Thursday, September 18, 2008

Story 7. Breathing in, Breathing out (1)

“You breathing in, breathing out like this, everything will be fine!”

The old man just coming back from his afternoon walk, pointed at his nose and said with smile.
I sort of gave him back a faint smile in acknowledgement but my heart shied away to be reminded of my own breathing. After all, I was also an ex-yoga teacher then. But he made me reflect; of something I have long forgotten since my boy was born, my root, my love of life…

He was in his mid 80, an ex-yoga teacher, but still looked hail & healthy. He lived few more good years before passed away in his sleep. He was the father of my neighbor friend whom I befriended from the same apartment block I lived then. Myself, still not yet quite adopted to the foreign land I came couple of years ago, was a depressed lot who seldom smile or laugh. He seemed to have sensed my unhappiness. Maybe it wasn’t difficult to know considering my heart still skips when I look back those first few years in here, the tears, the loneliness, that which I hid even from my husband.

He learned Yoga when he was 50-something and then started to teach from his own house, converting an intermediate single story terrace house in the Old Klang Road into a yoga studio. Yoga was not so well known then, in Malaysia. Yet he had a good number of students to be able to support the family of 8 children for 2 decades before he retired. My friend was thinking of continuing her father’s work by establishing a private Yoga institute to train yoga instructors. But it was too far crying ambition for someone whose experience and exposure of yoga was just his father. His knowledge and experience in Yoga was also much elementary but he could manage himself because it was within the same neighborhood that people came to learn. She was a different story. She was trying to set up a Yoga institute (she was a part-time lecturer in college) not just a studio without even having taught Yoga before!

After learned of my background a bit from our causal conversation that we exchanged in the playground, she was trying to include me in materializing her business plan. She was showing me around the town, her already-rented-yoga-studio and father’s place. Though I wasn’t impressed or had any intention to be her prospect partner, I couldn’t say ‘no’ straight in her face. She was a kind person but too naïve in her thinking at the same time persuasive. To my relief, I didn’t have to be troubled for too long trying to turn her down. Soon she left Malaysia for good because her husband got transferred to US permanently and their whole family had to follow. Without her realizing it, however, she brought back Yoga into my life; something I’ve been long forgotten and didn’t perceive continuing it in Malaysia. She showed me the way that I could pull out of the cocoon in which I had been feeling suffocated.

Breathing in, breathing out… I looked back the pathway of my breathing which felt so tight and congested. I wondered where my breathing had gone. I started to jog around the apartment block in early morning, keep breathing, keep turning my awareness within to find the junction where I had left. Once so bright and happy, to laugh every few minute as my teacher would say, I wondered why and where she had gone. Breathing in, breathing out… I saw the lost woman crying her heart’s out in front of her little baby feeling helplessly alone without knowing where to turn. In that tiny junction, the momentary gap in between out-breath and in-breath, I saw her suffering from self-imposed failure, impatience, guilt, blame, disappointment, and all that. Those negative emotions were draining life out of me as well as my loved ones’. My husband was clueless at my daily swinging mood. My little boy was afraid of mummy because he didn’t know when she would burst into anger…It was time to wake up, time to open my chest and arm to breathe and stretch…

Since we returned to Malaysia, I wasn’t adopting well to the weather, to the culture, especially the loneliness and financial difficulties. We left our secured life in US behind when our Edwin was l year old. We wanted Edwin to grow up as an Asian not as an American though his birth certificate says so. However, it turned out to be the worst time to have come back as the infamous 1997 financial crisis hit the whole of Asia right after our return. At first I planned to get a job so that Lee could start his own business straight away. But with huge retrenchment and economic downturn throughout the country, it wasn’t easy to find a job for me especially with the immigration restriction on foreign spouse. Moreover Lee was too long away to be able to start his own business. He was as much a foreigner as I was in his homeland. So he found himself a job instead of me. We hurriedly settled in Kuala Lumpur by renting an apartment in the foothill of Desa Petaling. The US dollars we brought, then, drop its value by half immediately after we exchanged to ringgits (the currency value against US dollar dropped to the lowest in the history, from 2.5++ to 5). They soon disappeared as we continued our US living standard for a while without realizing that Lee’s salary was much, much less than how it used to be. Then there was the water crisis around the Klang valley. The water tap ran dry for days, sometimes more than a week without a notice or JPJ water tank. It went on like that for more than 6 months.

So here I was. Confined in the small apartment alone with the baby to look after, with the four walls only as my company. Lee disappeared to his work early in the morning and came back late in the evening. He didn’t know my water woo because his office had plenty of water! With no water even to bath the baby or wash his bottle, and with no one to turn to, I was growing impatient and desperate. Lee also wasn’t happy subtly blaming me to have initiated all these trauma by asking him to uproot his otherwise well-established-clinic from where we lived before. He was taking bus and LRT to commute as we couldn’t afford a car then, and I was pushing up and down trolley under the hot sun to carry water or do marketing because our apartment was in the hillside. I felt like getting sucked up into a deep dark tunnel in where there is no end. Squat down in front of the guard house in a hope to see JPJ water tank anytime, I regretted deeply of my naïve dream that I fantasized before. How dared was I to pack everything so easy and flew for 16++ hours to live in the country that I didn’t even know where it was, how it was like? I could do nothing but cry after Lee had gone to work. I hid my tears from him, the least I could do at that time, not wanting to affect when he himself was struggling to find his place. And it was my pride not to regret over whatever happened before, the one trait that I was good at it from small. I knew from experience that everything will be alright eventually no matter how great the pain might seem in the present.…

The wheel of time, though it seemed slow, was turning bit by bit; days becoming months, months becoming already 3 years. Gradually as I become more familiar with my ways around, I made friends with the neighbors socializing and learning about the country, its multi-racial culture and lifestyles. I didn’t feel as much foreigner as I used to be. Lee’s work also became more stable and the baby was growing up too, becoming more independent to attend a kindergarten. Then reminded by the neighbor friend, who was like a Good Samaritan, I started to get back my practice and study of Yoga and meditation. Life started to come back. Yes, I was not breathing. I had long held my breathing, my inspiration and the sense of direction in life that I once envisioned so clearly and dearly. I should stop playing a victim by the choices I made, just because it didn’t turn out to be exactly the way I wished or planned before. Maybe I needed a wake-up call, to be reminded of the life cycles that which is in constant change and flux.

Thankfully, there was yoga, there was meditation, to be able to put myself together as soon as I remembered. There was also astrology to remind me of the big picture. And then, beside my good husband and the fine boy, there were plenty of kind people and friends around. I wasn’t alone. I could feel the gentle breeze stroking my face as I stand in the Tree Pose. I could feel my finger reaching toward the sky as I balance in the Dancer Pose. There came deep relief, calmness, joy at the same time sense of expansion and freedom. Suddenly it felt so right to have come here! Everything is a blessing in disguise as they would say. Had I not been silly enough to dream of the fairyland in Malaysia, hadn’t there be the unforeseen challenges that came in my way without my inviting it, would I ever ventured myself to stand in front to teach and write in the language that my fellow Korean are forever dreadful? I don’t think so. Not in this life time. Hadn’t my hubby suffer his set-back, would I ever dared to take charge of my own life? I don’t think so. I would have been mostly happy to be just his shadow hiding behind him, waiting for him to do everything for me. That was how I was brought up and got ingrained culturally. We women were secondary to men, once married, we just serve the men and the rest will be taken care and provided by him (no wonder Korean men are so machos and women are like their maids, as you would see in some old Korean dramas).

Next time, when you are in the deep sea of troubled water, you can come to me. I will show you the way out of its difficulties. Breathing in, breathing out…observe the silence in between. The silence will mirror you back to clear off whatever holding your life. Breathing in, breathing out…you will find the mystic land that promises wellness, longevity, happiness and enlightenment. Want to learn more? The upcoming article is about the Beautiful Breath. You can keep posted. Meanwhile I wish you to continue your breathing in, breathing out… You will be just fine.