Shooshing down a black diamond run one afternoon, I lost control of my skis. The moguls were too choppy, so I lost my footing. My boots detached from my bindings, but my skis were attached to my boots, so as I plummeted down the side of the mountain, dodging my skis and grabbing for anything to slow my trajectory, screaming for my life, I was not thinking of dying, I was thinking of living.
2019 was a similar trajectory. Jan 1, 2019 I began knowing nothing for sure, seeing no future for the first time in my life. I could not see the way ahead or worse yet, imagine it. So I closed my eyes to feel my way forward in the only ways I know through words and shapes, a moving meditation of yoga and poetry to find the answer that had eluded me somehow.
I practiced with an intention to let go of things past and hold on to what would hold me up after I fall. Because falling and landing is probably what I do best these days. I learned that I have no control over the things or people I don't control. That love is unreliabale in business and in shoes. That passion could propel me where plans had become irrelevant.
In the new world, a world which waits for someone to walk through my door. Retail took my soul. Ironically I own a beautiful shoe store which cannot hold me up and that I can no longer carry. It's my beautiful hell. Nothing I do makes her happy. Day after day she dies a litte more.The pain is getting stronger now. The end . . . she feels it. Like I am falling and the ground is closer and closer . . . And I can't get traction.
Like that time on the black diamond run. I slid, spinning faster and faster. Grabbing for something to slow me down The world was a blur. There was just me in a free fall between the trees, my skis still attached, but flailing around me as we plummeted to the bottom.
And then I stopped. Abruptly. Up to my waist in snow, my boots at the bottom of my legs buried deep inside the snow. And a tree not two feet from my face. I screamed for help, though gingerly, being careful not to slide further. A man on a snowmobile came and pulled me out. He saved my life. And I don't know his name. Nor remember his face. Just his hands.
But I lived. It was not my time as they say. But where is the man in the snowmobile now? The man who saved my life and didn't even know me.
2019 revealed the truth - that no amount of love, attachment, desire, ego, wishes and dreames can harness the things outside of our control, especially when the ground disappears from underneath.
I have cried, been afraid, been happy, been scared. But in yoga, meditation, reflection, tears, dancing and stillness I stopped plummeting down the hill out of control. Because in those places I am just me. Sometimes clumsy. Other times elegant. I feel my breath and my body, moving from one place to another. For no reason other than what feels intuitively right.
Falling and learning to land is something I know about. It taught me that just me moving myself and feeling what feels right and not right is the only thing I can do. Some days my body is strong, other times weak. One day I know that what was may not be anymore. I know the answer. I don't like it. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I am wrong. It's time to rally. To turn the corner.
Good morning 2020.