I went to the emergency room of my local hospital early Saturday morning, the 2nd of August, 2014. I hadn't slept more than an hour each night for three nights, and on the fourth night of awakening at 1 AM, my heart racing and thudding, panic flooding my body, I sat up in bed and remembered an insect bite several weeks earlier that had developed a red rash around it. Into the dark of my bedroom, I uttered aloud, "Lyme disease."
After the panic passed, I crawled out of bed, my head, neck, and shoulder on the left side searing with migraine pain, left jaw clenched tight, all of my joints stiff and painful to move, my feet ice cold, my balance tipsy, eyes and nose raw and itching as though there was something crawling around inside them, my right eye twitching furiously. I had been feeling steadily worse over the past few weeks, but by Friday all of the seemingly disparate symptoms coalesced into one clear image: I had been bitten by a tick, developed a rash around the bite, and now had Lyme disease. An hour or so of online research on several websites, including Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, the Centers for Disease Control, and Tick-borne Infection Alliance affirmed my suspicion. There, I realized that all I had been taught about tick bites and Lyme disease was unreliable. The "bullseye" rash that we are taught to look for is found in less than half the cases of Lyme, and most people never even see a tick let alone remove one. Most people just never know they have been bitten. They become mysteriously ill and then the hell begins. As relieved as I felt to know that there was something very real and clear happening to my body, I was shaken to my bones by the stories I read of people being misdiagnosed or undiagnosed, whose lives were inexorably altered by the stealthy bacterium Borrelia burgdorfi.
I sat up all night, terrified, my mind thinking thoughts so foreign and frightful I dare not share them, meeting that terror with slow, steady breathing and a reminder that I wasn't crazy just terribly ill. At 4 AM, when I could no longer stand being alone in the terror, I drove to the home of my dear friend and intimate companion, who tucked me under his wing and held me close until the sun came up. He listened as I explained what had been going on over the last few days: how I had suddenly developed what felt like terrible allergies, how my head had felt "floaty," like it wasn't even attached to my body, how I had been having extreme memory difficulties, how my vision had become increasingly blurry and disturbed by floaters and spots, how I felt so weary I could hardly put one steady foot in front of the other, how I had sat up night after night, my heart racing and thudding and skipping, my mind distorted and anxious, my body feeling invaded by an alien force, how the migraine and frozen neck and shoulder had descended upon me on Friday afternoon, how I simply was not myself, and just how very scared I was feeling. He settled my head against his warm, sturdy chest and soothed me into rest. An hour or so later, I drove myself to the hospital.
When I arrived at the ER, I was checked in and given a wristband. I told the attendant that I thought I had Lyme disease. I was then taken to an intake office, where a nurse asked me some questions, took my temperature (96.7), and measured my blood pressure. "Why don't you tell me what's been going on? " she asked. I briefly explained to her my symptoms. "Did you remove a tick from your body?" No. "Have you experienced vomiting or diarrhea?" No. I told her that I remembered getting an insect bite on the back of my neck that had developed a rash around it, and that over the following weeks I felt as though I had a summer cold or the flu, and that things had gotten steadily worse over the weeks. "Why didn't you see your doctor?" she asked. "Because the rash didn't have a bullsye around it and that's what we're all told to look for!" I exclaimed. "Because everything was happening in bits and pieces and it was hard to realize that it was all related until my body simply freaked out!" I cried. I felt very uncomfortable with her tone, as though she didn't believe the seriousness of what I was experiencing. She had not just spent the night thinking the kind of thoughts that I had been thinking, and, honestly, if I has shared them with her she would've called the orderlies from the psych ward. I calmed myself and said, "I thought I had a cold. I thought that the memory issues were menopause or middle age. I thought that the vision issues was the re-clouding of my lenses. I had cataracts removed last year and my doctor said that would happen over the course of a few months, given the difficulty he had in removing the debris on my lenses. I just didn't know what to look for."
Finally, the nurse transferred me to an examination room, where I was given a gown and told to relax. I quickly changed into the gown and sat down on the edge of the bed, my heart rushing. It was very cold and I needed some blankets. My body started to shake. I called for a nurse, but no one responded. I called again, and finally a male nurse came in. He stuck his head in through the door. "What do you need?" he asked brusquely. "It's really cold in here," I explained. "I'd appreciate a blanket or two." He simply turned and walked out, with no reply. About five minutes later, he returned with a thin, cotton blanket, which he placed in a heap on my lap. "I'll be back in a little while to get some information from you."
About 40 minutes later, the nurse returned. He was slender, about 30, with a close beard, big hands, and a short manner. He asked me to explain to him what had brought me in, so I launched into the same story I had just shared with the other nurse. His eyes never met mine, he glanced at the door several times while I was talking, and he made no attempt to demonstrate to me that he cared one whit about me, other than the very basic fact that he was there at all. His entire manner suggested that I was wasting his precious time. I felt angry, but I was so weary and in such pain that I simply sighed. "I'm going to start you on a IV, in case the doctor needs to give you anything, and take some blood. We're also going to do an EKG, to check out your heart. I'll be right back." He snapped the curtain and was gone. Fifteen or so minutes later, a tech wheeled in an EKG unit, to which she hooked me up. She ran a remarkably quick scan, peeled off a short sheet of paper, and was gone. Soon, the nurse returned. He carefully inserted an IV in my left arm, from which he drew several tubes of blood. "The doctor should be with you soon," he explained, as he departed.
For two hours, I sat in the darkened solitude of the examination room, listening to the sounds of other patients in nearby rooms: an old man moaning and gasping, a baby screaming and shrieking, a woman's persistent, hacking cough, the voices of the doctors and nurses as they passed by my door, exchanging jokes, or performed exams on other patients. At long last, a young doctor with attentive eyes entered the room, his hand outstretched. He introduced himself and asked me to explain, once again, what had brought me to the ER.
I started from the beginning: I can't remember exactly when, but a couple of months ago I was bit by an insect; the bite developed a circular, red rash around it, which was warm to the touch and took about 3 weeks to fully heal; there was no bullseye; over the weeks that followed, I felt, off and on, as though I was getting a cold, with runny nose, sneezing, scratchy throat, body aches, and fatigue; about a month after the bite, my right shoulder became excruciatingly painful, felt "frozen" and immobile with pain, and the right side of my neck, where I had been injured in a physical assault, was in terrible pain, all of which, with professional massage, resolved; as the weeks passed, I noticed a number of strange occurrences, such as tingling in my hands, painful skin, joint stiffness and pain, unusually cold feet, headaches, lightheadedness that became a constant "floaty" feeling, loss of appetite accompanied by shaking and nausea when hungry, sensitivity to light and sound, inability to recall common words, a frequent feeling of disorientation, slurring my words and difficulty manipulating my tongue to form words, frequent choking on saliva, food, or fluids, anxiety (which is extremely unusual for me), insomnia (also extremely unusual), clumsiness, sensitivity to temperatures in my hands and feet, heartbeat abnormalities, such as racing, skipping, or thudding, constant and intense fatigue, lack of endurance, and sudden "allergies" including the most extreme itch in my eyes and nose that I had ever experienced. I explained that on the fourth night of insomnia, coupled by migraine, jaw clenching, and all-over body pain, I sat up and remembered the insect bite and the rash and suddenly thought, "Lyme disease." I explained to him that while I felt lucid and was able to communicate with him in that moment, at another moment he could've found me curled up in a ball in my bed, shuddering and in agony, my head on fire, my mind thinking very scary thoughts. "What kind of thoughts?" he asked. Cautiously, I replied, "Let's just say...thoughts that people don't want to think, thoughts that I have never before had in my life, thoughts that have no basis in the reality of my circumstances." He nodded, asked me a couple of questions, looked into my eyes, ears, nose, and throat, checked my reflexes, and said, "We're going to take some more blood and test you for Lyme." Hallelujah, I thought, I have found help.
About two hours later, I left the hospital, a dose of Doxycycline in my empty stomach, the headache intensifying. The doctor's written diagnosis: Acute Fatigue. I went home and ate an avocado, then went to the pharmacy around the corner from my house to pick up my prescriptions. That day was pure hell. I lay in bed with my body engulfed in a cold fire of pain. When I wasn't sleeping or lying in bed in restless pain, I researched Lyme disease online, realizing that I had been very suddenly tipped into a rabbit hole. Where I will land remains beyond my knowledge.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
How to Be the Change
"Be the change you want to see in the world"
Such oft-quoted words, and how I wonder what they mean to those who quote them.
How do I interpret this statement?
Well, I've been working in food service for 36 years, in restaurants and bars, cafes and natural food stores, in large, hierarchical kitchens, where everyone has a specific station and function, and in small, Mom and Pop spaces where everyone is trained to do it all, multitasking like the goddess Sarasvati. Throughout my long career, as hourly-wage earner, salaried manager, or barely-squeaking-by owner, I have possessed and promulgated the same attitude about tasks: if you view all work as your own, everything gets done, but if you eschew less enjoyable tasks, engaging only in the tasks you prefer, there are some key tasks that will never get completed. These are usually related to cleaning, by the way.
So, there you are, working in the kitchen, avoiding crawling behind the dishwasher to eradicate the food and grime that falls back there and pools into a slimy insect breeding ground because you, like Bartleby the Scrivener, "would prefer not to." Often, though, you stand around complaining about your lazy co-workers, and the stench, and the fruit flies, and the general lack of cleanliness you find so offensive. Now you've become part of the very problem about which you find yourself complaining. Pretty clear, right?
I see this as an important idea, which carries out into life beyond the kitchen and the time clock and has an effect on the world at large. When we complain about the injustices, the inequities, the disturbing, worrisome, mounting array of problems society is facing, but we fail to take action to address them, we have become part of those very problems. We've got to BE the very specific, direct change that we want to see in our lives, in the lives of others, and in the world. If each and everyone of us gets behind the dishwasher, right at the moment that our senses find it offensive, we remove one point of suffering and difficulty from the world, and make a positive contribution to our own (and, by extension, others') well-being.
In life, we get now. We get THIS moment to do and be all that we believe in and value. Don't point fingers, or wait for others to grant permission, or fall into apathetic hopelessness when you are confronted by the tasks so many of us view as unpleasant but we all know need to get done. BE that change that you want to see in the world. And do it right now.
Here I go...
Such oft-quoted words, and how I wonder what they mean to those who quote them.
How do I interpret this statement?
Well, I've been working in food service for 36 years, in restaurants and bars, cafes and natural food stores, in large, hierarchical kitchens, where everyone has a specific station and function, and in small, Mom and Pop spaces where everyone is trained to do it all, multitasking like the goddess Sarasvati. Throughout my long career, as hourly-wage earner, salaried manager, or barely-squeaking-by owner, I have possessed and promulgated the same attitude about tasks: if you view all work as your own, everything gets done, but if you eschew less enjoyable tasks, engaging only in the tasks you prefer, there are some key tasks that will never get completed. These are usually related to cleaning, by the way.
So, there you are, working in the kitchen, avoiding crawling behind the dishwasher to eradicate the food and grime that falls back there and pools into a slimy insect breeding ground because you, like Bartleby the Scrivener, "would prefer not to." Often, though, you stand around complaining about your lazy co-workers, and the stench, and the fruit flies, and the general lack of cleanliness you find so offensive. Now you've become part of the very problem about which you find yourself complaining. Pretty clear, right?
I see this as an important idea, which carries out into life beyond the kitchen and the time clock and has an effect on the world at large. When we complain about the injustices, the inequities, the disturbing, worrisome, mounting array of problems society is facing, but we fail to take action to address them, we have become part of those very problems. We've got to BE the very specific, direct change that we want to see in our lives, in the lives of others, and in the world. If each and everyone of us gets behind the dishwasher, right at the moment that our senses find it offensive, we remove one point of suffering and difficulty from the world, and make a positive contribution to our own (and, by extension, others') well-being.
In life, we get now. We get THIS moment to do and be all that we believe in and value. Don't point fingers, or wait for others to grant permission, or fall into apathetic hopelessness when you are confronted by the tasks so many of us view as unpleasant but we all know need to get done. BE that change that you want to see in the world. And do it right now.
Here I go...
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Feeling For Another
I have seen the terms compassion and empathy used interchangeably, and while they are interrelated, I believe that they are two very different states of being.
Compassion, literally, means to suffer with, to suffer simply by witnessing suffering. One need not understand or even imagine how another feels to experience compassion. The mere act of perceiving the suffering of any other being triggers in the witness emotional, and sometimes physical, suffering. For instance, crying when we see images of animals being slaughtered, feeling a deep wound when we realize that a person we love is in so much pain they want to take their own life, or experiencing profound anger at the sight of any being experiencing physical abuse. Compassion means that we don't have to know or even wonder what any of these circumstances feel like to suffer when confronted by them, we don't have to identify with another's situation to suffer when they suffer. Compassion, it seems, is an objective state.
Empathy, on the other hand, is defined as the act of imagining or relating to another's situation, or being able to "walk in their shoes;" feeling deeply for them, and sharing their feeling. Like when your back goes out and you suddenly feel deeply for your spouse- who has complained of back pain for years- and truly understanding his or her pain with your own senses. You may have felt compassion for your spouse, hurting because someone you loved was hurting, but you couldn't really feel what he or she was feeling until you were thrust into the same situation. This makes empathy a subjective state.
I have read that empathy is "a higher plane of emotive behavior," but I have also read that "empathy precedes compassion," with each statement seeming to value one emotive state over the other. I don't believe that one is more important than the other. I believe that it is necessary to identify and understand the differences between empathy and compassion, so that we can inhabit each with greater awareness, consciousness, and intention. Most importantly, I believe in the power of mindfulness. Our words and thoughts create our reality and affect the world around us, sometimes sending out ripples so wide we can no longer perceive them. Pondering the meaning of a word, and the common use of a word, and then using it mindfully, can bring greater potency to the relationships words help you to forge in life.
So, cultivate compassion, pause to notice the people and other beings living their lives all around you, and you will notice their suffering. Most likely, their suffering will touch you, and you will suffer with them. In suffering with another, we feel the roots of our humanity, and while they are deep, we often need reminders. We can be so terribly desensitized by the onslaught of imagery to which we are exposed on a daily basis, as we scroll screen after screen, ingesting more information than we know what to do with. Sometimes we fail to feel compassion for others because we no longer see them as real; they're just images on a screen. This age of information overload gives us greater access to information, but also makes it harder to know, and to trust, what it is we are seeing. So, maybe we can start in our own homes, on our own streets, in our own cities and towns. Look around you, see with honest eyes, and let yourself feel deeply the suffering of others. It won't swallow you whole, and it might even awaken you to parts of yourself you have forgotten. Reach out to others with your compassion- with your mind, or your heart, or your hands- and, when you can, do your best to mitigate the suffering you perceive, in yourself and in others.
And, engage empathy when it rises, let yourself feel deeply when you find yourself in someone else's situation and realize how much they have been hurting. Sometimes you will feel guilty for not having understood sooner, but know that there is much we cannot fully comprehend until circumstances are thrust upon us. Acknowledge that guilt, and then set it aside, let it go or you are contributing to your own suffering, which spreads like a virus into the world. Reach out to that person and let them know that you understand their pain. You don't have to lay yourself bare, or confess your most intimate details, to do this, I promise. The mere act of offering genuine empathy to a suffering being is enough to dramatically diminish their pain. Just saying, "I feel you, I care, I understand," just offering a warm embrace of deep, empathetic understanding, with no words shared, one where your hearts are beating together and you feel that energy moving between you, can keep another person alive to see another day. I know that you know this feeling, my friend, and it is your humanity.
There is pain and suffering in life and it's happening all around us, in every being that possesses a spark of life. How do we meet all of this pain? Compassion. Empathy. Generosity. Gratitude. The service of Love. The willingness to feel for another. There is a humbling river of joy contained within these states of being. Go ahead, stick your toe in...the water feels fine!
Compassion, literally, means to suffer with, to suffer simply by witnessing suffering. One need not understand or even imagine how another feels to experience compassion. The mere act of perceiving the suffering of any other being triggers in the witness emotional, and sometimes physical, suffering. For instance, crying when we see images of animals being slaughtered, feeling a deep wound when we realize that a person we love is in so much pain they want to take their own life, or experiencing profound anger at the sight of any being experiencing physical abuse. Compassion means that we don't have to know or even wonder what any of these circumstances feel like to suffer when confronted by them, we don't have to identify with another's situation to suffer when they suffer. Compassion, it seems, is an objective state.
Empathy, on the other hand, is defined as the act of imagining or relating to another's situation, or being able to "walk in their shoes;" feeling deeply for them, and sharing their feeling. Like when your back goes out and you suddenly feel deeply for your spouse- who has complained of back pain for years- and truly understanding his or her pain with your own senses. You may have felt compassion for your spouse, hurting because someone you loved was hurting, but you couldn't really feel what he or she was feeling until you were thrust into the same situation. This makes empathy a subjective state.
I have read that empathy is "a higher plane of emotive behavior," but I have also read that "empathy precedes compassion," with each statement seeming to value one emotive state over the other. I don't believe that one is more important than the other. I believe that it is necessary to identify and understand the differences between empathy and compassion, so that we can inhabit each with greater awareness, consciousness, and intention. Most importantly, I believe in the power of mindfulness. Our words and thoughts create our reality and affect the world around us, sometimes sending out ripples so wide we can no longer perceive them. Pondering the meaning of a word, and the common use of a word, and then using it mindfully, can bring greater potency to the relationships words help you to forge in life.
So, cultivate compassion, pause to notice the people and other beings living their lives all around you, and you will notice their suffering. Most likely, their suffering will touch you, and you will suffer with them. In suffering with another, we feel the roots of our humanity, and while they are deep, we often need reminders. We can be so terribly desensitized by the onslaught of imagery to which we are exposed on a daily basis, as we scroll screen after screen, ingesting more information than we know what to do with. Sometimes we fail to feel compassion for others because we no longer see them as real; they're just images on a screen. This age of information overload gives us greater access to information, but also makes it harder to know, and to trust, what it is we are seeing. So, maybe we can start in our own homes, on our own streets, in our own cities and towns. Look around you, see with honest eyes, and let yourself feel deeply the suffering of others. It won't swallow you whole, and it might even awaken you to parts of yourself you have forgotten. Reach out to others with your compassion- with your mind, or your heart, or your hands- and, when you can, do your best to mitigate the suffering you perceive, in yourself and in others.
And, engage empathy when it rises, let yourself feel deeply when you find yourself in someone else's situation and realize how much they have been hurting. Sometimes you will feel guilty for not having understood sooner, but know that there is much we cannot fully comprehend until circumstances are thrust upon us. Acknowledge that guilt, and then set it aside, let it go or you are contributing to your own suffering, which spreads like a virus into the world. Reach out to that person and let them know that you understand their pain. You don't have to lay yourself bare, or confess your most intimate details, to do this, I promise. The mere act of offering genuine empathy to a suffering being is enough to dramatically diminish their pain. Just saying, "I feel you, I care, I understand," just offering a warm embrace of deep, empathetic understanding, with no words shared, one where your hearts are beating together and you feel that energy moving between you, can keep another person alive to see another day. I know that you know this feeling, my friend, and it is your humanity.
There is pain and suffering in life and it's happening all around us, in every being that possesses a spark of life. How do we meet all of this pain? Compassion. Empathy. Generosity. Gratitude. The service of Love. The willingness to feel for another. There is a humbling river of joy contained within these states of being. Go ahead, stick your toe in...the water feels fine!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
19 Years of 19 Days
Dear Jesse,
Before you were born, 19 days didn't seem like a very long time.
And then you came in so challenged to even breathe, your heart one open chamber right in the center of your chest, and changed for me the very nature of time.
Because you were born at night, your first day was only 55 minutes long.
On your second day, you had open heart surgery, and if we measure the passage of time by the significant events that we experience, you had already done more living in 24 hours than I had done in thirty years. The rawness of that realization took my breath and humbly sent me to my knees.
By your third day of life, "day" and "night" no longer existed, and I had learned not to watch the machines for a sense of how you were doing. Women wiser and more experienced than I, those nurses whose ministrations seemed more calling than profession, focused my attention on you and said, "Leave the machines to us." When alarms would sound, Dad would smile and whisper to you, "It's just a truck backing up."
We started singing to you after a few days, because "how can I keep from singing" those songs that your Dad had written like a missive to our future selves? From the moment I met him, I knew that your Dad was a prophet, but only when we started singing to you his songs, written years before he had even met me, did I fully understand what he had been preparing us for.
Remember this one?
"On wax wings of fire,
I climb
Higher and higher.
Before diving to the sea,
effortlessly.
And I know
that I won't live
forever.
But I'm gonna sing a song,
before I go.
And when the wind is crisp and clear,
my thoughts
well
they follow my ears.
To the desert of my dreams,
where my inspiration streams.
And I know,
that I won't live
forever.
But I'm gonna sing a song,
before I go.
I try to speak my mind,
and embrace the sound.
Dig down in my soul,
when nobody is around.
Oh,
but it's scary.
Oh oh,
the hope
I have found.
And when my day comes,
I won't lay down.
I'll pick up this guitar and strum.
Til the nighttime washes over me.
Then I will be free.
And I know,
that I won't live forever.
But I'm gonna sing a song,
before I go.
On wax wings of fire,
I climb.
Higher.
And higher."
Four or five days after you were born, I had to be taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital because I was hemorrhaging. A lesson a mother learns the hard way: I can't be there for others if I don't take care of myself. Of course, your Dad was amazing, a rock. I know that he was terribly frightened, facing his deepest fear, but he stood strong, got me the best care, and tended to me with gentleness and love.
A week into living with you at Boston Children's Hospital, I realized that I could not, for one moment, defer living. You placed me in the perpetual present and left me there. As difficult as it was at times to face the loss of the fantasy of past and future, I am so grateful to you for giving me the gift of Now.
One evening, a little more than a week after your birth, a new nurse asked me, "Do you want to hold him?" as though it was something we had been doing every day. I was stunned, and I said, "Can I?" She held her tongue, but I could see that she was disappointed and even a little angry that no one had yet thought to create an opportunity for us to hold our son. It took a great deal of work, shifting wires and tubes, but then you were in my arms and I was the happiest I had ever been. I cried with great relief and joy, and your Dad and I sang, and I smiled so much my face ached. I will never forget cradling you close in the rocking chair, breathing in the scent of your newness and singing, "Boom boom, baby goes boom boom, baby goes boom boom now. We all cry, everybody does it, everybody boom booms now.." over and over, like a mantra.
Eleven days in, on Valentine's Day, we received news that a local artist had arranged a benefit concert at Fire & Water, in your honor. At first, the thought of leaving your side felt impossible, so we told our staff of volunteers not to expect us. But then your Dad and I talked about it and decided it would be like taking you on a day trip and giving the people back home a chance to come to terms with what we could see was happening. We knew intuitively that you weren't going to be staying, and we wanted to bring others closer to this understanding, and closer to us. So, we left you with your nurse Jane, knowing that you could go while we were away, and drove west in the van we called "Home." We assumed that no one would show up on a frozen February night, but when we pulled up to the back door of the cafe and climbed out of the van, a young guy leaning against the doorframe said, "Good luck getting in there. It's packed!" Your Dad and I walked through the door, and the room got very quiet. People parted to let us pass, offering hugs, a squeeze of the hand, a smile. Dad was as shocked as I was to see all of those people gathered in support of you, of us, and we held onto each other to keep from falling. It was a night full of love, the real kind of love that seeks only to nurture spiritual wellbeing. I was awakened by the outpouring that night, as a room full of strangers showed us that we had indeed accomplished our goal of building a community around you.
A day or two later, the doctors told us that you needed another procedure, which they believed would allow you greater blood flow and provide you with more oxygen. We consented, preparing ourselves for the possibility that you would not survive it, but hopeful that it would bring you greater ease and maybe get you off of the ventilator.
The procedure went very well, but, two days afterward, it became evident that the removal of the obstructions was now causing too much blood to rush to your heart. Your chest was filling with fluid and the doctors had to insert drainage tubes in your sides to deal with it.
A few days later, you developed an infection which quickly became full-blown sepsis. Your Dad and I could see that you were working so hard just to stay with us, and one evening, you opened your eyes and looked first at Dad and then at me with a gaze that galvanized our resolve. Later, in the privacy of the room we had borrowed from friends, we spoke and realized that we had seen the same thing in your eyes. We had both felt you saying, "Haven't I done enough?"
The next day, the doctors affirmed that you were, indeed, very sick, and told us that although they could try to do more to help you stay longer, it seemed that you had gone as far as you could go. Your Dad and I quickly agreed that when night came, we would remove all the tubes and wires, and sing you out. When the nurse removed your breathing tube, you opened your eyes and looked at us, and your face glowed like the full moon on a crystalline night. Later, I fell into bed and felt your spirit flood my body, felt that I was you lying inert on that hospital bed, my limbs limp and sprawling. I slept deeply that night for the first time in weeks, and dreamt of other lives, distant and overlapping.
Our moments with you were so long, Jesse, and every day felt like a privilege so great that I could not imagine being given, or even wanting, more. Never before had I been so alert. No detail escaped, and this careful attention to every moment altered time as I had previously known it. I am well aware that people believed we were living their nightmare, but, honestly, we were blissfully happy being there with you. Sitting by your side, holding your hand or cupping your fuzzy head, singing to you, was all of life. You came streaking through this world like a comet, your bright message of love indelible.
My beloved Jesse, I have been living those 19 days for 19 years, taking every available opportunity to tell the people I meet something I learned from you: when every moment is sacred, 19 days is an eternity.
Before you were born, 19 days didn't seem like a very long time.
And then you came in so challenged to even breathe, your heart one open chamber right in the center of your chest, and changed for me the very nature of time.
Because you were born at night, your first day was only 55 minutes long.
On your second day, you had open heart surgery, and if we measure the passage of time by the significant events that we experience, you had already done more living in 24 hours than I had done in thirty years. The rawness of that realization took my breath and humbly sent me to my knees.
By your third day of life, "day" and "night" no longer existed, and I had learned not to watch the machines for a sense of how you were doing. Women wiser and more experienced than I, those nurses whose ministrations seemed more calling than profession, focused my attention on you and said, "Leave the machines to us." When alarms would sound, Dad would smile and whisper to you, "It's just a truck backing up."
We started singing to you after a few days, because "how can I keep from singing" those songs that your Dad had written like a missive to our future selves? From the moment I met him, I knew that your Dad was a prophet, but only when we started singing to you his songs, written years before he had even met me, did I fully understand what he had been preparing us for.
Remember this one?
"On wax wings of fire,
I climb
Higher and higher.
Before diving to the sea,
effortlessly.
And I know
that I won't live
forever.
But I'm gonna sing a song,
before I go.
And when the wind is crisp and clear,
my thoughts
well
they follow my ears.
To the desert of my dreams,
where my inspiration streams.
And I know,
that I won't live
forever.
But I'm gonna sing a song,
before I go.
I try to speak my mind,
and embrace the sound.
Dig down in my soul,
when nobody is around.
Oh,
but it's scary.
Oh oh,
the hope
I have found.
And when my day comes,
I won't lay down.
I'll pick up this guitar and strum.
Til the nighttime washes over me.
Then I will be free.
And I know,
that I won't live forever.
But I'm gonna sing a song,
before I go.
On wax wings of fire,
I climb.
Higher.
And higher."
Four or five days after you were born, I had to be taken to Brigham and Women's Hospital because I was hemorrhaging. A lesson a mother learns the hard way: I can't be there for others if I don't take care of myself. Of course, your Dad was amazing, a rock. I know that he was terribly frightened, facing his deepest fear, but he stood strong, got me the best care, and tended to me with gentleness and love.
A week into living with you at Boston Children's Hospital, I realized that I could not, for one moment, defer living. You placed me in the perpetual present and left me there. As difficult as it was at times to face the loss of the fantasy of past and future, I am so grateful to you for giving me the gift of Now.
One evening, a little more than a week after your birth, a new nurse asked me, "Do you want to hold him?" as though it was something we had been doing every day. I was stunned, and I said, "Can I?" She held her tongue, but I could see that she was disappointed and even a little angry that no one had yet thought to create an opportunity for us to hold our son. It took a great deal of work, shifting wires and tubes, but then you were in my arms and I was the happiest I had ever been. I cried with great relief and joy, and your Dad and I sang, and I smiled so much my face ached. I will never forget cradling you close in the rocking chair, breathing in the scent of your newness and singing, "Boom boom, baby goes boom boom, baby goes boom boom now. We all cry, everybody does it, everybody boom booms now.." over and over, like a mantra.
Eleven days in, on Valentine's Day, we received news that a local artist had arranged a benefit concert at Fire & Water, in your honor. At first, the thought of leaving your side felt impossible, so we told our staff of volunteers not to expect us. But then your Dad and I talked about it and decided it would be like taking you on a day trip and giving the people back home a chance to come to terms with what we could see was happening. We knew intuitively that you weren't going to be staying, and we wanted to bring others closer to this understanding, and closer to us. So, we left you with your nurse Jane, knowing that you could go while we were away, and drove west in the van we called "Home." We assumed that no one would show up on a frozen February night, but when we pulled up to the back door of the cafe and climbed out of the van, a young guy leaning against the doorframe said, "Good luck getting in there. It's packed!" Your Dad and I walked through the door, and the room got very quiet. People parted to let us pass, offering hugs, a squeeze of the hand, a smile. Dad was as shocked as I was to see all of those people gathered in support of you, of us, and we held onto each other to keep from falling. It was a night full of love, the real kind of love that seeks only to nurture spiritual wellbeing. I was awakened by the outpouring that night, as a room full of strangers showed us that we had indeed accomplished our goal of building a community around you.
A day or two later, the doctors told us that you needed another procedure, which they believed would allow you greater blood flow and provide you with more oxygen. We consented, preparing ourselves for the possibility that you would not survive it, but hopeful that it would bring you greater ease and maybe get you off of the ventilator.
The procedure went very well, but, two days afterward, it became evident that the removal of the obstructions was now causing too much blood to rush to your heart. Your chest was filling with fluid and the doctors had to insert drainage tubes in your sides to deal with it.
A few days later, you developed an infection which quickly became full-blown sepsis. Your Dad and I could see that you were working so hard just to stay with us, and one evening, you opened your eyes and looked first at Dad and then at me with a gaze that galvanized our resolve. Later, in the privacy of the room we had borrowed from friends, we spoke and realized that we had seen the same thing in your eyes. We had both felt you saying, "Haven't I done enough?"
The next day, the doctors affirmed that you were, indeed, very sick, and told us that although they could try to do more to help you stay longer, it seemed that you had gone as far as you could go. Your Dad and I quickly agreed that when night came, we would remove all the tubes and wires, and sing you out. When the nurse removed your breathing tube, you opened your eyes and looked at us, and your face glowed like the full moon on a crystalline night. Later, I fell into bed and felt your spirit flood my body, felt that I was you lying inert on that hospital bed, my limbs limp and sprawling. I slept deeply that night for the first time in weeks, and dreamt of other lives, distant and overlapping.
Our moments with you were so long, Jesse, and every day felt like a privilege so great that I could not imagine being given, or even wanting, more. Never before had I been so alert. No detail escaped, and this careful attention to every moment altered time as I had previously known it. I am well aware that people believed we were living their nightmare, but, honestly, we were blissfully happy being there with you. Sitting by your side, holding your hand or cupping your fuzzy head, singing to you, was all of life. You came streaking through this world like a comet, your bright message of love indelible.
My beloved Jesse, I have been living those 19 days for 19 years, taking every available opportunity to tell the people I meet something I learned from you: when every moment is sacred, 19 days is an eternity.
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Woman Drummer
Rock and roll culture made drums a man's territory, but long ago the drummers were women. In the ancient cultures of the Mediterranean and Middle East, as well as parts of Europe, before patriarchal Christianity put its stamp on everything, the divine feminine was worshipped in rituals led by women frame drummers. Then, the female body was a holy thing, rightly worshipped for bringing the life of humanity into the world. The goddesses of ritual were feminine beings writ large, the macrocosmic expression of the spectrum of female experience and possibility, and both women and men worshipped them.
In time, women were disavowed as holy beings and shamed for an original sin: the dispensation of self-awareness, the encouraging of self-knowledge. Childbirth, no longer holy or honorable, became our "burden" and its blood and pain our "punishment" (imagine, we were sold that lie, we fell for it! That the miracle of Creation, itself, moving through us in service to Life is a punishment!). Our deep connection to the tides of nature and our temperament for healing were criminalized. Men led ritual, and women who continued to practice the worship of the feminine, and all that she represents, were harassed, publicly humiliated, imprisoned, tortured, and killed in the most atrocious ways.
That history lives within us all.
More and more, I see women reclaiming the divine feminine, and more and more I see them doing it to the beat of a drum. Admittedly, I am one of those women. I've always been excited by drums of every sort: frames, kits, hand drums, drums of every type, size, and sound. The tone can be visceral, commanding, trance-inducing, alluring, enticing, awakening, and transportive. The beat of the drum resonates throughout the entire body, a pulse-beat, a universal tempo to which we all respond, willingly or otherwise. Though I have no training on the drum, I have a natural sense of rhythm that encourages me to converse with it. I often turn to the drum when I feel that there is so much to say that nothing can be said. The drum speaks for me when I falter. I put my hands to it and the sound reaches back into my body and my psyche, and further informs the conversation. I sit or stand, drum positioned between my thighs, and play until I am quieted, until my hands are no longer moved by the creative, expressive force so mysterious and beautiful, until being alive in this body once again feels like an honor. The drum banishes fear, shame, expectation, deception, and woe, just turns it to dust and sets it on the wind. The drum plants my feet beneath me and affirms my courage.
More women should drum. Drumming is good for us: for our hearts (synching the drum's beat to that of our most precious organ); our throats (saying what we cannot or do not say with our voices); our imaginations (dreaming our world into being); our psyches (healing the scars of history, both personal and collective). Our vitality and integrity is our gift to the world, and the knowledge and exercise of this reality makes women extraordinary beings.
In time, women were disavowed as holy beings and shamed for an original sin: the dispensation of self-awareness, the encouraging of self-knowledge. Childbirth, no longer holy or honorable, became our "burden" and its blood and pain our "punishment" (imagine, we were sold that lie, we fell for it! That the miracle of Creation, itself, moving through us in service to Life is a punishment!). Our deep connection to the tides of nature and our temperament for healing were criminalized. Men led ritual, and women who continued to practice the worship of the feminine, and all that she represents, were harassed, publicly humiliated, imprisoned, tortured, and killed in the most atrocious ways.
That history lives within us all.
More and more, I see women reclaiming the divine feminine, and more and more I see them doing it to the beat of a drum. Admittedly, I am one of those women. I've always been excited by drums of every sort: frames, kits, hand drums, drums of every type, size, and sound. The tone can be visceral, commanding, trance-inducing, alluring, enticing, awakening, and transportive. The beat of the drum resonates throughout the entire body, a pulse-beat, a universal tempo to which we all respond, willingly or otherwise. Though I have no training on the drum, I have a natural sense of rhythm that encourages me to converse with it. I often turn to the drum when I feel that there is so much to say that nothing can be said. The drum speaks for me when I falter. I put my hands to it and the sound reaches back into my body and my psyche, and further informs the conversation. I sit or stand, drum positioned between my thighs, and play until I am quieted, until my hands are no longer moved by the creative, expressive force so mysterious and beautiful, until being alive in this body once again feels like an honor. The drum banishes fear, shame, expectation, deception, and woe, just turns it to dust and sets it on the wind. The drum plants my feet beneath me and affirms my courage.
More women should drum. Drumming is good for us: for our hearts (synching the drum's beat to that of our most precious organ); our throats (saying what we cannot or do not say with our voices); our imaginations (dreaming our world into being); our psyches (healing the scars of history, both personal and collective). Our vitality and integrity is our gift to the world, and the knowledge and exercise of this reality makes women extraordinary beings.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Fall
It astounds me how interconnected the seasons are, how shifting into one so profoundly calls up the other three. I am feeling the urge, as I do every fall, to lie down like a leaf in the deep forest, where no one treads, and become the soil. Just lie there as the fall deepens and turns to winter, as the snow comes and then piles up, foot upon foot, until spring awakens me again to the wonder of sunlight, warmth, and greenery.
The prospect of weathering another winter is wearying, yet I must prepare for it. Part of preparing for winter is preparing for spring. I was raised (I use the term loosely) in a California farming town in the San Joaquin Valley- that wide, fertile swath of land that joins Southern and Northern California. There, then, I was unaware of the seasons; though they, of course, occurred, the changes they brought were on a much milder scale than here in Western Massachusetts. There was less urgency, less need for the average person to weatherize their psyche.
I moved to Western Massachusetts in the winter of 1994, a record year for ice storms. I owned no parka, warm sweaters, hats, gloves, boots- no winter gear whatsoever. People told me that I would need to become a "snow bunny" to enjoy living here and to that I thought, "Fuck you." I longed for the beaches of Hawai'i, pined for the sheer cliffs, grand volcanic mountains, towering waterfalls, massive bamboo forests, and warm, wild ocean. I was miserable.
As the years passed, I acquired the appropriate winter gear that, at least, allowed me a modicum of comfort in a season I despised. Slowly, I began to accept that this is where my life was taking place, whether I liked it or not, so I'd better get with the program or I was going to become a bitterly unhappy, damaged person. I don't remember when I began to see myself as part of this ecosystem. It was years into living here, certainly. For so long I considered myself a foreigner, but at some point it dawned on me that adaptation was all that I had on my side.
Now, with each seasonal shift, I watch myself, I observe the shifts that happen within me and see how they mirror what is happening without. My son exclaimed, two nights ago, "It's 7 o'clock and it's as dark as midnight!" Indeed, the night comes sooner and falls darker than it did mere weeks ago, and with that darkening I watch my mind shift into a deep introspection, I witness myself preparing, mentally, for the long, cold season of darkness.
Because I live in a New England farming community, where we are so subject to the seasons, I have come to see myself akin to the flora and fauna surrounding me, I have come to identify with both the farmer and the crop. The farmer, in fall, is pulling the very last good food from the field and storing it for winter sustenance. In winter, the farmer has plenty of time to ponder, plot, and plan in preparation for spring's planting. "What will I plant in spring?" the farmer is thinking, and, in a way, those "seeds" have been planted.
Like the farmer, I find myself drawing in my late harvest, choosing what will sustain me for the winter and what I should discard. I am acknowledging that winter, that season of fallow fields, is coming very soon and preparing myself to meet its demands. Here, winter demands that we submit to its will. Yes, we can find ways to play with its snow, its intense cold, the ice that forms on the ponds, but these are still a submission. Winter wins.
As fall deepens, I recognize that winter will, once again, have its way with me, and ask me to decide what seeds I will plant in spring, grow in summer, and harvest again next fall. One season can never stand alone.
Today, I watch the gray and white clouds move swiftly across a blue sky and feel the forest calling. I want to walk for hours, until I can walk no further, then lie down like a leaf and merge. I don't want to face winter standing, I don't want to have to be so strong.
The prospect of weathering another winter is wearying, yet I must prepare for it. Part of preparing for winter is preparing for spring. I was raised (I use the term loosely) in a California farming town in the San Joaquin Valley- that wide, fertile swath of land that joins Southern and Northern California. There, then, I was unaware of the seasons; though they, of course, occurred, the changes they brought were on a much milder scale than here in Western Massachusetts. There was less urgency, less need for the average person to weatherize their psyche.
I moved to Western Massachusetts in the winter of 1994, a record year for ice storms. I owned no parka, warm sweaters, hats, gloves, boots- no winter gear whatsoever. People told me that I would need to become a "snow bunny" to enjoy living here and to that I thought, "Fuck you." I longed for the beaches of Hawai'i, pined for the sheer cliffs, grand volcanic mountains, towering waterfalls, massive bamboo forests, and warm, wild ocean. I was miserable.
As the years passed, I acquired the appropriate winter gear that, at least, allowed me a modicum of comfort in a season I despised. Slowly, I began to accept that this is where my life was taking place, whether I liked it or not, so I'd better get with the program or I was going to become a bitterly unhappy, damaged person. I don't remember when I began to see myself as part of this ecosystem. It was years into living here, certainly. For so long I considered myself a foreigner, but at some point it dawned on me that adaptation was all that I had on my side.
Now, with each seasonal shift, I watch myself, I observe the shifts that happen within me and see how they mirror what is happening without. My son exclaimed, two nights ago, "It's 7 o'clock and it's as dark as midnight!" Indeed, the night comes sooner and falls darker than it did mere weeks ago, and with that darkening I watch my mind shift into a deep introspection, I witness myself preparing, mentally, for the long, cold season of darkness.
Because I live in a New England farming community, where we are so subject to the seasons, I have come to see myself akin to the flora and fauna surrounding me, I have come to identify with both the farmer and the crop. The farmer, in fall, is pulling the very last good food from the field and storing it for winter sustenance. In winter, the farmer has plenty of time to ponder, plot, and plan in preparation for spring's planting. "What will I plant in spring?" the farmer is thinking, and, in a way, those "seeds" have been planted.
Like the farmer, I find myself drawing in my late harvest, choosing what will sustain me for the winter and what I should discard. I am acknowledging that winter, that season of fallow fields, is coming very soon and preparing myself to meet its demands. Here, winter demands that we submit to its will. Yes, we can find ways to play with its snow, its intense cold, the ice that forms on the ponds, but these are still a submission. Winter wins.
As fall deepens, I recognize that winter will, once again, have its way with me, and ask me to decide what seeds I will plant in spring, grow in summer, and harvest again next fall. One season can never stand alone.
Today, I watch the gray and white clouds move swiftly across a blue sky and feel the forest calling. I want to walk for hours, until I can walk no further, then lie down like a leaf and merge. I don't want to face winter standing, I don't want to have to be so strong.
Friday, July 13, 2012
The Metaphor of Dance
As a lifelong writer of journals, poems, short stories, and long letters, I have found metaphor to be a comforting companion. Allowing one idea, image, symbol, experience to stand in for another helps me to be a person with a flexible mind and an open heart- the kind of person I enjoy being. Throughout every day, I find opportunity to reach into my experiences of past and draw into the present lessons learned from them. Maybe this is what wisdom looks like? I don't know. I can see, though, that as I mature, I have this well-spring of deep experience which feels like solid ground beneath my feet, and I find this comforting.
I dance. A lot. With a group of extremely kind and supportive people. Lately, I have been finding that what serves me in dance also serves me in other areas of my life. For instance, initiating dance movement from my core allows me to be more centered and balanced, and infuses my movement with greater strength and purpose. Allowing my limbs to follow the movement of my core muscles translates into more fluid, satisfying, beautiful dance and helps me connect with my partner more openly, because I am grounded in my own strength and bodily intention.
Something beautiful which is growing from the development of core strength and sensitivity is the ability to transition easily between "leading" and "following," something that I have found challenging in both dance and everyday life. Reading circumstances, trusting my senses to perceive accurately, and fluidly responding with one or the other role is something that I am learning through dancing with partners, and this burgeoning ability is finding a place off of the dance floor, as well. I no longer have to be dominated by my hyperactive drive to control, to lead, for I am finding trust in my own body's ability to respond to the cues it is receiving. Following is not a passive activity, in dance or otherwise! It requires physical and mental engagement, muscle development, and a willingness to get intimate with my inhibitions.
Dedication to dance is like cultural immersion. The more I dance with other, more experienced, dancers, whom I consider the Denizens of Dance, the more facile I become with the non-verbal language of balance and counter-balance that dance instills and demands, and the more a part of the human culture of dance expression I realize I have always been. In dance, I feel at home- in my body, in my emotional expression, in the company of people who, like me, find joy there. Dancing with others is an exploration of the boundaries of body, mind, energy; most often, I find that there is little that separates me from you. To find this on the dance floor tells me that I can find it anywhere I put my body.
So often, I catch myself ossifying into a state of isolation and individuality. Certainly, there is a time and place for boundaries, but possessing the ability to see through those boundaries and acknowledge that our true state is unity, that we are all made of the same matter, shimmering with the same impulses, feels important to me. I don't want to make myself so singular that I cannot see myself in everyone else I encounter. Ultimately, I am no different from any other human on this planet and dance allows me to see this so frankly. When I move onto the dance floor with another person, and we engage in the tension that exists between our two bodies, I imagine that I have been given the opportunity to jump out of my body and into theirs. I want to feel their bodily impulses move through me, and so I allow myself to be led, to feel my partner's core expressions as a physical roadmap: here is where we are going. I can't know where we are going before I set out, though. I have to just get right with myself at the outset and accept that for me to get anywhere I will have to pay attention to where I am. When the music ends after such a dance, I find myself feeling immeasurably peaceful and full of joy. Moving through space in synch with another person's body is so freeing and so beautiful. It moves my heart to the point of awe.
My entire life, I have dreamt, literally, about dance. I dream about flying an awful lot, also, but that is another story. In my dance dreams, I possess abilities that I have not yet realized in my waking life: I soar, I leap, I turn, I possess muscular acuity that my waking self has never known, and I choreograph the most beautiful dances for myself and others. Sometimes, I long to sleep just to dream these marvelous realities into being. In my dreams, I possess no self-limitations, I am unabashedly alive with dance. As I move more deeply into this undertaking of dancing with others, I am consciously challenging myself to summon up this dreamlife dancer that is me, to tap into what my unconscious knows about how to dance while I am awake. The limitations that I possess are of my own making, in all areas of my life including dance. Dancing with others lately, I see that I can have what I want: free body, free mind, bodily and emotional connection, happiness. It all comes to me in that place, and if it is there, it is available wherever I am.
In the space where I dance, amongst this ever-windening group of people, there exists a remarkable degree of acceptance of one another. I have seen people break wide open and sob on the dance floor, heard spontaneous wails, cries, animal sounds, and songs erupt from the mouths of fellow dancers, witnessed people moving in ways that wouldn't appear much like dance to the average observer, and generally been privy to a vast spectrum of human expression. I am accustomed to a high degree of emotional intensity- I realize that my intensity threshold is very different from many people's- and even I have been startled at times by the rawness of what people reveal to one another at the dance. And I am affirmed by this witnessing, I am humbled by the trust- in themselves and in me- that is shown by the members of my dance community, I am inspired to allow myself to drop into the whatever lurks, lingers, hunkers, slumbers, swims, darts, dashes or dwells within my psyche when I am in this stunningly safe environment.
Lately, I watch myself carrying into the world what I have found on in the dance and I am grateful for the power of transformation, the power of metaphor. Dance is awakening qualities in me that I want to share with the world, so when I feel challenged I pause and summon up the dance floor where I have seen that the strength of my core's intentions is expressed by the rest of my body; fluidly moving between the active states of leading and following makes me a more flexible, responsible person, which in turn allows me to move out of my habitual state of isolation and extreme individuation and engage in synchronistic flow with others from whom, on the most basic level, I am no different; recognizing and disabling self-imposed limitations is a constant possibility; and the safe and vast expression of emotion is fundamental to well-being. Time and again, the practice of dance and its many lessons, so easily transferred to my everyday life, lifts my spirits and fills me with joy.
I dance. A lot. With a group of extremely kind and supportive people. Lately, I have been finding that what serves me in dance also serves me in other areas of my life. For instance, initiating dance movement from my core allows me to be more centered and balanced, and infuses my movement with greater strength and purpose. Allowing my limbs to follow the movement of my core muscles translates into more fluid, satisfying, beautiful dance and helps me connect with my partner more openly, because I am grounded in my own strength and bodily intention.
Something beautiful which is growing from the development of core strength and sensitivity is the ability to transition easily between "leading" and "following," something that I have found challenging in both dance and everyday life. Reading circumstances, trusting my senses to perceive accurately, and fluidly responding with one or the other role is something that I am learning through dancing with partners, and this burgeoning ability is finding a place off of the dance floor, as well. I no longer have to be dominated by my hyperactive drive to control, to lead, for I am finding trust in my own body's ability to respond to the cues it is receiving. Following is not a passive activity, in dance or otherwise! It requires physical and mental engagement, muscle development, and a willingness to get intimate with my inhibitions.
Dedication to dance is like cultural immersion. The more I dance with other, more experienced, dancers, whom I consider the Denizens of Dance, the more facile I become with the non-verbal language of balance and counter-balance that dance instills and demands, and the more a part of the human culture of dance expression I realize I have always been. In dance, I feel at home- in my body, in my emotional expression, in the company of people who, like me, find joy there. Dancing with others is an exploration of the boundaries of body, mind, energy; most often, I find that there is little that separates me from you. To find this on the dance floor tells me that I can find it anywhere I put my body.
So often, I catch myself ossifying into a state of isolation and individuality. Certainly, there is a time and place for boundaries, but possessing the ability to see through those boundaries and acknowledge that our true state is unity, that we are all made of the same matter, shimmering with the same impulses, feels important to me. I don't want to make myself so singular that I cannot see myself in everyone else I encounter. Ultimately, I am no different from any other human on this planet and dance allows me to see this so frankly. When I move onto the dance floor with another person, and we engage in the tension that exists between our two bodies, I imagine that I have been given the opportunity to jump out of my body and into theirs. I want to feel their bodily impulses move through me, and so I allow myself to be led, to feel my partner's core expressions as a physical roadmap: here is where we are going. I can't know where we are going before I set out, though. I have to just get right with myself at the outset and accept that for me to get anywhere I will have to pay attention to where I am. When the music ends after such a dance, I find myself feeling immeasurably peaceful and full of joy. Moving through space in synch with another person's body is so freeing and so beautiful. It moves my heart to the point of awe.
My entire life, I have dreamt, literally, about dance. I dream about flying an awful lot, also, but that is another story. In my dance dreams, I possess abilities that I have not yet realized in my waking life: I soar, I leap, I turn, I possess muscular acuity that my waking self has never known, and I choreograph the most beautiful dances for myself and others. Sometimes, I long to sleep just to dream these marvelous realities into being. In my dreams, I possess no self-limitations, I am unabashedly alive with dance. As I move more deeply into this undertaking of dancing with others, I am consciously challenging myself to summon up this dreamlife dancer that is me, to tap into what my unconscious knows about how to dance while I am awake. The limitations that I possess are of my own making, in all areas of my life including dance. Dancing with others lately, I see that I can have what I want: free body, free mind, bodily and emotional connection, happiness. It all comes to me in that place, and if it is there, it is available wherever I am.
In the space where I dance, amongst this ever-windening group of people, there exists a remarkable degree of acceptance of one another. I have seen people break wide open and sob on the dance floor, heard spontaneous wails, cries, animal sounds, and songs erupt from the mouths of fellow dancers, witnessed people moving in ways that wouldn't appear much like dance to the average observer, and generally been privy to a vast spectrum of human expression. I am accustomed to a high degree of emotional intensity- I realize that my intensity threshold is very different from many people's- and even I have been startled at times by the rawness of what people reveal to one another at the dance. And I am affirmed by this witnessing, I am humbled by the trust- in themselves and in me- that is shown by the members of my dance community, I am inspired to allow myself to drop into the whatever lurks, lingers, hunkers, slumbers, swims, darts, dashes or dwells within my psyche when I am in this stunningly safe environment.
Lately, I watch myself carrying into the world what I have found on in the dance and I am grateful for the power of transformation, the power of metaphor. Dance is awakening qualities in me that I want to share with the world, so when I feel challenged I pause and summon up the dance floor where I have seen that the strength of my core's intentions is expressed by the rest of my body; fluidly moving between the active states of leading and following makes me a more flexible, responsible person, which in turn allows me to move out of my habitual state of isolation and extreme individuation and engage in synchronistic flow with others from whom, on the most basic level, I am no different; recognizing and disabling self-imposed limitations is a constant possibility; and the safe and vast expression of emotion is fundamental to well-being. Time and again, the practice of dance and its many lessons, so easily transferred to my everyday life, lifts my spirits and fills me with joy.
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