It’s been a year today, that I first rang the bell of my yoga teacher LS Harteveld.

“Ha! You look like an archaeologist!” she welcomed me as she opened the door. I inspected my clothes, but couldn’t detect any shovels or Sahara sand.
“Your bag is green, and you wear your strap across your chest,” LS Harteveld explained. “Maybe you were sent to dig up my sex life.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but toughened up and shuffled inside.
“I study anthropology,” I said.

LS Harteveld and I planned on writing together every day. She intended to finish her novel Mango, I needed to get my thesis done. My green bag held a laptop and two chocolate muffins.
“They’re for with our coffee,” I excused myself for bringing such an unhealthy snack. “If you eat sugar, that is.”
“Of course I do! And I love muffins!” she laughed. “What do you think of me? That I am one of those fungus girls?”

Fungus girls: Women, between 30 and 40, who do not eat sugar or other refined carbohydrates, because alternative medicine claims vaginal Candida has infested their organs.

LS Harteveld also enlightened me on the concept of male group masturbation, the preferred size of an erect penis (categorized on what you want to do with it), and the beauty of male genitals. She considered ignorance a threat to spiritual growth. Which was the only trait she shared with my Swami at the yoga ashram.

In March LS Harteveld found out her best friend had screwed her over big time. This was when she taught by example how to hate properly. (it involved exploding like Rumpelstiltskin on a daily basis)
In Summer she would ask me to lie in bed with her, to check if it was big enough for a lover and two cats. After this, she started dating dark men, up to 1meter 80.
In Fall she went on her first holiday in years, because she now had me to look after her diabetic cat.
At Christmas we introduced each other to our families.
On New Years Eve we shared our annual depression at home on the couch. It was our best New Years Eve in years.

LS Harteveld and I see each other nearly every day. We share muffins, love, clothes, and that small double bed. All platonic.

I still don’t throw tantrums the way she does. But I did notice I had become a bit more evil when I was at a party recently and someone declined a piece of cake stating with a hint of spiritual arrogance, that she lived without sugar. Before I knew it I heard myself ask:
“Let me guess: Candida?”