Liberation Day

I'm still in shock.

The braces came off TODAY.

My ortho had said that he would take molds today for retainers and that they would do so with the brackets on and it would take 2 weeks to get the retainers.  But before I knew it, he was snapping off brackets and wires and molar bands, O rings and power chains. Metal and dried glue went flying everywhere. Molds were taken for my new invisalign retainers which I'll get tomorrow. Today's gifts include a whole 24 hours of true liberation.

I swear, it still has not hit me.

Looking at myself in the mirror I see someone who looks so different, so young.  Happy! And yet, all I can think of is the gratitude I want to express to all of you who have been with me for the last three years every step of the way. I want to thank you all for reading, for your letters, your words, your encouragement, your hearts, your shoulders, the lovely meals you've made me, the adventures you've had with me. I want to thank a very special dachshund who offered his most human empathy in my darkest moment.

I've been listening to Gotye's "Save Me" which really expresses what I've been feeling for all of you:  

You gave me love, when I could not love myself. 
And you made me turn, from the way I saw myself. 
And you're patient, love, and you help me help myself. 
And you save me, and you save me, and you save me."

Beautiful song. Skip to :32 which is when the words start:

I love you all. Really, really.

Olympic Grillin'

I think the Universe is laughing at me.

No one loves watching the Olympics more than I do. My own brother called me the Thursday before the opening ceremonies to talk to me because he knew I would be "unavailable for the next 2 weeks." That made me smile. I wear this as a point of pride.

I love it all--track and field, diving, gymnastics, swimming. Especially the swimming. I used to be a swimmer and was even invited to swim with the Masters once upon a time, so I watch this event with special relish.

Now, Ryan Lochte is awfully pretty to look at. And he has the gold to back it up. But not only around his neck--ON HIS TEETH. Have you seen this??

He's got a red, white and blue grill!  And they look like braces!!

Seriously?  This is the hottest thing around?  If only I had made my braces red, white and blue with diamonds, it would have been a whole new paradigm. Then again, if I was biting on a gold medal, it really would have been a parallel universe.

I'm sprinting towards my own finish line right now with this process,  and my smile won't need diamonds--it will be big enough on its own! Stay tuned for more info on that this week!

Pearls of Wisdom

My friend Karin recently posted this on Facebook:

"The world, Govinda, is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it, all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them, all dying people—eternal life... Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good—death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me." --Hermann Hesse

The last 10 days were spent blissfully on Cape Cod, beaching, eating and enjoying friends. It was a simple, small town vacation that was so perfect. My friend Alicia even found a tiny pearl in an oyster that she ate.

I've been thinking about pearls ever since she found it, and how they're formed. A foreign substance, perhaps some stray grains of sand, gets between the mantle and the shell, which irritates the mantle.  The oyster protects itself by layering on nacre, that beautiful pearly substance. I love the message here: It's only by being uncomfortable that an oyster can create it's truest beauty. It's only by being rubbed the wrong way, that the best of you can be brought out.

I have had a foreign substance in my own mantle for almost three years. It has most certainly rubbed me the wrong way (to the point of causing contusions, many times.) Could it be, that I have been layering on nacre for the last three years?  Perfect, as Hermann Hesse says, in every moment?  I am now able to give my loving understanding to both the sin and the grace within this process. Could it be that I have become what my father used to call me: his "pearl of a girl"?

The sun is setting on this process and rising on something new. The clouds are breaking and the light is perfectly arrayed.

Taken in Sesuit, MA, while eating Baileyberry pie