Be notorious

“Run from what’s comfortable.

Forget safety.

Live where you fear to live.

Destroy your reputation.

Be notorious.”

-Rumi

… … … … … … … …

There is a balance to the planet that us humans insist on trying to wrest awry. I still haven’t figured out why our natural inclination is to fight it so. I got taken up in the imbalance, the fears of the masses became my own, people incessantly needing my attention, time, responses. I forgot my own rhythm, my own carols and songs, I cut my hair, I succeeded my lands to their invading forces.

And then the pandemic came, stopping us in our tracks and making us see in 20/20, 2020…we retreated and tried to keep contact with our loved ones. Interactions were digital and not in person anymore. Our animal senses wilted, we didn’t evolve for millennia to be robots. My mind fought the new digital world, yet I needed the connection. I thought it was okay, as I’m a loner and humans exhaust me, even the ones I love the most. I’m a girl wrapped in barbed wire, don’t get too close or you’ll bleed.

The ice storm compiled the isolation…all of a sudden I was separated from the earth as well by inches of snow and ice, we all huddled in our homes and tried to stay warm, stay fed, stay connected. I wasn’t even one who suffered the greatest, my water stayed on, pipes didn’t burst, heat worked. When the ice and snow began to melt, though, so did my mind. The rivulets of water streaming off our roofs echoed the tears that wet my cheeks, and I couldn’t stop them, no matter how I tried.

I was terrified my son would see me like this. Mortified, encased, unable to escape my own racing thoughts, they swam in the air around me and blurred my vision, made me forget how to breathe properly, I saw the world through pinholes, walking into doors that shouldn’t be there.

Breakdowns are essential when you don’t listen to your body anymore. And here I thought I was. It took firmer hands to show me how wrong I’d been. Ones that wrapped around my lungs and heart, crushed them mercilessly, until I had to

Stop. And listen.

And so I listen.

For a loner, a perpetually alone child who grows into an adult with the same tendencies, I thought I was best on my own. I still firmly and stubbornly cling to that thought. But I’m listening. I do need my people. On my own terms, but I do need them. I need my sanctuary, my time to recover after being social, the right to say no without hurting feelings. Time to dance under the stars with fire spinning around me, losing myself in music and cricket song and pinpoint stars above. But then I need to be able to walk back to the circle of people when I’m ready.

I miss my tribe. My family. The ones who knew me best and loved me anyway. The ones who saw me clearly before I could. I won’t have those again, they are unreachable to a now apostate. I left one tribe, though, and made my own over the past ten years. A decade removed from thirty years of indoctrination and worship of a heartless god and the men who represent him isn’t enough.

This weekend past I went to Faire with my kiddo and his friend, and saw some of my tribe at long last. Some of the crowds and noise were a bit much for my still-healing mind but my heart was fuller than it has been in a year. My Leather brother met us there, as did my faireslave, and to be able to feel their love and acceptance healed me in ways I haven’t been able to identify or articulate yet. I’m not sure I’ll do them justice here either. In time the revealing and unfolding of my mind will be able to sing it into words, and I’ll dance my fingers to write it. Suffice to say, the trees, my chosen family, my son, they all surrounded me with a haze of love that helped me to see more clearly.

Philial love…it has been long said to be the strongest. That love without romantic attachment, that between family members, close friends, chosen family, that is the love that shall heal me. I know it now. With romantic attachment comes expectation, and I’m not ready for such yet, don’t know when I will be again. Those who were there with me through the past year have shown me acceptance without restriction, without expectation, they love me for me. ME. Not for what I can do for them. They wouldn’t change me if they could.

Striding between the spring green trees and lush fresh grasses newly sprung forth, hearing the laughter and shouts of clan members finally able to share faire again renewed me. Getting to hug my fairepeople as I passed and recognized them behind their masks made me wiggle with happiness. I was a puppy who had been kicked repeatedly for the past three and a half years, finally rescued by those who only wanted the best for me, and I was turned free into this bright emerald blooming world I barely recognized from before. All I had to do was find the yellow brick road and then I’d not be in Kansas anymore…

I felt I was learning to walk again. And here the strength had been inside the entire time, I just had to be reminded. My chosen family and my son were the canes that helped me hold myself up until I was strong enough to stand beside them on my own terms. And instead of resenting me for needing to do it my own way they applauded with my tentative steps.

I’m listening. I’m walking again.

Who knows who this woman is that I’m becoming…she’s been hiding too long.