There's Always a Syren, Singing You to Shipwreck

-from "There There" by Radiohead

Two nights ago, a good friend, S., who lived in Madison for many years and is currently in North Carolina, called out E. and I on a barhop whirlwind visit. We got smashed at Jolly Bob's, and oblivious to the obviousness that it is not June outside, we stumbled from friends' house to friends' house in far too few clothes, egging on everyone to come out with us.

We finally got an old sage friend , Y., of ours to meet us on our way home "Just meet me at the WISCO when you are stumbling home. I'll catch us all a nightcap", and sitting around the table, he gave his predictions. Y. has been known to expect, to predict and to create situations which are far from seeming possible, and yet, when it all happens, it turns out Y's right. That night, Y said that the one woman at the table who seems to long for freedom most, my housemate, E., will marry first. (It really was like a tea reading, only with rum and coke glass ring reading) That I and S, the other woman at the table, will wander, that we won't settle soon, that we won't settle at all. Ever. For the first time in a long time, always the one to long for a relationship; even in high school, always the one everyone thought would marry someone, anyone, first - for the first time in a long time, I saw that Y. was right, and I thanked him for it. I have so much to do. I heard a great story the other day, another friend, about a woman who ran a plane company in Tanzania for twenty years, then had a whole 'nother exotic, fulfilling, excellent career, then, at 60, found love.

There is much to unlearn, is what I wanted to write just now. But then birdfarm's last comments, as well as Prayas', combined with a very thoroughly challenging and intriguing conversation about "unlearning" in the writing class I teach last night --- all of that lead me to reconsider. Maybe I have learned everything I need. It's all right here. I keep wanting to pitch it all - babies, bathwater, the lot. However, the same syrens are sirens, the same calls to crash are calls to know where crashing will occur, and, thusly, they are clues for me to find other direction, safe directions, places where I won't crash, or crash in a new way.
And I am. Finding other direction. Lots of it.

I agree with Y. It will be awhile. The more time I spend alone, the more I am connecting to my body. To myself. There are a lot, really a lot, of people out there who have tried to reach me over the years, only to leave disappointed because they hoped to get closer to me than I even am to myself. Tonight, after E's reception at Firecracker Studios, I chose to not go out to another party, and instead, come home. I started sewing, thinking about the blog, thinking about predictions and expectations. I am happy to be with myself. I cannot tell you how rarely that occurs. How ready I was to pitch myself out with the bathwater. Nothing suicidal, just self-neglecting. Recently, a lot of chiropractic work has brought up so much about myself, and my body, that I have long felt separated from. I am ready for it now.

I am here.

There's always a syren, singing me to shipwreck. And I will sing right along as I sail off in the other directions.