last night in class a few things popped. one of them was my right knee. it happened at the end of my dance in a particularly cathartic moment after i'd pulled a pair of boots off and slid down a chair....oops...i felt it happen. it was more startling than painful, yet i did think, Hmmm, i wonder what happens next...still working that part out.
In the meantime: other things were a'poppin' on the inside as i was moving through. Many many years ago, D gave me a pair of stiletto boots (which is what was being removed pre-knee popping). At the time, although i thought they looked sexy and all, i was supremely uncomfortable in them. Didn't know how to walk properly or balance in those 5-inch heels. I looked less va-voom and more ba-boom when i wore them. The va-voom was a side of me that i was nervous about. It held sexual power and, quite frankly, i didn't know what to do with that. In the fantasy of myself—the one i played out in my head—i knew what to do, but in the light of reality, my sexual being overwhelmed me a bit. So when the boots were unwrapped, i felt more apprehension than exhilaration. As I strapped them on and teetered from one holdable surface to the next, D joked that men invented high heels so women couldn't run away. Now here's the part where i stopped paying attention: Where some inner voice in me might have responded Wha? think about what he's really saying...instead i went with Well, yeah, that's his twisted sense of humor. ha-ha.
So part 2: Listening. Hearing what someone says. Not just the words themselves, but the space in between those words, the atmosphere that surrounds them, the feelings that are carried along. how they make me feel. really feel. I do that with music, listen and move between the notes, sometimes enjoy the stuff that happens all around and inside the actual music more than the song as a whole. Paying attention. Because realizing that just because something is draped over or around me (clothing, words, emotions) from the outside doesn't mean i need be smothered by it. I have the power to look at it and decide if i want to wear it or not.
Those boots had kicked my ass a bit with reminders of who i'd been. I'm still the same person, but now i realize that things don't hold power, I do. And by bringing them into the room and exorcising them, my ability to claim the space around me and stay in it was palpable. I created a whole area for the good stuff that's currently rolling in on most-excellent feet. And I felt light. i might have soared right out of the room, had not a little something tapped me on the knee and made me stay put. I'm not always good at that staying put part because i can be really impatient. But this morning when it was suggested to me by someone whose entry into this newly found space is introducing me to a lovely language that i haven't spoken in...er, maybe ever...that i pause for the day, i paid attention. got out the frozen peas for my knee, threw a couple of pillows under my leg and laid back and thought of England (OK, not really. that saying just always makes me realize how far we've come...us ladies*).
Some of what i thought: now I not only can walk in 5-inch heels with confidence, but when i do, I enjoy it. and i'm not trying to get away. my sensuality unfolds in myriad ways without being scary. i'm so much more ready (and able) to be present in a moment and stay there with my eyes and ears open. so even if it means my physical self reminds me it's there with some bumps and bruises (and pops), so goes my emotional self as well. And the whole of it knows what to do to heal, as long as i respect and let it happen. a bag of frozen peas can go a long way, but even better is the pause and pay attention.
* see "Origins of the Phrase"
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