How Me and the Hoop Came To BE: part 1

Sometime in November, 2008.

I never pick up hitch-hikers, unless they are young, desperate females who could be at the mercy of the guy driving behind me, so when I saw this girl standing in the snow on the side of the highway I put on my signal and pulled over. She climbed into the truck, thanking me as we accellerated toward town.
We exchanged names. I'm always so curious about people, so I said, "What do you do for work?"
"I manage a spa and give treatments," and I happen to know who she works for. Nice. Smile.
She was quite beautiful. Her hair was in a funky up-do and her make-up was skillfully applied; and she had a great figure and the kind of legs that make me think she must just not eat. Eyes on the road. It's not polite to stare.
"What about you?"
"Right now I'm teaching poi classes at the school..."
"Oh really? I make indoor hula hoops." (Poi and hooping are cousins related through the rave scene.)
"You make them??" (Indoor? Outdoor? What?!)
"Yeah..." like I've just come out of the last century, "from irrigation pipe, and I fill them with water and they're covered with fabric and fur and yarn," and described how she used sealant so the water didn't leak out.
I tried to conjure up some kind of image. A hula hoop with FUR? Now I'm really curious. "Do you sell them?"
"Yup. They're thirty bucks." So matter-of-fact.
I had a lot more questions for this girl, but we were now in front of her workplace.
"Can I have your phone number?"
She wrote hers down for me and said she was going away for Christmas, but if I wanted a custom hoop she could make me one. A custom hoop....

Hooping- First Contact

Turning. This big, black, heavy hoop keeps turning with me inside it. When it comes around again I push against it, with my belly, with my back. This is wierd. This actually feels good. Outside of the hoop is a blur and the room's contents melt away and I feel like I'm disappearing into this rhythm. What's happening? Where am I? That rhythm keeps spiralling me inward.

I've arrived somewhere. I like this place. It's peaceful. My mind has become silent. Any thoughts travel outward from their origin, like little ripples moving across the surface and then dissolving into this nothingness. Thoughts suddenly have no consequence. They can't cling when the hoop keeps coming back and sluffing off layer after layer...of what?

What is going on here??