It took me awhile to put two and two together. Yesterday, I felt my emotions more deeply. It’s a flavor, or spice I speak of. A specific taste of my emotional well that emerges when other forces are at work. Perhaps, I thought, I was getting my period, but I felt neither rageful nor teary, so that wasn’t it. But I could feel my emotions, as though they were being stirred and touched by something other than my thoughts alone.
Last night, I spent with my sister. At her seed savers’ exchange program. A potluck. A jam session. An absolutely East Bay/Berkeley sort of scene. Seeds. Time to sow (in this area, at least). This morning we went to a 5Rhythms Sweat in San Rafael. 5Rhythms is a particular and specific type of dance experience that moves through a wave — a cycle — of flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness. And I love it. I love the dance, the music, the space, the people, the experience. I asked for release and cleansing in the dance. To be fresh and revitalized. Often, when I dance 5Rhythms, I get epiphanies about myself, cycles, time and how pieces in grand schemes work together. Today was no different.
After the Sweat, we stopped by a high school in the town where my sister lives. An Urban Tilth (?) group is working with a couple of high schools to plan significant gardens on school grounds with the students’ support (read: labor). In the rain. Outdoors among the dirt. We witnessed the cycle of a new season begin.
Then back to the apartment where I’m staying. Quiet. I felt quiet. Inward. Cherie, with whom I’m staying in SF, is out of town this weekend. I was by myself. In the quirkiness of Internet surfing, I found myself watching Thunderbirds clips on YouTube. Then SpeedRacer. And Marine Boy. THe Banana Split and Hong Kong Fuey. I time traveled. I felt nostalgic. I watched these bits of culture past. Bits and pieces from my childhood. I cooked a white meal: tilapia and cauliflower. Sometimes I eat white meals. Moon-colored. Eating. Slowly. Feeling inward. Internally inquisitive but not “productive” toward an evening of working. I wanted to escape into TV, but — as God designed me — I couldn’t figure out the remote, so I sat.
The Chinese New Year’s parade was this evening. I knew it. Oh, how I wanted to while away the evening in quiet. Then, I had to get my “get a grip” hat on and said to myself, “Just go.” So, I did. A decent half-hour walk and I was there. Watching the parade go by. And then it hit me, “Oh, it’s a New Year. I often feel quiet and reflective as one year closes and a new one begins.” OK, so it wasn’t a Western new year, but it’s a new year, nonetheless. Hmmm.
The floats came and went. Lots of glitter. Lots of pretty smiling Chinese gals in gowns on floats. Did I mention the glitter? Lots of glitter. And then a drum and bugle corps came by. Young kids. A Boy Scout troupe. They looked to range in age from 11-16. I don’t know what they played, but it lifted me up. Lifted my spirits. I followed them. When they stopped, I stopped. When they were on the move, I was on the move. Twenty years past in my life, I marched in parades. The Cherry Blossom Parade in D.C. The girls were in a fife and drum corps or a drill team unit. Me, that latter. The boys were in a drum and bugle corps, or a rollerblade team. And tonight, the music of this young troupe of Boy Scouts lifted me. Carried me. I felt time, cycles, the blessings of the new year, the letting go of the old. I felt time as it’s measured here in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. And I felt God’s time in measured in the deep and paced breath of expansion and contraction. Then it dawned on me that the Chinese New Year is a lunar calendar so tonight had to be a full moon … and why my emotional current had felt so deep.
As I walked and stopped along the parade route, in the sidelines, I felt grateful for my experiences and life. And for the upbeat and consistent sounds coming from the Troupe 212 drum and bugle corps.
1 Comment
March 6, 2010 at 4:27 pm
It all sounds wonderful, cheery, and a little sad all at the same time…I sometimes think I’m the only one who goes to those places internally.
We all like to think that it’s all gonna be excitement and “new” but sometimes, at the (right?) moment, we catch a scent, a scene, or a hint of a memory that takes us back to simpler, easier going times.
Nice post, Jessie.