Let me explain:

Just after the initial strip search in prison, the guard hands you bedding, heavy denim, and a fishnet bag for laundry. Every Wednesday they collect those laundry bags, which we cons stuff and tie as tightly as we can for fear the bag will open. If your bag opens and loses your laundry, it can take weeks for the property offer to get around to answering your request for new duds. Sometime Wednesday afternoon the bags come back either steaming hot and burnt, soaking wet and smelly, or my favorite, microwaved, steaming hot on the outside, wet and cold in the middle.
I favored buying extra bars of soap from the canteen, so that once a week I could wash my clothes in the shower. It wasn't uncommon to see me walking to the showers fully dressed. No, this wasn't to thwart off those who might seek to follow up on my dropping of the soap, it was so I could scrub my clothes clean and avoid the possibility of the laundry leaving me with only one outfit.

These days, post prison, I am grateful for the opportunity to use a washer and dryer, as I am grateful for the opportunity to do just about anything without being strip searched first. rara, God bless her, uses a Yahoo group called Freecycle whenever we need to downsize, or are ever looking for something, like wine glasses, hiking boots, chairs, desks, bulletin boards, or Brita water filters. In Nahant, she got us a washer for free--and it screamed and hissed so loudly that sometimes we had to turn up the TV or leave the apartment entirely. Now, since she started bathing with our dirty laundry, things are showing up around the apt that she hoped I wouldn't notice, like the Laundry Spinner and the drying rack. I might have to shank her.

Traditions

Traditions are like compulsions, done over and over, without much thought as to why. Growing up, we'd attend midnight mass on Christmas eve. Why? It was tradition. We set up a traditional tree, decorated with ornaments made by my Polish grandmother. We ate a traditional Polish dinner, pierogi, golabki, kielbasa, and cruscik. I haven't continued any of these traditions, for the most part, they nauseate me.

Today, I create my own traditions. On Sundays, we get together with our neighbors downstairs and eat the dinner I prepare, usually out of the Fresh and Honest cookbook from Henrietta's Table, where we got married. We sit, hopefully reverend Austin is there to bless the meal, mostly by remaining quiet, resting his neck. Tuck (Aka: Tuck Amuck), sits patiently, waiting for me to toss him a morsel, several actually.

Being with Allison, or Al, never Ali, and Gaylen feels like home to us. They've been here since we moved in but it's only been lately that we've gotten this close. Actually, Rachel has always been close to them, it's me that it takes a while to warm up to. Mostly because of my faltering filters, that fail to stop me from saying whatever comes to mind. Countless times throughout the year, I've left them speechless. My sense of humor is like quills on a porcupine, relaxed, they are soft, erect, they prick.

Allison and Gaylen have the type of relationship that rara and I have. Separate, they are completely different people. Gaylen has an undeniable edge, that fiery anger that makes her a menace on the road and a riot after a few drinks. Allison buys humane mouse traps that contain rather than kill. Picture Gaylen in the early morning hours letting our mouse free in a field, something I'd do for rara. I wonder if, to the mouse, the experience is like an alien abduction without the anal probe. But I digress.

Unlike oil and water, they emulsify, their differences gloss over, and they blend. It's hard to imagine one without the other, or that either exists as separate entities. Sunday dinner, and our lives are richer because of them, good friends truly are hard to find.

A few Sundays ago I attempted what seemed a simple crab and corn chowder recipe. I bought all the ingredients except the rock crab that Whole Foods doesn't carry. The fish counter suggested I try H-Mart in Burlington. So Reverend Austin and I made the trek. We could tell by both the business of the lot and the predominance of the shoppers going to and fro, that H-Mart was a different kind of store. The size of a typical Shaw's, inside it opened up into a unique shopping experience. Immediately to our left were several glass cases of jewelry. With a furrowed brow I turned to Reverend Austin just in time to see him shrug.

To the right, a food court of sorts lined the wall, only there was no pizza, burgers or, greasy tacos, there were only Japanese steak houses, and Chinese fresh fish joints. The produce section was a plethora of every imaginable fruit and vegetable. The back wall was sectioned for meats, the reds made up only a fraction, the fish stretched the entire length of the building. They had everything imaginable, and five varieties not yet discovered, including a tentacle section. At each station stood at least three workers, waiting to assist. I asked for crab and was directed to the corner where several varieties sat chilled in a cooler. Only one was shelled and canned. I grabbed what they had and made my way to the front.

Many things stood out as Reverend Austin and I, made our purchase. One was that along with food, parts of the building were sectioned into smaller stores where one could buy a TV, luggage, T-shirts, and the aforementioned, Jewelry. But what stood out the most was the fact that as I hurried through, I was stymied countless times by groups of people standing in the way. Typically, this annoys me, until I realized that it wasn't coincidence, running into these groups. More than shopping, most were there to chat, catch up with old friends, or make new ones. There was a sense of community amongst these people and I found myself feeling ashamed of pushing my way through, intruding on these people's Sunday Tradition, just so I could get back to my own.

Someone said, "It's like they got married in a Starbucks." It's funny how many people take offense when we tell them we got married in a restaurant. So conventional, marriage seems, that when it's done unconventionally, people write it off as if our bond isn't sacred.

I used to joke with Rachel that the only thing that mattered to me was the ring. I felt she needed it. She felt she had enough gems. So I bit the bullet, spent more than I had, and bought her the ring I am proud to see sparkling under the track lighting of the wine tasting we attended tonight. She, in turn, employed a local artist to design my band, using gold and stones bought by reputable, sustainable companies, who don't pollute or use slave labor. So quintessentially rara.

The ceremony was held in The Charles River Hotel, in the function room of Henrietta's Table. We invited close friends and family, 35 in all, to sit with us, enjoy a great meal with organic wine, the food prepared using ingredients bought from local farms, that grow mostly organic produce. The ceremony, performed by the newly ordained, Reverend Austin Ritter (rara's bro), could not have gone more smoothly, hilarious yet poignant. After, we ate, drank, some danced, without the stuffiness of most conventional weddings. The cake was perfect, the flavors accentuated by the excitement of the day, and the proximity of those we love the most.

For me and Rach, the day could not have been more perfect. We married in the same fashion as we live, for each other, conscious of where our money goes, careful to consider the long term consequences of our actions.

And we laughed.