A voice like honey
to help us remember to lick the spoon
a very big feeling. a promise.
I am really going through it.
I’m also over analyzing going through it.
I’m asking so many questions about what “it” is and I’m trying to find myself in a quiet place where I can be honest about what’s really happening.
I knew when I decided to move back to Michigan that it would set massive change into motion, that my inner landscape was shifting again and that I had to accept the call even knowing it would flip me upside down and force everything out. Consequently enough I turned over The Hanged Man as my card for November when I did my yearly tarot pull. The Universe is such a perfect trickster.
Right now there is a lot of rage and grief stuck in my muscles. In my fat. In my bones. It’s all sneaking around in there looking for the next place to hide from me.
I’m also hiding from it.
It’s a tidal wave that I’m never quite sure I can survive even though I also know that it’s mine and it’s made of me and who better to be annihilated by its cleansing waters?? But my brain often tells me that I’m not a good swimmer, despite my best efforts. It tells me that there is no way I can withstand the sheer force of it all, that I’ll drown easily and never recover. My brain is an excellent story teller and I love her.
I’ve been writing a lot about my quest to make peace with my body and all the people who harmed it and all the ways in which society tells me that my body is bad and undeserving of all the things I’d like it to have, like food and intimacy and joy and freedom. I knew that this journey would be difficult but sometimes I’m surprised by my lack of foresight when approaching such a big thing. I’m finding myself confused and caught off guard by the anxiety that has come up, by the deep sadness and the unapproachable fear. I’m very afraid to be with what’s been unseen and unheard in me and I also really want to be with it and give it love and power. When I arrived to Nashville a few days ago for a visit my good friend mentioned that I seem “tightly wound,” which feels accurate. I am walking around with my fists clenched, unsure of how to move and be myself while so incredibly saturated and afraid. More than anything I feel like I need to scream and cry and have someone tell me that it’s all going to be okay, but I don’t know how to initiate that process and I don’t know who to ask such a favor from.
I pride myself on being able to speak unconditional love and power into the people I love but I’ll be damned if I know how to receive it in kind, and that’s the heart of the body journey. The body is the one who holds, who asks, who receives. My body is the one who can teach me to prioritize and engage in reciprocity. However, she’s been holding without truly receiving for a very long time. She’s been bearing the weight of all my childhood anger and stress, of my teenage sadness, of years of emotional abuse, of my own self scrutiny. I don’t want her to carry these things anymore. I want us to move and twist and rage and love without restriction.
I started listening to Adrienne Maree Brown’s Pleasure Activism on my drive down to Nashville this past weekend and it gave me such a profoundly comforting glimpse into what can happen to the body, mind, and spirit when we reclaim our inherent ability to be in relationship with our senses, and with pleasure. Adrienne’s voice is like honey dripping over your whole body, thick with sweetness and support and playfulness and peace. I rolled the car window down and took endless deep breaths, just taking in the air again and again and again while receiving sense memories of all the 60 degree November days of my life. I remembered going to 5th grade camp and waiting for the bus to school and playing at recess and waking up in my family’s camper at some campground somewhere. I remembered the many times I’ve made this drive at this time and the anticipation of inching closer to my favorite city on the map. I felt the very distant memories in my body of the times when I felt full body autonomy, something I haven’t truly had since childhood and hope to experience again someday soon.
I don’t know what to do right now other than to speak all of this into existence and remember that intentionally pushing my energy in any direction is a clear promise of movement. I’m so grateful that I can count on that process. I’m so grateful that despite my fear I can still value and prioritize vulnerability. What a gift that we can be honest about the highs and lows of being human and we can mirror each other and find love in so many unexpected places.
I appreciate all of you who are so generous in celebrating my seasons and who cheer me on and support me in so many different ways through all of my choices and changes. I hope you feel the same from me, for you. I hope you always know the pleasure of arriving just as you are.
Thank you. Til next time.