“What do you want to do?” She asks
“The Pirates Magazine.” I say.
“Do you have a printing press? Because they are really expensive.”
“I... uhhhrrmmm.. The Digital... Yeah well okay, so there's this chick, right,? Ina May Gaskin, and actually, she and her friends bought a printing press and they self published this book, Spiritual Midwifery, and like, This amazing woman has totally revolutionized natural birthing. She's empowered so many women to take back thier bodies.”
“Oh I know Ina May! I've been to her retreat center, actually, The Farm.” says Annie
my jaw hits the floor. “Okay. We just became best friends.”
So Yes. I will make it my highest priority today to email Annie. Because Women.
I've connected with so many phenomenal women, especially on the motherhood journey and not a single one has said “by the way your toques and hoodies and corduroy pants combined with your hyperactive sexuality is making me ultra nervous.”
I've always wanted to contribute value back into the natural birth field. It's so beautiful. Babies are so magical. Just writing about it in my head yesterday had me so sentimental for how fast the girls grew. Life is so precious. Actually that's an emotion Cam really helped me to process. I sometimes got so emotionally sick with nostalgic yearning, and Cam was like. Here. Have Heraclitus, the crying philosopher. & you know what??? It really helped me resolve. I still feel that way sometimes where I want to crawl through some tunnel of remembering, and stuff us all back into our old bodies and re-live so many kitchen-y baby dancing moments that no longer exist and never will again but somehow also completely still do and always will.
After I finished washing the dishes, I was super proud that I neither burst into tears about never holding my own children as babies EVER AGAIN, nor was I blindsided with anxiety about how I'm going to support them if they decide to go to university or what if they are doing something super awkward at a party 12 years from now and somebody hurts them? I have the emotional maturity to glance over these possibilities and trust that things will work out.
I call this phenomena “having a mind that is calm and tethered.”
So I went to check my email.
Penelope. Trunk. Wrote. Me. an Email.
Actually what happened was that I took her Myers Briggs inquiry a few months ago to see what kind of personal insights I could glean. Which was “some, I guess”And then I got some really well structured target marketing to my inbox. So on a whim I wrote back to the target marketing, that I really loved her work, and how useful it has been to me, because most personal development writers who I revere are Men, and as far as I could travel on their ideas, there was always just.... This entire missing department of life I still can't quite articulate.
The best example I have is my cousin asking me “they make Men's and Women's snowboards? What's the difference???” “hmm.” I said. “Men and Women. They are different. Their bodies are designed to do totally different things.” “Ah, yes! So true.” she agreed.
So I wrote to Penelope that I was a huge fan, and that I really appreciated the idea of taking an online course geared to my personality type, but I lived in the backwoods and my internet doesn't really allow for that, plus I learn way better in a 1 on 1 setting. I also linked her to my blog so she could see that I am a crazy weirdo and dismiss me with ease.
But that is not what happened. Penelope. Trunk. Wrote. Me. Back.
She said that she thinks I am a person who sees possibilities everywhere and that I have a constant stream of new ideas and we can channel them to leverage my spark and drive. She says she charges $350 for 1 on 1 coaching.
$350 for coaching. Before you scoff, run some numbers super quick. I could drop $350 at the shopping mall in about half an hour if I were the type of individual who indulged in frilly things and makeup and accessories. I generally don't, because those purchases would never make me a better person. (imagine me in a fancy dress, wearing makeup, and, i dunno, hair glitter or whatever, holding some coach purse, telling you to go fuck your couch, see? ha. It's funny.)
So then I stared out my window for a while with my eyes as big as saucers thinking about all these amazing people I have idolized for so long out there in internet-land who are now my team-mates, & where my life is headed & about all the possibilities that arise when I just ask.
Then I google image searched eyes as big as plates and let me tell you, the search results are not anything remotely close to what I expected I might see.
Then I hung out with my daughters for a while. I felt bitter about sitting in front of a television screen watching 6 episodes of Paw Patroll, because that is not my idea of human connection. However, I am not going to do the Throw Away Your Television song & dance right now. Right now I am zenning out in the feeling of calm and actually resting and relaxing and not worrying for a long string of days in a row, about what the best thing for the kids is, or fretting about thier proximity to the road-way, or the river-way, or the stairway.
That emotion feels like my life's biggest sigh of relief.
Then I came home and read about Artificial Superintelligence until I was completely and totally sick to my stomach with horror and impending doom. That emotion feels like What's the point of anything,? Why even try to have a career when the law of accelerating returns is coming for me in my sleep tonight? I'll probably be dead by morning and if I'm not I should just spend the rest of my days here looking at trees and running my hands through my childrens' hair & cuddled up with my friends eating organic vegetables.
That emotion feels like why are people still letting me read when all I do is use my own self to screw with my own head?
That emotion feels like well, actually I guess I'd get pretty upset if they took away my books.
That emotion feels like We have to stop the Robots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That emotion feels like complete & total exhaustion.
That emotion feels like I should probably go to bed and clear my mind...
That emotion feels like writing down more ideas about intentional community so we can all have the maximum amount of songs, dancing, hugs, and radical intimacy before we all die instantly in the singularity next week or live for infinity with no physical selves. When faced with either option, the only thing that makes sense is keep making the most of every moment. Take every chance, be faithful & hopeful, live with love, use my body every way I want to while I still have it. If mind goes on, (and I think it does) keep a conscious connection to it, because seems like the only promise of hope.
That emotion feels like happiness, more or less.
And those are the hideous extraterrestrial beasts behind my happy curtain.
The End.
