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A Year of UNEXPECTED UPHEAVAL!

Just shy of one year ago, October 17th 2017, I walked into the hospital and had my left knee chopped up so they could install a new metal knee. It all started when I was born with kneecaps that ride on the outside of the grooves they are supposed to ride in. Throughout the years of pounding up and down on hard cement floors in aerobic classes and more than that, on stage floors around the country and in Europe, well the poor knees wore down. Yes "both knees" but if you think for one minute I'm going in anytime soon to get the other knee chopped up and traumatized, you got another thing comin'!!!

About a month before I went in, I met a woman on my daily walk who told me she had had one of her knees done, as I joyfully told her I was so excited to have my knee done and that I would be getting both done within the year and that I was then going to take the tap dancing lessons I had wanted to take since I was a little girl but could never take because of my knees. I ask her when she planned to get her other knee done. She solemnly looked at me and said she didn't plan on it and THEN she said in a deep kind of sad voice: "I'll pray for you!" OMG ... bad omen OR WHAT? - but as is usual for any unknown journey one embarks upon... the optimism was high and so I went happily into the hospital on what was to be the beginning of a very trying year. Besides I had heard lots of great stories of success and so I was betting on that for myself as well.

So here I am almost a year later and I do have some good healing going on and over time, I will get more healing success and I'm sure that I will be thrilled with the outcome eventually. But this knee surgery really stripped away our lives up until now. Two other surgeries followed the first one from complications as well as horrific depression and withdrawal from massive Opiate usage and the healing phase has gone on and on. It has been impossible to get out and perform, to write much, and between working full time and the healing process - well I've just gone down further and further into a dark rabbit hole within myself.

Until yesterday. I mean we did get out and do one show in August but it was a huge struggle for me and my knee, and since then we had to pack up and relocate again as they plan to sell the town home we were living in. We started looking in September, found a place and then began the process of packing and moving and cleaning and more packing and moving and cleaning.. and my God.. (do we really have so much stuff!); and I'm working 40+ hours per week as this is all going on and my knee is not having it!!! I mean, it takes at least a year to heal but with the two other surgeries, this set me back quite a bit and so it will most likely be around 18 months before I truly feel the 'deep healing' and can appreciate this knee contraption that connects my lower leg to my upper leg.

But.. back to yesterday... it was a CLEAR BLUE SKY, beautiful breeze.. 65 degrees and for the first time in a year, I felt like my life was coming back. Just the night before, I had come home from work deeply depressed and just sat in my chair weeping from a deep yearning place... just really missing so much of what had been and not knowing how to begin again.. how to find myself again, how to GET BACK to the creative process in the midst of all this 40+ hours of working every week. After an hour or so, I walked with heavy heart to the bedroom and crawled into bed and picked up a book I've been reading now and again entitled "ten poems to change your life," by Roger Housden, and the 2nd poem in the book that Roger breaks open is by Antonio Machado entitled "Last Night I Was Sleeping," and it opened me to my core. I'll quote one stanza and you'll know why:

Last night as I was sleeping

I dreamt - marvelous error! -

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Sometimes in life, we have to do things we don't want to do as one part of our life shifts towards another.. like with me... before the knee thing.. when I had to walk into a company and take a job... and let go of the freedom I had of 'just being an artist... and feel like I had stepped into a coffin... as I sat down in the cubicle.

I've given almost two years of 40+ hours to that job, I've let it take me and drain me... I've let it own me... and steal my soul... and every evil thing that comes with doing that came down upon me.

One CANNOT function in obsession... in compulsion.. in 'people pleasing,' and in not finding and nurturing the life 'inside,' just to pay the bills.

And so... back to yesterday. Yesterday 'life' gave me my life back. The breeze blew open my aching soul as Rob and I worked to put his music room together AND we started to get our little performance area set up where we will begin to perform and bring YOU Live Facebook shows with songs and the backstories of our journey of music and life. I also made some homemade chicken vegetable soul and sat out on the porch with tea.

I REALLY would love to tap dance someday.. but mostly, right now I want to give you love and more love through my singing and feel your precious love come back...

I'm alive again.. I'm fucking alive again.

Rob's soul cave of creation...

Our 'soon to be finished' performance space...

And as a final note...

The Chorus from "The Edge is Where I Stopped"

All these years, what did I want

From there to here, The Edge is Where I stopped

I close my eyes, and turn inside

The voice it says

This is where you start

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