La Belle-y

It was during my first yoga class that my active mind slipped away and I was suddenly and wonderfully aware that there were two of me in here. I knew that I was not, in fact, my mind.

Inside this body were two unique halves. Never before had I felt them quite so intimately. One was caught up in all the trivialities of the day, worrying about how it looked and whether or not it was doing this--this class, this day, this life--correctly. The other me was the deeper one, the true spirit, blissfully unaware of it's surroundings and circumstances. It was smiling with every part.

But I've gotten ahead of myself.

The night before I'd been up late, padding around the house, when I was unexpectedly brought face-to-button with my belly. I was svelte once, in college, (put that on a t-shirt) but I haven't seen that body since I got pregnant at twenty-two. The body my husband fell in love with was pale and freckled and wore a size 8. Even then I took that body for granted, feeding it pizza and wishing it would be a 6. This body, eight years later, isn't one I choose to see often. I dress quickly. I don't even own a mirror that reflects my lower half. That night, in the bathroom, it jumped out at me like a monster from behind a corner.

I beheld my belly and told it I hated it.

The awareness of the two of me came during a particularly challenging pose. My body was quivering all over with the effort to hold itself in the form I had asked of it. My muscles were burning and my mind was self-conscious, but as I continued to hold, and to quiver, all that mind clutter slipped away and a deeper voice proclaimed clearly: I love this.

It was my spirit. That quiet, knowing part. It was, I believe, the spark where the divine rests in all of us. And that part of me was having the time of its life. Underneath all my cares is the deeper self that is gazing at this life in wondrous adoration and isn't worried at all.

We ended the class by laying on our backs in what I believe is called the Shavasana Asana, and it was then that my belly began to speak to me. Throughout class, as I had asked my body to bend and twist and withstand, my spirit had been whispering to this soft, freckled space how much it loved it.

And my body had spoken back. In warrior pose, it told me I was powerful. Doing cat-and-cow, and a particularly bendy combination of poses that requires one to both torque and expand, my body felt sensuous and strong.

Now as I lay there, I could hear that my stomach was bruised. The night before, I had looked in the mirror and hated it for not being flat and taut, for the stretch marks that will grace it like pumpkin flesh, always and forever. In my mind, I made war on my body, telling it things that were ugly and cruel.

But this body has done so much for me. This belly, that has stretched beyond its capacity, beyond endurance, to shelter the spirits and flesh of two children. This entire body, that did what I asked of it, that withstood until I shook all over, until I felt I was about to collapse from exhaustion, and then withstood some more.

I lay there in Shavasana Asana and I apologized to my belly. I told this soft part of me, this part that refuses to conform to all Western standards of beauty, that I have punished with words and loathing and Spanx--that I loved it. I was so proud of it. I thanked it for doing so much for me.

A few days later I would find myself again in front of that same mirror, in a degree of undress. This time I beheld my beautiful body, this thriving, healthy gift. I was, I realized, everything I had experienced myself as in yoga. Sun-burnt and moon-pale. Rolling and lush. Wildly curvacious and sensuous and strong.

My spirit said something like: va-va-voom.

And later, as is the way of things, my husband did too.

**Painting: La Belle Rafaela, Tamara de Lempicka. 1927.

The Day We Didn't Move To L.A.

Yesterday my husband was all like, "Look, you have to decide if you really want to move to L.A or not".

To which I was like, "Stop judging me, bro! Why you always gotta be telling me to decide about L.A. when all I want is to enjoy this delicious panini?"

Then he was like, "No, seriously. Someone out there wants to interview me. In a job-type manner." I went all slack-jawed and then he said, "Now give me half of your panini".

This really interfered with my plans for the morning, which had been to write a blog and to read some Supernatural fan fiction (is there any other kind?). Who can enjoy a panini and fan fiction when you are contemplating your fate? To make matters worse, this morning I woke up to a house smelling of fish. This is what you get for eating healthy. You wake up and your kitchen thinks it's a brothel by the sea. "Houses never smell like fish in L.A," I told my husband. "Damnit, you used up all the stuff for paninis".

The problem is, what I really want is to move to Taos, live quiet, have a blue door, keep bees. No, wait. What I really want is to move to Paris, pay exorbitant amounts of money for a shabby apartment, buy dinner fresh from the market every day, stroll in the gardens, write in the cafes. BUT NO WAIT. What I really want is to follow the sun, take my girls to the beach, write scripts, try to sell them.

And also what I want is to stay here in Longmont, where it is cozy and safe.

You see? No wonder I am eating paninis at six in the morning, crying in my robe, asking my five-year-old "but why does the fish have to smell so fishy?". No wonder I do things like swear at librarians and google "Dean crying" online. (Try it)(The googling, not the swearing).

Here is what happened: I spent the morning reading Martha Beck and trying not to think about Los Angeles. I needed space to process. Meanwhile, my husband texted me every five minutes about Los Angeles. "Houses do to smell like fish in L.A," he said. "If you cook it right". We are different in this way. He is all like "Pros and Cons" and "To live in L.A., you might have to get the kind of job that pays money". Meanwhile I'm drinking tea and intoning, "My spirit guide is pretty quiet this morning". Just last week I told my sister that Britney Spears was my spirit animal. I don't think she believed me.

After a morning of panic, banana bread, Dean slash I'M NOT TELLING stories, more banana bread, it came down to this: the job didn't pay enough to live off of, not in the City of Dreams. "I have no intention of moving to L.A. and wearing Sam's Choice denim," I say, which isn't exactly true. Just yesterday I bought a Mossimo peasant blouse at Goodwill and didn't think twice. But you do get my drift.

Here's what I think. You can try to live your life like an arrow. One direction, one ultimate goal, your every movement focused and strong. I don't know where that gets you, but if Robin Hood: Prince of Theives is any indicator, it gets you stuck in a tree trunk or some woodsman's poxy shoulder. Me, I live my life like a peasant blouse at Goodwill.

Blowin' in the wind.

I am Vesuvius and this is the most ridiculous blog I have ever written.

The Marvelous Ensemble and Magnificient Escape

In news that is of interest to my mom today:

Ayla is home sick because she and a classmate decided to re-enact some Chris Farley or Adam Sandler movie and by that, I mean that Abby puked. And then Ayla saw Abby's puke and then Ayla puked.

It worked. Busted them out of class so fast, you would have thought they were Dean and McQueen.*

"That must have been fun for your teacher," I said, and she giggled.

I didn't giggle when I remembered that I have two writing deadlines this week and one bag full of felt monkey puppets, all of which need two arms, two legs, one snout, and two body pieces, that I OH SO WISELY volunteered to cut out for Kindergarten.

Ayla is having a Despicable Me and MegaMind Marathon, and I am writing this blog instead of the stuff I get paid for, because I'm confused and I'm pretty sure Kate Middleton's going to hire someone to do the monkey puppets for me.

Maybe Camilla?

Indy has put together another delightful outfit consisting of brown velour pants, a bright yellow, silk ruffled skirt, a long hot pink tank top sticking out from underneath a long-sleeved white shirt with a pink cupcake bedazzled to the front, a headband, a flower clip, an Indian-inspired flowy scarf in hot pink, yellow, and orange that I bought after watching Slumdog Millionaire, during my brief Frieda Pinto stage (it lasted a day, Swedes cannot wear hot orange--it goes against our skin and hair palettes and also against our constitutions), one Claudia Kishi sock (red, white, and black),one neon green sock with a monkey and stars on it, and one leg warmer warn on one arm.

She is marvelous.

We are at Mom-ology today.

Thank you, and

I love you.

All of you.

Not just my mom.

*Somewhat obscure, nonsensical reference; sole purpose: amusement of the easily amused blogger with inflated sense of self.

Alias Vesuvius

So I'm at work and they're calling for backup to the cafe through my earpiece.

And let me just say this: all you people with your 'business' and your 'engineering' and your 'computer' 'science' degrees that come with 'actual paychecks'--do you get to look like an Undercover Super Spy when you're at work?

Yeah. Didn't think so.

So my friend is calling me--'Mountaineer, Mountaineer, do you copy? Come in Mountaineer' (I make them call me Mountaineer at work). And I don't know about you, but I didn't get into this line of work because I was willing to just abandon my sisters and brothers in arms in their times of need. 'No person left behind' is my motto and my creed. And I will be your sword and your shield. . .

. . . wait, where was I? Ok so it's a member of my Band of Siblings, if you will (note the gender neutral language? You like?) (I like). I can't let her down. So I rush to answer this call for 'back up' to the 'cafe' even though I've been working here for 20 months and still have no idea what a cafe 'is'.

Turns out in this cafe, every drink you might order--every drink imaginable, my friends, it's like Willy Wonka married the Starbucks siren and they popped out whipped cream children who will lure you with their glucose songs--every drink has a number that corresponds to them that you type into the register. This is how we force people to pay for their frenetic sugar babies.

Not gonna lie: we were really in the thick of things. Foam was flying, the queue was rumbling with mutinous energy, dishes were clattering into the sink like the clean-up after the Mad Hatter's tea party. Because I aim to be a hero I reminded myself that a hero keeps up morale and never says never. So while my comrade was calling out to me the drink numbers, I kept shouting things like: 'They cannot take our freedom!" and "We are just too pretty for God to let us die!" and 'For Frodo!" which was working really well until one of the customers was like "I said my name was Susan!".

Anyway.

Things quiet down. From the ruins of the battlefield I can hear a few fallen muttering and sipping and groaning but for the most part the bullet is dodged. So the last customer approacheth. He's being very patient about the fact that it's taking us so long to save his life--a British person maybe, quite all right and all that--so he observes me scanning the epically long list of numbers to find the one that corresponds perfectly to his drink order so that I might type it in, speak "Copy that" into my Black Ops gear and thus save the day, and he says: There must be a lot of numbers for you all to memorize.

Yeah, I say. And then I say:

It's my first time. Be gentle with me.

Wait--what??

The words are out before I even have time to think. There was never any time to stop them.

This, this moment--this was always going to happen.

What to do? I glance around to see if anyone has overheard, by my comrade--bless her--is running the blender. No one else can hear us, which somehow serves to make this moment seem--intimate? There is nothing, nothing else in this world but me, this unsuspecting stranger, and the fact that I have just made a reference to us. Having First Time. Together.

Then--the blender goes quiet. The world is still. The battlefield sits scattered with the frail remnants of war. Crushed paper cups, disfigured straw wrappers all accordioned and rendered nearly unrecognizable, paper napkins fluttering in the steamer mist like children's hair in the snow. My comrade hunches, shoulders drooped and weary, over one final creation, her eyes glazed with the now-familiar milk lust I've seen on too many soldiers before. So many citizens. So many endless demands. It's changed us in ways we can't tell of. We aren't ready to, or maybe we don't even know. Not yet.

I collect my tiny microphone and into it I hear myself utter: I've been made.

What? he says.

Nothing.

What is left the survivors? A measly 43 cents. I reach out, my hand waiting to drop cold metal into his palm but somehow, this day, I'm reaching for so much more. I consider friendly replies. "Boy do you sure like your whipped cream!" I might say, or, "Sorry about the sex joke!". But this is one of those moments between two human beings in which no words feel right and so, none are necessary.

His hand is ready to receive my paltry offering. The change jingles in his palm, the sound strangely cheery, jarring now after everything we've been through, everything we've seen. He nods a little, eyes cast down, but--am I imagining it? A little something in his eyes, a certain knowing glow? We were two strangers, but yet. Something: fate, God, the desperate, random actions of man--I don't know what, I'm not willing to speculate, but something has brought us both here, to this place, on this day. We are knit together now, in a way I wasn't prepared for.

Something has changed, this day. I have been rendered into a thing made new. Made new by one double entendre, muttered in the heat of war.

I may never see him again. But I will always remember. That 43 cents, that inadvertent innuendo, the lusty smacking of the satiated lips and the air heady with espresso and cream all around us. The man with the medium quad, extra whip, 8 pump sugar fairy deluxaccino.

*********

Hello. I am going to spend the weekend not worrying about what the hell I am supposed to do and instead nudging myself gently and lovingly in the way of positivity.

In short I intend to cowgirl up.

I would like to sincerely thank all of you who come here and read my blog. It means a great deal to me, and aw shucks. But I love you.

The Royal We are also re-opening the comments section because We think it just feels friendlier.

*********
I am Vesuvius and So Say We All.

Now I Will Me To Be A Bold Swimmer

I've been thinking a lot about the hero's journey these days.

I've never read Joseph Campbell, because Neil Gaiman scared me off of him without meaning to, but I'd like to think I know my fair share about heroes' journeys because let's face it. I am a sci-fi and fantasy geek and I always have been. She hid in secret for awhile, but she was always there.

I've been thinking about the hero's journey because a trial has come and I want to know if I can pass the test. Like the hero does.

Me and the heroes, we do ok for awhile. We deal with our little trials. Dust a vamp here, slay an orc there, use an expelliarmus before sitting down with a butter beer. We recognize we are looking for something and hey, we always knew there would be bumps a long the way.

But there was something on the horizon that we couldn't see coming, wasn't there? And so, for the heroes and for me, the stakes heighten. The little reavers we patted ourselves on the back for offing were never going to be the real trial. The world is so much larger than that.

So comes the point where the hero fully comprehends the task set before her. It is so much more difficult that she'd ever imagined. So massive and lurking and advanced. She knows that this time, the task is too large. The gods have required too much.

I felt like I hit the point where I can't carry on. I can't do it anymore. I fell off the horse and I can't muster the gumption to put my foot back in the stirrup.

The gods have asked too much.

(Because I don't want you worrying and imagining terrible ominous things, I want to stop 'coding', as I've been told I do, and just say it straight here: I was smacked with a depression that is a little bit seasonal and a little bit genetic. And I heard a new career wish in my heart that feels too crazy to be possible and too desperate to be ignored. Together, they leveled me. They melded into one massive creature that I would like to call, fondly, the Demon Cyvoldereaver Vampiremort Number Six.)

All those demons, all the monsters--they are the struggles we face in our own lives. Struggles to remain soft in this world that sometimes seems bright and brimming with possibility, but at others feels overwhelmingly large and cold and yes, ugly. They represent the struggle for us not to turn to stone. Not to live in eternal winter in our hearts. Our struggles to be kind, to remain open, to wonder, to explore, to just be alive in this world when often things aren't easy and there are never any guarantees.

The moment comes for every hero. And, as it turns out, for me. They see the task before them is too great. The battle can't be won. Survival relies on achieving the impossible. They feel weary and broken and that they can't go on.

They always do the same thing. Jesus, Harry Potter, Buffy, Starbuck, Cap'n and Zoe, Dean Winchester (Hi Kimmy!) Strider, Gandalf, all of them.

They spend a dark night in contemplation. They allow themselves a moment, an hour, a night of blackness and fear.

Then they come out guns blazing and fight the damn thing anyway.



Fight even though they know they can't win. Fight even though too much has been asked, too much is required.

I'm trying not to get too 'everyone's a hero in their own way' on you here. But we love the stories because they show us the things that we, too, might be capable of achieving. We don't slay demons or dragons or cylons, but the things we do face, are, I believe, much harder.

The heroes realize this truth: The hardest thing in this world is to live in it.*

Survival here requires more than training and practice with magic or a sword. It requires us to dig things up from the bottoms of our souls and our selves, things that hurt as they grow--when they're not refusing to grow at all.

It was time for me to go down to my depths and I felt like I couldn't do it. I couldn't keep going. It's been too hard. I felt broken. I felt a hardening inside me. I was too weary to fight, and I couldn't see my tribe.

The hardest thing in his world is to live in it. Monsters are slayed with a weapon, in a moment. That was never the real battle.

The real battle is the one within ourselves. To be of good faith. To let that little thing with feathers keep singing in your heart, even when sometimes you think hope is so stupid you'd rather strangle it than hear it chirp again.



I have a soul manifesto and it is this: I am on a journey. I have not arrived, and I respect that journey, with all its trials and all its dim lanterns and all its tangled, diverging paths. I respect the search. I believe one harmonic soul benefits the whole universe, like ripples in a pond. I will take hope and faith and love wherever I find them, and for those I will not stop searching. I will encourage the journey of every soul toward its own liberation. I don't want to be firm. I don't want to be stone. Here I will do my best to be open and tender. It hurts. It's what heroes do--the thing that scares them. The thing that is too much.

And I always wanted to be one.

See? My guns are blazing.

I am Vesuvius and I'm a big damn hero, I just decided.

*The quote is from Buffy. I believe it was written by the BDH Joss Whedon.