Ecstatic whooping, chirping, buzzing… dancing in the sky like drunken sailors after a night of carousing, drunk on nectar, zipping to the sun, diving back to hover midair before dashing full-speed towards a blossoming tree, a delicate stop to plunge into a flower, drink some more…
The boy has finally found a sport he likes. After years of trying football, basketball, and baseball, he tried Lacrosse a few weeks ago and has been happily running around the fields of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachussetts for weeks now. When he played football
I’ve written before how death and divorce can make holidays especially piercing, seeing everyone with their loved ones when so many of mine are now gone.
This is the first Easter in 6 years that didn’t feel like I was being stabbed with 1,000 tiny pins all day long.
I wondered why the feelings changed. Was it time? People love to say, “time heals all wounds,” but I have not found that to be true for me. In my experience, some wounds never heal.
I miss my beloveds all day every day. The pain remains, as big and all-consuming as ever, but the more it tries to pull me down, to destroy me, the more ferociously I create: writing, dancing, filming, creating…
I have learned to live with loss and grief, it is a part of who I am, and though I wish this wasn’t true, it is: grief is also an integral part of my children, and I know they feel the loss a little extra on holidays too.
EEEEEEK!!! I’m so excited (and terrified) to announce …. (drum roll please) I’m heading to New Orleans this week to begin filming and the Kickstarter for my documentary is NOW LIVE!!
“You must move through the world in a way that enchants you!”
“The only people that interest me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”…
Which might explain my eclectic group of eccentric friends and why I was drawn into the theater and circus life, the type of life who attracts people who choose a life of freedom over a life of fancy cars and big houses…
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final…
Ranier Maria Rilke
This is the quote on the handmade cards I’m giving my kids for for Christmas this year. I want them to remember, as tragedy and sorrow swirls around us, to allow themselves to feel everything, even the sharp and jagged edges of pain, to allow it in, let it change you, invite the pain in to teach its lessons. It hurts to lose people we love, and what can this brutal lesson teach us? I’m still learning myself, but I have noticed a deep and abiding compassion growing in me, forged in the fire of loss and pain, that urges me to show up for others who are in pain.
Best of all, I paid off my speeding ticket by performing, which makes me wonder, what magic is about to happen for me now? I am embracing the miracles all around me now, and I can not wait to see what is around the corner. Who knew that a speeding ticket would forever change my life for the better? Who knew that I was speeding right into magic that night?
As we checked out, we did a little Game of Thrones photo shoot in the empty rooms we walked through. Mind you, my kids are too young to watch it, so it was just me living my Mother of Dragons fantasy because I so resonate with the character: I feel like I’ve spent a long night in a fire, burning with grief and love and heartbreak, and now as the fire simmers down, I emerge, not burnt and weak, but stronger, braver, with my arms full of fierce baby dragons.
Can dancing actually change the brain? Make you smarter? Heal broken hearts and act as therapy for cancer patients? The research says YES!
