reverb10 - beautifully different

Hi Beautiful,
This is an inspiring on-line project I've decided to jump in to! "Reverb 10 is an annual event and online initiative to reflect on your year and manifest what’s next. Use the end of your year as an opportunity to reflect on what's happened, and to send out reverberations for the year ahead." Every day in December there is a new prompt for writing and reflection. 




December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful. (Author: Karen Walrond)

Mercurial. Sensual. Transparent. I argue with these qualities in myself. Do you notice how we often fight, minimize, or denigrate the very qualities that make us beautifully different?

Something that has frustrated me about myself is this mercurial thing - I am always shifting and changing and trying on new hats and trying out new careers and wandering down new paths, and it drives me crazy to have to answer the question "what do you do?" or to have to fill in that little short line marked "Occupation" on forms. Seriously? It never says "Attach a separate sheet if necessary."  I went to four different colleges in four different disciplines before finally graduating (from a multidisciplinary program! ha!) I've started five businesses, all of them in creative fields. I've lived in 24 houses in 12 cities in three countries. I've been married three times. As for art forms, I have studied and pursued painting, printmaking, photography, ceramics, metalsmithing, bookbinding, quilting. Amongst many others, I've had the jobs fortune-teller, bellydancer, mural painter, and activist. Funny thing is, I'm not actually fickle or shallow. I form strong attachments and deep devotions. I don't throw anything away, I just keep adding. I'm a collage. I think this makes me beautifully different.

I feel like a throwback to another age and place when it comes to sensuality. For one thing, I  think of sexuality as a facet of, not separate from, the full richness of the life of the body - it's all one thing, it's all about the awakened and sacred body, and there aren't all these different boxes "sex" "food" "nature" "art" "dancing" "mothering" "love" "pain" "prayer" "garden" "sleep", no, it's all one glorious complete multifaceted jewel of awakened, sacred sensual experience. Yeesh, listen to me, new age enough? But I really believe and live this.  I hate things like pornography and bad pop culture not for the usual reasons, but because these things rob us of our experience of the awakened sensual body - I don't just mean sex, I mean the body as it moves through the world, the pure joy of embodiment. This belief I have about sensuality is so beautifully different it's very hard to articulate. And it makes me beautifully, sensually different.

I wear my heart on my sleeve. I have one of those faces that's soft and quirky and broadcasts the state of my emotions very clearly to the rest of the world. I'm trying to learn to love this about myself. I hate lying, but even if I really wanted to lie, I couldn't. So I don't. Ever. And apparently my face can't lie either. If you're boring me, you'll know it. If I have a crush on you, you'll know it. If I feel threatened by you, you'll know it. if I love you, you'll know it. I think this makes me beautifully different.