How It Began

What to do to begin a new year?  Throw things away, of course.  Clean out closets, pitch something from every room.  One thing, that is all.  Then two.  I can feel the weight lifting.  Straighten, rearrange.  The rooms are getting bigger.  I sit down with a large stack of unopened mail, some of it more than a month old.  Most is junk.  The pile shrinks.  I find two unopened Christmas cards.  Jesus.  An unopened check I almost threw away.  I get a call from a friend, a real artist who lives by his work.  He has some things for me.  I get in my car, go, come home.  I had decided in the morning that I would go to yoga today for the first time in two years.  The studio has been sold, I find out.  New owners, new instructors. Only one other fellow there.  Ten women.  I have forgotten the sequences of this Ashtanga practice.  I look around as women fall easily into ornate positions.  I look like Quasimodo, face distorted, hunched back, legs bent oddly.  I hold my breath, trying to muscle myself into place.  It goes on and on.  Ninety minutes later, I am a limp noodle.  Home and shower.  I make eggs for lunch, mimosas.  The yoga and the champagne conspire.  I am already hurting.  I look around.  There is much more to do, but not today.  I go to see my mother and aunt.  It gets dark.  Home for dinner with the cat.  She does not care so much that I chop garlic, has no interest in the salad.  Then some Manchega cheese.  We share.  Drinking more champagne, I know that this is a mistake.  I will watch a movie.  Some linguine and chicken from a can.  Two ice cream sandwiches.  My stomach swells.   I am hideous.  Movie over, I am sleepy.  It is O.K.  I can go to bed.  One scotch and this.

That is how it began.