Monday, March 21, 2011

Moon Dancing

What a weekend!  It was amazing.  On Friday night, I went into the City with my dear friends Diane and Mike to film an interview on "All Night with Joey Reynolds."  It will air tonight (3-21-11) on NBC NY Nonstop at midnight.  I guess technically, that makes it 3-22, haha!  Met a number of incredible artists and the people who promote and love them, which was a honor, then sat in the makeup chair to get kabuki'ed by Binky Brown, a talented makeup artist and incredible person.  Then I met Mr. Reynolds.  What an astonishing man.  The interview went well, he was kind and gracious and a brother of circumstance, which I had had no idea of.  He's suffered enormously from many of the same things that brought me so low.  Look at him now.  It ain't over until it's over, my friends.  You can be face down in a pile of steaming shit called Your Life and still get up, spit, and move forward, often with a smile as this man has done.  Everybody has fallen.  I fell and stayed down for decades.  But at long last, I got up, brushed my spiritual teeth, took a mental shower and began to rebuild my life. 

There are times when you feel so low, gravity seems doubled.  Everything is affected by the misery, even the pull of the earth itself, huh?  Your skin feels thick and itchy, your eyes are dry from copious bawling an hour before, and sitting up is done in slow motion.  Even then, it takes every ounce of will power to do it, to simply sit up.  When I wanted to kill myself, it wasn't for any grand romantic reason or frantic need to escape.  It was just exhaustion.  Breathing itself had become too difficult, too much effort and most dangerously, not worth it.  I just didn't want to have to live anymore.  Wanted to check out, finish, be done with it all and just sleep.  Even the thought of moldering in a box under the ground was comforting.  At least the worms would eat good.  I'd do something to contribute, and if feeding icky critters was the only thing I could come up with, at least it was something.  So strange and awful, to be that low.  So terribly familiar in so many people, all my brothers and sisters of circumstance, still suffering and struggling to sit up and spit the shit out of their mouths.  But you can do it.  Believe me, you can.  If somebody as wretched as me, as fucked up and self-loathing and viciously self abusive as I had been can, anybody can.  The only special thing about me is that I somehow was lucky enough to stumble on something that worked.  Something that made me want to live.  Something that made me love myself.  Repetition.  Every night, I'd say my three good nights: Good night beautiful mind, good night beautiful spirit, good night beautiful body.  Not believing a word of it, still hating my reflection, still sneering at the falsity of spouting such a lie to myself, I still did it.  I didn't love my mind, I hated my spirit and despised my body. 

One of the sneaky things about my self hatred was I was so damn funny about it.  I could make people laugh as I attacked myself and I fed off their positive energy like a leech.  But I did it at the cost of myself.  I even encouraged them to join in the destruction with witty viciousness of their own and I laughed right along with them as we decimated Me.  Weird to look back and see what a Self Cannibal I was, chewing and gnawing at my own psyche and self worth.  Insecurity loves humor as a tool of destruction.  It's very effective.  I used my art history background to compare myself to the Venus of Willendorf, a fat ass fertility goddess.  I told people I was built like Kermit the Frog with breasts; all round torso and long skinny legs, unbalanced and something to poke fun at.  Laughingly described my inability to do math as a good-hearted moron, an idiot; drew hilarious cartoons depicting my faults.  It was funny, yes, it was witty and clever and always brought a smile to everybody.  But it was mean.  I was mean to myself with that sort of wit.  Now I prefer humor to wit; wit seems to have a bit of a scorpion's tail.  Humor is nicer.  I still make fun of myself but it's gotten better.  I'm a work in progress but the progress has been enormous over the last few years.  I got myself out of a no win situation, I moved far away from any family members who were vampiric, rolled up my sleeves and got to work on Rebecca

I've been given two great lunar presents in the past few months.  On my last birthday, there was a full lunar eclipse.  I'd just recovered from pneumonia, so snuck outside with blankets, layered clothing and a hot water bottle, to lie gawking at the celestial miracle slowly unfurling overhead.  It was magical.  Last night, I snuck out into the backyard as my roomie and I had the night before, to gawk again at a moon so huge and beautiful, my eyes rained at the sight of it.  To think I might have missed it.  To think I might have been feeding worms instead of witnessing such a wonder.  I laughed out loud at the irony of it all, then slowly began to twirl in the chilly grass, my ridiculous bare feet skipping on the frozen ground.  And I started to dance.  Dancing in the moonlight.  What an impossible, magical, unthinkable moment to have.  Look up at the stars yourself, my friends, and do a whimsical spin.  Life can be a shithole AND a thing of breathless beauty.  Go light-footed toward the beauty and believe.  Because anything's possible.  I'm here, now, alive and not in the ground.  I'm dancing on top of it, light-footed and laughing in the moonlight.  Take care.

Love, R

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