oneword: wash

Every once and a while I need to wash myself clean, taking all of the grime that no longer serves me so I can move forward with a fresh perspective.

Yesterday, I started with my apartment. I cleaned, I vacuumed, I did laundry, I lit a candle, and could finally breathe. I still have so much to do, but this is a start.

oneword: depth

Strip yourself of unneeded layers, fill your lungs with air, close your eyes, and dive into the depths of your imaginings. Swim around in them. Flip, swirl, and roll. Open your eyes down there, watch how everything seems to blur and mold into a beautiful alternate reality. When you come up for air, remember what it looked like. Remember what it felt like. One day it will surface and you will thrive.

oneword: chained

After so much excitement, so much relief, so much truth telling and exploration, this ball and chain is still here. It is still digging into my flesh, even more so, and I wish more than ever that it didn't exist, that it never existed in the first place.

If only my wish could make it real. If only dreams coming true were that easy.

Turns out it's hard work, and the pretty, pastel picture I painted for my life--the one that is making me gag at the thought--is even harder to escape. This is going to take more effort than simply making a decision. It is going to take action. Follow-through. Faith that all if it is for the right outcome, the real right outcome.

Until I lose myself in that faith and that action, all at the same time, no time, and all the time, I will be chained to the nagging, splenda-sweetened, good life. The one I've spent so long convincing myself I should live.

oneword: blocks

Built high and bold, in all sorts of shapes and designs, I create my world. When the foundation lacks the appropriate strength, or when my elbow inadvertently gets in the way--when the blocks tumble to the ground, I look at the new patterns emerging, I take a deep breath, and I begin again. This is not a loss. It is not a set-back. It is just a step in the process. Step by step, piece by piece, block by block, I am building the future I desire. The future I deserve.

oneword: roll

Rocking and rolling, ebbing and flowing. I am movement. I am active, not passive. I am doing, not planning. I am making things happen rather than promising that I someday will.

oneword: storage

Not too long ago, I opened the torn-up duffle bag for the first time in ages.

I carefully pulled out old tights, ripped and frayed, unwrapped my last pair of point shoes, with a brown blood spot permanently stained into the pink satin. I unfolded leotards and leg warmers and sweaters. I leafed through an old book of notes, choreography, dance steps.

It all smelled musty, the years of stagnancy in my parents' basement emanating from every fiber. It all reeked of stillness, neglect.

I pulled that bag out of storage, not too long ago, and it's not going back. I might add a few new items to the mix, a few new skills, definitely a slew of new tricks.

I am stretching out stiff muscles. I am getting my blood flowing again, for real, for the first time in far too long. And even though my body might take a little while to rejuvenate, to become what it was and more, right now, my spirit-body is twirling and leaping for joy.

oneword: tofu

Just another thing I was told long ago, sold on the healthful, genuine goodness of this manmade food... So much of my existence lately is deciding whether or not to believe in the fairy-tales of my past--wanting so much for the utopia to be true, to believe that purity and perfection exist.

But maybe, just maybe, the utopia sold to me was the wrong one, if for no other reason than it was theirs, not mine.

I do not need over-processed, watered-down, let-me-protect-you-from-yourself nourishment any more. Expecting me to take you at your word--because you know how hard it can be and how bad it can get--doesn't nourish me; it is eating me from the inside out.

I'm just baffled it took me this long to discover the truth I should have known from the start.

(OH-eeee-oooo....KILLER TOFU)

oneword: options

I could clam up. I could crawl back into this hole of self-denial. I could listen to the voices of doubt and "reason" and stick it out. "Most people don't do something they really want until they're much older." What is that bullshit? I'm sorry. But I believe that I have more options than waiting until middle age to be happy.

oneword: major

Decisions I made, years ago, combining elements of my interests and loves. I tried to create a logical pathway, to funnel my journey towards a contrived, institutionalized version of success. But the farther I traveled down that road, the farther I moved from my Self. My Spirit shriveled inside the supposedly stable participant in the economic machine.

And now, as I move away from this chosen path to the alternate reality, the real reality, I walk away from a steady paycheck, benefits, and retirement funds--into an unknown. I walk away from the "right" job and the "right" life, to something less predictable but more me.

Someday, I hope those majors, those decisions from long ago, will meld together into something new and magical. I hope they will still serve me, that they are not for naught.

Until then, I step forward, one move closer to my Truth.

oneword: transmit

ET-phone-home me into a new universe.

Please?

oneword: arrived

At first, I wanted to say that she is starting to emerge, but that would be continuing to put it off--making more excuses for NOT being, NOT doing ME. So I will say that she really has arrived: the voice hiding within me; the spunky, imaginative, irresistible little girl; the sometimes joyful, sometimes pissed-off, but always emotionally engaged woman; the long-awaited, never fully forgotten version of me.

And the strangest part about it all is that I'm actually not terrified....

oneword: stem

From one silly thought comes a foolish dream. And from that dream comes an idealistic desire. And from that desire comes my will to get up and fumble my way through each day, biding my time until all of the silliness, foolery, and idealism becomes my reality.

And from that reality will come the most breathtaking flower I have. ever. seen.

oneword: stripes

Yikes! Stripes! Fruit stripe gum!

oneword: sugar

Hypnotizing. Tempting. Sweet. But under all that, is a substance lulling your defenses into a false sense of security.

oneword: acting

...is a way to make moments of life happen. It adds breath and truth to words on a page or ideas in a brain. It allows a person to explore him or herself AND someone or someTHING else, all at once. It is magic and organic and lovely. And we do it everyday, on purpose or not.

oneword: incense

Streams of earthy scents twist into the air, weaving in and around my tense fist and furrowed brow. My adolescent insecurities tangle with the certainty of history, culture, and the ever-present spirit within. Breathing in, deeply, meditatively, I am a yogi-in-training.

oneword: trot

We started at a slow crawl, sometimes not moving at all. We'd drag ourselves a few feet and then collapse, in a pile of our own indecision. But then something happened. A spark. A realization. A something. And then we picked ourselves up, got on our feet, started speed walking, trotting, jogging... and now.... who knows how far and how fast we'll move.

oneword: pie

Yes, things are sometimes simple, or at least seemingly so. If everything could be broken down into a sweet, warm, flaky crust enveloping a steaming gooey glob of goodness--familiar, reeking of tradition, satisfying an ever-lasting craving--then all would be well with the world.

oneword: anxiety

It seeps in the tiny, forgotten crevices of my consciousness. It slips into my fortified world and crashes through my confidence where alongside moments of majesty, I find myself shaking and small.

oneword: vows

I am surrounded.  Everywhere I look, there they are. More people are taking them and entering into that thing we call marriage. And as more people do that, the questions start to stir. When will you find someone? When will you take the plunge?

While I can't answer that question, I can say this: I vow to do what is right for me.

That, I can promise.

That, I can do.