Page 13 of Almost Not Quite Engaged

“Names are merely guttural sounds of the human plane of existence.”

“Great, then call me...” I make a complex series of clicks.

Serge doesn’t bat an eye. “As you wish...” I’ll be damned if the man doesn’t repeat them exactly. Serge is a tricky one.

“On second thought, call me Kat for short.”

“As you wish, Kat.” He winks.

Serge leads me to an old man about to give me some Taoist rhetoric about alcohol being the root of my problems as he caresses my wine. He takes the bottle of Zin from my hand, and I let him. Might as well dive in and there’s Fireball stashed in the car.

“You’re wiser than you know, and cannot see your path when blinded by stimulus and pollutants. Here we cleanse you inside and out.”

He pulls out instant coffee packets, a block of cheese, salami, Listerine, Tastykakes, a six-pack of Diet Coke, an iPad, four bags of gummi butterflies and special edition retro taco-flavored Doritos. The old dude nods towards my pocket. I ruefully surrender my phone.

As we stand next to my suitcase I ask, “While we’re on the subject of cleansing, is there laundry?” I gesture to my skirt. He nods, and my bags are snatched up by flowy shadow people. I filled a second suitcase with household linens and some dirty clothes.

The guru speaks like Yoda. “Purge, your past. The sweat lodge good will do you.” I bow, turn, but he blocks me. “Serge will give you a robe for your journey and your purified belongings will be delivered.”

“Oh, you mean now? I don’t know. I thought I’d settle in, take a nap, maybe throw up that green stuff.”

“You cannot begin this clouded.” Serge smiles as if it’s lockdown, and he’s the smug correctional officer who’s already broken my will.

“How long?”

“You will know, my jumpy one. You will know.”

I’ve changed into a towel dress and robe. Serge guides me down a glass hallway from the main building to an elegant yurt. I wonder what the rent is on that yurt and does wifi come included.

An attendant guides me to a circular wooden bench lining the edges. There’s a man drumming lightly, and a woman quietly chanting. It’s all a bit extra. I turn around, and instead of Serge’s disapproving face, I envision Ginny’s sad one. I’ve nothing to lose except toxins and a little water weight. I shuck the robe and settle back on the bench while the attendant hands me cucumber water and places a cool blindfold of sorts over my eyes.

Then in her best namaste voice she says, “Consider this a vision quest. Leave behind your everyday life and all the things you hold dearly around you to make yourself feel falsely safe in your world today. Leave them here.”

Her breathy voice tickles my ear.

“For a few moments, time becomes irrelevant, and you’re completely a part of the universe and not just of yourself.”

I’d be happy to be anyone else right now, so why not the universe? Ending up in a fucking sweat lodge in Utah, instead of my parent’s pool house listening to ‘Red’ for the billionth time, probs a healthier option.

She hits me with the final bit of sweat lodge agenda. “Lastly, feel a re-birth into the common life of the world you live; then it’s inherent upon you to carry this illumination and knowledge, which you receive of those timeless moments, and share with others, and the rest you always carry for yourself.”

The spiritual care nothing for a run-on sentence.

Her damp whispering begins again. “There will be signposts and a guide along your way. Your spirit guide will keep you safe and on the right path. If you do not stray, you’ll find yourself at the end of it. You’ll find a life fulfilled.”

Does she mean Serge or like a rainbow wolf? I’m calculating how long before I can pretend I’ve been reborn when a man laughs. A confident, telling, robust laugh that informs you of everything you’ll ever need to know about him. I hear joy, quick wit, and skepticism. There’s a good-looking man attached to that laugh. I know it. He’s independent and irreverent. He’s all the things I lie and tell myself I am. At least his laugh is all these things.

There’s a murmured conversation and then the laugh again. I sit up. I’ll just follow that. I fixate on this laugh as if it’s my sign, a sign this is all a fucking joke. My life, the sweat lodge, my career, my pathological need to oppose my mother. There. Now am I fixed?

I lie back down for a moment, listening and feeling the slight rough spot of wood with my heel. I move my heel over that spot as if I’m trying to wear it down and smooth it out. Nothing else matters except this tiny spot. I fixate on it, and all I hear is my cracked heel catching the stray wood fiber that’s unfinished. The laugh never comes again, time to find that fucker and follow that chuckle to a better life.

I exit into the dusk. I’m weak and a little euphoric. Serge is there as if he’s been waiting for me the whole time.

“How long was I in there?”

“Time does not matter; only knowledge gained.”

“Let’s pretend time does matter.” I gulp down two glasses of water then Serge hands me a warm cup.