🐚 The magic always ends eventually.

View from KittyAnn’s Window

Mercedes and I are walking down the street in downtown Harrisburg, near the capitol building. It’s late November and extremely cold. I’m wearing my favorite coat, a knee-length black-and-white houndstooth pea style. She’s wearing a brown wool jacket with a huge fur lapel. I don’t ask her if it’s real; I’d neither be surprised if she told me it was Prada or from the Salvation Army.

I was wearing gloves, but I’ve taken one off so that the hand that is holding Mercedes’ hand is bare skin against hers. The sleeve of her jacket is long, with fur on the cuffs, too, so it shields us somewhat from the cold. Her hand is warm, and her fingers are so delicate. Energy pulsates between our palms.

We’re walking across the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps to the front of the capitol, and she’s telling me a very animated story about the time she went to the gay club across the street. I’m laughing because she’s outrageous and I’m not sure whether she’s lying or not, but it doesn’t matter because I’m completely entranced. There’s a soft and constant puff of condensation coming from us both, and a few flakes of snow have landed on her hair, simply underscoring how freaking cold it is right now. But I don’t want this walk to end, because it’s so real that it feels like a movie.

Eventually we reach the parking garage, and the harsh, cold light from the LEDs overhead throws ugly shadows across her face. It smells like exhaust, and my skin aches with the cold as I remove my hand from hers to find my keys. The magic always ends eventually. We hug, and she squeezes me so tightly I wonder if my back will crack, but I let her because feeling her body so close to me keeps me alive.

She slaps the back panel of my car, my Mercedes, twice as I putter away. The engine is laggy and grumbles, the seat stiff as I shift around to fix the lay of my skirt under my knees. I drive home in silence, except for the purr of my car and the sound of my own breathing, finally returning to deep and rhythmic after an evening of tempered arousal. 

My house is dark when I get there, but Craig has left the porch light on. I tiptoe in and take off my shoes so my heels won’t click against the hardwood, half expecting him to be standing there around the corner, waiting to chastise me for breaking curfew. But, I remind myself, I’m an adult. And Craig doesn’t chastise me. I do that well enough on my own.

***

KittyAnn is desperate for permission. The problem is: from who?

Have you ever stopped what you’re doing long enough to hear your inner narrator speaking? You know, the looping voice that’s asking questions (some rhetorical), offering explanations (and placations), judging you, jabbering, and just otherwise discharging directives every waking moment?

Most people’s narrator is long-winded and self-centered. She never shuts up, and she has something to say about everything. (Mine is a black-garbed stage manager named Greta with a headset and a hot cup of coffee.)

If you haven’t met yours yet, set up a date with her and ask her some questions. Take a walk, or get a drink. Get a feel for how she speaks. (Seriously, this isn’t just “weird art stuff” – it’s a therapeutic modality called parts work.) Once you’ve practiced listening to her words, you can start listening for what’s behind them: the energy, the intention, and – when lightning strikes – the origin. That’s when you’ll realize that most of what you hear isn’t you. 

Greta’s back there handing me lines like I’m the understudy – but most of them aren’t part of this play. They’re from other people’s scripts. But her coffee got cold and she was trying to run her kids to dance class and some of the messages got crossed. Because, turns out, Greta isn’t some perfectly composed oracle in there. She’s a distracted human with her own junk and is multitasking her way through it.

Can you tell the difference, though, between the lines you wrote and the ones Greta has plagiarized from your mom, your third grade teacher, ex-boyfriend, OB, neighbor across the street, mother-in-law, or collective voice of your go-to Facebook group? 

If you’ve never tried, you probably can’t. 

Imagine it’s that impossibly cold day in late November, and there are a few flakes of snow lying on the sidewalk outside my favorite Thai restaurant. We’ve both ordered tom kha soup, because the waiter suggested it. It tastes…like nothing else you’ve ever tried before. I ask what flavors you’re tasting. Can you tell? Not really. You’re just guzzling down that soup because it’s dinnertime and you have a taste to eat. Once your appetite stabilizes you’ll probably recognize the coconut, just because I asked, and maybe isolate the lemongrass flavor, too, if you’re a foodie. But unless you studied abroad in Thailand or had a grandfather-in-law from there, the galangal is going to stump you.

It’s easy to overlook and underestimate the things we live with every day. Like grass, and energy. Walk around on an untreated lawn and name the species of grass under your feet. Feel the spaces in your body where your energy is overactive or stuck. Oh, you can’t? It’s not because you suck. It’s because you haven’t learned how to yet.

I wasn’t born a forage specialist or a Reiki master. But the magic of brains is that they’re plastic – they have the innate ability to change. And once you learn the landscape of your life, you can never unknow it.

The reason we can’t discern which narratives are ours and which come from other people is because we weren’t paying attention when we accepted them. We were kids, for the most part – and they just “showed up” like the soups in our bowls and the clothes in our closets. If you didn’t do the shopping, and the bringing home and putting away, you had no way of discerning the source.

Today I can look in my closet and remember which blouses came from TJMaxx and which are from Old Navy. I’m selective about what I wear, I have limited space in my closet – and I want to use all of it for clothes I like, that feel good, that flatter me. 

But KittyAnn doesn’t have that same self-authority. She’s just met an electric, magnetic woman – Mercedes – and every fiber of her being says GO. Lean closer. Live wild. Let her show you how to be more.

But somewhere, at some point, her own signal got crossed with someone else’s. Permission denied. She’s too risky, too irresponsible. Too much.

Shut it down.

She even admits it’s not Craig that’s stopping her. She says, “I do that well enough on my own.”

Oh, KittyAnn. She’s bruised, and she sees it — but she still can’t own it. Not yet.

But she will. I know she will, because I finished drafting her novel on Saturday. And I’m not quite sure what’s next — but I’ll figure it out, because I’ve already figured out how to unknot the lines in my own head and give back what isn’t mine. Clear the field so I can hear myself think. 

And I want that for you, too.

With all my wild heart,

Sadie xo

P.S. If something I said resonated — and you’re craving a space to unpack your own story — get in touch with me. I’d be honored to hold that space for you.