The Blue Robe
Kathy Rhodes
The powder blue fleece robe hangs on a white hook just inside the closet door. I reach for it every morning after my shower. Soft and seasoned, it is worn in just right, feels good next to my skin, and is my top choice over the pink terry and white chenille. But it has a checkered past.
It goes back to the summer of ’98. My son went to Summer Solstice that year—his first long road trip out west alone, a ride on the wild side, in my opinion. I didn’t like it at all. He’d been drawn away from his Baptist heritage that year by a middle-aged man who lived among students on a college campus, teaching them the practice of kundalini yoga, the “yoga of awareness,” the path to a clear mind and healthy life through self-discovery of their creative potential.
My son let his hair get long and grew a beard. He meditated in white pants and a white robe like the kind he wore to karate lessons as a child. He had a long, narrow piece of white material he rolled around his head like a turban. When he was home, his soothing music floated downstairs, and I knew he was doing yoga exercises. He grew to depend on his teacher and spiritual leader for counseling on social issues and relationships and for guidance in life decisions.
“His name means ‘the lion that takes good news across the oceans,’” my son said of this man who played the role a Baptist youth minister should have played.
I knew he was able to offer my son something no one else ever had—the ability to find peace in the midst of life’s noise and confusion, to control his thoughts and feelings while the world around him was falling apart.
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Kundalini yoga is an ancient science that combines postures, movements, breathing, stretching, relaxation, meditation, rhythm, and sound current to work on every aspect of the being. It brings balance to the body, mind, and soul. It teaches positive, self-empowering attitudes of thinking and builds inner strength and self-awareness so one can fulfill his highest potential.
Yogi Bhajan first brought the magic of kundalini yoga to the Western World at Woodstock, my generation’s ride on the wild side, in 1969. Bhajan believes the body has a natural euphoric state that can be reached without the use of unnatural substances. He believes harmony, peace, and tranquility exist for those who go inside themselves.
Kundalini yoga enables one to harness the energy of the mind and the emotions, so he can be in control of himself, rather than being controlled by his own thoughts and feelings.
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Because I am controlled by my thoughts and feelings, my son and I had a hard time connecting that summer.
“Mama, you need to be doing this, too.” He urged me to do yoga exercises with him. “You’re too uptight.”
Then he went off to the mystical Jemez Mountains for a spiritual high, following I-40 across the country to Santa Fe, following his spiritual leader, all the way to Summer Solstice, the biggest yoga gathering in the world, ironically in a location very near the Sangre de Cristo, Blood of Christ, mountains where he had spent earlier summers at a Baptist conference center. While he was off meditating, reaching tranquil heights, sleeping in a tent, and not bathing, I sat at home strapped in the pit of worry.
After Summer Solstice he trekked up the road to Crested Butte in the heart of the Rockies to visit a high school buddy. A lot of his former classmates did the same thing that summer—their chance to experience the Colorado mountains free of charge. Another former classmate and solstice attendee, female, free spirit, a wanderer whose mama probably sat at home worrying like me, threw all her stuff in his trunk and hitched a ride with him to Crested Butte. Then my son came home alone—with all her stuff in his trunk. We stored her possessions in a closet, waiting for her to come claim them. Two years went by. She never came. I finally threw away her pillow, sleeping bag, a coat, several small items, and then I came across the powder blue robe. It caught my eye.
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Powder blue was my signature color all through high school and college. I thought it was the color I looked best in. I felt good about myself in powder blue—my cheeks were soft and pink, my eyes a pale reflection. I remembered my powder blue wool pleated skirt, sweater vest, powder blue-and-white-striped blouse with white frills on the cuffs and collar, and powder blue fishnet stockings to match. I remembered the powder blue grosgrain ribbon I wore in my flip hairdo. Those were the days before color analysis.
Color analysis teaches the appropriate season for one’s coloring, based on blue and yellow skin tones, thus helping one to dress effectively. First impressions are made in ninety seconds. Color is the first thing people notice.
Color analysis taught me that I had inherited summer coloring from my father, rendering me soft in powder blue, but also I had inherited a strong autumn influence from my mother, and I really looked better in royal blue. I had been wrong all those years.
I suddenly felt ashamed and shallow for spending time and energy enriching my outer self, seeking to look good, to make good impressions on others, to be the best I could be based on physical appearance, while my son was spending time and energy on his inner self, seeking to be healthy, happy, and holy, to find peace within himself, to be the best he could be based on an inner balance.
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I unfolded the powder blue robe and held it up. J.Crew, excellent shape, size medium. Hmm. This could work. No-o-o-o. Me? Wear a second-hand bathrobe from a stranger who had been God knows where and done God knows what in it? Still, it gripped me. I ran it through three wash cycles in hot water, Lysol, and Cheer, and dried it with a Mountain Spring scented sheet.
I put an arm in each warm sleeve, wrapped the soft powder blue around me, tied it at the waist. The fit was perfect. The feel was cozy. The robe was mine.
I had earned it during those days of worry as my son drove west to that gathering of strange people doing strange things, and then north on narrow mountain roads with a girl I didn’t know, a girl who never claimed her belongings.
The robe is my trek off the beaten path, my souvenir of a ride on the wild side. It is my connection to my son from a time when we couldn’t connect. When I wear the powder blue robe, I think of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which I visited at the age my son was that summer—where God reaches out to Man, parent to child, fingertips touching, point of contact, Adam awakened. Except in the summer of ’98, it was the son who awakened the parent.
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Kathy Rhodes is the publisher and editor of Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal. "The Blue Robe" is from her book of essays, Pink Butterbeans: Stories from the heart of a Southern woman. Although this essay was published three years ago, she is still wearing that seasoned blue robe and will never, ever let it go.
©
Kathy Rhodes