Episode 16: Songs To Fall In Love To?

ARCHERY! HOT BOXING CARS WITH BLUNTS IN ATLANTA! I’m not scary your scary… COMPLETELY CAR CRASH TOTALING MY LIFE. All aboard!! 7 suitcases of Olivia’s baggage and one adorable dog please…

ALTERNATE TITLE: OHHH THE HUMANITY!!!

EXCERPT 1:

So maybe I am (a little) scary… I mean I like to think I’m not the kind of woman you just have a one night stand with. I mean, I have a lot of very valuable talents. I’m a pretty darn good cook. Better than most restaurants you could go to. And I love to sing, and I’m a pretty good mixed discipline dancer. And I used to be wayyyyy more fun - back in my whisky and bacon days - but I still have a little bit of a wild side (it just doesn’t involve hotboxing cars with blunts in Atlanta, or staying in bed all day making love and drinking whisky and smoking cigarettes, or dancing on top of bars, I mean let’s not rule that last one out, just saying). And I can patch all your clothing with beautiful handmade patches, and I can fold laundry like a ninja. And I can knit you a sweater, and ride horses with you into the sunset, and shoot arrows, and spin on an aerial hoop, and fly you above my head in an acro yoga pose. Yes, I can fly a 200 pound man in the air above me. I did it just last week. And I can maybe, only rarely, beat you at a game of chess. And I can endlessly quote Camus, and E.E. Cummings, and Rumi to you. And I can put together a great playlist, and I’m a pretty good gift giver. And I can build things. And I can design a space like nobody’s business. And I can help you reset your dysregulated nervous system, and I can reiki your pain away, and I can sing you to sleep. And I can make the best cup of coffee you may have ever had (I spent many many years of my life as a barista). And I can produce a theatre production. And I can find the most rare and valuable things at thrift stores. And I can train a dog well. And I can start a fire in the middle of the woods with nothing but a bow drill, and I can find plantain to put on your scrapes and bruises. And I can teach you how to use herbs to heal your body. And I can help you with all of your computer and technical problems, and I can design you a logo, and brand your business. And make a beautiful batch of candles, do a rocking strip tease, give a great massage, and adorn you with beautiful oils and write you poetry that doesn’t completely suck. And paint a gorgeous portrait of you, and throw fire and glaze all of the poetry in your kitchen. And teach you Tibetan Tantra. Not to mention I make a mean cheese board. And, all in a days work. 

And well, there are more things than I couldn’t even think of here. Because I have lived the heck out of every moment of my life, even the sucky ones. And come out standing.  And I am constantly learning, about myself, skills, the world. I am listening. I am paying attention. And I am here for it all. The good and the bad. And I guess if I met me, I would probably be a little scared and confused too. So many things in one woman. But like I told my father, who was asking me something the other night. “We get to be alll of the things. Or none of them. Depending on exactly what we want. And that is liberation. That is existing outside of the gender binary, the patriarchal society, the system. If we learn to embody ALLLL that we are, to foster the furthest deepest parts of ourselves that we have been told aren’t for us. We become everything, and nothing all at once.” Because embodiment is a state of being. And in being, there is nothing but being. But in being, we also become everything that we are, and more than we could have imagined was possible. We are the multitudes, that exist. We are connected to everything. 

EXCERPT 2:

Now, by no means to do think that any of my magical and not so magical skills make me any more enlightened than the next person. OHHHH NO, I am just as human as the next person… sitting in my car crying and eating Mexican wedding cookies. And I have had my fair share of COMPLETELY CAR CHRASH TOTALING MY LIFE. But, I’ve learned a lot, and that I can say for sure. And I am a wealth of random information most of which is fairly useless unless we were in some sort of apocalypse scenario, or you need a good tailor designer artist or HeartMath® Coach or Reiki Practitioner. And boy do I come with a whole airport terminal full of baggage. I’m sure only some of which I am actively aware of. But I’m a firm believer in communication. If all of my failings have taught me anything, it’s that knowing where I stand and being able to articulate that calmly and with presence, are super powers.  And that airport terminal can be tagged and arranged in a way that makes it a little more easy to navigate. That being said. Let’s talk about one of my major short comings. So maybe you caught this, but I’ve been in therapy since I was like 14. That’s no joke people. Same therapist for the last 12 years. And I didn’t end up there, like, “by accident.” No. I was bruised and bullied and beaten into therapy. And I’ve spent a lot of time working on my self-worth. But I can tell you, that it’s a tricky game. And when I got there… I definitely thought I was the worst human to have ever existed. And sometimes it rears it’s ugly head - and I question myself, a lot. And I have to say, that one thing I didn’t realize was that I was bring that along into this “lover-ship”… All aboard, 7 suitcases of Olivia’s baggage and one adorable dog please. So when someone isn’t communicating well with me in a romantic setting my brain automatically snaps to, “well they just aren’t that into you.” It’s ok. You aren’t for everyone (that’s the healthy part). Maybe the sex isn’t as good as you think it is. Maybe you are just too much. Maybe that one thing you did that one time was a little to weird. Maybe they just aren’t attracted to you. And really I never stop to think that maybe it’s not me it’s actually THEM. That maybe they aren’t in the right place and it has nothing to do with how bangin’ my body is, or how sharp I am, or how kind I am, or how whatever, insert random phrase there. And that makes me just want to RUN AWAY!!! Be the first one to say, “hey, I’ll give you this opening to say you aren’t interested and I’ll walk away,” or I’ll go running off into the night to become another lovers set of baggage. Because people, we all have it. No one lives this life and gets out unscathed. I mean I hope not, they wouldn’t have learned any lessons, or loved, or fallen, or been broken by the beauty and incredible complexity of all this loving. So I have a hard time believing that they actually want me. That they crave me. That they don’t know what to do about it. I have to be told. And then sometimes even then, I don’t believe them. I know! I’m the worst!!!! All aboard. But the thing is. That no matter how much we work on ourselves, no matter how much self compassion we have, we are still going to trip and fall flat on the deck, every once in a while. I think from now on, we should start dating by asking people how aware they are of their personal struggles, if they are actively doing racial and social justice work, what their birth chart is, what god means to them, how closely do they understand their emotions, how well do they know their triggers? How much compassion can they hold for themselves? Because these things, will really tell you if you are compatible with a person. Because at the end of the day. We all have a lot of stuff we are dealing and healing with. Life can be brutal. How dirty are you willing to get with your demons? That’s really what I want to know. Can you stare them in the eyes, wrap your golden tongue around them and whisper them into submission? Or do they run your world?