On Premeditation
I can’t think of anything more unspecial than anxiety. It’s so universal, it’s ordinary. Even dull. Some of us walk around facing it raw, letting it wash over us. Others self-medicate and file it away for another day, when it’s inevitably waiting in its same form, sometimes stronger. Mine has always been noisy – benign background static that, if I’m lucky, annoys me without owning me. Always humming like an old truck in the driveway next door – not in my driveway, not yet.
When your child has anxiety, you seek. You set out to fix it, even if you’re yet to fix yourself. You override everything age has given you – intuition, voice, clarity – and put all of your faith in modern doctors (podcasters) and veiny Instagram protein evangelists. You try triangular breathing, box breathing, breathing while counting, breathing while hanging off of the bed upside down. You try ashwagandha, rhodiola, lions mane, tears of a one-legged goat. You exhaust every option until you throw your phone into Lake Michigan and realize you were born with a free-of-charge, built-in static slayer. And so are your kids.
I understood the benefits of meditation and tried some well-known apps. I visualized beaches and prairies while my brain made grocery lists, fixated on using the word “awesome” incorrectly and fantasized about a better jawline. It was hard, uncomfortable. Worst of all, it was quiet.
Enter transcendental meditation (TM). I was skeptical; the veiny evangelists and the weighted vest ladies hadn’t even mentioned it. But in fairness, who has time to meditate when you’re hitting the pavement at 5 am with 14 lbs. of hopes and dreams strapped to your torso? I don’t know why, but something about TM felt innately connective and right. It was absurdly expensive and only taught by a private teacher, so naturally, I bought into it immediately. Because why heal the world for free?
We arrived at the first meeting with fruit and flowers for the ceremony to receive our mantras, as directed by our teacher, Laurina. “Bring a variety; nothing too sweet, nothing too bitter.” Laurina greeted us in the lobby of a clean-ish suburban hotel. No one has necessarily been murdered in the beds, but probably wouldn’t take your shoes off. The teacher was annoyingly calm, completely lacking the desperate pleasing energy I like to bring to absolutely every new encounter I have.
She explained the process for our first meeting and asked which one of us would like to go first. My daughter looked at me, terrified. As any responsible, sound-minded mother would, I replied, “Hannah can go first!” and swiftly sent my 13-year-old into a hotel room, holding apples, bananas and sunflowers, with an eerily calm witch-lady. After about 30 minutes, they emerged from Laurina’s highly sought-after, garden-level suite next to the pool, where I could only assume the smell of chlorine perfectly weaved with nauseating incense into a metaphorical warm, healing quilt.
I studied my daughter’s face; was she changed? Had she transcended?
She slid into the chair next to me. “I thought I was going to be sacrificed. Do you have my phone?” She stifled a laugh and began a series of adolescent-bound texts that began with, “YOU GUYS…”
In short, we both completed the days-long course, learning TM properly, and I’m quite certain only one of us practices today. Yet in contrast to all of my other endeavors in the name of fixing myself and others, this one was not fruitless. Today, I am comfortable in the quiet, even when what it reveals is deeply uncomfortable. Today, I’m better equipped to simply sit in the static of her life. Whether she digs this tool from her toolbox one day to get closer to herself, I cannot control. All I can control is exposing her to deeply strange, unconventional and uncomfortable childhood experiences that may or may not be dangerous.
Not to brag, but I nailed it.