Wow, this is strange. Two days in a row that I don’t feel like expressing myself for public consumption. Yesterday, first thing in the morning, I opened a page, felt inside and then graciously bowed out. I thought for SURE today I’d be chomping at the bit to spit out the overflowing influx of super-charged worlds of words. No such luck. Although now that I am writing, the pitter patter of little keys is lulling me and I do feel some “yes bones” in my body. I think I might just be depressed? Or afraid. Powerless maybe…since it’s the fourth of July and we still haven’t paid our rent. I’m groping in the dark for reasons why something in me has recoiled deep into myself. Honestly, it just is what it is… and I am gonna be courageous and keep sharing myself on the page… because I don’t want to just share when I feel full of inspiration and courage. Because as a human being, we are not always like that. The sun goes behind clouds in our minds and still we must breathe and love and write. Right?
Or at least some mangled version of that…
I guess I could tell you about my recent “break throughs” with my women friends. Twice in the past week, I have gone to a “messy” place with a close friend. This is new for me. And I want to talk about it here, because I think its part of our good girl culture to be on our “nicey-nice-est” behavior with our girlfriends. (certainly there are exceptions to the rule… but I am addressing a general trend of cultural conditioning.) It has always been terrifying and unthinkable for me to express my anger or other miscellaneous darkness in relationship with my nearest and dearest bitches. (I hope saying bitches didn’t offend you. But if it did, I guess that’s okay too… you just have to understand that I have grown up in the thick of Snoop Dog’s hood… even if all I listen to these days is kirtan, I am still steeping in a collective pool of invisible vernacular. And plus, women are bitches and I don’t know why that gets such a bad rap. It’s one of our plethora of facets and a damn crucial one at that. Good? Bad? … in the eye of the beholder, always.)
The other day, my friend Dara and I had plans to go for a jog in Redwood Park. She showed up to my house forty minutes late. I was pissed. I realized that this is one reason why I like to be such a loner. I like to live life in my time on my terms. Shrug. I just do. Never been such a fan of team sports. I swim, jog, do yoga, meditate, ride my bike and write my ass off. As soon as you involve others, life tends to get all wonky and misshapen. (Just wait till I have kids, right? Then the joke’ll sure be on Miss Athena.) Well by the time Dara got to me, I was seething and hungry and full of negative charge. There was so much energy in me, it felt destructive. I didn’t want to express it. (Somehow, ironically, I have no qualms about unleashing it with my man… why is that? I guess women are so much more sensitive and complex and dangerous…) But nor did I want to hold it in. So as I drove us up the hill into the forest, I gave myself an unusually free reign to express the junk bursting at my seams. Naturally, she became defensive and reacted by saying, “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to!” Bleck! What an uncomfortable mess.
We back and forthed for just a few rounds, both encountering edges inside. And then we changed the subject and moved on. I felt better, since I wasn’t managing myself or pretending I was “fine”. (That’s the fucking WORST!) Redwood Park was warm and clear as a lucid dream. We had a great jog.
Then yesterday was a doozie for me. My dear friend Rosy came over with her familial posse. We had an art show in our home, since it’s full of Mykael’s art anyway… Mykael and I worked our butts off to make it beautiful and inviting for the THRONGS of people I imagined would pour through our home. (No such luck. Mostly a steady trickle of dear, loyal friends. No work was sold. Our rent remains unpaid. Frowwwwwn.) (Maybe that’s a ghetto busted way to engage the law of attraction… to frown so hard on the page… but… That’s how I bloody feel. Disappointed. Sad. Worried. Sure, I’ll get back on the mystical, horned horse and keep riding… but right now I am lamenting.) So by the time the show “started”, I had fallen into a cement heap in my bed. I swear I felt like I had swallowed covert infinitude of cement and bricks.
Then enter Rosy and fam, stage left. She was wearing the cutest summer dress. Strapless. Form fitting. Above the knee. White with little red flowers and a thin red belt. And adorable grey converse high tops! Both she and her hubby are two of the hippest dressers I know. So at one point I am laying immovable on my bed and she strolls in. I go, “Wait… Are you really COMFORTABLE prancing around like that?” Instantaneously, her fur bristles, and then comes a feminine growl and SNAP.
The worlds created inside her by the words that I had used generated more of an ugly nightmare scape than a sweet dream. Shit. The subtext in MY world was, “I wish I could dress like you, but I imagine I would feel quickly uncomfortable and bound… But you look so good.” SHE heard the word prancing as a diminuating verb. PRANCING. To her, prancing is ostentatious. It drips with hidden negative judgment. In the moment I said it, I felt none of that. I am a firm believer in the art of prancing. After all, I am one quarter unicorn, which is actually enough to live on their reservations in the sky with diamonds.
Shit, I forget the dirty details, but we had a pretty bitchy, charged exchange for a few rounds. Because I was so tired, I was not as able to keep myself as managed. Or maybe it’s because I’m not the well managed woman I used to be any more. I am becoming more of an authentic, volcanic mess. But still, it felt terrifying for me. Because Rosy and I are both capable of soaring to great heights of bitchdom, that’s fo’ sho’. She left my bedroom. I relaxed the mounting tension inside, which had been taught in a fight or flight freeze. When I released, it felt mostly like a heap of heart ache. I didn’t know what to do except lay there and let myself feel it. Her poor husband, who had been sitting on my bed, a helpless deer in the headlights witness took the opportunity to flee.
Thankfully, she came back and we dove in again with a little more sobriety… though it was still HOT in the space between us. She reached me when she turned it around and asked me how I would feel if she said the same thing to ME. I realized that I would NOT know quite how to interpret being accused of “prancing around”… and probably assume the worst too. That helped.
I acknowledged that it was an edge for me to be such a fully expressed bitch with my women… and that I liked it, because it felt refreshingly real. I expressed that I’d like to be able to go there from time to time with the trust that we were both willing to lovingly get messy and then stay connected and clean it up. She concurred, agreeing that messy is the new “nice”. God, it felt so terrifying and risky to get messy. I was afraid that she’d hold on to everything that was said and punish me forever by withholding her precious, divine love and continuing instead to claw my eyes out over and over again.
But I think I’m on to something here. I think women “should” not have it together all the time. We are forces of nature. That’s just the way it is. Let’s be ourselves and trust that our Love and vast capacity to clean up messes will illuminate our way through our enchanted dark spaces.
Amen.
PS~ Women~ I request you to comment on this one! Please share where you are at with this topic. What are your feelings, thoughts, opinions, challenges? Let your voice be heard. Let’s actively shape the culture of the world we choose to live in!
Athena Graceland 