Back and Forward
Even though I had known all this change was coming, though I had blogged it, dreamt it, felt it, divined the pieces to figure out what was going to happen, in the true moment of it I was stunned and surprised. It laid itself out in neat rows, marched itself exactly as I was told it would, up to my door. But it seems that a certain reality and an almost inescapable likelihood are very different things.
My reactions to becoming unemployed were mixed. But again, like a handful of moments previous, I found the overwhelming emotion to be one of relief. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from me. And though the days I traveled through from there to here were full of fear and scrabbling for a course of action and understanding, I cannot pretend that the immense relief and joy hadn’t happened first.
Even a split second of that reaction, for I cannot remember how long it lasted, is telling. It shows me that somewhere deep in my heart, I know the path I have to take and the changes that have to happen along the way. I know where I’m stuck and what things I do not have the strength, power, or control to change myself, or the things I have to wait to come into being. And when those things shift, or when those things happen, I recognize them as necessary, not just necessary, but crucial to my long-term health, happiness and creativity. I see them, somewhere deep inside, as inevitable milestones of proof that I’m on the right path. They happen, and before my emotions can enter into the picture or my logical or natal self can begin to speak, there is a separate reaction that is simply “Yes”.
It’s that “Yes” that keeps me on this path. I have no idea where it comes from and aren’t interested in finding out. Sometimes the “Yes” is longer and includes some explanation. Sometimes it is a “No”. Sometimes the inflection indicates a grim certainty, and sometimes a very gentle amusement. Sometimes it feels female and others male, or human or animal or something beyond all of those things. It’s always there in some form and comes in the first seconds of certain wishes, changes, or thoughts. And I find that, with it, my only choices are to agree with it or fight it. Wisdom for me in my life, is simply learning the value of agreement.
My body, however, seems to have other feeling about these changes. After my separation, it caused a general shutdown of all systems, leaving behind a memory blackout. After other big changes, it cut off sleep, or digestion, or bodily functions. This time, it waited a few days to really come to terms with the layoff, and then, promptly began to freak the hell out.
So, I’m writing this from my old chair, and a heating pad is plugged into the wall behind me. Whatever subconscious ooze that needs to be worked through has settled in a very common place for me, in the small of my back on my left side, right up against my sciatic nerve.
What you notice when something like that happens is well, everything. During the worst of it, I had to plan every minute movement, figure out how to twist from chairs or bend to feed the cats, how to climb out of bed or shift my foot to the gas pedal. I had to contemplate situations to make sure I had a good exit strategy before I entered into them. And I had to evaluate social occasions to see if I could manage to flow my way through them while hiding the intense spasms of pain that would run up and down my body. Each step required thought and each minute of sitting or standing required a constant state of monitoring to ensure that nothing was happening along my muscular system that might lead to an attack.
It’s exhausting and saps all concentration. I’d write, but I have to adjust my posture every few minutes, bringing me crashing back to myself and my room. I’d meditate, but sitting in one place leads quickly to pain. I notice when I have to go to the bathroom and need to plan out how exactly I’m going to maneuver myself from wherever it is I am over to it. Taking baths requires a complicated blueprint. Walking to the car requires following invisible dance step feet on the sidewalk. And at any moment, I’m ready for the spasms, which lead to the nerve twinges, which lead to inexplicable movements of my arms and legs, intakes of breath and general grunts and wide-eyed smiles.
Luckily, in Seattle, people just think I’m on heroin.
It’s been five days now, and I can finally do something other than plan out military campaigns to the kitchen. My concentration can shift from watching each muscle contract and release to, oh, anything else at all. Just in the nick of time, too. Today, I found myself trying to put my car keys into the ATM slot… rather, I found myself thinking as I was trying to jam my keys into the ATM slot, “Damn. My keys don’t work. I’ll have to have new keys made…”
Maybe it’s my body’s way of making me slow down and process fully before I get up again and begin this very large and very new chapter of my life. I don’t know. What it has reminded me of is the value of small moments, the infinite minutia that make up gestures and postures and decisions. And hopefully, it’s a lesson I can bring into 2004, and the beginning of something that I know has to begin.
A new season of Walkabout is coming, started a month ago to accompany these changes before they happened, and waiting to be launched until they do. WindWalking Arts is now a legal business entity in Washington State. So, whatever the outcome of any of this, the beginnings of it are playing out without a second of pause.
Sure, I’m very scared and uncertain, nervous and apprehensive. That fear will come and be allowed to play out as well as countless other emotions, and I will rest on my experience and my commmunity to help me deal with that. But beyond all else, all body reactions and all emotional reactions, I know that the journey is again engaged. I’m excited about it, not because I think it will lead to something better, not because I think it will lead to something freer, but because I know it will lead to something that it is leading to. And the only thing that has to be done, an effort at times, is to unkink, unfetter, and follow it.
You’ve been a good friend, Motivo, and a stubborn partner. Thank you for all your lessons.
