In 2019, I write vignettes.
This new year intention enthralls my muse.
The ignited idea propels an end of the month ritual that includes a lipstick kissed cappuccino, a corner of a coffee shop, and a collection of moments from the month I seek to tenderly examine and exalt with contemplative meaning.
Balanced on a stool, neighbored typically by a gentle and giant plant or a couple discussing post-brunch plans, I sit in company with my own brewing moods, my full-force feeling heart, and the spirit of inspiration who lured me with a flicker of a vision of what could be conjured to life in the writing.
In between sips of the cappuccino, the vignettes shyly and then enthusiastically appear, the events of the past month shift in refreshed reflection, and their print manifestation drastically differs from the original creative visitation.
And now in the final hug of 2019, I admit that the vignettes I entertain here are distinctively different than my initial January intention, and I glow in thanks.
The writings are as they are meant to be.
My past year is as it is meant to be – in all of its astonished mess of joy and gritty difficulties, I know that I am where I am meant to be in my soul-lessons, in my journey.
The process of writing and the process of living mirror and nurture one another.
The communion with the muse is the communion with the very presence of life.
This is the work of commitment and surrender.
This is the effort:
Commit to the creative calling.
Pay sharp and sweet attention.
Listen from the wholeness of an embodied body.
Showing up for the work, because it requires heart-muscle to create. This is the ease: Stay open to the intuitive insights hinting at the direction of the piece. Cultivating spaciousness in the process encourages an animated and constantly exciting collaboration with the muse.
So my vignettes from 2019 are not what I expected them to be – but they are exceptionally better than those glossy expectations, because they’re living outside my murmuring mind and infused with an exuberance that is a spirited teaching on ease, on flow.
The past decade, and especially the past two years in Austin, have instructed, again and again, like waves in changing intensity, the wisdom of exuberant ease.
I hustle. I take action. I make plans and then I execute.
I once had a friend compare me to a beloved aunt:
“Like a hummingbird, always moving.”
But the movement for the sake of movement has tumbled me onto rough routes I sensed and swiftly ignored, because I doubt my power, believed that it had to be difficult. But ease signals alignment. And we are exceptionally powerful and knowledgeable beings.
The trick is we must BE.
Movement occurs in the stillness. The stillness facilitates the aligned movement.
There needs to be the space for life to do its work – organically, to be in movement by being in the stillness humming with voice of intuition, and the voice of intuition feels like truth, a comfort in the belly, even and especially if it’s a hard truth. The body exists and thrives in truths, so even a truth that holds heartbreak will be digestible because it will be a reality that when met respectfully will usher forward movement for healing, for growth, for expansion.
This cultivation of trust in exuberant ease flies with me to Kentucky, to my hometown of Lexington for a December stay.
I choose to be present, because presence frees, cleanses the heart, keeps me in wonder with possibilities, and to be present for everything and with everyone I share time with, and randomly (and maybe not-so-randomly) see at Good Foods Co-op.
The writing of the vignettes provides the outline for my visit: present and open.
Here are the healings.
He’s a man and he’s also a ten-year-old boy. His song is an apology to me, the woman I am and the ten-year-old girl I am still, too. He doesn’t know this, but I think the stars and the whisper of intuition to go to the concert do. The lone song lyric travels backward and forward time, freeing the shame, and settling me more deeply into trusting the pace of the Universe to deliver its remedying answers to me.
We walk in the gentle December rain down streets that stink from the berries of winter catalpa trees. We speak of endings, rising astrological signs, sending the message or just letting it be, and tarot readings for 2020. We keep stride with an eight-year-old puppy who reaches my ribcage and kangaroo jumps to give mama bear hugs. Meanders around historic homes, gardens still green, and heart-talks with heart-strong women help me make peace with 2019.
My sister thinks I’m a badass. I shine in happiness.
I’m magnetized toward men who do not have the capacity to love me. The realization: there is a safety and comfortable familiarity in this attraction.
I reach for a white lie in the probiotic aisle.
He’s married.
Did I know him?
No.
Later I marvel that it’s been twelve years, and yet there’s still a heart-pang at the news. I discover and now simply allow that when I care for a boy, I’ll just always care, and it’s not a despairing sadness that keeps me in regret, in waiting, it’s just breathing as a sensitive and interconnected being.
Hair cut to collarbone. Eyebrows manicured. Nails glossed in brooding purple. Eyes outlined in black glitter.
“Better than sex” mascara hides in the tinseled Christmas tree. A gift for me.
“Organic equilibrium.” The poet’s phrase. A romantic partnership fluent in complete acceptance, a balance harmonized by each person continually choosing one another.
The satisfying deliciousness of a well-cooked, successfully seasoned bunch of brussel sprouts steams up my daydreams.
The playwright’s table poses for a never-to-be-taken Instagram photo: a tossed open script, a neat stack of books glimmering in titles alluring to life in 1800s Kentucky, a canister of biodegradable straws, a cold brew perspiring onto a politely placed napkin.
Here, with the plays, with the books, the theater teacher provides an expanded definition of imposter syndrome, and in the definition there is also a solution:
“Imposter syndrome means you have the humility to be aware that you don’t know everything. You’ve got taste. You just don’t quite have the skill to create the art of that high taste. This is a process, and the two will find an equal footing because you’re open enough to know that you don’t know, that you need learning.”
“Frozen II” now officially reigns as my favorite Disney movie.
Elsa, the intuitive woman follows the otherworldly call, dives into the watery depths of the subconscious to retrieve the memory, the holder of the wound in need of healing.
Anna, the sensing woman trusts the wisdom of the intuitive to inform and take the necessary action to initiate the healing.
The two are distinct archetypes of the feminine and in cohesion bring the light, the wonder, the new dawn of higher-consciousness for their kingdom.
I start every day with “Into The Unknown” by Panic! At the Disco, and when in a mischievous mood, I turn to my sister and say “Samantha?” And it always slays.
Notes from the Lexington improv scene:
“Play to the top of your integrity.”
“Focus on cultivating empathy by breaking down the stereotype and playing into the humanness of a person who is different than you.”
“Listen.”
“Stay in the real. Find humor there.”
“Play to the top of the audience’s intelligence.”
“Jump from Kayne West to the assassination of the Archduke in a scene.”
On How To Continue to Improve at Improv:
Go see improv. Read. Watch documentaries. Be informed, be an interested and interesting human being.
At Christmas eve dinner my grandfather admits that he’s never experienced romantic heartbreak.
The war pilot is well-acquainted with death, and the deep sorrow of missing my grandmother surfaces daily, and yet, he makes this clear distinction between this palpable grief and the anguish of an unrequited love, an unequal love.
He shrugs, almost apologetic, as I feel the wave of the past decade, my twenties, and the chaptered romances, the on-the-floor sobs, the stings of disappointments. Romantic heartbreak flavors my twenties.
I am fascinated by the contrast of our heart-histories, and startled into a dawning new perspective.
Surprised, I am lifted outside of myself, outside of my own narrative. There’s a rekindling of hope, of powerful choice on how I perceive and proceed into 2020, into my 30s, with a past healed through presence and compassionate awareness.
My yearning wish is that all bitterness, all fears from these aches transmutes to a loveliness, a boldness, a lusher authenticity, a self-proclaimed lovability. And because I actively choose to this for myself, then it shall be so.
This is how I write healing into my love life.
I journal about the sadness. The sadness is not about a boy, and it’d be easier if it were, but it’s not. The tears are about creative disappointments and life questions, so much harder to reckon with than a boy. I cry. I reach to Doby Danielle’s book of poetry for comfort and remember to look up and am visited by three vultures circling nearby.
Circles. Seasons. Cycles.
Sorrow. Cleansing. Sensitivity.
Heartaches mended by letting them glide in their own organic pacing.
Internet access crashes.
Christmas tree falls.
The situation I feared happens.
In the reaction, I catch Eckhart Tolle gently encouraging another way: “Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it.”
Active acceptance energizes with powerful presence, and this mindful spaciousness catalyzes change.
I pull an animal medicine card for guidance.
Skunk.
Meaning: Project self-respect.
I call on skunk guidance to comfortably discern and determine heart-boundaries while remaining at ease in the harnessing of my own energy.
I crave nature.
Kentucky in the winter nurtures my soul roots.
We walk into cold wind that invigorates and into a mesmerizing blue sky that soothes, and I stand underneath familiar and ancient pines that kindly call to me to befriend the present moment. I close my eyes. Feel the stream of winter sun bathing my brown coat.
I can always come home.
For 2020, I intend to soften into stronger wholeness.
Expectations, goals and to-dos tire me. Life’s too unpredictable for concrete plans. I believe the way forward is like the way of writing: staying present to the work and remaining bravely and gloriously open, and in choosing the heart-centered response, always.
May we stay present to our aliveness and open to its inherent wisdom.