Every year I choose a word to represent everything I want to embody in the next 365 days. It’s a very personal choice that I share with my readers because one of my superpowers is vulnerability – and sometimes oversharing. If you know me, you know. This year, the word is Embrace.
Also if you know me, and in this sense I mean if you’ve been following me on any platform, you know that 2022 was pretty challenging for me. It’s been a year of setbacks and delays in both my professional and personal lives, with lots of enforced down time. For someone like me, not being able to create or produce is like torture. I just didn’t have the mental capacity or energy to follow through with anything important as I dealt with my increasingly bad health.
Now that I’m [hopefully, knock on wood] through this challenging phase and well into a healing and recovery one, I am looking forward to things that I’ve had to put aside or delay. I’m finally feeling like I can make some plans and fulfill some dreams. I want to begin again to live in an active, rather than passive, way.
Embrace is a noun and a verb
I always take my time to consider fully what the words that I’m considering as representation of my year mean in all definitions. I like nuanced words, words that are playful. Embrace is one of those words to me, as it encompasses a lot of variety in meaning.
The definitions that resonate the most with me, and that I want to add into my life are:
to clasp in the arms in affection
to accept something willingly
to form a ring or circle around
to assimilate or incorporate into a body, structure, or system
to hold in one’s mind or imagination
to address or meet with expressions of friendliness or welcome
The process or fact of being received as adequate, valid, or suitable
Loving care and protection provided by someone or something
Definitions thanks to Word Hippo
Some of these things are actions I can personally take, and create within myself and my life. Others are ones I want to have happen to me, and I can facilitate making them happen by what I choose to pursue. They relate to my health, or my career, or relationships. I’ll do my best to use this word and its meanings to guide my life for the next year.
Do you choose a Word of the Year? If so, what’s yours for 2023?
I’m going to talk about dancing, because I haven’t done that here yet and I’ve loved dancing just as long as I’ve loved music/singing and writing, which is to say pretty much my entire life.
CW: talk about disordered eating and exercising
My love of dance is one of the things that’s shaped me. And dancing and music are important in my Eleriannan stories, though I haven’t written one that focuses directly on dancing. [yet!]
I started ballet along with tap and jazz in elementary school, like a lot of AFAB kids in the US do. We were pretty poor but Mom knew I dreamed of being a ballerina, so she did her best to get me classes, at least until she got too busy with work to take me and pick me up.
I was able to do at least one recital before I stopped going to dance classes. But I continued to practice, doing my barre and floor warmups anywhere I could. I made up my own routines and would often stay up late dancing in my room when I should be asleep.
Later, in high school, I fell in with the theater people and that became my life.
We had an unofficial dance troupe and would dance at talent shows, school dances, or in random places. By the way, this is where I got over my fear of being in front of a crowd. [I have a whole another thread I could write about my time with the Thespian Society and the theater group and how that shaped me.]
Somewhere in here, lost to time and foggy brain cells, is when I was told in no uncertain terms that I would never be a professional dancer, especially a ballerina. I wasn’t tall and thin. I had great poise and technique but I was getting too busty.
I started exercising and stretching and dancing all the time. I didn’t eat enough. I went to college for theater and minored in dance and worked out constantly – weight lifting and swimming added to everything else – and I hated the food and I was depressed, so I ate even less. I dropped weight and I still wasn’t thin enough. *
In my beginner ballet class, which was my only path for getting ballet for college credits, my teacher praised me for my “good feet” and positions and control and asked if I’d danced before. Heh.
My modern dance teacher liked my fearlessness and technique.
Aside: I was majoring in theater. I eventually dropped out because the theater department wouldn’t cast me in anything – not because I lacked skill, but because I dyed my hair and shaved the sides and OMG I wasn’t leading lady material anymore. To which I replied, “I didn’t want those roles anyway, I like character roles. And haven’t you heard of WIGS?” Seriously, what the hell.
So I dropped out, and for a while my life was turbulent and I didn’t dance much. I starved, and I got too thin, which still wouldn’t have been thin enough to be a ballerina, ironically. And then I started going to clubs that played goth music and alternative college music and I started dancing for fun again. I would dance all night, using all the skills I knew to express the music. It was so freeing! No routines, just the music and my body and the flashing lights and atmosphere. Everyone else around me, doing the same thing. It was heaven.
I never did dance with an organized group again.
I continued going to goth clubs, and eventually I became a DJ and ran a night and would often be one of the first people on the dance floor, encouraging others to get out there and move. I like goth clubs. Sure, there are elitists – there are in any scene. But in general, they’re a great equalizer. Anyone can get out there and dance, and you don’t have to be good at it to enjoy it. No one cares. I’ve seen amazing dancers and ones who just do what I call the gothic two-step [you know, one to the right, then back to the left] or just sway to the tunes. It’s all great! Some people get aggressive, others swirl around. Some are really built and fit and often will show off their bodies in their moves on the floor. Others are curvy or rounder or very thin and they also get out there and move to the music and it’s beautiful every time. Speaking as both a dancer and a DJ, there’s nothing more entrancing to watch than a dance floor full of every type of body and style, all moving together yet in their own worlds.
Before I knew I had Crohn’s, my weight started fluctuating wildly and I didn’t know why. I danced every weekend and walked everywhere, it didn’t make sense. But my family has this extra-curvy body type, so I figured it was just fate. I didn’t link my gastric problems to that at all. Despite having lots of issues, I still was walking long distances and dancing all night. Even up to the day I had to rush to the ER with my bowel perforation, I had been going to the gym to work out regularly and dancing all the time.
After that surgery, things got harder.
I couldn’t bend properly at my waist for a long time. When I say properly, I mean freely, without having to think about the movement and what I might mess up internally – stitches, a surgical hernia. It sucked. I couldn’t lift anything heavier than 10lbs either, and I had no stamina.
Eventually I started doing barre exercises in the kitchen again [that’s my favorite place to do those – a kitchen counter makes a great barre] and slowly regaining my stamina. I started doing “tiny little goth club” sessions in my bedroom late at night, with disco lights and everything. I’m sure my neighbors were confused by the flashing lights coming from my window!
And then, just recently… two more surgeries. I was back to limited bending and no stamina again. I’ve *just* started feeling like I can dance and bend, even though I’m actually still healing the surgical wound. My disease makes healing slow, but I can’t stop dancing. At this point I’m almost 56, chubby, with creaky dancer’s knees and a chronic illness that gives me extra inflammation and fluctuating weight.
I’m not letting that stop me. Movement to music is in my blood, in my soul.
I’ll always be a dancer, no matter what anyone else thinks. No one can take that from me.
* The incessant starving/overexercising certainly didn’t help my Crohn’s, either. I’ve suffered through disordered eating most of my life and it definitely affected my body in ways I’ll never recover from. Don’t do it, y’all.
I’ve been writing this post about writing stories with hope, and I was about a third of the way through when I stalled out. It isn’t that I don’t have a lot to say about writing hopeful stories, or why I think we need them. It’s just that something more personally important to me took over my brain and insisted that I write about it first. Okay, brain, you win.
I’ve been thinking about the Big Why, as in “Why do you do X thing?” aka “What’s your motivation?” It’s been on my mind for a while, actually, combined with thoughts about legacy and how much fame is enough. It’s all entwined together in my thoughts, so I’ve been pulling at the threads.
I’ll be 56 at the end of the year. Even though I don’t feel old, creeping time and a body dealing with chronic illness have really brought those thoughts to the forefront. A brush with death will really make you question what you’re doing with your life! In my case, I’ve been considering the path I’ve taken and what I want to achieve with it. It comes down to three big questions:
What have I done?
Where am I going?
What will I leave behind?
What I’ve done [so far]
I can’t be mad at the list of things I’ve done so far. It isn’t “distinguished” or “laudable” I suppose, but I managed to achieve so many things I always wanted to do.
I’ve got the ridiculous job list of: performer, musician, DJ [both club and radio], fiber artist, small business owner, writer, teacher of arts, professional cook, barista and coffee roaster, office manager, restaurant manager, occult bookstore/botánica manager, boutique manager, and for a short while… clown. Some of those jobs were things I’d dreamed about doing, like being a DJ and singing in a band.
If you’ve read my books you’ll see many of these jobs come up as things the supporting characters do for a living. Food service in particular is a forgiving occupation and perfect for those who might be considered outsiders. Bar/club jobs, too. They allow musicians, writers, and other creatives a way to make a living, because creative pursuits aren’t generally lucrative until you reach the big time, and sometimes not even then. Those jobs allowed me to pay bills and also look the way I wanted to look, with brightly dyed hair and piercings. These days it’s more accepted, but I had a lot of rejections back in the day thanks to my style alone. As that was something that brought me joy, I didn’t compromise, and found ways to make it work. Those values show up in my characters, too. They believe in who they are and how they want to be seen in the world.
Now I write full time, and I share the stories with the world that I’ve been creating since I knew what a story was. I am not a well-known writer, though I’m making strides in getting my name out there. There are a lot of other writers out there, and although I don’t look at any other creative as competition but rather as a colleague, it does make it a little harder to be seen and noticed. I know that it takes time and hard work to establish oneself. But I do worry that I’ll never get the readership that I’ve dreamed of having. It takes so much labor to get one’s books seen and picked up by anyone!
Where am I going?
Here’s part of what’s been kicking around my brain: what do I expect from this, from being an author? The concept of fame and what it gives – and its toll – have been something I’ve thought deeply about.* I am quite far from being famous right now, and maybe it’s presumptuous of me to even think about being well known in the SFF world, or any other world. I don’t want fame as much as knowing that there are enough people out there enjoying my work that I’ll know that I left at least the smallest ripple on the water. It’s an “I was here, dammit!” but also a “I felt this, and if you did too, I wrote things that will make you feel less alone – did you find them?”
I can’t control how my legacy is finalized. But I can keep doing the things that I do best, and I can keep trying to improve on them. I can continue to share my words and thoughts and encourage others who want to follow the same path that I’m on. I can pay attention to the world around me, especially the parts that are different from the ones I’ve experienced, and talk about them in my stories, and in social media. I can contribute money and time and words to the causes that I think need me. It’s not any different than what I’m already doing, though.
What else? I can keep making connections. I can do my best to educate myself, both in honing my craft and how to connect better on behalf of my works. I can keep working to make myself a better person. I can keep building community by sharing what I’ve learned and by lifting other creatives up, especially those with less privilege than me. I can continue to be open, honest, and vulnerable about my struggles and triumphs. I can try to keep myself positively focused, even when things are a struggle.
In my dreams, I want to have written books that are widely read, the kind that somehow win prizes and acclaim and get my name in the conversations with other authors with the same kind of themes and goals. I’d like to sit on panels about kind stories and the power of hope in SFF and bringing magic into urban landscapes that aren’t all gentrified. I want to attend more conventions and other events [health willing, of course] and feel like I actually have a peer group and that I belong there. Some of these goals I can’t control, but there are enough here that I can actually put effort into manifesting. Let’s see what the future holds, shall we?
What will I leave behind?
That’s the big question, the one I can’t answer. Will I be forgotten? Will my stories disappear? Will my legacy be a moderately infamous small goth club night that happened during the late 90s/early 00s in Central VA, and some remnants of my personal musical taste that linger? Or will I be able to leave something more lasting and [hopefully] more impactful?
In some ways, I guess it’s none of my business. I won’t be here to take joy in what people say after I’m gone, so I’d better focus on what I do now.
I promise that I’ll always be open and honest with you, reader. Maybe [probably] oversharing at times, because I have a policy of showing the lows and the highs equally. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that it’s helped them, to see their struggles mirrored in what I share. Maybe that’s my legacy. I don’t know. Maybe a legacy really doesn’t matter if I help someone now.
* I wanted to share the new track from RM’s latest, Indigo, here. It’s called 들꽃놀이 [Wild Flower] and the lyrics are deeply personal and talk about fame and the toll it takes. I’ve probably cried over it a hundred times since it released a couple of days ago.
Even before the start, I imagined An end where I could applaud and smile That’s what I wishеd for When everything I bеlieved in grew distant When all this fame turned into shackles Please take my desire away from me No matter what it takes Oh, let me be myself
