From Comfortable Distances Read Online Free Page A

through the three large square windows on
the ceiling. Free. Quiet. Safe. That’s how the room made Tess feel, until the
nag champa incense filtered through her, unsettling her. Growing up, the smell
had permeated her house so that it was imbedded on her clothing, her skin.
Whenever she had walked into her classroom at school, the whole class had
started sniffing, reminding her that she was different. Some of the children
teased her and passed her notes that said that she smelt funny, and yet the
smell had always given her comfort, and often, in the middle of the school day,
she had brought her shirtsleeve to her nose and inhaled. In her mind’s eye, she
could see her mother’s devotees in her home in Woodstock practicing yoga each
morning before sunrise. The daily meditation sessions that her mother made her
take part in each day before she went to school. She could see herself walking
to the bus stop in the bright colored t-shirts and ponchos her mother dressed
her in. At lunchtime and after school the other kids called her a Hare Krishna,
chanting Hare Krishna and clapping whenever she was around. The incessant
teasing by her schoolmates, who would whisper within her hearing that she and
her mother were freaks, hadn’t bothered her much. She, too, had thought of her
mother as a freak for a while, wishing with all her heart and soul that she had
some other mother, that she lived in some other home in which she was allowed
to watch TV after school and eat cookies and junk food.
    Her mind darted to her
son, Prakash. Unlike her, Prakash had been captivated by her mother. He had
bought into it all early on—yoga, meditation, Buddhism—so that by the time he
went off to college in, some dozen plus years back, his guiding principles were
of a Buddhist nature, although he wasn’t caught up with the need to look the
part. Tess had admired that about him: his ability to be his authentic self
without trying to impose his beliefs on anyone else. Prakash had always seemed
to her as if he were her mother’s child, with his Asian complexion and black
eyes. Tess’s red hair, blue eyes and fair complexion made her feel like an
outsider.
    A hint of lavender
waffled through the room, and for a moment she smelled the pillow that she had
slept with as a child, the pillow that her mother had scented each night with
lavender oil before Tess got into bed. To Tess, it was the smell of sweet
dreams. Her shoulders fell until she felt herself folding up into herself.
     “Oh!” Tess jumped,
sitting up.
    Michael had jabbed her.  “You
fell asleep,” he mouthed, to which she shook her head no.
    The yoga teacher was
talking, instructing the class to find a comfortable seat. Her voice was like a
lily flower to Tess—delicate, distinct, and sweet. They were to begin class
with mediation.
    “Close your eyes and
begin to go inward. Follow your inhales and your exhales. Begin to slow
everything down. Forget where you were today, where you need to be later, what
you’ll be doing tomorrow. All that matters is this moment. Listen to your
breath. It will let you see where you are inside. Focus on your inhales and
your exhales.”
    By the time the teacher
instructed them to come to the front of their mats, standing tall and at
attention, the four corners of their feet firmly pressed into the earth, their
shoulders down, their neck lose and free on their head, their arms light and
long by their sides, Tess felt herself letting go, easing up. She breathed in
long and hard through her nose, and when she exhaled, it was as if everything
that had been sitting on her chest—things that she hadn’t known were there,
making her feel heavy and suffocated—drifted away from her. With the first
swoop of her hands upward and towards the sky, Tess felt as if she were flying.
    As much as Tess tried to
focus on her movements, to modify her poses per the teacher’s directions—tuck
her tailbone, engage her abdomen—her mind continued to dart about.