notes on being suspended in the middle of the ocean (for a year)

and a return to mellifluent aliveness

via @chelseakauai on instagram

You may have noticed (who am I kidding, you’re not paying attention to all the changes I make, but alas…) I have changed the name of my blog. To something I rather love and something that embodies my philosophy and the way I aim to move through life. It seems like a good reminder, and I love it. Did I already say that? Well good, I’m saying it again.

Melli•fluent. That’s my stylized version.

As for the definition?

Some amalgamation of flowing, rich, lyrical, velvety, textured; sweet, yet layered, mysterious. Like honey. Like the way I love to move and write and feel through life.

Beneath this change is the truth that for the past year, I have been feeling disconnected from my own life, my desires, my purpose, my creative juice which had for several years prior been flowing with little effort. Well, there are always lulls, aren’t there? It seems they are necessary at certain points, to allow us to refine, to distill, to clarify. It feels painful and challenging, especially for a woman like me (and if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re similar) who is so sensitive to change — who notices every little pattern and nuance and energetic shift — to feel in such a liminal space. Floating.

Of course there is nothing wrong with this liminality, but imagine being suspended in the middle of a dark ocean on mushrooms for a year. That’s what it felt like. Overwhelming. Breathing was a labor I had to remember and remember and remember. Movement. Swim! Or float. Find a liferaft. A submarine. Find an engine. Something to cling to.

But nothing was there. Everything slipped and slithered through my fingertips. Sure my spine is serpentine and, I suppose, that’s why I didn’t die. Movement is my nature, my passion, my joy, my aliveness. Movement is, after all, life.

So I noticed and I noticed and I noticed. I created things only to destroy them the next day, or the next hour. I felt humiliated and exposed and insane more times in the span of two weeks than I have in my entire liftime. And. I made it through. I felt the swell and the crash. I ate too much chocolate. Drank too much wine. Made earthy, grounding feasts then forgot to eat for two days. And. I made it through. I have two cups of coffee and two squares of brown butter chocolate before anything else and it is delicious. But oh, where was I going with this?

Well, I was going to drop a hint. A hint I’ve already placed in my “bio” which also changes every 36 hours because well, movement.

Movement, yes, exactly.

At some point of my creative journey I started teaching movement classes. A few of you even participated in a course I created, which was one of my favorite things ever to do. I lost the plot somewhere. Well no, I just started writing some other books, exploring some side streets and the like. Just to see what was what.

But the truth is, I’ve been pursuing a movement education since I was 16, I’ve been obsessed and fulfilled and nourished in more ways that I can explain… so movement is here to stay, and I am here to teach… or to let it teach through me, if ya get my drift (if not, that’s okay, I have plenty more to say on this topic. And oh, is it coming).

So that’s the big hint drop. Stay tuned…

And if I still have your attention, maybe you’d like a little poetic journey?

If so, read on.

•••

Sapphire vase, voluptuous, waterless, holding black merlot dried roses and carnations that edge from antiqued blush to lush dusty bubblegum. A wooden desk with a layer of glass holding bottles of ink — gold, blood, moondust — and tubes of watercolor in every earthtone nestled into a circle. A gold pot of strawberry lip balm I’ve had for two centuries, a silver bird, a bronze elephant, a prismatic stone of abstract geometry.

Notes strewn.

Everything is a secret room.

Paintbrushes of every shape fanned in a lavender yogurt jar. Swirls of blue on grainy tanned paper. Patterns in wood grain. Markings in jade. Fiber of muscle contracting around writing instrument.

A vase small enough to hug every petal of a single chrysanthemum.

Silver sphere magnets molded into something that echoes their own shape.

•••

Observations are the foundations of the clearest statements, the poet and scientist alike may tell you. Much else is far off fantasy.

Let meaning emerge from the feeling of things, and still, see clearly; a landing, a philosophy. Trust yourself and everyone else to find what they need in precisely that moment. This moment.

Release expectation.

Relax into the symphony.

Let each wave swell and retreat; noticing, noticing, noticing.

Some swells rustle the murk, for an instant, a century, for many lifetimes over, clouding your vision. Yet clear is the enveloping sea.

Feel each grain of sand caressing your skin with gentle grit, the way a school of fish tickle your senses with grazing fins, and the spiny punctures of a burgundy sea urchin.

Feel the calm, floating atop the ocean..

Feel deep rest in the water’s press, lying awake at the bottom.

Feel, somewhere in the middle, perpetual, waving motion.

If this moved you, opened you, made you feel, made you curious…
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