open my eyes. My breathing is long and deliberate as I cross my bedroom and sit gently before the mirror in my vanity. The breathing is my connection to the now, to the present. Dr. Gray says I worry too much about my past. Thich Nhat Hanh says I shouldn’t worry so much about my future. The one thing they seem to agree upon is that I need to spend more time in the moment, and it seems to me that since one of them is an Upper East Side shrink and the other is a Buddhist monk, if there is anything about my life that they fully agree upon it is probably worthy of consideration.
I force myself to move slowly through the apartment. Moving slowly does not come naturally for me, neither does the meditation or the breathing or the yoga, but it helps.
In the refrigerator, I find the plastic bag marked TUESDAY. I empty its contents into the blender, add a half-cup of almond milk, and flick the switch. Thirty seconds later I am drinking a shake as I flip on CNBC. It is five minutes past six.
Ten minutes later I am on the treadmill with buds in my ears, squinting as the sun rises above the towering skyscrapers. The stock ticker is scrolling beneath the silent faces on my television. Nothing exciting there, nothing I didn’t know last night. Up and down the channels I ride, never once raising the volume. There isn’t any reason to listen to the television in the morning. All you need to do is read. On the business channels they scroll the S&P futures and results from the trading in the Asian markets, on the news channels they scroll the headlines of the day, on the sports channels they scroll the scores, on the network channels they scroll the weather. I am fully informed by merely reading the bottom three inches of my television. The people talking are a complete waste of time.
I strap my heart-rate monitor in place beneath my sports bra and start to walk. After a five-minute warm-up it is time to get serious. I crank the treadmill to seven miles per hour and the incline to three degrees. It is totally silent in my apartment; the only sounds in any of the fourteen rooms come from my running shoes squeaking on the band. I don’t have the music on yet. I save that for about twenty minutes in, when I need a little encouragement. Today I feel great, and I crank up the treadmill early in my run. Eight miles per hour. Four degrees of incline. That’s a lot. But I can handle it. I click on my iPod and scroll through the list of artists. Who should we listen to today? Dr. Dre? Snoop Dogg? Eminem? It feels like a day to go new-school. I click on Jay-Z.
After a shower I am in the dressing room, where I have laid out my wardrobe the night before. A double stretch wool anatomical jacket and matching skirt by Brioni, covered by a waterproof silk parka trimmed with Mongolian fur—it’s supposed to rain—and Prada ankle boots. Then back to my vanity, where I breathe a deep sigh at the sight of my reflection; not such a pretty picture at this hour of the morning, especially not with the bright sunlight streaming through the windows directly behind me. Still, it’s nothing that can’t be salvaged. A few strokes and pats and brushes and dabs and I am as good as new, or as new as I can be.
Then I bow my head slowly and close my eyes. I know the car is waiting downstairs. I know the day is waiting outside the window. I know the vultures are waiting around every turn, but now is not the time for those. I reconnect with my breathing. Inhale deeply, exhale deeply. In, out. In. Out.
May I be filled with loving-kindness
May I be well
May I be peaceful and at ease
May I be happy
I raise my chin and allow my eyelids to peel gently apart. “Fuck him,” I say, looking myself square in the eyes, “and all the others out there like him.”
In the lobby I find Maurice waiting. He tips his cap as I approach and hands me a grande skim latte with no foam. “Good morning, Katherine,” he says in his usual familiar tone.
“Back at ya,” I say, my customary response.
“Cold out there today,” he says, and hands me my Wall Street Journal.