Mariment Laughter Yoga

    There's nothing like a sudden rap on your hotel door in the middle of the night to get your heart racing...
     I visited New Orleans earlier this month to take in granddaughter Alexa's team debut at a national cheerleading competition.  Kirsten, Alexa and I shared a lovely room at the Westin Hotel overlooking the Mississppi River.  All was well until the night before the final Sunday competition.
     Alexa needed to be at the Convention Center very early on Sunday morning, so we went to bed early to make sure we were well-rested.
     At 11 p.m., a loud rapping at our door awakened Kirsten and me.  The noise didn't waken Alexa, she slept on.  Just as Kirsten and I were dropping off to sleep around midnight, there was a loud rap at the door again.  I groggily got up and opened the door.  No one was there.  Other doors in the hallway opened and the people on the opposite side of the hallway just shook their heads.  Alexa slept on.
     Back to bed and back to sleep when loud rapping awakened Kirsten and me around 1 a.m.  A few doors down one of the cheer captains shouted out, "STOP IT!!!"  Alexa slept on.
     Our hotel wasn't far from the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum, so I was inspired to write a curse.  I tore a housekeeping card in half and wrote on the back:  "If you can read this...you are too damn close.  And if you knock on this door, a voodoo curse will befall you.  We are watching YOU!" 
     I stayed awake watching through the peephole of the doorway and noticed people walking through the hallway coming up to the door, reading the card and then chuckling.  After about 20 minutes of watchfulness I thought we were safe, so Kirsten and I tried to go back to sleep.
     Snugly and finally asleep, we were jolted out of our beds with a loud pounding at our door.  I jumped up, my heart racing, and beat feet to the doorway.  No one was there. I removed the "curse" from the door.  Apparently the jokesters weren't worried about a fake voodoo curse, so I called upon the Wrath of the Hotel...security.  I called the front desk and asked if security could patrol the hallways to make sure that the jokesters were apprehended and stopped.  Alexa slept on.
     I realized we had just a few hours to sleep before we needed to wake up for the competition.  I was near tears from disrupted sleep.  Kirsten came over to my bed and gave me a hug.  "How about if I sleep with you, Mom?" she said.  With her wonderful Healing Touch techniques, and assistance from my iPod sleep meditation, we were soon asleep.
      I now realize that "the sleep of the dead" has nothing on "the sleep of a 13-year-old cheerleader."  I am envious of a benefit of youth...bei
     On Sunday, Kirsten awakened early and went with Alexa to the Convention Center so I could relax until Alexa's competition.  While eating a piece of fruit in the room I reflected upon the anonymous "Door Knocker."  I thought of Americans that have spent years in captivity and endured sleep deprivation.  Just a few hours of sleep deprivation was torture for me, so I wondered how they endured this torture for days and weeks and months on end?
     I also thought of my faux voodoo curse.  Maybe I wrote it all wrong...  Maybe I should have written:  "If you can read this--thank a teacher.  And if you knock at this door, we're going to laugh at you.  We are watching you, we are waiting for you, and we are ready to laugh all night.  Are you?!"