The Gaze

Drishti in Sanksrit

“Look down…no, not that low, higher” as he took the bottom of the pants folded what may have been four or five inches above for my short little fat legs that always needed custom alteration. “Nerkev” that meant down, because somehow he sensed my every movement as he focused his eyes around my ankles. I could never get it right. Or so I thought. This plagued me for the rest of times. I could never get it right. That standing still part. I still don't. I suppose, my grandfather was my first meditation teacher. He told me to stand quietly and look forward, without movement. He said that if I were to talk or move it would go all wrong. It was important that each step of that process was done with meticulous focus and precision. He made sure his wife heard him from across the very small room, “Mkrate ber.” (Bring my shears). No, not those ones. Yes, those! Not sure if he actually used them right then and there or he needed them for good measure or a habit he had discovered dating as far back as his apprenticeship when he was seventeen. I wish I had some answers to the questions that I never got to ask. I didn’t think he would be gone. I thought I had time.  

I read something somewhere that when a boat is about to capsize the captain recommends that his crew look straight into the horizon. The zero degree line. I suppose the reasoning behind this is such. If one begins to look up or down there may come a state of panic that can be avoided by simply looking forward. 

This looking up into the heavens and celestial skies is a gesture of hopefulness and this looking down of hopelessness. No wonder when the ship is about to go down, the captain attempts to bring equanimity and calm, which may very well save the ship. I wonder if it is that level of focus that we lose along the way that eventually results in a catastrophic shipwreck of our own lives before we are able to bring it all back home. In the practice of yoga too, it is about coming to midline. Extend left, then right. Back to center. And, off we go. Once a very good friend during the first few months of my public teaching said, “Armen, you missed the other side…you don’t want to leave people leaving the room unbalanced.” But, I did. For a very long time, I did not know how to come back home. To midline.

My grandmother brings the scissors and likely puts it on that dining table where I am standing knowing very well that he won’t be using that and he didn’t urgently need the scissors. She goes back to making white bean soup or meatball soup. Quite honestly, whatever she made was the best thing in the world for this hungry boy.  He takes this rectangular white chalk, shaped like lice comb from what I remember and marks a horizontal line across where my new pants would end a few inches below my ankles, no longer below my shoes scraping dirt off the floors. In a few days he’d get the deed done. He’d finally use the scissors. 

I’d have to return to their house, likely after school to wear those pants again and hop on that dining table again. I quite frankly would have preferred never to wear uncomfortable pants. He would be very proud of the work he did. Sometimes he would see his own flaws and immediately remedy them. He would never let me leave with imperfect hems. The minutes I had to stand in stillness felt like years. I would hold my breath at the fear of messing up. It could all go wrong even if I brought my eyes down. This militaristic hold was too repressing for this boy, but he did it. I inherited his meticulous nature. Making sure things are at a hundred percent. And, I have been spending the last twenty years finding harmony with that and letting go.

My grandfather was my biggest fan. I carry his name. The story goes that he really wanted every letter of his name transferred over to me. My mom in the hospital bed made the executive decision that the name was too archaic and she would not call me that, but my legal name has two additional letters that I don’t really tell people, AK. He was Armenak. And, the way he left us was by being surrounded by every family member he knew who was in the US at the time. In 1997, at a wedding after he invited my grandmother for the very last dance of La Cumparsita. They danced and then I remember people saying how he was very protective of my sister that day and he called her over and had a few minutes with her. She was only three at the time. And, time was blurry that evening, but I remember paramedics rushing in. The music stopped. I started asking questions and no one would give me answers. All I got were lies that night. I heard that he’s fine and we’re going to visit him at the hospital in the morning. The same night in London, Princess Diana got into an accident and died. My grandfather's heart stopped working too. 

We started dancing again, but I knew when my dad, who was the best man at that wedding got up, took the mic and assured everyone en masse that he was doing ok, that he was not. My hearts of hearts knew. I later found out this white lie was necessary in order to keep the evening moving. I resent that wedding until this day. That grief I was able to make sense of two decades later in my living room when it all made sense. Rage turned into forgiveness and acceptance then understanding.

What was this deep grief that he was holding on to that weakened his heart at a very young age. As far as I can remember his heart failed him frequently. And, did I somehow, through the magic of those dressmaking metal shears which touched my pants and inherently my skin, I took on not only his name, but his grief too. Or was it in that very moment that I was able to hit a moment of meditative stillness on that table that his sigh, and his relief that he was finally done with this nerve wracking process of making things right, included this death of a breath. As he took his exhale was that the exact moment that I swallowed it all in. The intergenerational rage. The wars and the displacements that brought upon a Shiva like destructiveness, one that he, and later I, would use it to go to war with my self.

Years later, I got the instruction to look straight into the horizon. This was in Los Angeles. At Larchmont Village. Keeping the crown of the head parallel to the sky. The back plane of the head perpendicular to it. Chin not that high. Eyes soft. Straight into the horizon. This drishti, this gaze, a component quite important for the yogic path.

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