In yoga yesterday, I had to suppress a massive surge of ego when the teacher told me that my trikonasana was "very beautiful". I am, perhaps, excessively proud of that - I think it may have made my whole week. But yoga teachers are an odd sort. After class, she told me that I should take calcium citrate for my osteo-arthritic wrist. (This was her diagnosis, after I mentioned that changes in weather tend to make it hurt.) When I told her that I drink tons of milk and eat a great deal of cheese on a daily basis, she wrinkled her nose and shook her head like I'd offered to grill her up a turd.
"Cow's milk is not very good for this," she said. Her voice was marvelous. She may be French, or Israeli. Possibly Lebanese, even. Who knows? I'm terrible with accents.
"Okay, well I actually have some calcium supplements at home," I said. I've got them on a shelf in the kitchen. Every once in a while I get it into my head that I'm going to start taking vitamins. I go out and drop a load of cash on some and bring them home and put them on a shelf in my kitchen so that it looks like I'm a very healthy, responsible person. After a few years, they expire and I throw them away. Or, I move to a new house and they wind up on a shelf in the bathroom. Bathroom vitamins stay around longer, often decades past their expiration date. They sit around and trade stories with the old lipgloss. Sometimes I hear them all whispering about how they knew me when I was young and had such promise, and how it's a crying shame to see what's become of me.
"Where did you get them?" the yoga teacher wanted to know, about the calcium. I couldn't remember where I'd gotten them, not the store or the city or even the country. In fact, I had no idea how long I'd had them, either. For all I knew, they could've been vintage vitamins passed down to me by my grandmother back when she was alive and we used to go skiing together in the '80s and '90s. Once in a while, especially after a really disorganized move (of which I've made several), ancient vitamins from the bathroom find their way back to the kitchen.
"Um, er... Clicks, maybe. Not really sure," I said. "I'm not a big vitamin person." (Clicks is about the closest thing to a CVS in South Africa.) Another sour face.
"No... that's not... you should..." she began. She seemed to be wrestling with the futility of explaining something that she knew I would probably never understand. I knew how she felt: It's the same way I feel when someone tells me they like Lady Gaga or James Taylor or that remaking "Point Break" is a good idea. You just realize you are living on a completely different planet from someone else.
"Look, you need calcium citrate for this," she finally said. "This is good for prevention." I nodded earnestly and repeated "calcium citrate" so that she would know I was taking her advice on board. Now, I appreciate her concern, and I'm sure I will acquire the recommended vitamin at some point. My main problem, though, is that my whole life I've been told you can get the calcium you need from drinking milk. Cow's milk. And I thought it came from cheese, too! How confusing! Who knew that these "foods" were really just poisons to be sneered at? What other dread lies have I been fed?
I've also heard a couple of yoga and pilates instructors bemoan the modern lifestyle that forces people to slouch forward all day. They all cite the keyboard and the steering wheel as the main culprits in our current posture crisis. Now, I agree that working on a computer and driving can both take a toll on the body. However, when exactly in history did people mostly perform their work behind them? Never! Think about making bread - kneading it, rolling it. Think about sewing your own clothes or even washing them by hand. Consider the butter churn, the reins, the hammer and anvil. Consider milking a damned cow!
That'll really mess you up.
No comments:
Post a Comment