Zen Bender

by Stephanie Krikorian

  I just stared at her, waiting for her balloon to take off. I didn’t get up. I wasn’t leaving.

  Suddenly she jumped up. She said she had an idea.

  She walked across the room and grabbed a thin brass metal frame in the shape of a pyramid and placed it on her head. It looked like a lampshade without any fabric attached to it. It took all my energy not to leave or burst out laughing, but now I was committed to seeing this hour through because, I mean, what was happening? I had to know.

  This had turned from a legit and necessary vision into my future into a circus act. Whatever it was, it was to the tune of $150. I decided at the very least I would be fully entertained, because this was charting new territory in the way-out-there department.

  The lampshade, I was eventually told, was to help make friction. Or something. To unground me. And to send Mandy ballooning into the other world.

  Suddenly, with the lampshade firmly balanced on the top of her head, the bottom of the frame hanging below her chin, the Lampshade Healer opened her eyes and said, “Why do you hate ketchup so much?”

  “I don’t know, it’s so disgusting and gross; I don’t even like it on the table near me.” There was still an edge to my voice, of course, because I already knew very well I hated ketchup. Paying a clairvoyant for that factoid seemed a little wasteful. Still, most people like ketchup, so it was a bold leap for her to make. Truth be told, I can’t even wash a dish that’s covered in ketchup without cringing and sometimes even dry-heaving a little bit. I was intrigued. She knew a weird thing about me and, also, it was clear that the lampshade had done its job.

  Next, she told me I had a clear and strong connection to an ancient civilization. Like the Aztecs or something like that. And she asked me if I had ever made tribal-beaded headbands.

  Of course not. I hadn’t. In what instance would I make tribal headbands?

  It seemed so silly I could barely even respond. I stuck to “No” as my answer, and I was curt and getting back to being agitated. She asked again. She went on to, literally, ask me seven times if I was certain I had never made tribal-beaded headbands. Not knowing at this point what I did for a living, she said tribal-beaded headbands were actually my future. That my make-it-big idea was going to be my tribal-beaded headbands.

  Certain this was going off the rails, and that my hating ketchup was her single hit, I listened, but continued to give up nothing. I asked no questions, and I responded with one-word answers when asked anything. The lampshade clearly working, she told me never to eat corn. (Not to skip ahead, but that night, starving, I ate popcorn. I didn’t do it to defy the Lampshade, but I had forgotten that she had told me corn was suddenly on the no list for me. Instead, racing to catch a movie, but with no time to grab a salad, I ate one thing for dinner that night—just a small popcorn. I hadn’t had popcorn in years. I was sick for four days with severe intestinal issues so intense I contemplated taking myself to the hospital. Weird.)

  But I didn’t know that was going to be the case as I sat with her and listened.

  I don’t recall whether the Lampshade Healer asked me if I was a writer or if she asked me what I did, but it was eventually on the table along with corn, ketchup, and tribal headbands.

  She asked me to tell her about all the different things that I was working on at that time. One at a time, I listed them off to her. To each one, she shook her head, like the project was a zero, going nowhere, not my fate. This was starting to feel like things had with the numerologist and I was, frankly, getting a little insulted by this point, as I gave her approximately one dozen descriptions of all of my work.

  Was the Universe trying to tell me I was in the wrong line of work altogether?

  She eventually took the lampshade off her head and got up to pace the room a bit. This was good, because my legs were asleep and in agony from sitting frozen for so long. I didn’t want to ask to move, since I didn’t know if it would disrupt her after her balloon had finally taken flight, so I sat and suffered.

  Hear What You Want to Hear

  After I had exhausted my list of writing projects, she said, “It’s weird, I see something you’re writing starring Meryl Streep and it’s going to be big.” That was dumb. I hadn’t ever thought of Meryl Streep in any of my projects, and I had indeed always had an actor in mind for almost any fiction I’d written.

  She asked me if anything I had written made fun of a specific group of people. There was something there, actually. A screenplay I’d been toying with, and had taken a class at UCLA to write, did in fact make fun of a specific group of entitled people. I told her that, yes, I had sketched an outline of a screenplay, but it had nothing to do with Meryl Streep.

  She said, “I feel like it’s got a very famous person in it as the lead, but I keep getting a Saturday Night Live vibe.”

  I gasped.

  She knew something that I had not revealed. There was a major Saturday Night Live vibe for a reason, which I won’t write here in these pages as I don’t want to give it away before I write it in full, but the crux of the entire screenplay was fully and utterly based on one key element to do with that show.

  I gasped again. Loudly.

  And suddenly, like a dam breaking, I told her the details of my project.

  Later, I wondered if LA psychics could trade on clients’ secrets and ideas, or if clairvoyant-client privilege was a thing. I couldn’t have been the first writer to suddenly spill all the details of a screenplay I’d otherwise kept mostly to myself, but since she had finally nailed something with such insane specificity, I got excited.

  And I got ungrounded and became un-shut-up-able; I told her everything. She said not only was this idea great, but it was going to be huge. That I’d be back pitching it again later, that I needed to finish it promptly. Writing it was going to make me famous, she said. As you know by now, I’d heard this before. And I’d hear it again. Strangely, I’d never really had any hope or desire for fame.

  Then I gasped again, this time even louder, so much so that I actually startled my Lampshade Healer. Then I blurted what had just popped into my mind.

  “Oh my God! I did make tribal-beaded headbands when I was a kid.”

  And I did. I did! They were made with long white beads and shorter turquoise blue ones. Light leather straps and pieces in between.

  Later, after I left, I asked my mother to dig up the headband art. She sent my dad into the basement to find it and he did. I remembered how much I liked making crafts and doing art but hadn’t done it in a long time. When I was young, I did a lot of it.

  Once I saw the photo of my handiwork, I decided to go and buy some beads. I loaded up on a mix of glittery and flat ones. I bought string and straps to stitch my work to, and of course the tools needed for my art. I made exactly half of one headband. Mandy had suggested the headbands would be my rocket ship to success; that they would somehow be a big deal, like I’d make a career of beading.

  I saw it as something else: When I started stringing my beads together, I realized how relaxing it was. That when I did, I concentrated only on the beads. Like any art-making, no iPhone was required.

  I also realized that a lot of the stuff I had been doing on this Zen Bender of mine had a common theme: A lot of it was meditative in one form or another. Sound bath wasn’t about the sound, it was about the meditation. Reiki and Rainbow breathing were similar as well—both calmed me down, let me drift into being present, and had similar meditative effects as, well, meditating itself. Even Kondoing the house required a certain level of zoned-out concentration.

  Had Mandy truly seen into my future? If she did, she might have known I wouldn’t get to finishing that screenplay any time soon. But her enthusiasm toward it inspired me enough to know that I’ll finish it one day, no matter what.

  And with all of this stuff, I often found the outcome I wanted or was seeking, which I think is a generally important consideratio
n. The Dove had subtly suggested I move to Orange County to find that widower. Perhaps some people would take such drastic action. I was not those people. Sure, I’d keep my eyes open a bit more. If she had told me I would never meet a man and would die alone, I would have lost hope. Instead, I stick with hope. And that’s not a bad thing. With Mandy, I would continue mapping out my screenplay. I had been looking for some insight into what would fire up my career. Maybe it was the screenplay, maybe not. But it would get me thinking creatively again, rather than only working to earn income. And that wasn’t a bad thing.

  Most importantly, I had been struggling to come up with a hobby for the main character in that screenplay. I knew it had to be crafty; there was a reason for that in the storyline. I had not previously known how genius it would be if tribal headbands were her ticket to financial freedom.

  Chapter 9

  No Diet Left Behind

  weight

  Reluctant as I was, I had to at least consider the possibility that the thirty-one-day online meditation program Alexis wanted me to add in to my self-devised diet could work. I agreed to try it knowing that meditation might or might not make my waistline smaller. If it didn’t, maybe it would help trim my iPhone use.

  Either way, I was reluctantly committed.

  Since I’d signed up at the last minute, I’d canceled my other self-improvement plan—a course for that evening—and instead set up my meditation corner, complete with a special pillow for the floor.

  The initial meditation class started at seven o’clock that first night, although the rest would take place at six in the morning.

  My diet plan had been cold turkey, but I was back to moderate drinking after the self-inflicted full-on hiatus. As such, I had already poured a glass of red wine. I figured one could meditate with wine. Nobody had told me otherwise. It was also a calming activity, so it seemed meditation and wine were actually a perfect pairing. A few minutes before I was to start, a news flash came across my phone. There was going to be a press conference live on MSNBC regarding something Trump. Ugh. I admit, all things MSNBC and Trump are a terrible obsession of mine. I watch MSNBC in the morning and at night, and if I can’t sleep, I watch the reruns from the evening before. So, any legit breaking news, I wanted to watch. Could I both meditate and listen to (not watch, as my eyes would be closed) MSNBC? Not watching the news would actually stress me out, I decided. And since I was locked into the meditation class, I couldn’t skip the first day.

  Being an exceptional multitasker, I decided to move my meditation pillow, and my wine, out of the corner and toward the TV. I knew it was a bad way to start.

  Still, I sat on my pillow, and I logged in to my daily meditation practice on my iPhone. And then I set my intention: less screen time.

  I muted the meditation app so nobody else in the virtual group would be disrupted by my TV. I could hear the instructor, but they could not hear Chris Matthews. There I was, sitting on the floor. Sipping wine. Meditating. And watching MSNBC. In all honesty, I was thinking about the potato chips too, which were just out of reach on the table.

  There was some sort of group discussion at the end of the meditation, but community was not my goal, so I logged off before getting drawn into a conversation. Plus, the TV was beckoning me to turn the volume back up.

  I got through that meditation, but, I admit, it was a lousy first effort.

  I had self-help fatigue, in retrospect. My January had been an aggressive month for dieting and fixing, so much so that my January spilled into my February. Despite my efforts, I had been on a resultless roll.

  The Eating Season

  Let me back up to November and December before my herculean January and describe my approach to the 2017 holiday eating season. Simply put, it was: No Meal Left Behind. I was usually very careful about what I ate—no preservatives, limited starch, no sweets, and booze no more than three times a week. Well, some weeks, not that my efforts have ever shown any effect on my waistline.

  But this particular eating season, I’d gotten lax on my life-on-a-diet life. Every salty snack, every cookie and piece of chocolate, every glass of wine, slice of pizza, dish of pasta, and burger in my path was consumed. Looking back, I was always on some sort of diet, so I took a break and went ahead and indulged.

  It wasn’t stress eating (been there, done that, seen that movie and the sequel). But I was having fun, and fun times meant food and drink. There was a lot going on socially, and I partook. Plus, I had taken on strength training, and maybe that had emboldened me. A book I’d worked on, called Choosing the StrongPath, was all about the medical benefits of strength training, and I was particularly struck by the notion that, as we age, the number-one reason we land in a nursing home is that we can’t get up off the toilet on our own due to loss of back, ass, and leg muscle. At the urging of one of the coauthors, Fred Bartlit, I agreed to give heavy lifting a try, for research, to see if it made a difference. So, squat I did. In fairness, that made me hungrier. I lifted harder and heavier weights than I ever had in my life, and as a result, I felt strong. I hadn’t lost weight…I was more fit-fat, but I was stronger than I’d ever been.

  I’d been leery of lifting heavy weights for fear of getting bulky, but quickly learned that wasn’t a problem. I hired an amazing trainer named Caroline to kick my ass and, frankly, the results were surprising. The scale didn’t move, but I felt substantially stronger, which made me move a little more confidently—chin up. Chest out. A little kick to my step.

  And it happened without me actually noticing.

  One afternoon, I carried a case of wine into the house using only one hand, the case tucked under my arm. It felt so light I was actually momentarily pissed-off that the clerk at the wine store hadn’t put all the bottles in the box and that I’d have to go back to check. But they had—twelve bottles of 2016 Sacha Lichine rosé. All there. It felt lighter because I was stronger.

  And I’d achieved some positive measures on a cellular level, thanks to the strength training: My A1C levels (glucose), which had gotten a little elevated over the years, were down to 5.2. My doctor was thrilled with that number, a win that I attribute to all the muscle that I’d built training.

  Neither should have been a free pass to eat more. I didn’t think two sessions a week of balls-out strength training, two yoga classes a week, one spin class, and a lot of walking was a free pass to eat, but I didn’t not think that either.

  Still, there I was in late December, strong like bull, but feeling fat like cow.

  My weight had slowly crept up over the last decade, I knew that. I could see it on the scale, but that December, when I bundled up to head into the city to go to a New Year’s Eve party (a.k.a. the close of the eating season), I couldn’t zip up my winter coat. Like, not even close. It was a down-filled crisis. This coat, by the way, was what I had in 2016 called my fat coat. I’d bought it the previous year, when my twenty other winter coats wouldn’t zip up. I wasn’t maintaining my peak weight. I was gaining. Steadily. And it had to stop.

  The situation was clearly dire. A) It was cold. B) Coats are not cheap. C) Did I mention I was fat and getting chubbier?

  Before I started washing away 2017 with bubbly that night, I came up with a plan, concocted while I ate the free bag of Utz potato chips aboard the Hampton Jitney, the bus that runs between New York City and the Hamptons.

  Taking into account the fact that I knew every diet known to man and that I could cite the number of calories in just about anything from all the books I’d worked on for other people and those I had read for research, I knew I had the tools to plan the attack on my waistline.

  I was a professional when it came to the Weight Watchers app. I knew Atkins, South Beach, Paleo, Autoimmune, Whole 30, you name it.

  So, I thought, why do only one diet, when I could do them all at once? Throw everything at it. I would take all that I knew and use it all at once. Surely, if one diet fell short,
the others would kick in and pick up the slack.

  It felt no-fail.

  My overstuffed brain, full of diet knowledge, would combat my overstuffed pants. I was going to throw it all at the wall to stop the gaining—taking every single tool in my dieting repertoire and arsenal and combining it into one big motherlode of new-year-new-you, leaving no room for error or omission or a slip-up.

  In 2018, No Meal Left Behind would be replaced by No Diet Left Behind.

  I set myself some parameters:

  1.I’d do dry January, which, since it was hashtagable, was dubbed #Dryuary. Or was it #Dryanuary? Why do anything if it’s not hashtagable these days?

  2.I would also try to follow the latest fad of the moment: an intermittent fasting plan I’d read about, on which you eat your whole day’s worth of food in an eight- to ten-hour time slot, then go fourteen to sixteen hours without eating at all (fasting hours). I learned of two people who lost a lot of weight on this plan, but I had also read about negatives, like hypoglycemia. I didn’t love the idea since, when I worked out, I worked out hard. And that left me hungry, dry-heaving, and then seeing stars. The other issue that I thought might get in the way: I get up early. I stand at the coffee maker at 6:00 a.m., watching it drip, and then I drink my single cup of coffee by like 6:02. I could skip the milk in that coffee and not start my eating clock, but that felt like a major compromise I was unwilling to make. But who ever got fat from a splash of milk? Okay, half-and-half.

  3.I planned to double down on the intermittent fasting by eating à la Whole 30 in those eight hours: no dairy, no flour, no starch except sweet potato and a regular potato on workout days. One problem: There was that nagging dairy-in-coffee thing again. I couldn’t give that up. So I went with more of a Half 30 or Whole 15, meaning no flour, no grains, no sugar, no alcohol, but I kept that splash of dairy.