Misadventures of a Garden
State
Yogi
An Excerpt from Chapter 26
 |
| Brian Leaf |
In Northampton I wanted to continue the work I had
begun with my Princeton psychotherapist, Valerie. So I consulted
the local holistic magazine Many Hands, with its vast directory
of holistic practitioners. I paged through looking for a psychotherapist with a
mindfulness bent and found a woman who advertised to include in her sessions
not only meditation but also Ayurveda. I called and set up an appointment.
The following Tuesday at the designated time, I drove to the address she gave me. I found the door and went into the waiting room.
The waiting
room was homey and very comfortable, if a bit messy. There was a sofa, a few
chairs, and a coffee table with magazines and a few novels. There was also a
half-full cup of tea on a saucer with a half-eaten English muffin. And oddly,
on the carpet, someone had left behind a pair of woolen socks. Keep in mind
that when you live in Northampton, Massachusetts, hometown of Augusten Burroughs’s Running
with Scissors, this is of particular concern.
I flipped
through a copy of Natural Health magazine as I waited.
That’s when
the therapist, whom I immediately recognized from her photo in Many
Hands, walked through the waiting room.
Topless.
Two years
earlier, at Ruby’s massage parlor in High Point, I was proud to have been so naive and
pure. This time I was pissed. “How could I have missed this again!?” I felt
like knocking my head like Will Ferrell in Old School: “Dang it! I’m such an idiot!”
My “therapist”
was wearing a towel around her waist and nothing on top. Her hair was wet. She
ignored me completely as she passed through, all business. She went through to
her office, did not shut the door, dropped her towel, and put on her panties,
as I watched and waited.
I could see
past her, into the rest of her office, and plain as day, there was a big bed.
It was not red velvet, mind you, it was more respectable than that, but it was
still a bed in my naked psychotherapist’s office.
The
possibilities raced through my mind:
1.
Sex therapist? It didn’t mention that in
Many Hands.
2.
Some funky Ayurveda connection? One of
the seven branches of Ayurvedic medicine is dedicated wholly to fertility,
after all. No. Ayurveda may have remedies for fertility, and it may recommend
employing nontoasted sesame oil on one’s penis and anus to protect against the
wind, and it may advise the use of vomit therapy or even leeches on occasion,
but I had not yet heard of Ayurvedic sex therapists, at least not in the United States.
3.
Maybe she’s just a free spirit. What do
clothes matter, anyway? We’re all really just animals when it comes down to it.
Maybe it frees up her clients. Makes them feel safe to be vulnerable when she
herself has been so vulnerable and naked. This is Northampton, after all. In fact, I once heard of a
totally legit, nonsexual, therapeutic massage style that was performed with
both the client and the therapist naked. It was said to free up the energy and
set everyone more at ease.
4. And I considered the only other option:
Prostitute? Maybe...
Then, as in
a Hitchcock film when the protagonist has a revelation and is shaken to the
core with the whole frame spinning out of control, I suddenly realized that
this was not, in fact, her office, and I was not,
in fact, in a waiting room.
I was
sitting, unbeknownst to her, in her den, and I had just watched her walk,
naked, from the shower to the bedroom in her own private apartment. Her office
had another entrance a few yards away from this one, which I now remembered
seeing in the parking lot.
I was a
Peeping Tom. She was getting ready for work, and as in a porn shop viewing
booth, I had just watched her put on her panties. I was mortified.
I
considered my options:
A. Approach
her bedroom and fess up to what just happened. Maybe we’d share a hearty laugh.
No way.
Much, much too creepy. She’d scream. She’d freak out. She’d call the cops.
B. I could
quietly put down my magazine, stand up without making the sofa creak, tiptoe
across the floor, and ease out the door to head for the other entrance, where
there were likely to be no naked people.
I chose
option B. There was a risk, though. Turning myself in would be better than
getting caught as I fled the scene. Still, I went with B.
I made it
out quietly and reentered the building through the correct door. A few
minutes later, she appeared, fully dressed, and quite smartly at that, to welcome me in.
During the
hour, we talked about my lack of friendships in town. And she never knew that I
had seen her naked, that I knew she wore daisy panties.
Probably
for the best.
I’m wondering now, though, fifteen years later,
whether she’ll read this book and piece it all together.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brian Leaf, M.A.
is the author of Misadventures of a
Garden State Yogi. He draws upon twenty-one years of intensive study,
practice, and teaching of yoga, meditation, and holistic health. Visit him
online at http://www.Misadventures-of-a-Yogi.com.
Excerpted from the book Misadventures
of a Garden State Yogi ©2012 by Brian Leaf.
Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com
