Barefoot on a Bar Floor and More Joyous Things

In my practical brain, I know this division of old year and new year is fairly arbitrary, and I try not to base my life upon it.  If I want to end an old habit or pick up a new one, I start when the motivation starts.

But this time of year does invite introspection and reflection.  The short daylight hours and colder weather drives me indoors, into stiller and stiller pursuits.  The days off while great groups of people celebrate their winter holidays gives me time to daydream, plan, vision.

I am leaving soon for time away from all blinking, beeping, buzzing things.  I am taking this time to hunker down and really plan in a way I never have before.  Although it feels a little woo-woo, I am going to vision out what I want for the next year.  I hope to come back with a detailed, written description of everything I hope (believe?) will happen for me in the next year.

Before that, though, I thought it would be fun to look back at my list of Things I Did This Year That I Never Thought I Would Do In Life.  In no particular order, here they are:

--danced barefoot on a bar floor
--traveled alone to another country
--claimed my identity as a small business owner
--went zip-lining
--performed (twice!) at a street fair
--got a massive tattoo, with color in it
--*** *** *** *** (Whatever you are imagining -- if it involves nakedness, you're probably right.)
--broke someone's heart (See, it's not all celebratory.)

--fired a professional who had worked with me for years
--gave away or sold every last fancy table decor thing 

--took long walks alone in the woods, during deer hunting season

--called out my employer for illegal labor practices

--sent my writing out into the world without hours of agonizing over minutiae

Onward.  

Essentialism

This weekend I met up with a friend I hadn't seen in quite some time.  Our conversation turned to life plans, and how we are structuring our living arrangements to support what we want.  I talked about my plans to downsize, to greatly reduce my living expenses so I could afford to travel, and maybe take a day off every once in a while.  She was doing something similar, and she told me that there is even a name for it -- essentialism.

How perfect is that?  Essentialism.  Identifying and spending energy only on those things which are essential to your life.  I felt lighter just thinking of the concept.  

Then I promptly forgot about it.  I have spent the past few days not sleeping enough, running from client to home to other thing to who knows where, with no clear idea of anything beyond the next thing on my calendar.  This morning, in the clear light of exhaustion, I knew that I have been addressing all the things that are essential to those around me, but not to myself.  Without a partner to see me from outside myself, it is difficult to catch these bursts of frantic activity.  This is another continuing adjustment in living Mapless -- the external view from inside.

Today, after an evening doing something I love, and (finally) a good night of sleep, I am back to essentials.  Sleep, eat, move, breathe, and love.  All things with love.  

Stepping Forward, Looking Back

I wrote this a year and a half ago, when change was new and I was different.  Re-posting it now to encourage you all, dear ones, to glance back and really see how far you've come:

****************************************************

It was less than twenty minutes into our meeting when my realtor had me married to one of the doctors I get referrals from, traveling the world, and probably living in a giant house in Winnetka.  Sold to us by her, of course. 

The first time I talk to anyone about the pending divorce, the reactions are priceless.  I still dread trying to answer "What happened?" and "How are you?" with the mythical, perfect combination of brief, thorough and positive.  But I am starting to look forward to the reactions,  in a purely anthropological way.  The range is instructive, and, more even than a catastrophic illness, it reveals who is a stand-in-the-fire next to you kind of friend.  I have those, to my delight. 

There is A., who shocked me a little with her reaction: "Now you can have a 3-way if you want!" but soon won me over with her unshakeable conviction that this is the blow that will crack my earthly shell and reveal the Goddess who was there all along.

There is my surrogate Jewish mother, who let me come to her home on the Sabbath, the day he moved out.  She took me and my brokenness and uncontrolled crying and did that thing loving moms and dear friends are so good at-- She brought me tissues until I was done crying and brought me food until I was strong enough to return to my newly empty home.

There is lovely C., in a far away city, so clearly wanting to be nearby.  She took moments away from her move and her family to Skype with me, gently advising me to take note of myself and how I really am in the midst of all my planned distractions.

S., on the far side of the country, who used her special brand of firm compassion to remind me to stand up for myself. 

J., my friend and mentor, also far away, who makes me feel smart even as I feel my mind is slipping. She lets me show weakness, but won't let me get away with less than I am capable of.

N., my co-worker, who helped me believe the guy who called me a "sexy goofball" was not mistaken about the first part.

And, most fortunately, my parents.  My mother who helps me to protect myself and lets me know that capital-H Home is always an option.  My father who texts me every day to tell me he loves me.  Both of them carefully following my lead about how they should think of my ex.  They loved him too, after all.

So, despite the random realtor who means well but misses the mark, or acquaintances who choose to think this, like a bad case of stomach flu, will pass by, I find that those closest to me are living up to that closeness.  They have built a wall for me to hide behind while I fall apart, and when I am ready, they will turn around and put me back together again.  We are a closed secret society, and our mission code name is: Operaton Sexy Goofball.

Competition

I have been thinking lately of why women compete with each other so much.  I see that we are set up to compare ourselves to one another -- by media and pop culture in general -- but I wonder why we choose to accept this setup.  As a woman in the midst of dating, of trying to find a partner, it seems like the whole world wants me to put down other women in order to raise myself up.  I'll admit that sometimes I fall into that trap, but I am trying hard not to do it.

It has been said to me: "You can't compete with all those 20-year-olds out there." Lately I am fully comfortable responding: "No.  I can't. And I really don't want to." This is a comfort born of a lot of struggle and continual nourishment.  Most experiences of my growing-up years contained implied competition.  If my friend looked good, that somehow meant I looked less good.  If that boy dated her, it meant he wasn't dating me.  If I lost weight, that meant someone else's body didn't look as good.  

Now I see how ridiculous this is.  I am trying to spread this message to other women around me, but it is shockingly difficult.  "Listen," I said to a friend of mine, "If you are at a party, dressed to kill and feeling confident and a beautiful woman walks into the room, that does not make you any less beautiful.  You can acknowledge that someone else is attractive, or smart, or talented -- and the magic is that it does not take away any of your attractiveness, intelligence or talent."  

My friend nodded, and looked skeptical.

Last week, I was around a woman I have known my whole life, and I expressed some frustration about not having any clothes that fit and she cut me to the core, saying, "Stop bragging about how skinny you are." 

I'm fed up with keeping quiet about how wonderful I am because I fear the consequences.  I am not in competition with 20-year-olds, or with anyone.  I am making a resolution now to tell everyone I know how wonderful, talented, and beautiful they are as often as I can.  Because since when do kind words become boomerangs that come back and cut me at the knees?  If they are boomerangs that return, then they return with strength to build me up.  I'm starting now.

You (yes YOU) are lovely and amazing.  Pass it on.

Dance Map

Last night I went to a Beats Antique concert.  I went because I am becoming a huge fan of Zoe Jakes -- primarily for her dancing.  The concert attendees were encouraged to wear masks, costumes, painted faces, basically to let their freak flags fly.  When my friend and I walked into the venue, we both had the same thought -- "We are old."  The dance floor in front of the stage was writhing with 18-22 years olds, dancing with the intensity and abandon only found in youth and marijuana haze.

During the show, we ran into a woman my friend knew.  She was taking burlesque classes, loving every minute of it.  Later, my friend told me that this woman was just starting her divorce journey.  It strikes me now both of us, in our Mapless state, turned to some kind of dancing.  I fell head over hips for bellydance, and from the sound of it, she was doing the same for burlesque.  I can't speak for her, but for me it became a way to fall in love with myself.  

Years ago, when I was still married and believed I always would be, I took a few dance classes.  One day, in a rare moment of feeling sexy and open, I tried doing a little dance for the Ex.  And he laughed.  And I froze.

I am sure that his laugh had nothing to do with shaming or belittling me.  I am certain that he was reacting to the strangeness, the newness of this thing.  His repressed wife trying to move in a way that was alluring and enticing -- that just never happened.  In my repressed state, though, I took his laugh as a judgement, and felt overwhelmed with shame.  I never danced in front of him again, and shortly after that I stopped taking classes.

In the first month after he moved out, when I was just starting my practice and slightly panicked about life, I saw a card for a dance and fitness studio nearby.  I decided to try bellydance.  Gradually, I emerged into someone who loves this dance, and even wants to perform it in front of people.  I found my lost creativity and my battered confidence.  Throughout all the (mis)adventures of the first year, bellydance was there.  

So, when I met my friend's friend at Beats Antique, and I heard her talk about burlesque, I saw something familiar.  Another healing heart and Mapless soul, realizing the map is written on her own body.  Strength arising from movement.  No wonder we ended up at the same concert, mesmerized by a woman whose dance is fierce, unique and unashamed.  

I am remembering the note I sent my dance teacher after the first time I performed with the student troupe:

Before I get back to life and forget, I want to say thank from the core of my heart for the studio and for your open spirit that makes all these things awesome.  High awesome.  

I've shared a little with you of the the difficulty of this past year, and of the discovery that was also part of it.  Honestly, I think seeing your card at work was one of the best things that came out of this year.  Without rediscovering bellydance, for me there would have been no Costa Rica, no Rachel Brice, and no dancing on stage.  Probably over time the performances will start to blur together for me, but this past weekend was truly significant.  I hadn't been that happy and confident in a long while, so it was a revelation that I still could be that happy and confident.  

We had that conversation once about bellydance as a hobby that is also a necessity.  I think the order has reversed for me -- it is a necessity, that most people would call a hobby.  I credit your gentle notes and observations, encouragement, and realistically high standards for making this possible.  Your world is truly a unique place where every woman can thrive on her own terms, and, more importantly, define those terms in the first place.  

Thank you for welcoming me into this world.  I'm going to stick around for a while.  

Radiation Recall

There is a phenomenon that sometimes happens to people who have had radiation treatment called "radiation recall."  What happens is this: after radiation is over with, a person may receive chemotherapy at a later date.  Sometimes this chemotherapy treatment causes radiation rashes to crop up again, sore, red and angry.  The stress of the chemo on the body causes the fragile spots to open up again.  It is one of the many potential side effects of cancer treatment.

This week feels like an emotional radiation recall for me.  The Ex is getting married on Saturday.  This was his delayed response to my last message to him.  I responded very simply that I wish him the best, which I do.  Yet as I sat still, willing myself not to be numb, I wondered what I felt.  Mostly, surprisingly, what I felt was okay.  It seemed soon, but right.  

As the message entered my entire circulation, though, the recall started.  All those places where I am healed but still weak started to open up again.  Sore, red, and angry.  The lingering doubt that anyone will ever want me.  The ego blow that someone who says he loved me so much could get over me so quickly.  The anxiety over living and managing my life alone.  My radiation recall was a clamp on my lungs and a whooshing headache.  One of the many potential side effects of heartbreak.

My recall rash came out, but it was manageable.  I went for a run, I reached out to my amazing friends, and I cleaned out a bunch of drawers.  As things calmed down, I saw again the clarity I found before my trip to Denver.  He is a good, decent and kind man.  He is not good for me.  I have true and loving friends, who when they circle around me, bring the strength of generations of women.  I have weak spots, blind spots, sore spots -- but I am fine, thriving, even.  As many of my friends reminded me, I am different now, better and more true.  

The recall came and went fairly quickly, which made me wonder if I was really being honest with myself.  But here is how I know that I am fine: The part about his message that bothered me the most was not that he's getting married, not even the (relative) soon-ness of it.  It was that he wouldn't tell me anything but the date because he was afraid it would show up on my blog.  This blog.  Which is not about him at all.  Proving once again the lack of true understanding we had for each other, and reinforcing the reasons why I don't want to be his friend.  It's not heartbreak that upsets me, it's misunderstanding -- the same misunderstanding we have always had. 

So, yeah, he was right.  It did end up here.  This is what happens when you fall in and then out of love with a writer.  She writes about it.  And truly, sincerely, with a loving heart wishes you well in your new life. 

Travel Clarifies

I am sitting in the airport, waiting on a delayed flight, reading, writing and contemplating. All this led to me sending this email to the Ex:

I am reading a book and I came across this sentence: "True liberation comes when you quit the shackles you put on yourself."  This made me think of you and realize, finally realize, that this is what you did. My first reaction to the whole divorce was to wonder why I couldn't convince you that you could relax into your shackles. You were right. And now, with time and distance and change, I realize I owe you gratitude for not believing me, for forcing this big, uncomfortable, frightening and painful change. I have relearned so much that I forgot. Thank you. And I'm sorry that you had to be in that position. 

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Now I am shaking a little, as so much pent-up anxiety releases. It was a realization with all the force of a vision. I owe him thanks for hurting me. I owe him gratitude for giving me this gift of my life and caring enough to throw me into the fire so I could find it. Before I sent that message, I had to struggle to overcome the idea that contacting him was some kind of self-defeat. I felt like the full excision of him from my life was a freedom and a comfort. But maybe it was just another way to stay stuck in that relationship. 

I am starting to get anxious about what he will think and all the negative ways he could interpret the message. Will he see it as a random, attention-seeking bomb? That was not my intention, and I can't control his reaction. It is good for me to start saying what I feel to the people I feel it about. This needed to happen before I could really be ready to start a new, serious relationship. 

The shaking seems to be over. I'm left feeling relaxed, open, and a little exhausted. Travel clarifies for me. This is why I need to do it more often. 

Mapless on the Road

I started this whole blog as part therapy, part rough draft space for a larger writing project.  Dear ones, the latter part of that plan is coming together.  In just a few weeks, I'll be reading from this and other works at TheNewStudio in Evanston.  Come and hear my voice, and let me see your face. 

Don't. You. Dare.

I sat in my car, weeping like I hadn't done in months, and I wrote this text message:

"I fucking hate it when I can tell someone feels sorry for me."

Then I took some laddery breaths, let the tears sit on my face, and I deleted the message without sending it.  Because, really, what was I trying to do but get someone different to feel sorry for me?  Someone whose attention maybe I felt like I couldn't get any other way.  So I put down the phone and cried it out on the way home.

This is what started it:  recently I have come to the conclusion that I don't want conventional.  I don't want the job managed and directed by someone else, I want the life created by me.  I want this, even with the insecurity, anxiety, and in-car crying jags.  I want all of this, even though I know this makes it more challenging for me to find the partner I want.  (You know, the person who will make an effort to be with me even when I'm on my cycle and sex is not going to happen, even when my schedule doesn't match the standard adult corporate work schedule.)

In order to create this life, I need to let go of lots of things.  I've pretty well let go of the hard ones (caring what other people think, lifelong assumptions about what success means,) and now comes the more labor intensive ones.  I have started giving away most of the tchotchkes and fancy things that were surrounding me in my home, and I finally made the decision to move to a cheaper place.  

I went in to visit with my real estate agent to talk over the current condo market and how I should go about getting my place ready to sell.  You may recall her -- she's the one whose first reaction to the divorce news was: "But you're so pretty!"

We sat down and went over all the comps she pulled for me, talked about my building in particular, and occasionally butted heads over unrealistic things.  (No, I will not pay thousands of dollars that I don't have for someone to stage my condo.). It was immediately clear to me that she didn't quite know how to handle this situation.  House poor seller, trying to build a business, with little to no time or money to put into the prep of the condo, and no partner to pick up the phone when she was busy with a client.  Her conversation started getting peppered with "I know"s and "It's difficult"s.  She said these things because she didn't know what else to say.  She felt sorry for me, she felt pity.  And although this came from a good place in her heart, she didn't understand that pity is the last thing I need.  That I am quite contented with my single life (most of the time) and that the absolute loss of the conventional dream with the condo in downtown (über suburb) was not a tragedy for me.  It was/is a step into the future.

But I felt a little sick and off that day anyway, so I didn't have the mental strength to do anything but keep it together until I could get to my car and cry from sheer frustration, then from feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't think of anyone to call and get coffee with at that time of day.  Fortunately, my literary training kicked in and I recognized the irony before I got home and had to discuss my real estate plans with my new potential landlord.  Water, food, and a midday nap completed the reset, and now I can think of five or more people who I could have called.  

Don't feel sorry for me, real estate lady, because my life has not followed the conventional path that yours has. Don't feel sorry for the bumps and bruises I've had this past year.  And don't you fucking dare feel sorry for me that I have chosen to sell my place.  This is my choice.  And I will also choose not to feel sorry for adventures I have had that you have missed.

No. Just, no.

I am communicating with a lot of different people via text messaging these days.  Some of those people want to do sexy things with me, and I want to do sexy things with them, and we text about it.  Written consent.  What could be better?

The problem for a word snob like me, is that people -- okay, men -- sometimes use words they think are hot and sexy, and they just are really not.  Here is my PSA on a few of those words:

Yummy

Context: "Want to play tomorrow?  Sounds yummy."

Um.  No.  Does not sound yummy.  Sounds annoying.  Yummy is what you say to get a toddler to eat a vegetable, not to get me excited about spending adult time with you.  

Crave

Context:  "Let's get together Monday.  I crave it."

Intellectually, I totally appreciate the implied compliment -- that time with me is a desire that arises unbidden and must be addressed or otherwise one will think of nothing else.  But I just don't like the sound of the word crave.  (I warned you that I am word snob.)  It sounds whiny to me, starting with a hard-flung consonant and winding down into this long hissing end.  Not.  Sexy.

Mommy/Daddy

Context: "Come over here to daddy."

There are not enough synonyms for "ick" to describe the feeling I get when these words are used in the context of sex.  

Juicy

Context: <you can imagine>

I am not a fruit.  

Walk of Shame

It is 1:15 on a Tuesday morning, and I have just pulled in to my garage.  The man whose apartment I left has probably already fallen back to sleep, after seeing me safely to my car.  I am clear-headed and wide awake, and starving. I stop at the convenient store down the street.  The two clerks barely notice me -- one plugged in to his music player, the other talking pointedly to someone in a country where it is a more hospitable hour. 

Outside, a police officer is getting out of his car.  He greets me --"Good morning!" -- and I smile and wave.  No, officer, I am neither drunk nor in need of assistance.  Merely late/early home after making the choice to sleep comfortably in my own bed, at least for part of the night.  

I am considering unconventionality, and the freedom it affords me.  Freedom to enjoy another person's body and also enjoy my solitude.  To have my cake and eat it, even when I get that cake in the restocking hours at a 24-hour convenient store.  

But still. I yearn for the comfort of falling deeply asleep next to someone whose habit is to make room for me.  I want the absolute security of knowing that no matter what unpleasant, unconscious noises my body emits, someone will be there in the morning, laughing or gently scolding me for my unfortunate jalapeño habit.  

I am not ashamed to be walking out of someone's arms and into my door at this hour, I just wish I could be walking into someone's arms.  Imperfect, sometimes chafing, but mine to walk into, nonetheless.  Patience looks like a deserted street at 1:15 on a Tuesday morning.

Things That Kill Other Things

When I was content and hypnotized into feeling secure in life, I had certain assumptions about myself that never got challenged.  One of those was that I am a peace loving person, so much so that the idea of owning a firearm made me physically ill.

Then, someone snapped their fingers, I came out of my trance and into chaos.  There are no more assumptions, and I am seriously contemplating owning a pistol of some kind.  I don't want it for self-defense, I want because it is so fucking fun to go to the gun range and shoot.  

I went to the gun range for the first time in my life last week.  A friend took me there and let me shoot his revolver with his bullets.  As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I started shaking -- not visibly, just internally vibrating.  Guns.  With real bullets.  I imagined all the possible ways someone could be maimed or killed, even in a controlled environment like a gun range.  I could barely hold my pen still to sign the liability waiver.  As we walked to the range, ear and eye protection in place, I found it hard to control my hands.  We walked to our slot.  A couple of slots over, someone was shooting a rifle that made my abdomen quiver every time it went off.  

My friend took out his revolver, showed me how to load, hold, aim and shoot it.  He set up the target for me, took some shots to show me how to do it, then stood back while I tried.  His instructions sounded like underwater messages through my ear protection.  The first time I loaded and shot the revolver, I did not hit the target once.  Not even close enough to make the paper move in the breeze of a passing bullet.  I opened the gun to reload it, hands shaking, clumsy, thinking that if I dropped one round it would explode and leave bits of my face all over the range.  This time, I loosened my knees, breathed deeply before I raised the pistol and used its weight to steady my hands.  I started hitting that target around the edges, once or twice coming close to the center.  On my final try, I got 8 out of 10 shots in the target.  

When we left, my body was finally still, but my hands still felt like they were vibrating from within.  At home, I could still smell gunpowder on my fingers.  Eventually, the adrenaline crashed and I sat down staring out the window while my body reset.  

The next day, I immediately wanted to go back again.  I am a person who enjoys shooting guns.  Handling things whose sole purpose is to kill other things.  Even so, the idea that something in my hands could damage any living body still makes me physically ill.  This is a strange nuance of both my reconstructed life, and of the whole gun debate.  Peaceful people sometimes enjoy hobbies with the potential for violence.  I support every restriction, check and control measure proposed for gun ownership.  I like the smell of gunpowder on my fingers.  

I see this whole day as another discovery on my path of balance.  Each thing I have discovered and held goes on the scales, and they gently sway towards stability.  Some things will stay anchored there, some will be replaced, but I will always find the even place.  Today, a pistol goes on one side, peace and compassion go on the other, pulling it all into alignment.

Back There

"You don't have anything you can throw yourself into," my friend said to me.  About twenty minutes later in our conversation, I heard it.  Heard it and knew without a doubt that it was true.  

What do I throw myself into?  Being a life-loving, optimistic person, it certainly isn't going to be a river or a pit or anything like that.  What did I throw myself into before?  The Ex.  I threw myself into the Ex with absolute abandon and something I called joy. It was my mission in life to be part of that relationship.  So, maybe that is the thing.  I throw myself into a relationship.  I keep working and constructing a backup life, but my real job becomes finding a relationship to throw myself into.  

Except.  Until. There is this glimmer of an opportunity which pulls together things I am passionate about --creativity, wooded land, women (and men) stepping out of their lives to find transcendence.  Just a hint of a sparkle in my eye, and then:

(1) --I won a raffle prize from a local business.  The prize: a consultation with an entrepreneurial law expert.  

(2) --piffing around on the internet, I saw these things:

   "I just wanna go on more adventures. Be around good energy. Connect with people. Learn new things."

    "You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.  --Winston Churchill"

    ". . . a new surge of creativity invariably emerges out of a period of instability, and life unfolds in greater diversity than before whenever it takes a shock wave in its stride.  --Margaret Silf"

(3)--I checked in with the person whose support I most needed, and their response was simply, Yes. 

It feels like the edge of a pit, or a high drop into a river.  But I want to throw myself into it. I think. 

Walking the Land

One of the things that has happened this past year is that I (finally) feel a kind of urgency towards knowing and understanding where I came from.  By divorce, I have somehow been initiated into true adulthood in my family, and I feel more comfortable asking questions about the gaps in family stories.  Also by divorce, I have learned where my real, down-to-the-center-of-the-earth roots are.  I always thought they were with the Ex, but they are within, and everything that is within somehow germinated in Kentucky.

This weekend, I "walked the land" with my Dad.  It had been years since I took a walk around the perimeter of the farm where my grandparents lived.  After our walk, I stayed behind for a while, sitting under a tree in the yard.  I thought about all the years I had come down to the farm, all the iterations of my self as I grew and the places on that land I touched.  The field at the top of the hill where my childhood friend and I tried (unsuccessfully) to catch one of the horses.  The pond where I tried shooting a pistol for the first time.  The relatively flat yard where we had picnics and bonfires and dangerous games of Jarts.  And all the Christmases in the house.  Year after year, for as long as my grandmother could do it.  

As I sat under the tree, time traveling, I felt this long, unbroken thread of loneliness passing through so many of the events.  Every time we got together, there seemed to be some heartbreak brewing.  A separation, a family quarrel, someone moving away. But every time it was someone different who had the burden of loneliness with them.  They carried it sometimes quietly and gently, sometimes with hard, sharp elbows and a face of iron, sometimes drenched in it.  It was almost like the loneliness was our precious family heirloom shared among everyone so we each had a chance to connect with it.  This past year, it felt like my turn to carry it.

I do not know who is next to take this heirloom, but already I feel it is lifting from me.  I sat under a tree in the yard, waving away the same kinds of bugs that bit and stung me when I walked barefoot in that yard as a child.  I saw our legacy, this loneliness we share among ourselves, but I also saw the traces it left behind -- the bottomless love, compassion and creativity which are also our family heirlooms.  This is where I come from, and I mean to go back here -- literally and figuratively -- as much as I can.

Everything is a Metaphor

While working on developing glute muscle control for hip shimmies, M says, "The release is as important as the contraction.  Maybe even more important."

This is another lesson of my current life.  I am trying not to call it my "new life," but it is still too new to be just my life.  Anyway, release is the lesson -- knowing that letting go means letting go all the way.  If you don't let go all the way, you can't grab on to the next thing, and eventually the shimmy falls apart.  We practice letting go faster and faster, trying not to trigger a horrible cramp.  Back to basics as the foundation for all things.  Hold. Release. Don't move, or even try to move yet.  Don't worry about layering or the size of the movement.  Just hold.  And release. 

 Eventually we can move up to switching moves, traveling.  We practice letting go gracefully and completely as we move forward into the next thing.  Focus.  Keeping it simple. I think of this as it is finally spring, and I finally feel creative again.  This moment is lovely, and I mean to enjoy it.  I see a vision of myself far down the road, back to all of this on my way to a different kind of life.  More and more I feel that this is true and will happen.

But not yet.  Not yet.  Now is good.  Hold, savor, release.  The release is the most important part.

The Down Side of Simplifying

I have been thinking about the essential irony of loneliness.  Loneliness -- true soul-encasing black hole loneliness -- can't be felt alone.  It requires other people, either immediately present or so recently left that chair seats are still warm.  

I've removed some distractions from my life lately, so I am noticing more clearly how I am doing.  For the most part, how I am doing is amazing.  I feel stronger in my work and in my still-emerging self.  I can identify the things that make me happy, and I do them.  I am finally starting to master walking shimmies on the down.  

The side effect, though, is that I also notice the truth of when I am not amazing.  And here is where I am thinking more about loneliness.  I am feeling it -- not more often, but unmuffled.  It is clear, unclouded by random hookups or too many POF messages.  I notice it most in the seconds after I part from a friend, having enjoyed a good conversation, a fun show, a meal together.  I know in these moments, with the clarity of June sunshine, that I am now alone.  That weight sits on me, purring.

With this realization, I see that I have made another loop around this spiral track which is my Life After.  I am back at the start point, sort of.  On the same horizontal plane, but maybe shifted a little bit vertically.  Even as I chafe under the weight, I realize how much freer I am now.  I am no longer compelled to create distractions in order to manage feeling lonely.  I have the well of things which make me happy, and I can tap into those things.  Running, dancing, time outside, writing.  Back on the spiral track, lapping myself and leveling up.  

When I was a teenager, I had such bad menstrual cramps that I would pass out if I didn't take ibuprofen before and during my cycle.  As I got older, they gradually eased, but I still took ibuprofen, at least for a day or two.  A few months ago, I decided to try a cycle without it.  It was uncomfortable, intrusive, but not unbearable.  I got through one month, and another, and another.  It's not so much that the pain diminished, but more that I was better able to cope and function.  I think this will also happen with loneliness.  It won't ever go completely away -- I am a loving human, after all -- but I will continue to be better able to cope and function. 

I Don't Want Your Sympathy, Except When I Do.

Recently, my final living grandparent died.  She was 93 years old, and having lived a long, difficult, but loving and good life, she died in her home, just how she wanted.  She had a heart attack walking into her kitchen and was gone before her body hit the floor.

When I heard that she died, I was just returning from a weekend away with Most Recent Man, and I was consumed with accepting just the right level of comfort without revealing too much emotion.  (Most Recent Man is now Most Previous Man, but more on that another day.)  Later that evening it hit me -- I should tell the Ex.

My grandmother loved the Ex.  Loved.  Him.  The Ex shared the same first name as her father, and she would often comment on their similar, gentle, quiet natures.  I swear she thought The Ex was her beloved father reborn.  For his part, the Ex treated her with gentility, kindness, and the patience that only a non-blood relative can bestow on someone as they age and grow more pessimistic.

I hadn't communicated with the Ex for months.  Our business was done, and I had reached the decision that I didn't want to be his friend, so there was no need.  The night I got the news, I sat cross-legged on my sofa, perfectly still, for a very long time trying to untangle my true motivation for the urge to contact him.  At the end of it all, when all the strands were combed and gleaming, I decided it would cause me more anxiety to keep it from him than it would to tell him.  I sent him the shortest possible text message, including my father's address in case he or his parents wanted to send a sympathy card.  Almost immediately he sent the shortest possible text message back, kindly expressing his sympathy and thanking me for telling him.  Done.  I thought.

Last night, after several days with too little sleep and too many people demanding my attention, I got home late and opened my mailbox.  Inside were two cards with the Ex's last name in the return address.  Sympathy cards, one from him and one from his parents.  The kindest of small gestures, but in that moment of feeling bombed out and beyond rebuilding, I only had anger for a reaction.  I stretched my hand towards the garbage, intending to throw them in without looking. I stopped just before dropping them in, and clutched them against my abdomen as I went up to my apartment.  They reopened the wound by showing some kind of caring.  I would use their unsought messages to stop my own bleeding.

Once inside my door, I opened the card from his parents first.  I couldn't read the whole thing through my still-angry eyes.  I only caught the last sentence -- "We miss you very much" -- and, seeing black, I threw the card away.  The card from the Ex was lovely, expensive -- one of those super-fancy, classy, non-religious, arty cards.  He had written a short message, and still seeing black, I could only make out the word "hilarious" before I also threw it into the garbage.

Today I am a little ashamed of myself, but I still took all the trash to the compactor without attempting to read their full messages.  I am deciding whether I need to send a thank you note to them.  I think Emily Post would want me to, or is it that I want to?  That the cleanness of the break is an illusion?  I am still clear that I don't want to be his friend, but, goddammit, even after all this time, I want to be missed.  Shit, let's be honest:  I want to get to reject him a little bit.

Now, after a few clean hours where no one wanted my attention for their aches, or their learning, or their anxiety, I am finding the compassionate home for this childish emotion of mine.  Poor little neglected-feeling child, I thought I had soothed you enough, but clearly you needed another minute.  Now the child in me is calmer, and I feel I can acknowledge the grace of the gesture.  I have the thank you notes all written in my head:

Thank you for your remembrances.  Your kind thoughts are appreciated.


Fini.

Not Yet There

I have been thinking of escapes.  Packing a bag -- or not -- getting into my car and pointing the direction of milder weather, then driving until I stop.  Or -- locking my front door, crouching down in the living room with a bag of chips and my dance playlist and not coming out until every light bulb in the house burns out.  Or even -- taking a walk in the woods, turning off the trail and just keep going.  

This is the fragility of emerging happiness.  It needs such long periods of rest to survive its first few months of life.  When it rests, the rest of me is restless.  I feel like my brain itches as it tries to once again produce contentment.  

Today I spent some time with my friend and her toddler.  My friend is a model of calm, compassionate parenting.  As her toddler started to wind up for a tantrum because he couldn't go down the slide, she calmed him in such simple words as she rubbed his back: "Yeah.  I know. It's frustrating when you can't go down the slide.  Come on, let's have some water."  I wish I could capture her manner for my emerging happiness.  I think of it as my toddler emotion: unpredictable on the surface, changeable and quick, by turns delightful and maddening.  If I could have her manner, I could maybe start to see that what I think is unpredictability is really just a normal stage of development.  

But I am not a patient parent.  I wear out my emerging happiness, either by hovering protectively over it, or asking it to do too much too soon.  Then I start thinking of escapes.  Because, truly, it is frightening to put this toddler emotion to bed so it can get the rest it needs.  Somehow this last year I learned that there are countless unknown things ready to pounce on happiness.  Cats to steal its soul.  

But, I must remember, I am a ginger.  I can steal souls too.  Rest, emerging happiness.  Grief and I are going to catch up a little.  Grief's stay is so short these days, I need to pay attention.

False Hope

During his first presidential campaign, Barack Obama said, "There is nothing false about hope."  I loved that quote.  Just the very idea that hope itself is a reason.  But, that was eight years ago.  When he said that, we thought the progressive political agenda was on the rise.  When he said that, I thought my marriage would last until my death.  

One night, my husband came home and said to me, "I'm not happy."  My insides turned to water, then to acid.  I put shields up just in time to keep my face from burning away.  Over the next few weeks, as he edged further from me in the bed, as his wedding ring mysteriously disappeared, as I lost the ability to make eye contact with him, hope shriveled.  It didn't die, but my little thing with feathers molted and went into hiding for a long time.  

The Ex did nothing to help it.  It hurt at the time, but now I see it for what it was -- a kindness.  He made his exit plan and followed his timeline.  Out of the condo in one month, out of the marriage in six.   I only had to nurse hope back into being one time, and when I finally did, I could focus on things that were real and possible.  Things that were not him. 

I am reminded of this painful kindness as one of my friends finds herself involved with a man who is separated from his wife.  They are not yet divorced.  The explanation is that they have to wait 2 years in Illinois to get the no-fault divorce.  And the man feels sorry for his wife who moved here with him and doesn't really have any other friends.  He still talks to her daily and hangs out with her.  He invites her to  his celebrations, all while he is plowing through his post-relationship crazy phase.  He is filming himself in bed with women, and using that footage to flirt with even more women.  

My friend is uncomfortable with the situation.  She is right to be so.  Maybe this man thinks he is doing his wife a kindness by staying around to be her friend, but what he is doing is false hope in action. I am sorry, President Obama, but everything about this hope is false.  This woman's hope is dying the death of a thousand tiny cuts.  Once this is done, there will be no pieces big enough to put it back together again. Much kinder to just leave her.  Leave her entirely alone for a while.  Maybe it will hurt more at first, but wouldn't you rather recover from one deep, clean wound than from a thousand smal slices that leave your tissues tattered and unrecognizable? 

Even in my year of heartbreak, I saw little things to be grateful for.  This is another one -- that the wound was clean, quick, surgical.  That the skin around it was intact enough to join together again.  That hope was damaged and displaced, but never false.  

Decree Day Thoughts, Part 2

I dressed for battle.  I called on the spirits of all the warlike nations of history as I selected and put on my clothes.  When I pulled my blood red sweater over my head, I swear I heard it clang shut.  All the sensory receptors of my skin felt blocked by a thin layer of leather and chain maille.  I prepared for war.  I put on light makeup, but the picture in my mind was a Maori leader's dark, swirling tattoos.  I clipped my hair away from my face, and in my mind I clicked shut the chin strap of a battle helmet. 

 I put the necessary items in my purse: keys, wallet, phone, letter from his attorney, jumble of toilet paper in lieu of tissues.  I slipped my purse over my shoulder, and it became a crossbow, cocked and loaded with one deadly shot.  All of my steps were heavy, meant to make the very earth shake before me.

I dressed for battle.  I prepared for war.  All of this, even though our parting was as civil as these things can be.  It was a polite conversation held across a chasm via smoke signals.  No shots fired, ladders lowered, trebuchets loaded with flaming cannonballs so we could burn each other to the ground.  It was not a war.  It was a surgical separation provided at a hospital with the most compassionate care.  Because I prepared for the blunt force trauma of war, and not the gentle final separation of two people who were already apart, I felt lost at the end of the hearing.  

Where do you put the battle gear when there is no war to fight? I stood tall under the weight of my armor, my weapons, my full-face tattoo.  I walked away with my heavy steps and dropped my gear, piece by piece, until I only had my hurt and anger, cradled in my heart, swaddled with relief.  I dressed for battle to go into a birth.  I prepared for war to witness a soft, gentle death.

Bearing gifts

Why do men think women want to know what it's like to have a penis?  Here's the latest blast of text messages from The Dong, who has just offered to buy me a strap-on:

You like that idea?
You'd be able to pretend you have a cock.
That's naughty.
And I like it.

In case you're counting, that's four separate texts in a row.  This is actually subdued for The Dong. (Who earned this name by virtue of his most endearing asset.) If you are getting the idea that I am a bit annoyed by all this, you are correct.  The Dong is not a person I would be interested in spending time with if I weren't in the middle of my post-divorce slutty phase.  It is only because I am, as my friend said, "penis shopping," that I am even answering him.  The Dong is only interested in one thing from me as well, but for him that involves this sort of foolishness.

I'm willing to try the strap-on because, A) I've never done it before, B) I don't have to spend any money or time to get the thing, and C) Post-divorce slutty phase.  But I am really not okay with the assumption that I am interested in having a penis.  I'm just fine with my lady bits.  In fact, I am more fine with them than I ever have been. They are lovely and awesome.  Why don't we instead talk about how The Dong can pretend to have a vagina?  And while we're at it (or before we're at it,) let's just drop all references to naughty and dirty where two consenting, grown-ass people are involved.

I am finding that there is a whole lot of childishness in the world of fully sexual adults.

I Smell the Ativan

"I had a panic attack last week."

"I think I'm going to fire my psychiatrist."

"I just get really anxious in new situations."

"When I get nervous, the stutter gets worse."

This is just a sample of what I've been hearing on dates recently.  It has been a while since I identified that I am attracted to men with anxiety issues.  But, in addition, I think I can smell them.  To me it must smell like chocolate, because apparently I can't resist it.  

I am not trying to find this type of man.  In fact, I hope I am actively trying to avoid them. Apparently, though, I can smell the Ativan and it makes me a little nuts.  Where does one go to rewire the circuits of desire? Or at least to become attracted to the smell of emotional stability?

Heartbreak Tour Guide

I realized while in the elevator the reason I am sad.  I am sad because I want that.  I want to meet someone who thinks enough of me to cut off intimacy with other people.  I want to be the basket for all of someone's eggs.

Let me start at the beginning.  Several months ago, I met a man who quickly became my heartbreak tour guide.  I trusted him enough to let him be the second man I had ever had sex with, and he trusted me enough to be truthful about the mistakes he had made in relationships.  It was clear at the outset that this was not the last relationship for either of us -- in fact, that this was barely a relationship at all in the way most people understand it. 

He taught me how to be unashamed about wanting to be sexual.  He took me through the lingering pain and helped me see that it was normal, that I was normal.  Like the best tour guides, he let me discover the most hidden places for myself, then he explained to me what they were, and what was waiting on the other side.  I hope, for my part, I taught him that there are kind women who have no agenda other than to be loving towards people.

When I got back from Costa Rica, he was different.  Not distant, exactly, but wanting a break from sex.  He explained it as something that happens occasionally, which I thought sounded normal.  In a small corner of my mind, I wondered if he had met someone.  Then, he sent me the Facebook message.  It was a kind, honest message, calling me a friend and confirming that he had indeed met someone who he felt he had a "real future" with.  I said I was happy for him, and that is the truth.  Then I texted the Id and told her I was both hurt and relieved.  That is also the truth.  My heartbreak tour guide has moved beyond being expert in heartbreak, and towards what I truly hope will be lifelong happiness.

But.  Still. No one wants to be the one receiving the relationship change message.  No one wants to be rejected, even when it was always inevitable.  Once he said to me that I would be done with him before he was done with me.  He was wrong. (It makes me smile to write that -- I told him he was right so many times.)  What hurts me most, though, and why I am once again crying in public, is simple jealousy.  I want that.  Not him, That.  I want the person who will think enough of me to focus on building a life with me.  

The Id also said it was good for me to focus on just being me for a while.  Bless her gentle heart, she saw that I was distracting myself from myself, even as I was learning how to heal.  She is right.  Sometimes, you just have to wave goodbye to the tour guide and discover the trail on your own.

Decree Day Thoughts, Part 1

Here was my first thought on entering the courtroom: Why are all family law attorneys so short?

I took whatever I could to calm myself that day, and the first thing was giggling about all the tiny attorneys who could barely see over the clerk's bench to check in.  They looked like children at an old-fashioned movie ticket window. 

The second thing was touching my middle fingers and thumbs together into a loose circle and breathing. 

Here is what I wish had happened during the prove-up (which, by the way, is a ridiculous name for the thing):

Judge: What are you doing with your hands?

Me: Meditating, your honor.

Judge: Meditating? 

Me: Yes, your honor.

Judge: Ms. Sturgeon, are you aware that this is a court hearing?

Me: Yes, your honor.

Judge: Why are you meditating instead of focusing on the matter at hand?

Me: Excuse me, your honor, but meditating is helping me to focus on the matter at hand.

Judge: How is that?

Me: By managing my emotions.

Judge: You seem very stoic. Can you explain that?

Me: Your honor, I do not care to display or share any part of my emotional life with the petitioner.

Judge: Why not?

Me: Because I do not trust him with it.

I suppose the question right after the decree was, who gets to share my emotional life? I worry that I will never develop the habit of sharing it, and I will fall into the same frustrating close distance that we had for the last few years of the marriage.  Shortly after the decree, I read that women tend to blame their partners for a breakup, while men tend to blame themselves.  I want to recognize and own my part in all of this.  After all, my actions and my future are the only things I can really do anything about.  All the rest is noise. Crying into the downpour.

Never Have I Ever

My life now is like one long, drawn-out game of Never Have I Ever, and I am getting wasted.  Never have I ever paid property taxes on a condo I own free and clear.  Never have I ever gone an entire week without shutting the bathroom door.  Never have I ever received payment just for being married once.  Never have I ever left my spouse.  Never have I ever had my heart broken so thoroughly and so well that I had to grow an entirely new one in its place.  Never have I ever given up on a marriage.

It is that last one which still rankles, and will until the end of days. Never have I ever given up.  I got indifferent.  I took for granted.  I hid and stayed silent, but I did not give up.  Now, when it would be in my best interest to give up, I'm not sure how.  I know how to look like it, but the doing of it is difficult.  Never have I ever.

Two weeks post decree, I felt like a half-finished puzzle where the table got shaken and overturned.  I thought a picture was emerging and I had everything at least organized.  Blue with blue. Red with red.  Yellow with yellow.  But it wasn't organized and there was that same helpless, irrational rage you feel when you're 5 years old and all your toys are gone for no reason.  I didn't understand why everything was different all of the sudden.  I had been preparing for months.  I was ready.  Who the fuck turned over the table in the middle of the night? And changed out all the pieces? And took the picture away?

And this, I realize, is where I am really Mapless.  It's not my relationship with him, it's my relationship with myself.  Never have I ever lived completely on my own as an adult, and that's the truth.  I look at my profiles on dating sites and wonder who it is I am writing about.  Some woman half in and half out of a door.  I can identify part of her as me, but the rest is obscured.

Meanwhile, I am slowly ticking off milestones in my ongoing game of Never Have I Ever.  I hope that I am the one of us having the most outrageous sex.  Because never have I ever been curious and unashamed . . .

Heart 8

I had acupuncture yesterday.  The diagnosis was Liver Chi deficiency.  Based on the acupuncturist's guess at my physical symptoms, that was an accurate finding.  During the consultation, the fact of the recent divorce came out. (Question: "How do you feel about the weight you are at right now?" Answer: convuluted expression of overall discomfort ending with revelation that I have lost a lot of weight very rapidly due to emotional stress.)

Before I got on the table, the acupuncturist pointed to a spot on her palm, just below her pinkie finger.  "This is Heart 8," she said, "Normally, I try to avoid this point, but I think you need it." It didn't occur to me to worry.

Once I was on the table, she put needles in several points on my ears, scalp, feet and ankles.  I felt a mildly unpleasant electric warmth when she needled my third eye point, and thought that would be the most intense.  Finally, she went to Heart 8.

When she inserted the needle, I cried out.  The pain was exquisite, both mild and unbearable.  Immediately, without any control, I started to weep.  Even thinking about it now, I'm starting to tear up.  It was as if the needle went not to a point on the heart meridian, but directly into my physical and emotional heart.  As loud, wracking sobs gradually calmed to silent tears, the sharp pain calmed to a dull ache.  Eventually, I was able to focus on the flow of energy from head to feet, as she had directed me before leaving the room.

I thought I was strong.  I thought I was well.  Mostly, though, I thought I was healed enough that nothing would break open again.  Today, there is still a small bruise on my palm, right over Heart 8.  It reminds me that I am starting to take care of myself, just myself.  It reminds me that strong and stoic are not the same thing.

Solo Travel, Complications

I am sitting in Liberia Airport, using the compass app on my phone to find West so I can chant the sun down. This trip is ending as it began -- with as many complications as possible.  A brush fire kept us sitting on the runway for two hours, then just as we were about to take off, a mechanical issue sent us back to the airport where we learned the flight was cancelled and we had to wait until tomorrow to fly out. 

Oddly enough, none of this phases me.  I am stuck here true, but here is a warm paradise, removed from the life that I have determined to adjust.  I am not alone, not really.  One other person from the retreat was on my flight, and she is sitting here with me, commiserating between our solitary wifi binges. And when I feel panic rising, I remember that I can chant down the sun.  One of the things I learned this week.  One more thing I thought I would never do in life.  Ever. 

The sun is truly down, and dark is descending over the feeble lights from the airport and the hotel across the street.  All the families with small children have been sent to hotels for the night.  The only frustration I feel comes from the overstimulation -- so many people talking, conspiracy theorizing and complaining.  It is a sharp awakening from my week of retreat.  It is hard to realize again that not everyone leads with compassion.  

I hoped to gently ease back into my life after this unhoneymoon, but it seems I am being tossed.  I can kick and scream and join the over stimulating chorus.  Or I can jump without fear, remembering that I can fly.

Solo Travel, the Video

The teacher of our retreat showed that "Alexander's Transformation" video that has been making the rounds of the internet and I lost it.  Lost.  It.  I ended up sobbing into my hands in the bathroom.  The idea of the courage behind that transformation just struck me in the heart.  The perseverance and the positive talk even as he fell and fell and fell again.  Just knowing that these things are possible -- so what's my excuse?  But really, it was the song.  That Coldplay song.  Because the truth is, no one can fix you.  Only you can fix you. And as it turns out, my day of tears had only begun.

After the video, we got all warmed up and practiced our little combo.  Our teacher turned us to face the panoramic seascape, and told us there was a person way out on the little spit of land in the distance, and next time we went through the dance, we had to project our dance out to that person.  We had to somehow make that person feel the joy and the power and the love that brought us all together, dancing together.  She put the music on, and I just felt full, so full of all that I am and will be.  I started to cry again while we were dancing.  I thought to myself, this is the water that mixes the cement that puts me together again.

In the evening, we practiced yoga, then we walked down to the beach to chant down the setting sun.  Sitting on the sand, facing the water, with lovely voices all around, all chanting about the light of the sun and the light of ourselves, I filled up and overflowed again.  I started to despair of ever being able to recreate the calm, tensile strength of this retreat after I got home.  My voice broke as the last edge of the sun slipped below the waves and we ended our chanting.  In the absence of human sound that followed, the mortar set around another section of my brick house.

Solo Travel, the Lines

I went zip lining because the very idea terrifies me.  Flying across valleys, rivers, jungles and whatever suspended only by a harness and a cable? Sure.  Sign me up.  I fear heights and I don't like roller coasters, but the whole point of this trip is to do things that terrify me.

I went alone, and as the tour group assembled, I remained the only solo traveler among two happy young couples and a family of five.  I felt calm and happy as I got hooked into my harness.  I felt a wave of nostalgic zen as we piled into the open bed of a pickup truck for the drive to the lines. I was fine until we got to the first line and one of our guides went over how to sit in the harness, slow down and keep straight.  I barely heard him over the blood rushing in my ears.  My knees and hands shook from adrenaline.  I couldn't breathe, and when it was my turn, I could barely walk to the line to get hooked in.  I dropped off the side of the mountain, sliding over the cable with my eyes shut tight, screaming like a little girl in a haunted house.  The first line was a long ride.  I couldn't see the end from the start.  

After the first line, it got easier.  Over the course of ten or so lines, I trusted.  I trusted the harness.  I trusted the lines.  I trusted the goofy, flirty Costa Rican boys who were there to protect us.  I trusted myself to make it across.  

And isn't that the theme of this first year or so?  I can't see the end from the beginning, but it only works if I leap and trust myself to make it across.  All is well.  All will be well.  I hope I can continue to believe this when I get dropped back into my "real" life again.  I hope I will continue to go over the canopy into the wild.  

Solo Travel, the Flight

I fell asleep on the plane and when I woke up, we had fallen off the edge of the world -- outside was nothing but water and a few cotton ball clouds.  There was a horizon, but I couldn't see it because the sky and the water were the same color.  So, there I was, wrapped in infinite, putting the full hard stop on the person that was.  The person that was part of, companion to, connected with -- and this took my breath.  I needed the full hard stop so I could gather enough voice to speak the person who is.  Complete.  Entire.  Imperfect unto herself.

The day did not start off well.  I woke up to a message that my flight had been cancelled. I panicked.  This trip was the thing I had been looking forward to for months.  This was the mortar I would use to put together the brick house that is myself.  I ended up finding the earlier flight and I booked it without hesitation, rushing to the airport thanking the personality gods that I am always two hours early for everything.  I booked it even though I can't afford it, because of the moment.  The moment in the mirror, just after I got the cancellation message, where I looked at my frightened self.

In that moment, my frightened self wondered how bad it would really be to Chuck the trip, stay home and be safe (if bored) for a week.  The frightened voice was small, thank goodness, but still comforting.  So, I marched myself to the internet, found the earlier flight, threw everything in my bag, and got myself to the airport in plenty of time.  My fingers and hands shook so much, I could barely complete the reservation online.  Somehow it happened, and I got on a plane where I could fall asleep and wake up to find we had fallen off the edge of the world.

In the taxi on the way to the airport, I noticed a bright, clear full moon.  It was glowing brown in a deeper brown sky.  I felt the last layers of panic shake down through my body and out my feet.  The only shaking I would be doing for the next week would be for sheer joy, dancing.  I felt inclined to be peaceful, patient, to love and trust in the good nature of all people and things.

Rooster Hat

I called a friend after a brief coffee date and said this: "The next time I tell you I'm going out with a performer/artist, ask me if his profile picture involves clothing in the shape of an animal.  And if I say yes, smack me over the head."

He showed up wearing a rooster hat.  A hat.  In the shape of a rooster.  With little strings hanging down so it could be tied under the chin lest he lose it in the wind, god forbid.  The rooster hat had several little buttons all over it -- the kind you get at protest rallies or art openings.  He was wearing one of those itchy, striped, vaguely South American pullover hooded shirts in lieu of a real coat.  Did I mention that he was 52 years old?  And when he finally did remove the rooster hat (after ten minutes of conversation) he was almost completely bald?  I decided to just go with it and asked him about his "chicken hat" first thing.  Very politely, he corrected me, referring to his rooster hat, and his general propensity for wearing Ecuadorian hats.

Rooster Hat told me all about his music, his art, his throat singing and his MFA studies.  He asked me if I ever had the urge to perform, and I told him about my dance classes.  So, he told me about how he put together a performance piece where he conducted a group of dancers using hand gestures.  

Truthfully, a lot of his work sounded interesting. I had to admire his commitment to making art, no matter the financial consequences.  I had to appreciate the fact that I didn't have to do a thing on this coffee date -- I didn't even have to talk much because he was willing to share a lot about his own work.  

After an hour, I couldn't take it anymore, and I called the date in the most obvious-subtle way possible.  Saying that "I should get going," I shook his hand and said it was nice to meet him (it was, truly.) I walked down the street to the book store vestibule and called my friend.  She gave me wonderful advice about dating in general (enjoy, learn, have fun) and about artists specifically (they make better friends than boyfriends.) 

After we talked, I walked into the bookstore to get a coffee and write this post.  As usual, there were several young college freshman milling about.  One young woman caught my eye.  She was wearing a hat in the shape of a rooster, with little strings hanging down so it could be tied under the chin.