The Healing

by Saeeda Hafiz

  “Yes, that was me,” I said, feeling my posture straighten and my face brighten.

  She told me that she had seen me in a few other local magazines.

  “I didn’t know that INROADS Pittsburgh was keeping track of its alums.”

  It made sense that INROADS would follow their alumni, but since my professional path detoured quite a bit from their mission statement, I was surprised that they were still following me.

  “Listen, you’ve been on our radar,” she said. “The YWCA is looking for a new health and wellness director. You should send us your résumé. I’ll tell the CEO that I met up with you.”

  Meeting Brenda in the hair salon seemed serendipitous.

  I called my friend Buddy and asked if I should send her my résumé. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to work full-time. I had quite a few things going on and wasn’t sure that I could handle a new full-time job on top of it.

  I had just signed with a New York literary agent for a how-to yoga-and-food book idea. I liked the freedom of working on projects, scheduling clients, and having part-time work with Holistic Wellness. My latest celebrity client was the group Barenaked Ladies, and Essence magazine had called me again regarding another magazine piece.

  “You know that I am not impressed by that stuff,” Buddy said. Then he paused as if he were trying to solve a math equation. “If the job was part-time, it would be perfect. You probably could get health insurance, the one thing missing from all of your freelance work.”

  I agreed. But I wanted to make sure that I could discern the difference between an acceptable opportunity and a possibly overwhelming workload. I decided to ask my agent what she thought about my taking a full-time position, if I were offered one. She told me emphatically that a book coming from a YWCA Health and Wellness Director would have a better chance of selling than one from an independent food and yoga instructor.

  I went to the interview. Gia wrote me a glowing recommendation, which felt like she was giving me her blessing. She said, “I would prefer that you stayed here, but it does sound like a good opportunity.”

  A week later, I was offered the job.

  Two weeks after that, I started a full-time job as the YWCA’s Health and Wellness Director of the Greater Pittsburgh Area. It was Indian summer in 1999. On my first day at the YWCA, the temperature approached 100° Fahrenheit. I was dressed professionally, corporate style. I wanted to convey power and authority because I had gone from being an office assistant one week to having a staff of over forty women and volunteers to manage the next week.

  The bottom two floors of the YWCA were my new domain. The basement housed the Health and Wellness department, known as the new Women’s Holistic Wellness Center. Due to construction, I hadn’t seen my office when I interviewed. The YWCA’s wellness image was being renovated, literally and figuratively, and my new position was part of it.

  I didn’t mind the heat or the construction, mostly because I felt like my life had been under construction, too. And I wasn’t quite restored either. Perhaps the YWCA and I were meant to go through this next stage together. They had hired me to bring holistic health concepts and services to the organization, as a way to stay current with national health trends. In 1999, it felt like America was finally willing to acknowledge that holistic health might have a valid place in conventional Western medicine and fitness, and I was happy to be at the forefront.

  I walked around my office and thought, “Is this the right job for me?” Part of me felt excited about the work, but another part of me dreaded the demands of a full-time job. What would happen to the book, my food and yoga clients, and my self-care time? I sat down at the desk. I looked at the mint-colored cinder block walls, imagining where I could put my office artwork. I opened the filing cabinets that stored over a decade’s worth of health and wellness programming. The smell of old paper greeted my nose each time I pulled out a manila folder.

  I don’t usually sweat. But that day I was sweating because it was hot and I was nervous. I was excited about the new possibilities that I might create; yet, I felt my heart quicken because I wasn’t exactly sure how to do that. And I had to walk around and talk to all the people that I knew were judging me on some level. I could feel the whispers, “Who’s this new director?”

  “Breathe, Saeeda, breathe. Smile. Show them unconditional love and enthusiasm. You know how to do that,” I said to myself.

  First stop, the pool, two floors below street level, in the lower basement. An Olympic-size pool was used to teach women and their families how to swim, for water aerobic classes, and for lap swimming. I wasn’t a good swimmer and thought, “Maybe one day I will take lessons here, even though I am terrified of deep water.” The pool staff seemed pleasant and capable, but later I learned that the aquatic director, who had been at the YWCA for a while, had applied for my job and was mad about not being selected. Which explains why I thought, “I hope this job goes well,” as I shook her hand.

  After a departmental tour, I walked into my office, sat down in my new chair, and thought, “I wasn’t looking for this job, but becoming a Director of Health and Wellness feels like a job that I have prepared all my life to do. Yep, this job definitely puts me farther down the holistic health path.”

  I glanced at all the files, the components, and thought of all the people I had to manage. I sat back in my seat and took off my shoes. I cracked my toes. I stood up on my tippy toes and gazed out of the window that overlooked the pool. As I watched the swimmers swimming back and forth, I realized that I was now in a position that would please just about everyone in my life.

  Ted, my banking mentor, could respect this position. I was no longer domestic help in his eyes. I had a nonprofit professional career with a path that could lead me in the direction of becoming the CEO of the YWCA, locally or nationally. My INROADS training was about to be used and their mission fulfilled: to prepare minority youth for positions of leadership in business and in the community. I was being asked to do a job that combined my college degree, my childhood fantasies, my holistic health passions, and my experiences in corporate America, small business, and self-employment.

  Seemingly overnight, I was doing all of this for an organization whose mission was to empower women and girls and eliminate racism. Even radical black America could be proud of me for this kind of job. And here I was hired to help empower these women and girls through holistic health teachings and practices—a dream job. I thought that if I had to work for a living, this was a great thing to be doing. I had become the thing that I was I hired to facilitate in others. On some level, it was the thing that I longed for—to be a healthy, holistic African American professional woman who made a social and spiritual impact.

  All of this happened when I wasn’t looking. I felt like a bamboo tree. For four years after bamboo trees are planted, they show no major signs of growth. Then in the fifth year, if the soil and the temperature are right, they shoot up eighty to ninety feet. Maybe folks on the outside would not describe me that way, but, on the inside, that’s exactly how I felt. Bamboo trees are able to shoot up so high because in their first four years they anchor their roots firmly into soil. I was frightened each day because I didn’t know if my roots had been anchored deep enough for such growth. Even though Caro-Lion helped me see my successes, I still felt like I had failed at owning my own business.

  I’d already had a pretty full life before this job. I’d worked part-time at Holistic Wellness twenty hours a week. I’d taught four to six yoga classes a week, another twelve hours. I’d taught the occasional food and yoga workshop, another five to six hours. I’d made most of my meals from scratch, another ten to fifteen hours a week. I’d seen my friends regularly and still explored the city as a visitor, another ten hours.

  Now my life was all of the above, minus the 20-hour-a-week job, which had been replaced with a 50- to 60-hour a week job that I didn’t think I knew how to do.

 
But when this job appeared, I thought this time the gods were giving me a break, instead of playing tricks on me like they had in the past. So I psyched myself up for what I call the Behind the Music story. You know, the show where someone like Jay-Z or Missy Elliott is featured, depicting how the artist made their way to the top, from point A to point Z. I told myself that this was my time to work like hell and create my best life.

  * * *

  Indian summer is a time of being pulled in all different directions, up and out as well as down and in, which can either create total chaos or a profound centeredness.

  At this time in August 1999, I was in a position where I had to show up daily and execute quality. I was also in a position where I had to surrender to the natural laws of the universe and accept how it was all going to turn out.

  My life was more public than it had ever been. I was a long, tall, and skinny bamboo tree in a community position for all to see. The Pittsburgh Courier is one of the oldest African American newspapers in the United States. I was featured in it with the headline, “Hafiz is Putting the ‘w’ in Holistic Health.” When the article appeared in print, I received lots of phone calls from various friends and colleagues all over the city. I was also in the Pittsburgh Business Times and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in sections like “People on the Move.” I was definitely on the move with my new schedule. My days were long and full of minutiae, but I was also doing the thing that I valued most.

  What I loved about my job was the opportunity to create holistic health workshops, sell the YWCA to corporate ladies downtown, teach yoga classes to women all over the city, and strategically plan the department’s future. I enjoyed coaching the women who worked for me. I wanted everyone to reach their highest potential in their jobs and in their lives. What I didn’t like about my job were the daily operations. I didn’t like it when the clean towels were not delivered on time. It wasn’t fun not having towels available for members who had just finished a sweaty workout—or worse, a warm shower. I didn’t like it when an instructor didn’t show up, or when people complained about the temperature of the pool. Most of my days, I felt like a human Atari, zapping very small and very large space invaders. I was scared to miss a target because that target reserved the right to gobble me up.

  My days started early. I was often up at 4:30 a.m. I chose to open up the facility, so I had to be there at 5:30 a.m. The morning gave me a chance to enjoy quiet. It was the perfect time for me to get some things done. I also bonded with some members one-on-one without being overwhelmed by a sea of faces. I usually ended my day around 4:30 p.m., so I could go home during a light commuting time. This gave me time to eat an early dinner and prepare for any night classes I might be teaching.

  Even though my schedule was packed, I felt whole and balanced, and a sense of oneness with the universe and nature. Isn’t it funny that happiness is described as a oneness with everything? This means that you are connected—you are not separate from yourself, the community, or the world. You are more likely to share, love, and be helpful to yourself and others. My work was conditioning my body, mind, and spirit to be whole, helping me to remember that I was not separate from the world, that there is no such thing as “us” and “them,” and to remember it is always all “US.”

  * * *

  After a year working at the YWCA I moved to a new apartment. It was in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, on a brick road called Phillips Avenue. The road wasn’t yellow, but it was light in color and it felt like the right road to follow, just like Dorothy did in The Wizard of Oz.

  Each time I approached my apartment from the street, I could see my white painted door and it gave me joy. The door had a little heart-shaped mirror on it, which my friend. Kathy had given me as a housewarming gift. I had the mirror on the outside and the turtle rock that she’d given me on the inside, and each time I arrived home, it was a door I wanted to enter.

  It was a small apartment, but it felt limitless. I lovingly decorated it in shades of green: forest green, teal, and chartreuse. In my bedroom, I had a black futon bed that was low to the ground. Above the bed hung a print of Klimt’s The Kiss and a photograph of a stone carving of a couple in Kama Sutra poses, created by my artistic friend Zed.

  My newly remodeled modern apartment was nestled tightly between two brick buildings, but it had a mysterious way of harvesting light. The windows filtered in the sun with an intense sparkle that filled my Zen rooms with a heavenly aura. It was my sanctuary, a physical representation of Savasana. I might not have considered Pittsburgh my long-term home, but inside me something shifted. It was important for me to be at home wherever I was living.

  All of my life burners were turned on. My life was cooking. I continued therapy, seeing Tory at least every other week, if not weekly. Our body-centered psychotherapy helped me feel less crazy as I navigated through my life.

  “Tory, I have all areas in my life moving. I want to see how I can make it all work better, more efficiently, more effectively.”

  Dr. Butterworth let out a deep exhale. “I don’t know why I haven’t seen it before. You’re a perfectionist.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “Perfectionists are people like Martha Stewart who create beautiful things. I’m not like that. It doesn’t have to be perfect for me, but I do want to do a good job.”

  “Yeah, but you want it all to be correct and working…perfectly. I see that now. I see that it affects how you approach situations. This is something to look at.”

  At the time, this statement offended me. What I heard coming out of her mouth was, “You’re not good enough to do something well.”

  “What does she know?” I thought to myself, defensively.

  A couple of weeks later, I was back in Tory’s office.

  I felt like I could be me in our sessions. I could cry when I needed to cry. I could say that I didn’t love my mother, and Tory could hear it without judging me. I could tell her about my hopes and dreams. I could tell her what I loved about Ben and the sexual passion he instilled. I told her most, if not all, of my secrets. So I was surprised and miffed when she said, “I’m not sure you trust me.”

  “Of course I do. I tell you everything.”

  “Maybe you do tell me everything, but I’m still not so sure you trust me. You can be intimate or open with someone, but that doesn’t mean you trust them,” she said.

  It was like a mysterious click that went off inside my heart. “This explains it. This explains my puzzling behavior,” I thought to myself. I could flash back to all those times I was telling Caro-Lion intimate details about my family, but knew that I didn’t fully trust her, or anyone for that matter. I saw myself at childhood sleepovers, talking and sharing with the other girls, and all the while knowing that it did not mean we were close. On some level, throughout my life I had known that people could use the information I gave them to hurt and betray me.

  Tory’s words were a big revelation. She said, “The people close to you hurt you the most. So why would you trust someone who claims to care for you? It takes you years to trust someone. You might be on the verge of trusting me, but I don’t think you trust me yet, even though we have worked together for two years.”

  I felt like Tory “got” me. This was when I decided that Tory, my therapist, was my relational home base. She wasn’t my mother or father, but she was that one person who consistently provided a sensible rudder for me to steer my life. And to know that I didn’t have to trust her or love her unconditionally was a relief. I liked that my home base was someone whom I paid for, session by session. Strange, I know, but comfortable. Paying made it feel like she didn’t have a pre-designed agenda for me. It emancipated me.

  Maybe for the first time ever, I felt physically at home in my house and in my head. It didn’t feel quite normal, like I had imagined normal to feel. I still felt different from others, but I did feel that I could build a new foundation for myself, and p
erhaps even find love…reciprocal romantic love.

  But, if my dad didn’t show up for me, why would any other man? Also, how was I going to not repeat the statistic that predicted that I would follow my mother’s life patterns? These questions burned at the very core of my being. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to answer them.

  In my yoga classes at Carnegie Mellon University, I was in the habit of asking proficient students to demonstrate the poses. There was one student in particular who often demonstrated for me. His name was Nick. Nick had a square jaw like Superman and a lightly tanned face.

  He looked gentle, yet strong. He held difficult poses with ease. He attended class regularly but still seemed shy. He didn’t speak much.

  In his silence, I often found myself studying his physical features. His shoulders were broad. He had a T-shaped build. I thought he was Indian. Maybe Kashmiri. I imagined that he was able to do yoga poses so well because, when he was a little boy, he had studied with his grandfather in the Himalayas.

  Periodically, I invited yoga students to my home after class for macrobiotic-vegetarian dinners. This was a great way for me to continue making home-cooked meals for myself. After working full-time at the YWCA and teaching an additional four to six yoga classes per week, cooking was the last thing I wanted to do. I was often tired and wanted to order pizza or go out to a restaurant and be served. But this way I created an external reason to prepare well-balanced meals.

  Following my Caro-Lion example, which lets each person know that he or she is important, I had my dinner party system in place. When we arrived back at my house, I put the vegetarian sushi rolls made from brown rice and white rice, and the premade wasabi and soy sauce-ginger dips on the table. Then I’d heat up a soup. (I usually had two soups in the fridge—one bean, and one vegetable or grain.) Last, while people were eating the sushi and talking, I’d heat up the grains, beans, greens, and other vegetables to serve as entrées.