What is the real story?
Nomination day is drawing closer and even though I haven’t seen a lot of campaign signs, candidates, sort of like hidden jack-in-the-boxes, are starting to spring up.
Of course, not a lot of people have come forward to the print media and made their intention known with a resounding, “yes, I’m running,” but, even so, word is getting out. I, of course, remain a media fly on the wall; a silent spectator, hovering quietly, trying to make no buzzing sound whatsoever, because, if people know I’m there they have this annoying habit of not talking, which makes it difficult to report the truth.
Or report anything, good, bad or indifferent, for that matter.
I find as election day gets closer and closer there are so many versions of the truth floating around it is polluting our beautiful crisp, clean September.
Reporting the truth is, in fact, a wonderful goal and truly something to strive for.
I have, however, in my long (we are talking very long) career (I mean, I was here after hot lead, but before computers and digital cameras which puts me in the black and white world of print media somewhere in the early ‘80s), I have discovered everybody tells the truth.
They just tell different versions of it. Their version!
And I have discovered us media people are kind of like mom and dad. We are told exactly what we are supposed to know.
And nothing more.
And, so like mom and dad, we have to pry, cajole and question to find out the other stuff; the between-the-lines stuff.
With all this hype about the coming election going on, hype that will only get worse in the coming weeks, I decided I needed to chill out and destress.
And so I went to hot yoga.
And I discovered hot yoga is an experience like no other.
Within minutes I found my mind stripped of rational thought, reasoning and common sense logic.
It was hot; so hot and much to my horror I learned I did not glow like a lady, but sweated like a guy. Profusely. The sweat trickled down my face in unappealing rivulets, taking my $20 mascara and $40 foundation with it.
The sweat was salty and it got in my eyes and I felt like I was crying and before long I was.
“I’m so hot,” I whined, hoping someone would open a door or a window or something.
No one did.
Before the class was even half over, I found myself filled with an intense longing to flop onto my mat and remain there like the pathetic, limp noodle I had turned into, until the election, or at least the class, was over.
But no, I obediently pushed, prodded and poked my unresponsive body into all kinds of poses which stretched and pulled it into positions it did not want to go.
And I listened humbly to the instructor, who bounced around like some kind of tiny commanding officer (minus the uniform and medals which would be totally inappropriate in a hot yoga room).
“Don’t listen to your ego,” she said. “It’s your ego that makes you want to go beyond your limits. You’re only competing against yourself. No one else cares.”
“Okay,” I said, willingly, happily, curling up contentedly into the child’s pose and trying to blink the salty sweat out of my eyes.
I left hot yoga stripped of makeup and anything that even vaguely resembled ego and stumbled into the shower to see if I could find the self I used to be before I became the bedraggled, wet noodle I now was.
I did.
Weirdly enough, I will probably go back. And, weirdly enough also, the thing I remember most is the instructor saying, “don’t listen to your ego.
It’s a good lesson for us all – whether we are doing hot yoga or running for politics!
— On The Other Side