My young nieces, a fresh-faced pair of synchronised swimmers, visit while I am in a coma. I know I look terrible — mouth open, eyes stuck on some private horizon — but still. I have been kind to my nieces.
“She came out of the womb wearing cat’s-eye glasses,” one whispers.
“And a cardigan,” the other says.
They stifle their giggles, but then laugh unrestrained.
Coma is the medical term.
The year I was at Stenographer College in Edmonton changed me deeply. I was 18. Mother worried that in the big city I’d “get loose” and “give” myself away. Well, I did. But not in the way she had feared.
On weekends, I volunteered with a church committee that welcomed new immigrants. Normally I gathered donations for gift baskets, but twice I was asked to take an immigrant under my wing for a day — show them how Canadians shop for groceries and do their banking.
Aziz was a young Malay. After showing him how to apply for a job and use an elevator, we stopped for tea at The Red Goose. The man asked for condensed milk and an extra cup, and the owner obliged. Aziz poured his tea dramatically cup to cup. Then he launched into a beautiful speech about Buddhism. He spoke of the Four Noble Truths, of Karma, and of The Cycle of Rebirth. I felt invigorated afterward. My mind felt as though it were flowering.
A few months later, it was Sunil. I taught him how to use a coin-operated washing machine and then took him to The Red Goose too. As he sipped his tea, Sunil told me about Hinduism, and I was spellbound. The ideas of kama — sensual pleasure, not necessarily sexual — and moksha — freedom from the cycle of death and rebirth — and dharma — being in accord with the order of life — stirred me deeply.
I took up vegetarianism and meditation and, in the quiet of my small apartment, read about yoga. I developed a practice. It all felt the way I imagine being in love feels — my awareness of the world exaggerated. I didn’t tell Mother about any of this.
I practiced meditation and yoga for many years. Then on a day trip to Banff, I experienced Sadhana, also known as Nirvana. Right there in the chairlift, I blew out the triple fire of greed, hatred, and ignorance and transcended the suffering of ego. There is a photograph of me at that exact moment, taken by a perfect stranger. She chased after me afterward, asking for my address, explaining breathlessly, “I had to take a photo of you. You looked so — ”
When the photograph arrived in the mail, I made a private joke and wrote on the back: Mount Rundle in the Background.
If I have a wish, it is that one day my nieces will see me and not who they think I am. My wish is that they, too, will be able to disappear.
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Photo by Finn Wylie.
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