Chaos, Bikers and Thou

Wow. This blog was supposed to be mostly fiber related but we are all a bit more multi-faceted than that..no?
So, I will start by saying I just ordered 12 oz of premium yak down Woooohooooo!

Now..back to what I was going to yammer on about.

The last few years have been a bit rough. The more people I talk to, the more I realize this is happening on a broad spectrum. Maybe the dominant paradigm is shifting..as the bumper sticker says.
I have been kind of ill the last few years..my immune system likes to go a bit overboard and attack my endocrine system. Currently they are in a stand off.
I invested a lot in what I *should* want, and very little in myself. With my tendencies towards the magickal and fantastical, I had at some point I guess, decided that I needed both feet and hands planted firmly in the practical world. As my body got weaker, my attempts to grasp this became more futile and stronger..ending in a week in the hospital. The job was killing me. The self doubt was crippling me..I watched all the things I loved (dancing, being physical, being involved and regarded as smart) slip away one by one. So did most of my friends. My body kept shutting down and I kept turning off. I lost what I thought was my support group, and relationships became antagonistic. I can still taste the bitterness if I dwell on it for too long.
My job became harder and harder to do. I didn't know at the time how much these conditions affect my cognitive functioning. I came home too tired to care, or do anything about where I was going..but hell..I still had my 401k right?
I struggled to keep it all going, and the harder I tried the more it slipped away. There were people who reached out, who stayed in contact and gave their support. There were people who out of lack of understanding made some damn cruel comments. I didn't care about most of them.
Laying in the hospital bed, I had a series of "visions" for lack of a better term..probably induced by all of the medication I was on, but meaningful none the less. The universe is a large large place, I am nothing in it. Our daily strivings for our perfect job, our perfect marriage, our perfect image, our perfect group of perfect friends to hang with..all ultimately meaningless. I have looked in to the void before, now I realized I was in the middle of it. If everything is meaningless, why not just drift away...let my screaming body rest.
And in the void there was a pulsing light..broadcasting outwards. It's all meaningless so give it your own meaning. What do you want?
I want to have a yarn shop. I want to teach people to spin. I want to perform greater acts of audacious magick. I want my husbands band to tour and for him to live that dream. I want my sisters to finish college and make their mark on the world. I want my brother to be married to the perfect partner....the list came spilling out. Meaningless in the larger picture yet full of emotion. My boat across the void.
Sitting at my doctors office, he told me with a concerned look that he wanted me to take a few months off work. My body had taken a beating and would not get better without some rest and a dramatic decrease in my stress level. The good corporate girl fought it..misplaced loyalty to a job that blew me off a few months later, and that haunting idea of what I should want. I am not my 401k, I am not the paycheck in the bank each month. I am not the docile trying to please yes I can do it person I now hated.
I took him up on it. And yes, a few months in to it, the job I tried so hard to excel at cut me off like a useless appendage. Not even by letter or in person...just a cold phone call saying I'm not needed anymore.
Fall out of the boat in to the abyss again...how much of my identity was wrapped up in that job?
Alot apparently.
I found the knitters. Human beings that talked to me accepted me on the surface and became my friends. Some my very good friends. I slowly came to realize that not all women are back stabbing beyatches who will go out of their way to kick you when you're down. Nice.
Back in the boat again, rowing for the shore. My husband, mom, sisters and brother were elated that I found them. I started to talk about my dream of my own shop again. I found connections with people again. They were my life line(yarn?)
Fast forward a few more months now. My body has rested, my mind..it's getting there. Through these women I have found other friends, inspirations, and a tap to the emotions I had turned off long ago.
When my job let me go..I panicked. There goes my security..my paycheck. I called my mom. She reminded me that life is short..I had dreams and now I have a chance to make them happen. She also said in her closet chaos magician way "Why is it we beg for something to manifest, and then when it does we freak out". Good...rhetorical..question....
A blur of months of checking out books on small business, setting up an online shop, and treating my spinning as a job...but a job I love. It gets me out of bed in the morning excited about what I will create today. It is its own magick...the wheel has so much history and mythic use behind it. Those stories were now translated in to the yarn winding on to it.
Magick came back..daily practice, meditation, physical exercise. I can see the shore from the abyss now.
My husband had a show at Iliff Park while I was out of town, and met the new owner.
We talked one night and I instantly liked her. She was going through hell..details I won't pass on here, but I got her.
Through roundabout means, one night after her dead father showed up in a plaid shirt and told me life on the other side is a hoot...we are working there now on the weekends.
At this point I choose to believe it is a convergence. The people I am meeting, the slow unraveling of the yes to everyone but myself self, the music, the laughs, the people I am meeting in uncanny ways.
The other night I saw my first biker punch down. Dumb kid grabbed the boobs of the owner's neice. Realized that I had my bite back. No need to cringe from life anymore. A toast to the unraveling of my "self" and then another.
Get back in the boat, you don't need the comfort of the shore. Adrift on seas of chaos, we will catch the waves to new lands, new experiences. If you hold security to strongly, you just squeeze the life out of it..out of yourself. It's all meaningless and that is hilarious. Laugh and catch the spray of the sea on your face.
And to my co-captain Jace..I love you. I told you the other day, and I am typing it now for all the world to see..I love you. I am glad you are my husband, and have never given up on me. Let's sail the boat and eat foreign fruits!