This post started as a challenge from my beautiful friend and peer, Shanon. I told her I was having writer's block trying to force myself to write something specific that I had in mind. She reminded me that I can just...write for myself. I can just stream of consciousness write, let it be easy and fun. And you know what? It was easy and fun. And this post is mostly for me feels and that naughty and decadent and maybe a little weird, but in a good way. LOL
I'm sitting in the dark, in my bed at the beautiful Hood River Hotel.
I'm in a "historic double" room. Picture of a cowboy riding a bucking horse in front of me. A giant picture. Another giant picture of a woman milking a cow being me, serving as the headboard for the two beds. Two dressers (because no closet). Sink in the actual room, like in a lot of historic hotels. It's a stunning room. The pictures online did not disappoint.
The room has the world's most uncomfortable chairs. I sat in one last night to record a video and I think I bruised my ass/upper thighs. It's a metal frame chair, and the seat curves upward weirdly at all the edges. Like a frisbee? Or a bottle cap? Why would you design a chair like that. The metal is a gold color, and is one of the few things in the room that's not black and white. Also not black and white: a Pendleton blanket on each bed in shades of red and mustard and green.
Why am I here?
Well, I decided that my business can afford to buy me a mini retreat once a month. Nothing big, no more than $200 total for the travel and two nights at a hotel or airbnb. And in that two nights, I decided that I could prioritize the important things my business needed from me, and do them, free of home distractions. This model has worked really well for me in the past. There's something about being by myself in a strange place that inspires me to turn inward and get into a space of creation.
But here's what's alive for me if I'm honest:
I don't want to work. I want to continue sitting in the dark. I want to eat Oreos and parmesan Goldfish crackers. I want to binge watch Insecure on HBO. I want to do so much nothing that I melt into being instead of doing.
This town actually has so much hold on my own heartbreak. I was here with HIM (maybe twice). We played. We hiked waterfalls, ate at lodges and breweries and in our hotel room. A different hotel. Near the water. We fucked, and he tied me up and put me in a collar and handcuffs. And he never took them off me. Actually, that disappointed me. He said, at one point in the early morning "you know you can take those off, silly", but until he broke the spell of me being in his control, I needed HIM to take them off. He danced for me. A dancer. We ate olives and warm, salty almonds. He carried me piggyback home one night.
Walking through the streets of Hood River, I snatched his lip balm out of his hands, and I think I threw it away?? I told him it was lip GLOSS, not lip BALM, because it was tinted pink. I told him it was not for guys. This hits me pretty hard when I think back on it, about how I couldn't stand for HIM to have pink-tinted lip gloss. I've grown as a human, along with the tide of my peers and my culture, in a way that looks at my gendered, judge-y, intolerant action with disgust and shame. It was a long time ago.
And being here still reminds me of him, of us. AND I'm deeply in love with my husband, Chris. And I'm so happy that he's who I ended up with. And I feel grounded in our love, and securely attached (actually, I think that being loved so well by Chris has healed my anxious attachment--but that's a post for another day maybe).
And there's shame in thinking about an ex. As if that impacts my ability to fully feel and be in my love for Chris. Treating myself with the grace and curiosity that I would a client: I know that both can exist at the same time. I can be committed and in love and IN my relationship, AND I can have a shiny scar of a past heartbreak living deep inside.
So here I am, sitting in the dark challenging myself to write for 10 minutes. Actually, as mentioned before, my friend Shanon is the one who challenged me to write for 10 minutes. I just got off a lovely call with her and shared my struggle to do anything but sit in the dark in this hotel room, daylight trying to peek its way through my closed curtains. We talked about how it's actually ok to be in the space of wanting to do but not doing. How it's actually my right to rest, and also my right to feel whatever sort of way I'm going to feel about my big plans for getting shit done...not actually happening. At least not now.
My curiosity settles on whether I'm honoring my inner feminine (yin) who desires rest, surrender, pleasure, holding. Or, if I am disowning or ignoring my inner masculine (yang) who is about action, forging forward, creating.
...and I feel content being in that space of curiosity at the moment. There's a smoothie place nearby that makes a mango, coconut and almond butter concoction that sounds divine. I've been writing for close to an hour. Taking breaks here and there. I even got dressed. I'm gonna go get that smoothie.
XOXO
Kyle
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