Personal ads. They’re … personal! Very.

♡

What do I want?

My wish was going to be about taking down the castle, which is kind of a proxy/metaphor and kind of not.

Except thinking about it was scaring me so much that I am going to wish about bubbles and bubbling instead, and pretend they are related.

So now they are. If not in any other way, then because I just connected them. Though in my experience, searching for the connections between seemingly unrelated things invariably leads to useful information.

That’s one of the things we do at Rally all the time.

What do I know about bubbles and bubbling?

Bubbles and bubbling change the mood. They help with recovery and with transitions.

Blowing bubbles makes everything lighter. You can’t stay in a bad mood while blowing bubbles, I have tried.

This might also be true for bubbles in bubble baths.

And bubbles are like bubbling over with joy, which is how I feel when I dance.

Bubbling is Effervescence, the salve and superpower of the month of April on the Fluent Self calendar of Salves. Effervescence means, to me: everything gets lighter, in both senses of that word.

More lightness. More light.

The same thing that happens when I view the bells / when I am a bell.

What do I know about how this might be related to taking down the castle?

Oh! One thing I learned last week at Rally (Rally!) is that taking down the castle can be joyful, even though in my mind I have all these rules about how it has to be painful and mournful.

I can dance the castle down. I can dance the new castle in. Or maybe there isn’t a new castle, and then I dance in whatever it is that will fill the space where it was.

I can ring the bells until the castle self-destructs (deconstructs!), and the new configuration is revealed. I can ring the castle out and I can ring the new thing in.

And I can do this with bubbles. I can blow bubbles until my feelings about the castle and everything that happened in it (and didn’t happen in it) begin to move, release, transform, evaporate.

What else do I know?

Okay, so until yesterday I pretty much thought that the quality of Effervescence was not something I really know how to do.

I am not a bubbly person. I am an introverted person. I run away from the party and hide in bed.

In fact, when I put that salve in the calendar, it was the only salve I felt conflicted about. But I knew it had to be there so I trusted that.

Then it was supposed to go in March, and I had the strongest feeling it had to be in April, so I asked Richard to switch it out.

Anyway, yesterday morning I suddenly had the experience of knowing what it was like to feel bubbly.

Feeling bubbly. The sensation of bubbles.

It started the night before. I went to the Johnny Boyd show at Secret Society, and it was absolutely amazing. I woke up in the best mood in the entire world, and then went to a two hour Lindy Hop workshop and was in an even better mood, even though, according to my monsters, basically everything in my life is a disaster right now.

That show at Secret Society, and dancing the night away, was like mainlining Bubbliness.

It felt like…you know those movies in the 40s where a band is playing and everyone is dancing and having a blast? It was like, I am in that movie and it is real!

There was also another effervescent element at play: delight in fluency.

It was a vintage swing event but they played a waltz (I can waltz!) and some blues (I can do blues!), and during the swing dancing, people transitioned between six count east coast swing, lindy hop, charleston and collegiate shag: I can do all these things!

There were lovely people to dance with, the whole experience was playful, fun and exciting. All my studying has paid off, because I could PLAY. And I found myself bubbling over to Agent Em Dee about how bubbly I feel, even though I never feel bubbly…

What do I want?

I want this sensation of bubbling to become more familiar. Come visit, bubbles!

I want bubbling to resolve/dissolve the things that are troubling me. Or lighten my relationship with them.

And I want the castle to take itself down through the act of bubbling. Through me experiencing bubbling, reconnecting to effervescence.

I want beautiful things to be revealed through the bubbles dispersing.

As the bubbles pop, illusions pop. And roses grow.

Any other intel?

It has not escaped my attention that the theme Castles In The Air might be relevant here, but I can’t tell if that’s monsters or not.

So I am going to try to rewrite my associations with this phrase.

And I am going to ask Richard to make an art out of the castle in my yoga space. We already took down the castle in the Ballroom and turned it into a rose….

Where do I want to start?

This week is going to be impossibly busy with Operation Bell View. And Pesach. Packing for Seattle.

So I am setting a clear intention that everything I do — including agonizing over whether to pack a bathing suit — is somehow helping with the mission of bubbles and bubbling, and therefore also with taking down the castle.

And Danielle and I are going to get a manicure together, because Operation Bell View involves four straight days of holding hands with strangers in dance workshops. And having crimson fingernails is going to help with the feeling of bubbling, because I have decided that it will.

I hope for some writing-and-righting, maybe on the bus, maybe some stone skipping.

And while I’m seeding wishes, I want beautiful dances. Ease and grace. To be wonderfully surprised. My body gets the deciding vote. Thank you in advance.

My compass for these wishes:

Sustenance. Trust. Presence. Connection. Anchoring. Warmth. Glow. Receiving.

What else do I want?

• Everything is easier than I thought, and look, miracles everywhere.
• I go out dancing at the ballroom.
• This doesn’t require my input!
• Ha, it’s so perfect that it turned out like this. Past me is a GENIUS
• I have what I need, and I appreciate it. There are resources to do this.
• Trust and steadiness. I can see why this moment is good.
• Hawaii.
• I am fearless and confident. I do the brave things and it is not even a big deal, and I still get sparklepoints, yay.
• This week’s ops: Pack the bags. Exit Egypt. Pack more bags. Go to Seattle. Maybe do some dreaming about Operation Sea Plane Sky Dances…..

Clues?

Here is my clue: What if it isn’t a staple?

I needed to get black slacks for Operation Bell View, and the monster crew had a giant monster tantrum party about this. From every possible angle. Like, How Can You Buy More Things When This Op Is Already Absurdly Expensive And Why Are You Ruining Your Life.

Surprisingly though, the thing my monsters were most up in arms about was: Ohmygod How Do You Not Own Black Slacks They Are A Staple And Everyone Knows This Come On You Are Nearly Forty And You Don’t Even Have Black Slacks You Are A Complete Failure At Being A Functioning Grown Up.

Then I talked to Agent Marisa and Agent Max, the two women in my life who are always gorgeously dressed and well put-together, and they care about nice clothing and know all this girl stuff that I don’t. I talked to them so they would tell me where to get black slacks. And it turns out that neither of them owns black slacks!

So there. These are two people who are FOR SURE functional adults. Which means: maybe it’s not a staple.

So what other things do I put in the category of “everyone has/does/wants X and I don’t but I think I should”? What if it’s not a staple?!

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

So. Last week, aka I am a wish translator…

Last week’s wish was really useful for me, actually the whole process of wish-translation is useful. And fascinating. Especially given that right after I published my translations, I realized that I had not in fact translated them at all, that all my wishes were actually about Perceiving That There Is Enough.

That was what I was really wishing for, and I hadn’t even noticed. So it is sweet and funny that there are layers and layers of translation. Of course there are.

And my business cards are taken care of.

Attenzione! Attention, AGENTS.

I wish to whisper a whisper about the Monster Manual! It comes paired with the world’s best coloring book, which does so much monster-dissolving magic that even if you wait to try the techniques, you’ll still feel better about everything.

Self-fluency is hard enough, we need ways to to interact with the thoughts-fear-worry-criticism that shuts down creative exploring. And when people get the manual, I am able to me spend more time writing here. So if you don’t need help with monsters, get one for a friend. Or plant a wish that someone gets it for you! And bring people you like to hang out here. The more of us working on our stuff, the better for all of us. ♡

Keep me company?

Consider this an open invitation to deposit wishes, gwishes, personal ads. In any size/form you like, there’s no right way. Updates on past experiments are welcome too, as is anything sparked for you.

Commenting culture: This is safe space for creative exploration. We are on permanent vacation from care-taking and advice-giving. We are here to play.

Let’s throw things in the pot! And: Amnesty. Leave a wish any time you want.

xox

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