***Disclaimer: There is some seriously heavy shit happening in the world right now. There are events taking place in our government, our hospitals and our classrooms that are real/pressing/newsworthy and deserve our full attention. This post is not that. This post is where you go if your brain needs a little break.***
It's no accident that this entry shares a name with one of Taylor Swift's songs. That girl somehow crawled inside my head and wrote what became my pandemic album. She wrote soulful anthems that spoke directly to where I was and got me through a very trying spring 2020. If you haven't checked out Folklore because you question the likeability/talent of TSwizzle do yourself a favor and have a listen - this album is a thing.
LIKE RIGHT NOW- CLICK HERE
I mean, don't stress about it. If you don't have the spare 63 minutes right now I get it, we're all busy.
It seems the last time I wrote here we were at the very start of the end of the world as we knew it. I wrote about being ready to hunker down, I was preparing to sit on a meditation cushion for months and practice breathing exercises. I planned to lock the kids and I up on a little hill in southern NH and not emerge until the very last germ had hunted down and Lysoled (Lysol is a verb now, and if it isn't after all this it should be).
As it turns out I am not so great at taking my own advice. I did not "take a seat" as I suggested. But rather, right there, in the middle of a global pandemic (and while nursing a nasty broken heart), I had myself the most wild and adventurous summer I could dream up. I did things I never imagined I would do and found myself in places I never imagined I would be with people so fascinating they seemed like characters straight out of a novel.
The memories come back to me like a mini-series I couldn't stop watching. The story of my summer included riding a Polaris through logging roads in Maine by the light of a full moon, swimming in rivers and under waterfalls and sleeping in off-grid cabins nestled in a thick forest.
I learned about Anthroposophy and the symbols hidden inside the Tarot. I learned what the words 'Christian Hermeticism' mean and got a brief education on the principles of Rudolph Steiner. For the first time in my life I seriously discussed/considered the idea of reincarnation.
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I stayed in a Waldorf community in NY and on a working Waldorf farm here in NH. I saw prayer practiced through eurythmy (*Definition of Eurthmy)and did acroyoga. I found out what it would feel like to eliminate sugar from my diet, pull myself up a mountain using ropes, and be on the back of a motorcycle after the sun had gone down.
I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.
Looking back on it now as perfect fat snowflakes fall outside my window it almost seems like a dream, like there couldn't possibly be enough days in a single summer to hold all the memories - yet somehow, there were. I opened my eyes some mornings to the Atlantic ocean, other mornings to a lakes in Vermont, mountains in Maine or vineyards in northern California. I opened myself up to anything and everything and in the process, blew my own mind.
Some of my favorite things my eyes got to see this summer:
I was mentally prepared to stay close to home but instead found myself adventuring far outside my mental and physical comfort zones. There was something about the very raw, very real nature of the Covid crisis that made me feel like it wasn't just okay to experience life in a way I hadn't before...it was actually IMPORTANT. I wanted to be closer to nature, closer to my kids, closer to my truth, closer to myself. I was ready, after the dark night of the soul, to let as much light in as possible.
I have heard people say that dating doesn't just help you learn about other people, it helps you learn about yourself. While I think that is true for exposing ourselves to new people in any setting, I think the same could just as easily be said for new destinations and new experiences. With every adventure we learn a little more about who we are, what we enjoy, what makes us feel safe, and what pushes us to our limits.
When our life and our energy twists and blends with the lives of new people and places it's easier to see where we fit into it all. We start to see ourselves less from the inside out and more from the outside in. We can observe how we fit into the whole rather than taking ourselves so damn personally. The wisdom new people bring to us can feel like answers to riddles that have been swirling around in our minds our entire life. Until one day, like a tiny miracle, that one piece of knowledge fits perfectly into place...and suddenly all of this makes a little more sense.
For so long nothing scared me more than the idea of starting over. I would find myself saying to friends "Just the idea of having to get to know someone new and having to start my life over makes me want to take a nap." What was I saying? What was I thinking? Did I think I was done experiencing new things? More importantly, was I OKAY with that?!?!?
No adventure lasts forever and no love comes with a lifetime guarantee, which is precisely what makes it all so precious. We are always starting over, we are always taking in new knowledge and using it to form a more complete and complex version of ourselves - or at least we should be.
I'm grateful to the people, places and experiences of the last eight months for reasons too many to count. It was because of them that I came into the cold months changed, more alert, stronger, and more curious. I felt an unfamiliar calm that told me I was exactly where I was supposed to be after all the places I had been.
I was finally ready to begin again.
All the love to all of us who are suffering with broken hearts today. For our country, our kids, our communities, our families and for lost loves. Infinite hope and relentless grace to each and every one of us.
And to the power of new beginnings.
xo - juli
