Yet Untitled 151 - There’s Something Stuck in my Teeth
Superman has Kryptonite, I have Dental Residue
Dearest Yet Untitler,
This is a short one. But here goes.
Something strange happened the other day. Something got stuck in my teeth, right at the back, and that sent me into abject panic! I initially couldn’t believe the urgent helplessness I felt creeping over me as no amount of effort by my tongue and later by a toothpick could dislodge the (whatever it was) that got stuck there.
To give you a sense of how bad it was - I’m even feeling a tightening in my chest right now while writing about it!
I remember a similar feeling from another time:
I boarded a flight without doing an online checkin beforehand, only to find that I had been assigned the corner seat in the very last row. The flight was completely full, jam-packed, and I was so tightly crammed right into the back that I panicked during takeoff when I realised that I could not stand up and stretch my legs if I wanted to.
Since these two horrible feelings are similar in how they triggered abject dread in me, I thought a little excavating was in order.
Loss of control
Clearly, I do not like it. Do any of us?
There’s a story I read about Yoga maestro BKS Iyengar who was being interviewed by the photographer, Pablo Bartholomew for TIME magazine. Bartholomew recalls of Iyengar while crossing one of his students at a class - BKS noticed that the student was reluctant to go into a difficult pose. The venerable teacher turned to Bartholomew and said “this, what you see here, is the fear of death.”
I’ve practiced yoga for around two decades now, and I’m no stranger to fearing difficult asana, thinking of them as dangerous, unknown lands. I can empathise.
Is not Death seen as a dangerous, unknown land by us - a place where faculties and agency cease to operate? Can the dread triggered by something as mundane as having something stuck in your teeth be made of the same stuff of the dread we feel when staring into the abyss of death?
I suspect that the answer is ‘yes’; and in that case, my God, I marvel at how damn fragile we are.
It makes me shudder: how damn fragile I can be.
I started practising Buddhism nine years ago to rid my life of fear.
To me, this experience of going batshit at having something stuck in my teeth is a significant and humbling reminder that there is still so much distance to travel as far as conquering my fears is concerned. At the same time, I remind myself of the different fears I have conquered over the years. That list exists too. Most notably for me - the despair in the face of my father in law’s cancer diagnosis in 2016 gave way to fortitude in the face of my own father’s loss in 2020 after four years of Buddhist study and practice.
But despite this fact, a morsel stuck at an impossible spot in my teeth still has the power to turn my liver to water.
Interesting.
I find myself thinking of movies in which a supervillain has the superhero strapped to a tabletop and instead of unleashing some horrific, insane torture, they unleash the one thing that they know will break them. That one fear - usually a little child is ushered into the room with a dub to the their head et al et al - still has the power to reduce the tough as nails, entrails for breakfast tough mother****** hero to a whimpering mess.
I find myself thinking of Superman.
Whenever I think of Superman, I think about this song - about Superman and his vulnerabilities.
How did Superman conquer Krytonite?
Hmmm.
I think the answer is that he didn’t.
I find this heartening - the fact that even Superman had his one constant, undisputed vulnerability. Kryptonite, despite its murky green sheen, feels more dignified and cool than a walnut bit stuck in a molar for sure. But I draw solace from the fact that even these - vulnerabilities - are of the same ilk.
But exercise great power over their possessors.
My tooth panic has great power over me.
But it’s ok. I’m not alone in this.
When I found that there was something stuck in my teeth, I ran to the bathroom and desperately tried to dislodge the thing, but no avail. Then I started taking deep breaths, trying to calm myself down, reconciling to the fact that there was an alien object lodged in my body that I would not be able to access. It was there, and there was nothing I could do about it.
Anything constructive that could follow would follow from my making peace with this, understanding that there was an aspect to the situation where I totally lacked control and an aspect to it where I did. Surely, I could decide to look for ways to manage myself and continue to function.
Eventually, my breathing eased. Eventually, the morsel dislodged.
It had served its purpose of telling me that even while my fears and vulnerabilities may remain, I am totally capable of changing in terms of my response to them.
I wish you all great triumph over your fears, dearest YUers. May you all sublimate your Krypronite.
Lots of love
V
P.S. What is your Kryptonite, btw? Tell me, I want to know!
Also, P.P.S - This happened:
Click here to listen.
And lastly…