Oh Universe, how mysteriously you move.

[darkemeralds]

"You look cute!" Tiffany all but shouted, interrupting her phone call to deliver this opinion to me in the crowded lobby. My friend Todd, escaping with me into an elevator, muttered, "She's trying to hook us up." I just laughed uncomfortably.

---

Comments on my post about Zumba made me grope a little harder to express why taking a dance[like] class was such a big deal for me. In a nutshell, I don't live in my body very much. I've made other attempts, I've made progress, but "overcoming the straitjacketing of physical shame is the hardest thing about going and practicing and re-trying."

To ground myself more reliably in the physical realm, I've taken extensive Alexander Technique lessons and have undergone a variety of body-based therapies (some of which I've written quite a bit about here). I've been a gym-bunny with 19% body fat, I've done theater and voice training, I've been a dedicated long-distance walker, and as everyone here knows, I've become an avid bike commuter.

But you know what?

The one thing I've been unable to integrate lies, not to put too fine a point on it, between my crotch and my belly-button. Of all the body parts I've dissed, that part is the most disembodied.

There's a marvelous scene in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell where Lady Pole, about to be released at last from her terrible enchantment, appears as two versions of herself, overlaid one on the other. One is her real self, dressed in red and black, furious and frustrated and alive and trapped in faerie magic; the other is the false magical projection which is all the normal world can see, dressed in white, withdrawn, listless and silent and seemingly quite mad. When her missing part, a stolen finger, is restored, the pale reflection vanishes and she emerges from the enchantment, angry enough to change the world.

I feel like I'm restoring my missing part¹. Not that anything's missing or broken--the parts are physically there, and have proven themselves to be in working order--just that they aren't connected to my self. The pale facsimile that has lived my life calls herself unattractive and asexual, while the kidnapped prisoner shouts, "No! It's not true! I'm beautiful and filled with desire! Look at me!"

"Ignore me," says the facsimile. "I'm fine. Pay no attention."

I could spout a whole lot of psychobabble about how and why I became disconnected from my sexuality, but it's...boring, really. And irrelevant. It happened. At a point approximately fifty years ago, in an act of self-preservation, I decided--vowed, in a sense--to need nothing, to want no one, to contain myself and be fine.

Ironically, when a person has set herself up as entirely self-sufficient, it's almost inevitable that her careful and constant self-improvement-because-she-is-never-good-enough-as-she-is will lead her to discover the enchantment, the vow, and to realize that she's free to break it.

Margaret Lynch ties money and sexuality together², and it was in listening to one of her success-coaching seminars the other day that I felt the coin drop. Desire: feeling it. Admitting to it. Risking the disappointment of it...

"Nooooo!" cries the pale facsimile. "No. And let me tell you why: I'm ugly, and just in case I might not really be ugly, I'm fat. And just in case I might not be fat at the moment, I'm getting old. Older...older...presto! Too late ha ha!³ I'm fine. Really. I don't need a thing."

And the Real One in scarlet and black storms and rages and swears like a sailor and makes the pale facsimile look a little...crazy. But she's breaking free, and she thinks it's never too late. She flips the bird at risk and has never been disappointed in her life--just extremely frustrated.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm turning Suddenly Slutty. Even in "never say neverland" that seems unlikely. But just to feel things, to go back through time and sweep up the shards, clear the path, let that fiery line of need and desire catch up with me and burn away the pale facsimile--well, it feels like a pretty big deal.



So this morning, when Tiffany declared me "cute," and my good friend Todd muttered, "She thinks we should hook up,"⁴ part of me laughed uncomfortably, and part of me said, "Oh, Universe, you work in such unexpected ways." Because I think I know a sign when I see one. And that sign said that I'm on the track of something significant.

The hip-swiveling of Zumba is just a bead on the scarlet gown of the girl who went to fairy prison five decades ago.

¹(I just realized that the "single breath story" I'm supposed to be writing is about this restoration, and that's why I've not been able to finish it: not enough of it was conscious until just now.)
² Not that I need or want any more money than I've got. I'm fine. Really.
³Too late ho-ho! Ha ha ha ha! Ho ho ho ho!.
⁴No, we shouldn't. People have thought it for years because we look alike and we're friends and of opposite genders and the same age. It'd be...sibling-ish.

Comments

[karen_jk]

I live for posts like these.

No, I can't even say that. This is the most amazing and inspiring post I've ever read from you, and that's saying a huge, huge lot because you are all about the inspiring posts.

It touches me particularly because I'm a wild sensual gal myself, living in the mild-mannered attire of a suburban mom.

Awakenings. Wow.

[darkemeralds]

Labels! Gah! Guises, attire, masks. All useful in their way, and many quite necessary in their moments, but oh, the sadness that has arisen as I realize how much I've lost irretrievably while living behind the one fundamental falsehood that really wasn't necessary at all--the one that started first and is coming down last.

I think avoidance of that painful regret kept me from confronting these lies, this false self, for a good ten years. Maybe twenty.

The seminar I listened to the other evening that catalyzed this realization for me addressed many people's fears of being sluttish if they owned their sensual and sexual nature. Or greedy if they expressed their desires. Or ridiculous if they let anyone (even themselves) know that they have any desires at all (that last one is me).

There are all kinds of variations on the theme, but the exercises were designed to free us from the vow, wrongly taken in early life, to support the "tribe" (family of origin, basically) by having no needs of our own.

The exercises use EFT tapping to clear the barriers. If you're interested, my link to Margaret Lynch in the post will get you directly to some of the material. She's very good.

I'm so glad the post has been inspiring for you. Your words have helped validate my choice to put something so personal out there, and I appreciate it.

[darkemeralds]

I've re-read my comment and realized that I forgot to tie it back in to yours. Your use of the phrase "suburban mom" was what prompted it. It's a very strong label, and sits like a lock or barrier across many a woman's wild side, I'm sure.

That's what I meant to say first.

[branchandroot]

*uses this icon just for you*

Yes, yes, yes. I think it was my dancing that kept me from disconnecting totally, that kept me knowing who all of me is. It still took a long damn time to find Core Sexuality, hidden away in the doorless fairy tower, but dancing was where that part snuck out and burned sometimes. Dancing is powerful.

[darkemeralds]

Thank you! Beautiful fiery winged being in your icon!

Thank you, too, for understanding--and actually articulating better than I've been able to--what The Thing Is for me about dancing. I was trying to express it, but all I could think of were disclaimers: it's not like I expect to become a pro, I'm not uncomfortable because I'm wrongfooted, etc., but it's really important and really kind of scary! I was feeling a bit bothered by the "Aw, just go do it, big deal, so you're clumsy, you'll get better" tone of some comments (both online here and in person), which missed the point. Even though I never quite made the point.

But this, yes! Core Sexuality, hidden away, possibly accessible through dancing, and possibly going to sneak out and burn. It's big. It really is powerful.

[tehomet]

'Just to feel things' is absolutely a big deal, I quite agree. I know from addiction studies but more importantly from life, as I'm sure you do too, that trying not to feel, to protect ourselves in that way, generally leads to a stifling of some aspect(s) of ourselves - and that stifling is the root cause of many things, starting with unhappiness and depression and leading to all kinds of misery. Like the poem says, it is vital to ask, who are we not being?

[darkemeralds]

What a wonderful poem! (Her artwork is beautiful too, wow!)

I think there's persuasive--if not strictly scientific--evidence that the stifling of self leads to disease, some would say in quite predictable ways. I must have been blessed with a hell of a constitution to have avoided that up to my age. It's true, however, that clinical depression was part of the mix for me for a long time, and very nearly became terminal in the form of suicide. I'm happy and grateful to say that that is all behind me, and I continue to pull myself up, hand-over-hand, and the view gets better and better.

Thank you.

[ranunculus]

Awakenings are SO magical. Errr, and a heck of a lot of hard work. Somehow I don't think you are going to be able to stuff this one back into Pandora's Box. Go YOU!!!

And keep dancing, really, it's a great bunch of people. People who DO things....

BTW I just got totally Shanghaied into being the Treasurer for my square dance class.

[darkemeralds]

People who DO things, indeed. I'm finding that as I continue to grow and change, I have less and less truck with "mainstream" "culture", and very little to say to people whose lives revolve around the television and the car and the fast food.

I'm extremely out of touch by most people's standards, but I enjoy it. And the people I do hang out with, online and on-street, are, as you say, people who do things.

Square dancing sounds like fun. I haven't tried it since I was a kid in school.

[pinesandmaples]

Aliyah (my wife) and I were talking about this just last night. One of the things I love about our cultural differences is that she doesn't carry the same baggage I do so we can turn to each other to undo the harmful stuff. I was trying to explain how vaginas are treated in the US and the Southeastern US, and the best I could come up with was a black hole of pleasure that we carry somewhere between our navel and our knees. We aren't supposed to like it or understand it or know it because--gasp!--black holes are unknown and unknowable! But we should be proud of having one because not everyone is lucky enough to have a black hole of their very own.

I'm trying to flavor this comment with something other than a feminist argument that I am tired of, because the way I was raised and the baggage I was given are somehow different from the typical trigger of "the secret mystery of a vagina is precious". The argument of know and be known, learn yourself is valid...but I don't think that's what we're talking about here. More that we are expected to function and provide services with something that is beyond our tendrils, as sweet flowers.

[darkemeralds]

I have been meaning to come back to this interesting comment. I couldn't formulate a response as quickly as I usually do and it took me a while to recognize that while you have an idea of how vaginas are treated in American culture, I don't--no conscious concept of the matter at all. Not just a black hole, but a complete absence.

This is a generational difference, I'm fairly sure. I certainly never had any message of pride about having a vagina. No concept of secret mystery or preciousness. (Having a uterus might just possibly have bordered on a little of that--maybe.) Just an unmentionable body part. While my own particular shame-based personality might have amplified that unmentionableness a bit, I don't think it was at all uncommon in my generation.

The way I was raised was a scant generation removed from the world of Mad Men. I don't know if it's possible to articulate how much the world has changed since then.

All of which is to say that I'm still not real sure of how best to respond to your comment, but I found it interesting and almost alien, and I didn't want to leave it unanswered.

Inspiring and insightful as usual

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Hon, it's Owzers. One of these days I will actually get an account here. I'm home sick from work today - good thing it's a holiday - and thought I'd check on you. Wow! Thanks Universe for sending me here. My current illnesses are no doubt caused by my stunted sexuality. I know what I'm going to be tapping on today! I'm in awe of you and the growth you're experiencing, it gives me hope. Thank you for sharing your heart and wisdom with us - it is very much appreciated! Hugs!