Am I developing clairvoyant powers? Or was it just coincidence?
Here’s what happened: Yesterday I went out to my back deck in the forest, surrounded by waterfalls and flowers, and laid out my yoga mat. I lit candles and …
So tonight, I lift a glass to my ol’ hip… (or if not a glass, a Tramadol). It’s been a good hip, grown two amazing souls, been the source of endless dancing pleasure and supported me now for half a century. It’s time for my to go to hip heaven… Hip Hip Hooray! (Just kidding- surgery sucks, but I’m told the pain-free existence afterwards is well worth it. I’ll let you know.)
’s been 22 days since my hip replacement surgery, and the hardest part is slowing down. I want to be healed. I want to dance, to stretch, to slide into bed without tweaking pain, to sleep on any side I choose. I want to jump into the ocean and then slide into a hot bubble bath.
I just want to be next to her, to read to her, put my arms around her, to feel my heart near hers, and pretend that her brain will come back and she will remember who I am, even for one bittersweet moment.
Last week I attended my first wedding as a divorcee, and I wasn’t expecting the cascading waves of mixed emotions. I was happy for my niece of course, and I do adore romance and beauty, but there were moments at the wedding that were zings of pain, like little divorce bees were flying around, stinging me here and there…
My Mom could never understand why I felt compelled to jump into adventures in faraway lands, and she would say, “Oh Marci, how do you do that? How do you dare to go to these places by yourself? Aren’t you scared?” This perplexed me, because when I travel, I feel the opposite of scared. When I embark on an adventure into the unknown, I feel more at home than I do at home
And now, after all the tremendous loss I’ve experienced the past few years, when I felt so crushed with heartbreak and loss, and so far away from that girl I used to be, the girl spinning with her golden wings, that girl with the jewels on her hips; now I feel like Isis was standing vigil next to me all this time, her wings spread, silently fanning me back to life. It has taken me a long long time to stand back up, but I’m still here, and my wings are spread, and every time I dance, and share my story with others, I am fanning them with my own shimmering gold.
I sat quietly in the giant hand, the stone warmed by the sun, and listened to my heartbeat among the children shouting and laughing in different languages around me. I thought about the 20-year-old me who had been full of childlike wonder and adventure and enchanted by everything about Paris and living out my dream of visiting such a magnificent city. I thought about 28-year-old me climbing the hand with my soulmate and best friend, wrapping our arms around each other, feeling like we would be intertwined forever… one glorious treasured moment caught on camera. I didn’t know then that it wouldn’t last forever. And here I was, 50-year-old me, letting the hand gently hold me.
“Getting married is like trading in the adoration of many for the sarcasm of one.”
It’s easy to get married, but hard to stay that way.”
“Marriage is like a book. The whole story takes place between the covers.”
“It’s not the men in my life that count, it’s the life in my men.”
“He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.”
Experts speculate which ancient battle Winged Victory was created for, but does it matter? We are all fighting our own battles in our own way every single day. The fact that we are here, out in the world, celebrating the majesty of the human spirit through art, creating our own art, walking through these treasured creations, letting their astonishing beauty wash over us, is a winged victory in itself. I wiped my tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand and walked on, with my shoulders rolled back and my dress rippling across my hips.
