Woozy Wednesday: Jericho

I picked my favourite red wine for its artsy label. I don't know a thing about wine. I've never been to a winery, I've never read up about it and I've never once cared to. I know that I don't like white wine because it tastes like chilled crotch rot. But red? Divine. It tastes like creation, like sex and poetry. It blows my trumpet and brings down my walls.

Bear Flag Red Wine Blend from California

A few years ago, my dreads and I paraded into the liquor store and gravitated to this bottle for its colourful design. Most likely I brought it home and shared it with Jane cross-legged on the polka dot rug of the room with the orange walls and the prayer flags. What do I say about it? How do I describe it? It pairs well with chocolate and wet faces from laughter and heartache. It chases down dreams and settles into the crevices of earth not yet discovered. We tip toe around it with our first glass cradled with ladylike fingertips and then back-flip into it all with our second. Shy eyes, break bread, hold hands, nod heads.


 

Woozy Wednesday

Like I was saying last week on Tuesday, when I published my first edition of "Woozy Wednesday" (ironically, I had been knee deep into the red wine and had mixed up the days), I didn't grow up with alcohol. When I was just over nineteen, I recall going out for drinks with the punks who I worked with at a sports store after work one night and I fidgeted nervously while the waitress went around our table taking drink orders. So far the only experiences I had with alcohol were taking haphazard swigs out of vodka bottles and then throwing it all up in the bushes. The girls I worked with ordered some sort of complicated fruity drinks, but the guys all ordered beer. And because I lived for going against the norm, I also ordered a beer. I had no idea what kind to get, so I copied the dude next to me and ordered a Heineken. I gulped down the first bit and thought it tasted fine until one other guy screwed up his face at it and said he'd never order those; they're too "skunky." And I swear the next sip tasted exactly like skunk, and I haven't been able to drink it since.

In the summer of 2010 I drove down to Tacoma to visit my friend Renata and together we took off for Portland, Oregon. I wanted to get my dreads tuned up at a funky little shop and after that we stopped in at one of the local breweries for lunch. I had no clue what to drink so I just ordered an IPA, and Renata ordered an oatmeal stout. When I screwed up my face at my first sip of bitter citrus, Renata kindly offered a sip of hers. It. Was. It. The waitress switched up my drinks and we sipped our beers and dug into our burgers in total bliss.

It's nice to finally like something because I really like it, not because the guy next to me likes it or because I'm not allowed to like it. It feels right and good like my favourite bright green sweater with the worn-out elbows. I don't chug it to get buzzed; I drink it to share with those around me. It's like the difference between selfishly eating all the M&Ms out of the bag of trail mix while standing in the kitchen, and sitting around the table with my friends and family to break bread and savor a meal.

Have I shoveled M&Ms down my throat while standing alone in a dark pantry, carelessly dropping bits of peanuts and cashews all over the floor? Youbetcha. Just like I've come back from a run and thrown back a couple of light beers for the sole purpose of numbing the stress in my chest. Are both of those going to kill me? No. But they make me feel pretty shitty.

So here's to my green sweater, to warm bread, to dark beer and the warm skin of the man I love, and the kids we raise together. And if that's not a total buzz, then I don't know what is.

Like a Rainbow

Whoa, I found another page in my notes section dated August 22, 2010. I can't publicize everything but what I can share is this quote from Nelle Morton:

"There is an awful abyss that occurs after the shattering and before a new reality appears."

I love how I wrote this quote underneath my lament about the state of my life. I'm not exactly sure what my abyss looked like but I have a hunch that while I was floating around in the darkness, I had dreads, I smelled like patchouli and had bits of kale and sunflower seeds stuck between my teeth.

I'm thankful that my abyss didn't last very long and I appreciate the fact that my friends didn't ditch me for someone who smelled less like dead grass and more like humanity, but I do acknowledge that my darkness provided me with the gift of transformation; I came out the other side just like, way better of a person.

I remember phoning Jane up and I'd be messy-crying, sobbing and gasping, "JANE! I just want to feel NORMAL AGAIN!" and she would tell me, "Suzy... you won't ever feel the way you did before. You're inventing a new normal, now."

A new normal. A new reality. First a shattering, then an abyss, and then a new reality will appear, I promise. The darkness will feel all-consuming, but it's where the transformation happens. And I'm not leaving, either, even if you smell.

Tangled

I remember the day that I started dreading my hair. I had just gone through one of the roughest times of my life and I was doing everything I possibly could to gain back the control I had lost. I went on an all raw food diet (I think my raw food blog is still kicking around the interwebs somewhere). I stopped running. I read my Bible every day. I burned incense and sat in the middle of my bed and meditated on my pain. I read books about nature and spirituality and grace. I journaled. I painted the walls of my family room orange and teal and brown and yellow. I wanted so much to believe that I was turning a corner and making something good and pure out of my life but as I look back on that time, I see now that all I was doing was white-knuckling it, squeezing the life out of myself in hopes that I would be able to shape Suzy into somebody else. But that one day, I knew my efforts weren't working, that when I sat down on the floor of my colourful room and stared into the full-length mirror, I still saw myself, and nothing else.

I sectioned out my hair and started knotting my hair into fluffy knots. I felt raw when I was finished like I was returning to the earth, as if I had nothing left of me. The deadness on my outside was finally starting to match the deadness on the inside.

This all sounds so awful, but it was the part of a grieving and healing process that I needed to walk through.

I became attached to my grief, carrying around my deadness as if it was some sort of wilted security blanket and just when I would start to feel alive I would reach up and roll my fuzzy dreads between my fingers and I'd remember "who I was" all over again. All the while this was happening, I was learning about grace and so my soul would fight this urge to return to the deadness despite my best efforts to stay stuck in the knot.

I began running again and eating real food. I started plugging myself into life rather than hiding in my smoke-filled room by myself. A healing was happening, and I could feel it. Instead of feeling the comforting fuzziness of my dreads, I began resenting the way the knots were sticking out in an unruly manner and so one day I started to comb out the really messy ones. My inside, my soul, was starting to breathe again and I needed my outside to breathe too.

One by one I combed out my dreads and bit by bit I became lighter, no longer holding onto the baggage that I had thought I deserved to carry. I was rising up from the earth and becoming Suzy again, but a stronger more loving version of me. I still have huge hair but it's a lot lighter than it was, that's for sure.

My dreads played a part in my healing process and for that I am thankful. From time to time I miss them, the soft pillowy way they'd circle my head like a hug, wrapping around me in primal self-preservation. I don't need my dreads to hold me down anymore. I embrace who I am now, and I am at peace.