A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement on Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques, and it helps.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤

A note about today’s essay!

This is a longer essay than usual.

It’s actually a piece from a journal entry…

I have been thinking about offering a summertime Gathering of Thoughts & Words where I compile my journal entries into maybe a small ebook or a long email, haven’t decided on the form yet…

Anyway, if this is something you would be interested in and reading more pieces like this, let me know in the comments!

Also CONTENT NOTE for brief mention of sexual assault (no mention of details), I am taking some extra breaths of compassion and support for all of us who are surviving day by day.

Okay, let’s do this. All timing right timing, and I am trusting that now is the right time for this piece of writing to come into the world and agree to be seen.

How you exit is how you were in it

The betrayal spot

“Let me guess,” said Bryan, touching my back gently. “Right here. And it hurts like hell to move from sitting to standing or vice versa, and it feels like crying would help but you can’t cry yet.”
“You got it,” I said.

Bryan always gets it.

“Good old L5,” he said, smiling wryly. Then he added: “The betrayal spot.”

I sat with that for a while.

I am still sitting with it. Or really, I am pacing around with it or lightly jogging with it, because it hurts too much to sit for very long.

Rug, former

“You really got the rug pulled out from under you, didn’t you?” Bryan said. “No wonder everything hurts.”

He says I will be feeling this for at least a month, probably, though he hopes it passes sooner. I do too.

I miss that rug, and not just because, in the immortal words of the Big Lebowski, it really tied the room together.

I miss that imaginary rug because it was my sense of [here is the floor, the ground is right here], and I don’t have that anymore.

Back then (my back, then)

That was back in early March, and now it is nearly June and the pain has not diminished much.

I can now get dressed without making Marge Simpson screechy sounds but most things still hurt more than I’d like them to.

My range of motion remains minuscule and my body feels unfamiliar to me.

Everyone is making suggestions that aren’t yes, and Bryan says I just have to keep working through the hurt and the anger and the big feelings.

I hate this part. And also, okay, what else is there.

I wasn’t expecting that

At the lake I watched a bald eagle suddenly go tearing after an osprey.

This turned into an epic sky chase that was at once beautiful and awe-inspiring, and also extremely tense.

The two magnificent birds soared and veered, drawing circle patterns in the sky; some of these circles were tight and compact, others wide and arcing, it was breathtaking

Like a gorgeous high-stakes choreography unfolding above, but of course it was improv: instinct in reaction to instinct.

It didn’t seem like the osprey had any avenue escape. No matter how daring or sudden its turns and swoops, the eagle was always right on top of it, about to pounce…

High stakes

Then suddenly something changed in the air, a wind-pattern, maybe. I can’t tell you what it was because it all happened too fast.

There was just a little moment, a near-invisible shift, and then somehow osprey got the upper hand and was behind the eagle, knocking the eagle off its course…

The eagle went plummeting straight down towards the lake, and then at the last minute caught a gust of wind and took off towards the tree-line.

“I wasn’t expecting that!” said my friend who was walking the trail with me.
“Neither was the eagle,” I said.

You really never see the fall until you are falling.

Moving and flailing versus not moving versus choosing towards movement

None of the fishermen by the lake even looked up during the epic aerial battle chase scene.

It reminded me of a novel I read recently (or listened to, by audiobook) where the protagonist had a poster in their living space, a run-down garage they rented, of The Fall of Icarus, the Bruegel painting, if it is a Bruegel painting.

Icarus is drowning, his attempt at flight thwarted by fate and physics and melted wax and bad luck and poor choices, and perhaps flying too close to the sun…

Though in the painting, the sun is disappearing into the water and doesn’t seem to have caused any damage at all, the sun is barely a character in the story told by the painting…

Noticing and not-noticing

None of the bystanders or characters in the world of the painting seems to have noticed Icarus, not his dramatic fall nor his flailing in the water.

The character in this novel becomes determined to be the one who will jump into the water, allegorically speaking, in their own life…

They want to be the one person who notices the need for saving when saving is needed. When the noticing is needed.

Flailing

“I don’t really know how to describe it,” I told Bryan, my chiropractor who has the personality of a golden retriever, and is, I am convinced, at least part angel.

“You know those cartoon characters who head blithely off a cliff edge without noticing, and then their feet are pumping in the air, and they are running in place, in space, above the chasm or the sea or the great nothingness below, and they don’t start falling until they look down?”

He hugged me warmly and laughed.

This is how I feel, or at least: this is the sensation I am experiencing right now.

Like the ground has disappeared again.

Flailing

Yes, it’s as if the ground has disappeared again. I wasn’t expecting that.

I was on land and then I wasn’t, and I am in the in between, between the knowing and the falling.

And this is why my back hurts, because my body can’t adjust to the transition between feet pumping in the air, and falling. It’s the moment of flailing that is causing the disconnect.

The transition is too sudden, and I can’t adjust.

What would an bird do?

I am plummeting, cartoon-like, eagle-like. That was unexpected. Nothing was how I thought it was, again.

But the again-ness of it indicates that I might have thought of it, had I been noticing the wind patterns, had I been paying attention to the transitions.

The transitions in between flailing and not-flailing

“The ground is still there,” Bryan said. “You’re just having trouble feeling it. You’ll get there.”

Yes, maybe I am in the moment before the moment when I might, if I’m lucky, catch a ride on a helpful gust…

Or maybe I will simply find the ground again.

Abrupt

I went through an abrupt friend-breakup right before this happened. They sent a very cold HR-style text, announcing that they were exiting our long-time relationship, “effective immediately, likely forever”, and that was that.

There is nothing that I can say to them about this, because the sanctity of no-contact holds meaning for me, and if no-contact is what they need or perceive that they need, then that’s that.

There is something I would like to say though, if I could say it….

On endings

Here is what I would like to say

Endings are fine.
Endings happen.
Endings are part of life.
That particular ending was not kind or loving or sweet or collaborative or honest, or any of the ways we committed to being in relationship with each other.

And how you exit something reveals how you were in it.

On care

Something this former friend and I had many long conversations about was care, and how care, for me, is the central tenet of relating well. Care is what makes a relationship meaningful.

I told them about how my worst ex ended things with me through the most cold, unfeeling text imaginable, and how I was infinitely more upset about the lack of care than about the ending itself.

Endings happen. They just do. Not everything is forever, and that particular ending could have (and probably should have) happened sooner.

I am not upset that the ending happened

The hurt is not about the ending.

The hurt I feel is in recognizing that the person who had supposedly cared for me so deeply did not take care with the ending.

They did not bother taking care with me and my tender heart, in the way that I would have taken care with theirs.

Endings can be caring, or: they do not need to be devoid of care

In the case of the worst ex, for example.

There is a way to say what needs to be said, even if it is a hard thing to say. Like goodbye.

Even goodbye can be said with love, with tenderness, with thoughtfulness, with presence. A goodbye can hold the beautiful qualities that made the relationship meaningful.

(Unless the person you are saying goodbye to has harmed you and you need to take care of yourself and exit safely and swiftly of course.)

But if that is not the case, then it is absolutely possible to show up for a goodbye with love. It takes some bravery, but that is part of loving too.

It’s about the care, and the attempt at care

In the case of that ex, they didn’t even attempt care.

Which is what hurts more than the ending, and is more surprising than the ending.

Anyway, this former friend had shared with me me that all of our conversations about care and what I shared about how my ex had hurt me had been very impactful on them.

They cried and said they were committing to always bringing that height level of intentionality and care with me.

And with our friendship, which itself was a second chance, a take two situation after a long period of not being in connection.

On warmth

We talked about all of this (warmth and care and connection) so many times and in so many ways, and I am realizing now that none of it landed, as I myself am landing both too slowly and too quickly, descending into the water. Flailing, again.

I am releasing this friend into their mental health crisis, or whatever precipitated this bizarre and bewildering chain of events.

And I am wishing that they get whatever care and support they need, and I am wishing to maintain a safe distance from the chaos.

And I would also like it if they fell off a cliff, because I am very angry and hurt.

And I am considering how to tend to myself and my pain and my back and the betrayal spot, and the ongoing realization of things not being how I thought they were at all.

What is possible

Is it possible to let the surprise and the splash of cold water be invigorating? I don’t know yet.

I will go to where the warmth is, where the care is, and also I will try to be a better noticer of what needs noticing.

Will I try to be better at protecting myself from these sudden falls, from trusting too fast and too easily and too hopefully. Is that the right question? I am not sure yet.

No more second bridges

I had a dream last night about a different ex, who has the same name as the friend who exited my life.

And in the dream I ran into this ex and they were working in a restaurant, and they said, “I didn’t want to bother you but also I still love you and I want to try again, please say yes”.

And I said, “I’m sorry, there are no more second chances, you cannot unburn a bridge. I still love you too and also, the bridge is gone, and that was a choice you made, and you didn’t just make it for yourself, you made the choice for me, you stole my ability to choose…”

And they said, “I knew as I was doing it that was a bad move to burn the bridge.”

And I said, “And you did it anyway.”

Something about a bridge

Connecting over the water.

A pathway on and off of an island.

A place to meet in the middle and toss crumbs over the edge.

Something about a very particular formal HR-style coldness

This winter, I got temporarily banned from the local dance community, and you will never in a million years be able to guess how that came about, but if I tell you, I can promise that you will be furious about it….

The short version is that I reported a sexual assault, that happened to me, by another dancer. Not at the dance but after the dance.

It is a very small community and I thought long and hard before reporting it, mainly because I didn’t want to report it. I didn’t even want to talk about it.

But it was clearly the right thing to do, and so I made myself do it.

The person who assaulted me denied all of it, and we were both very formally requested to leave the community for a period of time, and then if we end up choosing to come back when that period of time is up, we are requested to avoid “causing drama”.’

Okay.

On warmth and care, again

Am I okay? Kind of, not really, maybe some days in some moments. There is also a lot of flailing and swerving through the sky above the water. L5, the betrayal spot, is very sore.

I miss dance, my favorite thing in the known universe, sometimes the only good thing, for me.

Mainly I think I would be doing better if the community leader had said something like, “Wow babe, it breaks my fucking heart to ask you to stay away from dance, I wish I had better options here, this is so unfair to you and to your tender heart, you did the right thing and now you are being punished for it, and that sucks.”

Or maybe some other warm words. Maybe I don’t know the warm words that I am craving yet. Maybe I need to conjure a spell of care.

Receiving and received

All I know is that I am craving warmth, tenderness, care, presence, grace, sweetness and being received.

And I also know that I can’t wait around for those qualities and experiences to be bestowed upon me. You can’t get milk from a stone, right? Very silly to keep trying.;

I can only provide these qualities and experiences for myself. And what is there to say other than thank you when the people who can’t provide them exit my life.

I don’t expect an apology or amends or empathy from the person who harmed me.

To be clear, I would love a better apology and a better explanation than what I got. I just don’t expect them.

(Total eclipse of the) data center of the heart

Similarly, I don’t expect my former friend who just exited my life to be able to suddenly remember how to be caring.

If anything, I assume they are in some crisis state of their own that has deleted or erased some important component from their heart-data-center.

All I can do is light a candle for best possible outcomes and for the healing process itself. May their heart-data-center be restored, or something even better.

And until that happens, may they wake up at 2am embarrassed by their broken promises, and unable to fall back asleep.

I might still be too angry and too hurt to have discernment around this.

Returning to center / reality

You still can’t unburn a bridge. And you can’t get milk from a stone. Both of these remain true.

And ultimately when I consider the territory of my care or the landscape of my care, the center is my own heart.

The center and the data center and the centering.

So when I think about restoration, I need to drop into my own heart space and hang out there.

Working, yet again, with what is

Here we are. These are the Known Knowns of the moment.

I do not expect other people to change their behavior. I can only adapt to what is.

I can stay clear in my mind, knowing and remembering what behavior is unacceptable to me, and then act accordingly.

This also means that I am the giver of care to my sweet, sweet heart. I am the keeper of my peace, my boundaries, my well-being, my right-here right-now.

(Though I do keep wondering, where is the care from my community, and not just for me but for everyone who needs it and will continue to need it if we aren’t doing anything about the harm-doers…?)

It takes a sweetness village

This making peace with what is does not mean that I don’t get to have support in this recovery process. It takes a village, and we all need each other.

I am lucky to have Bryan (my part-angel part-golden-retriever spine fixer of many years), and I have my friends, and I have my practices, my training, my journal, my pasture walks, and one day I will have dance in my life again even if I don’t know what form that will take.

New and better people will come in to my life. And right now, I am staying with what is known. I am practicing care, and tenderness and warmth, glowing these inwards and outwards.

William Carlos Williams

There is a William Carlos Williams poem about that painting, the one where Icarus has fallen and no one is looking.

My favorite line is:

the edge of the sea
concerned 
with itself

What is concerned with itself is “the pageantry of the year” and the season of spring and the village and the farmer, the bigger picture, but this fragment makes it seem as though the edge of the sea itself is concerned with itself.

No one is concerned with or for Icarus, and even “flying too close to the sun” has itself become a metaphor or shorthand for thinking you can do or be more than you can or are, for the hubris of the attempt or the desire.

What is known

It absolutely feels disorienting and destabilizing to have reality suddenly shift.

One moment I have a beloved friend who would never disappear on me, the next I do not. Effective immediately! Likely forever!

Who even talks like that at all, never mind to a person they love? What is the meaning of this sudden cold wind? Is there a meaning to this sudden cold wind?

And does that matter, is that really even the question.

What else is known

One day I have a dance community that is home for me, and the next day I do not.

A bridge exists and then it does not exist. You were friends with a pyromaniac and didn’t even know it.

Everything that is mine returns to me, and if it doesn’t return to me, then it is not mine.

But also if it returns to me, in a dream or not, and asks for a second chance, and says it won’t burn the bridge this time, it is, realistically, also not mine.

It stings

The scorpion in the tale of the frog and the scorpion doesn’t sting out of malice. It stings because it can’t not-sting. The job of the scorpion is to sting.

The job of the characters in the painting of the landscape with the fall of Icarus is to not-notice.

The job of the eagle is to catch itself mid-fall if it can, and then sail off on a breeze and shake off the ego-bruising.

Landscape

It is not a landscape of the fall of Icarus; it is a landscape with the fall happening in the background.

It is a landscape where the fall of Icarus happens to be happening. If you are there to observe it, and people are there, but no one is paying attention.

Falling is a background activity, unless you are the one who is plummeting, then it feels pretty fucking personal.

Back to the work

So clearly the work is noticing, and the work is recognizing.

And also there is something here about not being surprised. I don’t wish to be overly jaded. But I also don’t want to be like, “WHAT?!?! THE SCORPION STUNG THE FROG??????? THE WAX WINGS MELTED????? SOMEONE NEEDED HELP AND NO ONE HELPED???”

Let us not be surprised by the unsurprising results.

What if we learn something this time?

I don’t want the lesson to be Never Trust Again, even though that’s kind of how it feels in the moment and in the stiffness and pain in my body.

But maybe the lesson is about care and intention in entering and exiting…

What is next

The work of existing in a healing process involves patience.

I walk in the pasture, and jog in figure eights (sometimes, because sometimes my back likes this and sometimes it does not), and I miss dance, and I wait to catch a wave or a new gust of wind.

Plummeting is not the only experience. Many experiences are happening simultaneously.

How you exit

A once-upon-a-time yoga teacher of mine used to say that how you exit a pose shows how you are in it.

That the exit is part of the pose, the transitions are part of the experience.

And even a beautiful, strong, steady pose reveals something when we messily collapse our way out of it because our attentiveness went to performance over presence.

Exit as you wish to continue

How my friend exited our relationship reveals how they were in it, and if there is no warmth, no care taken with the ending, then that tells me something I didn’t know, or that I didn’t want to notice about the relationship itself.

Is this always true? I don’t know.

I don’t know. I am learning about this as I go. Everything is a transition, right? We are always moving in and out of experiences and moments.

Enter as you wish to be in it. Exit as you wish to continue. With care, with warmth, with sweetness, with hope for something better, noticing everything we can notice.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.