You're on an Airplane

by Parker Posey

  “Why do people like to read about things that are made-up and mean?” I was holding her like a baby at this point and swaying and twisting, humming to her. We were in the bathroom because she’d said she wanted to wash her face and put on makeup. In the reflection of the mirror I saw the pills that were stuck in the crevices of her paw’s pads. I squeezed her wrists to release her grip and flushed them down the toilet. She said she just wanted to take the edge off and had no intention of doing anything drastic.

  * * *

  –

  She’s much more mature now. She’s fourteen and in her regal years and still does her job beautifully, being devoted to me and to other people. She was somewhat of an impulse buy but I’d been pining for a dog and looking at websites like Fur Babies to rescue a pet and was well into my “expecting” years. I just didn’t know when she’d appear. My boyfriend at the time, Ryan, wanted a cat. I’d given him a “sleeping cat” from Chinatown for Christmas, the kind made of rabbit fur that has its little eyes closed and comes curled up, forever sleeping.

  For a few weeks, the cat was asleep on the windowsill, until he slept on the wall in my bedroom attached with Velcro, high up and flying in the air, holding a piece of red yarn with the big ball of yarn stretched six feet away from his paws. It was not good feng shui per se, but it was my feng shui at the time. I’d wait around late nights for my rock star boyfriend to come home while he was out, catting about, making music. Ryan Adams, not to be confused with Bryan Adams; he makes beautiful music.

  * * *

  –

  He’d recently fallen offstage and broken his wrist and needed surgery, just like I’d have years later. His right hand was filled with pins and screws, and he’d had to learn to play guitar again, which he would have no problem doing, and go on to record maybe ten more albums.

  Anyway, it was snowing and we bundled up and journeyed out to a game store in the West Village to buy a puzzle and there was a pet store next door called Groom-O-Rama. Ryan wanted to look at the cats, but I was allergic to cats as a kid so their mystique never interested me. It was there, in Groom-O-Rama, that I saw Gracie, nestled in her cage. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t been taken and asked to hold her, and she pressed up to my very heart like a magnet and whimpered, longingly. It was time to have a baby, and so I did. At 5:02 in the afternoon on October the eleventh, 2004, I became a mother. It was an easy labor, there in the pet store in the West Village, where it was fated to be. Gracie is a Libra, with a moon in Scorpio, which is my sun sign. She traveled on subways, in her bag, as soon as she could. I was determined not to raise a nervous wreck like I was at her age, and I didn’t.

  I guess Gracie was around eight when I ran into a friend on the sidewalk in my neighborhood—a very reputable woman, talented and not “woo woo” at all. She was carrying her beloved dog, Bitsy (not her real name), who was sick. She had taken her to the vet a few times but decided to meet this pet psychic, Claire, who came highly recommended by other people, and I’m assuming by dogs as well. Anyway, Claire diagnosed Bitsy’s health issue. My friend was mystified and relieved, since the vet had gotten it all wrong and this psychic hadn’t. I, of course, asked for Claire’s number. It was the holiday season and for Christmas, I wanted to hear what Gracie had to say.

  There was nothing wrong with Gracie, but she did bark a lot when someone came over, and I’d have to say to my guest, “Sit down in a chair so she can greet you.” When Claire came over, she was so nice and ethereal. (How can you not be, when you can hear dogs talk?) She started her work right away and was miming chewing and moving her mouth around and asked, “Does Gracie mainly chew on the left side?” She does. “There’s a tooth that bothers her,” Claire said, and then sat down on the couch with us and Gracie sat next to her, putting her paw on her knee. She explained that Gracie had been a seven-year-old English girl in her last life and that manners were very important to her, and whoever came into the home needed to sit down first and basically start telling her fairy tales—and put the kettle on for some tea and make her a crumpet or cut the crusts off white bread for cucumber sandwiches.

  Claire started licking her lips, like she was tasting something. “You know what really makes her happy? Peppermint candy. She has a sweet tooth.” Now, when Gracie was a puppy, she was compulsively sniffing gum off the sidewalks and trying to remove it in order to chew or eat it. I tried for a while to train her to chew gum and spit it out but after she swallowed it a few times, I stopped. She would get into my purse, or a friend’s purse, and chew their mint gum. Claire said Gracie loved ice cream. Well, guess where I take her when it gets warm out? Down the street for a dollop of my own peppermint ice cream at Sundaes and Cones, where I share some with her. Please don’t repeat this, I’m only telling you this because we’ll never see each other again, but I’m at the window seat, so I’m the dreamer. What person doesn’t want to imagine a dog’s thoughts? I introduced myself to this actor (who’s on a big show) at Sundance (I’m not saying who it is) and he goes, “I’ve seen you walking around the neighborhood. You have a weird relationship with your dog.”

  I could’ve said, “Well, you have a weird relationship with women,” but I didn’t, even though I know he does. I don’t trust people who don’t like dogs but I trust dogs who don’t like people. When people say, “I’m not really a dog person,” all I hear is, “I’m not really a person.”

  * * *

  –

  Some actors are like snipers who hide in the trees and wait to undermine you with mind games as they fight for close-ups or ruin yours and are having fun while they’re actively conniving, like some kind of reptile person. There’s something so dark and twisted about them and because they’re so good at being this other thing that’s not really a person, people love watching them.

  I worked with one of these snakelike sniper actors and experienced the black cloud that came with him and the ravens that flew around him. He really created an energy of deep perversion. I saw him again when I was trying to meet Johnny Knoxville because I had a script I was trying to produce about Ted Kaczynski. It was at a premiere party at the Jane Hotel and I sat on the floor, in front of the fireplace. Johnny never showed up to the thing. I had planted myself in Michael Shannon’s roped-off area and met Mary Stuart Masterson, from Some Kind of Wonderful, who was happy and kind and told me about a film production facility she was pioneering upstate, to boost the local economy up there. It was a different kind of movie party than we were used to, filled mainly with suits and indiscriminate but loud music and hardly any familiar faces. People used to have fun at these things and let loose but now you were easily watched and even monitored. Michael Shannon arrived with his friends and I stood up to introduce myself and asked if it was alright to sit in front of the fireplace and he was cool about it. He’s a big handsome presence of sensitivity and force and sat low in the velvet couch like a king, with his hands on his knees as they jutted out. He asked how I was and what I was working on and I told him, “New media ideas, new forms,” and I may have mentioned my dogs-playing-poker idea, and remember asking him to “imagine what it’s like being an actress, to be like you but a woman in these times?” It was good their drinks came, and while I was sitting there, not thirty feet away, I saw the sniper snake man. His reptilian head slowly moved and I read his lips: “Is that Parker Posey?” he mumbled to the woman next to him. My hand swept a big wave, like I was on shore, and I said loudly, “Yeah, it’s me!” I kept waving my arm back and forth as I registered his face turning me to camouflage. I got up and as I walked over, I watched him pretend to rack me into focus and said, “Yeah, it’s me, Parker. Hi!” He acted surprised and I quickly introduced myself to the woman and then excused myself, saying I was going to the bar.

  Standing at the bar waiting for the bartender, I saw a producer I’d worked with recently. When we made eye contact, his face showed no recognition, so I said, “It’s me, Parker!” He was deep down some dark corridor and
said darkly, “I know.” It was going to be one of those conversations that took some work. I said, “We’ve worked together.” The corners of his smile lifted with an effort of curling dumbbells. He introduced me to his friend, a much younger actress, and his spirits brightened. She didn’t recognize me or my work, despite a long list of movies I spouted out quickly, and then, to lighten the awkward situation, I pulled out my iPhone, saying I was going to IMDb myself. Then the producer said, “She’s coming around.” People say such weird things to you when you’re famous, like you’re not a person but something else—like a cardboard cutout version of yourself wearing a mirrored mask. I could’ve passed out onto the floor, as if waiting for an ambulance to arrive. That way, he could’ve looked up to the party people while holding smelling salts under my nose to say, “She’s coming around.” He could have lifted my wrist in the air, like an old boxing veteran—“She was a champion, back in the day! She’s coming around!”—and I could’ve lifted my arms in a rah-rah gesture or fist-pumped the air. I could’ve said, “No, I’m not ‘coming around.’ I’m the ghost of Christmas past, but you don’t recognize me because it’s not the holidays.”

  I could’ve stuck my elbows out and windshield-wipered my hands, twisting sharply and saying in robot voice, “Your credit card is not working. Your credit card is not working,” as many times as I wanted and until everyone left. But instead I said, “Aw, I wish they allowed dogs in here.” And then I felt the tug of Gracie’s rope leash pulling me at the waist, to her dog’s star, Sirius—the brightest star visible from any part of the Earth.

  17

  Garbage on the Beach

  I learned the Mysore practice of yoga when I was in Berlin, working on Hal Hartley’s movie Fay Grim. Yeah, you do get sore from Mysore but it’s the fundamental “self practice” yoga, which, if you learn it, you can practice anywhere, all over the world, and since Mysore is the basis of all yoga, if you can do Mysore, you can do any other yoga class. Oh my, I’m sore. My teacher’s name was Andreas Schnittger. He was in his early thirties, had trained in India with Pattabhi Jois (who founded the practice), and was intensely dedicated. He always wore the same thing to practice: tight black sweatpants with a white shirt and black sweatbands on both his wrists. And if this wasn’t cool enough, he played jazz drums in an experimental, avant-garde jazz band. When I asked if I could come to a show, he said I probably wouldn’t like it, that it was mainly “noise” and very loud. J’adore! A dedicated yogi makes-music-I-wouldn’t-understand avant-garde jazz drummer. Far out! He was so cool.

  I started with “the primary series,” which is where you begin. Learning when to breathe and how to breathe is an integral part of yoga: there’s just so much breathing. Yes, that’s right, we are breathing the air at this moment, but I mean conscious breathing. Andreas spoke English really well but carefully, and he liked to say, “Free breathing.” I think he must have liked the elongated eeeeee sound, because German’s not a language that relaxes its vowels—when I tried to speak it, I had to purse my lips and push the O sound to the front of my teeth, and I did that terrible thing where you imitate the accent of the country you’re in and it’s annoying for everyone except yourself. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t invited to the jazz club. Anyway, Andreas said “free breathing” a lot.

  After a few sessions, he caught on that I thought this was weird, and he said, “You don’t like it, ‘free breathing’?”

  “I do, it’s nice,” I said. “But breathing being free? I dunno. It’s not like you charge someone, like money to breathe. In English, it can sound like you’re talking about commerce.”

  But he loved it. “I like it. Free breathing.”

  “Like breathing is in jail, and we need to free it from jail? Like put it on a protest sign?”

  “I like it,” he said again. “Free breathing.”

  “Of course it’s free. It’s breathing.”

  We eventually dropped it. Put it on a protest sign.

  Andreas taught me private classes. When I wasn’t working on the film, I’d walk to the studio, a few blocks away from where I was living in Mitte, and take class with not even ten students. This was in wintertime and Berlin was cold and snowy. The city didn’t pour salt on the sidewalks, because they were sensitive to the dogs, whose paws would bleed if salted. So the snow never melted on the sidewalk and you’d see people sliding and slipping and their dogs trotting along. Hardly any dogs had leashes, and they were allowed in restaurants and bars and it wasn’t a big deal.

  My apartment was small, which I liked, and had efficient recycled modern-type furniture: a shower curtain made of sewn-together plastic bags, a bed on the floor, and a chair made of plywood that looked like it would break if I sat in it, which it did. Yeah, I leaned back and it broke, so I didn’t have a chair anymore. The place was simple, and it was a relief at that time in my life. I had broken up with Ryan and suffered a betrayal when a girlfriend slept with my ex, and another friend was having drug problems and was being needy and crazy. “Bye-bye, mein lieber herr. Farewell, mein lieber herr. It was a fine affair, but now it’s over!”

  So it was a great time for me to eat alone and listen to the music of a language I didn’t understand, and get my body moving to the Mysore Ashtanga yoga practice.

  Samasthiti, or Mountain Pose, is the starting position: you stand at the front of your mat with your hands at your sides and your eyes closed, neck aligned with your body, imagining a line or string of energy from the cosmos to the top center of your head, traveling directly down, straight to the center of the Earth. Don’t stick your belly out and become a hill. You find your center and pull it in, like a strong mountain. Be still. I’ll show you.

  Now you start the breathing practice: Breathe in on the count of four, in what’s called ujjayi breath, and then breathe out. Do this through your nose only. If you don’t know what ujjayi breath is, contract your throat to sound like Darth Vader, and breathe in. Now breathe out, still sounding like him. Do it right now. Oh, who cares, you’ll never see these people again.

  On the last count of this “ocean breathing,” at the end of the breath, in that space before the final exhale, bring your hands to prayer position at your chest—your “home,” or “heart center,” they call it. This is where you start the moving of your hour-and-a-half “practice.”

  * * *

  –

  When you move, your body becomes an architectural form traveling through space: angles, symmetry—harmony on the earth. It becomes a vessel, which the elements of nature pass through within the mind’s thoughts or meditation. Yoga is the practice of the body so that it can become light, providing your thoughts with light so they don’t stick to ideas that the mind creates for itself. You want your mind to float, or to at least create more distance from its attachments.

  In class with Andreas, when I put my hands to my chest in prayer, my mind got quiet enough to hear a meditative voice say, “You’re home. You’ve been running so much.” Tears fell down my face and onto my mat, like rain. This is not unusual and if you’re not drunk, I think it’s kind of fabulous to be free enough to cry in front of other people. Yeah, it’s written all over you that you cry when you fly.

  There’s a quote from the writer Joseph Campbell that I love because it’s easy to remember. “I don’t have faith, I have experience.” My uncle Tim turned me on to Joseph Campbell with The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, which was on PBS when I was around eighteen. I really dug it. Uncle Tim died of an overdose when I was in my twenties. He’d become addicted to opiates over the years and the trauma of Vietnam had been like a powder keg inside him. He also raged against small-town religious conservatism and returned to Shreveport to confront Nonnie—to find the mother within—but she wasn’t easy with her heart because her feelings probably scared her. She’d become an icy queen.

  As I stood there in Mountain Pose, more memories and repressed feelings came up. The biggest thing, probably, was
that I recognized myself—or my life. I stood there in prayer, with hands at my heart center, and just felt my life up to that point. I saw the speed of my life and all this running. How I’d grab on to parts and my work as if it were real, as if it were something I could hold on to. I just wanted to be distracted and absorbed at the same time and have it be about something or someone else. I was reaching outside myself, mostly. It’s so weird because really I want to disappear and acting allows for that; but at the same time you can see me on the screen on this airplane. Anyway, I started to realize stuff.

  I heard my inner voice saying, “It took you so long to get here, but it’s okay.”

  “It takes courage to live a life” is something Mildred would always tell me. You have to take the courage, though; it can’t just be an idea. “Hold on to yourself,” she said repeatedly, and anyway, it was on the yoga mat where I held on to myself. Stop digging when you find yourself in a hole. Just cut that string. “Free breathing.” Put the shovel down. Isn’t the dirt great around this mountain? Isn’t this view amazing?

  So the first movement you will do is part of what’s called the “vinyasa flow,” and it’s the Sun Salutation. Okay, I’m getting up.

  Your hands move up while you breathe in on the count of four (with your still-steady ujjayi breath), and you reach your palms over your head: your arms have made the circle of the sun. The movement or gesture is a worship to the sun. Again, a slow deep breath.

  On the next count of four, you bend forward as your arms brush down and pass “the landscape” in front of you.