Audio Dharma

My brother gave me these podcasts that I listen to on my way to work. They're a series of lectures called "Audio Dharma". Sometimes I wonder what someone's thinking when they see my ipod screen scrolling "Seeing Suffering and Letting Go" or "Acceptance and Self Love". The speaker usually has a strangely comforting monotone nasally voice. Apparently these retreats take place in California where I envision them serving vegan cous cous cake and have a special happy hour on two for one wheatgrass shots. My favorite speaker is this woman with a thick New York accent, which is both comforting and discouraging as she now seems to be an avid Californian. She somehow manages to use the words "shit" and "shavasna" seamlessly in the same sentence.

What I like about these lectures is their concept of self acceptance and its complicated simplicity. They're about living in the moment, living in the now. Letting go of everything out of your control. It sounds so easy and when I finish listening I always feel such a sense of calm.

Then I take out my head phones and walk into my new office where I recently took a job in fashion, I open my inbox and receive an email flagged "URGENT" from my boss:

"Meredith, All of those samples MUST get to the style out down at 550 IMMEDIATELY. Email Frank to confirm IMMEDIATELY."

My mind starts to race; what samples is she talking about? Where the hell is 550? And who the fuck is Frank?! All that zen goes right out the fucking window.

This new job is like a foreign land with its own language that I am barely elementary in. I'd consider myself interesting, socially aware, sociable, but somehow here I am none of the above. My interests aren't interesting. I live in Brooklyn and when they say "Brooklyn" it almost sounds like a sexually transmitted disease. I create a series of questions to which I receive one word responses, groups of girls stand in the hall talking to one another and as I walk by it all goes silent.

This feeling of inadequacy reminds me of moments growing up as the perpetual new girl, attending five different schools in eight years. I can remember my first day of school in Woodstock, Connecticut. It was the fourth time my parents had given us the "we're moving" talk. This time I didn't have Zach or Georgia with me, they were now enrolled in my family's boarding school campus in Maine that I began to resent for traumatically transplanting me every two years. The bell rang and it was every new kids dreaded hour... lunch time. My grandmother Mimi had sent me this amazing lunchbox that I had eyed that summer in Virginia. It was rectangular covered in exotic animals, and it had this amazing thermos that had a button and when you pushed it the cap snapped back and a straw popped up.. it. was. amazing.

I found a seat by myself at the only vacant table available, the one next to the lunch monitor who stood at the door that every cool kid that bought hot lunch walked out of. I took out the only highlight of my day, my lunch box. It was packed with every Little Debbie snack imaginable, star crunch bars, nutty buddies, oatmeal cream pies, these were the joys of growing up in my household, my mom hadn't packed my lunch since kindergarten. I unpacked every snack we bought, and then I took out my classic salami and mayonnaise on the whitest hoagie imaginable, then my prized thermos which I had filled with a special concoction of cranberry juice and seltzer water. I laid everything out meticulously, as if Little Debbie herself had come to life, comforting me through with her moist goodness and sugary artery clogging love. So there I was, sitting alone as every cool kid that bought their lunch walked past my table snickering at the new girl wiping peanut butter and mayonnaise off her face with a sleeve... sick. I went to open my cool new thermos, hoping someone would look over and marvel at its absolute radicalness, that somehow this thermos, this elephant and giraffe covered thermos would be my one way ticket out of the lunchtime loser zone. And as I pushed the button it felt as if a choir should start singing to welcome the amazing straw contraption. However, as I pushed the button it was not a choir that I heard but more of a humming... a strange noise like a teapot bubbling and wheezing and just as the straw shot up so did my bright red bubbling carbonated mixture. The drink literally shot straight to the ceiling staining it in cranberry. My face looked up horrified, I was covered.

I can still catch myself in these moments of somehow feeling victimized by humanity. That life can be so hard and everyone else should be held responsible for my own comfort and positivity. That if everyone else would adjust or change in such a way so that I can be comfortable then everything would be right and good. But this just isn't so. My dad put it best when I was in high school and we got into one of the most epic confrontations of my life. He was my teacher my junior and senior year. He was running an accelerated learning program called "Scholars". I had government with him for a double period that felt like it lasted an eternity. Everyone in these classes were my friends but somehow when I walked through the door I felt as though we were all rivals competing for some intangible status.

We were reading Aristotle's** "Allegory of the Cave" and I can remember my dad calling on me for an answer, my stomach tied in knots, my mind went blank and when I looked around the room I only saw expressions on faces that to me read, "IDIOT, you don't belong here, the only reason you are here is because you're dad is the teacher". Every day I walked into the classroom and marked myself a loser before I even tried. It was a building insecurity, a barrier that grew exponentially, until it all came to a head after a lacrosse game. I had come home and I was pissed off at my coach for benching me, telling me that I wasn't working hard enough. My dad saw my game and I could hear him from the sidelines cheering me on, doing what every supportive father would do, yet somehow I took these cheers of encouragement, "come on" or "lets go", so negatively and each one just fueled my fire of rage even more. When I went home and my dad asked what happened out there, I said the refs were giving me a hard time, my coach lit into me about some bullshit about not trying hard enough. My dad started in on all the reasons why my coach was right, that I was in fact playing like I didn't care. I was enraged, the one thing I actually was good at, the one thing I put my all into and I still yet again was a loser. I felt misunderstood, defeated. So I responded in the only rational and completely justified way a teenager would, "Fuck you dad, Fuck you" and as I walked away I heard my dad yell "Get back here Meredith, Don't you walk away from me". I turned and stared at him "What dad? You're gonna spank me? Send me to my room?" He just stood there.

It was the first time I ever told my dad to Fuck off. And I could feel the heat in my face and the tears streaming. He looked at me not with anger but with compassion and said, "Med, the longer you keep living your life as if everyone owes you something the harder your life's gonna be".

It was so honest, so cutting. I slammed the door. He was right.

**I sent this to my Dad to read. He said "Honey, this is really great. Really great. By the way, it was Plato, not Aristotle. Love, Dad"

Clearly, I paid attention to the important things.