The teacher tonight is older and especially earthy. I don't introduce myself before the class. I'm not here tonight to make friends.

She rings a tuning fork at the beginning as a wake up call.

Halfway through class, holding a leg stretch. She comes over to me and presses her hands against my lower back, one pushing up towards my ribs, the other pushing deep towards my sacrum. The warmth of her hands, the gentle pressure and release of tension. My heart begins to crumple at the deep caring of this gentle touch. I'm at an oasis, plunging my face into the cool waters. Mercy. I don't remember the last time someone touched me like this.

At the end of class, we are laying prone, the final meditation. She comes to me again and moves some energy around my head. Presses my shoulders into the mat. Rubs the space between my eyebrows and then runs her fingers across my skull and through my hair.

This.

This is how I want to be touched. This is how I want it to feel. This is what I'm missing. I ache at this touch, yearn for more of it. How did she know that this was what I needed? In a class of more than a dozen students, I didn't notice her doing this to others.

I sleep restlessly.

My chair at work feels hard on my seat bones, despite the five inches of foam padding. The skin on my stomach is thin, papery and loose. There is a vein that is persistently pulsing just above my hip. In the elevator, the harsh light shows the shadowy frame of my sternum and ribcage. All bones, valleys and gaunt, the delicate form of the human body shown as if in x-ray.

I cycle to work in the morning. The weather is frantic, slopping sheets of rain alternating with dry gusts of wind. There is chop on the water in False Creek. It's nearly white capping. I start laughing maniacally and nearly crash into a chain link fence around the old Indy grounds.

This is the thing - the wind, the rain, my glasses fogged and thick bands of water sluicing through my fenders. All of the stuff going on in my head, my heart... none of it matters in the face of Mother Nature. The wind on the water, the air ionized and humid, branches of douglas fir and cedar strewn across the path, magnolia blossoms pushing perfect pale tips through their buds.

The wind buffets me from the side, and then there is a calm. It must be at my back. I sail along the seawall, effortless gliding as if on ice. Calm, silent, stillness around me.