Hot Yoga Tuesday and the Neo Humanist Landscape

My roommate is sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop open. And that face. The "we need to discuss what I just read" face.

"So," she says, "I was looking for the WiFi password you said you saved, and I found something called 'Where Light Remembers How to Flow.'"

Oh no.

"With a tilde."

"A what?"

"This little squiggle ~ in the title. 'Where Light Remembers How to Flow TILDE A Meditation on Heaven, Water, and What Waits to Bloom.'"

I wrote that Tuesday. This Tuesday. Four days ago Tuesday.

"Last TUESDAY?"

"It was a very intense yoga class."

She starts reading: "'On specific good days, life feels like stepping from a cathedral (taken over by a lovely non-denominational faith organization) into morning sunlight—'"

"Why is there a parenthetical about non-denominational faith organizations?"

"I didn't want to offend anyone."

"In your private document?"

"You never know who might read it."

"I'm reading it."

"Case in point."

She continues: "'Never empty. Never abandoned. Reclaimed by a deep, renewed, beautiful spirituality, wide open to receive all.'"

"That's about the cathedral?"

"It's about life."

"You just said it was about a cathedral."

"The cathedral IS life."

"The cathedral that was taken over by a non-denominational faith organization?"

"Metaphorically."

She scrolls down. "You wrote an entire paragraph about how water doesn't need permission to bless grounds."

"Water is very spiritual."

"It's water."

"Sacred water."

"From where?"

"Everywhere. All water is sacred."

"The water from our rusty tap?"

"Especially that water."

"It tastes like pennies."

"Copper has healing properties!"

She finds the worst part: "'Is the word Heaven just an English word that represents an absolutely blissful universe that every moment forgets to withhold anything?'"

"That's a legitimate question."

"That's fourteen dependent clauses having a party."

"I was exploring the etymology—"

"You list Heaven in five languages."

"Six, actually. I forgot Paradis."

"'Each word a small shiny chalice trying to hold a timeless ocean.'"

"That's beautiful imagery."

"You compared language to dinnerware."

"Sacred dinnerware!"

"And then—oh, this is special—'Bright waters meandering through dark gardens never flow uphill to honor the tallest features of a neo humanist landscape.'"

"What?"

"Neo. Humanist. Landscape."

"That's a real thing!"

"Where?"

"In... philosophical... gardens..."

"You mean water flows downhill."

"But poetically!"

"You took 47 words to say water flows downhill."

"It hydrates the lowest places first! It's about humility!"

"It's about GRAVITY."

She's doing that aggressive scrolling thing where I know she's found something worse: "'Water has the potential to be a precise metaphor.'"

"It does!"

"The POTENTIAL? It might become a metaphor? It's interviewing for the position?"

"To hydrate is to give life!"

"To hydrate is to add water. That's literally the definition."

"'Not just occupy a volume of space. A flood occupies. A drought occupies through absence.'"

"A drought doesn't occupy anything. It's the absence of—you know what, never mind."

"But hydration is relationship!"

"With what?"

"With... the soul?"

"You wrote 'dying and rebirthing happens in every moment—cells, breath, thoughts, seasons.'"

"That's scientifically accurate!"

"Rebirthing isn't a word."

"It is in spiritual contexts!"

"You were in a yoga class for ONE HOUR."

"It was hot yoga! Things were revealed!"

She finds the ending: "'Shadows have no substance of their own.'"

"That's just true."

"Yes, that part is actually true. But then you wrote 'healing light, when given an opening thin or wide, streams in like it's been waiting forever to offer itself.'"

"Light does stream!"

"Light doesn't wait. Light doesn't have feelings. Light is photons."

"Healing photons!"

"You ended with 'That's heaven breaking through and refusing to wait for death to begin again.'"

"It's about renewal!"

"It's about you needing to drink regular water after hot yoga instead of having visions."

She's staring at me. That long stare where I can feel her reconsidering our entire roommate situation.

"You know what kills me?" she says.

"What?"

"I can tell you actually believe this."

"I do!"

"The water metaphor, the cathedral thing, the neo humanist landscape?"

"Especially the neo humanist landscape."

"You don't even know what that means."

"Nobody does! That's what makes it profound!"

She closes the laptop. "How many of these have you written?"

"Define 'these.'"

"Spiritual awakenings about everyday objects."

"Just water. And light. And that one about my succulent."

"Your succulent?"

"It's very wise. It barely needs water but still thrives."

"That's not wisdom, that's evolution."

"Evolutionary wisdom!"

"I'm hiding your laptop after yoga."

"You can't hide the truth!"

"What truth?"

"That healing light streams in like it's been waiting!"

"Light doesn't wait!"

"Mine does!"

She's doing that thing where she leaves but dramatically, like she wants me to know she's leaving. "You know what? Keep writing them. At least you're not starting a podcast."

"Actually—"

"NO."

"'Where Light Remembers How to Podcast.'"

"I'm moving out."

"Wait till you read what I wrote about the cathedral!"

"That was ABOUT the cathedral?"

"The cathedral within!"

"There's no cathedral within! There's organs! Medical, actual organs!"

But she's already in her room. I can hear her telling someone on the phone about the neo humanist thing. She's laughing. But also I think she's saving the document to mock me later.

And I'm left alone with my laptop, my sacred tap water that tastes like pennies, and the certain knowledge that somewhere, somehow, light is still waiting to stream through whatever opening it can find.

Even if that opening is just my roommate's exasperation.

That's probably a metaphor too.

For what?

Neo humanist landscapes, probably.

I still don't know what that means.

But it sounds enlightened.