Breathe… Breathe… Swear!

I go into my bedroom and close the door. I meditate almost daily in my effort to become a wiser, calmer and gentler person and the closed door is a signal to my family. If they disturb me, they’ll get a tongue lashing they’ll never forget.

I sit in a chair rather than on the floor in that pretzel pose you see in articles about meditation. That’s because my personal version of meditation lasts 20 minutes and it would take me that long just to get myself situated that way—and probably longer to get back up afterwards.

I set the timer on my smartphone to chime like monastery bells in 21 minutes. The extra minute is for settling down. Between you and me, it usually takes me longer than one minute.

I take a deep breath. And another one and…good gravy. These pants are cutting me in half. I squirm and tug, and in the process, my shirt gets all wadded up behind my back. I adjust it, then I push the hair out of my eyes, clear my throat, blow my nose, and scratch my chin. Dang it! Is that a whisker? I’ll get that little sucker later.

I begin to breathe deeply as I relax each part of my body starting at the top of my head and working my way down. I’ve just reached my forehead when my phone rings. I ignore it and breathe. It rings again. I breathe. It rings a third time. I breathe…and swear, but quietly…because of the meditation.

I get up and race for my phone. It could be important. It is. The caller informs me that her company is detecting a large amount of junk on my computer and that if I give her my credit card number she can take care of it for me. Thanks to the patience I’ve gained from meditating, I’m able to tell her that I too am detecting a large amount of junk—on my telephone! And, why doesn’t she get a real job? But I mean that in the nicest possible way.  

I go back to my room and re-situate myself. I breathe, relaxing my face, my neck, my right shoulder, my belly. My belly? That’s not right. But I’m hungry. What should I have for lunch? I don’t think I can bear that leftover meatloaf one more time. What crap that turned out to be!

Right arm, right hand, Cheetos. Cheetos? Those sound really good right now. Left shoulder, left arm, left…canary?

My canary has started singing loudly in the next room. Fortunately one of the fruits of meditation is acceptance and I accept that I cannot reason with a canary. I get up, go close the door to the office where we keep the cage, then go back to my room.             

Where was I? Left hand? Right leg? I better run to the store today. I think we’re running low on bird seed. Breathe. Breathe. We probably need kitty litter too. And Cheetos.

Meditation teaches focus and I focus…on kitty litter, bird seed and Cheetos. Breathe. Breathe.

And then…the chiming wakes me up. Meditation is exhausting.

Dorothy Rosby is a blogger and humor columnist whose column appears regularly in publications throughout the West and Midwest. She’s the author of four books of humorous essays all available locally at Mitzi’s Books in Rapid City and on Amazon.