Bury me in sequins

It took awhile for these words to come together. I started writing the story of Maureen nearly a year ago. I purchased this shirt on a whim. I had no idea it would be kicking off 12 months of my life where I would be destroying all the subconscious mental and emotional things that were not working for me. A year ago, I would not have thought there was much to work through. Therein lies the beauty of discovery and experimentation. 

I look back on myself a year ago and think of how sweet and naive I was on this day. The day that I met who I call Maureen, an alter-ego in an article of clothing. What a twisted, glorious ride it has been. Every superhero has an origin story, this is hers.

365 days ago

On Saturday, Sept. 8, I arrived in Portland for a weekend with Jenn. We went to breakfast at Beeswing, then thrift shopping at Artifact on Division. 

I’ve written about my dear friend, Jenn, before. For two gals who have spent most of their relationship living thousands of miles apart, we have had numerous memorable adventures together.

There is an indescribable magic in being with this woman. We’ve gone from the East Coast to the West Coast and at this time last year, she had been joking about that meme that says, “We’ve been friends so long, I am not sure who the bad influence is.” That’s us now.

Inside Artifact, the first item that I put my hand on was a vintage top made completely of large black sequins and delicate beadwork. I grabbed it off the rack and just to be funny, I held it up and asked Jenn, “Should I get this?”

“Yes!” she said.

“Ok, but where would I wear it?”

“You can wear it out tonight,” Jenn said.

And she was just so confident about her statement that I decided to try it on. Thinking it would not fit at all.

I went to the dressing room and of course it fit perfectly. As if Oleg Cassini had stitched it for me himself. I was still not convinced that I should buy this $24 sequined top. So I did what I always do when I am undecided about a clothing item: I walk around the store with it to get acquainted and try to imagine my life if I purchase it. Maybe it’s not that serious but I try not to purchase things I’m not going to wear and I had brought a very tiny suitcase to Portland.

In the dressing room at Artifact the day we met.

As I perused the store, I found a couple other items and tried them on and the top again. I took a few dressing room selfies, sent one to my friends in San Diego and asked them if I should buy the top. This is how purchase decisions are made in modern times. 

A few affirmative text messages later, I strolled up to the register at the front of the store to purchase the shirt. 

“Oh, this is interesting. Where are you going to wear this?” the cashier asked me.

Even in PORTLAND — where the motto is “Keep Portland Weird” — the cashier was questioning my wardrobe choice. I didn’t think someone in Portland would think anything of this.

Feigning confidence I replied, “Anywhere! Everywhere! Like Dolly Parton, I am going to be working it 9 to 5.” (Truer words were never spoken, because I wear this top as often as possible.)

Jenn and I left the store and as we walked down Division, I was convinced I had just wasted $24 of my hard-earned dollars on this item.

That night we had plans to go out with our friend Sarah to take in all that the Portland nightlife had to offer us.

Our evening started around 7 p.m. with dinner at Jenn’s house. I was sitting at the kitchen table decked out in my sequins and regaling my married counterparts with my recent ill-fated dating experiences. 

“Let’s see what kind of men I can fetch in this shirt,” I said, feeling rather plucky.

Then in one of my favorite moments of this evening, Sarah asked, “What time will we get back? Like do you think we will be home before 2 a.m.?” 

Jenn and I exchanged a glance that said, “No way will we be home before 2 a.m.” I don’t remember exactly what we responded, but it amounted to a bunch of vague mumbling that Sarah generously accepted.

We set out in an Uber and I made stupid jokes from the backseat for 20 minutes as I often do. The three of us decided that the woman who had owned the sequined shirt before me was a bawdy dame named Maureen who had retired to Miami. She took no prisoners and had no qualms at the end of her life. Maureen had done it right and left it all on the cutting room floor. That woman left a legacy that I was now wearing.

Our first stop on this tour was a wine bar where we did have a great bottle of wine, but it was so subdued, I thought it must be too early for the denizens of Portland to be out. I was dressed to meet people and so I cast my vote to move along. 

We did, and we went to Revolution Hall. Very cute, very trendy and yet again… subdued. Which is my polite way of saying that there were like five people in flannel shirts there and the bartender who I do not recall as being overly chatty. Or chatty at all.

We decided to mosey along again. This time to Roadside Attraction. The eclectic portal to another dimension that is disguised as a Florida yard sale inside a Chinese restaurant on a pirate ship.

Remember, I was dressed to fetch men, and here we were at yet another establishment with nary a person in sight. I set about entertaining myself with Jenn by queuing up several Johnny Cash songs on the jukebox.

However, the jukebox was free and some jackass had clogged it with about a million Black Sabbath songs. Don’t get me wrong, Ozzy Osbourne has a time and a place, but to me the time was not 12 a.m. on Saturday night while I was wearing sequins. It just wasn’t.

I was annoyed by the lack of tomfoolery I was looking for and was about to convince everyone to give up. In fact, I have a text message that I sent to Jenn around this time that says, “Let’s get out of here.” I don’t know where I sent it to her from, maybe the bathroom? But just as I had sat myself back down at the bar cursing this city devoid of men to fetch, “Folsom Prison Blues” finally came over the speakers.

I turned to Jenn with glee and decided we could at least stay a little longer. The next moment, I saw someone leaning over the jukebox and either Maureen or I yelled, “Don’t touch the jukebox!” Super classy.

The man looking at the jukebox claimed he merely wanted to look at the CD that was playing because he had never heard the Johnny Cash version of the song before. I was disgusted by this. But in this alternate universe in the middle of Portland, I befriended this person and convinced him to hop on our proverbial Midnight Express as we took off for not one, but two more bars. None of which had people in them. 

In a way, I did temporarily fetch a man with those sequins, kind of like a fishing lure. And after laughing and rollicking our way around the city, we finally landed back at Jenn’s house around 3:30 a.m. (Sorry, Sarah.) Concluding the first of many chapters with Maureen.

If you’re a keen observer, you will know that I wore this sequined shirt when I did the Moth this summer!

Holly's back

If you read my previous post about signs, you know that I had been experiencing a crisis of faith. No big deal, it has to happen once in every epic journey. Ask Lucy in the Chronicles of Narnia or Santiago the shepherd boy in The Alchemist. Both characters experienced moments when they asked themselves, “Why the bloody hell am I following these signs only to get my ass handed to me repeatedly?” Clearly, I am paraphrasing, because Lucy is too sweet to use curse words – I am not.

I suppose that is why it is called an epic journey and not a short jaunt around the block. An epic journey requires setbacks, reroutes, periods of darkness and being dutiful little students of life and jumping off unknown cliffs. It’s just part of the game. It requires getting metaphorically smacked around to build strength and character. Who wants to be a boring character in their own story? That won’t be interesting to talk about around the campfire.

We all know the phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” right? I believe it to be true in many ways, but I also think I needed my friends and family to remind me of who I am this year. I have always been the one pointing out signs and rallying the troops to continue to believe that this is all going to work out, but darkness overtook me this year.

I am going to try to walk myself and you, my dear readers (hi, Mom), through this. Hopefully it makes sense in the end.

Last December, I was on a flight from Daytona Beach to San Diego. On that flight I made fast friends with the man sitting next to me in the middle seat. (I think I hold the land speed record for making friends on flights.)

His name is Chris and the two of us got into a conversation about faith and believing in God and the bigger picture. Chris and I were carrying on and on for probably the better part of an hour when the man sitting at the window took off his sunglasses and looked at us and said something to the effect of, “Man, I have been listening to you two and I am really inspired. I wish I had as much faith as the two of you.” It was a beautiful moment. That was me at my best, wrapping people up in the love I have for this world.

In January, I started a personal development seminar aimed at discovering what was subconsciously keeping me from having a successful relationship. That was like the start of both an archaeological dig and the demolition of an ancient fortress. I was utterly clueless about the Pandora’s Box I was opening. Upon completion of that seminar, I signed up for another one. Maybe out of gut instinct that I knew I had not uncovered everything in the first one.

At this point, I had torn down enough of my subconscious structures and detonated enough bombs around my proverbial fortress that I felt completely exposed.

Quick side note: I learned how to demo things from my dad who once tore the front porch off the house by attaching one end of a chain to the porch and the other end to his pickup and then driving off. Separately, he used a chainsaw to cut a hole for a picture window in our house. That’s demo, my friends.

So, this month, I was surveying the rubble of my long-held beliefs and thought patterns. Granted, they weren’t the good or effective thought patterns, but they had kept me really safe for 34 years. Basically, they were comforting. And suddenly, I felt like I was standing naked in a snowdrift.

Then somehow, amid this demolition and ultimate exposure, I got all twisted up. I didn’t quite know what to make of everything. Had I wasted all these years chasing pipe dreams? If all those belief systems had been holding me back, am I really this faithful believer in the Universe? I got scrambled up real bad. It took me down, I was a far cry from that woman on the airplane inspiring strangers to believe.

Most of this year, I was in a place where I was functioning but I had lost sight of what for. I made many tearful phone calls to my mom. I relied heavily on my friends who believe and I made list after list of the things that I am grateful for. I was fighting like hell to pull myself up by my bootstraps.

Luckily, every time I reached out, there was a hand to hold. No one let me fall through the cracks. There was tough love, there was nurturing love, and there was the love that reminded me in no uncertain terms that I was stronger than the illusions that were playing with my head.

These eight months of 2019 were me dealing with my darkness. Finally, I found my way out thanks to the biggest and best cheering section in Heaven and on Earth.

The thing that grabbed me by the hand and yanked me right out of the last bit of this battle was going to see the Avett Brothers concert in San Diego. There is nothing like the healing power of live music but especially when it’s the Avett Brothers. I have been following them since I saw them in 2006 at the Social in Orlando with Nina when we paid the tidy sum of $7 to have them change our lives.

I went by myself to see them last week and danced and sang my heart out. Every lyric reminded me that I have come a long, long way and that I am not alone in the way I have felt battling the darkness. By the end of the show, I had made pals with a woman who said to me, “I don’t know who you are but you’re awesome.”

Safe to say, the true Holly is back.

Signs?

I’m in a period of disillusionment about the Universe. I have always been a big believer in signs and that the Universe has been sending me signs to guide me along my path.

Some examples: My cat caught my eye in the shelter because her name is Buttercup. That’s my favorite wildflower. I was born Dec. 7, so 7s indicate to me things are flowing in the right direction. When my favorite obscure songs come on wherever I am, it stops me in my tracks. I have been stringing things like this together like clues and points on a map guiding me to some unknown destination.

I compulsively followed these signs and I’m rather certain everyone has thought that I am crazy. And I liked it that way. This communication between me and the unknown made sense to me.  I collected all the signs and synchronicities like little jewels made just for me and precious only to me.

Movies like “Fools Rush In” and “Serendipity” were rare parts of mainstream entertainment that spoke of following the signs from the Universe. In both films, the female lead characters come to a point where they say they don’t believe in signs or fate or destiny anymore. That’s where I am today.

I’m at the point of my own rom-com where I don’t know what to believe right now. I am stamping “Return to Sender” and “Address Unknown” on all the signs from the Universe. Like, “Thanks, that’s cute of you. I remember when I whimsically thought that meant something.”

I remember following my heart all over this country and all over this world. Leaning in to the learning and the experimentation. Willing to come up with dead ends some days and beautiful fistfuls of treasures on others. For most of this year, I was completely convinced I had stumbled into a major part of my plotline.

Two years ago, I went into a metaphysical shop in Huntington Beach with Penny. Penny asked if I wanted to get a reading, so I did. I tend to follow most any suggestion that Penny makes. At that time, there wasn’t much that I wanted or needed in terms of guidance. I had just two burning questions: One was about a necklace I had lost and the other was about my cat, Kitty, who had died in April.

When I asked the psychic about Kitty, she looked at me with eyebrows raised. “You want to know about your cat? Ok… are you sure you don’t want to know about your career or romance?”

I truly wanted to know if Kitty was at peace or reincarnated as Buttercup, which is what I believed. She said that Kitty had gone and come back within the span of about six weeks. Which is about the time between when Kitty died and when Buttercup was picked up by the shelter.

Then the psychic again insisted about telling me about some man. Ok, whatever. Go right ahead. I truthfully didn’t want to hear about any man. I was not in the mood for men. She then proceeded to tell me that in two years I would meet a man who would be very tall, with blue eyes and dark hair. He would be a sailor of some sort and financially stable and he would love me. “When you meet this man and you know it’s this man, call me,” she said.

“Yeah, sure, I totally will,” I thought. And I walked out dismissing it all but the part about Kitty being Buttercup. However, I scribbled down that information about the man in my journal that year, put it on a shelf and forgot about it.

Then in February, I met someone who fit this description. It took me about two months after meeting him to realize he fit this description. I knew the night we met things felt very guided by the Universe and there were so many signs that I had to not think about them too much in the moment otherwise I would have gone careening off the planet. To illustrate, when I saw him, the thought in my head was, “There he is.” That’s, like, not the normal thing I think when I see a perfect stranger. (“The Ballad of Love and Hate” by the Avett Brothers is playing on shuffle on Spotify. Formerly a sign. Perhaps just an algorithm.)

Let me cut to the chase, as now it is months later and this man is not here with me. It utterly makes no sense to me. The signs were all there. Heaps of them. I was like Scrooge McDuck in his treasure vault, sitting atop my millions of signs.

I learned a lot about myself this year. I learned how many things have been holding me back and I learned about subconscious fears that were ruling my life. I learned so many things that have propelled me forward and reshaped me into a better version of myself. Is that all the signs were meant to make me see?

So what do I do? I am grateful for all the signs, experiences and lessons. There is a little pit in the bottom of my stomach when I think of this prediction and how convinced I was that I had met this man. Sure, none of it made sense. It didn’t have to make sense by any logical definitions. In my heart it made sense, in my soul it made sense and that’s all I care about.

And yet, I am standing here in front of the Universe with my jaw dropped and my hands empty except for these words hastily scrawled on a page of my journal. Time hurries on and I must go with it and for now I will be looking at signs with nostalgia and always a bit of hope.

August has arrived

August is my favorite month of the year. It surpasses my birth month of December because I don’t like to be predictable and because I grew up in the Adirondacks where August was the last bastion of summer.

Each year, I go full tilt in August. You know, ice cream for dinner, a vacation and impulse purchases. The whole nine. I channel the grasshopper of Aesop’s Fable – just living for the moment and not worrying about the future. If you’re thinking, “God, what is she talking about now?” here’s the link to the story and a link to the cartoon version if you don’t feel like reading. And here’s a link to my full August explanation post.

This year I don’t have any impulsive plans or plans that have me living up on the high wire – YET. I guarantee you now that I have put this in writing this month will send me for a delightful loop. I’m leaving room for those things to happen. Serendipity has always been good to me.

I like celebrating August because it reminds me of childhood and how fun it was to live in the mountains. I played soccer for my high school team, so soccer tryouts were in August and I loved being back on the field with my friends after a summer apart. I remember I worked a summer job with some of my teammates one year as hotel housekeepers and we would have a lot of fun goofing off the whole day. And the year I was a senior, my friend Erin and I were cleaning rooms together and I will always remember that as she was making the bed she asked me who I thought would be team captains. I’m laughing now because that was our biggest worry and our biggest dream at that time. I wanted to say, “I really hope it will be us!” But, I didn’t want to be a jinx so I think I said maybe this person or that person. Then we were named captains just like we were secretly dreaming and we were beyond excited for that.

I can also picture watching the sun set beyond the mountains from the front porch. Listening to the brook that passed by our house and the wind in the aspen trees. There was such a peacefulness at my home in the mountains that I have never discovered anywhere else.

I loved growing up there in those woods, so I think that is the feeling I am always trying to recapture in August. There was just an ease in the air and in my life that I seek to reclaim at all times but especially in August.

These memories are inspiring my August this year. I am going to be reading The Chronicles of Narnia, sitting in front of the fan with Buttercup, occasionally eating ice cream for dinner, wearing cutoff shorts, going to the beach as much as I possibly can and definitely listening to country music all month long. (Thanks to you know who you are for my country music obsession and I hope you read this. My Spotify algorithm will never be the same.)  

Cautionary goals

It’s the middle of 2019 and I don’t know how that happened. I feel like I fell asleep sometime around the end of February and just woke up to full-on summer in San Diego. What was I doing all that time? Probably just a bunch of nothing… just kidding, everyone who has ever met me knows that’s not true.

Anyway, enough rambling preambles. Mid-year, I always take a look at the goals I set in January to see what I have accomplished so far. One of my proudest accomplishments is telling a story at The Moth. That was the achievement that I wanted the most. I wanted it so badly that I could taste it. I wish I could see the recording of it so that I could remember it better and see the joy on my face as I told my story.

One of the toughest goals I set was letting go. Let me caution you about setting goals and putting things in writing: DO NOT EVER set the goal to let go unless you are absolutely sure you want to learn this lesson. In January, I wrote, “I will let go of things that I don’t even want to let go of so that I can create more space in my life.”

Insert a slow, sarcastic clap here.

I only have myself to hold responsible for this one. Yes, it is true that I want to practice nonattachment and remain committed to my life and not attached to outcomes. However, I am known for throwing myself in the deep end of the pool and that’s exactly what I did with this goal.

I set that goal with such bravado or blind faith in what I was doing. I have no idea which is more accurate. Maybe it was hubris.

Here’s the thing, I would gladly give away all my possessions and my money if I get to keep all the people I love. Releasing possessions is sometimes challenging because of sentimental feelings. Releasing people, now that’s a whole different level of letting go that I have always struggled with. The people I like. The people I don’t like can obviously just eff right off.

“I will let go of things that I don’t even want to let go of.” I wrote some similar words in a letter to someone recently. A letter where I let them go and it was the last thing I wanted to do – ever. Here is where the Universe is calling me to a higher level of trust and faith. It’s asking me, “Can you let this go and trust that more beautiful things will fall into its place?”

I don’t think I have another choice, really. I know that’s exactly how it works. Let go and then many more beautiful things rush right in. Also, there’s that old cliché, “If you love something, set it free.” People are the hardest for me to set free because I really do love them so much. My baseline of operation is loving people. Yes, it can go up or down rather quickly from there but you get the idea.

For the past few days, I have been thinking about this Steve Prefontaine quote.

“I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.”

Prefontaine was a young middle and long distance runner in the 1970s who died in his early 20s. He was known for his passion and commitment to the sport. He left it all on the track for every race.

I have been inspired by Pre since I watched the movie “Without Limits” with my track team buddies in high school. I often think of how hardcore he was about life, running and he was pretty passionate about justice (one of my favorite things, too).

I think the reason this quote has been swimming around my mind is because I am realizing that it takes a lot of guts to constantly let things go. Letting things go means you’re almost always somewhere new and uncomfortable. Facing yourself in the mirror after each thing is let go and asking, “Who am I now?”

I didn’t realize this in the beginning, but it takes pure guts to release people, places and things and face the unknown. I’ve shed a lot of tears, had a lot of the SAME conversations, resisted the inevitable and then finally given in to letting go.

The thing that has become clear to me over the past six months is that if I am lucky, by the end of this year of letting go, I will be just like Pre and I will be the only one who can win this race.

Epilogue: I have also been comparing myself to Evel Knievel because he had a penchant for taking the leap, breaking a few bones and getting back up again. That’s me… with my emotions. So go ahead and choose the obscure athlete reference you like best. – Holly xo

Evel Knievel casually jumping some big old trucks. Source