|
1 January 2021 Dear Friends & Students, Back in March, Evan took this photograph. Don’t let the calm on my face fool you, for I was in the midst of my first full-blown pandemic panic:
Upcoming retreats? Canceled.
No private clients for the foreseeable future, and no longer an empty nester…
I thought my world was over.
Fear spoke, imploring me to do something.
At first, I thought my only option was to create asana videos, do
anything to be seen. But the filming process felt fraudulent, and I realized I was attempting to insert myself into a space that had not been personally relevant for quite some time.
The poses were a performance.
I had to find a place to sit.
To ask: Who could I be without the making?
Palm to palm, the only prayer I know is practice.
What followed became a year of marking time, an intentional making without knowing, beginning with an assessment and inventory of the internal and external contents of myself.
The pandemic pushed my buttons, requiring me to confront lifelong demons of (dis)ease and illness narratives, not to mention the many ways I am not good at relationships.
It’s been a year entangled, in intimacy, of intense isolation, and a year in which the sweetest tendrils have appeared.
It began with a series of silent walks along the Erie Canal and the knowing that I had found the person I was always meant to walk with. It became a marked re-reading of the wealth of material inside myself, and the discovery I need not go searching for what was already there ~ however, I could absolutely become more organized! It included the seemingly sudden (and yet not sudden at all) decision to go back to school to become a practitioner of Narrative Medicine. The path I walked has included falls, moments that have brought me to physically to my knees, and the reckoning of understanding what cost my white privilege has had upon others. I have come to know I can only do the best I can, until I can do better. May we all forgive ourselves and allow our injuries to become our healing. Perhaps that was the intention, the clear vision of 2020? Rather than my world being over, it became a world of possibility, a space to explore, and begin again. Perhaps I needed this pandemic push to both to be in the pause, and show up in any situation with quiet determination and love. To embrace my work as a writer, a space holder, as a multidisciplinary maker. I’m not going to lie to you ~ I’m weary, and I don’t expect anything to instantaneously get “better.” This country is still a mess, and who am I kidding ~ so am I. But I do have hope, and I am better at holding the fullness of my whole self, to trust the path, and allow myself to be the person I was meant to be, the one who has been waiting a lifetime for me to take her hand. Who are you without the making? 2021, here is my wish: We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out ~ Ray Bradbury I couldn’t do this work without you as my friends, family, and students; for most of all you are all my teachers, and I thank you. ~ sending sew much love ~
|
