Go Where You are Wanted

“I wish I could make everyone understand how important this statement is: go where you are wanted.”

– S. McNutt

Suddenly it is my final Friday in Australia and I have only blogged about my first three days here. Each time I have gone to a coffee shop (perhaps intentionally so) I have ended up in a conversation with a friend or a stranger, catching up on lost time. I find so much beauty in the way some things stay the same, anchoring in place the fact that I was here. I lived here, I loved here, I worked here.

This may be too much information, but it is important to note that this is the first time my period has snuck up on me completely unannounced. Not even irritability hit me this time. For those who know me, my time of the month is a time where I often caution others to stay VERY clear away from me. I often feel as though an evil demon has possessed me, and commandeered my body and brain, similar to ‘The Last of Us,’ me suddenly a zombie lashing out every which way around me.

I once heard that PMS is just a culmination of all of the irritation and anger that we stored through the previous two weeks of life, and the more that we keep in, the more vicious the storm rolls out. After two weeks spent completely immersed in good coffee, good friendship and gloriously warm days in the sunshine… I don’t think I had anything to repress! It makes me a bit sad for our culture in America, and the way I haven’t found a way to acclimate to it.

I’ve gone to enough therapy to be able to forgive myself for my shortcomings on the blog. I had every intention of creating a routine and discipline to my time here. I thought I would have downtime to catch up on all the work my life at home has been asking from me. I thought wrong. Yet, even though there is a mountain I have to attend to, it doesn’t feel as daunting. I know that I will do it. I know that things will be okay, and money will be tight, and money will come back again. I know that I can work hard and create more abundance and that I am supported as a business owner in my community.

What I truly needed, and may just not have known how deeply, was a moment to fully relax. To really truly tune out and to get back into my body. Business is crippling for the human spirit. Many creatives who enter into the daunting role of ‘boss’ are thrown into a ferocious sea of logistics that are not kind to a soul that needs space for their creativity. I have felt myself becoming jaded, warning people not to follow their dreams until they have solid business plans, and echoing some of the voices I fervently resisted in my youth about ‘the way the world works.’

I am happy to report that my fire has started to burn again. Not quite as loudly as naivety of my youth, but loudly enough to give me the strength to fight for a while longer. I know that I have a long life ahead of me, and I also know that I want to find a place to settle. The greatest strength comes from community and being witnessed in our authenticity and then having people who know how to love you. I think part of the reason I keep coming back to Australia is because I truly believe in the version of myself that my friends here reflect; adventurous, full of love, compassionate, talented, hard-working, creative…

I have spent a great deal of time contemplating what keeps people free. Is it the healthcare? The public education? The living wages? The warm sea? The yellow sand? All of it tied together? I think I come here for the wildness. The fact that there is still land that humans haven’t touched. Soil so poor for agriculture that cities don’t attempt to assert themselves there. I love the idea that the land is saying a silent ‘don’t touch me.’ I love that the people are listening *for now.*

I was my best self here. I spent late nights dancing into the morning, skinny dipping in the sea, throwing myself at love and art, and adoring the people around me. I think I come back here to find that person, and on this trip particularly I realize how much I still am her. What I need is the wild. The deep feminine sensuality that comes with letting myself rest. The world has become heart achingly beautiful, and things bring tears readily to my face for joy and pain and the delicate arc of being human.

I am pretty glad to be a human these days. Alright, I’m off for three more days in the sea!