429
EAVESDROP CAFÉ
Elixir, West Hollywood, 2:33 p.m.
“One Shoe Meditation”
Elixir is where people come to relax and be civilized and partake in specialty teas that sound like names of small dogs. I am very pragmatic about my tea and ask if they have any Lipton. Apparently this question is an act of tea treason. The ethereal tea host screams, “Blasphemy!” with her dark eyes, and I am led to the official tea table where the brews are kept in tasteful clay bowls with an accompanying guidebook.
I browse through the guidebook and get a vision of myself as an ancient tea archeologist: burrowing through forbidden forests, discovering and naming exotic teas, being written up in “Tea Digest.” Having gone solo for too long, I am discovered years later in a cave by a group of college students. I am wearing stained khaki and clutching a wired notebook containing scribbles of top-secret leaves.
I order the Earl Gray and a no-name cookie boasting of raw ingredients. I may not eat it. I feel defiant of this healthy, no-name cookie. I am craving Gingerbread with a psycho smile painted in crooked red frosting. The kind made by children on Ritalin.
I settle into my wicker chair, sipping dutifully and daintily. Stress gets a bad rap here at Elixir. I feel stifled without my stress, having often mistaken it for passion. Anxiety is a right of passage for any city dweller and I’m sure I have a designated synapse for it. It seems a shame not to use it. Besides, I don’t trust people that are too calm, too centered. They can snap like a sugar pea.
I’m here for a meeting about my script and I must be ready to defend every word, every scene. Damn fountains and willowy plants! I can’t make demands surrounded by people wearing yoga pants and knowing smiles. These practitioners of trickery could lure me into their Zen Cortex and tranquilize me forever! This is the Trojan Horse of Hollywood. Must stay alert…
She speaks in the kind of whisper a tornado must make after it’s flattened a trailer park: urgent, mocking. She is fierce in her crocheted poncho and hip hugger jeans. He is an earthy, white-haired blonde in a cartoon tee shirt.
Poncho whispers: “It’s like a drink of water for your mind, washing it clean. Do you get it? It’s so important for you. Would you go without water for a day?”
He shrugs. “Sure, if there was beer.”
“I mean it! Meditation is the spirit’s way of exercising. How else are you going to exercise your spirit?”
Earthy doesn’t answer; he seems content in his silence. Poncho sits down, arranging her legs underneath her like a Praying Mantis. She takes long deep breaths while Earthy, her reluctant student, looks on.
Poncho seems very confident about spiritual matters. I should consult her about my pre-meditative condition that could be soothed with a wild, muddy tea. At least once a day, I put on my left shoe and all goes as planned. I tie/slip/zip the shoe, and the task is completed without much ado. As I go to put on my right shoe, I slip into long moments of frozen silence, where I am focused on a specific spot in the room- a tumbleweed of dog hair, a stray earring back, a torn parking ticket…and I am just there, politely breathing. There is no expectation, no regret, and no anticipation. As I come out of it, I am always surprised that it happened again. I have a quick laugh, and go about my day with a mild concern that I might need medication. But now…sitting here covered in No Name crumbs, I think that maybe I am part of something bigger. I am connected to these special breathers that travel to a space between time and a to-do list. I don’t know what the purposes of my trips are, but I can say I’ve been there and that my spiritual passport is filling up fast.
Earthy is snoring in the sun, his cartoon shirt rising and falling with his breath like an animated class clown. His Poncho teacher is not amused, and rolls her eyes.
I busy myself greeting the Studio Suit whose neck is swallowing his face. The guy really needs to relax.
“ I have a lot of notes, but it’s mostly good,” he says.
“Excellent.” I take him by the hand; lead him to the table and the ancient book. “Try the Oolong,” I say softly.
I hear the Trojan wheels backing away and wonder if it’s too late to bum a ride.
By Katie Love
Columnist, screenwriter, comedienne
Copyright -2004 to Katie Love www.katielove.net
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