Letting Go of the Last Three Pounds (Blog #251)

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Well here we are again, writing during the day. Last night I took my therapist-assigned nap, then I couldn’t fall asleep until four in the morning. More than the napping, I think the reason I couldn’t sleep is because my body hasn’t gotten the memo that we’re doing things differently now, that there’s a new sheriff in town. This morning I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, partly because I’m tired, partly because I noticed last night that the body odor that I worked so hard to get rid of has returned. I’m assuming this is because of the medications I was on recently for my sinus infection, but I’m not a biologist. Either way, part of me thinks that I got this figured out once before and can do it again, and another part of me thinks, Oh, for fuck’s sake, I quit.

I woke up this morning to the sound of the phone ring-ring-ringing and the microwave beep-beep-beeping. As if that weren’t annoying enough, my parents’ phone actually announces, rather loudly, the number that’s calling. You have a call from 479-867-5309. Maybe it would be better if the announcer had an Australian accent. Better yet, I’d be more than happy to wake up to the sound of Morgan Freeman’s voice. He could read the phone book to me any day. As it is, today I woke up to the voice of a robot. (Not sexy.) Anyway, now the sun is shining, I’m drinking coffee, and Dad and I are talking about the hot gay guys on Days of Our Lives. (They’re weaving a tangled web.) Additionally, as I’m writing, the soundtrack to the musical Kinky Boots is playing in my ears. So I’m slowly–slowly–working my way out of my bad mood.

Life, it would appear, doesn’t completely suck.

Last week my therapist suggested I watch the television series The Deuce, starring the oh-so-handsome and sexually flexible James Franco, so last night I watched the first two episodes. To be clear, I don’t think my therapist recommended the show for mental health reasons, but rather for entertainment, relaxation, and visual stimulation (James Franco). For all these reasons, I thank her. Y’all, I was completely engrossed. The show is set in New York City in the seventies, and James plays a bartender who works with the mob and serves up a number of colorful hookers. Also, he plays his twin brother, a former baseball star who’s up to his neck in gambling debts. I can’t tell you how delightful this is. Honestly, it reminds me a lot of Hayley Mills in the The Parent Trap or Patty Duke in The Patty Duke Show. You know, except with pimps and prostitutes.

Recently I’ve been toying with the idea of lowing my standards of perfection. For example, for the last twenty years I’ve had it in my head that my ideal weight is 175. Never mind the fact that the only time I weigh that much is after a week-long stomach flu. Honestly, 180 is a better goal. Well, in the last month I’ve gone from 190 to a consistent 183. Since this isn’t my first diet and exercise rodeo, I know I could spend the next three months working on those three pounds, like really putting myself through hell. But as things stand, I’m thirty-seven years old, my stomach is flat, and I wear the same sized jeans I did when I was in high school, so why am I making such a big damn deal about this and everything like it?

You can quit trying so hard and still get there.

Clearly I spend a lot of time working on “just a little bit more,” reaching for that thing that’s slightly out of reach. I’m not saying that I couldn’t lose another three pounds (I could), or that I can’t continue to write a thousand words a day (I can). But what would my life be like if I didn’t try so hard, if I recognized that I’ve already come a long way and that things are pretty great at 183 pounds and six-hundred words a day, give or take? Just the thought of that, of taking my foot off the throttle, is a relief. Phew, I can quit trying so hard and still get there, still be happy. I’m not saying I’m going to completely let myself go and start eating cheesecake for breakfast, but I am going to stop pushing so much and try to let life work itself out. It seems it always does, after all. Given enough time, answers come, healings happen, and even bad moods go away.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If another's perspective, another's story about you is kinder than the one you're telling yourself, surely that's a story worth listening to.

"

 

We Follow the Mystery (Blog #222)

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Once again, I have no idea where to begin, or for that matter, where to end. I’ve spent the evening reading and reading some more, and I’ve gone through my nightly routine–flossed and brushed my teeth, washed my face, prepared my bed for sleeping. I’ve looked everywhere for inspiration, something to write about, but nothing has seemed remarkable. Sometimes blogging is like watching paint dry. Would something–anything– happen already? For the last twenty-four hours, I’ve been reading a book about writing called Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and Natalie says that if you don’t know where to start, talk about food, so I’ll try that.

Also, do we like Natalie or what?

After one full week of clean eating, I can officially say that it sucks. It’s nice to fit in my jeans and all, but tonight I went grocery shopping for my parents and kept putting item after item into the basket and thinking, Can’t eat that–can’t eat that. Oh, butter bread! Definitely can’t eat that. This afternoon I had salmon and vegetables for breakfast, and tonight I had hamburger patties and vegetables for dinner. Every meal is essentially like the last. This is the part that sucks–no variety. Well, wait. I did have a pickle tonight–that was exciting. Of course, since I’m speaking about a literal pickle and not a euphemistic one, what I actually mean is that it wasn’t exciting at all.

Whenever I eat well for a week (or God forbid two), I always think that should be enough time to reach my ideal weight and feel like Liza Minnelli in Cabaret. Fabulous! My friend George refers to this kind of thinking as “wanting a parade” for making good decisions. (Bring on the band!) Obviously, my expectations are too high. Every day I wake up wanting instant results, but my body always says exactly what the button on my cashier at the grocery store tonight said–Nope! Not today. This is almost enough to make me want to go back to eating chocolate cake for breakfast. Almost.

Somehow you arrive, always astonished when you do.

On nights like tonight, writing feels like the diet–ho, hum–routine–is it really worth it? Words that work show up about as often as winning lottery numbers. Whenever the last word does show up, I think, God, I’m glad THAT’S over. Other nights I sit down at the laptop, and it’s like a miracle. I can’t type the words fast enough. I get to the end of the post and think, Brilliant.  Rarely is there an indication beforehand of what kind of night it’s going to be, so I’ve decided that creativity is a lot like that asshole friend who says, “Follow me to the party,” but never uses his damn turn signal along the way. So you just take the trip and try to keep up. Feeling mostly lost and out of control the entire time, somehow you arrive, always astonished when you do.

Natalie says this is normal. Some days your writing soars, some days it sinks–never mind–keep writing. This reminds me of a principle taught in The Bhagavad Gita, one of the Hindu scriptures–take action, but let go of the results. In other words, eat better, but don’t expect to gain anything from it. Sit down to write every night, but don’t expect it to go anywhere. This, of course, is a tough pill to swallow. Personally, my inner control freak thinks it’s a bunch of shit. (Is it any wonder I don’t have a dot in the middle of my forehead?) That being said, I don’t remember the last time a day, a diet, or even a simple blog post ended like I thought it was going to. So how much control does my inner control freak really have?

Not a lot, that’s how much.

I find this idea of not having much control both terrifying and exciting. It’s like, I didn’t make the sun rise this morning or hang the stars in the sky, but I’d like to think I could get through the day on my own, thank you very much. But take today, for example. I had it all planned out. First I’d go to the chiropractor, then I’d go to the library to read Natalie, then I’d come home, eat, and go shopping. Well, I got to the chiropractor, but before I could point my car in the direction of the library, my body said coffee, so I ended up at a coffee shop. That’d be normal enough, I suppose, but I ran into one of my old friends, someone who said they’d uncharacteristically had a couple dreams about me lately, so maybe it wasn’t an accident that we ran into each other. Who’s to say why anything happens the way it does?

We follow the mystery, never knowing what’s next.

As I understand it, this is how the mystery of life works. You wake up every day, and even if you have a plan, you try to be open to whatever happens. You do your best to let go of the idea that you’re leading the way. You think, “I want coffee,” then your ego takes credit for it when you’re holding a cup of joe in your hands. But where did that thought come from? That’s the mystery. Tonight at the grocery store I kept noticing a booklet called The Science of Emotions, so I bought it and started reading it. Now it sits on a stack of several other books, some of which are mine, some of which belong to the library. (I eventually ended up there this evening.) I can’t tell you what I’m going to do with all that information anymore than the man in the moon can, just like I can’t tell what the results of my boring diet will be. Still, I’m learning that not knowing is the exciting part, just like arriving anywhere is the astonishing part. (Look, we got to the last paragraph!) Also, I’m beginning to believe that each new moment is not only a starting point full of possibilities, but is also a destination that looks like right here, right now. In this sense and without turn signals, we follow the mystery, constantly arriving, never knowing what’s next.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"That love inside that shows up as joy or enthusiasm is your authentic self."

This Show Is Far from Over (Blog #206)

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Last night I decided to stay one more day in Albuquerque. Now it’s nine at night, everyone else is in bed, and I’m planning on leaving bright and early in order to be back tomorrow evening. I have dinner plans, so that means hitting the road at a rather ungodly hour and spending the entire day trying to figure out how much coffee I can drink without having to stop to use the restroom. When I worked at summer camp and drove a school bus, the teenage boys used to drink two liters of soda then pee in the bottle. So far I haven’t succumbed to this wisdom, but I’ve thought about it more than once. It certainly would make the trip go faster.

I’ve spent most the day with my nose in a book. Well, four books, two of which I finished. Currently my eyeballs feel as if they’re going to fall out of my head, roll across this countertop, and bump into my whiskey-and-coke. Considering the fact that reading has seriously been my entire day, my sister said, “I’m really curious as to what you’re going to blog about tonight.” Even now I’m thinking, Me too, sis, me too. I guess I could tell you that Ander dressed up as a pirate again today. At three years of age, the boy talks nonstop, and he kept trying to say, “Ahoy,” but saying, “A whore” instead.

Aren’t kids great? (I guess “a whore” does give a completely different meaning to the phrase, a pirate’s “booty.”)

Yesterday I attended the musical An American in Paris. Not that I need a reason to see a bunch of men in tight pants dancing under spotlights, but my friend Brian is in the show, and that’s why I went last night. Y’all, it was fabulous. If you get a chance to see it, don’t hesitate. All that being said, I’ve been nursing a small amount of melancholy today, since I said goodbye to Brian when the show was over. On one hand, I’m so glad I met a wonderful guy this week. On the other hand, it may be a while before I enjoy his company again. Plus, this entire trip has been fabulous–my dance mentor Maggie, the guru, my sister and her family, my dance partner Kaleb. All of it feels like a big Show’s Over, and I guess I’m just sad to see everything end.

One of the books I started and finished today was called The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process by David Berceli, PhD. As I’ve mentioned before, a number of books about trauma state that the body can store stress, anxiety, and tension in the muscles, but the body can heal itself and return to a state of balance by shaking or “tremoring.” (I wrote about one experience I’ve had with this sort of thing, here.) Many animals and children do this naturally, quiver or tremble when they’re angry or afraid. The problem with adults, however, is that our brains usually stop our bodies’ natural instincts because we think it’s weird or embarrassing to vibrate like a heart-shaped bed at a cheap motel.

But the book I read today said it’s not weird or embarrassing. Actually, it’s normal. The idea is that muscles naturally contract when under stress or trauma to pull us into the fetal position and protect our “soft parts”–genitals, vital organs, face. If the body doesn’t realize a threat is over, we can end up permanently contracted. And whereas massage or yoga works to relax tight muscles from the outside in, shaking helps to release them from the inside out. So the book includes exercises that encourage the body to shake (gently, not like a Pentecostal) and therefore heal itself. Of course, I had to try them.

Believe it or not, I’m a skeptic. At the very least, I’m a cynic. I’m always hoping “something that works” will be at the end of the next book, the next weekend workshop, but I’m usually disappointed. So as I went through the exercises, I thought, This is bullshit–it just feels like stretching. But then midway through everything, my diaphragm started to quiver, and by the time I got to the last instruction, my hips started vibrating and sending mild to somewhat violent pulses down both my legs. This went on for a good twenty to thirty minutes.

I’m guessing for some people, this would be a strange experience, but for me it was a welcome one. Since I’ve had similar experiences before and read a lot about this, it didn’t freak me out. I even called my sister into my room and said, “Put your hands on my knees.” (As they bounced about, she said, “That’s crazy!”) Plus, although the book said sometimes people experience a rush of emotions when shaking, the experience tonight was strictly a physical one. Well, I did laugh a little.

That felt good.

When the shaking was finished, I’m sad to say that I didn’t see Jesus descend from heaven. But I did try a couple yoga poses that are usually a real bitch for me, and both of them were considerably easier, so something relaxed. Clearly the exercises tonight weren’t a “one and done,” but I do think they were a good start, and I noticed when I stood up that I felt considerably lighter. Specifically, I felt less sorry for myself and simply grateful for the last two weeks and all the people I’ve had the privilege to spend time with.

Before he went to bed tonight, Christopher gave me a hug and said goodbye. At first he was totally sweet, but then said, “We would’ve had more time to play together, but you were too busy talking to Mom to spend time with me.”

I said, “I appreciate your getting your feelings out in the open. Is there anything else you’d like to say?”

He said, “I love you,” and went to his room.

Nothing lasts forever.

On the counter next to me is a toy called a Buddha Board. It’s a canvas for painting–with water. Of course, the water evaporates, so it’s about the concept of letting go. Perhaps it could teach both my nephew and me a thing or two. I guess we all have our disappointments, things we want to happen or last longer that don’t. Fabulous experiences come into our lives the way wonderful people do. Maybe they stay for a night or fifty years, but they eventually leave, all of them gone like water into thin air. Sooner or later it’s just you and your feelings, and that’s gotta be okay. The good news is that uncomfortable feelings leave too. Nothing lasts forever. Even if your body spends thirty years tensed up because it’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, one day it can begin to let go. Then you can look around at all the shoes on the floor, be thankful you’re still alive and have loved ones beside you, and think, This show is far from over. In fact, it’s only just beginning.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can be more discriminating.

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Trying to Manage Expectations (Blog #192)

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This afternoon Riley woke me up by sitting in the doorway and meowing over and over and over again. He has a history of rude behavior like this, so I’m honestly surprised he’s left me alone until today. I guess he figured if vomiting and breaking dishes weren’t getting me out of bed at a decent hour, he’d try the direct approach. I’m all for stating your needs, of course, but I also wasn’t getting up easily, so that’s when Riley got on the bed. Like, on top of me. “What, did we win the lottery?” I said, and turned back over. Then Riley moved to the nightstand, put his butt in my face without even asking first, and proceeded to circle the alarm clock as if he’d recently learned how to tell time.

Fine, I’ll get up. But I’m not happy about it.

It did occur to me that perhaps Riley was trying to tell me about a problem. You know, Lassie used to do that sort of thing, so for a moment I envisioned walking downstairs and finding Riley’s brother, Oscar, dead. I thought, That would really, really suck. But when I entered the living room I found Oscar hanging out in the sun by a window, totally alive and unconcerned about the fact that I was awake. So I ran my hand across his back and said, “You’re my favorite.”

This evening I met my friend Tess for a photo shoot where she was the photographer and I was the subject. I’ve been a bit nervous about the whole thing since we planned it, and I meant to spend the afternoon getting ready. I also meant to lose ten pounds, but that didn’t happen, one thing led to another, and I ended up saying fuck it and showering and throwing on my clothes at the last minute. Anyway, I met Tess first, then we rode together to a secret location marked with No Trespassing signs, walked right past the warnings, and began shooting.

I felt like such a rebel. Sort of like James Dean, but I had a cause and he didn’t.

Tess started by having me dance while she took pictures. You might think I’d be a natural at this sort of thing, but I really do better when I’m dancing with someone else and not just myself, especially considering the fact that I was sober. But whatever, I tried to have a good attitude, and when Tess asked me to jump up in the air and touch my toes, I simply thanked god for my stretchy jeans and said, “Okay, on the count of three.” Well, all of this was in direct sunlight, and even when it came time to stop jumping around and pose for the “high school senior” shots, I couldn’t stop perspiring. So we’ll see how things turn out. Maybe I’ll just look “radiant.”

For the next set of photos, Tess wanted to go to a different location and recreate some pictures of Gene Kelly she found online, pictures where he was wearing a gray sweatshirt. When she originally told me about the idea, I thought, Awesome, and went to Walmart and bought a Fruit of the Loom. Suffice it to say, maybe we should have thought it through a little more because by the time I got out of the wet clothes I was wearing for the jumping photos and pulled out the sweatshirt to put on, I was still sweating like a whore in church. I thought, This is sweatshirt is not going to help anything.

So that’s my excuse for being half-naked in this selfie. I’ll let Tess speak for herself. Personally, I think we could all stand to show more skin. As RuPaul says, “We’re born naked, and the rest is drag.”

By the time we got set for the Gene Kelly pictures, the sun was going down fast. Still, we persevered, and Tess clicked away as I put my thumbs in my pockets, crossed my arms, smiled, half-smiled, and wondered if I should have used more hairspray. When it was all over, I was exhausted. I also think I was stung by a wasp on my neck. Maybe it was just a mosquito. I’m not a veterinarian, so it’s hard to say what it was. Regardless, I’m now convinced models earn their money. Looking natural is harder than I thought.

Now I’m back at the house, and every time I get up to go the bathroom, Riley follows me. And whereas my bladder doesn’t have stage fright, I will say it’s a little weird having an audience when I go to the john. Last night I woke up to pee and found Riley sitting in the sink, waiting. I guess he does this because he likes to drink out of the faucet, so maybe it’s not personal. Anyway, I’ve spent the evening getting the house ready for my friends to come back–washing dishes, doing some laundry, eating peanut butter and jelly, stuff like that.

Earlier I was searching for a way to make toast and mistook a wine cooler for a toaster oven, so I know it’s getting close to my bedtime. The day starts early tomorrow, and the rest of the week will be packed, since I’m going out-of-town. Honestly, I’m a little overwhelmed, as I’ve been meaning to flip my sleep schedule for my upcoming travels, but it hasn’t happened–despite Riley’s help. Part of me is also concerned about the photos. You know, I’m a control freak AND I’m vain, so the struggle is real. My therapist says a big part of being happy is managing expectations, so I’m currently trying to set the bar low, not demand perfection of myself and others, and “let go and let Tess.” I haven’t seen a single picture yet, but so far it’s working. One way or the other, this week will come and go, the pictures will come back, and–most importantly–Riley will put his butt in someone else’s face.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Life is never just so. Honestly, it’s a big damn mess most of the time.

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Strange Bedfellows (Blog #173)

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A couple nights ago, Jesse, the neighbors, and I were on the porch drinking. At one point Jesse and I went inside, and Jesse swore he saw “a critter scamper across the kitchen” and into my room. Well, we looked around, even picked up the air mattress, but didn’t find anything. Later when I went to bed, I thought my room smelled funny, but you know how your nose gets used to smells after a few minutes. I thought, Jesse was just drunk, but figured if he did see something “bigger than a mouse but smaller than a raccoon,” whatever it was would be in the closet. (Been there, done that.)

So I shut the closet door and went to bed.

Yesterday Jesse continued to stand by his story, but neither Ray or I saw anything. “The house does have a funk about it,” Ray said. “It has a certain patine.” Last night after blogging, I looked in the closet, didn’t find anything, and shut the door again. When I didn’t see anything in the room either, I turned down the lights, crawled in bed, grabbed the extra pillow off the floor, and settled in to look at Facebook. That’s funny, I thought. I think the pillow moved by my head. Like, I could have sworn something shifted by the right side of my face.

Calm down, I thought. It’s just the air mattress settling. So I put my phone away, closed my eyes, and–holy shit–the pillow moved again. Y’all, I said every curse word I know, immediately levitated out of bed, and threw on the lights. By this time I was thinking the mystery critter was under my pillow, but when I looked at the bed and saw the pillow moving like a Jim Henson puppet, I realized it was IN my pillow.

I wish I were kidding.

I kept thinking, Just pick up the pillowcase and take it outside. Come on. You can do it. But then I imagined something from a Stephen King novel and pictured myself bleeding, so I did what any self-respecting person would do–I threw another pillow on top of the critter pillow, screamed for Jesse, and asked, “Do you feel like being a man?” Well, fortunately he did. Grabbing the pillow, he walked out of the room and woke up Ray for the big reveal, then we all headed to the porch–at one-thirty in the morning.

Having blogged every day for nearly six months now, I’m starting to recognize a story when I see one, so I grabbed my phone and recorded Jesse coaxing the animal out of the pillow case. Ray and I were backed up against one side of the porch, and Jesse and the pillow creature were in the middle. It took a moment, but eventually a head popped out–a baby possum head. Oh my god, I was in bed with that. It could have bitten my face off. As Jesse pulled back the pillow case more, the entire possum lay there on the porch, I guess playing dead like a–well–possum. Meanwhile, Ray named it Beauregard and said they should keep it as a pet.

Did anyone miss the part where I was in bed with a real, live possum? I’m still shuddering just thinking about it. (Here’s a link to the video–UNedited for language.)

Just after I stopped filming, Beauregard scurried off the porch and into the bushes, but Jesse–who likes animals and clearly has different standards for bravery than I do–put on a pair of gloves, picked him up, and brought him back to the porch. Then Jesse and Ray started looking up information on Google. They found out possums “have a bad rap” and aren’t as scary as everyone thinks they are. Like, it’s really rare for them to get rabies, and some people keep them as pets, even though it’s illegal in many places or at least requires special permission. But none of that swayed me–I kept thinking, Oh hell no. I told Ray, “I’ve been saying I wanted someone to sleep with, but I can see I should have been more specific.”

Still, I guess Jesse is some sort of Florence Nightingale for rodents because he made Beauregard a home out of a box and gave him food and water. (I keep calling Beauregard a he, but he may have been a she. Gender is so confusing these days.)

About this time I went inside to look around my room and put things back in order. My sheets were completely off the bed, and if you didn’t know better, you’d think I’d been ejected off the mattress. So I made my bed again, checked all the other pillows for possums, and–thank god–didn’t find any. What I did find, however, was the reason the room smelled so funny. Beauregard had shit on the curtains. (Reason number 27 why NOT to pool your curtains on the ground.)

Taking down the curtains, I found Ray in the kitchen and asked him what to do with them. “Throw them away,” he said. Then he gave me a Glade candle to help with the odor, so I left it burning in the room while I headed back outside. I guess no one sleeps in Ray’s neighborhood, since when I got to the porch, the girl and boy from next door were there. Y’ALL, SHE WAS PETTING THE POSSUM LIKE A KITTY CAT. Maybe I would have thought this was cute–even wanted to try it–if Beauregard hadn’t caused me to jump out of my skin, but all I could think was, I just can’t–I just can’t even with the pillow possum petting.

About the time Jesse put Beauregard in the pocket of his sweat shirt, I went to bed. Before I crawled under the sheets, I checked the pillows once more, blew out the candle, and thanked the good lord my face was still in tact. Eventually, I fell asleep.

This morning Beauregard was gone. Jesse said he figured he crawled out through the handle holes on the side of the box. Ray said Beauregard stayed long enough to shit all over the box just like he had the curtains. We all decided all the yard work probably shook up the little guy and that he came in under the back door, since it’s currently missing a threshold and there’s a nice-sized gap at the bottom.

Follow for a change.

When I looked up the spiritual meaning of possums online, it said they represent the path of least resistance and being able to lay low while the universe works “behind the scenes to fulfill your dreams.” They also remind us that it’s okay to be passive. And whereas I’ve spent plenty of time being passive in my relationships over the years (and am working on it), I tend to be anything but passive in the rest of my life. Rather, I prefer being active. Often I describe myself as a “get shit done” kind of person. I mean, my last three blogs have been about literally bleeding to transform Ray’s yard, and whether it’s transforming a yard, opening a dance studio, or starting a blog, my primary thought is usually, “I’m going to make this happen.” But I’m reminded tonight–by a passive pillowcase possum of all things–that life requires balance. I don’t have to make everything happen. What’s more, I can’t. As much as I hate to admit it, there are things beyond my control, things like who reads this blog or–apparently–who ends up in my bed. So perhaps, thanks to Beauregard, I’m being encouraged once again to surrender, to let go even more, and, after all these years of leading, follow for a change.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Your story isn’t about your physical challenges.

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Ripped from a Page (Blog #138)

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This afternoon I went to physical therapy, something I’ve been doing on an almost weekly basis since someone slammed into the back of my car a month and a half ago and turned me into a real-life bobblehead doll. Honestly, physical therapy itself been going great. A couple of weeks ago I got moved from twice a week to once a week, and today I got moved to “almost done,” which means I only need to go back if I feel like it during the next month. That being said, when I walked in today, the therapist said that my posture was “almost perfect,” that my left shoulder was “a bit” high and my head was turned “slightly” to the right.

Well, shit.

Of course, part of me is thrilled with the progress (or whatever), but a bigger part of me is “a bit” stressed out and “slightly” terrified that I’m not–well–perfect. Maybe that’s my perfectionist talking. It’s difficult to say.

Yesterday I started making a dream board, also known as a vision board. It’s one of my 101 creativity assignments, and it involves collecting pictures and phrases from magazines that represent dreams I’d like to come true. (If anyone has a teeny bopper magazine filled with Zac Efron photos, please drop it in the mail to my address.) So this afternoon I went to the library, and while upstairs streaming an episode of Will (the new TV series about young–and hot, let’s not forget hot–William Shakespeare), I searched for dream board additions in some of the free magazines I found downstairs.

When I was in junior high, I worked my ass off on an insect collection–you know the kind where you stick a pin through a dragonfly (that you caught with the lid of your parent’s barbecue grill) and another pin through a tiny piece of paper that says “dragonfly” along with the scientific name. Well, it really was great, since I’ve always been a rule follower and extremely anal retentive. HOWEVER, I got marked off four points (for a total of 96 percent) because the edges of my paper weren’t completely straight, since I’d creased the paper on the side of a table and torn it rather than using scissors. At the time, I was devastated. Looking back, I wish I’d known enough to look my teacher right in the eye and say, “Bitch please.”

Obviously, the event stuck with me. I mean, that was over twenty years ago, and I still can’t help but wonder if my life would have turned out differently if I’d gotten those four extra points. Now that I think about it, I’ve wasted a lot of time on perfectionism, which my therapist says is just another name for fear (fear of not good enough, fear of rejection). This is something I’ve been working on–letting go of being perfect–so when the instructions for the dream board said to tear (literally tear) out whatever I wanted to add to my board, it honestly felt great to rip, rip, rip the magazine pages apart and see all those jagged edges. Fuck you, 100 percent.

After gawking at young–and hot, let’s not forget hot–William Shakespeare and working on the dream board, I ran into one of my former students with whom I always have fabulous conversations. When I talked about the blog (as I tend to do), my friend referred to my daily self-reflection as “encountering yourself,” which I think is the perfect (there’s that word again) phrase and something everyone should make an effort to do before they die.

Encounter yourself.

Before I left the library I signed up for the online course I mentioned yesterday about healing your emotional wounds. I’ll let you know how it goes, but one of the ideas presented in the lesson today was that the two natural responses to having a wound are shielding (for protection) and soothing (for healing). The guy teaching the course, Artie Wu, says that shields can show up as anger, people pleasing, and–get this–perfectionism. Soothing can show up as drugs and alcohol, food, or working or using media too much. (I wonder if binge watching hot Shakespeare counts.) None of these responses are bad in and of themselves, but the question to ask is whether the behavior hurts more than it helps. In my case, if I’m going to get real about it, the idea is that perfectionism is a way to avoid criticism (you’re not good enough) and engender praise (you’re the best boy ever). And whereas there’s nothing wrong with that strategy, it does come with a lot of baggage, like the inability to relax with crooked pictures on the wall or walk out the fucking door without every hair on my head just so.

This evening I went to hear my friend Donny play at Core Brewing Company in Fort Smith. He and some of his friends have a band called The Wren Boys, and they’re currently playing every Tuesday night. (Come join the fun.) Here’s a video from their set tonight.

While the band played, Donny’s wife, Vicki, and I discussed the idea of being playful, and as I’ve thought more about it, being playful–curious–seems to be the opposite of perfectionism. Just watching Donny and his friends, it’s the most laid back thing–off the cuff, unrehearsed–fun. And isn’t that the point–to life? I mean, where does it say that all your edges have to be straight (or even that you do)? Maybe this means that one of my shoulders will always be “a bit” higher than the other, my gaze may always be “slightly” off, but clearly I’m the only one taking points away from myself for having “almost perfect” posture. But that’s changing. Honestly, the more I encounter myself, the more I realize that all my edges are torn–almost as if something bigger than myself had ripped me from a page and dreamed that I’d come true.

[Seriously, if you have any old magazines (with or without Zac Efron) you’d like to get rid of, I’d love to have them.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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A break is no small thing to give yourself.

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Cicadas Were Meant for Flying (Blog #127)

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Currently I am not amused. Not amused, I say. I sat down to begin writing about an hour and a half ago, and my site was completely inaccessible, which means I couldn’t look at the site, write a post, diddly freaking squat. (I said, “Shit, hell, fuck, damn.”) Thanks to Google, I figured out the problem was a plugin I installed a couple of months ago. I’m not sure how to explain a plugin other than saying it allows certain things to happen on the website. Like, there’s one plugin that lets me share my Twitter feed, another that lets me list the most recent posts, stuff like this. Anyway, one of those damn things was messed up, so the recommendation Google suggested was to disable (turn off) the guilty party.

Which would have been easy enough to do–had I been able to access my site.

SHFD.

Well, I guess there’s always more than one way to skin a cat, so after some more time on Google, I enabled FTP protocol through the website host, which is different than the site itself. Think landlord (host) versus property (site). (I can’t explain FTF other than to say it’s a way to access your site files away from you site–sort of like using your cell phone to turn up your hearing aids or open your garage door). After enabling FTP, I had to actually download an FTP application, and then I was able to rename the plugin file folder that was causing the problem. And guess what? Voila!

Stupid internet. (The end.)

Just kidding. I don’t even remember what I did today. Oh yes. I got a massage–myofascial release–and talked to my massage therapist about the theory that our memories are stored in our fascia. (I plan to check into this more. I’ll let you know how it goes.) Anyway, he said that sometimes when people are “letting go,” they remember traumatic experiences from their past–car accidents, injuries, even things that happened in the womb. (Wild, huh?) He said people can release a lot of emotion on the table and the body can heal long-standing problems. In his training, this is apparently called “unwinding,” and it can really scare the shit out of someone if they’re not ready for it.

Personally, I don’t think I “unwound” today, although I wish I had. (I did feel my neck and shoulders let go a little.) I’ve had some experiences on the massage table and in yoga before when I spontaneously started crying, even laughing. Sometimes it’s just been the emotion, other times it’s been the emotion and a memory. Oh, that’s why my leg muscles are so tight–because I had to grow up so fast. Maybe it all sounds weird if this is new to you, but I’ve come to see that every part of our bodies is absolutely alive, conscious, and wise. And it seems that often emotions and experiences literally get stored in our bodies (the issues are in our tissues) until we are best able to address and process them.

Let’s just put all that stress in your shoulders until a later date. There now–everything right where it belongs.

This afternoon I spent some time at Sweet Bay Coffee Company setting my mom up with a tablet so she could get on Facebook and read my blog. (What else is there to do online?) She’s been using my old phone, but the port has been crapping out, which has made charging it a problem. But I got a sweet deal on an Amazon Fire, which is perfect for her.

In addition to all that, I also worked through an exercise about my beliefs in money while at Sweet Bay. (Fill in the blanks: Rich people are _____, If I had money I’d _____, Dad thought money was _____, etc.) Honestly, most my answers were negative, which only surprised me because I thought I’d made a lot of progress in that department.

Guess not.

Anyway, when I left Sweet Bay, the cicadas outside were so loud it sounded like an entire herd of baby goats were being sacrificed as part of a pagan ritual. I thought, Holy crap.

So I got this new car, right? Tom Collins–that’s his name. Well, when I bought Tom Collins, the guy who sold him to me (Johnny) said to be sure to start the car and let it run for about thirty seconds before throwing it into gear and taking off. He said it would be better for the engine. Therefore, like the straight-A student that I am, I’ve been trying to follow his directions. (Where’s my gold star?)

So get this shit.

There I was sitting in the Sweet Bay parking lot, car running with the windows down, and a giant cicada flew–actually buzzed–into my car. (I screamed and nearly peed my pants.) I swear, it was huge, practically an Oscar Meyer weiner with wings. Anyway, the not-so-little sucker went directly into my door handle–and got stuck–like little Timmy in the well. So I opened the door hoping he’d fly out, but I guess he didn’t have enough space for a runway.

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. 

It’s moments like these when I think it’d really be nice to have a man around. I mean, isn’t that what husbands are for–dealing with insects? Oh go ahead, honey, you handle it–you’re so big and strong. Why, look at those muscles. Well, as it turned out, I was the only man available for cicada-removal duty. Crap, I thought, I guess I’ll have to do. So I fished out an umbrella from the trunk, stood back, and poked around in the hole, but nothing came out, other than a bunch of noise that sounded like a frozen turkey being dropped into a pot of boiling vegetable oil.

CRACKLE, CRACKLE, ZIP, POW.

I was finally able to get the umbrella tip behind the little guy’s bottom, and he used his legs to crawl out of the well. Then just like that, he flew off, up-up-and-away over the Dollar General.

You’ve got to let go in order to make room for something new.

Tonight before I found out my website crashed, I cleared off the phone that used to be mine, the phone Mom’s been using for a couple of months–backed up the photos, deleted the applications, restored it to factory settings. It’s not worth much, and I’ll probably take it apart with a hammer tomorrow, so I’m not sure what all the fuss was about, other than–and I know this sounds silly–it felt like I was saying goodbye. I mean, we’ve been through a lot together.

Earlier I looked up the symbolism of cicadas. As it turns out, they represent rebirth because they spend much of their life underground. But then after a good while, they break free, lose their shell. For this reason they stand for metamorphosis and change. Honestly, I don’t think it was an accident that little demon flew into Tom Collins. I mean, I’m thirty-six years old, and that’s never happened before. Plus, I’m actually going through a rebirth.

What I love about this reminder from the heavens is that it’s normal to have a long seemingly inactive period before breaking free. More so, if you want to become who you were meant to be, it’s absolutely necessary to shed your old skin. Sure it might be sad to say goodbye–to your old phone, to your old beliefs about money, anything that helped get you this far–and it might feel awkward at first–but you’ve got to let go of whatever it is in order to make room for something new. You can’t say wound up forever. After all, cicadas weren’t meant to have their wings pinned down, and neither were we.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Nothing is set in stone here.

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Matthew’s Box (Blog #117)

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At least once I’ve written about the time when I was a child and became so upset that I didn’t have enough space to organize my newly acquired birthday presents that I began to cry. I remember my mom sitting on the side of my bed. The room was dark. Maybe a nightlight was on. My mom left the room, came back with an empty Cool Whip container. She said, “Let’s put all your worries in here. You can get them out later.” So I took my hand and placed my invisible worries inside. Mom put the lid on the container, tucked it away in the bottom drawer of my dresser, and then tucked me away in bed.

Somehow, it helped.

Perhaps this is the first time I’m sharing this part of the story on the blog, but I’ve written about it elsewhere before and told some of my friends, so I feel like I’m repeating myself. Anyway, we’re talking about it now because this afternoon (at breakfast) I found out where the whole Cool Whip container thing started.

Sometime before I was born, my mom attended nursing school at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland. My aunt Terri attended there with her. One of their classmates and friends was a lady named Pat. I’m told that when I was six or seven I met Pat and her husband when my family went to visit them. I’m not sure that I remember, but the story goes that Pat said we could stay with them, but I said, “Thank you very much, but I’d like to stay at a hotel where I can use the vending machines.”

Not much has changed.

Since Mom’s recently joined Facebook, she and Pat have reconnected, and when I got back from Austin yesterday, I noticed a hand-written letter to Mom from Pat on the kitchen table. It was mixed in with some other cards addressed to Mom as well as a small bouquet of flowers (in a smiley-face vase) from the cancer support house. This morning I also noticed a small glass box, which at first glance looked looked like a jewelry box about the size of the palm of your hand, beveled on all edges, beautiful, with a silver clasp. Mom said the box came from Pat, that it was called a “Matthew’s Box,” that I could read about in an article Pat sent with her letter.

Matthew, Pat’s son, was born in 1976, four years before I was even thought about. At age four he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a typically terminal form of cancer that cut off the blood supply to his spinal cord and put him in a wheelchair. For over a year, Matthew was treated with chemotherapy, which left him weak, nauseated, and prone to infections like pneumonia. Two months before he turned six, an x-ray showed a new malignancy on his spine. Hope gave way to reality. At home and at treatment, Matthew held onto a toy he got when he was a baby, a stuffed dog (outfitted in engineer’s overalls) named Dooby.

One day while listening to records, Matthew began to sob. Hearing him from another room, Pat went to him. “Mommy,” he said, “if I die, will Dooby go with me?”

As time went on and Matthew struggled with the idea of dying, Pat said, “Matthew, think about taking all your concerns and troubles out of your mind and putting them in a box. Close the box and hand it over to God, and let him take care of it for you.” The day after that conversation, Matthew’s demeanor had changed. In Pat’s words, he was cheerful, chipper, glowing. When asked why he was so much happier, Matthew said, “Well, Mom, last night I changed my brain.”

Matthew died eleven months later. Even now, Pat keeps a glass box on a her desk. Into the box she slips little pieces of papers on which she’s written her worries and concerns. Whenever a friend has cancer, or maybe whenever they’re just having a hard time, Pat sends them a “Matthew’s Box” like the one she sent my mom.

Healing’s not an item on a to-do list.

Today I woke up tired and started the day by reading about Matthew and then crying into my grapefruit. I’ve been slightly on edge because I’m quitting coffee (for a while), and I’m overwhelmed that Mom is starting chemotherapy this Friday. (It’s the little things, it’s the big things.) Isn’t it all happening too fast? I spent the afternoon with my physical therapist, my massage therapist, and my chiropractor. My physical therapist actually described me as having, “almost perfect posture,” and my massage therapist got my shoulders to not round forward so much. And whereas all of that is exciting, it also feels like I have a long way to go. Tonight I’ve been thinking, What if I can never get my hips perfectly level or my ears above my shoulders?

What if my dreams never come true?

Tomorrow I see my therapist, and I honestly can’t wait. It’s been a couple of weeks, and–as always–I have a list of things I’d like to talk about, things that have bothered me but I haven’t been able to figure out on my own. This evening I realized that my therapy list is a lot like a “Matthew’s Box” or a Cool Whip container. It’s a place for me to put my own worries and concerns until I can get some help with them. My nature, of course, is to want a solution “right now,” to be able to check another item off my list. Thank God, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. But I realize that’s not how healing works. Healing’s not an item on a to-do list. No, healing is crying for breakfast, laughing for lunch, and eating peanut butter from a jar for dinner. It’s flowers on the table and asking a friend for help when you need it. It’s doing everything you know how to do while simultaneously acknowledging what’s not yours to control and admitting that often the only reliable thing you can change–as Matthew might say–is your brain.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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There’s a power that comes when you meet life’s challenges head-on. Those are the times you breathe the deepest. Those are the times the waters come forth and your heart beats every bit as loud as the thunder claps. Those are the times you know more than ever—no matter what happens next—in this moment, you’re alive.

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An Extremely Neat Child (Blog #101)

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When I was four my family and I moved into an old three-story building in downtown Van Buren that we’d recently remodeled. There had been a lot of construction, and a lady who worked downtown paid me and my sister a penny for every nail we picked up off the ground. I guess it was my first job. I remember putting the money in some of those plastic easter eggs, putting the easter eggs in a drink carrier from McDonald’s, and then putting the drink carrier on a shelf in my closet. I can still see it–everything just so.

We’d lived in that house for about six weeks, and then one night while we were all gone, a semi-trailer truck lost control while coming down the big hill in front of our home that doubled as my dad’s drugstore. The fire started when the truck collided with a station wagon at the bottom of the hill, a station wagon with a family of seven inside. All seven people, along with the newly married couple in the semi-trailer truck, died. Three buildings, including ours, burned. The event made national news.

My memories surrounding the fire are pretty spotty. I remember that night seeing smoke in the sky from the front yard of my grandparents’ house. I remember sleeping on a pull-out couch that wasn’t ours. I remember getting hand-me-down stuffed animals. My aunt says I would arrange those stuffed animals according to height, that the year the fire happened was when I went from being a neat child to an extremely neat child.

At some point we settled into the house we’re in now, the house I really grew up in. My room was two doors down from where I am at the moment, and I can still picture the baby blue walls and the railroad-train wallpaper border that stayed the same until I became a teenager. Every now and then my dad would help me rearrange the furniture, but certain things never changed. Always the Legos sitting on top of the dresser were lined up parallel to the edges, the VHS tapes on the shelves in the closet were alphabetized, and the books on my desk were arranged according to height.

Everything just so.

I’m sure the fire was also when I started collecting basically anything that wasn’t worth a damn. That’s when I started hanging on. For a while I was into rabbit’s feet, which I hung individually by chains on a pegboard on the back of my closet door and arranged by color. And then there was Batman and then there was Coca-Cola (the new stuff, not the antiques). Every birthday or Christmas I’d take any newly acquired gifts and start searching for a place to put them. However, because things went into my room but rarely went out, finding empty shelf space became more and more of a challenge with each passing year.

Once after a birthday I remember lying in bed and my mom sitting on the edge. I’d gotten a bunch of new toys but didn’t know where to put them, and it was so overwhelming that I began to sob. Another time I dropped a paperback in the bathtub, and even though the book was okay, some of the pages got wrinkled. I recall being so upset that it was no longer perfect and how even after my mom bought me a new copy, I couldn’t get rid of the old one.

For nearly thirty years now, I’ve struggled with holding on and wanting everything to be perfect and just so. And whereas these things have been a challenge, they’ve also been my salvation, my way of bringing order to a chaotic world, a world where homes turn to smoke and fires take the lives of strangers just as easily as they take the lives of your stuffed animals. I’ve never been officially diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), but my psychologist friend Craig says a little OCD is functional. I know that my desire for order has come in handy in my life as a remodeler and interior decorator. Sometimes I like to think of myself as a household chiropractor, someone who can walk in, immediately spot any misaligned picture frames or candlesticks, and straighten everything up. Snap! There, that’s better.

Today after having lunch with my aunt Terri (the one who said the thing about the highly organized stuffed animals), I had coffee with my friend Kara, whom I’ve known since the fourth grade. Honestly, she’s one of my dearest friends, but she told me today that she’s learned things about me from the blog that she never knew before, like how much I’ve smoked over the years. (A number of other people have echoed this sentiment.) I guess we all do that to some extent, try to control the information that other people know about us, since no one likes to be judged. I know that for the longest time it was easy to stay in the closet because I’d only date people out of town. I could have a boyfriend on nights and weekends, but I never had to mix that part of my life with my family or my friends at the dance studio.

Kara accurately described this sort of behavior as compartmentalizing. Work goes over here. Friends from high school go over here. And let’s see–sex and cigarettes go waaaaaaaayy over there. I told Kara that I thought I’d made a lot of progress. I don’t compartmentalize nearly as much as I used to. (She agreed.) I guess it’s harder to do when you put a good majority of your thoughts, feelings, and secrets on the damn internet. There’s a certain amount of control that’s given up every time you get real with yourself, write it down, and hit the “Publish” button. In this sense, perhaps I’ve come a long way from that scared, little four-year old who lost his stuffed animals, the one who thought he needed to find a way to control the uncontrollable.

Still, this evening when I unpacked my bag from the weekend, I put my socks in one drawer, my shorts in another, and my t-shirts in the closet–according to color. I organized my calendar for the week. And then I put my change in an orange bowl, which–now that I think about it–looks not unlike an easter egg. All this I did in my sister’s old room, the room I now sleep in, the one with the bed where I lie awake and worry about things like whether or not I’ll ever move to Austin, how my body will recover from my recent car accident, and if I’ll ever be a husband. Of course, all of these thoughts are overwhelming, and sometimes I feel like that small child who doesn’t know where to put everything in his life. But then I sit down at my laptop and–word by word–place my entire chaotic world extremely neatly on a page, all the while wondering if this is simply another way to hold on, another way to get everything just so.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Nothing was made to last forever.

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The Thread That Remains (Blog #100)

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Currently it’s 3:33 in the morning, and I’ve been stuck behind this laptop at my aunt’s house in Tulsa for over an hour. Twice I’ve written an opening paragraph and deleted it, and I just moved from a chair in the living room to the floor hoping the change in location might will help. Physically, I’m both exhausted and over-stimulated. Emotionally, I’m the same. Tonight’s post–if and when I finish the damn thing–will be number one hundred. One hundred days of blogging in a row. Wow. That’s well over one hundred thousand words. That’s more than the first Harry Pottter. I feel like I should throw a party for myself, but then I probably wouldn’t get any writing done. I can’t think. I’m blaming the almost-full moon.

Oh my god, I finished a paragraph and didn’t delete it.

I’ve said this before, but almost every time I sit down to write, a theme becomes apparent. It’s as if there’s a single thread that somehow runs throughout each day’s random events, and my job is to find it, tug on both ends, and pull it all together. But on days like today, I feel like a seamstress (or is it seamster?) who’s looking at a pair of pants with too much material, wondering how I’m going to trim things down, make everything fit.

I came to Tulsa today for the wedding of my former dance partner Janie. When I opened my dance studio on September 25, 2005, Janie was one of the four people who showed up for my first group class. Her sister, Jennifer, had taken swing from me at a local fitness center, and that’s how Janie found out about the studio. Several years ago, Janie moved to Tulsa when she graduated college, but for years and years (and years) before that, Janie was at the studio–dancing–multiple times a week.

I really don’t know how to keep this brief. Janie and I made hundreds of YouTube videos together. We’ve performed together more times than I can count. In the process of learning aerials, I’ve literally been closer to Janie than I’ve ever been to any other woman in my entire homosexual life. We’ve picked each other up, dropped each other, laughed together, cried together. In my fifteen years of teaching dance, no one has been as talented, kind, light-hearted, trustworthy, or drama-free as Janie.

My date for the wedding tonight was my friend Marina, whom I met at a swing dance in Tulsa God-knows-how-many-years ago. One of the most fascinating people I know, Marina is a ninety-something, still-working, still-dancing local historian. She was an original Rosie the Riveter in the Boeing factory in Wichita in World War II. An inspector, she checked so many rivets that she’s missing fingerprints on two fingers. I like to think of her as my fairy godmother. Never short for stories, tonight Marina told me the factory she worked in was disguised to look like a farm, complete with plastic cows and hay bales that got moved around each night. She also said she used to tell her mom she was going to the library to study but instead would go to a gymnasium to teach soldiers how to swing dance.

Here’s a picture of Marina and me at the wedding with my friends Bruce and Lyn from Fort Smith. A long time ago I said something smart ass to Lyn, and she lightly popped me on the back of the head, so we started joking that I’d “better watch it,” maybe wear a hard hat whenever I’m around her. Anyway, tonight Lyn said she’d go easy on me, since I recently lost a game of real-life bumper cars.

Also at the wedding tonight were my dancer friends Joseph and Elisabeth. Elisabeth reads the blog regularly, and she’s the one who told me about The Artist’s Way, a book about creativity that’s currently doing to my emotions what the Tilt-A-Whirl does to the stomach of anyone over thirty-five. Anyway, Elisabeth said she read somewhere that the creative well never runs dry–basically, “there’s always more where that came from.” I remember, just earlier tonight, nodding my head in agreement, and then later staring at my blank laptop screen and thinking, bullshit.

Seeing Janie tonight was only a little weird. I guess it’s like that when you go a long time without seeing someone you used to be so close to. It felt like both nothing had changed and everything had changed. So often it was just the two of us practicing, rehearsing. But tonight the room was full of people, which made me realize I’m just a piece of Janie’s life, just like all those other people are, all of us pulled together by this one common thread.

What wasn’t weird–but rather what was wonderful–was dancing with Janie, someone I’ve danced with more than anyone else in the world. Nothing short of marvelous, being on the dance floor with Janie felt like falling into you favorite chair after a difficult day, like you’ve somehow gotten lucky and found a place where time doesn’t pass by.

Marina and I also danced. We shuffled our feet, rocked back on our heels, wagged our fingers at each other. (She refers to this sort of thing as “getting funky.”)

After the wedding, we go back to the house Marina’s lived in since 1955, the home she’s currently moving out of. Her living room empty, the kitchen is full of bills, newspaper clippings, some pictures of white-haired Marina in airplanes and helicopters. The inspector uniform she wore over seventy years ago hangs in the hallway. She still fits into it. Once when I said, “Marina, you must not have worked very hard–that thing isn’t even dirty,” she rolled her eyes and said, “They gave us a new one every week.”

Marina tells me that when someone asks what she’s doing, she says, “As much damage as possible.” We walk to her backroom. She gives me a cap she says she got from a Greek sailor several years ago when she was in Hawaii. “They were dancing on the tables, and I had a straw hat on with a pair of sunglasses,” she says. “This guy comes over and starts talking to me in Greek, so we had to use a translator. He said, ‘I’ll give you my hat if you give me yours.’ So that’s what we did.” And then she gives me a cowboy hat too, one that belonged to her son before he died the year after her husband did. So I make her put on another hat I find in the closet, and we take a picture together.

The only piece of furniture in the room is a Singer sewing machine. Marina says she’s three inches shorter than she was when she worked at Boeing, that she keeps shrinking, keeps having to hem her pants higher and higher. Later in the lobby of her new apartment she says, “I’m so small that I have to carry a heavy purse so the wind won’t blow me away.”

We go upstairs, get off the elevator, go inside Marina’s new home. Marina digs through her dresser drawer and pulls out a jewelry box with a rubber band holding it together. It’s a box of cufflinks that belonged to her husband, Don. “Take what you want,” she said. “I can’t wear them.” I remember that I only own one button-up shirt and it doesn’t have French cuffs. I look at Marina, almost a hundred. I wonder how many more times we’ll dance together. Thinking I can somehow hold on to her, I reach in the box and pull out a pair of the most beautiful turquoise cufflinks I’ve ever seen. A few minutes later, I stand to leave because it’s after midnight.

Now the sun is up, and I am too, obviously. Thinking about Janie and Marina, I realize that our paths converge and separate, separate and converge. Everything changes as one moment outgrows the next. One day your pants fit, and the next day they don’t. As my friend George says, “You turn around three times and twenty years have passed by.” I guess on some level we know that everything is coming apart, so we do our best to pull it all together. We collect things–cufflinks, newspaper clippings, pictures of when we used to dance with each other or ride in airplanes–hoping to hold on somehow, to slow down the inevitable goodbyes. All of it still passes away, of course, except the love that runs between us. Yes, love is the thread that remains.

[Thanks, Elisabeth, for the pictures of Janie and me.]

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Patting yourself on the back is better than beating yourself over the head.

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