TAIL OF TWO

I'm dealing with something that feels like a double...I want to think double rainbow or double angel or duet but what I'm feeling is a double vortex, a spinning downward, a double shadow or a double cross. Maybe I am reeling with the feeling of being such a triple Libra. Everything...each choice, each voice, each idea comes with it's other side and often I am rendered paralyzed by ambivalence. I was just given a once in a lifetime opportunity to sail the Caribbean Seas with my family for a month. I was actually down there with them and enjoyed hanging out with them without any access to TV or computer or even cell phone. I spent a day sailing and hanging out with sea turtles in Carlisle Bay Antigua. I imagine that a healthy, whole-hearted and creative spirit would have chosen to seize the day and even though I would be the only female aboard, I would have the vision to embrace the opportunity. I had a Dad who wanted sons and borrowed boys to go fishing with. I can't escape the sense of having been a disappointment to him simply from being female. I know he loved me but his disappointment was palpable and though he was a product of his era, he also was an echo of the culture I grew up in that quite visibly devalued women...and in some ways, continues to today. I had an invitation to have a great adventure and to be "one of the guys".

I have a mother who is a model at live and let live. She is a master of allowing others to do their thing, while she chooses to stay home. She always stayed home when we were young and Dad took us skiing. It was her way of taking care of herself. I have internalized this lesson deeply.

So here I am. Alone. Alternately relishing my solitude and grieving my choice as an act of cowardice. I have 2 options. I can berate myself for choosing to stay home alone and see it as an act of cowardice...myself as a boat afraid to sail, afraid to be seen as a female nuisance, a voice of anxiety...afraid to be on board a boat where any female roles would fall on my by default. Afraid of getting seasick, getting up in the night to pee in a closet, afraid of stiff wind and the possible worst case senario...any one of them. This is the whirling vortex of self critism and beating myself up. A state of mind that I have spent a lifetime wrestling.

Once upon a time, my big fear was of being alone. I might also choose to see my choice as a creative resurrection, a deep drink at a wellspring of wild water. I don't need to force a metaphor to rationalize my choice. Perhaps I made my choice out of a deeper self knowledge than I give myself credit for. Maybe I don't want endless hours of a wet crack or getting up in the night many times to use the loo...the water closet, the head. Maybe I don't care to cook on a swinging stove or fall into roles projected onto me. Maybe a cool mossy cave in a deep wood stream is where my journey takes me. Some moments I am filled with love for my sane choice to let the men do a guy thing without me. Sometimes I hate myself for staying home when I could have been a part of the adventure. I sob and pray for direction toward my own bliss and wind in my female sails. I sob for my lost opportunity. I sink into the spiral of negative judgement only to hear some distant voice telling me to get up and go out into the woods and just listen and smell and feel the song of birds. Yesterday I got completely lost walking in the woods with Sadie. I got so lost I was scared. But I found a robin nesting on the ground. She up and flew when we walked into her space. I only knew her to be a robin because I discovered her nest full of 5 blue eggs. I was mystified by her choice to nest on the ground...just as I am mystified by my choice. I found my way out and made it home. Got laughing at myself because though it felt like ages, I was only gone for 2 and 1/2 hours. Something Stephen said once to me is what put me on the right trail He said...if you ever get lost, just keep the sun on the right side of your face and you'll come out to the road...somewhere on Intervale Rd. I hear his voice even though he isn't here. Anyway...I'm writing about this inner conflict and argument between my 2 brains because I find when I write about it, I give voice to the more positive option and in fact, somehow, by listening to my inner writer, I feel the presence of a friend...someone who knows me better that I know myself...someone who gets ignored too much and who has to scream and cry to be noticed and who has to fall apart to be put together. Someone who can lead me to reconnect with my heart's desire and who can heal the vibrational pattern that created heart failure in my physical body in 2003. I can look at myself in a new light. It is quite possible that my choice to come home was not a symptom of a failed heart but a heartfelt gesture of self care. My present moment may be awakening me to a re-framing of my self perception...and an opportunity to launch myself into a journey of self love. Why does that hurt so much?