Hunger

Ben Samit completing a triathlon swim.

“Bring all the lovers to the fold, ‘cause no one is gonna lose their soul.” ~ Love Is My Religion, Ziggy Marley

We’ve been studying the soul.

We’ve been reading books and taking classes and looking for one soul, in particular. He belonged to my daughter and left without warning, leaving us all at a loss. He was the one who fed her soul, so that she was never hungry, and now her plate is empty, and she has no appetite.

He was a loving young man who knew that his body could feed his soul. He was a runner and a biker who had completed marathons and bike races. He loved to dance and had just started practicing yoga. He often worked out with my son, and together they had talked about entering a triathlon.

From the books and our classes, we are learning that certain souls are tied together in what are called “soul contracts”. Supposedly, we make these contracts before we are born. So the people in our lives, those we love and even those we don’t, are here with us because we’ve previously agreed upon it. It’s not anything we may ever remember, but it may be something we already know.

This is why we regard the soul of the one who left us as a brother to my son. His name was Jeffrey Paul Bart.

After he left, my son called me.

“Hey, Ma,” he said. “I’m going to enter the New York City Triathlon!”

I should not have been surprised. My son had once thought it would be a good idea to run up the steps of the Empire State Building! It was a vertical race. I never knew there were such things, but I’ve since learned that they happen all around the world. They’re called run-ups. The sign-up for the run-up was closed, but my son had entered a lottery and somehow gotten himself a late spot. He called to let me know.

“Hey, Ma,” he said over the phone. “I’m going to run up the Empire State Building!”

We hung up, and I looked it up. I’d never even taken the elevator up, much less the steps, but apparently the Empire State building had a lot. There were 86 floors and 1,576 steps!

He started to watch online videos. Apparently, a champion vertical racer had posted videos on how best to run up the steps. There were instructions on how to grab the railings and how to swing around to the next flight. My son gave me his own instructions. I was to watch the videos, too, so that I could listen intelligently as he mapped out his strategies.

He picked a charity for those who wanted to support him and ran up the stairwells of his apartment building as practice. His doorman was in charge of the stopwatch. He conditioned further with lots of yoga.

A few short months later, he ran to the top of the Empire State Building! 

Really, I don’t know what made him decide to do that. I don’t even know if he knows. I just think he knew that he had to do it, and so he did. If I think hard enough about it, I would say that, on some level, he knew that his body, too, had the ability to feed his soul, and that his soul was hungry.

Swimming is a big part of a triathlon. In fact, it’s the very first part, and my son was never really a big swimmer. When he was little, he was so little that it took some time before he had the strength to hold his chest high enough to keep his head above water. And so it was a while before he could, and then it was never really an activity he actively pursued.  

My son began to put his plans in place for the race. He registered for the NYC TRI and signed up for a swim class. Then he chose a charity in memory of his brother Bart and bought a bike map of the city, so he would know where to go. He started running, too, and he further conditioned with lots of yoga.

I listened as he mapped out his strategies, and for months I watched as he fed his soul in the way that he knows how. He met with a run coach and sent me videos from his swim coach. He worked out his workout on either end of his work day, in the mornings and in the evenings and on the weekends, too.

The training provided my son with a purpose at a time when he was looking for his. The loss of a loved one can leave us questioning ours, and that’s why we want so badly to believe in our souls. We want to believe there’s a reason we’re here and a purpose in the company we keep. We want to know that it matters when we love someone and that our contracts with them are for keeps.

There was so much more to be done. My son acquired a wet suit and goggles and a bathing cap, and then he arranged for the bike and the shorts and the shoes. He actually borrowed the bike that inspired him to enter the race, the red one that hung in his soul brother’s place, in the home that my daughter had shared. He learned the gears and met with the guys at the shop to learn even more, and he spoke with his brother as he rode through the city of New York.  

“Bart and I rode the streets hard,” he reported one day. “We cursed up a storm,” he said of the cars and the people who got in the way.     

And then it was time for a practice race, and his sister and I were invited along. He had signed up for a nearby triathlon in a town outside the city. He packed up his car with the bike and his things, and we booked a hotel overnight. The next morning, we were up before dawn, and we drove to the beach where he put his wet suit on.

He entered the water and swam out with the others until they became dots in the distance, blue like the color of their caps. We watched the blue dots move along the horizon and then turn toward the shore before they rose up to become people again. And we clapped for him as he came out of the sea and ran by on the beach and transitioned to the ride on his bike.

But then another rider collided with him, and he and the bike were down before they could even begin! And I have to admit that I heard him curse as he got up from the ground and fixed up the bike and then pedaled off, as if it had never happened. And we cheered him on then and did the same again as he rounded the bend in a second and final loop.   

And then it was time for the run. He stashed his bike and put on his watch as he ran, and then he was gone again. And that’s when my daughter and I walked to the finish line, so that we could greet him when he came in. And it was not too much longer before we saw him appear, a dot in the distance again. And then we heard his name in the air as he drew near, and we clapped and hollered and cheered.

“Here comes a runner with some real grit!” the announcer announced over the loud speaker. “There’s no one behind him right now. There he is! Ben Samit from New York, New York, New York!”

      

He blew by the finish line, and suddenly he was with us, catching his breath, elated, a little bloody from the spill on his bike. He gave us big, sweaty hugs, and we took celebratory pictures in the rising sun, and then we listened as he told us what it was like.

He said the bike ride was good, and that he still had gas in the tank after the run. But the swim, he said, was not good at all.

Although I hadn’t noticed, he told us he had entered the water but was unable to exhale his air. He wasn’t prepared for the cold temperatures and lack of visibility, and he froze right there on the spot. He almost turned back but made the decision instead to move on ahead and swim with his eyes above water. It wasn’t until the end when he headed to shore that he finally put his head in for the rest of the swim.

“Bart was definitely with me in the water,” he said.

We took so many photos of that day, but they don’t do justice to the image that remains in my mind. In the mental picture I keep, I see my son from behind. He’s in his wet suit and goggles and cap, and he’s moving into the water at the start of the race.

The day has dawned, and it freezes this moment in time. He’s hungry and ready to feed his soul.

Next up: The NYC TRI.

Jeff Bart and Ben Samit planned to do the New York City Triathlon together. To support Ben’s race in Jeff’s memory, click here. All donations go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook.and Twitter.

Adventure

My son, Ben, skydiving in Australia

“So come out of your cave walking on your hands and see the world from upside down.” ~ The Cave, Mumford and Sons

The other night, I was at yoga, laying out my mat, unwinding it from its bag and doing the same from my day. I prefer a spot against the wall, where I can try a few handstands without going overboard. I walk along my mat and talk with those nearby, enjoying the switch from my work day to my yoga night, chatting and pacing and popping into handstands. 

And I wonder, where else, really, would this seem normal? 

Aside from my Instagram friend who sneaks photos in her office attire when no one’s around, putting up pictures of handstands by a file cabinet or backbends atop a conference table, I’m not sure I know anywhere else I could chat while upside down without anyone wondering what’s wrong with me. 

I’ve come to realize that I feel the most like myself when I’m at yoga. It’s nice here, more than nice. There is a freedom once I park my car and walk to the studio, as if I am leaving one life and showing up at another.  

And this transition has been a huge adventure for someone like me, someone who doesn’t love change and who takes comfort in sameness. 

It’s not that I’m not who I am outside of yoga. It’s pretty hard to be anyone else, anyway. It’s just that on my mat, I feel the closest to me and to the girl I was so long ago.  

On my mat, it just is what it is, a phrase I usually hate to hear. It’s the phrase I come up against when no amount of justifying or explaining can make things how I’d rather they be. It’s the phrase that speaks the truth, and that’s what I get on my mat. 

It is what it is on the mat because it’s pretty bare there, and so am I. Even what I wear is bare, my shoulders, sometimes my midriff and even my feet. Once there, I put up my hair, which for me is a fairly personal thing. Off my mat and outside the house, my hair is always down and done. 

The yogi seated to my right looks up at me as if we’d been in conversation and exclaims, Wouldn’t that be amazing? 

What? I ask, realizing that she thinks I’ve overheard the yogi on her other side. 

To have the kind of job that can take you anywhere? she answers. Where you get to go anywhere?  

No! I say immediately back. I’m a homebody, I admit from my mat, coming down from a handstand against the comfort of the wall. I don’t want to go all over the place! Coming here is my big adventure! 

But then I sit down to ask this young girl where her job takes her and find that she has just returned from months studying dolphins in Australia. And from my perch on my mat, I am indeed amazed.  

My yogi friends are big adventurers. To me, it seems they are scared of nothing. I love to hear what they do and where they’ve been. They are young and brave and adventurous, and I’m doing my best to learn from them.   

I am on the road back from something, an adventure that had been chaotic and challenging. I had been young and brave and adventurous then, and I think that’s what helped me through. It’s just that I thought the objective was to find peace and safety, kind of like the spot against the wall where I can’t fall over if I go upside down.  

The classes I take are pretty powerful, and maybe that’s why I’ve met so many adventurous people, those that run and bike and ski and more, those that are not necessarily looking for peace or safety. And when I wonder what I’m doing here among them, I think back to when I was young and brave and adventurous, too. 

Maybe I am trying to find that girl again.

One yogi friend runs to yoga, takes the class and runs home. She was there throughout her pregnancy and was always one of the few who could hold the backbends through all the counts. Another yogi is an avid skier who just spent a recent afternoon on a trampoline. And there’s the man who completed 20 years in the military who hopes to teach as part of Yoga for Wounded Warriors.  

My son’s a yogi, and he’s jumped out of an airplane. Yet another yogi biked to the beach, more than 100 miles away, to raise money for Autism. Still another friend hails from across the globe, having spent the past year teaching yoga in the States and just this week returns to her country for yet another brave beginning. 

And how can I not mention the young woman who spent many years as a platform diver, studied in faraway places and is recovering from a knee injury received while cliff diving. She is forever my example of grace and strength and determination as she maintains her practice, her work and her indomitable spirit while healing.  

Homework!

That night’s practice is intense, and I am glad to reach the end when it’s time for inversions. As before, I pop into a handstand, secured by the wall behind me.  

After balancing a bit, I lower my legs and stand up for a breather. I face the wall, thinking about how much I like this part of the practice, with the room dark, the music playing and everyone upside down. 

A tap on my shoulder catches me by surprise, and someone’s hands spin me out of my reverie. It is the instructor, making me face front, away from the wall.  

It’s just so seamless at this point, she says. No more wall for you. Hope you don’t mind and hope you had fun there, because you’re done with that.  

She stands there and, under unspoken instructions, I place my palms on the mat and lift my legs into a handstand away from the wall. Each time I wobble, I feel the instructor point my core back to where it should be, so I can be upside down but still stable. 

And just like that, I am set on a course for a new adventure, joining the ranks of those around me and getting that much closer to the girl who had been there once before.

Injury

I need a back up plan for yoga.

 

I’ve hurt my wrist, and the doctor has ordered a month’s break from yoga. 

I’ve been practicing almost three years, and this is the first time I will go without yoga for more than a few days in a row. 

The anxiety is starting to build. I had myself on a full speed ahead yoga schedule, combining two types of practices at three different locations for a total of six times a week. 

Coming to a hard stop seems unimaginable.  

With this news, I’m concerned I’ll lose my strength, the muscles I’ve been building. I’ll miss all the work I’ve been doing on my handstands, not to mention the other parts of my practice. 

So, in light of these worries, I’ve decided on a new plan, something different and out of the ordinary; something that will set this time apart and move it along as speedily as possible.  

This plan is to go outside, walk and even run, and then treat myself to some work on my forearm stand. 

Most all of my yogi friends are runners. They run alone, in groups, in marathons and even in the mud. 

Myself, I have never really run. I feel self conscious, especially outside. 

But I long ago gave away my unused treadmill, even though it was great for hanging laundry, and so, this month, I’m outside in the evenings. And I start off with walking. 

I’ve got on my headphones and chat on the phone until I find myself up the street, through the park and out of the neighborhood. By the time I’m done talking and turn around, the sun is on its way down and so am I. 

It’s literally downhill the whole way home, and that’s when I pick up the pace. Under the cover of darkness, I turn on the music and go. 

By the time I reach my house, I have that same feeling that comes over me in Savasana, or final resting pose in yoga. I’m energized, lifted and content. 

This is new for me, being outside. Growing up, I danced a lot, and that was all indoors. In fact, I think that memory is some of what hooked me on yoga. 

I passed my dancing years onto my daughter and, all the while she was growing up, she danced, too. She especially loved to tap, and she did so all the way into college. 

It was always hard to find a place to tap at home. Mostly, she would tap in the attic, and I’d write the dates of her home performances in marker on the attic’s wooden floor while the rest of the family squeezed around to ooh and aah. 

It wasn’t long before she outgrew the attic, and my father made her a portable wooden floor. This, we could put in any room and, on it, she shuffled, step-ball-changed, brushed and flapped. There were more steps on that floor than anywhere else in the house. 

In the years since, the floor has become one with a wall on the outside porch, leaning upright and gathering pollen and dust. When I got the news about my month with no yoga, I brought the floor in from outside and wiped away the intervening years. Once clean, I spread my mat overtop.  

Each night after my walk/run, I come home to the mat on the tap board. I stretch into Paschimottanasana, seated forward fold, and then into Badhakonasana, seated butterfly pose.  

And then, in my grandest goal of the month, I pop several times into Pincha Mayurasana, forearm stand. With no weight on my wrist, I am doing what I miss most, going upside down. 

And like the family with their oohs and aahs, I set up the video on my phone to snap a picture of my inversion. And like the dates marked on the attic floor, I number these pictures with the number of days passed, creating an illustrative countdown to what I hope is the go ahead to practice again.

It’s different, though. There’s no teacher telling me what to do next. There’s no heated room. There’s no group energy. I’m in it on my own, and it’s work to keep the worries at bay about whether I’ll still have my practice by the month’s end. 

In my discussions with my instructor, I asked whether she had ever taken time off from yoga. 

Yes, she answered, and I was stronger for it.  

At the time, I thought she was talking about her body, how her rest had actually strengthened her muscles.  

But, now that I’m in it, I think she might have possibly been talking about another kind of strength, the kind that needs to be summoned when it’s time to come up with a new game plan -- when the one you worked so hard to put together is no longer an option. 

This is the kind of strength I need to build because who knows when such skills might need to be summoned again?

For now, though, I’ll continue to tape those photos of my numbered forearm stands to the refrigerator.  

That will help get me to judgment day.

And, after that, I’ll just map out whatever plan is next, preferably one that finds me back on my mat.