Lighten Up Cha-Cha-Cha

I'm trying to lighten up (sorry about yesterday's post). Really, I am but it seems now and again, the Tsunami of Despair washes in through the windows of this dull building, knocks me on my ass and gets sand everywhere. I moved in here to give my mom a hand. Ladies and gentlemen, my mother; a woman who defines family as, "Those people whom you avoid at all costs." My therapist (and everyone else) wants me to move out of here because she thinks this location is part of my problem. She might be on to something so I have revised my morning affirmations from, "Help me support my mother," to, "Get me as far away as possible before I start flinging myself over my balcony." I'm only on the second floor so in order for me to check out via flinging, I would have to throw myself over the railing repeatedly. Sounds like a lot of work, so I'm keen on the new address instead.

My therapist also suggested that I go back to ballroom dancing which was a thing that my then-husband and I used to do. We were really good at it, garnering compliments from our instructor at the time. My then-husband said that he did not want to continue because every time we went out in public dancing, we "made a scene."  I though that was an odd thing for an actor to say, but, fine, we stopped. 

Originally, last week, I was going to go do another centurion bike ride up north. My therapist said, 

"So, you. Alone. On your bike."

"Yes."

"No. You're not doing that. You're going to go dancing. You know, dancing? With other people?"

I knew she was right. I'm learning that she's usually right. Almost always. Okay, so far, always.

I found the website of a local chapter of the Arthur Murray chain. I figured that, what the hell, this could cheer me up from the bashing I've been taking from that fucking tsunami. Tired of having so much water up my nose. I filled out their online form. One of the questions was, Where do you see yourself dancing? There was no context provided so I wasn't sure if they meant, in my kitchen, in line at the bank, or at Carnegie Hall. I decided that, on the edge of a volcano might at least express my need for this experience to be positive even if it wasn't exactly what they were expecting.

I was nervous before my dance assessment. It's been some time since I've tried to be graceful. I made sure, though, to make a note to myself before I entered the building, not to spit or behave in any way as I do on my bike. No sneering while passing somebody during a waltz. No throwing orange peels on the floor, and, Absolutely NO SNOT ROCKETS. I repeated this a couple times to make sure.

I went in and met the instructors who are all young and lovely and without malice. Not ONCE have I seen any of them roll their eyes at me, and that place has mirrors everywhere so I would notice. The assessment went fine. It's basically a how-do-you-do, and to see if you can navigate on your feet without hurting anybody. I was okay. I moved, upright, at varying speeds with a decent sense of rhythm. The more significant denouement happened the next day during my first lesson when the portal from the past opened up in my head and I started to really move with the music. 

I was pretty damn excited. There was a bit of tsunami water sloshing around in that portal but not for long.  I had my second lesson last night and we were able to skip ahead into some of the grittier parts of the dances, where all of the fun lives, and I could not have been happier. Of course, I wish I had never stopped back when, but I'm here now, so be it. I'm not sure where this will lead, but it's keeping me off of my balcony. It feels good to be dancing again. I'm not giving up my bike yet although I must say that I would rather tango than bust my hump on another 50k ride by myself. 

I know. This is a shock for me too.

I still have to get out of this apartment. That will come. I could end up shacking up with some crazy Flamenco dancer down by the river. Who knows? 

I have to add, that I feel it's strange to be doing this while such a chunk of the world has had its ass kicked by hurricanes. Don't worry, I get the irony, but I'm of no use if I'm flinging myself over the railing, over and over and over again. It probably wouldn't work anyway. I imagine I'd just get really good at landing. I'm fighting the fucking tsunami in an effort to find my niche and be of more significant use. Seems to be an ongoing search but in the meantime, slow-slow-quick-quick-slow, I gotta go. I have some scene-making to catch up on!

Beans and the Abyss

I am teetering on the edge of the ridiculous abyss. I manage, for swaths of time, to foray towards lighter, simpler dynamics but these always seem to manifest only in a forced, feigned effort to pull back; settle, and I begin losing my mind. I am wired to struggle against complacency. I know this after over five decades of life strewn with varying reactions to varying, often remarkable scenarios. My focus, like any human, is towards broader contentment, but I continually find myself battling with the painfulness of what are, in this paradigm, unrealistic dreams. Success would be resigning myself to the level of, this will do. But I can never manage it because I can't convince myself of its worth on a cellular level. It feels, well, wrong.

I can't be the only one experiencing this, can I? There must be others out there who find themselves, now and again, standing in the grocery store in the bean aisle (8, I think)when, for no discernible reason, all of the colours on the labels appear more vivid. The rest of the store falls away and the well-researched music playlist becomes incoherent data meant for torture. There is nothing but these shelves of beans and I am terrified. How did I get here? (How did Chick Peas get here?) This is what life has become, and, in that moment, breathing stops being autonomic. Should I try more fiercely to trick myself so that I look forward to the tedium of present-day human expectation? Must I lower my sights so that the insane loops of mindless activity thrill me? How about telling myself a juicy lie upon waking in the morning, like, "This is fun!" Or distracting myself with, "Let's see how many cans of beans the abyss will hold, and show it on Youtube!" Viral? You bet!

I think part of the problem is that I sense that we are better than this. We are better than warehousing our elderly, letting this growth economy drive us out of our minds, and expounding on fighting disease as long as it involves donating money instead of changing lifestyle. We know that education should be free, unless of course we are compelled by our arrogance to nurture a robust stratum of oppressed for us to blame things on. I know, blah, blah, blah. This isn't rocket science. We have succumbed to too much financial competition and not enough fleshy, heartfelt caring. (Oh, and by the way, thank goodness for rocket science!) And why the hell is Wellness such a growing industry? Shouldn't we be good at this on our own by now? Shouldn't belly dancing while surfing be the hot thing instead, or discovering the delightful hologram capabilities of cauliflower?

And just what the fuck does the term Mental Health mean? Does it mean tucking in and riding with the zeitgeist? Or, does it mean acknowledging a nod from something deep inside that knows that all of this is nuts? Because this is nuts.

Well, I am fucking bored of it all. Aren't you? I crave something different. There has to be...there IS more than this, I know it. We've been living long enough that we should be so much better at it:

Nobody should have to take a fucking knee. 

I should not be dreading the days as I do. I want to be excited instead. I know I have to be more realistic, but it would be nice if the real part of the word didn't blow so badly. And, also, if the abyss wasn't so, you know, abysmal. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that it won't be found by settling for less. 

This is not fine.

And please don't tell me that, "this will have to do," because it can't, and I will wrestle you in the parking lot on that point and I will win and you will be embarrassed. We have the greatest capacity to make good change. If we don't, and we wait, I fear many of us will lose our balance.