Being is Believing

For years I focused on my weight, wanting to get it down. I exercised. I got frustrated. It just slowly climbed. Emotional stress was bagged and wrapped tightly, always carried. Worries were with me more than my shadow was.
I worried. About money. About my appearance. About work. About making the moments happen. I was driven, but spinning my wheels in tight circles.
When I stopped focusing on these issues and just lived, got up in the morning and focused on tomorrow things started to change.
My voracious appetite dwindled. I began to shrink. My headaches decreased in number. Unhealthy relationships brought back stress, as I sought to offer my partners everything to be the perfect partner. Instead, I faced criticism. Stark. Private. Personal.
I smiled at the world and had to grow or break. The more stress I faced, the more my habits changed. With someone else sniping me, I couldn't afford to do the same. I grew. Stronger, harder, thinner, and brighter.
I quit worrying. Why not look for the bright moments, why not just flow with what life has to offer- good and bad?
Why focus on what other people think, especially the ones with constant complaints spewing out? Why not, upon running into them, offer them positive as other beautiful people had done for me in the past? Why not look where I'm going, look for solutions instead of blame?
I'm at a point of freedom. I need this time for me to solidly be me, to reach a point where I stay true to me, even in the face of love. You can't really love if you give yourself away so much, to be what someone else desires. You become less rather than more, anxiety creeps back in along with insecurities. Their moods and whims try to shape you and unhappiness is not a companion worth having.
Faced with spinning, frustrated and mired down you can keep digging in or you can let go, reach out and find the tools and support- material, emotional, psychological- to take that proverbial baggage and discard it. You can become the person you want you to be. You can care or not. You can dance. You can explore yourself and the many paths ahead of you.
They say, when one door closes, a window opens. I've found that the walls, well, they aren't real. Walk through them. Close your eyes, believe in you, and see what happens when you do.
I stand on stages entertaining a variety of crowds with different shows. I tell stories in the lanes. I connect with fascinating people. Earlier this year, I faced a crowd of over a hundred and forty people day after day; there was a rush as I turned on the microphone and the words carried us all to other places, away from the Texas heat.
I believed I could. They believed. I did.
You are free to believe in what you choose, but choose wisely. Believing you have limitations is a brick wall that you make in your own path. The only person it stops is you, and the worst part, is that wall is not real.
See you on the other side.

Being Human Means Choices

This weekend is an exciting start of a wonderful festival I've been looking forward to entertaining at.

Sitting in a room full of monitors holding my significant other's hand, everything I'm hearing is "you can't go now." Reason says you have to, work adds money we need to our coffers. We support each other. The heart says hell no. Instead of letting either decide, while these angels and devils argued I asked my boss for advice and let her in on what's going on. Choices. Stay, go or attempt the herculean task of trying to commute 900 miles for the first few weeks of a show.

Fear paced the floor with me and a thousand negative what ifs. It didn't take long for her to respond. Her response brought tears to my eyes and relief to my heart. Stay. Take care of your significant other, come when everything is resolved. I can't put my words together well enough to say how grateful I am.
So many friends, so much love. I'm looking forward to the day this health situation is resolved, I'm looking forward to getting out my paints, putting on my hat and sharing out the profound love in my heart, paying it forward in magic moments at Bristol.

I read a post on Facebook that asked "Would you give up a thousand dollars to stay with someone you love if they developed a serious health concern?"

Honestly. I would give up more than that. Society pushes and pressures, insinuating that everything falls apart without money. Allegedly primitive cultures do not allow money to be the determining factor in support or life choices, so why should we? I can't put a dollar value on being able to feel the warm, live flesh of my significant other or to hear his voice calm and happy. I refuse to. I will do whatever jobs I need to to get by, whether it's gardening, cleaning, cooking, counseling, tutoring, or entertaining. For the next couple of weeks I'm focusing on my partner's health. Then I'm looking forward to entertaining and sharing the magic and love that surround me from friends across the country.

If you aren't happy, look at the choices you make. Is the duty or social pressure to have money or possessions driving you away from your happiness? Are you struggling to get money for happiness? Did you notice yet, money doesn't lead to happiness- it leads to more stress, conflict, and more wants- it is the most harmful drug ever invented that you don't snort, inject, inhale or swallow. Just the sight of it has led people to fight and kill. We give it more power than any God- every church bows to it, using it for influence and thriving on it.

Perhaps the primitives aren't so primitive?

It's all in how we rationalize it. It's all in our choices and our priorities. Listen to your heart more and your wallet less. Take time today to just appreciate life, friends, flowers, music, stories, art and the sunset. When was the last time you gazed at the stars?

Memory Lane: Patrons now?!

Here we are in Apache Junction. We are right next to a Renaissance Festival that we've both worked at for years as entertainers. This year life has nudged us gently but firmly toward greener pastures and away from a festival I've considered home for nine years.

It feels alien to carry a ticket. To walk in a gate you've rarely seen the front of, to watch friends deal with crowds that you are now a part of it was surreal. What name to introduce friends as? Character or real? How to compliment dear friends without costing them tips or sales?

It doesn't matter that we aren't there, other faces and performances are rippling the waters we once sailed. It won't be long before faded paint on a few benches is all that recalls the untold hours and love shared.

I prefer to thing instead of being a pair of beautiful rocks plummeting to the bottom of a fetid pool that we are comets. We aren't falling- we are flying and as we do we pass slowly through the orbits of the lives of friends giving them wishes, love and cartoon color memories of priceless audacity which we seem compelled to live out. Even those who dislike us, find reasons to tell stories about us. We inspire, we believe, we try even knowing that risk can lead to failure and we don't work with safety nets.

I watched Geoff Marsh, it's been a few years since I got to see his show- he's been working hard and he really is and ace on stage.

I watched my friends Shannon and Dana do comedy as Hey Nunnie Nunnie laughing at their vibrant personalities.

Nostalgia hit watching Don Juan and Miguel do their Weird Show, hearing Doug play music on a balloon always makes me think of autumn in North Carolina.

The antics of the Wyld Men and Senior Jimi kept a smile firmly planted on my face.

The hugs, the hugs, the hugs were the best though. Seeing the friends I call family and having them recognize me despite my cowgirl look was the best. The slow hug from my rock n roll Friar Larry will keep me smiling for days. If I started listing all the beautiful hearts I got to hug today I could still be listing names tomorrow. Instead, we're going back again to watch more friends and to appreciate another round of hugs!

In the renaissance world, a lot of the folks working may be living life without a net. They wouldn't trade their freedom, their laughter, or the tent they live in for four walls and electric- well, okay, maybe for a few months!

Not everyone working faire lives in a tent, many commute, have RVs or trailers. Some have quonsat huts, tipis, or yurts with impressive set-up that can even include wood stoves inside them.

A lot of rennies work multiple festivals, saving money as they can, they live as they choose- many making goods during the week that are sold or weekends. I've made jewelry, painted signs, painted wooden swords and wooden shields and made garlands as week work at different festivals. This beyond being painted on the weekends while telling stories to patrons of all ages for nine years!

I've definitely picked up a wide range in skills, from throwing hatchets to selling wax hands. I figure that makes the tail of my metaphorical comet flame all different colors.

Are you a comet? I'm not a shooting star, an ephemeral whisper that ends almost before it is recognized as being. I'm a comet, centuries past I would have changed the perception of those who saw me in the sky. Maybe I am doing my best to try for that now.

I think we all have the capacity to live brightly. Within us we are incandescent, we have intensity that we can choose to freely express. We can choose to connect. We can choose to be the wonder, the miracle that each of us needs to thrive. We have to be brave enough to fly.