Thursday, 31 March 2011

Day 12: Keeping Up

On my belly on the floor, back arched, arms stretched out behind with fingers locked, trying my hardest to hold my breath. Maybe attempting put us in touch with our primal selves, she said, "you were born to to this". And that was it, my pose collapsed in laughter along with everyone else.

All my life has been leading up to this. Doing Kundalini Yoga with a bunch of pissheads and junkies in various states of physical disrepair and mental anguish on an institutional carpet.

A particularly difficult move had to be repeated thirty times but the teacher promised "by the end you'll be flying". So, addicts all, we chased that high. It's one of the weirdest afternoons I've had in a while.

Three days in, I'm getting some of the jokes. While some people genuinely mispronounce words, others pretend to, certain phrases have been give verbal versions of my sarcastic quotes. In intensive communities like this all sorts of language and in-jokes develop, as a way of bonding, and also just of getting though. All is not what it seems.

The group includes older Cockneys who genuinely use rhyming slang, Muslim rude boys with patois I don't understand ("raggle fraggle"?). But all it not what it seems. I'd noticed a little plaster on someone's inner ear - and today they explained that it was from last week's acupuncture session. All week I'd thought it was some sort of 'gang thing'.

[Also, this morning in 'community meeting' there was an amnesty - where we could admit if we've been 'using' without getting thrown out. After a long long silence, someone admitted he had been smuggling in coffee.]



INFINITE JEST UPDATE: Pages 93-109. Passages on both the Enfield Tennis Academy and The Wheelchair Assassins of Southern Quebec. Tribes with their own ways like the one I am becoming part of.

"It turns out Lemon Pledge, when it's applied in pre-play stasis and allowed to dry to a thin crust, is a phenomenal sunscreen, UV rating like 40+, and the only stuff anywhere that can survive a three-set sweat."

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