On most days I have a hard time believing a tylenol will relieve a headache, so the fact that I, last Tuesday morning, washed with the special soap, ate a karma free breakfast, stuffed my pockets with crystals, smudged myself with smoke and flowers and stood in a Lombard hotel ballroom for five hours waiting for a healing hug is kind of funny. I mean, it is.

"I'm sorry?"

"HaveyouseenAmmathisyear?" He copied himself exactly.

"Oh, I thought you said, 'of use tweet I'm the seer,' which was weird."

"HaveyouseenAmmathisyear?"

"Oh, uh, I've never seen--"

"Keepthistokenwithyou. Donotenterwithshoes. Thankyou."

Gladys and I made our way to shoe parking and got naked from the ankles down. There was an altar back there with a wedding cake on it. In the ballroom, I learned from the vinyl banner that Amma and North American were celebrating 25 years of hugging one another. The stage was covered with hot pink foamcore OM signs and streamers. A group of Indian musicians sat on rows of pillows singing kirtan, which was brain-numbingly boring, the way I like it best.

A framed rectangle: Westin Ballroom capacity 675 persons. We were over the fire safety limit, I'd bet, but there weren't as many people as I expected from the documentary. Eight hundred? Nine? I couldn't walk in there, that's for sure, though it might have worked without the vendors. We were invited to shop while we waited for our bracket to be called for the hug. Vertical banners labeled the vendor areas. Gifts, Worship, Apparel, Dolls. I browsed the saris and scarves, Amma brand incense, Amma bath and laundry products, Amma’s healing ointment, bells and crystals, flowers and chocolate, toys shaped like Amma, Indian astrology stones, coconut shell earrings. It was like a dogless hippie market, branded with the face of Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.

Gifts Given To Amma displayed a selection of things devotees had offered their guru. These things were for sale, and included ornamental bath soaps, Giovanni Golden Wheat shampoo and conditioner, handmade candles, candy, a Valentines Day teddy bear, and other items that felt awkward to purchase while standing on sacred carpet. I was rattled, and hadn't even seen the Amma's Things table yet, which was where her actual belongings were sold for bigger bucks. Her noserings and bracelets were for sale. Her outfits were draped underneath framed photographs of her wearing them. I was invited to buy her old socks, her petticoats, her bed linens and her hair combs. Amma is really into smartwool, btw.

I spotted the vertical Worship banner and found bells, quartz, frankincense and kum kum. Small bags of blessed ashes from the ashram went for $2 each. A miniature copy of the Baghavad Gita covered with pile of one inch shells caught my eye. A hand written sign read, Rare Conch Shell Spirals To Right Side, Increase To Prosperity. This seemed like a good choice for me, so I asked about the price, which helped me decide to pick up two small envelopes of holy ash. An hour and a half had passed. Gladys was at Health and Beauty trying on healing crystal earrings. I went to the restroom, still barefooted, and texted a friend: when I got here she was hugging the Bs, now she's hugging G1. I'm X1.

Outside the restroom area there was a makeshift food court where a few cafes had set up kiosks next to rows of tri-fold poster boards about Amma's charitable organizations. A humanitarian trade show perfumed with cumin, curry and coriander. I sat down in front of a video monitor, put on a pair of headphones, and ate my walnuts from a ziplock bag while I listened to the story of a young Indian woman who went to school to be a sculptor of god and goddess figurines. There is a name for that style of sculpture, I guess. A service request whiteboard hovered through like a PacMan ghost, weightless on the palms of a young blonde who appeared inflated with nixtrous oxide. “Blissful service, shoe monitor needed NOW. Love and serve." Seeing it was an ideal position to pick up some new kicks, I stalked Blinky to see who went for it. Head to toe purple velvet took the job. Brown women’s New Balance were nothing to a beanpole with a face full of surgical steel, I hoped. I sat down in the tired people area and stared at the monitors.

Amma's embrace blew up huge on live feed screens on the arms of the ballroom. The video cropped around her body, making each seeker appear pressed to her bosom by four floating arms. Her attendants placed one after the other in a hypnotic rhythm. Few hugs lingered, perforated by meddling limbs. All were the same shape, the same architecture. Amma wide-collared each neck with her elbows and took the three middlemost fingers of her right hand with all five of her left. Same grab every time. The elbows sunk and she snapped the head to its side, then grabbed again. Mouth to ear. Moving lips. On the screen her face looked blank, and I wondered what she thought, if she thought. If she was feeling it. If she was in a trance. A hand with an open flip phone entered the top left side of the frame, hanging close to Amma's ear as she hugged. She lifted her head and barked at the hand, eyebrows clenched, then resnapped the head to its side, regrabbed the fingers. Mouth back to ear. Lips again moving. I made a mental request to the great suggestion box in the sky that Amma not take a call during my hug.

From the old people seating area, I looked around at the crowd. Half Indian folks, half hippies. The people from India seemed normal. Most of them were working in the food court or sitting on cushions. Some of them had kids who were playing robot ninja hide and seek. None of them were shopping. Of the non-Indians, dreadlocks accounted for at least a quarter of hairdos present. I saw a pregnant 60 year old, a blonde in a sari and a fannypack, a dozen older dudes in pale suits and cowrie shells. Some girls holding hands over their babydoll dresses slithered down the aisles slow motion with faces like they were watching Titanic on a screen a mile away. A young black man explained to an older black woman with three decade dreads that he needed energy work regarding an abundant libido. "If you sleeping in my bed, I am gone be waking you up, because that's how it go with me. Don’t be tryna get in bed with me if you sleepy. My energy all sacral tantric and shit."

Gladys was missing since the bathroom. I wanted to find her, but wasn’t worried since she got X1, too. I took a walk to look around anyway and was approached by a tall man also named Chicago Service. He was not grinning.

"You are not allowed to take pictures in here."

"Oh. Sorry."

"You have to delete that picture."

"Ok."

"I mean right now. You have to delete it right now in front of me. This is a very strict policy. It is posted everywhere. You may not take pictures."

I deleted it, but it made me mad. I guess I understand that people get to do that, they get to say no pictures when they want to, but it made me mad anyway. How I get. Sometimes. Like if cop says I can't cross the street. Or like, that time the bus driver told me to take my feet off the seat because I was in lotus on the 56, and I was like, really dude? People piss and puke and jerk off on this bus and you are going to give me grief because I’m trying to freaking meditate, dickface? I was an inappropriate kind of mad. I mean, people were slow walking in a bliss trance and I wanted to give the finger to a dude that probably does tai chi with handicapped children for a living. I was getting something wrong. I mean, I did not arrive at the Westin with a clean slate. I’d come with my nightmares and my broken heart, my fear and longing and suspicion. I decided I should have some lunch.

The Amma Foundation provided a vegetarian Indian buffet for $1.50 a dish. I had curried chickpeas with hari chutney and puri, and a cardamom mango lassi that would have knocked my socks clean off, were they not under the watchful eye of purple velvet. Gladys showed up at the food court and had a couscous thing with vegetable stew. I talked her into the lassi, and then we discussed a proposal to buy the remaining 15 gallons and divide it between us.

“There are only a few things here that I want, and one of them is all that lassi.”

"Have I told you I feel deeply disappointed with conventional clothing? I have been seeking more satisfying options. Something which allows my Qi to flow more freely, you know? It has been an obstacle for me. I find normal clothing to be very restrictive and oppressing to my energy. I have always loved the sari but I don't know how to fit myself for one. I did find some wonderful earrings though.”

"Huh. What letter is she on now?"

"I don't know, O3 I think. Bodies were not made to be so contained. I feel so much discomfort with western pants."

"We might not make it to X."

"Sure we will. It's going fast. Even this dress is really restrictive, and it’s not tight. The western cut of clothes is so binding."

"Where did you friend go? The woman I met?"

"Oh, she’s already gone. She got her hug and left. She wanted to remain in her bliss."

"Oh."

"She's going through something right now. She is in chemotherapy for breast cancer. I think this will be very good for her. She needs a healing."

"Oh, does the hug heal things, too?"

"Love heals everything!"

"Oh yeah, I guess I just thought you meant, uh, hey I think I'm going to go get a chair massage."

"Wonderful! Enjoy it! I will find you at Healing and Wellness."

I made my way past Pinky and Inky oscillating in slow motion. "Blissful Service: dish running needed NOW. Love and serve." I considered whether running dishes would be as good as deep tissue in terms of the generated healing love quotient, then paid a dollar a minute for some love on a padded kneeler. A beautiful woman in a headscarf gave me some elbow while I inhaled sweat and tulsi from the face cradle. Afterward I peeled the paper towel from my forehead and took in her smile.

"Thanks so much, I really like your work. Are you in Chicago?"

"Oh, thank you, I live in Hawaii.”

"Damn."

"Would you like some healing tea?"

"Yeah, that sounds great. Thanks."

“Om nama shivaya.” She handed me a dixie cup half full of a stale tasting brown broth.

I'd lost Gladys again. Somehow we were at the Ts. I sat down in front of the monitors, listening with more attention as I crushed my paper cup from five directions like one of those rubbery gel eggs at the checkout in Office Max. I couldn’t see the stage, took notes of the sound instead. The singers ornamented simple melodies in the most imprecise and yet formulaic way. The women's voices seemed so much younger than the men’s. They called and followed one another, while a shruti box held the space made by their breath. I listed to myself all the conditions that made meditation impossible. The enormous overhead lights. The token countdown. The thousand people. The outfits. I needed to find a garbage can.

A few hours more and I found myself in line only a few dozen hugs away. Gladys was in front of me, stretching glad lips around her braces. We advanced in a double row of chairs toward the center. At about 6 yards from the beloved, a radiant warmth pounded me in the chest. I knocked the tears off my face, startled and rationalizing. I was instructed to move forward, and when I was up, a foxy butch latina said, "single?" Yes I am. "Language?" English. "One. English." She shot at the divine mother, then she shot back at me. "Kneel here. Place your hands on the table at either side." I noted there should have been a height requirement at the back of the line. Must be this high to ride. My head was pushed into the place where Amma's white sari was most stained with foundation and snot, tears, mascara and hairspray.

She leaned to my ear, “my dog, my dog, my dog, my dog,” while I tried to be her daughter, her daughter, her daughter.

I felt a shove as the four hands yanked me from the floor. "Get your things and move to your left." I moved. Gladys materialized holding a folded bolt of lavender silk in a plastic jacket. I congratulated her.