Leap

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I’m through with playing by the rules
Of someone else’s game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It’s time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!

Ana Gasteyer – “Defying Gravity”

Full disclosure. I’ve never been a big fan of the musical Wicked. I read Gregory Maguire’s best seller in the mid-90’s and was probably one of the few people who found it, well, in a word…tedious. He does get points for marketing “chops”. Capitalizing on The Wizard of Oz was a stroke of genius right up there with Disney but Dorothy’s journey down the yellow-brick road is sacred as far as I’m concerned. Who messes with Baum and Judy Garland?

Friday night my friend Beth and I saw Ana Gasteyer’s cabaret show—great friends and music. She and I reminisced about taking my daughter to Houston several years ago to see the show…and many other GNO’s over the span of our wicked friendship. A lovely, serendipitous evening!

Another disclosure. My New Year’s resolution seemed to drift into February. Good news: I haven’t had a Diet Coke since January 1, bumping the water intake significantly. However, at the end of January when the health screening came around I got news that my blood pressure was not just high but off the chart. Reality check into making better choices and living a healthier life.

Great, I thought, another sign of middle age, that is, if I plan on living to 112. Not bloody likely! Truth be told, in the last year I had let diet and exercise slip with the exception of weekly yoga practice and the occasional salad at lunch. Ash Wednesday was set as the 40 days to a Healthier Life start date, embracing Lent as a time of joy, a new spring. Eating at home – which shouldn’t really be a choice –  I enjoy cooking. I’ve carved out more quiet time reading, photography and yes, exercise—yoga and getting back to walking/running again. The result at 20 days and the halfway point— I’m already down almost 10 pounds, several inches and my blood pressure is improving. More importantly I feel better. Ironically, I was too busy taking care of “things” to recognize I felt bad, mostly things out of my control. I’ve practiced not complaining and letting go of things out of my control; when in doubt I go to my yoga mat or put on some music.

I’m through accepting limits
’cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change
But till I try, I’ll never know!
Too long I’ve been afraid of
Losing love I guess I’ve lost
Well, if that’s love
It comes at much too high a cost!   

Richard Rohr wrote recently that “pain teaches a most counterintuitive thing: we must go down before we even know what up is. Suffering of some sort seems to be the only thing strong enough to both destabilize and reveal our arrogance, our separateness, and our lack of compassion.” He defines suffering as whenever you are not in control. Through the sufferings, great or small, we learn to trust ourselves and others….or we don’t. The experiences can be transformative, almost without realizing it. They show us what to do with our pain, with the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust. “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”  .

So if you care to find me
Look to the western sky!
As someone told me lately:
Ev’ryone deserves the chance to fly!
And if I’m flying solo
At least I’m flying free
To those who’d ground me
Take a message back from me

The take-away in Wicked-The Musical is forgiveness…of self and others and as Richard Rohr says: always building something new, good, and forever original, while neither playing the victim nor making victims of others.

Flying Free…….who needs monkeys to do that? Like Dorothy, I love a good adventure.