Months ago, a teacher for whom I felt professionally ambiguous about, announced a retreat and invited me to come. I was enticed but passed. Months later my ambiguity had grown to esteem, he was honest in his intentions even though his practice and knowledge is a bit lacking. What I like about his way of teaching is that he studied acting and comes from the performative arts, so he puts into yoga an uncommon ingredient which is drama and theater, and with him I’m learning to add emotion into my movement. When we gossip about our favorite teachers in the locker room I always warn that Camilo is not for everyone, the very thing that initially irked me is what I’m now enjoying the most.

It could be a mania episode. He’s organizing too many retreats and events, one per month and “extra-curricular” classes on Sundays. He would need to be a world-class athlete-yogi to accomplish that, he’s trying to play major league when he’s clearly in the second division. I write this with the appreciation that he would not be able to direct the class as he does if he did not believe in himself, and that if he’s successful in his endeavor I’d be happy to be proven wrong (that means my success intuition needs a revision), but I doubt this is the case.

Furthermore and perhaps more serious is the initial charm cracking to reveal a narcissistic individual. The problem would not be that he believes himself to be better than he actually is, but that you experience in the relationship a need for admiration and loyalty. The façade was different, but underneath it is the same personality as my grandmother’s. There’s hints of verbal abuse towards his partner and many many details that form a full picture that I trust is accurate, because it has taken time to form and because I’m familiar with it.

After originally passing on the retreat, my esteem for him grew and I inquired about the event. He said it was full, but there was another one the next month, but it was a shame because he wanted me to come to this one, where there would be seasoned and intense practitioners. I said whatever ping me if somebody drops out, I might be available to take the spot. He twisted his face, as if I had something out of the ordinary, and my appeasing personality gave him a little ego boost to get me off the hook. I notice the reaction here should have been to stare seriously. You don’t play games with narcissists.

Before boarding the train I went to Mercadona to buy 18 boiled eggs. Meals will be vegetarian and I’ll suffer the food. I’ll suffer the teacher, probably the classmates too. Ugh when you’ve already paid a 350€ retreat but your forecast is so dire, you must wonder if it’s not a better investment to stay at home. But new experience, good or bad, is worth something. Repeating the same hazed weekend over and over is not.

The train has arrived to Arévalo, let’s go.

I couldn’t publish this from the train because I had no internet connection at the moment of arrival. I’m on the second day of the retreat, and I’m waiting us to be called for “satsang” which is usually a speech given by the teacher but this time it was framed as a debate of the community.

The topic of the discussion started with “what is real” and many airy and aspirational ideas were passed around, I did not participate in this part of the debate because “what is real” is a fucking difficult question that has changed so much throughout human history that whatever I articulate will not come close to it, even if I was both the smartest and most attuned mystic in the world.

Somehow the discussion passed to politics and the topic of Donald Trump. Same story as always: he’s an idiot, mysoginist, racist, elitist, lacking empathy to which I wholeheartedly agree, but then “the people who voted him are ignorant and stupid” to which Lola (a trans mtf woman) said wait a minute, that’s the mistake that has brought us to where we are, in which we dismiss whatever concerns the people who voted for Trump had. Three of us joined this position, I said for all the lack of empathy Trump has I’m not seeing much for the people who voted him. We dismiss their concerns because we think of them as subhuman. Yadda yadda.

After the discussion I overheard Lola speaking with another classmate about her transition. I sat down next to them and asked if it was OK to overhear the conversation. I have practiced and chatted with Lola because sometimes we meet in class, but I had never had this conversation with her. The classmate was really bad with questions and I noticed. I was reminded of V. who told a friend about her pregnancy, how did she react? I asked. V. said she drilled me with questions. Like what? Where I did it, how long did it take, how much did it cost, that kind of thing. I said “are you kidding me? What is important is “why did you decide to do this?”, “how long have you been thinking about it?” “did you change your mind or did you always want to have children?” I just blurted these out as obvious and V. said “exactly, I would have liked to answer those questions, I don’t know why people ask meaningless details”. This was exactly what I was seeing.

So, after a couple of minutes of enduring meaningless questions I asked a seemingly innocuous question: “how long ago did you decide to transition?” and he smiled saying he couldn’t answer that question without going into the details to which I smiled and assented as if saying “exactly”. He said he was married and had a child at 31 but felt a phony and ungrateful for having everything that is supposed to make you happy, but he was worse than ever. He knew it since he was 13 but always repressed it and hating himself for wanting it. A follow-up question: how did people react when you told them? He was surprised at the full support from his friends and family, though I sensed a certain tension in his voice which I could sense what it meant but I knew this wasn’t the time to go any further.

At the end of this lengthy three-way conversation (which I fail to capture fully) she asked, well, what do you think? And I said: we had only chatted about superficial stuff at the studio and of course I had filled many gaps in my mind about the kind of person you are, and I’m pleasantly surprised to find not only that you are very different than I thought, but that we share a lot in common. Especially surprising was the news that you like women, that’s something we both like! and she chuckled at the inaneness of my comment.

I still believe that we need not to transition to anything in order to accept ourselves. This applies in all aspects of identity: if I am Mexican but I feel Spanish (not the case), I do not need a citizenship to accept myself. I accept myself as a Mexican with Spanish aspirations, and only then can the transition happen without attachment.

I write this partly because it’s obvious she is not yet happy. She feels she will be happier when she starts hormone treatment, and she wants to keep her penis (which I think is positive, especially if she likes women). But I also find myself writing about her in the feminine without any qualms, whereas I don’t know if I would have done it if I hadn’t spoke with her about this before. I respect her sense of gender because we’ve had this conversation, and she’s never asked me to give her any pronoun. In fact, one guy (gay) accidentally called her “him” to me in his presence, and he quickly corrected himself by saying “Lola”, and she waved it away as something without importance.

Something I did notice were the features of a character that has gone through a deep personal crisis. She had empathy and understanding, but also a disposition to cut through bullshit and confront reality were things I liked from her character.

It’s funny, I just realized she transitioned in my mind. I used to think about her as a guy who dresses as a woman, and now this concept doesn’t make sense (neither it makes sense that she is a woman). The best way to explain it is that I understand her better and I accept her invitation to treat her as a woman. I will surely greet with two kisses and open the door for her into the men’s locker room of the yoga studio (my guess is that this is not her choice).

Phew! I’m back home and happy to have gone to the retreat. It went better than I expected, a solid “good” on all fronts. The teacher knows he is manipulative and dramatic but he accepts it. Underneath everything I still sense the wanting of the role of the modern democratic guru, and to build a community around him and feed off that energy. There might be ego-inflation but it will self-correct in time. I just sent the teacher and the organizer (his boyfriend) a thank you note, I had a good time and I wish them well in their community endeavor, which they call Sangha.

At the end of the retreat we all made rounds to the front and we were told by other attendants how they perceived us. Many were repeated among participants; everyone was kind, peaceful, etc. but we listen for salient patterns, for example someone said “mystery” to me, and I saw many heads assent. This gave me pleasure and I noticed it, and smiled.

Then it was our turn to say some words about what the community (people present) had given to us. I said that I was the kind of person that needed a lot of alone time and that my biggest fear is that I would find myself wanting myself to leave in a bus back to Madrid. Re-reading myself, I see it was not about the need to be alone, but the distaste about the teacher the thing that I feared.

“and even though I didn’t have the chance to interact with a lot of you, I greatly enjoyed the chats I had with many of the faces I’ve seen at different studios. I know I may appear quiet and distant at the studio but I’m actually willing and happy to connect and if we meet again in the future I’m sure we’ll say hello warmly” (or something to that effect).

The teacher gave me some reassurance in which he said I’ve been quiet, but my quietness is not uncomfortable, if there’s nothing to say it’s fine to be quiet. I assented and agreed. During the retreat I overheard many conversation in which I had no interest in taking part. I only speak when I have something to say, and that’s fine.

When I first arrived to the retreat I went to the space where practice was to take place and I stood next to the mat where I wanted to practice. The room was empty, except for a woman who came behind me. She walked next to me and stood on the mat I had chosen. I looked at her and then at the mat next to me, wondering if I should move aside, but then I said to her “what is this? A challenge?” she laughed and caressed the front of my thigh with her fingers, and scurried away, which I understood as a tease. She was provoking me.

When she turned back I recognized her for her tattoos: she has a coiled serpent on her lower back, the head looking up. On her upper back theres a large compass. I had practiced with her a long time ago, only one, but she had caught my attention. I was immediately behind her which is why I recognized the tattoos, and she moaned in a sexual way during the most demanding asanas which is why I remembered.

Despite the unbearable libido I’ve been experimenting in the last few months, this woman didn’t really entice me, and it was difficult for me to explain why. I thought I wanted exactly this, an experimented and assertive woman to take away my two-ish year celibacy so I could move on and stop “putting pussy on a pedestal”, but now that I had it in front of me I wasn’t interested. She is reasonably attractive and fit, so I wondered if I was cock-blocking myself or I had just strangled my sexual energy during the retreat as a survival mechanism for this retreat.

She would go on flirting in this physical way throughout the retreat. The teacher used my back as an example on how to push and pull your scapulae (the visibility of my muscles and bones makes it very convenient) and she would touch my back pretending to get a better understanding of the movement. Or she would pass by and tickle my feet when I was lying down. Or brush my shoulder when she passed by at dinner time. It was pleasant but not enticing, and I made no move or effort at conversation, I’d just smile at her when our paths crossed.

My blocking sexual energy theory was dispelled in one of the closing exercises, when the teacher put us sitting down in a circle, our back facing the person behind us. We would first start by giving a massage to the person in front of us, and then laying down and relaxing on their back. In front of me was Jara, a tall and slim yet strong woman who I found reasonably attractive but kind of serious and unfriendly. As I was massaging her back I felt my libido come back and I was pleasantly surprised, “oh good I’m not blocked” I thought. I did not have an erection but it felt like I could have one if I wanted. I laid on her back with immense pleasure, it felt sublime, I was really yearning for this type of contact and I didn’t know it.

At the end of the retreat I was meant to go in a car driven by Lola, but it turned out Jara lived near my house, and another attendant lived near Lola, so we switched places. As I was the largest person in the car I took the front seat. At first the people in the back were talking inane things, yoga cult series they had seen on Netflix and such. Jara and myself kept quiet until a guy got the story of Osho the other way around. “No, everyone in this story is an asshole, Osho followers sprinkled salmonella on the salad bars of the town to prevent people from voting the next day” and everyone was so suprised, and I was surprised at their surprise. I don’t understand how just people are finding out that a great deal of yoga teachers are abusers, from Netflix out of all places. If you are going to get spiritual guidance from someone, the way in which they live their lives matters a lot. Who would be Jesus, Socrates or Buddha if they didn’t act in accordance to their words? And even when Netflix presents you a pre-defined narrative, you can’t even watch the series to the end and you get the story backwards because you evidently didn’t finish seeing it? I was irked by the conversation so I changed it as soon as I could.

I asked Jara what she liked the most about her work as a pediatrician. “Surely the kids” I said “yes, it’s the kids, I love seeing them and helping them get better” she said. “That’s because you don’t know my nephew” I joked. And we went into many interesting nooks and crannies of her profession, which she loves doing, and how she compliments it with her yoga practice. She gives classes to her co-workers early in the morning for free.

When I was speaking with a fellow nomad about the perks and sacrifices of mobile life she participated: I too get fed up after a number of years at the same hospital. I take a break and I do volunteer work for a while, that helps with the burnout and I’m happy to come back to work. “What do you do as volunteer work” oh last time I went to Kenia to a remote village where a hospital is being built. And we spoke about what she saw and how much she enjoyed the green and the quiet in a remote corner of Africa.

As she was speaking I was more and more mesmerized by her character and appearance. She was obviously very smart and dedicated, but also she seemed to be turning more and more beautiful to my eyes as I was speaking with her. By the end of the ride I had a full-on crush and I was glad to notice it, it had been so long I was worried something inside of me had broken and even though I can find women very attractive it’s rare that I actually like them. This woman I liked.

Back at home I reflected on the matter. I have no idea if she’s in a relationship, but it would be straightforward to ask and be open about it: “hey I found you to be a very interesting person and I’d like to grab coffee some day. If you are relationship that’s fine, I just hope you take it as a compliment”. Still, I’ll let my feelings simmer a bit before asking her out.

What I got out of these interactions with women, is that despite my avoidance I’m more drawn to a relationship than casual sex. Deep down I know it’s impossible for me not to mix feelings and sex, and having casual sex is a recipe for falling in love with the wrong person. I’ll also be very frank here and write that my coping mechanism with women was building the relationship first because the initial sex is bad unless the woman leads (it gets better with time), but this time around I sense something inside me has changed, I could be excellent in bed with a woman whom I liked without having to build up to it because now I know how to both relax and become more intense at the same time.