by tashmcgill | May 12, 2016 | Monologue, Prose & Poetry
It begins with the shoes. The red shoes. They hardly come out of the closet these days, but when they do – her walk is lifted, the tilt of her hips just ever so much more swung from left to right. Everything else is for her or for them, but the shoes – the shoes are for you.
Layer by layer she dressed this morning, knowing whichever direction the day thrust her, she would need to be ready and prepared to stand her ground. Calendars matter, to this woman. The schedule of roles she will play that day; friend, colleague, sage and unclaimed lover. The precise number of minutes given to eyeliner, perfume and mascara are counted out in the rush towards beginning the day. Every task their due and nothing other.
Layer by layer, her costume slides on dictated by what others need to see in her, or of her. She catalogues the demands inside her head.
Be soft, be warm, be strong, be open, be commanding, be wise.
Jeans and a casual shirt, because nobody wants to appear unapproachable. Business shirt and pencil skirt, or hip grazing, cleavage revealing black dresses with variations of red, navy and lace for days when she walks with people as powerful as she. Black when she needs to hide and red when she is feeling most alive.
Jackets and scarves chosen by necessity. She dresses first with perfume; in a sanctuary of scent she feels herself and then clothes rush on at the beginning of the day. Layer after layer dictated in the morning rush by how she will undress at the end of day. Not what you need to see but what she wants to show you.
After dark, things slow down.
Last on in the morning, at night first her jewels come off – pendants unwound from ivory neck while her fingers follow the slight curve where the artery rests. Hair pulled back exposing neck, an invitation offered gently in the night, only ever in the night. Cool night air whispers ‘welcome home’. Rings of heavy gold slide from fingers except the one band that never leaves her hand. That band that carries precious stories in its rubies. And now you know that ring is a symbol, you will want to ask.
Then those shoes, her arches sighing in relief but they give her calves a certain elevation and as her hips find their gravity again, she feels warm. The shoes were for you, but maybe also for her. There is no part of her body that does not come to life as she unclothes it.
The rest comes off even slower, the layers for them – demanding crowd. Off comes cotton, denim, polyester and ponte. Cuffs, collars and shirts unbuttoned one by one. Skirt unzipped and allowed to drop, kicked by painted dark red toe up into the grasp of hand and cast aside to laundry pile or hung up.
In this, she is most graceful and more so than in other parts of day. Dressed, she is more clumsy than most. More likely to stumble than to dance, but as layers slide off the dancer re-emerges. Back arched and ribs held high as joints flex and bend to undo all that is held together during the day. The collarbone emerges and the shape of her hits the light, curve and strength and softness. There are symbols and stories painted on her body in scars and ink; some of them you know but others you have not listened to yet.
Then silk, satin and lace. A dozen shades. Under the plainest of wardrobes, she is always silk, satin and lace. Stockings unclipped and eased down past bended knee; balanced in warm lamplight. Garter undone but she is not yet undone, there is still more to see, even more to know below bustier and corset and teddy barely containing soft breast. Still she is not undressed.
Here she is, left perfumed in the sweet musk and salt of the day, still layers of vanilla, sandalwood and orchid. High notes of orange, jasmine and patchouli. And this is her, both earthy and sweet. Vanilla, bergamot, florals and earthiness the essence of whisky, which is the other name by which you know her.
Still, layered in perfume she is not yet naked before you. She undresses but she does not leave herself unclothed.
It is beyond silk and lace, beyond what the skin wears and beyond costume of the day. Even removing silk and lace, undoing self entirely to the response of air against skin; all sharp pucker and caress. In undressing there are all elements of ache and relief, until she meets you, skin to skin and eye to eye. A dozen stolen, fleeting touches and then the eyes meet.
There is the wall you could not see til now, where every brick is a shout that said ‘Too much’, ‘too loud’, ‘too smart’, ‘too physical’, ‘too sensual’, ‘too strong’, ‘too intense’, ‘too present’ and the wall is hidden there, beneath blue eyes seeking out yours. Just one word is all she needs to hear – Leap!
Now, eyes upon eyes – back in a room full of strangers but where a glance and a look was true. There in a moment, her eyes slide from blue-gray flecked maybe to truest blue; she undressed for you.
A woman undresses from her eyes; as the shadow lifts and grey-blue hue turns to summer light – she is naked for you now. She leaps over the wall of misread doubt from voices past, while still clothed and disrobes for you.
It might happen in a room full of strangers; deep in the night while she pushes all noise and interruption to the side. Perhaps it happens while you’re not watching but she is thinking and assessing to one side. It is most likely to happen while you also, are watching her – the slow, steady and soon-to-be reliable slide of public to private sight. But whether she is still clothed in silk and lace, or wearing denim or corporate suiting for the day – she undresses from her eyes.
There is one story that is not told upon her skin, or in the ache of body that is expressed between the light and dark of night. She tells you only one story in the light of eyes unveiling into sacred, private sight. There is only one story that remains under cautious and wary eyes. The story of the Phoenix and the girl who rises.
‘I am the Phoenix, bold and wise. I am the Phoenix flying high and true and firm, but I will acquiesce for you. I will let you touch and hold my burning wing, hold my sharpened voice and sing, I will burn and rise again for you.. and let you see me, see me shining through. I am the Phoenix, I will rise again and rise and rise and rise again.’
And there she is, exposed at last – she is a creature of the myth. She undresses and you find her in between the grey and blue, the Phoenix, who rises and looks for you.
by tashmcgill | Apr 27, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
‘You can read it, if you like.’
(The story written to explain the chapters of life before now, where we intersect.)
He said it with nonchalance and maybe because the words were light leaving his tongue but heavy by the time they landed in my ear, I was struck off-balance. I imagine at least, that the words were not heavy with meaning for him, because how would I imagine that those words leaving his lips are as costly for him as they are valuable to me on hearing them?
They landed in my ear and my hand at the same time, little stones dropped into a lake and their ripples sweeping out and down my limbs.
I do not trade in stories lightly, I want to tell him. I hold the stories of others as precious as I hold my stories close. Stories are secrets and trust and truth.
Truthfully, my stories are kept safe behind a tall, brick wall. Stories of my doing, they are like climbing roses on the outside of the wall. Pretty, sweet and sometimes funny I can tell these stories easy and only those who pay close attention will see the bricks behind the flowers.
Lately, I have been thinking about taking some of those bricks down.
Beyond the brick is a wild garden. It is fragrant and sweet, full of fruit and nut trees. There is a river through one corner and the sun falls nicely on the grove of trees. It is both wild and well-tended and it cannot be defined as one thing or another. It is not English nor tropical. It is all things, all being, all stories in their raw and imperfect state. Unfiltered, unrestrained.
Lately, I have been thinking about taking some of those bricks down.
It means something to me, this exchange of the wild, unbound stories. Stories are trust; credit in the bank of understanding. Not understanding as assurance of anything but acceptance and the safe bravery of being Known.
Grace and meaning come from trading stories in my world. Knowing your stories is one step closer to knowing you, the real you – outside the carefully polished mannequins we live inside. At least, I assume it is that way with others, as it is that way with me.
It is a precious thing to hold somebody’s story in your hand. And it is never one story but a collection of tales that weave together one and then the next and the one after. You can traverse sideways, backwards and forwards through the story of another; moments of history and glimpses of the future. So one story could mean all the stories, if you navigate well.
“All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.” James Baldwin
I keep a rose garden, that grows on a brick wall. The roses thrive on the sun, strapped in obedient lines against a sturdy spine. Well-practiced stories chosen for each moment. A careful selection of which practiced line is safe to use.
Here is the secret, buried in the brick. If I say the wrong thing, tell the wrong story, express the wrong feeling or tell you what I think before I know what you expect, need or want for me to say – then you, whoever you are, will disappear. A terrifying fear that I am responsible for my aloneness by never being the right thing; good enough, funny enough, wise enough, sweet enough, fierce enough, never enough.
Not an uncommon secret, but mine nonetheless.
Beyond the brick, there is a garden I have come to love. I’ve been living in it, behind the wall my whole life. And lately, I have been thinking about taking down the bricks.
There are some brave and patient ones who have made it far beyond the bricks. They have found crevices through which to crawl. For them, the wild and untamed self delights uninhibited. The storytrader gives freely there and the garden is bountiful. People eat and find shelter and laugh and love is made the whole day long and into the night. The land is good. I peek over the wall and through the window in the gate I hid so well and wonder now, whether I dare wait for those intrepid enough to make their own way through the wall.
Life beyond the brick is good and sweet and sensual and gritty. Lately, I have been thinking about opening the gate or taking down the bricks.
by tashmcgill | Apr 20, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
I live according to a few basic guidelines. It’s a way of navigating through life, which is as complex as it is beautiful. More than mottos, these are principles that help guide my decision-making and my responses to what happens around me.
What’s for you will not pass you by.
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. (Henley)
There’s a lesson in everything.
There is something gold and loveable in everyone, even if you have to dig.
Actions speak louder than words, but if you speak let your words be true.
Don’t waste energy or thought on what can’t be changed.
Don’t waste energy or time on negativity.
Assume positive intent always.
Hurt and disappointment are the result of unmet expectations.
You have everything and everyone you need to solve the current problem.
Everything is working together for good.
They are a good way to live, but not perfect. Sometimes you learn a principle no longer works because you outgrew it or your circumstance changed; sometimes it ceases in relevance. Sometimes you add new ones, as you grow and face new challenges.
In 2015, I had a principle: true hair, true feelings. I’d been a redhead (again) for a year or so, but the more time wore on, the more the Ginger had a personality of her own. She helped me try a lot of new things, but I wasn’t entirely myself. I became brunette again, and concentrated on understanding what it is I really felt, really wanted, really desired. Confession: I miss the Ginger.
So here’s another confession: I didn’t just outgrow one of my biggest principles, I was dead wrong about it. There, I said it. I’ve been walking around with a false belief for almost my entire life.
You have to give people your trust first to let them prove it.
So very wrong and now you know I was, too. The map of how I got to that belief is not a story for here, but I have always thought the best way to discover if someone is trustworthy was to trust them first and see if they earn more trust. I always thought it was too much of a tough ask to earn trust from a blank canvas starting point. Call it a fatal weakness of my optimistic outlook, but I have hoped for the best in people. Hoped for the best in workmates, in friends, in people I admire and in relationships too. I was hoping they were trustworthy and hoping I wouldn’t be wrong about it.
I’m an idiot.
I have always taken a certain amount of pride in being to face any circumstance with ease. In business I’m adaptable, a fast and sure-footed decision-maker and as an empath, I can navigate the complexities of many social situations, putting people at ease with a little friendly conversation and banter. (When other people are at the center of my attention.)
I can make easy conversation with a stranger at a bar. I can walk into a variety of situations without fear. I have broken curfew in Haiti to buy rum from a gas station, the only woman within miles. I have used my kickboxing training to wrestle my way free from a late-night carpark attack. (I have the scars to prove it. Concealer is a miraculous thing, when you need it.)
But I have other scars too, ones that require a different kind of cover-up. The ones left behind from getting it wrong when it comes to trust, mistakenly vulnerable with those things I value most.
Sometimes you choose to trust someone and if they let you down, it doesn’t matter at all. There’s no high stakes and no skin in the game. Other times, you choose to trust but you’re not only trusting another person, you are also trusting yourself. Trusting your own intuition, your ability to judge the character of others but also to make your own wise choices and avoid poor assumptions. You trust yourself to hold yourself safely together while giving parts of yourself away at the same time. You have to trust yourself to be vulnerable, but to do so wisely and in safe places.
You can trust yourself until you make a mistake, until your intuition fails you. Until you realise maybe you can’t be trusted to choose wisely who to be vulnerable with. You become very afraid.
Within me the battle goes on; a child-like girl who opens her vulnerable heart to the world over and over against the terrified one who holds herself back at every turn. Most of the time, the child-like girl hopes and the fearful girl hides.
The result is I become a little bit vulnerable with everyone, but I don’t know how to move past fear of being truly vulnerable with those I know I can trust. There are, of course, exceptions – my childhood best friend, my trainer and those that have proven themselves over time.
I must choose to trust others again, but I must also learn to trust. Trust has a shape and a form, a sound and a fingerprint created over time. And this, the hardest thing to learn: trust doesn’t look like hope – hope is an altogether different thing. Hope is the belief that everything will work out in the end, but trust is the platform for vulnerability, the vital connection that helps us get there. Hope sustains us, but vulnerability strengthens us to have real connection.
I have confused hope and trust over and over again, because I am so drawn to hope. But trust is built and proven over time, earned in a series of small actions and intimacies that demonstrate what is safe and good and kind. Best summed up by Charles Feltman, who wrote The Thin Book of Trust, trust is “choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person’s actions.”
Brené Brown says that without trust there can be no meaningful connection between people. And people are the most important thing in my world, connection the only thing I long for. So in learning to trust myself again, I can trust others, which leads to true vulnerability and connection. Simple!
And this, the hardest thing to learn: trust doesn’t look like hope – hope is an altogether different thing.
Trust looks like unpacking those scars and reversing them. Trust looks like paying attention to the small things, making the calls and knocking on the door. Asking the questions and answering them too. Following through on the gritty conversations, letting your actions speak louder than words, but your words also being true. Trust is not accidental or insecure. Trust is persistent and optimistic.
Do you know what hasn’t changed? I still go looking for the gold in everyone. I still tend towards trusting more than distrusting. I am still an optimistic idealist and there is a lesson in everything, even the most painful mistakes I’ve made. What’s for me will not pass me by, whether by the fates or the winds I choose to sail by. I find myself in the waiting space, because trust takes time. It will take time to trust myself again, now I realise where to begin and I will keep digging up the gold within.
Hopeful, optimistic and willing to trust beyond fear.
by tashmcgill | Apr 7, 2016 | Culture & Ideas
I’m trying to make space in my life right now – space to have moments with people and in places, to have moments at home, because space demands to be filled. And I’ve learned where there is space demanding to be filled, something will come along to fill it. Space is what allows us to be open and to encounter the new in the everyday.
People. Ideas. Thoughts. Perceptions and patterns. Stories. Characters. Relationship and connection.
And this is why I always find new ideas or new perspectives while travelling. I’m open because travelling strips away the responsibility and burdens of everyday life, creating vast openness. I don’t have to decide anything but what to watch or when to sleep or where to explore in my rental car. The same principle works in retreating: an escape from the noise and clutter. A filtering and rebirth into wide open spaces.
It is universal; the artist will tell you without space, creativity cannot happen. And by creativity, I don’t mean the abstract state or the manner of being – I mean the gritty, raw practice of making. Making of words and songs, poems, ideas, new intentions, new ways of thinking and seeing the world. All of that is the product of making.
When I travel, the space clears for me. I am one of those clichéd writers that can produce great work on a plane or a train. I think and then I write, and thinking happens well in those metal tubes. I dictate story lines and sing melody lines into my phone, saving every drop of making that is in me. I have a habit of falling in love with fascinating ideas (and occasionally people) right before I travel anywhere. There’s something about leaving a place that makes me want to hold on to it, even if my return is imminent. A fragment of home that I can carry with me. What I’ve learned is that every journey leaves a mark on me this way, it carries its own theme and everything I see or touch or taste while I am travelling carries that mark on it.
So space happens in the movement, in the between, in the transitions between train stations on the way, on highways or in airport lounges. It is peace, to a busy mind. I retreat inward and while my smiles remain gracious, my words become few. The interior dialogue between alter-egos dominates all and ideas pour forth. Space happens on the long, twisting back roads of a foreign land and in days spent in silence because you do not have the language of the place.
Space, because the clutter of what you are used to seeing is stripped away. Your mind can wander freely and your eyes see things – new.
For example, there is a man in a well-cut suit drinking coffee at the cheap café in the center court of the transit lounge. He has status privileges but he hasn’t taken advantage of them. I can tell why. He has the look of a man who is thinking of home, his eyes fastened on the handbag store across the hall. He is thinking about how his wife, whose blue eyes look particularly weary and love-worn lately, might like the one in peach. It’s a practical but fashionable design and it would go with the dress she was wearing the last time he was home; which might have been last week or maybe last month. Maybe it was the second to last time he was home.
Either way, I wish I could tell him, yes – she would love the handbag but he should just send her a letter. A letter to tell her he is sitting in an airport on his way home and he is not thinking about how the meeting went or whether he thinks Rob will close the deal. No, he is simply thinking of her and whether he has done enough to keep her love this month, because he worries so that his absence is too much and too often. He fears becoming one of those men whose love fades away before his eyes because of inattention. He could simply write that and send it to her. Sign it ‘much love from Changi Airport, Singapore.’ And he could do it from the next airport too.
‘Dear Grace, I am thinking of you and that orange dress you were wearing. I like how you wear that dress and I am coming home soon. Please be there, because you are home to me. I am doing my best and I think you are doing yours; let’s carry on.’
There’s a story in that and some truth about how we relate to one another, how we long for one another. How we try and how we fear failure even in the midst of circumstances that should provide us with security and hope.
Or the young man in well-worn denim and faded t-shirt but brand new shoes. Shoes so pristine they must still be giving him blisters. He looks nervously at his travel wallet for the third time, lifting his phone to the horizon a couple of times and checking his watch. He is all coiled energy, anticipation and anxiety. His eyes are unable to stay in one place too long because his thoughts are stretched between here and there, wherever he’s headed to. His carry-on looks uncomfortably full and he has not one, but two hoodies wrapped around his waist. Ah, I see it now. He is travelling from home for the first time and doesn’t intend to return home anytime soon. He’s not just travelling, he’s planning on landing somewhere for a while. These shoes were one last splurge before he has to face the challenge of finding a job or making new friends and becoming accustomed to life away. Sure as the sun rising, he’s wondering if it’s too soon to let his parents know he’s made it this far.
The man sitting in the café, thinking about his wife.
The young man moving to a new country, alone for the first time.
The girl travelling to her sister’s wedding, feeling alone.
The child gazing out the airport window, beginning the first inkling of a dream to be a pilot.
The woman who hosts travellers every day, but has never left her island home.
Without distraction, the mind falls to thought more intentionally than you realise. If you pay attention, it is a wonderful way to discover what matters to you. First your happy thoughts will come to you, followed by your fears and then whatever is making you hopeful. Once you have worked through all of those things, then you might discover what sadness you are carrying. Go even further and you will find yourself at the deep, deep happiness, where you are completely yourself.
I discover myself, at the end of the silent-not silence and the travelling spaces; still myself. A storyteller. A poetry-lover, wanderer and mystical romantic. A hopeful idealist, pragmatic optimist. I am home; in my skin and my places. I have space now; I have made space for the new and whatever stories that will give me to tell. You live with yourself at the end of the day, no matter where you are. So be brave enough to be yourself – complex, simple, passionate, chilled out … Whoever you are, be unapologetically yourself. Be yourself as a friend, yourself as a lover. Be a fighter for that which you care about. Be a giver of whatever you have. Be you. Please. The world is better that way.
I have travelled all the way to here – home where I began, to begin again. Life is after all, beginning after beginning overlapping and colliding with each other.
by tashmcgill | Dec 6, 2015 | Culture & Ideas, Strategy
As I wrote last week, there’s a post-it note on my desk with the quote,
“Everything I’ve ever let go of has clawmarks in it.” David Foster Wallace.
Letting go of anything means change. Change is constant and uncomfortable. Very few human beings are wired to thrive on the thrill of the unknown. Most of us believe forewarned is forearmed and that minimising change is the utopian dream. We crave stability, without realising that stasis is the first stage before death.
While I echo Wallace’s sentiment, I can’t support his implied proposition – that to fight and cling is somehow noble. But Wallace committed suicide in 2008, having lived much of his adult life with depression and under medication in order to be able to work. I think Wallace’s fight to hold on and to resist change ultimately contributed to the ongoing breakdown of his life. You see, what we invest our energy into grows.
Change that we resist is usually an external pressure or energy; something that comes upon us. When you resist external force with internal force, the energy evaporates in the combustion of that reaction, but the energy is also lost. No one party gains from the other.
Over time, a resistance or refusal to respond to change depletes your energy and resource.
I experienced this a number of times in my early working life. The loss of a project, the change in a plan, the loss of a job. I clung and fought but each battle became harder to fight and each victory less sweet, such was the price of the battle.
So now, instead of fighting to resist change – I’m learning to surrender to it.
It may feel uncomfortable because in the Western world, our idea of surrender is most often associated with loss. We only surrender when we are in a losing position. But in Sanskrit, the word ‘surrender’ is translated to ‘give yourself wholeheartedly to something, to embrace the flow of your life.’
This idea of surrender is about where you put your energy and what you resist instead of embracing, what you embrace instead of resisting. A negative attitude towards change is a toxic learning environment. Learning should always be a by-product of change. A negative attitude towards change alienates and disengages you from those who would help you navigate it.
Surrender is powerful because it reframes our thinking away from bad conflict habits.
Surrender is powerful because you cannot embrace again without first letting go.
Surrender is powerful because it truly is the path of least resistance. Resistance is the enemy of hope in the face of change. We get to keep our energy for other battles.
Surrender is powerful because it focuses us on the posture we taking in learning, the resilience required to live with inevitable disappointment and the power of humility.
It is in surrender that you are embracing humility. Knowing yourself truly; good, bad and ugly. Confronting the secret and alone parts of yourself that are still laced with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being unsuccessful, fear of being unloved, fear of being wrong.
When I was confronted with the biggest change I’ve known as an adult; I fought it with all my might. I rallied in every conversation, I maintained an excruciating level of intensity because losing this project was not an option for me. I fought myself, my mentors, I fought with my friends and then I lost it anyway. I entered the dark shadow cave; confronted with loss and with blame. I felt ashamed that I hadn’t held onto what I had clung so tightly too in the past. Letting go felt like failure, but later I realised not letting go fast enough meant I had no time or capacity to embrace the lessons right in front of me. Change came and continued out without me, because I wouldn’t allow myself to get on board the train.
No matter what kind of change you’re undergoing, major or minor – we yearn for peace. We find it in surrender. Surrender to knowing that while we may not see the end result of change; change is assured. Change in of itself is not scary. Change can open new doors of discovery. Change can also be very, very wrong. But like a tsunami wave, it will not be stopped once started. Accepting change is a doorway to peace. Surrendering to the flow of your life is peace entering in.
Surrendering to change pushes us into the unknown, which is where we must be if we are to learn something new and to learn something new, we must ask the right questions.
- what will I learn
- how can I learn best from this
- how will I respond
- how will I help others
Surrender is the art form of leaning in, a gateway to vulnerability. As the world responds to us, change is quickened. As change is quickened, we are more truly ourselves. The more change we embrace, the more we have the opportunity to embrace the lessons that come with it.
