This holiday season I gratefully receive the gift of braces.
A mix-match of Invisalign and good-olde-fashioned wires and brackets lasso my stunned teeth into the direction of straightened perfection.
The orthodontist and dentist collaborate to concoct a plan to solve my open bite and space-out my crowded teeth. I trust the vision, and I trust the timing of this initiated vision.
This is my time for deepening, for compassionately and clearly reviewing the past few years and honestly reckoning with what is and what is not working for me. This is the time to address the hiccups and the purposefully avoided issues I’ve been ducking from in my twenties. In my twenties, I catapulted myself into experiences, onto the stage, into a different state, into careers and artistic projects. Yes, I often thought I should get a food test to see if I’m really allergic to coconut to help clarify what food truly nourishes me, but my focus centered on the outer world and learning about myself through the outer world.
And now, I gather inward. I rest and I reset in my inner world. I reframe and rejuvenate my relationship with body, with Self, with source, and what I could do to further ease and flow towards empowerment in my day-to-day routine. So I create an inspired list.
And this tangible list smiles wide with braces, ironing, confidently driving on the interstate, blood work for food allergy testing, and identifying a primer that ensures eyeshadow glitter remains sparkling.
All of these assist in embodiment, in helping me comfortably and exuberantly exist in my body, and assuredly navigate through this 3-D reality. And my reality with braces proves to be a bit more difficult than I originally thought it would be.
Memories from my brace-faced tween years have mysteriously vanished. The one clear image that remains gives light to a holiday party where I’m miserably attempting to eat a plate of hors d’oeuvres and the pain of chewing thoroughly diminishes my appetite.
On this go-round, however, I’m starving. I would endure the pain of chewing, but I’m also dealing with another caveat – a gaping hole in my mouth, and I’m hesitant to get any cornbread remnants lodged into its exposed tissues. To create space for my bottom teeth, a tooth had to be sacrificed. A dramatic adieu to the chosen tooth and drama-less procedure has resulted in a fresh pit crisscrossed with wires to coax my snuggling teeth to separate and stand independently. Frankly, it looks a little like a rogue and raw modern art piece. And curiously enough this sight doesn’t eradicate my ravenous cravings.
I hunger for all the foods outlawed to those with newly cemented dental bling. I’m ravenous and irritable. I daydream of sizzling steaks, crispy chicken sandwiches, and taking outrageously huge bites out of mustard slathered hamburgers.
Instead, I dine on a spoonful of hummus and Pinterest tantalizing images of gooey cinnamon buns and opulent cheesecakes.
And I do this in a brewing silence because I struggle to speak. My slobbery speech highlights a pronounced and artificial lisp and my tongue ties and tangles in a perplexing dance on how to enunciate and form coherent sentences.
My slurpy words and growling belly could spin me into a self-pity party, but I can’t vocalize my complaints (I can write them!) and while acknowledging the discomfort helps me work with the situation, I also recognize that the temporary unease signals an opportunity to cultivate deeper embodied peace.
The braces reinforce the lessons from 2020: slow down, move with intentionality, be vibrantly attentive to the moment and to what is, transform every action into a heart-opening prayer.
As my mouth recovers and repairs, I grant myself permission to rest and heal.
While I can’t feast on steaks and cinnamon buns yet, I can gently digest in gratitude the hummus, the chicken broths and pureed veggie soups, the sliced pieces of fine cheese, the mashed sweet potatoes, the coffee ice cream. This is temporary, so I invest my energy to fancifully slurp soups from beautiful glistening mugs and indulgently lick dollops of guacamole.
When it comes to speaking, I realize the spirit that runs under and animates my words.
Since speaking requires more effort, I focus on clearly communicating. And again, the braces challenge me to speak my truth in the moment because when talking involves a bit of pain, I’m going to be mindful about what I say, how I say it, and feel the harmonious or disharmonious echo of the words in my body. If I’m paying attention to subtle sensations, to the murmuring dance of emotion and energy, I know instantly if a truth was released or suppressed. Expansion cues the freeing flow of a truth.
And I soften toward myself. As I slurp and slur with once smoothly articulated words, I relinquish the annoyance and the judgment. I don’t need to be perfect. I can be present. And my loved ones understand me, and I can understand and brighten my intentions to connect and cultivate connection when I speak, when I listen.
And I am listening. The braces gift me spaciousness to listen and be still, and to deepen into a stillness mirrored in nature. There’s a stirring of abundant life-force in the dark winter quiet. The winter solstice redirects the gaze toward our inner light. I sink into the comfort of early sunsets, in a night glistening in twinkle-lit pine trees. I don’t have to seek any epiphanies, I can empty out with an exhalation, be aware of the ache in my teeth, and allow myself to relax and release into this iteration of being.
I am excited to see what the gift of braces will do for my teeth, my bite, my smile in the next few years, but that’s running forward, and my wholeness is already here. Experienced when slowing down to relish a spoonful of hummus and breathing gently with the winter solstice as the year of 2020 fades. I’ll be listening, speaking with purpose, and Mona Lisa smiling.