“How do you see me now / Now that I’m a little bit older, older?” - St. Vincent
After decades of being in the cringe phase of my talent, taste, skill, and wisdom, I find myself…
Still in a cringe phase. And the only way out is through.
The thing about starting over after 40; I have a bit of distance from those young, foolish years I spent pretending I was… I dunno… someone who rides a motorcycle… a journalist… someone who knows anything about making movies… and all those other costumes I tried on. Instead, I was someone who relied too much on my young, elastic skin and not enough on my curiosity.
I now look back on my strange extended adolescence with the wisdom of an ancient crow. Back then I couldn’t see it. All of the milestones that my peers were achieving in their 20s and 30s were far out of my reach, and I didn’t know why. I tried a thing, failed, pivoted, tried another thing, failed, pivoted, tried another thing, failed, and on and on and on. So many awkward years. So much change, and I was tired of change. I was tired of growing pains. I wanted to just be grown already. A little stability would have been nice. I would remember the wise words of Angela in My So-Called Life. “This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received instructions on where to go and what to do.” And I would cry like a little baby.
I realized something the other day. Meaning: something I’ve heard said over and over in a million different ways finally sunk in.
All the time that I was working so hard to become myself… I was already myself.
This is it. This has always been it. This is me. No big breakthrough. No emerging from a cocoon. No golden ray of light shining through the parting clouds. I’m just me.
I am the mistakes. I am the pivots. I am the missteps. I am the person saying the wrong thing, overreacting to the right thing, burning the bridge. Appropriating the thing. Dropping the ball. Disappearing. A meteor blazing across the sky and then, plop, fizzling into the sea. The heartaches I thought I could have avoided, the hard lessons that I didn’t ask to learn, those were all the stepstones along the path I’d made for myself. I had asked to learn the hard lesson; I did sign up for the expert level of the course. That’s what I do.
So I’m leaning into it.
Allow myself to REintroduce myself.
My name is Dance. Hard things are my thing. Impossible dreams? My faves. I’ll chase them forever. I’m a coconut following the salty currents, tossed by typhoons and taking root on the most unforgiving of islands. I say yes to monsters and mayhem.
These days, I’m a little too tired, and my knees a little too crunchy, to jump aboard all of the exciting possibilities that come my way. A recovering people-pleaser, it’s still very hard for me to give anything a hard no, but I’m getting used to it. I choose more carefully now. So I’m choosing a new goal. A big, hairy, audacious goal.
I want to love the person I’ve always been.
I am putting a call out into my little tin can attached to a string. Calling out to the Universe, the Abyss, the endless whirl of connections and electricity that we call the Internet. My hope is that the person at the other end of the string will hear my voice in their little tin can. I don’t know who this person is, but I hope they’re rooting for me. I’m hoping they will hold me accountable as I embark on an intentional curriculum, and I commit to learning all I can about how to Love the Person I’ve Always Been.
My task, if I choose to accept it, is to listen to my curiosity and follow it. I’m enrolling in the program a little later than others, but I’m here, and I am making a commitment to being here.
In spite of my collegiate degrees, I still know nothing. I think I might have envisioned “knowing things” as a game of Katamari Damacy, rolling around a bigger and bigger ball of things I’ve collected. Lyrics to every Fiona Apple song, long division, the smell of dog toes, the sound of my first boyfriend’s voice, the lines I memorized from the balcony scene of Romeo & Juliet, the term for a dying star, the best route from Hollywood to Santa Monica during rush hour. I think I was wrong. I don’t think knowledge is a “thing” to have. The reality is, if “knowing things” is how I thought of myself, that self is disappearing with every memory that gets consumed by time and age. I don’t remember what a dying star is called anymore, and no, I will not look it up.
If I’m not the things that I know, what does it mean to love myself? Even if I assume that I already love this person that I have always been, love is also not a “thing” to have, or an event that exists at a single point in time. Love is an action, a practice. Among other things, love is a lifetime of learning and acting with care.
Knowing things and having love is not as interesting to me anymore as the practice of learning and loving. The practice of learning has always been quiet, and it helped me write stories when I was a reporter for the Pacific Daily News. I learned the value of friendships when I began to work in earnest, building the first of many careers. I learned to see light and shadow, and how to capture both with pencil drawings in a sketchbook.
I know now how very little I know, down to the very basic building blocks of my world. But the things I practiced… those things stick.
To the person at the other end of the tin can telephone on a string, I am sharing this with you and making a commitment here and now, especially since the moon is new, to learn. And to love.
My first question to ponder over:
What is home?
I asked Artificial Intelligence: Why is it important to feel connected to a home?
AI said:
Feeling connected to a home is important because home is often where we build a sense of safety, belonging, and identity. When you feel connected to your home, it’s like having a foundation — a place where you can fully be yourself, recharge, and feel grounded, no matter what’s happening outside.
Home can reflect your values, memories, and dreams. It’s not just a physical space; it’s emotional. When you’re disconnected from it, you might feel adrift or unsettled, but when you’re connected, it’s like having an anchor that helps you feel more stable, creative, and alive.
What’s making you think about this right now?
Home is a cornerstone to the value of my existence, it’s foundational. But I think there’s more to learn. So that’s my task as this New Moon in Taurus regenerates itself: to learn about this concept of “home.”
It’s time to follow the White Rabbit into a new adventure.
A drawing I made last year feels particularly relevant (see the ink drawing to the right - I created this when I was still very much grieving the passing of my beloved pup, Apple. I turned to treating myself with art therapy to process the loss).
Wish me luck!