62 Going On 63

Tomorrow I will be turning 63, or as I like to say 9. I decided about a month ago that I was going to stop identifying myself with a number. It has nothing to do with being afraid of death, or being age phobic, I think of it more as being Age Neutral or Generation  Fluid.

I don’t know if everyone hits this. I know some people who stopped living with a capitol L a decade ago. Now they are just passing time until they kick off. I can’t imagine feeling like there is nothing more to experience or that all the best is over. And yes, in some ways this surprises the shit out of me because I am not a sunbeam. I am a complete failure at the Law of Attraction because I can’t live my life with rose coloured blinkers. I can’t ignore injustice or cruelty. I have to fix things and not just paint them buttercup yellow. And honestly I don’t think you have to pretend the crackheads you are tripping over are daisies in order to attract positive energy.

But despite all of this, I wake up every morning happy and looking forward to the day.

Has anything changed since my last birthday eve post?

My hair is dark again.

Now considering that dark is pretty much my natural colour with the exception of some silver at the temples, it took me forever to get used to it. It was the weirdest thing. I got incredible compliments from friends, clientele, strangers… and I do mean incredible and yet I found it such a shock looking at myself in the mirror. This lasted for about a month and yet at no time did I have any regrets. Somehow I just knew that there was something I couldn’t quite see yet, but I needed to trust that I was going to.

Going dark was like taking off the cloak of invisibility.

Last July I performed one of my favourite shows, Faery Tale Confidential, in my friend Serafin’s bay-windowed living room. I was terrified for a couple of reasons. The first was that I had almost convinced myself that I was incapable of memorizing and the second was that the audience was only 5 feet away from me at any given time and they were all pretty discerning. And I especially didn’t want to suck because a lot of these peeps had never seen me perform and had always believed in me regardless so… no pressure. Hard as it was, I exchanged my fears for trust in my ability to make this show magick.

Can you see the theme here? Yep. I needed to learn to trust myself. And let me tell you, now that I do, it makes being Danger Girl a whole lot easier.

That evening was a life changer for me. I am still learning things from it. In fact Friday and Saturday I learned from two separate people how much they value that experience.

So my next lesson is placing value on my work and not letting it mummify inside me.

This last year has been full of art, performance, music, fulfilling friendships and being comfortable in my own skin. I am feeding my head, living almost entirely in the present and slowly but surely erasing my comfort zone. I have discovered Maggie Nelson, Joan Didion, Underpass Park, I got to see Yayoi Kusama, fell in love with Nish Dish and thanks to my friend Shaun, dancing.

XO