Despite the very scheduled days at the ashram, I'm beginning to see that "normalcy" doesn't exist. Allow me to elaborate on one of my oddest days to date, just in time for my two week anniversary and my mother arriving any moment:
I awake at 3 a.m. to people having sex in the room above me ("bare" in mind almost everyone here is not permitted to date or celibate). I go to my first shift in the kitchen where I work with my roommate, a man who lives in a "cosmic tent," and Lucille (a large African-American women with an accent I can't understand who calls me sugar and stupid in the same sentence). I chop fresh kale and veggies for several hours and then enjoy a conversation about tuning forks and the sounds the universe makes.
Fast forward several hours to lunch where I eat a lovely meal with my pretend husband and a woman in her 50s who talks to me about men and menstruation. After lunch we sneak in a gluten-free carrot cake (it's fasting day) and watch Sam's acting appearance on "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol." After I tire of making fun of him 17 times for his roll and shoot maneuver we watch someone's video of stunt school. Inevitably even more roll and shoot maneuvers to mock, thank goodness.
I go to meditation and yoga again and have a deep relaxation session where everyone in the class falls asleep except me. Now the day gets interesting...I eat dinner with the Aruveydic doctor even after he tells me my place is in the kitchen and he wants to attend my wedding. I head off to scripture class on the Gita where we talk about anger.
Sam and I talk for a few hours and leave the classroom to see a fellow classmate with his shirt off. Then he immediately jumps on one of those workout machines where it looks like you're humping the handlebars. (I believe they were popular in the 80s.) We stay there is shock for several moments before going upstairs. I climb into bed in time to hear the neighbors above going at it.
The oddities of the ashram can't be beaten. Hari Om (they say that here for everything, in this case it means - all is perfect, the Sanskrit symbol accompanies this post).
Today I'm grateful for kiwi, my Ugg boots, and my mom coming today.
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