We walked to the car without deciding to. The sun had gotten a running start. I opened the black door of Gladys' black car and sat in her black pleather seat.

"So what did you think? Did you feel something?"

"I don't know, I have to say that was really weird, Gladys. I mean, I'm glad I went. I wanted to go and I am glad I did, but it's just really hard to know what to make of a pop up mall in a hotel."

"Yeah, that part is weird."

"I tried not to have any expectations, you know? But that's impossible, really, I mean, I wanted everything. I confess. I wanted to feel something transformative. And I felt something, I did. But I wanted to have an awakening. I wanted Amma's love to be better than sex. Better than break up sex, even. What, I'm serious. Stop laughing, you're making me cry again."

“No one ever said the hug was that good! Though my first one was better – well, it was different. I like that she is doing different languages this time.”

“What language did you ask for?”

“What do you think? Spanish!”

“Well, I know, I guess I just wondered because you mostly speak English now. Where are you from again? I forgot, I’m sorry.”

“I’m from Argentina! How do you forget that?”

“I know, I’m terrible. I feel like sometimes if my memory switch is not turned on when the information comes in, it just doesn’t get saved. It’s weird. I’m an asshole. I think Argentina is the best, though. It’s super beautiful, right? And you guys do winter during the summer and everything. I’m into that.”

“Mm, yes, Argentina is in the southern hemisphere.”

The ride back into the city was quiet. Gladys blamed her blissful trance, but I think I was just really tired. The kind of tired you get after crying, which is the kind I’ve been for three 3 and a half years. Possibly more, but it's hard to remember anything before that. I spaced out over the highway. There were a lot of turns. Anytime we needed to go left we had to make a giant circle to the right. It happened over and over, and each time I felt a little seasick and angry at the centrifuge, how it wanted to push me away just for using it as an anchor. It was saying, listen, Karen, you can use me as a pivot point, but you can't stay here. The longer you stay, the harder I will throw you. This arrangement is non-negotiable.

It made me think of love. Of Amma, of my stupid, stupid heart. How hard I tried to make a pivot into an anchor, how thrown I was. How many times. How slowly I learn. How my life is made much richer and much heavier by reading every event as an analog of both greater and smaller rhythms. How it feels like a big made up story, like one of the good ones that win awards because someone tried really hard to make metaphors out of all the things in it, as if true stories don’t do that already if you just write them the way they happen.

Gladys dropped me at the Blue Line stop in Oak Park and showed me her braces again, promising not to let another 3 years go by.

“I barely recognized you with all that hair!”

“I know. Maybe next time you see me it will all be gone. The hair was his idea anyway.”

“No, don’t cut it! You look so much better with it! I mean, you were beautiful before, but this is just, wow, I mean, if that’s all you have to show for it, at least you look good, girl.”

“Good point. Thanks. Hey, let me know if you’re doing qi gong or whatever. I’ve been into it lately. I think. I mean, who knows what I’m into.”

“Cheer up, beautiful. There are so many fish in the sea! I’ll email you about the class, or, oh are you on Facebook? Oh right, sorry! That’s how the, right, right. Take good care, dear.”

“You, too, Gladys. Thanks again.”

I was still forgiving Gladys for saying fish in the sea as I pushed through the turnstile. I have always liked the placed where it hits my thigh, and for a minute I wondered whether this place was measured in the designing of the leg-pushing thing. Then I remembered about how not everyone is 5’3”, that other people get hit in a different place, more knee or waist. The turnstile that presses the upper third of the quadricep with this exacting balance of anonymity and familiarity, a touch so perfect as to be something or nothing, a terrific flirt, this cold and coy machine was possibly nothing to anyone else. Knowing that both flattened and inflated it. Maybe it is only something to me, but maybe it is something to only me. The benches at the stop were empty. I signed on to my phone’s chat app and waited for someone to say something. A dude that I keep unblocking and then blocking again asked me what was up. I started to tell him about Amma. You’re in all white? Damn, What have you got on under the purity get up? Not right now, ok? God. I didn’t know you were religious like that. I’m not religious, I just want to stay mellow right now. Ok, be mellow then, you kinky disciple. Stop. Ok. Jesus.

The train raged up to the station, invited me in, and raged on. I was tired and hot and late for my client, which prompted three fantasies.  Fantasy one: Maintain Amma zone love mellow home from Division and take a cool bath, pack a sandwich, reschedule client, “meditate” while lying in bed under the a/c until dance practice. Fantasy two: cab home from train, cold shower, iced ginger tea, maintain mellow via energy conservation, do client autopilot, lotus, breath, twists, cat/cow, puppy, dolphin, elbow puppy, ddog, lunges, warriors, pigeon, hamstrings, bridge, abs, twists, savasana with heart visual, tacos, rehearsal. Fantasy three: be extra present and open and sparkly, do everything relaxed but efficient, go to client and explode her heart guts with now potent love mantra power, teleport to dance like a lightwitch, transform rehearsal into mindbending ninja magic, do so humbly and with uddiyana engaged.

None of my fantasies happened. What happened was that I took a bath and showed up late to my client. We only had a half hour so we opted to take a fitness walk together, which is fun when we do that, except that I run my mouth the whole time and then regret it. I tried to tell her about Amma’s hugging practice, but whatever I said made her think it was a scam made for ignorant, racist white people.

“I don’t think she is a phony. I’m not saying that. Yeah, no, I mean, people are changed by it. They are really moved by it. And she does a lot of profound humanitarian work.”

“Like what?”

“Like, different things. A lot of them. I saw a video about it.”

“And? What did the video say?”

“I don’t know, a girl learned to make sculptures, like goddess figurines? but I got the impression that maybe she wouldn’t have been able to do that if Amma hadn’t helped her? Maybe she got a scholarship to go to school? I don’t know, there was some other stuff about farming and healthcare and things, I mean, it was a lot. I’m not making it up. I mean, if I was gonna make it up I would do a better job.”

“Karen, listen, crystals have nothing to do with Hinduism. That is a white hippie thing and you know it.”

“Amma isn’t Hindu. I mean, actually, she might be Hindu, I don't know, she probably is Hindu, but following Amma isn’t a Hindu thing, but anyway the crystals are just part of practice. It’s an energy/vibration thing. Like, once you are practicing in the realm of energy, everything is significant. Crystals and colors and words and sounds, it’s the whole thing. There is nothing that isn’t part of it. I know you aren't into it. I get that. It doesn’t seem authentic or historical or whatever but – I don’t know. I can’t explain why people are into crystals. I like them. It is meaningful to me. You don’t have to be into it. It’s totally not your thing. It's not even my main thing, whatever my main thing is. Actually, dream yoga might be my main thing, though I'm terrible at it, but that's not the point. I don't know. I am a person with many things. I have different things. I don’t know if Amma is my thing.”

“It doesn’t sound like she is.”

“Look, remember when you were mad at everyone on Facebook for making fun of those rapture people?”

“You did it, too! You posted that link to the rapture prank!”

“I know, but I was just responding to another video. I take it back. Anyway. This is the same thing. It’s just the way some people believe, and it means something to them, and to me, some of it, so go easy ok? I know it seems fruity, but not fruitier than believing Jesus was going to vacuum all the Christians up, and you were going to bat for them, remember? Because, you said it was their faith. Do you mind if we walk on the shady side? I can’t stand all this sunshine.”

“Sure. Yeah.”

We finished our walk and I broke west to wait for the #50, got a sesame ginger gelato and shoveled tiny mountains through my lips in a shrunken act of Fuck It. The sun laughed at me, making soup of my medicinal compound. I bustrackered the fifty and went hunting for a trashbin. Behind the building was a row of Rubbermaid Roughnecks. They were filled up with food and paper, broken shelving and cat litter. I tossed the gelato cup and spoon, the Dixie cup from the Hawaiian, then the receipt from the bags of holy ash, which was twice as big as both bags of holy ash. This is it, I thought. This is the deal. The hug, the walk, the sun, the gelato, the paper, the ash, all holy, all arm wrestling. All transforming into and out of one another. So what. What then. Is today a holy day?