Being 42

My year of being 42 began with dance as far as I can remember!  If it did, it was amazing! I love the way I feel when I dance, even if it is limited with all the arthritis in this body of mine! I still have mostly no regrets for over 25 years of dance training! Wow, even saying that I've done something so incredible and exhilarating for 25 years feels pretty good but perhaps embarking on feeling a wee bit my age!
December 18th my nephew Brandon moved back to Oregon with his sweet little family. Debi and I became seriously ill with the flu around that time. I called in sick for work on Wednesday December 20th. I just happened to be sitting in the same chair as I am now when I got a voicemail (I never answer my phone because I leave it on silent)  message from my sister in law. I called her back and she told me of the death of my niece Vanessa. Within two days of her brother moving back from Georgia. Two days! I couldn't breathe and I couldn't believe it. I hadn't seen her for awhile so it hadn't felt real. For the first time in years I got out of work to go to the coast to be with my family for Christmas. It was the saddest holiday I've had since I was a teenager when life was awful. Walking up to the door of my nephews where most of my family was I fell really hard on the pavement then had to brace myself for what was on the other side of the door. My God I couldn't breathe with the thick sadness and the real news of the tragedy. Seeing Vanessa's life of love and grace encased in all these people that were gathered in one room. Next after that day the heart ripping custody battle and pain of seeing Vanessa's 4 year old daughter without her. Fortunately Vanessa raised a sweet and social child that was interested in the sadness around her but in the mind of a 4 year old not quite knowing exactly what all of this heaviness meant.  So then bringing in the new year we were all still so sad, what did bringing in 2018 even mean. We lost another member of our tribe. We were now waiting for the celebration of life of our 25 year old person with a heart of gold who was seriously and tragically gone way too soon. Next in February we had the celebration of life for our sweet Vanessa, our niece, our child, our mother, our sister, our fiancé, our aunt but never will be our grandmother or our wife. A sweet and sorrow ceremony mixed in one. A beautiful reality of someone we all love so much and just want to hug one more time. Next we bring a new baby into our tribe, my great nephew. The most exciting in life, a new life. Still in a bit of mourning came new life. Soon after we have a death in my fiancée's family and another memorial, this is a huge loss in her family. An elder who lead the family, her Aunt. Somewhere around this time Debi got to reconnect with her oldest son Gary and his sweet family in Arkansas. Then we have a graduation that we were waiting for so long. Debi did it, she graduated from LCC after many moments of tears and hard times. She did it, a time of joy and celebration! I then took on two new jobs after being in the veterinary field with so many euthanasia's, watching compassion fatigue and being bullied that  I couldn't handle it anymore. Now we are in the thick of preparing for our wedding. After a plan to change locations we had different things to re work but we did it somehow! We get married on August 26th a day we will never forget and appreciate! Our families coming together and now we are forever committed in our beautiful lucky in love life we have together. My niece Riley announced her engagement. My nephew Jarrod successful in his job.   Now we have just returned recently from our honeymoon! It brought in so much inspiration and magic in a place I never knew existed! Now I sit here regrouping what this year of being 42 entailed! I'm in severe hyperthyroid, struggle to be in a job that once again is full of sadness but like working with animals which brought me so much joy I take care of residents that I love dearly.  My anxiety is overwhelming with my thyroid tanked but I'm excited to be inspired for more adventure, hopefully that doesn't involve the emotional roller coaster that this year brought. I am now a wife and step mother of 3 adults, a step daughter in law and a step grandmother to 5 grandsons. This year has been surreal to say the least. On this last day of being 42 I am grateful to turn 43! Aging is an honor that not everyone gets to experience. My life is in no way perfect but it definitely is beautiful even through so much this year! I hope 43 begins with this new career path that I'm hoping for, for myself but also for my wife! I hope for calm and good health for our families. I hope for more exhilarating adventures with my wife. I hope for more solitude and creative flow in my home! I hope for good health and well being for me, my wife and our old animals. 42 was rough and insane and joyful and sad and messy but it was what happened. May all of our hearts rest a bit more easy in the now and in the future! In love and light, namaste.'

Intelligence of the human race

Riding into work yesterday I see a tall man looking like he didn't really know why he was there. He didn't seem able to truly focus on getting on the bus, he seemed overtly distracted. He was a good looking man and I do believe an intelligent human being. I watched as he got off the bus, he seemed consumed. For some reason my story for him was that perhaps he was using drugs because he was bored with life or that his life was too hard to live in the moment. For some reason I was paused in whatever my normal run of thoughts on my groggy commute to work were. The bus was stopped just long enough to see him facing the bench digging in his pocket slowly, body posture still seemingly bewildered at where he was and why was he there. 

This led my thoughts to my sister Kym and my Mom. My Mom was this very strong woman who taught me respect and how to survive. She must have worried a lot like I do, she must've worked so hard in life that being tired led to needing to find solace in some kind of escapism. I think of my sister who was always looking for love in all the wrong places to only find dissapointment. An unearthing sadness that still haunts my bones just as my Mom does. My sister felt like a dissapointment is what she told me. She needed to be found, she needed to be loved unconditionally. Her unending wandering and drifting was a soul searching. She had moments of enlightenment where she would come down. She could calm her storm long enough to really live a life of love without an escape plan. These women were intelligent in their own right.

I come from a lineage of escapism which is perhaps why I have such a gypsy soul. I think the words escapism and intelligence really go together. Some of us are lucky to have a sense of mindfulness and discipline to be able to be in the moment to not need to escape where some of us need an escapism. Our intelligence can work for us or against us. Because of the things I've witnessed I think it's created an innate worry for people's escapisms. Wandering can either create a brainstorm of inspiration for our intelligence or it can create a true sense of wandering to get lost and lose all aspects of time and space. Granted I'm guilty of the occasional wandering to get lost but the older I get the more I want to wander to find my true self and the beautiful presence that can result in that vast space.  Namaste'

On love and the movements of life...

The 29th of this month will mark 11 years since my mom passed away. Her death at first for a long time a deep gulp in my throat to talk about but now I'm finally at a point of deep appreciation for who she was in my life and who I am through her.  I am finally able to talk about the yin and yang points that made up my life with her. I'm beginning to be able to write the book I wanted to about her and my sister Kym. I can write with an insight that comes with a grateful heart rather than a sorrowful longing heart. A page at a time is sufficient for now but it's a good beginning since Kyms death was only not even 2 full years ago.
On an extension of love I'm learning to be able to say how I feel without being so harsh. I get judged a lot on not speaking which is funny because when I don't say something I'm actually not thinking about anything at all. I've gotten to the point in my life that my mind just does this. I also don't like my words to be used against me so not speaking is really a beautiful tool for me. It also creates a space that I think a lot of people including myself are uncomfortable with but in the end it's better really. And being uncomfortable with silence is totally okay. I am falling in love deeper with Debi because of our union in living a beautiful life. We are learning constantly how to cohabit and that is really cool.  I was always really good at living alone and now I'm finally getting a grip at living with someone. I think this is a special case though since she is seriously my other half.  Couldn't see myself able to do it with anyone else.
On the note of actual movement with my body I am studying a form of movement called Continuum. The class is 3 hours long and it seems we don't nearly get to move as much as we should but the dives go really deep so it is ok at the same time. I really missed moving in this deep layer in my body. Maybe because I'm so spiritual perhaps but all in all I feel like I'm coming home to my body again. I'm rebirthing my art form in retirement...perhaps relearning how to move from a very deep and meditated way.
My heart is full and my soul is alive...life is beautiful...and I'm so very grateful even through the layers of struggle that permeate....at the end of the day my heart is still beating, my soul is elated, my breaths can still go full and my eyes can still see clearly what's in front of me...Merde'

Almost 40 and ready

These last few years have been incredible, crazy, frightening, humbling, beautiful and most of all...eye and heart opening.  I've learned how to be loved and how to love deeply. I never even thought about the importance of marriage since my engagement to back then at age 17, the man who I loved with all my heart. That engagement may have not persevered but now at almost 40 I finally get it. I've found what lucky in love really is. I guess I just never tried to understand that concept. Now my heart is so amazingly heavy and full and I wouldn't have it any other way. Sure preparing to be in a same sex marriage wasn't something I ever thought would be in my future or even something I would dream of for my life. I'm not so sure I would wish the adversity it can have on anyone. However now that it's happening to me and becoming more open I'm so grateful to anyone who can truly love who their soul desires. I mean when it happens gender just doesn't matter. If you fight it you are missing out on something as beautiful as what my love and I have. I get so excited still when I see another same sex relationship because not only is it something I have but it reminds me of something so amazing to celebrate. All hail, this is my tribe now. This is where I belong! I never know how to initiate a conversation with them and my gaydar is usually broken, so how would one initiate it anyway but that's not really important. Why would I have to talk about it to them in the first place, they know how wonderful it is to love without the society boundaries. I never tried to talk to a hetero couple why would I to a same sex couple now. Regardless I am not social enough either way, the excitement just makes we want to sometimes. I can only figure my excitement is just that I am learning that it is a place I now belong and can actually say I'm really excited about! I will never date in any community again since I am with my forever love but just knowing this tribe is real and important in my life is all I need. Just like relating to another dancer, reiki practitioner, aromatherapist, lover of animals, etc..we all need to know that we have some kind of tribe out there even if we don't really want to go be one with them. I'm learning that I am a miracle child, that I am an introvert because I am a healer, that I am always a dancer even as I've retired from the rigors of training ( oh I miss the feelings though deep in my soul and my bones), I'm a choreographer and performer, I'm not dead as a performing artist, I am me right now in this moment. I am finding out who I am deep inside. I'm really not the messed up acoa anymore. I honor who raised me and my ancestry

with great care. I'm almost 40 and I'm no longer a victim in life but a warrior destined to be a sage woman. I am a woman in love with a woman. I am learning to breathe deeply before I speak, to stop in the moment and know what to just let go of, I feel spirit in everything around me and I no longer wrestle with it but enjoy and embrace it. I am learning to just let myself be human, to love deeply, to care without falling down on my own face, I'm learning about my soft boundaries. I'm learning to be who I am, to grow always while finding grounding in that. How does one survive without solid grounding? I really have lived that question and proved to myself how important it is to search for the good things that make you, you! I'm glad and terrified that I am where I am. I'm not done here but man oh man have I made splashes in my own war inside myself. Would I change my journey if I could go back? Yea if I could just to have thrived differently but when it comes down to it, the circle isn't really as broken as it could be. I'm here, I'm okay, I'm grateful and even through the trials I'm truly blessed that the love of my life is who she is. I now understand and feel deeply what having your other half means. I now get the importance of having your person in life. I get what the fight really is for...I'm not done fighting for it. I am a gypsy by nature and will always be perhaps but this love grounds me deeply and I couldn't imagine loving another being so intense. My best friend, my soulmate, my lover, my root in the earth. I'm lucky in love. I'm feeling okay and celebratory over the idea of being forty and growing stronger and deeper with the love of my life...in love and light, namaste.'

When I think about my tribe...

When I try to sit down to write about my sister or my mom I feel a heavy layer of emotion. I wonder if my sisters death is just too new still.  Mom has been gone ten years but Kym not even a year yet.  I want to write and remember but I feel a lot of guilt, a lot of time fumbling through a lot of mud that won't let the words flow the way they need to.  Someday when my wounds aren't so fresh with grief I will sit down and write the book about this part of my tribe. 

Spiritual quest

When I think of a spiritual quest I think of my time around the age of 20 when I discovered the Pentecostal church.  I felt the Holy Spirit deeply.  I began a serious search for God through a very disciplined and suffering lifestyle. I cried a lot and I questioned a lot. I began to not be able to think for myself. I began to feel as though I was living a life of sin even though oddly I was really far from it then.  I even got baptized again since I felt I wanted to re dedicate my life to God.  I really fell into a sort of trap of understanding.  I felt like I was surrendered to something that made me hurt. Everything I did felt like a sin, like a terrible tragedy.  It really felt dramatic all of a sudden.  My whole search was my insecurity with myself, with where I belonged.  I began to lose my self in religion. I began to think I needed to live my life out of a book and from the pulpit of a preacher who also thought living out of that book was the only way there was.  I still felt the Holy Spirit from time to time but I agonized over the addiction I felt to needling to feel it. Soon I found myself choosing to go to a bible college after I went on a journey to try to make it in Los Angelas to find a way to go to Cal Arts that I had just got a nice scholarship to but couldn't afford.  My journey there only lasted a few weeks and with so much pressure from my home town to make it work I cracked under pressure and came back home.  Now I really felt like a sinner.  Everyone seemed to hate me and was so dissapointed in me.  It was very hard to come back to ballet class with so much fear in me.  But to no avail with my mentors encouragement I came back and pushed through. I hung out for a year then decided to go to the bible college to serve Christ.  It was there that I felt my spiritual quest was really tested. I found myself dragging through so incredibly much more suffering.  I found that I was trapped in a sort of box and couldn't breathe.  It only lasted a year and I had to move along and spread my wings. I needed to get back to my dancing. I was bound and determined to stay a solid Christian though.  Soon I began to fight an emotional journey.  Every success I had I fought with then eventually broke a solid rope around myself and ran. I learned that I was human. I learned that there was so much inside of me that I was running from.  Soon I began to search inside and fighting all the way I began to find an inner spirituality that was feeling more solid...though the outside and in my head I struggled badly.  Right when I began to feel somewhat grounded my body began to fail me, then after all that my mother passed away...  All of a sudden life became surreal.  Who was I without my grounding?  Who was I without church and now who was I without mom?  A new spiritual quest began. I now have explored to this point all kinds of studies in multi cultural religions in college I had even gone to a few different churches.  What I had barely tapped into was sitting with myself and my own being.  I was a goddess I was a beautiful person inside and out...I was a dancer with many artistic things going for me...when it all came down to it my fears made me conform, my fears made me scared, my fears made me run...I felt like I was drowning so many times because I was constantly on this quest to find something else but yet whenever I stood still and let everything fall away a sort of humbleness arrived..a quiet solitude of groundedness prevailed. I began to realize my quest was beginning to arrive.  My religion wasn't in anything specific.  I was more into a variety of things that grounded me, that made me who I am, that all began to thread together my spirituality. I call this co exist. I still believe in God but I also believe in so many things that make up this journey.  Sure I am still on a sort of spiritual quest but I never want to torment myself the way I did in my twenties. In so many ways I missed a lot of opportunities to be successful in my art, in life in general.  Sometimes I remember that I have been dealt a certain hand but in that I have also taken the lesser road and succumbed to it.  Now I face new challenges but those challenges are way more beautiful and include way less suffering, way less struggle.  Living in the moment with gratitude has become my new quest.  I'm learning to love more, to laugh more and to greet as many people with a kind heart as possible.  If that is the way of a sinner then boy oh boy do I have a lot to learn...somehow I think it is a God given gift to be able to even tap into in the slightest...gods prophecy over my life has come true in many ways.  Therefore my twenties were not a complete waste of energy. I was listening, but then it was from a bleeding heart, now it's from a grateful heart...

the light i find in people...

Tonight I can't help but ponder the light I find in people.  I have come to find so much joy when my students are doing Zumba.  There is a spark that comes flying out of each and every one of them a little differently.  In one its her laugh and her smile...another is her commitment and joy of learning the dance...another her facial expressions and positive vibe that radiates...another her way of focus and dedication to keeping her body moving...another her eagerness to do her best...another her serious focus that gently brings a smile in the interlude of movement ...another the joy that sparks when she gets something with ease...the light that vibrates from laughter and movement radiates the soul, exhilerates the heart and makes me feel the need to be who i am even for just one person, it always gives back...the light always returns, always affects another...i am thankful for that with all beings in my life...thankful...inspired and exhilerated