Tag Archives: dance

Neighbor

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When we bought our house in 1998, I was doing something or other with a hammer.  Because once you buy a home, you are obligated to use tools and swear words in new ways.  We had our house for a month before moving anything in just so we could bang on it and paint and refinish the floors and swear at it.

So, I am hammering and I am swearing and I look down and I am bleeding.  S says I shouldn’t do construction barefoot.  I thought all of the shoes she suggested I wear made my ass look fat.  I guess it was time to meet the neighbors, because we had no first aid kit and I was gushing blood.  I hobbled next door, barefoot and dirty.  And a smile opened the door, he was the perfect mix between Cary Grant and Dame Edna, he was watching his afternoon soaps and sipping a martini.  “Hello, sweetie.  Are you one of the new lesbians from next door?”

“I guess so.  Hi, I’m Feisty.  And my partner is S.”

“I’m Bill.  My husband is M, but his sweet ass is at work.  Uncle C our roommate lives here too.  I’m so glad our street got more queers.  Damn that’s a lot of blood!”

“Can you patch me up?”

He grabbed me a drink and a first aid kit.  He knelt on the floor in front of me, and put on latex gloves.  “I’m putting the gloves on because I’ve got AIDS.”

“Really?  You’re the first person I’ve ever met with it.  Are you ok?”

“Really?  Did you grow up in a cave?”

“yes”  (sometimes it’s just easier)

***********************************************************************************

It’s a few years later

(knock knock knock knock)

I open the door.

Bill: You aren’t wearing that are you?  Where’s S?  Get cute! Limo’s coming in half a hour!!!

He was right, the limo showed up and he took us out and we partied all night with him and his husband and we danced and drank and I started to get nervous Bill was drinking too much with the medicine he was taking.

Bill: Bitch, I’ve been dying since the 80′s.  Jesus can take me now! I just wanna dance!

**************************************************************

We had a pool, and there would frequently be barbeques and parties.  They were always invited.  Once when only a few girlfriends were over we finished off a bottle of something or other.  One of the girls exclaimed, “well that’s the last of that!”  From over the fence came an identical bottle.  We all just yelled thanks Bill, and heard a giggle.

*************************************************

At my 30th birthday, my house was full to bursting!  We had a great party.  Foosball in the living room.  A stand-up Galaga in the dining room!  A pool table in the kitchen and our swimming pool of course!  S had done a great job on my surprise party.  S’s mom looked very uncomfortable with all of the craziness.  Bill was wearing an apron and Bermuda shorts (or something) fixed her a stiff drink and they talked about soaps.  They became friends.  The way to her heart was always through her liver.

************************************************

Every morning for 10 years: one of us would get up to make coffee and the from our kitchen you could just see them in their back yard, smoking their cigarettes.  I wasn’t going to tell him not to smoke, are you kidding.  Some mornings there would be eye contact and some mornings not.  Some mornings rain, some not.  But they were a constant.

******************************

A sweet soul.  I just heard a couple weeks ago that he passed finally.  I hope it was on his terms.  I hope you were dancing or watching your soaps.

RIP Bill, I love you.

eating disorders, psychics, and higher powers

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It’s not sexy to have an eating disorder, but I’ve got one.  Mine is called Binge Eating Disorder and has also been called compulsive overeating.  I have been on every diet.  And can’t keep to them.  It’s not just food, it’s a compulsion.  I’m thinking about what to eat or how big I am or how small I am or how I shouldn’t have eaten what I just ate or fuck it I’ll eat it anyway.

I have theories about this:

  • childhood abuse-food was comfort
  • childhood abuse-food was controlled and now I control it so I’m gonna have all of it.
  • childhood abuse-forced fasting
  • childhood abuse-forced eating on a timeline, with punishments for failing
  • nurture-no sense of a healthy portion
  • PTSD-as a dissociative, eating until numb
  • me-maybe I just suck and am fat
  • nurture-more food=more love or more worth

Whatever the cause, it’s mine to deal with now.  And I am, every second of every day.  I topped the scales at 265 several years ago.  I worked my ass off to get down to 180.  Now since I’ve been working on other parts of my heart and soul, my body has snuck up to 217.  This is horrible to me and I’ve been really depressed about it for a long time.  I have few things I can wear at this size, and every morning I feel faced with that sense of dread and failure.

When I owned a business, I learned that everything that was posted publicly and incentivized improved.  So, I am going to make very public my weight struggle.  There are lots of reasons behind it.  The eating disorder is very wrapped up in my recovery from spiritual abuse.  And the healthier I am, the more emotionally healthy I am.  Also, there are a lot of sisters and brothers out there who struggle from similar issues.  When I owned a business in Sacramento, it’s amazing the things that people confided in me.  I have and will keep those things confidential.  But I have no worries that I am alone in this battle.

I went to a dance battle in Oakland with my friend A a few weeks ago and there was a street fair going on as well.  They were offering $5 psychic readings.  I got one.  When she looked at my aura she giggled, she said it was large, strong and gold and it had speckles like fuchsia confetti in it.  (Sounds like something I would wear).  I asked her how I am going to heal my issues around food.  And she told me that I was born into my family to end the cycle of victim-hood.  That growing up, my food was mixed with punishment and shame.  She said that there is a lot of religious punishment weighing me down and that I need to work through that.  Every morning and evening take a few moments to meditate on how I want to be with my food that day and night.

Which leads me to 12-stepping.  I went to over-eaters anonymous for a long time and it doesn’t work for me. I feel weird saying that out loud.  But 12-stepping doesn’t work for everyone.  I had a lot of success, but ultimately had to stop for my sanity.  I lost 85 pounds in that program.  It’s a wonderful program for lots of people who aren’t me.  I have god issues.  They said I could use any higher power, but I can’t make up a higher power, that’s weird and in my heart I am still a fundamentalist in many ways.  Also some of the 12 step work requires you to read a moral inventory of your life to someone.  I did that and it was highly traumatic.  One thing that I got out of that program was the healing power of journaling.  That has served me well.  But the sharing and the confessing didn’t work.  My therapist said that makes sense because of the forced confession in my church when I was growing up.

So, I am looking for a new way to deal with this old problem of mine.  I am looking at journaling (here and now), a holistic program, and my therapy.  So, we’ll see how this goes.  Project Hotness is going to be more of the stats involved and what I’m doing.

Wish me luck!

Feisty

A few years ago. Me at 180 lbs, kissing my best friend's head

A few years ago. Me at 180 lbs, kissing my best friend's head

Me at 217 on my 35th bday.

Me at 217 on my 35th bday.

Memory layers

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You live somewhere long enough and you get layers and layers of memories.  I was thinking yesterday about the DoubleTree Hotel at Arden.  That was where I started having events where I  was leading a group of many business women.  That is also where many local and regional dance competitions were held.

Many of these where in the same room in the hotel.  One particularly memorable event and competition come to mind.  Same room, same bathroom preparing.

I am 12.  I pulled up my tights and put on my blue sequined leotard.  Adjusted my tiny jacket and started to pull the curlers out of my hair.  Millions of girls: from my dance company and competitors are crowding the mirror.  I feel excited and also very alone.  Dance was my one venue away from the church activities and I felt very other.  I pulled out my Aqua Net and picked and sprayed and embiggulated my hair in the same way all of the other girls were.  Tap shoes on.  Stretch, look in the mirror, suck in non existent stomach.  Put on too much lipstick.  We go out in the hall and go over our routines, until it’s time to line up.  We are supposed to be quiet.  One of the girls ask me if I know what an orgasm is and my stomach turns because I don’t know.  She laughs and I am ashamed.  Our music starts, we grin in unison and we walk into the room.

I am 32.  I have set up the room and I finally have a moment alone.  I pull on my power suit, adjust my jacket and make final touches to my hair.  I am expecting 120 women and 4 men that evening.  It’s our Christmas event and it’s always a big one – except this is my first one as Managing Director.  I have the mirrors to myself and I take my time.  I stretch and put my heels on.  I turn sideways and suck in my stomach.  I put on enough lipstick and too much mascara.  I go out in the hall and go over my speech a few times.  I walk into the room and a woman is lost.  She’s embarrassed; I comfort her and tell her an embarrassing story about me.  We hug.  My nerves disappear.

I walk onto the stage and take my place.  I am rehearsed, my team is rehearsed.  It’s time to make magic.

I spin and twirl and hit all of my marks.  I try to smile, but forcing a smile was always my weak point.  I was a better dancer than a performer.  I didn’t know myself yet.  I perform my heart out infront of a room of strangers.  Applause.  The judges give high marks and we win.

I walk onto the stage and take my place.  I am rehearsed, my team is rehearsed.  It’s time to make magic.

I speak, and connect and hit all of my marks.  I show my true self, because this journey has been about learning about myself and using that as an example so that others may learn about themselves.  I speak and open my heart in front of a room of friends, colleagues and strangers.  Applause.  The victory is that we don’t judge each other and win by the amount of connections we made that night, and how connected we felt.

DJ 6-Pack versus the Hearty Christians

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Last year I stayed briefly in a house in beautiful Venice, CA.  This house was full of surfers and hippies and all kinds of characters.  I think I may qualify as a character, because they let me in for two months.  I think ten of us lived there and I loved waking up and hearing the ocean.  I lived three blocks from the beach and spent a lot of time hanging out.

There was a sweet kid living there.  When I turned 33, I suddenly and authoritatively started calling people in their early 20s “kid” (but never to their face).  Anyway, for the purposes of this entry I will call him DJ 6-pack.  He earned this name for three reasons (none of them creative):

  1. He is a DJ
  2. His abs are of impressive geometric proportions
  3. He always had a beer in his hand

He was from Louisiana and had an accent as thick as his skull.  He was thoroughly charming.  He recently moved to California and spent every day surfing and talking to/about girls.  I was working a contract in Santa Monica and when I came home from work he would update me on the day’s shenanigans.

I loved to listen to him talk.  It was a delightful combination of his accent and the fact that he never sat or stood still.  He and I would share cigarettes and I would watch him recount his day through what was essentially interpretive dance mixed with bayou mad libs, completely surreal.  He talked about how back home he and his boys would get up early on Saturdays and go to the places where psychedelic mushrooms grow and they would trip all day long.  “You gotta pay for that shit out here and it ain’t even fresh.”

“I need to get a girlfriend” he said.

“I thought you had about four girls you were seeing right now.” I say.

“Yeah but if I had a girlfriend she would clean and I would eat better.”

“Oh, good thinking”, I reply.

Part of me wanted to set him straight, but he was just so purely clueless I didn’t have the heart.

One night I came home from work and he had my wine open and a glass poured for us both.  He hands me a cigarette and I sit.  We’re on the front porch and the sun is setting in Venice.  It’s gorgeous.  We both have our feet up on the table and a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other.  He’s wearing shorts and a caramel tan.  I’m in a business suit.

I asked him what he had been up to all day.  “There was this tent out on the boardwalk and it was full of all these bald dudes in robes.  They was dancing and had tambourines, I danced with them.  They were nice and gave out this Hearty Christian food.  They were seriously partying and dancing.  Their food was good but it was all vegetables.  I don’t know how they can call it hearty if it ain’t got no meat.”

“I think they were Hari Krishnas.”  I tell him.

“Huh?”

“Hari Krishnas”

“Oh, they were cool and hella happy.  I’m thinking about taking my gear to the beach and mixing their changy changy tambourine music with my beats.  I’m gonna bring them some beers.”

“Let me know how that goes”, I say.

I miss that kid.

Hearty Christians

Walking and dancing with the F word

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Fair warning, if you are offended by cursing you oughtn’t read this frickin post.

Walking through the Mission District of San Francisco is never boring.  As I walked tonight, other people’s realities perforated my internal stirring.  I was just out of my dance therapy session.  And I was processing what had just happened. This is the first time that I stopped dancing and started feeling and it was hard.

I’ve had an interesting week and I updated her on my goings ons.  I am struggling with my weight and body image.  After so much weight loss the fact that I’ve put some back on is terrifying.  Some of my old binging behaviors are creeping back in.  And I fear I am looking over a cliff and about to plummet into a pit of uncontrollable gain.  She wants to know what it feels like before I eat, overeat or binge.  As I start to talk I disassociate.  She says, “Show me, can you dance it?”

“STAY WITH ME! THE LIGHT IS RED!!! The mom screams to the daughter who is more involved with her milkshake than the oncoming traffic.

I tell her I don’t know how to dance it.  She says that’s good.  I feel like an idiot.  I take a stab and start to move.  It’s not what I would call a dance.  It’s more of a pantomime of anxiety and secret behavior.  I feel all of a sudden angry and vulnerable.  I don’t know how to say what I had just moved.  “What was the big movement?”, she asks.  “My fuck-it moment.  I have a moment where I just don’t care and I am tired of resisting and I say ‘fuck it’ and eventually give up and do whatever.” 

“Dance ‘fuck it’ for me.” She says.

“This is hard.”

“Yeah”, she agrees.  My fuck it dance turns in to a fuck you dance and in the end I am sobbing.

“It’s ok man. It’s ok man. It’s ok man. It’s ok man. It’s ok man. It’s ok man.” He says to himself as he passes me in the intersection. I am startled.

“I feel like a child”, I say.  She says, “yeah.  What do you feel good about right now?  In the last six months you’ve quit drinking and smoking.  You are having problems with your food right now.  You have a big fuck you in you, and that’s good. When you were growing up fuck you saved you.  Fuck you got you out of the cult.  Fuck you still serves you in a lot of ways.  But it’s no longer serving you in your food.”

“Fuck you saved me…you’re right.”

“Hey girl, you probably married or something, ain’t you?”

“Or something” I reply, as I walk on by.

“How do you reward yourself?”

“I don’t know… through food, money”… I list more and I can’t think of one way that doesn’t involve consumption in one way or another.  “Praising myself was vanity. If I did something that was good it was because of god.  If I did something bad it was because of me.”  I can praise others all day long finding perfection in every bit of them.  But me?  That’s different.”

He does a move that is half waltz, and half balboa.  He staggers into the street and summons a juicy loogie from the depths of his soul.  “I’M A CYLON!!”, he screams toward me.  His glassy eyes don’t make any contact.  I keep walking.

She says she bets self-discipline is hard when discipline was so strict and externally imposed.  We were even coerced into confessing our thoughts.  Self-discipline is hard, acknowledging the progress I have made is unthinkable.  Every time I praise myself I rattle off business accomplishments and sound like some disassociated press release.  She had me dance my accomplishments cause I couldn’t make the words.  I tried.

The session ended with that last dance.

“24th and Mission towards Pittsbugh/Bay Point”  I get on the train.

I wonder how other people reward themselves.  How do you celebrate you?

not a drop

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So, I have had my first alcohol free month since I was 17.  Which is a new experience.  I’ve been to several parties, and it’s interesting to see how I feel and relate toward people without social lubrication.  It was good, just a different vibe than I’m used to.  I’ve had some people be drunk at me and it’s been weird to interact with them as a sober person.

I’ve been to amazing restaurants and not had wine with my meal.  I’ve been dancing.  I’ve done all kinds of things that I’ve always done but without the company of the booze.  I’ve been around dear friends who I’ve been drinking with for 17 years and they consumed and I didn’t.

All and all it’s been great.  There have been some awkward moments.  There have been more feelings at the surface than usual.  There has been more connection with the people I am with.  I have been more successful at being present, but that isn’t always fun.

I think my body has to relearn to relax without a chemical cue.  It used to be that a glass of wine or a cocktail meant it was time to relax.  Now, I try to relax without a drink.  Going to dance class and being more physical has been immensely helpful.  It sure is a less expensive way to live.

This is an interesting adventure.  The other day, I got bored with not drinking and thought… “Well, I’ve proven I can do it…”  then I thought I should have some wine at dinner.  And then I thought better of it and didn’t.  So, month one=over.

Car Series final: More meta-fore(arm)s

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So, I was dancing in dance therapy, cause that’s how it works.  And we were working on some mid body energy stuff.  (I don’t know, but it’s rad.  OK?) And in the improv I kept holding my left injured arm with my right groovy arm.  I would place it on my shoulder, my heart, my hip.  In this dance it rarely moved on it’s own.  She asked me about the dance when it was over and I told her about the history of my arm:

The trauma

The recovery

The resentment

The gratitude

The people who helped and supported me.

About how it seems it’s almost back to normal, as much as it can be.  And how I get stuck on messages of pain and expectation of pain.

She said that it seems like a good metaphor for my other traumas.  And when I danced, the strong arm supported the perceived weak one.  In the same way, what we are trying to do is realize all of the strengths and qualities that have supported me and enabled an amazing life.  Even though I have some very weak, traumatized parts.  To be patient and when I start feeling strong we can start to feel what is actual pain of trauma and what is the expectation of pain.  I feel as though the expectation and anticipation of pain holds me back and since I focus there, I can’t see all of the other strengths I have in place that get me through.

Now when I look at my arm, it feels like an amazing symbol of all the trauma and abuse that I survived.  I look at it function and start to feel safe and like things really are ok.

Crazy, huh?

Lessons learned:

There’s wisdom in my mind.

There’s wisdom in my body.

I pick really good friends and support.

I am resiliant as hell.

Scars are hot.

Things to make: dinner and love

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It’s a very small kitchen.

You wouldn’t think you could do much in it.

But we love to cook together.  We have a menu.  Our shopping is full of laughing and finding ways to steal time together.  Our schedules are so hectic. 

We get home and put on something with a little spice, like Gotan Project or something a little sugary like bitter:sweet or Pink Martini.

We prepare and pull out our implements.  Reach into the spice cabinet.  A kiss on the cheek.  Go into the fridge, a hand across the back slowly.  Stirring everything together we meet in the middle.  Eyes locked, we dance.  Things are simmering, kisses, more dancing.  The kitchen is so small but the tight space is perfect, we dance close.  Taste the sauce, bite the neck.  Bring it all together.  Delicious and filling, cooking is all about chemistry.

crawling toward awesome

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It’s nice to get validation.  I had my first appointment with the dance therapist last night.  For the first session we were to talk and start getting to know each other.  I was going to tell her a brief history of me.  I had a plan to present it to her in a clear and rational way…

Right

This woman is heavy, not fat but grounded like a rock.  (Which means my friend L would probably want to lift her)  All I can say is, she sure was in that room.  She asked a few questions.  I opened my mouth and a lot of stuff came out.  I told her about the cult, the pvc pipes, oak rods, confrontations, accusations, forced public confessions in front of the congregation, hair cutting, ptsd, hyper vigilance, isolation.  Then I gave her a brief overview of the 17 years after that, with an emphasis on the last 2.

She looked at me kindly and I felt really vulnerable.  I was very conscious of my body language.  When I talked about an abuse or trauma I looked down and to the right, I wasn’t there.  When she asked why dance therapy. I told her about my dance history and love of dance.  I was focused and engaged.  We are going to work together, I am excited about it.  I am fearful that a hole is going to be poked in me and a black tar ocean will flood out and drown me.

Trust isn’t easy for me and I think I have to trust that there’s a me on the other side of this.  And that there is an other side of this. I can’t see it and I can’t even imagine what it would feel like.  As I drove away I thought about all the stuff I hadn’t told her about: the school checkmark beating system, the exorcisms, the fasting, the betrayals, the other harms I’ve dealt and received.  It all flashed through my head.  I felt pretty devastated.  A big, wormy can is being opened and it’s time.

Everything is really amazing right now and I feel safer than I ever have.  I want to learn to be present in it. I want to learn how to face that part of my brain that’s always telling me I’m in danger and find the off switch, the mute button or maybe the pause button.

She said that I live in loops.  I said it appears to be a 17 year cycle, and I set fire to my life and make something new out of the ashes.  I am in a very grey ashy part and I can do anything right now.  I am seeking this help because I want to use this precious, pivotal time to make the right me, this time around the loop.  She said every time I re-emerge it’s a healthier, happier person.

But I feel sometimes that this rebirth is a slow, bloody crawl toward awesome.

therapy

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I’ve been told by so many people that I should be in therapy.  This is usually said lovingly.  I received a settlement from the church when I was 20.  I got $1,500 for 17 years of abuse.  I didn’t sue.  I don’t know why or how this happened.  But it was for 20 co-payments of therapy.  I just remember I was 20 and broke, my dad handed me a check from the church and I spent it on wedding expenses.  I didn’t get therapy.

I was so much happier than I was when growing up, I didn’t think I needed it. I went a few times after my first divorce when I was 22.  I figured that was a sane reason to get therapy.  It’s easier to sit in front of a shrink and say, “I’m getting a divorce” than to say, “I was born in a cult and I don’t know how to emotionally relate to myself or the world.”  I was happy to have a sane excuse for therapy.

I sat in the chair and started to tell her my story.  She took profuse notes and would occasionally gasp, “Oh my god!”  This didn’t give me the confidence to continue.  If it was so bad that it unnerved her, then why bother?

I remember the part where I was talking about “sex stuff” and she put on her glasses, shifted uncomfortably and put her hair up in a scrunchie (it was 1997).  And I thought wow, you are so awkward.  And then I stopped going to therapy after deciding I was saner than her.

I went to therapy with my ex last year and that was sad.  We were beyond talking.  We tried.  After we broke up I went to therapy on my own for a while.  I mostly talked about my divorce and transition from the business, and it was hard.  She helped me to figure out more that I had to leave Sacramento and go out to parts yonder.

Now I am dating a shrink.  And he told me about dance therapy, which he thought may be good for me.  I am a talker, and when I’m talking I can not be in my body.  I can disassociate and not feel what I am saying.  Dance therapy is about connecting with the body to heal on all levels.  I don’t really know how it works yet.  But I’ve got my first appointment next Wednesday!  I am really excited.

Since I have always healed through dance, I am eager to be a student of this and hope that it helps me with a lot of my anxiety and PTSD, which are symptoms of the church abuse.