My Only Friend La Croix - Chapter 14
“Oh, and let me know if my driving makes you uncomfortable, and I mean that truly, please tell me,” Wilson said as he continued to accelerate. We drove through the tunnel in his Audi going 75 in a 45. He stepped on the gas, turned his head slightly towards me, and continued: “I learned to drive in Haiti and if you get an open road, you take it.” There was no one else around. His dog, Nina, was sitting on his lap patiently. He took a puff from his e-stick.
We spotted the fog against the bridge as we exited the tunnel and Wilson was trying to make a game-time decision where we would walk Nina. He seemed about ready to swerve over three lanes and take an exit at any moment, but we ended up cutting through cars all along the Golden Gate Bridge until we hit the exit in the Marin Headlands. He took a call from Miguel before we passed through the one-way tunnel.
“I’ve been working since 6 AM until now,” the voice from the car speaker said. “Roger said that we’ve gotta put this up tonight and I’m about ready to say fuck you and quit.”
Wilson gave him a shred of solidarity. “Oh man, my day, too,” he said. “I had a really nice performance review. I’m flying colors. I’m about to enter the tunnel, though, so I’m going to cut out at any moment. Come by later?”
“No, I’m going to the gym and then I have a girl coming over,” Miguel said.
“Oh, got one of your girls on the way over to give you what you need? Gonna peg you good?” Wilson said. We cut off as we drove through the tunnel and Wilson didn’t call him back.
We walked Nina around Stinson Beach in the moonlight, both of us stomping at full speed, talking about work. The conversation flowed at a mile a minute. Nina ran in circles in the sand and did a solid amount of digging. Wilson told me about how she likes to dive-bomb other dogs and run at them full speed, only to jump over them. He stopped periodically to gaze out into the surf, whispering something about spotting sharks. He said that once you had an eye for it, you could really sniff ‘em out. The moon was bright but I had my doubts. We stood on the delicate bluff among the ice plants and I followed Wilson’s lead in his gaze into the sharp wind coming off the Pacific. Eventually we broke and took a few more strides higher, only to stop and repeat the process over again.
We went back to his apartment in the Marina and snagged some tacos. I scarfed them down while we played a quick game of Smash Bros. I was over-prepared given the amount of time that I spent playing at my last job. One of his fiancée’s friends arrived. They started talking about how the shopping bags from Cabo still hadn’t arrived. Wilson made jokes about her TikTok use influencing her purchases.
“I’m not even on it,” she chimed in.
The candles dimly lit Studio 2. I was the fourth one in the studio, following a slender blonde woman in white yoga pants and a dark sports bra, a man in the front corner in yellow shorts, and a woman to the left side of me as I entered in the western door. The instructor was not in the room yet, although I had seen her just outside a moment ago. I had complimented her Patagonia jacket which was blue with hot air balloons, whimsical and fun for a hot yoga class. She responded that she wasn’t sure why she was wearing it considering it was so hot in the studio. Right she was, a cool 92 degrees. Phoenix in the late October.
A few more yogis trickled in and so did the instructor. She wasn’t wearing her jacket and instead had on a red sports bra and black yoga pants, looking much more the part.
“How’s everyone doing?” she asked. A few of us responded. “I really like this class because you get a chance to hang out in the dark as the sun remains up. It’s a great way to wind down for the day,” she said. The room was generally quiet, dimly lit, and relaxed. “Today we’re going to begin on our backs, so find a comfortable position. I want to begin by really focusing on your breath, so let’s breathe in for the count of four, three…two…one. And hold here for four, three, two, one. And let it all out, four, three…two…one…”
She led us through a warm-up, flexing our knees to our chests and rocking side to side. This class felt a lot more easygoing than those which I’ve participated in before, and at first I thought it due to the fact that it was candlelit. We quickly progressed to tabletop and then to child’s pose, stretching from center to one side to center to the other side. From here we went into downward dog. “Really push through your hands to lower your chest closer to your thighs,” said Anna. I focused and tried to pull my heels down and push through my fingertips and felt the stretch more than usual.
She led us through our first flow. We all inched our feet towards our hands at the tops of our mats with focused breath, then draped our arms and heads down towards the earth. We rocked side to side, relaxed even further. On an inward breath, we raised the crowns of our heads up to stretch toward the mirror in a halfway lift, then back out and down again. On greater inhale we raised our hands to the sky for a mountain pose, pointed pinkies towards the front of our bodies, twisting triceps forward. We grasped our left wrists with the right, pulled in a sideways bend, then breathed in back to center. We did the reverse, right on left, back to center. We did some cactus arms and opened up our chests, then we raised our arms again and put our hands together and lowered down into a forward fold, dropped our hands to the mats, and flowed, push-up to upward facing dog to downward facing dog.
On the second pass of this flow, at the peak of our mountains, Anna called out to the class to seal an intention. “The intention that I’d like to call out to today is joy. Whatever brings you the most bountiful joy, person, place, or thing—focus on that and seal that as your intention.”
A few people flashed into my mind. The Rat was the first that came to mind, then Dee, then I thought about rock climbing. Eventually I settled on thoughts about My Only Friend La Croix. Yet again I couldn’t believe that the synapses in my head have molded themselves to gravitate around sparkling water. I smiled at the thought and proceeded to cherish My Only Friend La Croix nonetheless.
We progressed through more poses, mostly centered around low lunges. We made it to the end of the practice. We held our hands together, then rubbed them for warmth. Anna instructed us to place our hands on our heart’s center, and again, Anna made a callout to focus on whatever we set as our intention at the beginning of class. “Focus again on the thing that brings you the deepest joy—person, place, or thing, and thank yourself as well.” I thought about My Only Friend La Croix. It felt more natural this time, as for why wouldn’t I be happy about La Croix?
I went about my day and finished the day with a session at Benchmark. I saw the woman that I had been crushing on for a while—only to find out that she was engaged. It was jarring, given our back-and-forth. Her fiancé was one of the coaches at the climbing gym.
I aimed to end my day as relaxed as possible, trying to quiet my inner voice as I stood in the shower smelling the fresh pine body wash, lathering it on my skin in a twisting of arms, feeling my freshly-used, sore muscles and noting their swelling in rare places as I ran my hands over them, noticing the grit of the wash as it scratched my upper arm, tight and wailing from climbing. Still, I came back to thinking-brain and was grounded in my mind, which itself was still sore from the thought of meeting Allie’s fiancé. Life was good, but dating was proving hard. It felt like there were roadblocks at every endeavor. Fits and starts. I had been in such a pleasant mental place before, letting the water drip down over my closed eyes, tilting my head back as to hear the sound against my skull by my hairline, imagining that I was within a waterfall, experiencing a low bliss. Here I was, again in thought, and I wanted to be calm as the waterfall so I tried to truly feel the heat of the water. The warmth of my own body came struck me so I went out calling for a cool drink of My Only Friend La Croix. I pulled up my gaze and saw his soft and subtle frame above the door to the shower, seemingly as tan as the rest of the bathroom, illuminated by a single candle atop the toilet which allowed My Only Friend La Croix and the two sleek Le Labo bottles to play camouflage against the hazy wall. I stared at My Only Friend La Croix alone, his bold navy cursive looking me dead in the eye, and I pulled him down and took a swig then thought about how good my sore body felt and that nothing else may matter so long as I be jacked, amen.