The freedom of it is jarring sometimes. Maybe it all happened too fast after taking way too long. How do I bridge the dream of my ancestors with the loneliness I feel? Perhaps to be a woman eating and traveling alone is not as revolutionary as I think. When I pull out my phone I can find 1000s of women being more brave than this.

But a man did call me brave today, more an acquaintance really, a good friend’s friend who I have partied with in Mexico City and Burning Man. We only made out one time after welcome drinks at a friend’s wedding in Columbia. We met for lunch in Paris and I told him my plan to live untethered for awhile to see what happens. Throw insecurity to the wind, damn her constricting ways, and to find my truth, I think, or passion. Maybe rediscover my passions? I’m not sure what I am searching for exactly but bravery isn’t it.

It’s actually not my first time being called brave. It has happened to me every time I choose to live differently. It often comes off as a judgement dressed up in compliment’s dress. I’ve never identified with this reading of me. I am just doing what my intuition keeps whispering about.

The great lie is I am never satisfied. True bravery to me is being seen. Expressing yourself. Committing to something. Devotion I find challenging. It rubs up assaulting against my perceived freedom. I guess my real question is do you need bravery to be revolutionary or do you simply need to be responding to your basic needs, so you need up eating dinner alone in Paris.

to be pushed into the tiniest most beautiful box
as your back breaks
your wrinkles start to show

holding the history of millions
biting down on the arsenic that was meant to control you
spitting out menstrual blood
until the earth blooms with wildflowers

I know with much certainty
woman is god

I may have diamonds between my thighs 
but it does not matter with sideways 
glances. Telling me to close my legs 
and shut up with a bigger smile. 
Ignoring my comment in conversation 
changing the subject
answering the man I am with, not me.
 
Look into my eyes. I double dog dare you.
You glance over them with 
a haunting indifference 
not hateful but cold 
taught through ruthless calculation 
by a society that has mastered manipulation. 

It is only me, my lover, and another man. 
He talks around me
I shrink again 
knocked voiceless
worthless
dumb & dull.

I am a tigress most of the time, 
so why do I turn into a flightless bird? 
Unable to breach the weird muck 
that binds men 
I must labor through another dinner
sight unseen - ornamental. 

It is ok. 
I have WOMEN and our muck is just as strange, 
it has been fierce recently 
generations of transmuting it into gold.  

So I talk to my friends about it, and 
my brilliant partner. 
I examine the reality of the thing; 
I balk at the complexity 
we have reached as a human species.

Let us consider ourselves lucky to have such brains and hearts
hearts and brains,
and continue to use both 
as we strive toward gold. 

And less awkward dinner conversations.  

they said I would vanish like the ash 
instead I rose out of the fire 
a twin being 
intertwined around destiny 
as smoke clings 
and shadow clangs with light 
balancing out the body 
an equinox storm drenches through 
as a small dog yips 
turning into an angel 
stoking the rays into apricot orbs
the earth tilts back on its axis 
we wipe the sweat from our brow 
for the day is muggy 
yet the wind blows and the wine is drunk 

“Well I was born in Virginia…” I poke back playfully while thinking how to actually begin. How do I encompass who I am in this exact moment in time? We tend to fall back on labels. Ones we may be comfortable with Californian, friend, single and ones we may be less comfortable with daughter, sister. Or perhaps ones we are trying on artist, writer, bi-sexual that don’t seem to fit quite yet.

Labels are limiting, constrictive. I’m hardly the first person to write about the limiting beliefs associated with labels so why mention it? Because it is the truth and the truth should always be acknowledged. I have searched most of my adult life trying to find where I fit in jobs, in relationships, online and I haven’t ever found it in any of the labels that have been assigned to me or that I gave to myself.

As I sit in that therapy session I feel a wave of sensation wash over me with the answer. I am my senses. The laughter that bubbles up onto my skin. The tears that start in my heart. The tight scream that tries to break through my throat. I am my body and all of its strengths and shadows. Its accomplishments and failures. The way it undulates in the day from tiredness to joy to discontent has always defined me more than any label.

Some may call this overly emotional or sensitive, but when I allow my body to lead to be the one telling my mind the status of who I am something transformative happens. I am happy. Not all the time of course, but most of the time. I am in deep listening to my body and my experience starts to come from me. Not at me from the outside world that the mind is so determined to control.

I start to flow outward, I become the creator of my reality, and suddenly the question Who Am I is answered. I am the wind, the trees, the stars, the sea. I am you and you are me. I am not the stories. I am simply here and now. It might be a dramatic answer to a banal question but the relief I feel in finding it feels more true than any label I have ever claimed.

for we are awakening again
to the dark

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All the different kinds of love
and none exactly like the other
what a beautiful life this allows

If only we allow it.