life preserver

we deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism

I gave up on new year's resolutions decades ago, but I can tell you my hopes for 2023.

I hope to have more trust. 

I have only been slightly interested in leaving the house for years now. I need more motivation to move. Most of my daily exercise is running from my office to the coffee machine to push out and jack up on double espresso. I used to walk to work, hike with the dogs, or dance wildly at the studio in the dark, riding the magic carpet of life.

I belonged to a life that lost me. 

Since the pandemic began, I have started working from home. When the world shut down somehow, so did my body—dwelling in a deep inward yawn freeing myself from the years of agitated activity, the frenetic motion I used to mismanage emotion franticly. 

But last spring, I felt curious to be near water, which is strange for a prairie girl. I discovered a new sport, a team, and a place to move my body - on the canal in a slender tippy kayak. I ignored the program name, "canoe and kayak sprints," because I was making up it would be easier to stay committed if I believed it was a leisure cruise in a 16-foot racing kayak. 

With a stopwatch in hand, the coach would yell orders and have us doing drills, structure paddling, working on our speed and form. It seemed strange that all the other members were so serious, stretching and getting limber before launching. I was mad at first; training an untrained body to be strong and fast was a waste of time. It was weeks of heavy brows observing myself in this awkward, uncomfortable place. I cursed the Coach; how was he coaching through kindness, always delighted while running the course in his little motorboat? I cursed myself when I fell out. I swore loudly and tensely when the coach yelled over the sputtering engine to give helpful, constructive instructions. Pushing past my resistance, I pushed hard to gain skills I never had, adapting to be happily corrected on my form.

I gradually saw it was not expected to be immediately perfect. 

The team members loved watching me be a beginner at this sport; incredibly, it was about something more than making me their sport. I was shocked at the odd site; they cheered with their heart, not their agenda. Clapping and encouraging while racing, not correcting me to become a more promising version of myself. It wasn't dogma to change my mindset or judgement to transform. I was never expecting or declaring my efforts to become a more spiritual being.

I was new to accessing knowledge through my body.

Slowly, my brain accepted I belonged. All I had to do was show up, and the coach was pleased; the team gathered, and that was enough. I felt like an olympian in my sleek boat on the race course, not because I was fast or converted. Finally, for once, it was okay to fall out without falling in.

For so long, I fell in a quagmire of never-enoughness. I believed the capitalist, colonial lies of not belonging unless I contorted myself -upgrading, levelling up and mastering a marketing campaign always to be better than last year's version of me. 

Learning to kayak has been a fundamental shift in discovering leadership that can hold, support and find people willing to reciprocate responsibly.

I am not a problem to be solved; I am a living being to which I belong. 

I have found more trust. I chose myself a lot and realized what I wanted my life to look like: more extensive and expansive. 

Next week, I will start Ariel Silks at the circus school. And I am also trusting that you have plenty of other inspired learnings and inspirations from 2022 available to you. I promise to keep reporting back.

The only way I have found to be safe in a community as a Coach is by showing up in places where the dogma, ritual, spiritual transformation, clarity, connection and allowing for growth are only ever on your terms.

I like that. 

And for 2023, what about you?

hugs and drugs,

The bonus bits:

• Quagmire is one of my favourite words. I wish I could use it in every sentence.

• I am so impressed with the conversations that are showing up!! Brain-picking and hanging out with the community have been a great way to hear about what is happening with y'all. Still wanna? Book a chat. 

• Curious is also a favourite. Try it?

Quotes from the last five books I read:

1. "I'm trying every day to face myself. The results vary, but the attempts are consistent." Jennette McCurdy, I'm Glad My Mom Died

2. “...except for the stars and a toenail clipping of moon” Justin Torres, We the Animals

3. “We deserve to have our wrongdoing represented as much as our heroism, because when we refuse wrongdoing as a possibility for a group of people, we refuse their humanity.” Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

4. "My words belonged to me, they were the only thing I had that were mine, and I didn’t trust anyone enough to share them.” Jesse Thistle, From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way 

5. “Leis go brown, tectonic plates shift, deep currents move, islands vanish, rooms get forgotten.” Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking