This week my life has changed. For the better I should add. But when life changes you start asking yourself questions. What is to come? How has my life changed etc. blah blah blah. So this story was inspired from this line of thought.
“Breathe in for four. Hold… and exhale,” my eyes are closed, though I sense his smug, content smile. I'm sure it's not a prerequisite for meditation teachers, but it's one of his.
“Once more... Release all that tension you’ve been holding on to. Let it go with your breath.” He’s a real piece of work. The session ends with the obligatory namaste and the scent of chamomile tea.
That is my only experience with ‘connecting with the present.’ Although, for me, it doesn’t come close. How can you relax in a room full of colleagues, breathing in unison, trying to look comfortable while their legs are uncomfortably crossed? If you can relax in an environment like that, there’s something wrong with you. I’ve been at the office for eight months and suffered through seven sessions - none of which have come close to relaxing. I walk home, wondering how this kind of thing has taken off. Tonight's a little different; I don't have that much time to think about it. I’m heading straight to dinner; my wife picked the restaurant - a cosy Italian crammed into the floor space of a small studio apartment. It’s lit with candles flickering in used wine bottles, old-mismatching chandeliers and the glow of the kitchen stove.
There’s a group of three waiting by the door when I arrive - two guys and a woman - cigarettes in one hand and a drink in the other. Her dress is short enough to make her shiver but not enough to forego her smokey indulgence. I catch her eyes as I get closer, and all three move a few feet to the side to let me pass.
“You look beautiful,” she really does - she always does. "Have you been waiting for long?"
"No, just ten minutes." During our four years together, I've collected an album of occasions when she has looked so good her image embeds itself in my mind. I remember what she was wearing and where we were.
On our first anniversary, she wore a fitted knee-length black dress, cream heels, pull-ups, a red balcony bra and a matching thong. Subtle golden hoops dangled from her ears, and a delicate golden chain from her neck. We were in the same restaurant when she painted that image in my brain.
"You really do look good," I say again, just so she knows.
“I don’t, but thanks. How was work?”
“It was. Mr Namaste come this afternoon,” I say, taking my seat.
“Oh, so you're nice and relaxed.”
“Of course.” She doesn’t share my anguish with those types. In fact, she's one of them, although she’s saved the torture of meditating with her colleagues. But it’s only recently that she’s breached the topic of being present with me. I can’t remember what caused it - my storage space is filled with prettier things - it’s definitely something new. When we first met, she was just as distracted as I was. Almost all our conversations were a misshapen tapestry of dreams and memories. We’d have dinner with our phones by our sides or in our hands. As of two years ago, new rules have been put into law: no phones at the table and no stressing about the past; dreaming is still permitted because where is the fun in banning dreams.
“Lili told me the linguine is amazing. She said they make the pasta from scratch now.”
“Nice.”
“And they have a Douro.” It's our favourite wine, not necessarily for the flavour - neither of us are connoisseurs - but because it has a special place in our hearts. It was the first variety we ever shared.
“I see.”
“Okay. What's the matter?”
“Nothing, why?”
“Nothing, why.” She can be so sarcastic when she wants to be. It’s one of the things she bought with her after studying in England. I suppose it's one of her trademarks.
“Good point,” I conceded. “I’m just distracted. When I was in the meditation session, I just kept thinking - is this my life for the next twenty years? Am I going to be faking a smile to satisfy the whims of a boss I don't really like for the rest of my life?”
“You can always quit; most companies don't make you meditate.”
“But then what? I start from the bottom, kiss arse for five years before I make the kind of money I am at the minute?”
“You won’t have to start from the bottom.”
“I’m not going to walk into something like I have now. If I were to leave, I would want to change it up completely... Start something completely new. I’m bored as it is. Switching offices won't change that, even if I don’t have to meditate.” The waitress comes and takes our order - a bottle of their Douro and two plates of linguine, please.
“Cheers,” our eyes lock, and our glasses clink. My first sip tastes like relief.
“So what would you want to do? Let’s say you can do anything.”
“I don’t know. That’s the point. I’d like to start from the beginning again, learn a new skill, work hard at it and perfect it.”
“So do that.”
“But I can’t. I don't have enough time to start from the bottom, I want us to be able to do fun stuff: travel, have kids, buy a house. We’re so close to doing that.”
“That’s bullshit,” she says, taking a big swig, fueling up to have her say. “I’ve told you before; you can’t go through life stressing about what might or might not happen. You don’t have any control over it in the first place. You’ve succeeded in rising to the top once... you can do it again.”
“I know, but how old will I be once I've done it again.” I get distracted - the threesome I passed outside squeezes past our table to get to theirs. The back of my neck is whipped by the zips dangling from their winter coats.
“But it doesn’t matter if you’re eighty.”
“Of course it does. Do you want to live in a tiny one-bedroom for the rest of our lives? What about retirement. What money will we be able to save if I’m constantly working on the bottom rungs of a business?”
“If you're enjoying life from there... does it matter?” She’s starting to sound like Mr Namaste. I can’t help but sigh. “Look, at the end of the day, you can do whatever you want, but chewing it over in your head every day isn’t changing anything. It will only make you sad.”
“I know,” I really do, and I hate what it does to me when I get in one of these cycles.
“Anyway, let’s stop with all this bullshit. You might want to waste your time in the future, but I do not.” Her words are stern, but her foot stroking my leg under the table is soft. It’s enough to make me forget, for a while at least; she has always had that power. The linguine comes, and we fall into silence - a sign that it is as delicious as Lili remembered.
“Dessert?” she asks after clearing her plate.
“Why not.”
“That might be the best pasta I’ve ever had.”
“Can you remember the tagliolini in Florence?”
“I think about it as much as you think about the future?”
“Very funny... But you think this is better?”
“It’s in the running. Let's wait a few years and see if I remember it like we remember that.”
“Anything else,” the waitress asks from above my head. “Some more drinks... dessert?”
“We’ll have a look at the menu. Can we get two espresso martinis while we decide?” I look over the table to see if she is serious - she definitely is. The first and last time we had espresso martinis, we went home snogging in the back of a taxi, then fell asleep fully clothed. It was two summers ago in Madrid. It's one of those times when I remember what she wore: a green summer dress with platform sandals and cappuccino lipstick. No jewellery, no special underwear.
“Can you remember…”
“I was just thinking about it,” I interrupt; there’s a smirk on her lips. It is a world away from the one Mr. Namaste wears in our classes. It’s inviting and tangible, and I know precisely what’s going on behind it.
“So, any dessert?” She’s back again, talking over my head. There’s no space for her between the tables.
“No thanks, just the martinis.”
“Of course,” the waitress says, the way waitresses do - as though your answer was the most plausible response of all. As if they hang on your every word.
The bartender's quick and two espresso martinis arrive on our table in the blink of an eye.
“Cheers,” I say, and we repeat the stare and the clink. I take a sip and feel the bottle of wine that has gone before, loosening my brain. Tonight will end with spinning walls.
“I need some air,” she says - I wonder if she can read my mind or maybe my face is incapable of keeping secrets. It doesn’t feel as cold as it did when I arrived. The threesome is outside again. This time, the woman isn’t shivering - she’s commandeered a coat. One of the guys catches my eye, and I do my best to act like I haven’t noticed. I guess my intentions are really written on my face.
“Want one?” He stretches out a hand, between his index and thumb, a cigarette.
“Sure, thanks,” she says before I can reply. We don't smoke, but it is one of those nights.
“Have you got a light?” He asks, sensing our lack of experience.
“No,” she answers, but our new friend has already dug one out of his pockets.
“Keep it; I have three in this coat.”
“Thanks,” she says and lights the end. We stand in another moment of silence as if paying our respects to the night, to the generosity of strangers or to the effects of a bottle of wine and an espresso martini. I take a drag, and her hands wrap around my waist and root into my back pockets. Her head nuzzle into my chest, and suddenly, I realise how peaceful it can be to exist in the present. But it’s not the silence or my breaths that I find peaceful - it's the intoxication.
In this state, the present consumes you. I guess that’s why people say life is a series of moments. It isn’t - it is a long line, measured by the second - but that reality is too glum for our sensitive souls. Peace of mind comes from revelling in the present, not just living in it. That's why we brighten up when we lose ourselves in conversation, on a date night or snogging in the back of a taxi. Sometimes, you don’t need any physicality to lose yourself in the present. A good book or a pretty view is just as good. I guess the only trick to it is to stop thinking.
Love, Luke