Coffee With Mara

Mara Morgan is beautiful. Some of it is physical beauty. Her hair is long and wavy, a perfect shade of natural red. Her body is tall and slender, her face expressive. Some of it is the way she holds herself with a sense of natural nobility. Anytime she moves I am reminded of a cat, poised to jump from an impossible height. But really most of it has to do with the intangible field of heightened meaning that surrounds her. It feels like I’ve become part of the story simply by standing next to her. Instead of feeling competitive or threatened, I feel like my own sense of beauty is enhanced. Her beauty is such that the whole world seems more beautiful. 

We’re sitting in a cafe on Piedmont Avenue and I’m glad to be back in the Bay Area, where the light is beautiful and the culture fits me. The sun is streaming through the oversized windows, causing Mara’s hair to look like tiny flames. I vaguely wish I could pull out a camera and capture the effect. It makes me feel like I’m sitting next to a movie star. She is drinking a cup of herbal tea. I’m sipping a large coffee. I’m excited to talk to her about what’s been happening. I’ve been in and out of weird states since we left Germany a few days ago. I feel changed by the trip, changed by what happened between me and grandma. Like I’m not the person I used to be. Like I’m a person with a secret. A secret I’ve been bursting to tell.

 “How have you been?” Mara asks me. “How was your session with Julian?” She beams at me. Maybe she can tell that I’ve changed my mind about the whole energy healing thing. I smile at her. I feel shy, and not sure where to start. Something about the experience is hard to put into words, making me want to be careful. As if the experiences are birds that will fly away if I direct words at them.

“It was really intense.” I say. “And… really different from anything else I’ve done. Like we somehow connected, mind-to-mind. Like I was in an altered state.” She beams at me again. “Yes!” She exclaims excitedly. “I knew you would like it Leia. That’s really great! Tell me everything.” So I do. I tell her about the session with Julian, the dissolving, the sense of being able to see, or touch, or sense his mind. And about my client interactions. I’ve been dying to tell someone, and Mara is a great listener, nodding in just the right places. I tell her about my worry that I’m skirting the edge of crazy, that maybe I’m hallucinating. She winces empathetically. Once or twice she giggles as I describe trying to talk to June about things. “That sounds just about impossible to navigate”, she says. “I can just imagine talking to my old boss about all this stuff. He’d think I was insane.” I nod vigorously, feeling understood. 

Mara and I have been in the process of becoming friends for about a year. She runs a small yoga studio and her classes are by far the best I’ve ever been to. I’m a picky yoga consumer. I hate the let’s-get-to-business-and-sweat variety. If the teacher starts showing off pretzel shapes I’ll leave faster than they can un-pretzel. Mara isn’t like that at all, which is why I love her. Her classes have a spiritual quality to them. Her students leave the room visibly more embodied, at ease with themselves. Like they’ve been part of a sacred ritual, removing the weight of normality for the precious span of an hour.

The waiter brings food, a large salad with salmon and parmesan croutons for me, a dainty almond croissant for Mara. I order a second cup of coffee. The salad tastes amazing after eating German food for a week. I tell Mara about the trip to Germany, about losing the dissolving. “It was just gone. I wasn’t sure if I’d made the whole thing up. Like, maybe I’d just wanted to believe that something like that was possible. All of us being connected, rather than separate.” Mara nods. “It can be a crazy ride”, she says. “How was it to be around your family with all of that?” I grimace. “Nuts”, I say. “This is just about the last thing that would ever make sense to them.” Then I tell her about grandma.

Mara listens with rapt attention, letting me get through the whole story without interruption. It’s a funny feeling, hearing myself say what happened out loud. Like part of me had left what happened uninterpreted until now. Like it is the act of listening that makes what happened real. The dissolving has started up again. The tiny flames of Mara’s red hair have become part of it, like a gentle burning at the edge of my awareness. I wonder if she notices the effect her hair has on me. When I’m finished with the story there is a moment of weighty silence. “Leia”, Mara says. “Leia, this is something.” The flames burn higher at her words, surrounding us in a field of red and orange.

Back at home I’m eating the leftover salmon and salad out of a paper box. Between all the talking and excitement with Mara I didn’t get much of a chance to focus on food. I’m really glad I got to talk to Mara today. Somehow telling her makes me feel more like a new person. Like whatever weird ass thing is happening has now become a part of me, a part of my life. Before I said it out loud it could have been happening to a different Leia, one that isn’t real, or isn’t me. It felt great to have her acknowledge that something really could be happening to me. Something beyond hallucinating. By the end of the conversation, just before I left, Mara suggested that I should reach out to Julian. Ask him to train me. But train me in what, I am wondering. Does what happened mean that I, too, am becoming an energy healer? Should I text Julian?

I’m still pondering as I wander into our living room, where Sarah, Nate and Murphy are hanging out on the living room couches. The couches are beige, with a brown floral pattern. I’m pretty sure they’re antiques, but we got them from craigslist, for two hundred dollars, including delivery. They’re the most comfortable couches I’ve ever sat on. Sarah scoots over and I sprawl out on the couch, my legs stretched over her lap. We haven’t really had a chance to talk alone, the two of us, since my trip to Germany. Since Julian, really. I wonder what she is thinking about. And what she’d think about me becoming an energy healer. 

I’m still pondering half an hour later, halfway through a conversation about one of our friends who is having a baby. Sarah thinks thirty is too early to have kids. Murphy thinks kids eat your life force and passes me a vape. Nate is quiet. And I’m thinking about my client Laney, and her biological clock. And my lack of dating success recently. I glance at my phone when I see that Mara has been texting me. She doesn’t usually text me. Part of me is thrilled that we’re becoming closer friends. “Hi Leia”, she writes. “I’m glad we got to connect today.” I’m glad too. “Can I tell Julian about what we talked about? I think he’d be really interested to hear how your session with him affected you.” Huh, I think to myself. It hadn’t occurred to me to think about Julian that way. Doesn’t he already know how he affected me? It makes me wonder if all of his sessions work the way he worked with me. “Okay”, I text Mara, feeling bubbly and excited.

“What are you thinking about?” Sarah asks me after the baby argument has run its course. “Energy healing”, I answer truthfully. She frowns slightly. “Remember this guy I saw two weeks ago? Julian?” “Mara’s friend”, she answers. I nod. Sarah has come with me to a few of Mara’s classes. But yoga isn’t really her thing. “Mara’s friend”, I say. “He’s offering to train me.” Sarah cocks her head, looking at me. “Weird”, she says. “What’s he like?” I think for a moment. “Mysterious”, I say. “And charismatic. Like he knows things other people don’t. Like he can look at you, and know things about you.” I want to tell her more, give her a sense of what my session with Julian was like. But something in me also wants to hold back. Like I don’t fully trust that she won’t laugh at me, or think I’m crazy. Part of me feels guilty about this distrust. Like I’m being protective over nothing. 

I look at my phone again, where Mara has started a group text with Julian. “The two of you should meet”, she writes. “Julian, I think Leia is having a really interesting response to your session with her. Leia, I’d love for Julian to hear more about your experiences with your clients, and your grandmother. Talk, please.” “Interesting.” He is probably the only person I’ve ever met who uses full punctiation for one word texts. Julian writes. “Leia, are you open to talking about your experiences?” Sarah, Nate and Murphy have gone back to chatting about mutual friends. Seems like the moment for sharing about Julian has passed. “Okay”, I text them. “Let’s meet.”