I AM STANDING OUTSIDE my therapist's office, unsure if I'm allowed to bring a toddler into the little room from which Hippy Harry conducts his unique blend of Buddhism and psychotherapy.  He calls it the 'mental sanctuary' and I can't think of anything less sanctuary-respecting than a 2-year-old.

I've left Buddy a series of text and voice messages inquiring as to how his me-time is going and when, exactly, he thinks it might be over and if that might, possibly, be before my 4 pm therapy appointment. So far, there's been no response. This leaves me having to decide between late-cancelling my appointment with Harry or just bringing Angel in with me. Despite being all zen and yogic normally, Harry gets surprisingly snippy when I cancel without notice, so I decide to take my chances and bring her with me.

I bat gently at the windchimes Harry has hung outside the dingy office door. As much as he tries to imbue his little room with the woody scents and silky textures of some far off eastern land, the fact remains that in order to enter the mental sanctuary, you first have to climb a urine-smelling set of stairs, then make your way down an industrial-carpeted beige hallway of small office doors—tax accountant, RMT, Nutritionist, then Harold Hargrove, Registered Psychotherapist.

The beige door opens inward and a waft of patchouli incense greets our noses. Angel twitches, so I quickly unwrap a (sugar-free!) Baby MumMum and hand it to her.

"Alice, wonderful to see you," says Harry. "Oh. We have a guest with us today!"

Harry beams down at Angel, who eyes him suspiciously while sucking on her rusk.

"I hope it's okay," I explain. "I'm babysitting for a friend who really needed some time off — only I didn't think it would be quite this much time. This is Angel. Angel, this is Harry."

"Alice, it's more than okay! Children are innately tuned into the cosmic truth. They're like the tuning forks of the spiritual world! Here," he ushers us inside. "She can play with my Tibetan singing bowls while we chat."

I unleash her from the stroller she's been strapped into most of the day, and she slides out gratefully, testing her legs by running manic circles around the floor cushions that Harry has instead of proper chairs.

He settles onto the floor, zen-ly ignoring the speedy toddler and motions for me to lie on the floor in front of him.

"Tell me," he intones warmly, "How have your chakras been feeling?"

I unfold myself onto the floor and close my eyes, accustomed to this strange routine after more than a year of coming here.

"Umm. Good, yeah. I mean... I think."

A smooth, round piece of quartz is placed on my forehead, and Harry's warm fingertips make circles on my temples.

"I sense some stress," he says in a quiet voice. "And, oh. Your hair is sticky."

My hands flutter around over my body nervously. "Right, sorry about that."

"Alice, we don't say the s-word here in the sanctuary. You have nothing to apologize for. Your external self is of no concern to us here. We're interested only in your spiritual truth."

I force my hands back down to my sides and more cool rocks get balanced on me.

"Let's take a deep breath in. Breathe new air into your heart chakra."

I take a long, slow inhale and feel the miraculous calm come over me. I know how silly all this sounds, but I keep coming back because, while Harry isn't really much of a life coach, something about lying on the floor with rocks on myself is completely relaxing and affirming somehow.

"Okay, tell me where the stress is coming from. Where is it sitting?"

I can feel Angel clambering over the floor pillows nearby, but try not to worry about what she's getting into. Focus, Alice, I remind myself. Where is your stress sitting?

"Um. Between my shoulder blades?" I venture, mentally feeling around my body for tension. "No, maybe lower than that." My mind identifies a black, scary lump of bad feelings that seem centralized in my buttocks, but I can't tell Harry that. He might think I'm being inappropriate.

"In your lower back?" he asks. I can't see them, but I know his hands are hovering across my belly, searching out the negative energy store.

"Sure. Ish. A little lower than my back, I guess?" I say, wanting to be honest, but critically, not wanting to mention my bottom.

"Okay, I want you to live in that stress for a minute. Feel it out. Define it for me. What's it made of?"

"Ummm. Like, sort of... embarrassment, I think?"

"What are you embarrassed about?" he asks, just as a clattering of metal comes from the other side of the room.

My eyes flip open to see that Angel has pulled a box of Buddhist prayer bells out onto the floor.  "Sorry!" I say, instinctively lifting my head, causing my forehead quartz to fall onto the carpet.

"S-word!" he reminds me. "It's fine. Angel is exploring her environment. Children are drawn to the mysteries of the universe. Let her be. Close your eyes, please."

The quartz is promptly redeposited on my forehead.

I take another cleansing breath in and then tell Harry all about the TikTok video, my teenage daughter who should be at school but for some reason isn't, the worry about the cafe's profitability (or lack thereof) and the irritation I felt when Joss Carvil showed up today claiming to know how to fix it. The last thing in the world I would ever do, I explain to Harry, eyes still closed, is take advice from a corporate food conglomerate with a business model that's based on eating up small, independent brands, chewing up everything that was good about them and spitting them out, transformed into huge mega-chains.

"Not even if it could secure the jobs of the people you employ and keep your cafe running?"

"Trust me, Harry. Joss Carvil is a corporate predator and my business is prey. He doesn't want to help. I think he saw the buzz that stupid dancing video is getting, and he wants to turn that into profit."

"Is that so bad?" Harry asks. I mean, really. This, from a person who dresses exclusively in hemp and claims to be at one with the universe.

"Yes, Harry. That is bad. Carvil Foods is bad. It's everything I don't want our cafe to be."

Just then, the room is overwhelmed by the acrid smell of burning. My eyes fly open again to see what's happening. Both of us scramble up off the floor, quartzes flying, to find that the Thai silk curtains are on fire. Angel is standing in front of the growing blaze with an awestruck look in her eye and a burning incense stick in the other.

"Shit," screeches Harry in a very un-zen way, running over to the curtains and tearing them down from the wall. He starts stomping on them to put the fire out while I grab the incense from Angel's hand and rush to get a glass of water from the tiny guest bathroom down the hall.

Between us, we manage to reduce the curtain to a wet, smoking pile. We stand, panting, both of us looking at Angel, who has seated herself back in her stroller and looks to be patiently waiting to leave.

"Our time's up," says Harry, crisply, walking us to the door.

"Oh, okay," I say, retrieving the $50 cash (Harry doesn't believe in credit cards) for the therapy session from my purse. "I'm really sorry."

He doesn't mention the s-word this time. He just takes the money, opens the door to the hallway and ushers us out.

As we turn to roll off down the hall, he calls out, "Sometimes, life challenges us to confront what we fear most, Alice."

I mull that over the whole way home. What do I fear most? Outside of lice and bed bugs, of course, because I don't think that's what Harry meant. I think, if I'm honest, I fear success.

I want a quiet life. The kind Einstein talked about. Success seems all tied up with negative things like demanding bosses, emails on weekends, and the general hell of being too-big-to-fail. I can't go back to that. Even if the alternative is, actually, failing.

Evening has descended on the quiet residential streets as the miniature arsonist and I push toward home. I'd really like to talk all this through with Buddy, I realize. Not only my business partner, Buddy has seen me through a few major life decisions. I feel like he would understand why I don't want the cafe to be anything more than a quiet neighbourhood hangout. On the other hand, he has a vested interest in its profits.

Like he could hear my thoughts, a text finally pings through. Buddy!

I put the brake on the stroller and stop to read it.

<Got yr texts. Had a ::heart emoji::, ::massage emoji::, ::wineglass emoji::, ::hammock emoji:: day. Tx again for watching Angel.

I'm just composing a reply along the lines of when are you coming to collect the little firebug ::fire emoji::? When a second text pings through.

<Would it be super uncool to ask if you could have her for the nite? Met up with an old friend. Would be great to catch up over dinner. Hit a club. Like old times.

<Would mean the ::earth emoji:: to me. Would feel like old self again. ::diamond emoji:: Pleeeeeese?

For the night? I'll have to toddler-proof the whole house! Where will she sleep? The poor thing hasn't eaten anything not in the cookie/cracker food group all day (my fault), and I'm not even sure Buddy packed enough diapers to get through to the morning.

I can just imagine how Vic is going to feel about this. But I understand Buddy's situation. I remember how hard it is to be the parent of a baby. You just need to feel like yourself before you forget who you are entirely.

I text back:

For sure! She's no trouble. Will dig out our old pack&play for a bed. See you in the morning! You have a good time.>

After another moment, I text again:

Not *too* good a time. Remember you're married! ::winky face emoji:: Hahaha. >