“I want to spend my free time with you, Nance,” he said, as though offended I had asked.
But I knew Chuck better than that. He didn’t want to hang out in a bar because he didn’t trust himself not to drink. Chuck wasn’t ready to call himself an alcoholic yet, but alcohol scared him in the way it scared alcoholics. I knew he thought about it more than normal people did.
“So,” he said, “tell me about your day.”
“I spent time with Ana,” I said. “Turns out we have a lot in common.” I was about to tell him about the sandwiches—I really was—but then Chuck said, “What do you have in common?” and the way he said that—almost like he was a little jealous?—made me want to keep more to myself.
So I gave him a surface-level answer—“We both love yoga”—and then continued that train of thought by saying the class was really fun and inspiring and I was getting better at the poses already.
Chuck’s smile. “I’d love to see you do yoga.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I bet you would.”
He took my hand. The sticky table. How life was always imperfect. Even in the best moments, it was still sticky tables and sweaty thighs.
Chuck’s wedding band pressed into my fingers. The metal was hard, warm. “Nancy.” He looked right at me. “You don’t have to say it back, but I just want you to know…”
I kissed my fingers and pressed them to his lips. “I love you, Chuck.”
A pause, and then Chuck let his whole body sink back into the chair. “I’m so relieved to hear you say that.”
?
We made love that night on the hibiscus bedspread. We had to be extra quiet because the boys’ rooms were just across the hall in this house, which kind of made it more fun. I felt sexy and spontaneous and like I owned my body again. I didn’t know when my body had become an imposition—just this thing I was forced to lug around—but now it was back and it was mine. It had been at least six months—we’d stopped making love long before Shelly—so Chuck’s old moves felt almost new to me. New but also pleasantly familiar. Something I could trust. We messed up the sheets. Pillows got lost on the floor. My purple dress landed somewhere near the window. Normally, I would have gotten up to fix the sheets and pick up the pillows and find the dress, but I told myself to stay. Stay in this moment, warm and tangled in your husband’s legs. We didn’t put on our pajamas. We didn’t brush our teeth. We fell asleep naked with nothing between us.
10
“Here we are at the beach. The waves are crashing. The birds are chirping. Cars are going by.” Ana inhaled and exhaled deeply. She was back in the black wig today with the pink streak that hooked just below her chin. “Here we are, breathing like we mean it. Here we are, shifting our perspective. Shifting our train onto a new rail. Shoulders back. Relax your neck. Relax your tongue. The tongue is the strongest muscle in the body. It works hard for you all day. It needs a vacation. Relax that tongue.”
A pause.
“You have chosen to come here this morning. You chose to get up early. You chose the clothes you’re wearing. You chose to drive to this beach. After you leave here, you’ll make more choices, and every one of them will matter. It all matters. It all counts. Every breath counts. Make it good. You are alive. Breathe like you mean it.”
My eyes were closed, but I could see Ana reaching for her book, see her opening to the page.
“A quote I want to share with you: ‘Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold the truth within yourself as the only truth.’?” She repeated it. “?‘Be a lamp to yourself. Be your own confidence. Hold the truth within yourself as the only truth.’?” She inhaled, exhaled. “What is your truth and how is it manifesting? How will your choices today affect the rest of your life? Come back. Back back back. What do you want? What do you think you deserve?”
The sound of waves crashing, of birds chirping, of cars going by. The annoying sound of a fly buzzing near my ear and I wanted to flinch, but didn’t.
“Taste the salt air. Feel the weight of your seat. Ground. Groundedness. Your mind is a wandering child. When your mind wanders, invite it back. Shush the child. Quiet your mind. Your mind is a quiet place. Your mind is the deserted stacks in a library. Your mind is the wild desert, where there are no footprints in the sand. Your mind is as quiet as a planet we’ve never been to. Inhale deeply, and then three oms.”
?
That morning Ana helped me do a jump back for the first time. I didn’t do it perfectly, but still I did it. I, Nancy Murphy, did a jump back. I felt strong and pretty and powerful and in a flush of sweaty optimism, I unzipped my jacket all the way and let it fall in a heap on the grass.
Afterwards I made sure I was last in line so we would have a chance to talk. Patty’s cat was still alive, but doing worse. “I know we’re born alone and we die alone, Ana, but—well,” Patty tugged at her earring, “I just don’t like that.” While Patty was talking, Ana accidentally dropped her Red Vine in the grass. “Don’t want that to go to waste,” Patty said, and picked it up and ate the rest.
Sara Beth’s nails were blue this week, and she thought she was potentially maybe possibly falling in love, but she was scared that if it didn’t work out she’d fall on her face instead. Ana told her to embrace the uncertainty and grab life by the balls, which riled Sara Beth up. Her whole demeanor changed after that.
Kurt told Ana his knee was aching, and she suggested Tiger Balming it three times a day. He admitted he was a little embarrassed he hadn’t thought of this himself, to which Ana said, “Embarrassment is a worthless emotion. Don’t waste your brain cells.”
As I watched them all and listened to their conversations, I felt proud to call Ana a friend. She was so loving and inspiring. I think we all wanted a piece of her. When Patty ate Ana’s Red Vine from the grass, I thought: Any piece at all, even if only a small one.
After Kurt had left, Ana said, “Hey, partner,” and gave me a huge hug. Coconut oil and her wig against my face.
“I loved your quote today,” I said. “About how your truth is the only truth. That is so…true.”
“Right?”
“Who said it?”
She cocked her head. “Ana Gersh.” Her eyes sparkled. She bit her Red Vine.
“Another Ana, just like you. How funny.” Was I supposed to know who Ana Gersh was? Was she famous like Pema? I decided to be bold and ask. “Who’s Ana Gersh?”
“She’s a philosopher.” Ana tugged the hem of my shirt. She seemed to be inspecting the way it was sewn, maybe. “Here, I’ll write it down for you.” She grabbed her little notebook off the rock wall, wrote the quote, and ripped out the page for me when she was done. “You can put it on your fridge.”
I imagined my family seeing this quote on the fridge. “I’ll probably keep it in my wallet.”