I had a bath on Sunday

I had a bath on Sunday.

A sound bath. No water, just a gong and a few other musical instruments. Also known as gong therapy, the instrument is played in a manner that helps with healing, both spiritually and physically.

It was my second sound bath. The first was over a year ago at Healing In America, a laid back place in mid-Ojai that offers yoga, aromatherapy for trauma addiction, quantum energy therapy, and other mysterious programs that my friend Harry would scratch his head about.

My first bath was taken well before Covid when I and twenty others sprawled on the floor at Healing in America, a pillow under my head and a soft banky covering my body. In semi-darkness, I closed my eyes and listened to the gong. Almost an hour passed during which I saw colored lights, heard rapturous sounds, and finally arose feeling much better than when I started. It was, despite my usual cynical self, a surprising experience.

So I was looking forward to another sound drenching, this time at the Ojai Retreat. Offering overnight stays, the Retreat also hosts events that are perhaps not quite as esoteric as the offerings at Healing in America. Attempting to balance these services during a roller coaster set of Covid regulations would strain anyone’s capabilities. In addition, the Retreat has fallen on hard times and been forced to cobble together several sources of capital as it hangs on by its fingernails.

The road to the Retreat winds haphazardly through a residential area. One who is unfamiliar with the road’s twists would be well advised to avoid it at night; daylight trips are challenge enough.

As Jackie drove, I sat back in luxury, remembering how I once drove my father to medical appointments when he could not. Or my cousin Leonard who never learned to drive yet built a successful accounting practice, without ever getting behind a steering wheel. I could get used to this, and probably will, given my deteriorating night vision.

Arriving at the Retreat, I was surprised by the number of cars in the catch-as-catch-can parking lot. I wondered how many people could possibly be interested in a gong bath; then I remembered that this was Ojai, home to thousands who might be charitably viewed as a bit odd.

I thought there might be another event at the Retreat that was filling the lot; but at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon, that was probably just wishful thinking.

Donning our masks, we marched up the ramp leading to the outdoor gathering and were greeted by Miriam and Edie who were collecting donations intended to keep the Retreat in business a few hours longer. We ponied up $15 apiece, chit-chatted a bit and walked outside into the event center.

In addition to a perfect view of the Topa Topas, we were confronted with people sitting in chairs, squatting on the ground, and sprawled horizontally on yoga mats. A quarter of the bathers were without masks. The mask-less appeared unconcerned, or perhaps stoned, and included four thirty-ish women who were lying shoulder to shoulder not a Florsheim shoe length from my feet.

I did not need Gavin Newsom to tell me that we were violating a bevy of Covid regulations, and throwing common sense to the winds.

The host of the wash-up began the proceedings by wading into the midst of the crowd, stopping at and towering over the diminutive Jackie. A nice enough fellow, he announced the mask requirement which seemed to have little impact on the four horsemen of the apocalypse laying at my feet. Mask-less himself, he punctuated his introduction with several mucous-ridden coughs that deposited Covid sized spittle onto Jackie’s arm.

The sound bath began, and I did my best to emulate my year ago experience at Healing in America. I closed my eyes, thought about my snuggly banky, envisioned the multi-colored lights and listened for the gong that would heal me. But all I could think about was the little Covid guys finding their way into my nostrils from perfect, or rather imperfect, strangers. I spent the rest of the hour guesstimating the remaining minutes until my release.

I wondered why I didn’t just grab Jackie and leap through the nearest exit. I was torn just like Tom Hulce, the protagonist in Animal House, who found himself pulled in opposite directions by his alter egos. The Angel and the Devil perched on his shoulders, spouting good and evil, as Tom pondered violating the sleeping young woman in his fraternity bedroom. Unlike him, I succumbed to the worst and remained to the end.

But my bath water would be forever cold and murky.

Careful Where You Step

I wake slowly, stare out the window, and watch the night give way to the dawn. I welcome daylight and embrace it so I can avoid the pratfalls that afflict those whose night vision might better be labeled night blindness.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have the pleasure of being in Robert’s hands at the Ojai Valley Athletic Club. My thirty minutes with him are devoted to strengthening my upper body, working on my balance, and enjoying his wit. I haven’t fooled myself into thinking that I can reverse the aging process; I merely want to take a break from it for a few more years.

Since moving to town, I have been blessed with the ability to walk to the club instead of driving to it. Takes about twenty minutes and gives my cardiovascular system a small nudge in the right direction. Before Covid, my sessions with Robert began at 8am; a respectable start time that lets me walk to the gym in the morning light.

Covid changed all that. First the club closed. Then it was open. Then it was closed. Then it was sort of open, with restrictions that seemed to change twice daily. Robert also had his own health issues that limited his ability to entertain me on a regular basis. Things changed.

I now start training at 7. My walk to the gym begins in darkness and ends in the dim morning light. The first 10 minutes are a thrilling adventure as I stare down at the ground and strain to see what is underfoot. My mind sends me the message, “Watch out, be careful.”

At those times I am reminded of my brother Irv who, like our father, suffered the genetically delivered curse of macular degeneration. I recall walking with Irv when every step brought him closer to a fall. I see him hesitate as he puts one foot in front of the other. I watch him use the toe of his shoe as though it were a cane, probing the next step as though there was a deep chasm in front of him that might send him off the cliff into oblivion. At times like that, I remember thinking, “Poor guy, how frustrating this must be for him.”

Now I’m getting a taste of it, and it makes me feel old. In addition to obstacle avoidance, labels with small print taunt me; surely no one other than Lilliputians can read them. I try to decipher them with my bifocals. Failing that, I try it without glasses. Then I repeat the options without success. Excuses for banging into furniture on my way to bed, like the absence of a full moon, no longer cut it. Thinking that cataract surgery on my left eye will improve things is a fool’s paradise. I probe with my toe, just like my brother did.

Unlike Dracula, I long for the sunrise and try to complete my foraging before dark. Starting a morning hike at 6 is no longer possible. So, like yesterday, when Jackie was already on her way to body management in Montecito, I suited up and began a solo trek just after dawn.

I told Jackie that my plan was to walk through the less challenging Arbolada; a moderate grade trip through residential neighborhoods. Predictable, safe and ambulance friendly. I promised to take my cellphone, since screaming help into the thin air at that time of the morning would only antagonize the neighbors.

Ten minutes into the hike I changed my plans. I felt strong, my aging left knee had not yet offended me, and I was ready for sterner stuff. Shelf Road beckoned and, macho-like, I took the challenge.

Reaching Shelf Road requires a quarter mile jaunt up Signal Street, a thoroughfare that looks benign. Uphill all the way, lungs expand and contract at the speed of hummingbird wings. Heartbeats are no longer separated by intervals; they are, like a firehose, streaming nonstop.

Reaching the beginning of the Shelf Road trail would normally be cause for celebration, but I’m much too busy reorganizing my body into a more coherent machine; one that bears some resemblance to what it was like when I began this death march.

The trail is wide and seems to be continuously uphill. Its composition is shale-like with bits of ankle-twisting rocks thrown in to encourage me to keep my eyes on the road. On a weekday at 7, there are a few hikers with a lot of annoying dogs who seem to enjoy adding another obstacle in my path.

At the half-way mark there are two benches that can give one respite and provide a view of the Valley. I came upon the benches, occupied by a young couple in serious conversation. I waved without panache and mumbled the obligatory, “Good morning. Nice day isn’t it?”

Without waiting for a detailed response, I cruised past them and said soundlessly, “I’m proud of myself. Didn’t die on Signal Street and made it half-way up the trail. The rest is a piece of cake. Home for coffee in thirty.”

As though god hated braggards, I was mightily smitten by the lord for my brashness. The toe of my right shoe clipped the top of a stone which, I am sure, was placed there by an elf for that very purpose. I hurtled forward without a nanosecond of hesitation and found myself laying prone on the trail.

The bench couple ran to me and, believing that I was an old guy without much sense, helped me to my feet and began exploring my body. Normally, inspection by a young woman would be welcomed; however, the blood emanating from my several cuts and bruises put me off.

The inspection concluded without discovery of broken bones, torn ligaments or bleeding that couldn’t be stopped with the application of the three pieces of Kleenex that constitute my first-aid kit.

One of the bloody tissues was nestled between my hat and my scraped skull. Looking like that fife player marching in the painting of The Spirit of 1776, I completed my trek home, washed the blood off my body, and applied several dozen band-aids. I looked a bit like the mummy in the Boris Karloff picture of the same name.

The following day I told Robert my story. He carefully studied my wounds and added shame to my physical woes. He pronounced me a lazy foot dragger. Insisting that I had to learn to lift my feet higher brought on a new series of exercises that consist largely of my stumbling over obstacles he put in my path; much like the dogs did on Shelf Road. Except I was paying for this indignity.

Think I’ll go for a walk…before it gets dark.