Joy and Grief Live Side by Side in Memory

We had a beautiful wedding to attend this past Saturday in Erie, and I also made sure that our schedule allowed for a couple of hours at the beach, rather than the five minutes that that important part of myself usually gets allotted.

Craig went running with his brother, and so I had about 45 minutes of that time just for me, my iced latte, chocolate croissant, and a bit of journaling and reading.

I started to read a Virginia Woolf I’ve somehow not read (Between the Acts), and the morning was perfection. There’s something about me and Woolf and water. When I first moved to Chicago for grad school at the age of 23, I sat on the edge of that lake and read Mrs. Dalloway and that memory will forever beckon me.

That memory will forever beckon me… That sentence is filled with nostalgia and sentimentality and joy and grief, isn’t it?

When we left Erie, I, as usual, felt a mixture of sadness and anger. I love that lake and am linked to it forever. And yet that town, that small city, does not seem to be able to recover itself from its identity of “GE town,” and I fear that that inability to move on will be its death. Every time we go home, it seems a little more critical in terms of its health.

Remember I lived in the actual CITY — not out in some suburb — for well over 20 years. I lived in a realm of hope that turned into delusion that turned into bitterness, until I realized that I was becoming some sort of toxic version of myself and needed to move on… needed to MOVE, period. I could no longer tolerate the constant talk of “any day now” for which there was never any real evidence. (Entrenched politicians are greatly to blame for what’s happening in Erie but that’s another blog post and not my point here.)

I was born on the edge of the bay in the old Hamot Hospital.

We soon moved away and then moved back. My entire childhood would be a series of moving away and returning, over and over, as my father pursued higher and higher education.

Every time we moved away, we knew it was temporary. We would lament not being in Erie. We would look forward to the year or month or day that we got to move back.

In every school I went to in all the different places we lived, I would be that little girl, red in the face, defending her beloved home against the taunts of “dreary Erie, the mistake on the lake.”

The ache for a return to Erie was born and bred into me.

I myself have tried to move away a few times, and each time, like some migrating bird, I end up back there, unable to resist the pull… the very magnetism of that lake, my true north.

But this time is different.

We are in Columbus, and though I love it here and I love our house, this too might not be permanent. I don’t think I can live the rest of my life without big water, but I will not return to Erie.

We will find a place to put roots that has big water but that does not break my heart with its stilted ways and cliquey groups of humans that seem to be stuck in high school concepts of relationship. (I think that’s an inevitable sort of outcome in a very small city where people can’t let go of the ideas that they have of others from when they were teenagers.)

Where we are right now is growing, and that matters… An environment of growth and change that is future oriented allows for humans to grow and change and evolve into new and exciting versions of themselves.

But with all of the good of this place, it is not the place to which I am tethered. The sense of tugging can be very subtle most days and other days it’s quite painful. Visiting Erie brings all of this up for me every single time, and for many days after, the pain of the loss returns full force.

Home is where the heart is and yet sometimes home is where there is too much pain so we must do our best and find new, fertile ground (and water) that allows our hearts to heal and expand.

Re/Joy in this shitty time

Name one era when you think things were better, and I’ll be 100% correct that it wasn’t, no matter what time you name. History repeats itself, for sure. If one group isn’t marginalized, a whole host of others are.

When I was in college in the late 80’s/early 90s, things did feel like they were somehow shifting. Yet even that was an illusion: the economy was tanking, poverty was rising, homelessness was worse than ever (thanks, Reagan), incarcerations were on the rise and wouldn’t stop (and won’t stop), the war on drugs was targeting the wrong thing and the wrong people (for the most part), people were banning music (remember that?), the excess of the few was the leap off of the cliff that would start the real climate spiral, and I could go on.

Today things feel worse because they’re so much more on the surface and in our face pretty much 24/7. We had a toxic idiot of a President that made all hate acceptable in a very public way. (Some would argue we needed to see that … that too many of us were still living in denial… I kinda agree.)

So all times have, technically, been shitty times. For someone. For groups of someones.

And yet humanity keeps trying to move forward. Honorable or stupid? Some days I go back and forth depending on how exhausted and angry I’m feeling.

Most days… most days, I feel like we’re to be admired for a seemingly bottomless well of hope and effort and optimism.

Most days, I understand that those of us with access to hope and effort and optimism have to hold on to those things, if not for ourselves then for those who just can’t anymore.

To do this requires a certain kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual musculature. It’s easy, in this world, to allow that to atrophy, and then when we need it, to act surprised by its weakness.

In other words, we have to use some of our effort muscle to keep our hope, effort, and optimism muscles in shape. The world needs them.

How do we do this? What is the “gym” of this sort of workout?

It’s the very world that we can find so utterly reprehensible.

But we need to take that world in our hands and turn it every so slightly so we’re looking at it from a different angle: we need to look at it in better lighting so that we can see the beauty and love there. There are days that no matter how much we adjust the angle or the lighting that the beauty and love we find feels just about… microscopic. But that doesn’t matter.

It’s in this noticing and then in the naming that we work out. This is our gym. These are the weights we lift over and over for strength. The treadmills we walk and run for stamina. The stretches we use to maintain mobility.

And these sorts of workouts for emotional, mental, and spiritual musculature need to be as consistent as any we do for our bodies. You know full well that you can’t run a marathon if you’ve been sitting on the couch for the entire year leading up to it. You’re not surprised that you can’t deadlift some crazy amount if you’ve never picked up anything heavier than a soup can.

But we act surprised by our own exhaustion over the work of the world when we’ve done very little to maintain our healthy connection to that same world. We wonder at our anger and our rage that is paralyzing when we’ve done nothing to feed our joy that is mobilizing.

Start small, just like you would with any exercise program. Small steps, small amounts, build slowly but be mindful and intentional and persistent to the point of stubborn.

Start today: go outside with a small notebook and just make lists of everything you see that you love. Do this for… five minutes. Then do it tomorrow and the day after and the day after…

The Re/Joy Project: Podcast

I want to start a podcast within the next two months so that it’s solidly up and running by the early fall. And I need to know WHO WANTS TO BE ON IT!

The concept centers on what I’ve been calling, for some time, The Re/Joy Project, which is multifaceted but includes the idea of changing our lives for the better after… a certain age. ((ha))

Like the whole midlife excitement thing. Like the fact that I returned to dance at 40 and completely changed my entire life.

I know there are so many of you out there who have done or are doing similar things.

I think it all stems from the fact that only at a certain age can you really and truly feel your mortality and thus feel the importance of living from a place of joy, which includes risk and adventure and leaping and rediscovering and uncovering and remapping and on and on!

I want to talk to women and nonbinary folks about this. So if you are someone who would be interested or you know someone you think would be perfect, respond to this (if you’ve gotten this in your email) or get in touch with me via Facebook.

Re/Joy: Slow Summer Update

As I wrote yesterday, I’ll be creating daily categories for the blog, and Tuesdays are about a process that I, quite a while ago, named the Re/Joy Project. There will be a lot more about this in the near future, including a podcast, but for now a brief explanation:

The concept of the Re/Joy Project is simply that we can create a process (one I’ll share over time) to reintroduce deep joy into our lives regardless of what’s happening. We’re big enough internally to do this sort of process even in the midst of grief.

The process is based in noticing and naming.

For this summer, I’m re/joy-ing by exploring the idea of Slow Summer.

I’ve always had a difficult time transitioning from the quiet of winter into the louder and more frenetic energies of late spring and summer. Suddenly everything is just SO MUCH! And most humans seem to think that we must fit in ALL THE THINGS in this bit of time when our bodies really want to be slow and languid. I mean, there’s freaking HEAT… stop moving around so much ((ha)).

Besides the sticky expenditure of energy, I feel like we miss a lot running from one activity to the next, running to “vacation,” running to another picnic or party. People seem so damned stressed in the summer and it seems like it should really be the opposite of that.

Thus, Slow Summer 2023.

For starters, I’ve made sure to make more time to sit in the backyard under the trees and with our new baby gardens and read. I also just sit and breathe and listen to the birds.

And though it might sound intrusive, there is a very large construction site about a block behind us… I can see it through a space between the houses behind us… anyway, the smell of cut wood drifts to me and that brings to mind my paternal papa who was a finish carpenter.

It’s all utterly delightful.

What ways could you create slow in your summer?

Making ugly noise to get to the beauty

I wrote these words about 2 weeks ago on someone else’s post on Facebook:

I keep thinking about this as I venture further into my singing lessons. I keep thinking about a documentary about the making of the Joshua Tree (I can't find it to watch it again... it seems to have disappeared...)... Anyway, there's this part where Bono has written the words for I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and the music was already done. But he has to figure out HOW to sing it... BONO... right? And whoa... it struck me exactly this... he had NO FEAR of sounding AWFUL and THAT is why he can do what he does. So now when I'm practicing, I push like that... just like I would do in dance, of course, but singing for me has been such a fear thing that it's more tender and vulnerable... but I push like that... where can I go that it's BAD... because RIGHT AROUND THERE... that's where you'll find awesome hanging out. 

I wrote that about 2 weeks ago, and since then, so much has changed.

So that little story — and this adventure I’m taking with singing — remember, it’s literal for me, but it’s simultaneously one giant metaphor for all of us, and it’s all about living life fully.

Over the last two weeks, because I’ve been willing to make ugly noises, to falter, to crack, to just sound like OUCH!, I’ve started to truly find my voice.

And under all that fear that I’ve lived with for so long, what am I finding?

That my voice is BIG and it’s sassy and ferocious and demanding.

It makes me think about my honest dance. I’m an aggressive mover when I’m fully in my body, so it’s no wonder that I’m an aggressive singer. (If the word aggressive makes you uncomfortable, sit with that because it’s my preferred word here and if it triggers you in some way, that’s your trigger to pay attention to. I stop to say this because over my life when I use that word, so many WOMEN correct me and say I mean assertive. No. I mean aggressive.)

I also don’t think it’s a coinkydink that once my singing lessons started, my shoulders reached new levels of healing. During a Peony Method class this week, I could feel my whole body connected in a way it hasn’t been for almost two years, thanks to a lot of factors, including Peony’s death and two frozen shoulders.

And they were frozen, for sure. The shots I got were totally necessary, but there’s some woo here, isn’t there?

Shoulders… how many times (if you’ve been in classes with me for long) have you heard me say, “Many women are weak in the shoulder area and that makes sense because it’s the connection space between heart and throat… how many of us are not saying what needs to be said and it’s stuck right at that shoulder level?”

I was obviously talking to myself.

December Focus: Slow Joy

Slow and joy are both favorite things around JoyBody Studio, as you all know. But as we have entered the holiday season, I notice the same old frenetic energy mindlessly taking over. And even when we try to resist, it can feel like we’re caught up in a tsunami of to do lists and shopping and cooking and baking and well… people-ing.

And we’re supposed to feel all fa-la-la-la-la about it but that just feels like yet another added pressure.

On top of that, if you’re into Christmas and advent, it’s supposed to be a deeply spiritual season of entering into your own fecundity and seeing what is there, waiting to be born into the world when the light returns. So hurry up so you can get to your meditation/prayers/mass/whatevers.

AND one more … on top of THAT, so many people are pushing year end workshops or certifications or specials on their products/classes, etc., and the idea that if we really hustle, we can make some freaking magic in our work or our small businesses before we get to breathe for a few days around the year change. At which point, you BETTER have some damn good ideas about your goals for NEXT year because it’s COMING IN HOT!

My god. That exhausted me just writing it.

So here’s another idea: SLOW JOY.

Stop the madness. Put down the pen and paper (unless you’re journaling or writing poetry but if you’re making yet another freaking list… put it down and walk away!).

Part of this practice will be the act of saying no.

Take a moment and look around and decide what actually really truly matters.

Get rid of the rest.

Then for the rest of the month, it’s SLOW JOY time.

Every day, moment to moment, just notice the little things. Just notice. You don’t have to write them down or make art from them or wax poetic … unless you want to and it feels like it’s part of the slow joy.

I want you to notice, too, the easeful things, or more like… what would the easeful thing be? And then do that.

Notice the soft and kind things. Take them in and also create them.

And notice the giggling things. We don’t do this even a fraction enough. Seek out laughter. But also? LET YOURSELF LAUGH. I see too many people stopping their laughter.

And spoiler: I think we should continue this, like, for the rest of time.

Free BalletOM Quickie Video as a Thank You

BalletOM is a combo of yogic breathing, simple fundamental human movements (like circles), and biomechanically aware basic ballet moves.

I find it’s super helpful as an investigative tool, in that it quickly reveals where your body’s weaknesses are.

It’s great for balance, grace, overall mobility, and strengthening and lengthening (yes, that’s a thing because what we call tightness in the body is actually a shortening).

It’s also really helpful for people who might have not been allowed to take ballet when they were little or they were rejected by teachers of ballet or they have had any kind of trauma around dance/ballet.

It reawakens your inner ballerina in a safe and kind way.

So I’m offering this free video but there’s a catch — a simple one. You have to be in the JoyBody Sanctuary on Facebook to have access. If you’re not in there, just let me know you want to be added.

This particular class is all on the floor so you don’t have to focus quite so hard on alignment.

You can do a lot of this from a chair, if you’re not yet ready to be on the floor.

If you do the class and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Singing class update!

I meant to write about this much closer to when it happened (Monday the 14th), but the week got away from me really fast. (Side note: Is anyone else feeling just extra time smooshed lately?)

Singing class…

I had Craig drive me because it was starting to get dark AND I was so damn nervous that I didn’t want to even think about how to get there or parking or anything.

I walked in and there were a LOT of kids there, coming and going for their various lessons. The thing that made me giggle right away was the “welcome our new students” sign that had my name on it.

I figure everyone else on that was likely under the age of 12. HA

My teacher arrived right on time. Molly. She’s 27 so I could be her mom. (Another HA)

But here’s the thing. Before I went I told Craig, “I am just focusing on thinking that this Molly person is basically me but with singing instead of dance… She just wants me to LOVE singing and she just wants me to HAVE singing in my life…and she just believes in me automatically because I am showing up.”

Well… somehow I manifested a mini me. We had so much in common from music to being sci-fi/fantasy nerds to thinking a lot about neurodivergence and yes… her thoughts about teaching singing are exactly mine about getting people to dance: that we’re meant to do this.

She also kept reminding me that my fears around singing won’t just magically disappear and that this will take time. That helped because I would have expected myself to be clear of fear at our next lesson. Which is redonk.

We talked a LOT but we finally did some warm up stuff. She offered me two options that my body immediately rejected and then during a third she was using the sound “me” and I said…yeah… but could you make up some words instead of just that syllable?

Which she did and then I was fine! Well, I was okay to warm up with her.

Then she asked me to sing something I like with it playing on my phone. I chose this.

I WAS SO DAMN NERVOUS, but when I closed my eyes at one point, I felt like she got to kinda hear what I actually sound like.

And LIKE ME as a teacher, she was often saying things like, “OH! THAT WAS GOOD!” Just what I need. (Just what we all need.)

I learned that I’m an Alto TWO; thus my love of singing with tenors.

I have another lesson Monday the 21st and I am making a singing playlist on Spotify and practicing a bit each day.

I’m obsessed. Which is when I’m at my healthiest.