Yesterday after Preston’s forty-second class, he posted on Facebook: “42. The meaning of life, the universe, and everything.” For a moment I thought Preston had a profound spiritual experience in class, and then realized it was a reference to the comic science fiction classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy wherein the supercomputer Deep Thought is tasked with determining the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, and the Answer is 42.
I got the “42” reference, but confess I’m no Hitchhiker’s buff, so I had to do a little internet research when Preston’s blog post yesterday said “Don’t panic. Bring a towel.” (Both in the top ten pieces of advice I give to new students, but what did that have to do with 42?)
Turns out, just as for a Bikram yoga student, for a galactic hitchhiker having a towel is a big deal: “Somebody who can stay in control of virtually any situation is somebody who is said to know where his or her towel is.” See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy
On the significance of towels from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value. You can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a miniraft down the slow heavy River Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (such a mind-bogglingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.
More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitchhiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have "lost." What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
See quotation at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towel_Day (emphasis added).
With this description in mind I couldn’t help but think of the hitchhiker’s towel as a symbol analogous to the practice of yoga. It is about the most massively useful thing we can have as we navigate our lives: useful both for its practical physical/health benefits and also for its significant psychological/mental/emotional benefits. Yoga practice cultivates the ability to breathe and even smile through the length and breadth of the challenges that life brings—whether that is through triangle pose, an inconsiderate encounter, or something much more serious. No matter what comes, yoga is always there; even as you consider your Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. If you can bring your yoga with you wherever you are in life, you are a force to be reckoned with; there is tremendous strength in the ability to stop, take a deep breath, and then move forward to act consciously rather than simply react.
I’m grateful to travel life as your sister. I love and admire you, Preston, for your loving and caring nature, your willingness to walk to the beat of your own drum, your creativity and artistic talent, and your vulnerability in going after bold goals and sharing those goals and the ups and downs you experience along the way. You are a force to be reckoned with. I hope you always travel with this experience and your yoga towel as a source of strength. I love you.
I love you too, Jill.
Namaste.
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