Reset Button
Are my favorite buttons, plus pole and an outfit.
Amid forward movement and realized dreams, I constantly search for my body: my north star, a center of gravity, and a marker of self-care and presence. We often sink away and then near again; sometimes I blindly chase my soles, hoping to find a sturdy place to stand, to recollect, and to move along again. In constant search of remembering my humanity, I renounce perfection.
I am a Capricorn. I am like a superhero. I forget that perfection is reserved for my God above (which is disappointing and upsetting.) My thoughts, entwined in excessive shame, force movement to halt. And, I have shared a bit of that here. But I decided to press the reset button, finding my body again as a writer. Releasing all expectations for myself, and for writing here.
I have shared my disappointment with the first few months of 2024, a season of darkness my legs were too noodled to outrun, and my ideas, scrambled and foreign in my mind, were too judged to be made.
Whelmed in all senses, I lay with feelings of creative inadequacy and pseudo-financial stress, while comforting myself with lies that support sadness, months after ending a relatively less successful year in business, love, friendship, and all else. I was sad. Sadness is my sweet garden at times, my familiar friend who knows me better than my mother: sadness, my comforting warmth, and all-consuming fire. I am forged.
After dealing with 2024 for six months, the little fires are smoked, and I am sitting in my body erect and alert. Taking some overdue time from Instagram and Twitter to recognize my peculiar thoughts, find less shame in sharing, release perfection, stop judging myself, and be gentle with myself. The new goal is to find more breath, more air, and more flow. To allow myself to be curious about the definition of consistency, and allow the definition to move like water or a breeze, and less like a stair or a mountain.
So, I unpublished my previous posts that were unable to accept how this year found me, and reset. Ignoring what I thought things would look like and just looking at things how they are. Like how I do at pilates or on the pole, I breathe and then adjust.
MOVEMENT MOMENTS
June was my busiest month this year so far, and for those who do not know, I am a wardrobe stylist. My work stretches from commercial to personal styling, and I live in a cycle of prep/wrap. Never doing anything but searching for my body again.
Not being available for pole dance in the same capacity as I was in May was frustrating. On my first day back in the studio, my shoulder talked back to me, telling me to calm down and keep it cute. (And that was frustrating because the illusion of regression sucks.) I could tell I wasn’t embodied, not quite sinking into flesh because I could feel the sting in my shoulder. This is when I had to be sweet to myself. I embraced my left shoulder, learning what I knew on my right side, on the opposite.
In addition to learning how to use my left side more, I recently subscribed to High On Heels, a heels-focused learning platform by Jazzy K. I love her offerings already. There are technique-focused classes as well as sequence-based classes. This gives me the best of both worlds as my previous experience with subscription platforms focused on choreography or spin flow.
SALTORIAL: SUMMER STAPLES
Last week, I was off work and I got to put on some non-set outfits. These chunky Melissa shoes were a 2 am SSENSE purchase a couple of years ago and they are officially my shoes of this summer. They are comfortable, versatile, and easy to wear. They add a touch of cool girl to my looks and they were $88. A great buy.
Another happy summer purchase is this boxer skirt from Rocky the Shop by Alysza Write. She posted this skirt on her story a couple of days before my fashion show at the Salt Shed, instant purchase. I saw a similar design from a New York designer, Dauan Jacari, a few years ago but Mama did not have the coin. I am excited that the design exists in the zeitgeist now, and it’s mine. :) I have never felt so represented by a design. I am that girl, and ya boy at the same time.
SOUND OBSESSIONS
UM IS ANYONE LISTENING TO KAYTRANADA? Timeless is high on my “On Repeat” Spotify Playlist, specifically “Do 2 Me” featuring Anderson Paak and SIR, and also “Stepped On”. I am usually not a consumer of Kaytranada, however, the sonic landscape on TIMELESS gives me more than what I’m familiar with from the Canadian icon.
Listen to my Sound Obsessions playlist below, featuring new and old music. Best if played in sequential order.