popping the cork

Recently I've found myself with a selection of the three-buck Chuck wine (thank you, Trader Joes) on hand at my apartment, and because I'm becoming more convinced than ever that aha moments unfold in the place I'm least likely to look for them, these libatious bottles have uncorked a funny parable for me.

I'd come home out of a particularly bitter NYC night and while making some dinner, went to pull the cork out of one of the bottles. But the thing wouldn't budge. I huffed and puffed, and tried to pop that vessel open, but to no avail. So I got out a hammer (I thought at the time it was the right tool for the job!?!? I'm sure if I'd had a jackhammer I would have plugged that puppy in) and began to bang the cork down into the bottle. It only took one swift blow for a red wine Vesuvius to arc out of the bottle and cover my ceiling with a stain constellation. oops. This was not how I wanted my night to go. (Note: equal parts bleach and water remove red wine from white walls.) A week or so later, when I pulled out the second bottle, remembering the experience with the first, I gave the cork a tug, once again met mad resistance and then taptaptapped gently to move the cork down into the wine. No sweat. No stain. Upon approaching the third and final bottle, I felt like I had the drill down: give the cork a pull, when met with no-go, taptaptap, and in it went. But then the thing happened. As I began to pull the corkcrew out of the bottle, the cork held on for the ride and came up and out the bottle's opening smoothly and easily. OK, I could have just left it at that, and poured myself a glass, but instead I poured myself a glass and started thinking about how there was a message in that bottle. It's clearly never worked in my life to force a result, to stubbornly pull at something (whether idea or actuality) that is not meant to be. What about, instead, giving in, letting go and dropping into that unknown? Submerging, getting wet and not necessarily seeing any way out, yet trusting that with this giving in, I'll find my way through.

For so long I've resisted dropping into that place where I'll need to give up all control in order to feel truly my own sense of self. To go into a place where I don't know what I'll find, don't know if I'll drown, be blind, deaf or dumb. Don't know if I'll ever pass through the neck of it and come out into the open, or if I'll just float around in there til I break apart. Right now I'm feeling a certain softening inside of me. Up until now I've held on so tightly to my version of how my life rolls, and it's just not working for me anymore. I guess it used to. When mirrored by my dance, I know my movement held more of the hammer, hard-hitting, fast-moving, dropping down swiftly, no time to think, exploding in movement to avoid getting wet. Lately I'm moving from a place that I don't even know fully yet, and I'm just letting it be, floating in it, letting it come. No discussion. No planning. No resistance. But I am moving. Gently. Softly.

Soft used to mean weak to me, used to mean being taken advantage of and I'd carried this idea straight from childhood, the point being driven home when at 12 my friends forgot to come by and get me on their way to school and I didn't get mad because not only did I hate conflict, but there was a part of me that felt I was forgettable. Oh my, the sprouting of those early stumbling seeds and how they blossom into a mighty tree of self-doubt. Time to water that tree with some of this newly uncorked bravery. Drop down. Taste all of it. Look for the light and follow myself back up. Cheers.