Tornado

I was asked yesterday, “Who do you want to be through this process?  What do you need to get you through it and who do you want to be when it’s done?”  It sort of stopped me in my tracks.  I had thought for so long that I knew exactly who I was but in truth, all of that seems a bit lost and scattered these days.  This process of change, growth, and the re-birth I’ve been fighting for over the past year is so overwhelming that at times I stumble.  Not to disregard the beauty in it - but letting go of that which you can't control can at times invoke such fear of the unknown that we falter.

I question this: If what we do in life is ultimately so that we can teach it to ourselves because we need it for ourselves then why aren’t I learning?  Why can’t I feel it? If at the core of my being I find true solace in helping others why is it that I can’t be the same comfort to myself?   Heed my own words and guidance.  Most often, I do the exact opposite of what I would advise to all of you because I can only shine light outward.  Does that make sense? 

Every time I try to move lately, it feels as if my feet are about to buckle underneath me.  And all of the energy that I hold is barely my own and it’s taken over the rest.  I spin in this circle, like a fucking tornado sinking into the ocean and I am drowning – and I have no idea why.  I just need a rope…something to fall out of the sky to hold on to but there’s nothing there.  It’s the blessing and the curse of being an empath.  I feel everything that emanates off of everyone else and it sinks me. 

All of this came after finding myself spiritually in the best place I’ve ever been just a few short months ago.  And then smack – brute force gravity pulled me back to earth.  I have been told that I’m still moving on a forward trajectory but that like a roller coaster, you have to dip down to build momentum to climb back up.  But it doesn’t feel like that today and existing with all of these human emotions of anguish is a road I’m having difficulty navigating. 

Who I want to be in this process is a light to myself.  A compass.  An anchor.  And who I want to be when it’s done is lighter.  Free with no rearview mirrors.  I want to be sitting with the sunlight on my face knowing that I made it to the edge of the cliff and I didn’t fall off…I dove.  My choice.  Because that’s what we all need to understand isn’t it?  That all of this is our choice.  Who we choose to be.  What we choose to feel and what we choose to believe.  What we allow ourselves to hold onto or release. I’m creating my own tornado right now.  I know this.  Everything that was beautiful still exists, it’s just a matter of letting it back in.  But to do that, I have to release the idea of what it’s supposed to be because I can’t choose that.  Only the Universe can.  Because the Universe doesn't give you what you want, it gives you what you need - as difficult as that is at times to embrace.

You know when you wake up at night, and walk in darkness and you kind of know where you’re going but you hold onto the wall to guide you and you're half asleep and more than tired – and then you trip over something on the floor and stub your toe?  That’s what this is.  I’ve stubbed my toe but I still know where I’m going.  And it hurts but by the time I get across the darkness that will have passed.  That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. 

Thanks for listening.  xo

 

Everything Beautiful Began After

I read a book recently…well maybe not that recently…but it was titled Everything Beautiful Began After.  For some reason I keep repeating this in my head today.  

Something beautiful came.  Something beautiful left.  And now begins the after.  There is always an after.

The after is the rewriting of the story.  

I sat in London a couple of months ago and decided then that I was going to rewrite things.  I was going to create a beautiful story.  But how can I create a new story based on the first chapters?  Can I rewrite what ended to create a new book?  

Because if I could, I think it would have gone something like this.

I wouldn’t have left.  I wouldn’t have run away.  I would’ve stayed.  I would’ve been grounded and had faith.  I was strong enough to do that, I just didn’t know it at the time.  

Leaving London has always been my greatest regret.  I have spent years of my life tied to a moment – moments and I’ve never quite gotten over them.  It was a time in my life that I was most alive.  I felt everything.  Love.  Fear.  Passion.  Pain.  I had everything in the palm of my anguished hands but I was hurt and scared and confused so I ran away.  Instead of fighting through my fear, I left.  I let someone else’s decision become my reality instead of creating a new one for myself.  

I had enough.  I was enough.  But I couldn’t see outside of myself then.  I hadn’t honed my intuition and I was completely reactionary to every emotion that I felt.  I had no capacity to be present and believe that I was exactly where I was supposed to be – because I was too busy placing my energy on all that was wrong and not everything that was right.

And so I hopped on a plane and disappeared.  

It solved nothing.  Because wherever you go, there you are and I had taken myself right with me.  I should’ve stayed.  The years I spent trying to get to the beautiful bits again were in no way a measure of moving forward.  I was looking behind me the entire time missing everything that I had run away from.  And although I always go back, it will never be the same as it was in that beautiful moment...because I let the beauty slip out from underneath me.  I've spent so much time trying to find it ever since.

So, I will rewrite it to be the beautiful that began after.  Because I would have stayed.  That will be the ending of that.  Let the new story commence.

Preface

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran

 

It’s strange when life happens whilst you’re busy preparing for something else.  When you find yourself in a moment that days or even minutes before you couldn’t have predicted.  It’s the universe.  She has her way when she’s ready.  

I found myself in a moment recently, a quiet intertwinement - and I realized for the first time in what has seemed like decades, I was actually fully, wholeheartedly and completely present.  I wasn’t making comparisons.  I wasn’t staring into my rearview mirror grappling with skeletons.  I was free.  Melting into liberation and a feeling that I have long believed I would never again experience.  

An attribution could be placed on the Shaman that I met with last week.  Her work to rid my spirit of energy that has sort of flown around and buried me in ways.  Or, the decision as of late to take affirmative steps towards living the way I feel, not just speaking about it anymore.  It could be attributed to a gaunt Brit who approached me in the Tate two weeks ago to remind me that I could start my life over, at any point and that as difficult as it’s been, it can still be beautiful again.  It could be attributed to many ironic idiosyncrasies that have been following me around and buzzing about since I made the decision last spring to find a life worth living again.

Regardless, it’s created a lightness of being in me.  That moment and the moments thereafter. This little ridiculous sparkle of hope.  Belief again in beautiful bits.  And that the things I write about…my past; is just that.  Over.  Done.  Pieces of the story, but not the entire book.  They are just chapters and I can rewrite my ending to be anything that I need it to be.  I was bound for quite some time in moments that had long since passed and no longer suited who I have been becoming.  It’s such an amazing and cathartic fucking relief when you can just let it go.  All of it.  Appreciate it, them and time for what it gave you, how it made you, but then leave it there…where it should stay so that you can turn around to see something else.  When you open yourself up to the Universe, when you allow for guidance, it will come and it will bring you exactly what you need, when you need it.  It’s about having a little Faith.

And that’s it really.  I felt compelled to share because we all need to hear about good bits now and then.  And perhaps a reminder that if you open yourself up to see what’s around you, beside you and in front of you, and not what’s behind you – there is hope, and butterflies and quiet peace waiting.  

Thanks for listening. 

Vincent Square Chapter 5: Locked

“Hi,” I bellowed with overly perky cheer extending a shaking hand, “Willow”.  He steadied his gaze with mine.  Locked.  He had a mild look of amusement in his piercing painfully beautiful blue eyes.  “You’re American too!  Brilliant!  I’m Josiah.”  I feigned my best smile.  My stomach was pounding in nervous recognition having just grazed hands with my past.  I looked to his left and acknowledge his friend with round spectacles, long blonde hair and a quiet and calming demeanor.  “Hi ya! I’m Noah.” I liked him instantly.  He was much less intimidating and was content to let Josiah command the attention.  I looked down and noticed I was still clinging on to Josiah’s hand.  His amusement continued.  I quickly released it and motioned to the bartender for a pint and placed a cigarette to my lips, without hesitation, he had a lighter to the tip continuing to keep steady with my gaze.  I was completely exhausted already.

They played a few acoustic sets which gave me time to center myself and try to understand what was happening.  Since they were the focus of the pub I could stare unabashedly.  Josiah had a strong voice.  Earthy.  He was dominant on the stage however not in skill, just in presence.  Noah had a much more angelic, softer voice that was a steady compliment.  They fit together well in their reversely striped shirts.  Quite simply put, they were symbolic.  Darkness and light.  

In between sets they would sit with Dave and me and ask us hundreds of questions about America - a land in which they were completely fascinated by.  “No, the streets aren’t paved with gold…” and “No, money doesn’t really grow on trees...” I would respond. Most of their questions were humorous iterations of urban legends that they didn’t actually believe but needed solid confirmation on just in case.  All the while during these breaks and their performance, the gaze remained steady.  I couldn’t figure out what he was looking at, or for.  If this was how he broke women into submission - if it was supposed to render me completely helpless, it was working.  

They had grown up together in Derry – Northern Ireland.  Josiah came to London to find his fame in music, and Noah had come to London for University.  They were incredibly intelligent.  Both from large, loving families I found myself immediately immersed in wanting to know everything about their history.  They spoke openly about their affection and adoration of their parents and siblings.  I could see them get lost in being somewhere else and missing comforts that we all missed but for whatever they missed, they found comfort in one another and perhaps I would now find my comfort in them.  

When they were done playing the pub was closing.  My heart instantly ached at the thought of leaving until they let me know that we could close up the curtains to the pub and stay drinking with Jim – the pub manager who had taken a shining to me.  I made no effort to hide my excitement.  With everyone else gone, including Dave who we had to carry out and into a cab, the energy shifted.  Pleasantries gone, an air coveted the room of familiar energy.  Something of a time before and souls who had long since known one another.  

The conversation shifted to greater depth - to the things of youth that you try to discover.  To what moved our souls, what we would be, what broke us, what inspired us, to family, to history, to the now.  We lit cigarette after cigarette, drank pint after pint.  We raised our voices with passion and artistry.  With every word between us, every gaze and knowing nod everything of my before disappeared.  

When Jim finally waved us out of the pub, we were all stumbling and arm in arm we found our way to Josiah’s apartment in Vincent Square and continued our discovery.  We sat on the floor of his one room apartment and talked until the sun came up.  Hours and hours of catching up, telling stories and asking each other question after question.  For however lost I had felt for so many years of my life, in that moment, in that room, I had found home again.  A home that I traveled across an ocean to find.  I had found a soul mate, perhaps even two. 
  

When the tubes opened again the boys walked me to Victoria Station.  I was in love.  Josiah would wreck me, I knew that already.  Perhaps he had before as well but I could do nothing more than love him again.  Noah had captured my soul and we would be family from here on in.  I had silently decided this. Together Josiah would wreck each of us and together we would save one another from him.  Our beautiful wrecking ball.

“What a fucking brilliant night, eh?” Josiah exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around each of us.  “Epic” I responded.  “Epic,” Noah repeated.  “Well then, let’s get some sleep and do it again soon.” I turned to look at Josiah clinging to “soon”.  Was he going to call?  He had asked for my number.  I tried to steady myself.  Breathe Willow….Breathe. Maybe this one of those nights and this is all that there is and maybe that is ok.  Breathe.  Reading my mind, Josiah leaned over and whispered, “I’ll ring you later.”  Every molecule in my body tingled.  I hugged both of them and ran quickly down the stairs hoping that they couldn’t see the tears streaming down my cheek.  “We’ll see you after, eh…” I heard Noah yell down the stairs after me.  I flung my arm up in a backward wave and disappeared into the tunnel.

By the time I had reached 35 Sutherland I had dissected every minute of the past 12 hours of my life.  Every line on his face, every sound from his lips.  Every look and every song.  I thought of the broken glass at my feet and the words I had muttered.  I felt drunk and full and overwhelmed – more so, terrified that I would never again feel the way that I had felt in that moment.  I thought about the two of them, how different they were but how connected they seemed to be.  I thought about the often empathetic smile Noah would knowingly shoot my way, as if he knew something I didn’t.  

I tip toed in the house and peaked into Tegan’s room.  He was asleep with books scattered all around him.  I wanted to wake him up and tell him everything but there would be time later and I felt too stifled with emotion to speak so I floated to my tiny room on the third floor.  Peeling off my clothes I melted into an unconscious sleep.  A sleep I hadn’t slept in years.   Hours later in a day that had turned into night I was wakened by Tegan nudging my shoulder. 

“Hey, sleeping beauty…you have a phone call.”

Vincent Square Chapter 4: The Fire

"According to most writers, groups of souls tend to reincarnate again and again, working out their karma (debts owed to others and to the self, lessons to be learned) over the span of many lifetimes." - Many Lives, Many Masters - Brian Wiess, M.D.

In our lifetime there are a handful of moments that alter us, define a path that transitions the light of how we see our world.  Moments that covet our internal gauge and guide us into the next chapter.  If you are fortunate enough to have the cognitive ability to interpret your intuition you can be aware of such moments, feel them with every nerve ending and embrace that what is being placed in front of you is for a reason and regardless of the outcome, you should jump fully, and uninhibited into the fires of fate.  

I was standing right in the middle of one of these moments, broken glass at my feet, outside of my body, watching him walk towards me.  

I needed an escape.  A moment to catch my breath.  To compose myself before the fiery leap.  A moment to build strength, take in air and release the vibrations.  Unlocking my stare I looked around and to my right found a rest room.  I dashed quickly, leaving behind me the comforting sound of greetings and the back slapping of hugs between Dave and my future.

Standing in front of myself, hands shaking as I attempted to ground nerves by holding the edges of the sink I exhaled and let my soul calm.  There was no way to change anything – it had arrived, this moment. 

There was no dress to encase myself in for the debut.  There was nothing more than me, a skinny, pale girl with chocolate hair and almond eyes and jutting hip bones through my jeans drowning in my father’s old sweater.  I had no gifts to offer from the lifetimes that I had known him before only that I had found him again here. Would he remember me as I did him?

 As I stared back at myself a creeping whisper began to blanket itself over my entire being…a mild chant, over and over again…and what are we to learn from one another in this lifetime….And with all that I was I knew it to be true – whatever we didn’t get right before, we were destined to try again now.  With that, I released my hands from the ceramic, looked deeply once more into my eyes and then opened the door and dove boldly into the fire.