When my knee started hurting last October someone told me, “Knees are your moving forward parts.  When you’re having trouble with them it means you’re resisting.” (Funnily enough, the person telling me was the same person I felt I needed to move forward from).  When I told my chiropractor that he said incredulously, “What, don’t you WANT to move forward?!”  Well, yes I did, I felt, but I also said that the moving forward entails leaving something behind and that was what I felt I had the resistance to.  I’ve never been good at moving on.  I mean, I look like I am.  I’m very good at booking tickets, jumping into cabs, walking away, saying “I’ve had enough of this” to many people on many occasions.  But as I’m packing, turning the corner, taking a few steps, or out of the situation… I.am.shaking.

I have a deep sense of loss, instilled in me at an early age as I watched my dad storm out of the apartment with only his guitar on his back and his blood running down his knuckles from punching my parents’ bedroom door.  I was four.  And I think I’ve been wrestling with transitions ever since.  Once I’m on the plane, out of the cab, to my next destination or with the next person, I’m totally fine.  It’s that free falling, trust calling phase in between that is so emotional….and painful in my knee.  And I can see that this space between complaining and fed-upness and actually having something new is important, valuable, and you’ll miss it if you’re impatiently focused on why isn’t what’s next already here!  My receptors aren’t open yet, I’m not a match to it yet, I may think I’m ready, but I’m not.  I’ve still got work to do; and when I release and just get busy doing the work I find it’s got a beauty all it’s own.  And I know when it passes.  I feel it, like watching clouds clear the sky for the sun.  Just like that.  And I wonder what I was ever so worried about.  And all I feel is freshness and gratitude.  And I don’t care that I didn’t have a date for Valentine’s Day or that there’s this zit on my face that won’t seem to go away.  I’m new, the purpose has been served, the storm is over and I walk as the new person I was wanting to become.

Even though it may not be perfect, even though I might be messy, even though I think it might not be well received; I want to write.  Writing helps me know myself better, writing helps me be vulnerable, writing helps me process, writing gives a chance that someone might feel the way I do and we can connect.  If people waited until something was perfect (or their definition of perfect) there’s just so many great things we would be without.  And sometimes, things start off being not so great, but work themselves into perfection, and that’s a beautiful thing to behold.  I will not always be all together, I may not be having my best day, but I will be me and I think that’s worth sharing.  I think that’s worth all of us sharing.  I saw a really amazing artist once who gave a talk on her work and she touched me deeply.  She had such a certainty about her expression and it was regardless of what others thought.  In fact, it seemed that when people challenged her she only became more clear and certain.  She expressed herself so well because she knew herself so well.  And she once said in an interview that missteps are as important as successes.

Today I worked on the house.  I didn’t feel that great or all that motivated but I found a level that I could rise to and I did that.  I did what resonated with me and ended up enjoying it so much.  I applied more coats of poly (clear coat polyurethane) on the woodwork around the windows and trim and O.My.God. – that wood just became more and more beautiful!  It drank it up like dry soil with water.  I felt that I was nourishing it, restoring it to its original beauty and it was very fulfilling.  As I write this, I feel that’s what’s happening to me as well.

I also helped Prem with the plumbing of the dishwasher and had a great talk about the idea that there is a Voice offering guidance but there is also a Grace offering you help when you feel you can’t follow it.  It’s like both roads are okay and it’s showing me that I used God to help me make choices with the idea of right and wrong; and that’s just not how I feel about it anymore.  I feel like my mind in alignment is powerful enough that anything can be made okay.  Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and as much as I thought I was over all this Hallmark bullshit, I felt really quite affected by it all.  Maybe because a new impossibility between me and Malcolm has arisen and it’s freshly apparent that we can’t even hang out casually anymore – he doesn’t want to.  For him, it becomes serious if we have sex.  Which is too bad, cos I really like our sex.  I think it’s like the glue that’s been holding it all together for me; that, and the fact that I seem to have dramatic relationships and it’s definitely got that.  Anyways I’m walking into the co-op, feeling what I’m feeling and trying to be gentle with it all and I hear in my heart, “it’s gonna be okay and it is okay.”  I wrapped myself in that like a warm blanket and I let it comfort me even today.

I was talking with my German friend who I call Schnooky and she was saying how I remind her of this friend she used to have in Germany.  She too was in a relationship with a guy who she really wasn’t committed to and who really wasn’t committed to her.  And one day she got a job in Berlin and as she was driving there she had the sense that all would be well.  She ended up eventually meeting a guy and they married and had a child.  I don’t know if that will be the specific outcome for me, but I feel the levity that this story affords me and I let it be another source of comfort.  And I know this.  I know I can’t lose anything I really want – but I’m also amazed at how much I can miss something that I never truly, in my heart really wanted anyway.  It’s this crazy sense of loss we have.  I also know that I was with a guy in Italy who was very certain about how he felt about me and how he wanted to be with me and I didn’t feel like I could have that kind of relationship, “didn’t feel like I was that kind of a girl,” I ended up telling him.

I would definitely play that differently now.  And as much as I have lamented not playing it differently, when I’m being tossed and turned around by the current, crazy one that I’m in, I know I couldn’t have played it any differently.  I played it according to who I was.  But I’m different now and I want different, and that’s why this current chaos is drawing to a close; because it’s no longer a match to who I am.  And, as fun as who I am has been, I’m ready for more.

We’ve been winging it with a lot of the kitchen design.  We just kind of go into the store, find something we like and make it work; that got us a nice countertop but lots of hassle installing it.  For the kitchen addition, it’s been decided to spend more time and energy on the design phase.  This has been WAY more fun!

By a series of serendipities, I ended up at Home Depot on Sunday morning.  Someone goofed up dates and so I couldn’t do the thing I came into town to do and it was suggested that I go do some shopping.  Gladly.  There was a display of kitchen cabinets at the front of the store and some workbooks on design with invitations to make appointments with designers on staff.  Good that it was at the front because I don’t think I would’ve gone looking for them.  They looked better made than the cabinets we had at the house, which we were already seeing were probably not the right size if we wanted space for a dishwasher.  I got excited, took pics, and grabbed a workbook.  I spent the night measuring and plotting and drawing and googling….geez, there’s a lot of cool stuff out there!  Seems like the whole kitchen idea is really elevated past just a place to store, cook, and eat food.   A place that someone wants to be, feels good being, inspired that they can tackle this new recipe and they want to do dishes.  “I want a sexy kitchen,”  I declared at my New Year’s Eve party.  A place where a woman would wear a silk teddy, hold a glass of wine and exclaim that she would LOVE to cook for you people!

Well, that all crashed and burned the next day when the sale ended, there was no staff available, and the dept. head couldn’t care less about any of it.  I remembered that the district manager, Lou, a lovely Italian guy with a thick accent from New York, had been a customer of mine when I was still bartending shortly after I bought the house.  He gave me his card and said if I ever needed anything to just call.  I talked to the store manager first and he was lovely and said he would honor the sale price.  I got a great store employee, Amy, who sat at a desk and played on the computer with me even though it wasn’t her department, she felt my pain and my passion and was willing to give good customer service.  She was like my sister from another mister.  I think you just gotta find your people in this place.  They’re here.  and you’ll find them.  If you’re not busy being annoyed by the ones you don’t click with.

The next day we go in and meet with Cary, a guy who clearly knows his way around designing a kitchen.  He takes my sketches and our ideas and puts them into a program and out comes a virtual design of how it’ll all look.  I knew there must be a way to see it before you build it!  I have a great time with him.  I feel like an artist, imagining, visualizing, sculpting.  I feel uplifted by the whole experience.  And that’s what I want this house to be; my life to be.  I don’t want to spend anymore time scraping in the dirt for crumbs or reacting to things that don’t match my verve.  I want to rise above and move on to what I know in my heart and see in my mind.  If I can see it, then it has been given me to do it.  Let me follow it and glide by the obstacles with grace.