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*Naughty language ahead.

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Alone, alone. I am alone – I ache … Yet for the first time, despite all the anguish and the reality problems, I’m here. I feel tranquil, whole, ADULT. – Susan Sontag As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980

 

The cat yowls. The dog snores. 

My mind flips on like a fluorescent light, aggressive and buzzing inside my head.

I love opening– making space in life for love, for service, committing to be real and honest. Seeing everything as an opportunity to greet life, inner and outer, with an open heart and open mind. This means being curious when I want to shut down. Opening myself to difficult feelings and difficult conversations when I want to bury my head in the pillows and hide. Doing what is right and hard, over settling for comfortably numb. My bed is comfortable but my body is hot, crawling with invisible ants! This morning… I don’t wanna. Open. My eyes. Let alone anything else. It’s too early, it’s too late, and in the absence of my usual cheer, morning Grom dog! morning Odin magnificent cat, sweet beasts! or at least quiet curiosity– I’m cranky and full of chatter.

I fumble for my glasses on the bedside table. They’re there. Somewhere. I took em off last night, dammit! Ah, under the iron legs of the lamp, there’s no reason to turn that on yet, even if the light is on in my brain, bright and unforgiving. 

The thought crosses my mind: consistency is honesty. 

Shut up Voice!

Not in the mood for Zen koans. 

The Banshee stirs, a shade with sharp nails.“Perhaps you would rather hear from me then, my dear?” Why do all sinister voices like to call us, dear? 

“I am not dear to you,” I mumble. “I am merely a scratching post for your criticism and it is not constructive.” I do feel a little stuck. Relationally. Creatively. I know beating myself up won’t help.

Staggering mostly naked, down the dark hallway, making my way for the stove. I moan. Broke rule number one: clear path to the coffee station. The stove is streaked in the greenish light creeping in through the northern window. Boil already. This is normally a very pleasant ritual, but today I want the caffeine to just cross my blood-brain barrier even more than I want the warm comfort of the big, green mug in my hand. Finally! Pour-over made messily, good job, Bodum. Good job, Justice. Grab the mug and climb back into bed, under the bright yellow-orange, red and blue butterfly pattern, Sitting Bull Pendleton. 

My toes wiggle in agitation, trying to start a fire beneath the sheets. Can’t get the pillows right. Ugh! I should meditate or something more, I dunno, Zen, than slap my fingers irritably over the keys of my laptop but I want to capture this state, for this is an opportunity to get real with myself– an opening.

“You’re a better writer than this,” The Banshee says. Cat claws on the chalkboard of my brain.

“Yep.”

“You’re doing it wrong,” she says.

“Yep.”

“You suck!” she says.

“Mmmm… yep.”

I don’t even have it in me to argue with this Voice. She gets abusive whenever I try something new. Inserting shards of insecurities when I start to open to a new way of relating. Self doubt when I step into another dimension of creating. She digs in with her criticism, her patented, You’re Doing It Wrong, wail after I teach a class or sometimes before. She’s been shrieking at me and raking her nails through my neurons for years and I know deep down– she’s here to get me to love myself even more. 

I snuggle into my bedding, pulling the night-navy sheets up to my waist. Wiggle with my frustration. Taking a deep breath all the way to my toes. 

Deeper. Deeper! Let it out. Open– move into me. 

Release the urge to cover her mouth with duct tape, she’s not real; she’s me. She’s a disembodied voice. She’s a Banshee, sharp for being shapeless, she morphs to attack what is tender, her wail a harbinger of death. She comes to remind me of some part of me that is ready to shed, some mask peeling back to reveal tender new skin, and what I am tying to expose, gently, I now feel like I have to defend–counter to my desire to open. Her presence heralds the death of something, most likely something I thought I needed. She’s probably afraid. And in this moment, I make a conscious choice–choose gentleness, as the light breaks through my southern window, illuminating the vividly colored elephant tapestry I use for curtains. White. Red. Black and Purple. Orange and turquoise start to glow.

There’s only one thing to say to her today and that’s, “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I’m doing it wrong because there’s no right way. This won’t be perfect because perfection is even less than a myth. I want to grow, and that means being uncomfortable as the old sheds and the new emerges. It’s ok. The only goal here is to stretch, heal, and write, relate and learn and let myself be open. It’s ok to fall. It’s ok to trip. It’s ok to not know what the hell I’m doing and relax into that as I remember—in this moment—my deep love for words and communication.”

Deep breath…Shhhh!

“Why so flustered, Justice?” My Inner Soother turns on. She sounds a bit like Glenda the good witch, from the Wizard of Oz inside my head. Too chipper. “You’ve had the power to go home all along my dear!” Oh, now she is doing the– my dear– thing too. What a crock!

I’m gonna need more coffee if this little committee meeting is going to continue. I toss myself from the comfort of my covers once again to make the perilous journey back to the kitchen. This time I toss a pink-purple kimono on, whipping the ties round my waist. The light is annoying, and the grit on the floor is abrasive under my bare feet. I grumble something rude about the absence of my bumblebee-embroidered slippers. Protection from this bullshit. Stomping just hard enough back to my room to not spill my coffee along the way. Glad the only “people” I have to deal with right now are the ones in my head. 

I have a meme saved with Glenda in full on sparkle mode, announcing, “Chill the fuck out everybody. I got this!” Yeah, that’s what I need this morning. I. Got. This. 

Only I don’t ‘got this’ and that’s ok too.

No one is sweet and gentle all the time. Especially not me; it would be inauthentic. Part of opening is owning all of me–beyond just my sweetness, fierce, fiery and emotional, passionate and honest. I have to be honest to open, curious about what I will find and willing to tend it. Honesty requires I make space for all my feelings, especially my fear. Fear is feral cat. Wanting to be touched yet untrusting of society, of humans, afraid of being kicked again. 

At least I am still being sweet with Grommet my irrepressibly sweet Pug-dog. He wants to be close to me as I return from the kitchen with the cold floor and unfriendly light. He wants to be by my side always. Sometimes I need space. He is sweet unless he is anxious and when he is, that bestirs a particular neuroses in me and we pass it back and forth. I get impatient with him, with myself. It’s ugly. I feel bad taking my edges out on Grom, I always do. I would feel bad, being edgy with the love I long to know. I feel bad, being sharp or short with anyone, so I am glad I live alone. 

I Am. Glad. I live. Alone. This is not loneliness. This is grumpiness.

Glenda inserts herself again all sparkly and I want to scrape the glitter from my tongue before she even speaks. “You know, Justice… nice women don’t have tempers.” 

“WHAT! Listen, Glenda, we both know I’m not nice and no one is as nice as you appear to be. It’s unnatural to wear that much glitter and it’s bad for the environment.” 

“Oh sweetie,” she croons. “I sparkle organically as do you! You are not this passing storm; you are the sun behind the clouds.” 

Please. More. Cliche. Shit. 

“Don’t you have anything original under that absurdly large sparkly-pink gown?” 

She lifts her petticoats and I see she’s not wearing underwear. Finally we are getting somewhere! I don’t trust scripts from my inner committee anymore than I would from a counselor. To truly be of benefit, inspiration must arise in the moment. It must feel genuine, not like spoon-fed positivity trance talk. In this moment. I trust the muff of this fairy-tale vision, projected from some recess of my own brain more than any trite meme, poem or movie line. Maybe because I trust my own cunt.

Ooo yeah! I said the word and as I do I feel her (my cunt) and laugh, wickedly!

Suddenly, Glenda is not some caricature dreamed up by some prude, pruney brain to represent a holy woman from the 30’s. Nah. The goddess is freed from her positivity, spun cotton-candy world and spun into the real one, and I am staring her in the face. Or maybe the lips. I swear, if Glenda’s cunt starts talking to me, I’m going to the looney bin– voluntarily. 

Why this prolific use of this word that some find so offensive? Well, I used to find it offensive too until I read, Inga Muscio’s book, CUNT, last year right around this time and it changed my relationship with my anatomy forever. Not only my anatomy but my blood as well. She spoke of the moon and I listened. Following that ancient orb in the sky and I listened more deeply to my own body. My moon pain changed. As in disappeared. I became more internal. I became more quiet. Inga spoke of protection. I became more restrained, more powerful and more– open! 

Glenda is no longer Glenda. She is Something else. She stares at me, her dress dropped. Bare. She bares herself to me and I weep. Gently. 

“I know you are frustrated, my love. I know you hurt and yearn and long for love. And in this moment I will remind you. You are all you are looking for. For the one who is worthy, you will not have to pretend or shut down ever again.” 

The Banshee stirs. A great black cat rising her hair on end. Nails ready to shred.  

“I know you think you are protecting me,” I say gently to her. “I know I have known you for a long time and you are really my feral child. Wild. Twigs sticking from your hair. Mud on your feet. You fear compromise like you fear a cage and I will not cage you. I will run beside you. I will hunt with you, by moon and stars. I will burrow with you into those dark places you love. Sometimes. And sometimes I will walk in the light and skip and sing. And this will be ok for both of us. A wild thing does not give up its soul easily and I will never give mine up again. Can we try to trust in the goodness of life? Can we try to trust in friendship? Can we try to trust that this will be a game and we can learn the rules as we go along and at any point decide not to play?”

The Banshee comes to me. Rubbing against my leg, an ancient dark cat. Less afraid but perhaps still skittish. 

Sweat trickles down my sides, round my breasts inside my sunset colored kimono, studded with purple glittery patterns, one of my many magic robes. Pug stirs near my feet. That headache pattern—my old friend— pulses between the sutures in my skull. I sigh. Lean back against the pillows in my bed and the connective tissue around my sacrum adjusts. My body is good at self adjusting. I am getting better and better at listening and taking care of myself. 

Glenda stretches and yawns. Glitter falls from her mouth and her breath smells like roses. She rises, nude. That absurd pink gown–gone. No need for a wand either. Magic in her mouth–her words.

She says to me, “Love is trust in the basic goodness of life, as well as in your own goodness–and your mistakes. They are yours and you made them for a reason. You chose to lose, to leave, to forget yourself for a time so you can now remember. What do you remember, Justice?” She leans in and there are galaxies in her eyes. I am in awe. 

Inhaling courage. “I remember the feel of red road under bare feet. I remember hair tangled from running through forests. Nicks and scrapes barely noticed for the simple joy of moving my own body. I remember being tucked in by a Presence I will never forget, and the smell of fresh flowers. I remember love, in-known, unforgettable love. Swirling through my blood. Humming in my bones. Waking me up to dance wildly in the night and pray the dawn in, as if my life depended on it– and doing so was my greatest freedom. I remember talking with horses, chasing cats until I learned to be still enough for them to come to me. Singing birdsong and knowing all the notes as I know my own soul.” Exhaling surrender. 

“That is who you are, love.” She says. No longer Glenda. Something older. Something wiser and far more powerful than any Hollywood effigy every conceived. She is the goddess and she is here– in me. She is the force that drives my service. She is the prayer that answers my life. It is to her I am utterly committed and promise with my whole being to keep– opening!