Alice Part One: Wide Eyed

My heart is laying open. One day it went all unfolded, and there was a little Alice in there; a little Alice with my face. She's peering out, in that pituresque delicate way she has: bent at the waist making a clean 45 degree angle, arms stretched out behind her and levatating a little above her back, head turning 0h-so-smoothly from one direction to the next, golden swirls of hair swaying with the fluid movement, her eyes wide. For they have to be really, to take in this Wonderland, they must be wide open. My heart had been hugging her, keeping her in a safe place where surprises were limited and familiar feelings abundant. And then, one day, it stopped hugging. She slowly became aware of the muscle pulling away, gradually peeling, opening. Until there she was, standing in the middle of the red mass, exposed, vulnerable, and wide eyed.

Here is where the Alice analogy differs from the original story however because this Wonderland is not mushroom and Mad Hatter filled. No acid was involved in its creation. No, this is just a Wonderland of an acuteness of feeling. My heart is opened and seems to be waiting for something, something it can fold back up around. In the meantime its little Alice feels everything vividly.

Love for my family, for instance. When at home, I knew I loved them. It was always there, the backdrop of my day to day life. Now however, it is as though a line from my open heart has flown to them, connecting to them, making the love this tangible, tugging thing. And this is not bad, aching sometimes because the increased acuteness of this love comes with an increased acuteness of missing, but still it is not bad. I am humbled by its strenght. Alice looks with wonder at this thin line that can withstand such force without snapping. Through her wonder I discover a new understanding of family, and thus the dynamics of love. Some people feel stuck to their families. I am not stuck. I create the connection to them, I nurture it, I need it. It is a connection that answers questions for me and creates them, pulls, stretches, changes.

It is L O V E .

This post is about to become a novel, so to save your eyes the other vivid feelings will be described in future installments. :)

"Shhhh," I say, "just dance".

Do you dance? Because you should. Any kind. Any where. All the time. I forget that sometimes, how much we need to dance, and thank my lucky stars for the days that remind me. Like this one for instance.

When I say you should dance, what I really mean is you should let go, loosen up, open up, and just move. Pick your style, any style. Each one is capable of positively changing your mood in some way or another. Ballet reminds me how to make strength beauty. Swing reminds me how to genuinely laugh, smile. Waltzing transforms me into Victorian age nobility. And modern, well modern is my epitome of dance. If you do not agree, that is ok, choose your own epitome, let me have mine. With the fluid, raw movements I release energy and gain it back all it once. I become independent and connect to the breath of the world. I fall in love.

"That's really nice for you" you say. "But you're a dancer, and I am obviously not, so I am not going to go dance. Nope, not me" you say. Do not walk away just yet. Because you can dance. Shh, shh, stop protesting and listen for a moment. Take my hand, yes, right now please. Ok, now we are going to go dance. Let's start with swing and I'll show you how you can dance without knowing any of the moves.

So here we are, at the edge of the dance floor.

"Look at all those people. They are so talented. I have no idea what they are doing, but they are talented. And I am not, let's leave" you say.

"Shhh" I say.

Step #1: STOP. Stop worrying and obsessing and doubting and thinking. That is right, stop thinking. Dancing requires feeling, not thinking.

"But..." you say.

"Shhhhh!" I say. You roll your eyes.

Step #2: Now that you've stopped thinking, you can feel the music. You heard it when you walked in, when you were thinking, but now you feel it right? You do, I can tell, look, your hips are swaying.

"Wow that's weird" you say.

"Shhh!" I say, "If you pay too much attention to them they'll stop. No thinking. Only feeling."

Step #3: Now you are smiling. Now you are ready to dance. Not because you want to. You have to. Your body won't let you do anything else. So I show you the basic: step, step, rock step. And now you are pulling me onto the floor. We are swinging and laughing and dancing. We are dancing.

"Look at that guy over there, at the edge of the dance floor," I say, "he's watching you. He's telling that girl to look at you, at how good you are, and now he is telling her he can't be that good. 'I can't dance' he says." You smile, and keep dancing. When this song is over, you will go tell him he can dance. And he will.

See? See how easy that was? You fell a little in love with it didn't you? So dance people. Let us all dance. On the dance floor yes, but also outside, down the hallway, in our rooms, in fields of daisies.

What is my idea of the perfect world? One that dances.

My Heart Gasped

John took me by surprise today. The old iPod was on shuffle, I left the room, walked back into the Edge of Desire and my heart gasped. Yes I have read the recent news about JM himself. I read Rolling Stone's latest article about him. I have too much opinion about the way we talk about him or any other "rock star's" life, but that will require its own post. So again I ask you to disassociate the man with the music. It was the music that made my heart gasp.

Why? Why a gasp? Because as I walked down the hall my head was a-whirling and my heart a-spinning with its usual activity, but today a little more emotion was helping it all along. I had forgotten my music was still on, and it has also been a while since I have just listened to John, so his magical abilities were in the far back of my mind. While my mind was a little surprised when I opened the door to music, what really got my heart a-gasping was the way the song was exactly the extension of its pent up emotions. The lyrics, melodic highs and lows, met my heart at its pent up place, held on, and then pulled it around the room, stretching it out, letting it breath, all of this as I merely stood in the doorway. And the thing is, I hadn't even gone to him for help. I hadn't gone looking for the perfect song remedy, in fact, I didn't even realize I needed a remedy. But there John was, with the perfect song choice, just waiting to sweep my heart off her feet, letting her relax for a moment even though she wasn't aware she needed relaxing.

Am I describing music or my ideal man? Not sure. You tell me.

FAITH

ME. Two little letters but they fill my body. And the world hurts. It hurts everyday. But that is all I can see sometimes. ME. And I want to be filled with something else. WORLD maybe. Or PEOPLE. Or LOVE. What? What should fill that space instead? Because I know it shouldn't be ME.

Mother Theresa. People quote her, are inspired by her, try to walk her path. She is a saint, or should be. But do you know there are those who try to unearth black spots on what appears to be her untarnished soul? "She stopped feeling God" they say. "She felt lonely and unsure" they say. On and on. Why? Why do that? Movements were created by that single aging woman. Compassion spread from her hands to much of the world. At least one person changed their beliefs, habits, attitudes because of her holy hands. So let her be perfect. We know she wasn't. If we are educated people we know perfection isn't impossible. Our minds have a defense mechanism for such thinking however. Though we know that truth we believe in a contradictory truth as well, the one that tells us some people can reach perfection. And why do we allow ourselves to believe the second truth? Because if a real person is perfect, than perfection is attainable, something to work for. So we try harder to be better. Better family members, better lovers, better citizens of the world, better people. We can only work towards that which we believe is attainable. It is contradictory thinking that George Orwell might call doublethink. I call it faith.

Ah-ha. FAITH. Now that is it. That is what should feel the space, because it encompasses each of the other options. To cleanse the body of ME one must first have faith in SELF.

Faith that the SELF is aware of the WORLD that so graciously gives it a place to exist. With awareness comes the ability to see where sacrifices can be made to repay the WORLD's recycling kindness.

Faith that the SELF is compassionate, can see PEOPLE, not their physical presence, but the stories that make the physical presence possible.

Faith that the SELF can LOVE selflessly; without inhibitions but with earnestness, without lies but with patience.

For any of these FAITHs to be possible a much larger one must exist first, and you have heard this before. A FAITH in an entity more self-important than any being of flesh and bones; God. Do I have solid evidence to believe in such an entity? Such a creation of wind and dust and water?

No. Just word of mouth.

Just a book.

Just a feeling.

But I do not want solid evidence. There is too much solid in the world. Solid is necessary but also suffocating. I want mystery. A feeling to chase, to explore, to wander in. Without it, where am I? Stuck with ME. Consumed with ME. With no sense of OTHER. No sense of GOOD. Nothing to work towards. No reason to be better. No reason to connect.

I want to connect. I want to understand OTHER, share with OTHER, support and be supported by OTHER. So I work everyday to let FAITH replace ME. No, not replace. Become.

FAITH is becoming ME.