Well, if you rode with me through yesterday's audio drop of “Armillaria”, first of all, thank you for your supportive presence and gentle holding. I give thanks for you. And, as a “tongue in cheek” more “pleasant” diversion after that, before I go low to let my nervous system recover more, I offer you, “Over My Head”. Yes, yesterday's audio was so intense, even a dentist story fromyesterday sounds light by comparison.

“Over My Head”

It's true, before I went,

I trimmed my fingernails.

“At least if I hit them,

I won't also cut them,”

I thought to myself.

Sure, sure, that all makes me sound pretty violent until you realize I'm talking about the dentist and tooth extraction.

Obviously, it's much more likely I'll shake apart from anxiety than hit anyone but,

still, just in case.

We leave, me ego lamb- slaughter walking, but not empty handed: there's my pocket rock, (highways can happen unplanned!) palm- sized rose quartz good Nancy gave me, a hacky sack and a favorite bandana. Kev was patient, present, kind, making it happen.

We arrived and were welcomed by a young lady who was personable and understanding of my dental high anxiety. Forms and signatures later, I’m taken back to The Chair and meet The Doctor. She agrees, both teeth need to come out. I'm given four or five shots in the roof of my mouth that make me grip the chair like something attacking, hacky sack flat, bandana wet, groin and gut gripped, too fisted to exhale, and still, I cried.

While waiting for the anesthetic to take effect the young dental assistant took me to a small area for what she called a “panorama”, i.e. a surround view x-ray. My instructions seemed simple enough and yet biting the black device the right way seemed to elude me, as I lost more and more feeling in my face. Finally, the right position.

“Now”, she said, “Smile”.

I must have looked at her like she had three heads. “Smile,” she instructed. With the small black bit still between my teeth, I opened enough to ask, “Have you lost all of your mind, right now? Smile? I'm like Joan Rivers with a Yul Brunner hairdo, I should be able to feel if I’m smiling.”

She smiled and with her fingers helped me do the same.

Back in The Chair, The Doctor returned. More numbing was needed. As we waited, my mouth numb, dentist over me on my right, assistant over me on my left, and Lady Gaga starts playing. Their eyes above their face masks didn't seem to appreciate the humor, as through several shots of anesthesia I asked, "Does anyone else appreciate the irony that I'm in a dentist chair while "Pokerface" is playing?"

Maybe not.

As my cheek and gum numbed, the dentist, whose name I had noted earlier as “Dr. Ramya”, asked me how to pronounce my Sanskrit name. My look was meant to question her authenticity. “Why is she, an Indian doctor, asking me how to pronounce my name?,” I wondered. I pronounced my name for her and she told me that my name means “beloved”.

“I know,” I said, “but I forget.”

“And your name must be derivative of the Ramayana and “Ram” is “abode of joy”, I volunteered, when unplanned triangulation became too much and the kind, fair-skinned assistant above my left interjected,

“Hi, if we're meeting, I’m Heather.”

It was genuine. I know, it seems unlikely but it was. I didn't know Heather but I was growing fond of her.

The Extraction began as the dental cantor sang throughout about how well I was doing and I totalled the armrests of the dental chair, chanting, sixteen syllables, breathing through my nose, and after a break and another chorus, I took to be lies, of “it's almost over”, it actually was.

Teeth gone, gauze applied. I'm headlight-stunned and begin to shake, really shake.

“Are you okay?”

Heather asked.

“Do you need to “box breathe? Do you know how?”

“Like 4-7-8 breathing?”,

I asked.

She pointed and traced with her airborne finger the large square window at the foot of the chair.

I looked at Heather, my mouth gross and eyes moist and told her how precious it is that she asked me that. We both noted my legs still vibrating and she asked again, if I was okay.

“It can take awhile. I’m not sure everything has oxygen yet.”

She finished reading aloud the aftercare instructions while I tried to breathe enough to still my trembling limbs and stunned psyche that grief has teeth like this and vice versa.

I promise I’m glad this day is over, but also so grateful to witness, with so much over our heads or seemingly out of reach, what's below our head, what's in our chest remains available, accessible, and eternal.

-Preetam Das Kirtana