Saturday, September 7, 2013

Wipe Out

I wiped out on my razor scooter a few weeks ago and it was the best feeling in the world.  I totally wish you could have seen it.  I stood up and laughed, jumped back on, and kept going.  Just to show everybody I was fine.  After a few blocks, I sat down on some steps and immediately Facebooked about it, telling my most amused and delighted friends:  It finally happened.  The fabric of my work pants torn at the knees.  The blood running down my shins.

I never felt more alive.

(Why can't I feel this way about heartbreak?)

I remember the fantabulous crashes from my youth.  And how we all celebrated when some kid made a most awesome Wipe Out.  I once catapulted over my bike handles and flew down the steepest hill in my neighborhood, dragging my face along the side of the road, coming up with gravel embedded in my cheek.  Admiration from one kid to another:  Cool wipe out.  We wore our skinned knees and elbows like badges of honor.

I've never gotten seriously hurt or broken any bones and I have a theory about this:  I don't try to stop myself when I fall.  I feel the Wipe Out coming and I go limp, letting my knees drag across the pavement, holding up my wrists.  The moment the skateboard or scooter jams, the split second I'm aware This Is Going To Hurt Like Hell, I let myself go with complete abandon.  I do not even think twice about jumping right back on my ride and pushing away as fast as I can.  I never shed a tear.

(Why can't I feel this way about heartbreak?)

The same week I so gloriously wiped out on my razor scooter, some girl took a wrecking ball to my heart.  I realize I write the action verbs like she caused all this, but I know I blew it.  In a colossal way.  She even warned me about what was going to happen but I proceeded as if I were somehow different.  My endless terminal uniqueness.

After everything explodes, I am reduced to sobbing and chanting through the tears, Never Again, Never Again, I am never ever ever telling anyone I like them, I am never even allowing myself to like anyone, fuck everything, fuck everyone.  Several minutes of this, I suddenly realize the energy and wish I am sending into the universe.  I drop to the floor, wince from the pain where my one knee is still raw from the crash, and insist on whispering a new prayer:  Soft heart, soft heart, soft heart, please divine source of all life, I take it all back, do not close my heart no matter how many times I trust it to the wrong person, soft heart, soft heart, soft heart, I must keep my soft open heart....

As I shift the weight off my sore knee, it hits me.  With my scooter, with my skateboard, I fall with abandon. I even EXPECT to get hurt.  And I LOVE it when I do.  Someone suggests that maybe a forty-five year old woman should not be buzzing through The Short North on a razor scooter, that maybe I should go ahead and pay for that parking pass.  There's NO Way I will ever even entertain the idea of quitting.

(What if I start thinking of falling with my heart the way I think of my body flying across the sidewalk?  Expect to get hurt and even love it when I do?)

I ride my razor scooter with no fear.  I mean, I'm not in the middle of the street or anything stupid.  But if I have fear, I lose balance and I especially lose the joy of gliding through the world.  When I have fear, when I hesitate, that's usually when I crash.  I ride both-footed and the crash happened when I was doing my stutter step full speed to switch feet.  I discovered this the very next day when I almost crash again.  I didn't remember what made me fall, but my body did.  My feet hesitate during the skip to the other foot and I laugh, realizing my mistake.  Now I have to take my brain out of thinking about it too much.  If I am full of fear, I cannot accomplish such a feat with the usual style and grace.

(Same thing Heart.  I know that fear got in my way, made me overreact, over correct.  Crash.)

I'm taking a break from FB interactions during the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur because every year I use this time as a space to find mindfulness.  But the truth is I could no longer pretend I am OK.  I am not OK.  I am heartbroken.  I cried everyday for the last two weeks.  A few friends protest:  But you don't want a girlfriend anyways.  And they're right.  I don't.  But that doesn't change the facts on the ground.  I liked someone.  It didn't work out.  She's gone.

This happens repeatedly in my life and I always respond by immediately being with someone else.  I am seeking change in my life so I know the only way towards a different path is to change the pattern.  For the first time in my life, post-heartbreak, I insist on aloneness.

I choose to regard the heartbreak the same way I feel the skinned knee.  I'm holding it up for everyone to see.  If it's painful, I must become willing not just to endure it but also to let it awaken my heart and soften me.  Instead of running from the fall and the pain, I am going to embrace it.

The key is:  It's no big deal.  With my mind, I can make a big deal out of myself, out of my pain.  Or, just like the scooter crash, I get up and shrug.  It's even funny.  It's even something to share with the people who love me.

 I let my heart race. Fly across the universe. Cool Wipe Out.





3 comments:

  1. Here is a bad recording of one of my favorite songs--don't look at the pictures, close your eyes and really listen to the words. Regina Spektor's last CD "What we Saw from the Cheap Seats" is filled with fantastic songs, but this one goes with your post. I hope you like it! "The Piano is Not Firewood Yet"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2T8PFY-YHU

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  2. Beautiful. Thank you very much. Here are the lyrics:

    The piano is not firewood yet
    They try to remember but still they forget
    That the heart beats in threes
    Just like a waltz
    And nothing can stop you from dancing

    Rise from your cold hospital bed
    You're not dying
    Everyone knows you're going to live
    So you might as well start trying

    The piano is not firewood yet
    But the cold does get cold
    So it soon might be that
    I'll take it apart, call up my friends
    And we'll warm up our hands by the fire

    Don't look so shocked
    Don't judge so harsh
    You don't know
    You are only spying
    Everyone knows it's going to hurt
    But at least we'll get hurt trying

    The piano is not firewood yet
    But a heart can't be helped
    And it gathers regret
    Someday you'll wake up and feel a great pain
    And you'll miss every toy you ever owned

    You'll want to go back
    You'll wish you were small
    Nothing can slow the crying
    You'll take the clock off of your wall
    And you'll wish it was lying

    Love what you have and you'll have more love
    You're not dying
    Everyone knows you're going to love
    Though there's still no cure for crying

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