My life has this stench of death to it these days. No really. There is this black, odorless slithering smoke creeping its way into every orifice of my life, ensuring that my life here in the Bay Area will not live past a few more months.
Yet the answers as to what is next in my life aren’t presenting themselves in any such timely manner.
“Of course they aren’t you silly woman!” the voice of Hades crackles. “Why would you EVER think we would share the secrets of Life AFTER Death…before you have actually completed the Death? HAHAHHAAHAH…we got a winner here folks…”
This smoky, stenchy and obviously comedian named Hades doesn’t seem to have missed any of those important areas on the checklist of items we generally consider “necessary” in order to feel stable, secure and well adjusted in this modern world:
Income Sources? Check.
Family Life? Check.
Feeling supported by community/neighbors? Check.
Personal Passions/Business? Check.
Feeling safe in your own home, town and out on the streets? Check.
Having fun/playing/celebrating? Check.
Sex with another physical body other than my EBF? Honey, that one has long been checked off by Hades. No really. You try being a rather socially adept single mother (come on I teach Body Language for Christ’s sake) who is NOT A TECHY trying to survive in the most expensive part of the world with Mr. Techy, Mr. Techy or Mr. Soft Man Hippy who is probably also a Techy to chose from. And seriously sisters, we cannot just let any ol’ man – or those identifying as a man – with a pulse and a hardon into our sanctuaries. Cause we ARE sanctuaries. Seriously. My dear Jewish friend shared that the untold reason women didn’t go to temple back in the day was because THEY WERE THE FREAKIN’ TEMPLE. Men had to go to learn how to respect the Temple…women already knew because we were the living embodiment of it. Umm, love me some temple!
God sorry, such a digression – back on track here.
Anywho, this slow march to death hasn’t been a loud and sudden one. It has been a slow and steady one. Funny – haha so funny O you Universe God thang. As I look back over the last couple of years, I see how I have been set up for this. For this exact time in my life to unfold, it has been years in the making. If I didn’t know how to look as I have trained myself to look – I would be freakin’ out.
Well, more than I am.
I mean – let’s get real – there HAS to be some form of a freakout to be in your 40s as a single woman once married, with kids, a home and the mini-van now facing the fact that you have NONE of those things – save the mini-van… I mean kids.
Life looks NOTHING – and I mean NOTHING – like what I thought it would look like at this point when I moved out here 19 years ago. Really, after living in a place for so long, I have very little to show for all that effort. It is a sobering look at one’s life. Definitely, a “come to Jesus” moment if you will. It has made the need to depart that much stronger…in search for what I really crave in my life.
What exactly is it that I am craving? That I am not sure of either…
I am actually not sure of anything right now. I keep joking with those who ask, “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
“I have no idea! I am 41 years old and I STILL don’t know what I want to do when I grow up now that I am grown up!!!”
People excitedly reply, “Well, it’s exciting!”
To which I exclaim thru clenched teeth, “Exciting yes. O yes so exciting. Leaving all I have ever known as an adult: the wayward financial stability I have established; the ability to have at least one of my kids remind me how much being a mother sucks; and the scattered friends I do have but never get to see. Well that doesn’t sound like much now that I say it out loud. But still it’s terrifying to leave the sucky known for the possibly sucky unknown…the complete unknown. But yea, also exciting.”
I know people are living a bit vicariously through me. I know I am gaining so much freedom in saying goodbye to my life here. I know people wish they could be me.
Especially moms…let’s be real. What mom of any number of kids HASN’T dreamed of “Calgone” REALLY whisking her away to some far remote land with Pina Coladas and fabulous towel men to fan her at the poolside with an all you can eat buffet she hasn’t had to cook – or clean up? Oh, and don’t forget the energy and time for hot, passionate sex.
I have and am becoming the quintessential collective archetype of…well something. Not some goddamned Disney Princess…that’s for sure. But I know I am writing a new chapter in the Archetype Akashik Records for women to checkout someday in the future. Great, so glad I could help.
As the one living this mixed bag of dreams and heartaches – I’ll tell you it ain’t easy. That’s all I’ve got to say. I’ve got 19 years+ of not just my life to weed through and narrow down to one small U-Haul. I have to figure out where to Haul that U to and store the stuff in it.
Oh wait, I first have to pick a new place to land that will allow me to unwind, relax and feel into the next steps in my life. And I have to have the guts to say good-bye to the daily life with my son, having NO idea what our new relationship will look like – or where that will take place. What if he grows up hating me because of this choice and never comes to understand why I made it? What if this lands him in years of therapy?
I mean he has already had a great start in life coming out of a “broken home” with a free-spirited mama and a rather self-important dad, where the self-important dad appears to be more stable than the free-spirited mom (which we KNOW appearances ain’t everything, please keep that in mind). None of that could land him in therapy.
On top of all that, I have to reinvent myself yet again. At this point, I am getting better than Madonna at this. How do I financially support myself while of course STILL feeling into how to build the business out of my passions that the world around me is telling me is soooo needed right now. Because that is my Mission. That is why I am here. I can stop at nothing short of doing this – because only I can bring what I can bring that the world desperately needs right now. To do my part to save the world. The people in it. From themselves. From utter destruction.
No pressure really. Just do it. Now. But no pressure really.
(Insert eye roll and a reminder feeling of sitting in Church listening to doomsday sermons being preached.)
When my friend called me yesterday after hearing my panicked message, all she had to do was say hello for my freakout to start unraveling. Well it didn’t really unravel. It exploded. Or maybe imploded. Actually both.
As she patiently sat at the other end and listened to me outright panic sob about the state of my current situation (which was a real perceived crisis to be fair) – and then about my life as it is unfolding – well I would LOVE to share with you, my dear reader, that some great big breakthrough came in – that the clouds parted and birds started chirping and the clarity of what the next steps are in my life came through.
(Have I mentioned how much I loathe the freakin’ Disney themed myths our lives are circled in now-a-days?)
But they didn’t. Those freakin’ clouds didn’t part.
The only thing that came through was a massive feeling of a train wreck in my body – and the utter exhaustion of such a needed yet exhausting breakdown.
Then we hung up and I got into my “Take care of me” mode. I tapped into my Movement Medicines becasue it was either that or curl up into a ball and let them haul me off to the ward. Cause that is what our society likes to do with women like me. Fuck that – ain’t happening.
So, I took an 8 lb bag Epsom Salt bath, closing my eyes and just breathing.
I took some time meditating, and breathed some more.
I made a very expensive appointment with a mentor (just a few extra hours on the road to pay for that one, thanks Uber).
I journaled.
I got in the car and picked up the above-said friend.
We drove over the hill to Santa Cruz, laughing all the way.
We were first in line to enter the dancing mecca for the night, a hall that would be 3-4xs its normal capactiy.
We danced. We laughed. We hooted. We hollered. I played the floor as if it was my drum.
I shook and shimmied my hips, my boobs, my head, my Soul.
I shook out as much of my earlier trauma and uncertainties about my life as possible.
I sweated. O.M.G. did I sweat.
I moved and was moved.
Somewhere in all of that, I remembered myself. By feeling myself move, I remembered who I am. I’m this pulsing, orgasmic, life infused passionate Soul of a Soul in this magnificent Feminine Body that is freaking Masculine strong. God, I love that feeling of being totally danced into chaos but having the utter strength to hold myself, to right myself when needed!
I felt joy and passion, fun and hope. I felt myself tap into THE something that has been missing from my life for a few months – as I have been on a self-imposed hiatus from my normal dance practices, allowing the Death Comedian to capture even this part of my life.
Yet he can’t take this one from me. No Sirry. Not my Dance. Not this medicine. She will never fully be able to take away what Dance, Music, and the Soundwaves do in their magical mystical state of being to my Being.
This is what Moves me:
- The ABILITY TO DANCE and EXPRESS through the Language of my Body that which is inexpressible through words. The ability to Dance myself back to Life – no matter what death I am experiencing or how I am experiencing. I am pretty sure that I will be dancing as I transition out of this life into the next.
- The KNOWING that I have had to experience EVERYTHING I have experienced these past few months, years in order to actually be willing to let go of my life here.
- The KNOWING that what is coming next is going to be…well hilarious to write about if nothing else :-).
- The CONSCIOUS DANCE PRACTICE and the PEOPLE IN IT. Those that introduced it to me, those that sustain the movement, those that come to dance with me.
- The Music and the Soundwaves.
- Laughter at the ridiculousness of life here on Earth School. Seriously, either laugh about it or check yourself into a mental ward.
These are just some of my Movement Medicines.
What are yours?
If dance happens to be one of yours, I invite you to join us for our last Movement Medicine in Santa Cruz this coming Thursday! The music for this set is coming together and I am extremely thrilled at what this journey will be like!
And if dance is not a Movement Medicine of yours, what is?
