surprise ... and truth ... and love

Surprise by Ashley Ambirge (Trust 30 Prompt 3)

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself.  How will you surprise yourself this week?

When I first read this prompt, the things that came to mind felt like ancient memories - my trip to Ireland in 2008. Rock climbing in 2009. Both of those activities were inconceivable to the me I was before they happened, and then there I was kissing the Blarney Stone. Ringing the bell at the top of a climbing run. They were surprising, in a way. But not exactly deep and holy. 

And then today I remembered. Something much more recent. Much more scary. And much more firmly in the realm of something I didn't think I was capable of - I risked love. 

Anybody who's been around a while will undoubtedly think 'but she's in and out of relationships more frequently than most of us buy shoes' (buy more shoes, dammit, what are you doing!). But the truth is, it's been more than a decade since I actually risked anything. For ten years I've 'let men date me' - yes, my ego has been hurt when things eventually go awry - c'mon, how could dating an arrogant princess possibly lead to things going awry? And more than once I've said/thought/written 'if I can't make it work with someone like that, what chance have I got.' I've dated some wonderful men - and some total cretins - but always only if they were risk free. Only if I was the one with the power and they were the ones making the effort. Only if I was going to be the one to walk away. I was lazy. Scared and scarred too, but mostly lazy. It's a horrible thing to do to another person, but it was the only way I knew to be safe.    

But then this past winter I took myself to task. I wrote and wrote and wrote and cried and cursed and drank wine. I wrote letters to every man I've held back saying something to - the good and the bad. Most of them I burned. A couple of them I mailed. I wrote a letter to the man I hoped I'd meet. I started to focus on what would have me be ready to be someone's one and only. I admitted that no, I didn't want to die a reknowned spinster with a lifetime of adventures and achievements and no one to mourn her. I decided I wanted to be delightedly in love. I didn't talk about it much, I just set out to do it - to give myself heart & soul, not just body, to someone.  

And so I did. The truth is, that from our first conversation I knew he was different. That he'd challenge me. That he would stand for me and stand up to me and somehow keep me safe from myself. I sometimes wanted to run away - not from him - but from the risk of it. 

Like any adventure, there have been risks. I haven't always remembered to be a soul mate and not a princess. I haven't given as good as I've gotten. And for that I'm profoundly sorry. 

But the holiest truth is that yes, for once, I have loved. Truly and deeply and with my soft belly exposed. And I'm delighted - not just by the adventure, but to know that I'm capable of it. 

As for what I'll do this week to surprise myself ... I can't rightly say right now. My heart is otherwise engaged, and my head is occupied. But come what may, I'm somehow both stronger and softer for having risked my heart. And I know that if I follow that heart, I will be 'safe at last.' 

society/conspiracy/fear

Fear by Lachlan Cotter (Trust 30 Prompt 2)

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following: Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel? Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes? Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are? Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.

I woke up this morning, weighted myself, and burst into tears. People are killing each other in random bursts of hatred in Norway. People in the Horn of Africa are collapsing from the weight of hunger & thirst, famine and drought. And I cried because every week I inch further from being who I want to be and having the body I want to have. I was so close in January - so proud and strong and confident. I could see my goals coming together. And then they started to recede. And I hate that it matters to me. The number on the scale is supposedly just a number on a scale - but every ounce away from my goal weight is also an ounce on the side of failure, of  never being enough (or, more accurately, of always being too much). Each and every ounce represents every other failure - and these days the failures so vastly outnumber the successes. 

Emerson is wrong - he assumes the voices that we hear in solitude are the ones the spur us on to greater selves. Not me. The voices that I hear in solitude taunt me. They play a seemingly unending scroll of losses. They name ever abandoned idea, every friend who has wandered away, every pound of flesh I've lost and regained since I was 13. And they name that vast unnameable fear that nothing will ever go differently. 

Mind you, I have other voices too - ones that encourage me. Ones that get inspired. They're just feeling a little worn out. Ignored, even. 

There's a saying I heard once - if the voices in my head were other people, my mom wouldn't let me be friends with them. I think I need that on a t-shirt. Or a tattoo. 

I guess I didn't really answer the questions in the prompt. The answer to all those questions is no - no the fear isn't worth abandoning the dream. No it won't matter in 10 years (though - honestly - there are some things I'm scared of that would still matter 10 years from now). And no, I can't be happy being anything less than me - but what if this chubby, floundering mess is really me? Who could be happy being that?

I'm (mostly) an extrovert. I get my best ideas out observing other people. I'm replenished and restored in the company of others. Emerson is wrong. The negative voices are wrong. And I'm heading out into society to prove it. 

imitation is suicide/divine idea

Divine Idea by Fabian Kruse (Trust 30 Prompt 1)

Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

• Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

Wow ... it's been tough for me to separate out the two thoughts here - suicide & divine idea - I guess I'm just struggling to see 'suicide' in a metaphysical sense ... There are days - like most of last week. And yesterday before STG picked me up (literally and psychic-ly) for the night. And on a hundred other cloudy days scuttling across the calendered skies of my past - when it simply is not okay to be me. That said, most of those days I'm also not interested in being someone else. Which leaves only the rather emo-kid answer of just disappearing. Which is also not an option. Most of those days I just keep on knowing they are fleeting.

It's apt that the first prompt I saved was one on suicide. It's a topic I've long pledged to speak openly about. And as often chickened-out on. This week there's a big gala event here in my town - a charity fundraiser with two aims: to support increased mental health services in the area and to help erase the stigma around mental health. Good looking former hockey players and their famous friends, and people from across the community spectrum pulling out their wallets in support. I said I'd be part of it. That I'd be interviewed. That I'd tell my story. And then I chickened out.

If I wasn't afraid to be me - if I didn't have the suicidal tendency of choking on my words and stories and experiences - maybe I'd be down shaking hands with famous people and sharing my story and making a difference for other people in our community.

And that's what really gets me ... I've long believed that the 'divine idea' that represents me is to support people in using language powerfully to tell their stories. And yet, even though I feel I have a way with words, I stop when it comes to sharing my story. 

and so it begins - Trust 30

Sometime mid-June I signed up for a writing challenge based on Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self Reliance. However, I knew at the time that I wasn't actually going to participate in the challenge right then. I had other things I wanted to write, and I was in the middle of learning that it's okay to rely on other people - which seemed a little contrary to the point of the project. 

However, the writing challenge is not called 'Self-reliance 30'; it's called 'Trust 30.' It's not about not needing anybody else, it's about listening to myself - I might have shushed that still small voice - and sometimes ranting raving voice - once too often, but it's still there ... waiting for me to listen.

The other hold up - I've never read RWE's Self Reliance, or anything else by him, apparently. In fact, when I signed up I thought they were talking about Henry David Throreau's Walden. So I took some time to brush up on my so-called 'American Renaissance' literature. I know I took a course in what we called simply '19th Century American Lit,' but all I can remember is being kicked out for giggling - long story - and pretending to read Moby Dick, and chatting with my grandma about the everlasting genius of Mark Twain. 

So, at long last, I'm ready. I have a library of 30 prompts stored up and will be writing one a day starting now. If you're interested in finding out more about the challenge or want to join in, prompts continue to be delivered (it was so popular they continued it beyond 30 days) and you can click the 'Trust 30' link in the side. 

love as fine as a flower's hair

'They' try to tell us that love is composed of grand gestures. Of dinners on gold rimmed plates. Of precious metals & stones, epic poetry, declarations shouted outside windows in the rain.

But this is what love is made of. A picture, snapped in a moment and sent in an email. Just because he saw it and thought of me This is love - bright as speckles, sparkling as bokeh, fine as a foxglove hair.

Click to see the full-size picture ... it's amazing!