Foolish Phoenixes

I had a friend tell me once that I would be better off if I allowed myself get vulnerable enough to appear foolish more often. I thought this was kind of funny, because I think I appear foolish more often than not. Shoot, you're talking to a woman who fell down a flight of steps at the Louvre (though truth be told the Parisians couldn't have given a rat's derriere), danced table-top on her 21st birthday at a roadside bar, and oh yeah, got braces at age 36 while still contemplating dating.

What's more vulnerable than hearkening back to the time in your life when you felt the most insecure? I feel like I have teenager stamped all over me with these braces, and yet I willingly put myself in that position. It wasn't some decree from a parent. It was all my own doing, thank you very much. I think I was prepared for the physicality of it, but not necessarily the emotional bit that has accompanied it. I thought I had reached that point in my life where I recognized that insecurity wasn't really serving me too well, and I had happily left it by the wayside. (Well, relatively speaking.)

But I suppose that life has a funny way of bringing light to the very thing you're so desperately trying to hide. "That which we resist, persists," says Debbie Ford. I think I've been trying to avoid this very situation my whole life, grateful that I've hung on by my fingernails to the edge of the inner sanctum of Edo. Now, I'm so...well, seen. I've always had a ready smile for both strangers and those I love dearly. Now I think twice before flashing it.

Maybe there's some truth to the fact that I do a pretty good job of trying to appear impassive and impermeable. I went to a career coach who said upon meeting me, "You're very powerful." I laughed. Out loud. (Can you guys imagine? Hardly the first adjective that comes to mind when describing me!) I incredulously asked him to explain the comment and never really got a satisfactory answer.

I'm listening to Joni Mitchell's "Down To You" as I write this:

Everything comes and goes

marked by lovers and styles of clothes

Things that you held high and told yourself were true

Lost or changing as the days come down to you

I get it, Joni. I get it. And I wouldn't mind a little court and spark, either.

Charles DuBois said, "The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are, for who we can become." So I took my moment, and I continue to continue to take my moment. The phoenix has to build a nest before it sets itself on fire, becomes ash and rises again. It's a process that is long, involved, painful and ultimately redemptive. And of course, phoenixes have gorgeous, shiny teeth, don't they? ;)