Enlightened Strength

short story | fiction

I first met Joseph on a Wednesday evening in late January. He was standing inside the yoga studio, feet wide apart, arms crossed over his chest, looking out at the street through the glass floor-to-ceiling windows. Outside, the sidewalks were fairly busy, considering it was Los Angeles, and in Los Angeles, people don't walk. That's not really true, but it’s a thing people like to say about the city. A joke, I guess.

Admittedly, there are some parts of the sprawling metropolis that do feel desolate—and if you find yourself there, alone on the sidewalk, it's eerie. You wonder whether something terrible has happened or is about to happen—an earthquake, a tsunami—because for miles and miles and miles until the pavement hits the dusty hills, you are the only person. So you check the news on your phone, and see everything is fine. Nothing cataclysmic has happened. You're just in one of the parts of Los Angeles where yeah, okay, whatever, it's true: nobody walks. 

I once lived in one of these parts of Los Angeles, but I had since moved into an apartment on the west side because I wanted to live near the beach. I mean, what's the point of living in California if you're not near the beach? I had two roommates, and we shared a bathroom with turquoise tiles. I could barely afford rent, but it was nice because, as I said, the ocean was close.

The apartment was located three point six miles from Venice Beach, where sometimes there would be needles and condoms, and faded cigarette butts in the sand. It wasn't the type of beach you'd want to walk barefoot on, but still, you could look out at the horizon and conjure that feeling that people talk about: of smallness, of insignificance, like your dreams don’t matter and have never mattered. It’s supposed to be a pleasant, humbling, healing feeling, so whenever I went to the beach, I would partake in the ritual of squinting my eyes and staring out into the white-capping sea, waiting for it to make me feel better.

Anyway, the night I met Joseph, he opened the door of the yoga studio for me but didn't say anything. Lucy, the studio manager, didn't introduce us right away, even though it was just the three of us in the room. She was standing behind the front desk, typing on a computer.

"Hi," she said. "Sorry. I have to finish up one thing if you can just sit there.” Lucy pointed to a wooden bench next to the yoga mats and kept typing.

"No problem," I said. I then looked at Joseph and said hello. He smiled—no teeth, a reluctant smile—and lifted his hand. Lucy glanced at us from behind her screen, fingers still moving. 

"That's Joseph, by the way. Joseph, this is Micah. She's going to be working Tuesday and Thursday mornings," Lucy said. Joseph was wearing black pants, black shoes, and a black jacket. On the left breast pocket was the word SECURITY. 

"Nice to meet you," I said.

It was my first time meeting Lucy in person as well. We had exchanged several emails at this point. My peripheral friend, Jane, had put me in touch with Lucy upon request. Jane had also done the work-for-yoga program at Enlightened Strength and raved about it. Lucy managed this particular location and, according to Jane, she was the best. They actually looked similar, Lucy and Jane. And by this, I mean they were both very attractive, hard-bodied, sun kissed, clean. Los Angeles was full of these remarkably gorgeous women. Their beauty was the wallpaper of the city.

Jane told me that she loved Enlightened Strength Yoga so much that she would sometimes go twice a day. "It's actually amazing," she said. At that time, I was starting to hate the word amazing. People kept saying it, even when it felt totally out of place.

What did you do today? 

I went to the doctor to get a mole looked at. 

Amazing. 

But Jane's description of Enlightened Strength Yoga as actually amazing seemed authentic. She was passionate, and I could tell.

I made the decision to join the work-for-yoga program at Enlightened Strength after a particularly tense and hostile Christmas holiday with my high-functioning alcoholic parents. I had defiantly decided I would cut myself off emotionally, but more importantly, financially. Without the guilt of them providing me with occasional monetary buoying, I thought I’d be better equipped to hate them. And pure hate felt far more appealing than the confusing mixture of gratitude, dependence, resentment, and love I had developed over my lifetime.

I canceled all memberships of excess—Netflix, Spotify, the New Yorker, the Criterion Collection. Hardest to part with was my Gold's Gym membership, where, on occasion, I witnessed Arnold Schwarzenegger grunt on the elliptical. Watching him grimace on his machine while my brain flooded with endorphins was my most consistent source of weekly joy.

Emboldened by my new financial independence, I reached out to Jane and, subsequently, to Lucy to inquire about the work-for-yoga program at Enlightened Strength's Santa Monica location. I imagined I’d look back on this as and consider it my gritty phase, my era of hard work and savviness that would eventually pay off. It would be generally unpleasant, last a few years, but once out of it, I’d remember it with fondness and pride. Maybe one day I would hold a microphone on a barren, black stage at Sundance or Tiff and preach about how it wasn’t always easy, but God damn the hustle and the grind were worth it.

After she finished typing, Lucy looked up at me and said, "Here. Let me show you around." She led me into the back closet, where all the cleaning supplies were kept on metal racks. She pointed out the special soap—behind the Windex on the bottom level—like she wanted to expedite our friendship by disclosing clandestine information. "Don't tell anyone else," she'd said in a low voice. "Because we have a limited supply." I found it boldly presumptuous of her to imply we already had existing trust. I certainly didn't trust Lucy.

Then she led me into the men's bathrooms and demonstrated how to clean urinals. She taught me important techniques like how to really scrub at the pubes that had dried on the porcelain. Her trick involved that special soap she'd made such a big deal about minutes earlier. Afterwards, I signed some paperwork that I didn’t read, and it was official: I was enrolled in Enlightened Strength's Work for Yoga Program. 

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I arrived at five a.m. to clean the studio before the first class, Full Body Flow. The only other person in the studio at that time was Joseph. Joseph guarded the doors from the oft-intoxicated unhoused people that frequented the studio entrance while I disinfected yoga mats. 

At first, Joseph and I spoke very little. He would let me into the studio in the mornings, we would exchange minimal pleasantries, and I would clean in silence for the next three hours. He typically gazed out the glass doors and watched dawn lift as Santa Monica changed from hues of sable to violet to periwinkle and, finally, to a pale yellow. Around 7:30 each morning, Joseph would suddenly tell me that he had to get something from his car. He’d return five minutes later with an egg sandwich from McDonald’s. I found this comical—that he went through the charade of lying about where he was going even though he did very little to obscure the truth when he came back with the steaming sandwich. His breakfast made the studio stink of fried egg and sausage, which I didn't mind, but I’m sure Lucy would’ve had something to say about it if she were there.

After a few weeks, I addressed it.

"I love Egg McMuffins," I said. 

He smiled mid-bite and lifted the sandwich as if he were toasting champagne. “Very good,” he agreed.

We started talking more. Joseph had a deep voice and a thick accent. When he spoke, his words bounced off his tongue; his sentences were bright and springy. He told me that he was from Sudan. He moved to the US over twenty years ago. He had a big family—five kids and a wife—who lived with him in America. I said, “Wow. Amazing.”

Sometimes we would laugh about the type of people who came into the yoga studio: often heavily Botoxed women and chiseled, frozen-faced men from the Palisades. I liked when Joseph and I exchanged side-eyed smirks—it felt as though I had earned a special rapport with him. I coveted his fleeting winks—they reassured me that I had successfully othered myself from the regular patrons of Enlightened Strength. I was different. 

When I worked in the mornings, I would be tired for the rest of the day. Luckily, my full-time job consisted of mindless administrative work that I could easily complete in a state of sleep deprivation. I worked at a talent agency and was paid $14.50 an hour, the minimum wage in California at the time. Honchos in corner offices made millions by dialing into conference calls and telling their clients things like: "You're the man, bro." 

The most cognitively challenging part of my work at the agency was picking a restaurant and subsequently making a reservation for my boss' daily work lunches. When I first began working for him, he emailed me a list of his fourteen favorite restaurants in Beverly Hills, some of which had Michelin Stars. He wrote: "Just pick from this list. I don't want to be asked every day," and I responded: "Got it! Thank you!" 

My boss often communicated with me via email even though my desk was five feet from his office. Sometimes his wife, Allison, would call and ask to speak with him. If he were in a meeting, Allison would sigh and say, "Alright. Well, tell him to call me back when he can. Thanks, Rebecca." Rebecca was the name of his former assistant, and after I had corrected Allison several times, it became awkward, so I surrendered to being Rebecca.

My boss regularly expressed disappointment in my choice of restaurant even though I never strayed from his list. At 12:58 p.m., he would leave in a rush, saying, "Whatever. It's fine. I'm going to be late anyway." He seldom made eye contact with me when we spoke.

My coworkers were beautiful and wore real leather jackets. They had glossy hair and gold jewelry. After working at the agency for a few months, I also started wearing gold jewelry and found a heavily discounted genuine leather jacket from the Nordstrom Rack in Culver City. It was ugly and plum colored, but still, it was soft and had that distinct leather smell that reminded me of its origins: a once living cow. Perhaps a large cow, the color of caramel with blotches of white, grazing in a vast field of dandelion-speckled grass.

We sat in a bullpen-style office set up, so we were ostensibly shoulder to shoulder, breathing the same air for ten hours a day, five days a week. An inevitable camaraderie kindled after seeing each other regularly get eviscerated by our villainous bosses. I promised myself that if I ever became rich and powerful, I would always be kind. 

On weekends my coworkers went to clubs and speakeasies in West Hollywood and ordered bottle service. I sometimes joined, though not often. The assistants that would be promoted to coordinators and then talent agents were often the ring leaders of such activities. They had sizable disposable incomes, evidently coming from external sources. They—or their parents—were investing in their futures. They were on the fast track to somewhere known, real, tangible.

One night in late February, I checked my Chase credit card account and was shocked by the debt I had accumulated. Since my financial emancipation from my parents, I thought I had been operating frugally but evidently was supremely wrong. I had eaten out with friends a few times and had tried to cut back on shopping, but it was clear that I needed to spend less to adequately pay off my debt that month. I promised myself I would exclusively cook at home for the rest of February. And I wouldn't buy any new clothes even though ever since I moved to Los Angeles, all my clothes seemed frumpy and dull—spun through the washer too many times. Another thing I promised myself if I ever became rich and powerful: I would buy an entirely new wardrobe. In addition to my success, I would become notably fashionable. 

One morning, at Enlightened Strength, a man with missing teeth, grey dreadlocks, and a frothy mouth came to the door and exclaimed that he had to use the toilet. Joseph told him he could not enter, resulting in a minor physical tussle—though Joseph won handily because he was twice the size of the slender, ailing man. I was dusting the lockers and looked away when the altercation happened. I found it all to be very frightening. 

When the man left, Joseph sighed and rolled his eyes.

"They need to get put into a facility," Joseph said. "For their minds." He tapped on his bald, shiny forehead. 

"Like a hospital?" I asked.

He shook his head. "They can't stay out on the streets. They're sick. They're not like this in Sudan."

I didn't really agree with Joseph. In fact, I thought his proposed solution to LA's homelessness crisis to be oversimplified and callous. But I also was aware that Joseph had lived a much longer and far more complicated life than I had, and maybe he had an understanding of the world that I lacked. I nodded and kept dusting.

One woman—in her early forties or late fifties (she kept it impressively ambiguous)— who frequented the Enlightened Strength had an abnormally large butt. I knew her name was Carolynn because whenever she checked in, she said, "Carolynn with two n’s" loudly and sharply, like the check-in process really inconvenienced her. Carolynn drove a red Tesla that she sometimes parked in front of the studio on Tuesdays and Thursdays for Flow with Nick. 

Carolynn's butt formidably defied gravity. Before moving to Los Angeles, I would have chalked it up to a genetic anomaly. I used to think people just got nose jobs and boob jobs, and that these were the only jobs available. I had since learned, people can augment every single part of their body, even, for example, the length of their labia by way of labiaplasty.

If I ever became rich and powerful, I would get labiaplasty, I thought to myself. Or, maybe by that point in my life, such a thing wouldn’t matter to me anymore. I would be so full of self-love and pride and contentment that my flabby labia wouldn’t bother me anymore.

One day, Carolynn came in flustered. She was running late and made it known to all of us in the way that people who deem themselves important often do. She had on black yoga pants that were stretched so thinly over her butt that they were rendered sheer. Her pink thong underneath was visible.

"Hi," she said urgently, out of breath. "Carolynn. With two n’s. For the 7:30. With Nicky." 

Beth, working the computer, smiled and signed her in. 

"Okay, you're all set, Carolynn! Will you be needing a mat today?"

"I always rent a mat," Carolynn answered, rolling her eyes.  

Once she disappeared into Studio A, Joseph and I giggled together.

Later that week, I went on a date with a man I met on Hinge. My college boyfriend and I were on a break. Actually, we were in an open relationship. He didn’t want to be in one. He wanted our relationship to be closed, sealed, airtight. But I said I needed time to “figure myself out”. Really, I was horny and wanted to see what it was like to be naked in a room with another naked person. Unfortunately, I was no longer aroused by my boyfriend’s nude body. I knew this happened—apparently, it’s one of the great life lessons: learning to stay in love even with the physical passion dissipates. Fine. That’s all well and good—I just felt too young to be learning that lesson then. It made me feel a bit guilty, of course—that I was sleeping with other people and my boyfriend wasn’t. I told him he could, but I knew that he was directing his time and energy elsewhere, on things more important than sex. I used my guilt as evidence that I was still a Good Person.

My date, Connor, picked the place—a restaurant called MTN on Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. The waitress had green hair and nails that were the exact same neon shade. She had a sinewy figure, and I imagined a reasonably large Instagram following. People in LA who looked like that were often famous on the internet. 

"So, you live in Venice?" I asked Connor.

"Yep. I'm a beach guy."

"Oh. Did you grow up near the beach?"

"I spent my summers in Nantucket," he said mid-bite.

"Do you surf?" I asked. 

He hadn't asked me a single question yet. Most men don't know how to ask questions, and this was something I was learning since I’d started going on dates. It baffled me—that they lacked this foundational conversational skill. How had they gone their entire lives without asking anyone anything? I sometimes fantasized about having the courage to let my conversations with men fall flat. They would wallow and writhe in discomfort while I devilishly watched in total control. The silence would destroy them. 

"Sometimes my buddies and I will go up to Malibu if the swell is good," he said. "But never here in Venice."

"Why not?" I asked.

"I mean," he raised his eyebrows, preparing to make a strong point. "The homelessness is terrible. It's like Skid Row 2.0."

I decided early in the date that I didn't like Connor. In the end, we split the bill. When I got home, I looked at my checking account’s balance. I still didn't have enough money to pay off my credit card that month. I had troubles falling asleep that night. I worried that I was going to have to change my lifestyle in a dramatic and unpleasant way.

*

On a Tuesday morning, about three months into my job at Enlightened Strength, I swept the miniature tumbleweeds of hair and a few rogue toenail slivers into the dustpan. I then went to the bathroom with a caddy of multicolored disinfectants and picked up the wet nest of brown hair stuck in the shower drain. I threw out the hair wad, and then moved into the bathroom stall where I lifted up the lid of the toilet seat, the underside of which was splattered with dried, brown fluid: someone’s diarrhea from the day prior. Suddenly, I felt overwhelmed with a deep disgust for the work. It was abhorrent, I thought, that I was doing these foul tasks in exchange for once-a-week access to HITT yoga.

I told Lucy it was my last day, and she said okay and didn't ask why.

Joseph wasn't there the day I quit—it was a different guard, one I'd never seen before.

I tried numerous times to find Joseph on Facebook. But even if I had found his online profile, I'm not sure what I would’ve said. The yoga studio felt like a vacuum in which our friendship existed. I wondered if Joseph ever even considered me a friend. Probably not. He probably just saw me as some blonde girl who wanted free yoga.

A few weeks later my dad called. Our conversation was notably stiff. It was April. We had gone four months without speaking since Christmas. 

"How's your spirit?" my dad asked.

My dad knew that I, like he, suffered from clinical depression. Out of all my family members, he was the most sympathetic. He seldom addressed it overtly and used euphemisms like "spirit" to talk about existential dread. 

"It's okay," I said. "I was working at a yoga studio. For free yoga. But I just quit that."

"That sounds like tough work," he said.

"It was terrible."

"Well," my dad sighed, and the sharp rush of air crackled over the phone. “If you need us to help you with a gym membership. I know we said we wouldn't. But it's a big thing for your spirit. So, we can. If you need it."

A few weeks later, I used my parents' American Express that they'd given to me for emergencies only to sign up for an LA Fitness membership in Playa del Rey. On occasion, I'd drive there erratically when I felt a panic attack coming on, ballooning in my chest. I’d do interval sprints on the treadmill, periodically adjusting incline and speed, cheeks flush, a sweat stain blooming on my crotch.

Eventually, I quit working at the agency and moved to a production company. My new boss wasn't quite so abusive but rather cold, and I often worried that she hated me. And then, after a while, I left Los Angeles altogether. The dreams that had propelled me there lost their shine, or maybe it was that the city that did. I thought about what I had done during my three years there: mostly existing in spaces where I didn’t belong. Like when I attended classes after my shifts at Enlightened Strength, positioned in downward dog, pretending as if I was a member paying the full $250 per month. Like when I would chortle with Joseph, pretending like we had formed an “unlikely friendship.” And pretending was good enough for a while until it wasn't.

It’s been years now since I left California. I still wonder who I will be when I grow up. When will it happen and where will I live? What will I do? For work? For fun?

I wonder if I’ll ever be rich and powerful. If I will ever have a corner office of my own. If I will be stylish, if I will get labiaplasty and be full of self-love, and contentment, and pride. I wonder, I wonder I wonder: Will I be all these things and still be kind?