We are gathered here, dearly beloved...

… to get through this thing called life.
                                     - Prince

Here we are on this last day of the year 2018. I've had good days and bad days and in between days, and that's the way life is made up, right? On the good days, we can be good to others, so others can see good. On the bad days, we can receive the good from others. On the days in the center of the spectrum, we have a choice, and I think this is where we find our power.

2018 was full of: growth, new friends, old friends, family, new dances and old dances, books read and books written (!!!), film and art and theatre, hundreds of miles walked and even a few at a snail's pace run, new discoveries, seams stitched, chaturangas and savasanas galore, three journals filled, cookies baked, pizzas and tacos and fries devoured, obsessions kindled (Twin Peaks and Haruki Murakami, I see you...), road trips, waterfalls, golden snowglobe fall days, new dinosaurs, unicorns, llamas, a cute sloth, one extremely anxious gray ball of fluff, one cute boy, one dear husband.

In 2019, I can only hope to continue to fully embrace my curiosity, peculiarities, kindness, drive, love, empathy, creativity, and let them take me where they will, all fostered by a sense of exploration with a studied reticence at the urge to treat me, myself, like a problem that needs to be solved. I want to be good to me in 2019. And eat more fish, because that's a great way to be good to myself.

Let's Get Weird. Or A Home For Peculiar Children.

This morning, a kid told me my child was, "annoying. All he ever talks about is dinosaurs and Star Wars." My heartrate soared behind the placid waters of my face.

He is mildly annoying sometimes, what with the perpetual talk of the raptor family and Storm Troopers, and theories about dinosaur extinction and mammals living in tandem with dinosaurs. He's an intense deep diver with a deep seeded desire to be a paleontologist. He even has his own fossil collection, largely found on his own. He's also a little peculiar, but that's fine by me, so long as he's cool with the Weird, too. I mean, this same kid who said this had literally just sat and pulled his red hoodie over his forehead, exclaiming to his deskmates that he was The Flash. All kids are all weird. If you're saying another kid is (insert negative descriptor) you're probably missing the fact that you're totally weird, too.

But back to my heart rate and the way it took off like Elon Musk funded its design. Being The Weird Kid - note the capitalization - was often more a cross to bear for me than a neatly wrapped gift for such a long time. Some days, The Strangeness still feels like a heavy mantle to shoulder.

I've come to think of it as something for which I can find gratitude, though. I can embrace the way my mind works these days, now that I have found my way through the labyrinth of adolescence and chased away the darkness that knocked chips in my shoulders. I'm probably not a normal, gold star sort of person, but I'm a good person, smart, ridiculously creative, intensely driven. I care for myself, for who I am, deeply, and regard others with that same respect. And the Weird? I hold it close, even at times when it makes me feel all alone in a crowded room, which still happens more often than I like to confess.

That embrace is softened by the way I feel when I'm alone now, the acceptance I've extended to who I am, who I was, who I will be, without the outside influence of judgement. I'm okay. I was okay. I will be okay. Frankly, I dig who I am. I feel like I have found a group of friends who get me and foster self-acceptance; that has been the most fortifying thing about developing adult friendships.

If there's any one single thing I hope to teach my child, sooner rather than later, it's that judgement passed upon you by others is not your problem at all; it's their burden to slough about this world. Be deep and complex, and know that sometimes intensity like we hold is intimidating and uncomfortable and scary to those around us, but that's okay, because sometimes bright things are uncomfortable to behold.

The Lately Later Thoughts

This one will ramble. As I do sometimes.

A couple of weeks ago, Paul and I went on one of our bookstore adventures. I adore bookstores, and have dreams of lying in piles of books all day long, luxuriating in the smell and picking each one up and devouring it in a single sitting. Weird books, classic books, nonfiction, journals, kids books, you name it. I - generally - don't discriminate. Words, pages, you had me at hello. Okay, enough with my literary wet dream. Back on track, Jessie, back on track. I purchased Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist Journal, apparently named after his book of the same strain.

It's full of fun exercises to get your scratching (to reference Twyla Tharp) maxed out, gather those ideas, and have a place for them. I already scratch for inspiration quite a bit, from books, film, daily life, dreams, but this flips the concept on its head and sends you to weird places for ideas, and I LOVE IT. My favorite exercise so far has been charting out a creative family tree. 

For this particular exercise, I chose Gabriel Garcia-Marquez and Kurt Vonnegut as my points of inspiration, but I could easily have chosen writers like Naomi Alderman, who I know is inspired by the great Margaret Atwood, or Phillip Pullman. Anyone, really. It's a fun workout to see that the same people who inspired these great writers are also sources of inspiration for me. Garcia-Marquez was deeply influenced by his grandparents' own stories, as well as Dickens, Dostoyevsky, and Kafka. In the upper branches, you can also find Hemingway, Thomas Paine, Poe, and Nietezch. I'm in good company whenever I sit down to write. It's comforting to realize this, and reminds me of one of my favorite affirmations for writers:

When the writer within me meets with the reader within me, great things happen.

I know this to be true, and I like to wrap myself in this truth like a cozy blanket. Good things will happen if I just continue on.

I felt lousy and tired all week last week. Following the aforementioned glutening the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I've felt drained and achy, consumed by the gluten flu lite, and functional but barely. The nugget had a lock-in at school on Friday, and I told Paul we should relax and start on the last two seasons of Twin Peaks. 

Speaking of creators who inspire me, David Lynch is a brilliant artist. He stretches his media to the limit to convey sprawling ideas that are challenging, uncomfortable, delicious. I hope someday I can create something so... complex.

The marathon stretched through the weekend. We finally finished last night, and I'm still in awe. But something happened while I was watching that was unrelated to the story. Candy, a pretty, slim girl walked on screen, and I found myself in my normal thought pattern. My brain begins whirling it on a secret command prompt, arrows in front and a go, a virus planted there along the way as I've walked through this world.

"I wish I knew what it was like to have legs like that."

For the first time ever, though, I peeled back the curtains of body dysmorphia, curious to see the hidden mechanism. I asked myself, why? What spurs this process? I dove in, brave, wind blowing in my hair as I jumped from the precipice. And on the way down, I saw that I don't necessarily want a different body, but rather to not have to think about my body. To not feel the constant urge to sidle in front of the mirror to see that my thighs don't look too big in an outfit. To not feel out of place because of my appearance. To feel at home, and to devote the energy I waste wishing for something other than what I have to more worthy pursuits. 

But I can do that anyway, be at home, here and now. I don't have to waste my precious time and energy hiding.

I am not required to continue complicity in a culture that robs women of so much time and energy, a culture that would attempt to mold us to its own selfish desires than to mold to each woman. I can't say I will never look at my body in the mirror and lament a perceived extra five pounds again, or legs that if they were a mere two inches longer would be a work of perfection, or a waist that will just never be that narrow by proportional ratio to my hips and bust. Or wrinkles that grow with love and laughter and deep thoughts that stitch together my brow. But maybe, just maybe, a modicum more of my time and space can be devoted to the things that are more intrinsically important.

Look, I don't blame the normal sources. I don't blame fashion magazines, Barbie, the golden ratio. I blame a patriarchal system that subjects women to inestimable standards that only a tiny portion of us can reach. We are all someplace on a sliding scale, but the scale is a liar and a cheat, and it will take your life if you let it. Don't let it.