Gagged. Castigated. Threatened. Maligned. That’s how the prey-side of me has been feeling and I’ve had quite enough of it. I’m breathing in this pain and breathing out some acceptance. Or, trying to. So please consider this installment as a release of sorts. A shedding and a heave. Kind of like that one day at a horse barn in Away1 when no one was watching, a flea-bitten grey2 nag with resolve, shook off his bridle, spit out the torturous bit onto the stable floor and proceeded to stomp it into a mangle once and for all.
Since then, that old horse is breathing deeper and quieter, living on a verdant pasture, healing from a gouged + scarred tongue and a brand done badly. (My g-d what some people do to noble beasts, sentient beings, and to each other.)
Meanwhile, from out of an attic linen closet…
The hair shirts embroidered with admonitions and broken ax handles have all been thrown into the bonfire. Piece by piece, riffraff is headed to the thrift where it’ll serve other lifetimes. Maybe, hopefully, even purposeful ones. Because everything has a purpose.
If I haven’t frightened you yet and you still want to find me for a cup of coffee and a piece of sweet - first knock three times and then go away. Come back another day wearing muck boots, bring some wildflowers dusty with pollen in a vase of your choosing and leave the bouquet on the porch along with snacks for the dogs. They like chicken hearts.
My castle walls are not too high nor the streams that deafening. While the gardens are unruly with cattails, calendula, mint and stinging nettles, you shouldn’t get lost in the mist but you will have to find your own way. If you appear again then I might let you in.
Please be aware that my fencing is squarely secure. If you don’t see it, it’s best to ask first, get a proper invite before knocking on my door. Maybe then we can skip the aforementioned multi-day formalities. Because complex trauma is an insistent goat. At a minimum, this goat and her herd requires strong boundaries, as well as mountain air, fresh running water, ample fields to forage and mossy rock walls to hide behind, dance, sing and play upon.
You understand, don’t you? That an animal like this is chaos theory embodied? Like fire without ground? If left uninterrupted, these guardians are capable of invoking delusion and numbness. They can wreak ridiculousness, enchant nightmares and display patterns of beauty + delight as much as the opposites - rigidity + misery. All at the drop of a spoon - they can and will re-write the story, your story, and make you believe it - even under the brightest of full moon nights or by the sublimest of sunrises. I am indeed curious to be this sort of goatherd while devoted to learning their trickster ways so I don’t get kicked in the head that hard again.
So here I am, beginning once more. I’m a three-cord thread, uniquely only ever me. Somedays this writing thing is like navigating the eye of a needle as my eyes grow ever dim. Still now, more than ever, it’s time to bash on. As uncomfortable and difficult as it can be, there’s no other choice than finding my own way of being in the world. My voice. And what a relief this is. An unabashed relief. Unabashedly me.
Let’s make a pinky promise to one another dear reader, shall we? Enough already with the self-betrayals, I swear as much to myself as to you, with the goats as our witness: Find your own path. The cliffs, dark forests, crevasses, pavements, boulders, tree roots, and the black + white desert sands and seas of fading photographs - all of it is yours. There’s no time to waste. Your journey belongs to you and you alone, first and foremost. It’s not mine nor is mine yours. Yours is yours. So get out your compass, your sextant, your tent and your boat, board and bike and find your way. Find your voice. Walk your walk. Does some shitty monochromatic tonal gray-brown taupe withering-away-alone existence look good on any of us? I think not. Hold your space in radiance. These days I’m wearing red shoes for the angels and Blaze Orange for the predators. Safety first, I always say. Don’t shoot me.
And in return for you being here, Dear Staunch, here’s an offering: When you find yourself in a vortex of intolerable stuckness that is, in part, commonplace of the human condition called suffering - which often includes the second (third-fourth-and-counting) guessing of your own self-worth while indulging in behaviors that make you feel worse rather than better - trust that you have everything you need to figure this life out. You are good enough. The earth needs you. And if/when you don’t believe in yourself: Ask. For. Help.3 4No shame, no judgment. You do not have to give your power away to anyone.
You know you’re part of a lineage, familial and beyond, right? Try talking to your elders, your ancestors. The ones who know your bones and love you kindly despite it all. They’re around and have the benefit of hindsight and perspective, heavenly or otherwise. Make their favorite sandwich, pull up a chair and have some conversations about what the hell went so sideways. Or, didn’t.
We all got born with something, into something. Deal. Or, not. It’s your call. Disappointment awaits either way.
Here’s another thing you could try….believing in your own absolute uniqueness in the cosmos. There will never be, nor has there ever been a You like You, since eternity. You are timeless. Here’s some How to prove this to yourself should you want to lift your neck up towards the stars, you stubborn old goat…
Get the exact time and date of where and when you were born. Birth certificates, if you have one, usually provide this information. Girded with these three facts - time, date, location - all of equal import, you can then make a map of the planets that represents the precise cosmic moment of your precious birth. Your natal chart is the singularly unique moment in the universe when your one and only birth occurred. This is nothing but awe. Let it sink in. Roll that around your tongue like a sweet-sour-spicy-salty piece of tamarind candy. Taste it, swallow it. Have another bite. Accept wonder, wonder, wonder.
Then what you do next with that information, that’s your business.
Alice baking all the time…
I’m way more intentional about the kinds of flour I’m eating since my gut broke two years ago and I had emergency abdominal surgery and a colostomy to heal my tubes. Stone-ground, whole grains, preferably regionally grown are my priorities. The processing matters in order to get the max nutrition, taste, fiber, digestibility and nuance.
Since Husband is gluten-free, I had been double-baking for us - wholegrain stone-ground wheat/rye bakes for me, and for him - GF stuff. Until now. This summer I’ve become a steadfast student of the James Beard Award winning cookbook author Sarah Owens’ online baking class that’s all about fermented wheat-free whole grains preferably using stone-ground flours. It’s a culinary dive into the likes of teff, buckwheat, millets, corns, quinoas and oats, and spices, seeds, nuts and fruits - to make the most delicious fermented breads, pie crusts, crisps, muffins, and pancakes sweet and savory. These bakes are built with brown rice and teff flour starters that make everything more digestible and just better. Sarah has a Patreon where she shares her recipes both wheat and wheat-free and all sorts of upcoming IRL workshops in addition to the best instruction and communities Zoom has to offer. Her IG is here. I can’t recommend Sarah’s gatherings enough.
One last note before heading outside, I’m going back to my birth name, Alice. So if you could call me Alice from now on that’d be lovely.
Thanks and have a peaceful day. I’m so glad we’re here together.
xoxo alice
Away is any place that’s not here.
“Flea-bitten Grey is a horse’s coat that has white hairs with pigmented freckles that are dark brown to a light reddish brown depending on the horse’s base coat color…These horses become flea-bitten grey over time and are not born with this coat pattern.”
“If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.” NYTimes.com Landmark Study Shows Higher Suicide Risk for Transgender People 6/27/23