My Phoenix Era
"I was not made this beautiful to sit on a shelf"
Apparently “phoenixing” is going to be a thing in 2025. I’m in. I haven’t felt like life would “never be good again” for years now, but the idea that I’m on the edge of the “most powerful flight of [my] life” feels . . . about right.
I’ve always been into expansion. I just forget. Over the years, one of the things I’ve found most difficult about island life—toxic even—is how the smallness of living here makes me small. It’s hard not to get myopic, become overly invested in a few things and lose sight of the larger picture. At one point this phenomenon nearly killed me.
I talk a lot about The World, needing more of it, how I’m fueled by it. By this I usually mean a desire to belong to a larger varied human community than the physical one I live in. To see others deeply and be seen in all my multitudes, not just the roles everyone here knows me for. My home is a beautiful anchor and I am supremely grateful for the safety and belonging and I’m also meant to live bigger than this.
The other day when I read about “phoenixing” I went digging through old notes from my life coach. Everything is everything you guys. These are Hannah’s notes from five years ago, before I knew I was a writer:
You realized you require inspiration from the outside world.
You said very clearly: “This is my life's work. HAVING MY ARTIST COME OUT.”
The more we talked about this Artist, the more I could sense it was out of reach. So we created a metaphor to give it some playfulness, soften it and learn more about it.
We agreed it was up high on a shelf. When I asked you what “it” was you, you said it’s:
wildly shaped
seems to have attachments
it’s alive
it seems to be an exotic bird that struts around
sort of Mythical
fiery
THE PHOENIX!
you said,
I can rise from the ashes and be myself again
It walks on the shelf with a piercing stare. You aren't sure how it got up there but you have the sense that it's always been there. It seems to be some kind of guardian angel creature and protector. It has an authority and you’re intimidated by it.
When we asked what its purpose was, it said:
To set that lady free
When we asked what its message was, she answered:
Don't just stand there looking at me
When I asked, “What should she be looking at?” The Phoenix answered:
YOU'VE GOT TO GO OUT THERE
We could be out there flying
I was not made this beautiful to sit on a shelf
***
I discovered writing, that I’m a writer, have always been a writer. Writing has become a bridge to a swath of “my people” I may not have found otherwise. And it’s definitely starting to feel like I’m about to take flight in that realm.
But also, you guys, enter the dating apps. The apps have long been on the list of stuff I thought I’d never do, maybe because pings and dings are probably the main cause of any derailed days. I get overwhelmed by texts from the people I already know and love and I also need those texts and connections to feel a part of the world. Paradox #197.
An app hang-up has also been “for what tho?” I’m pretty great at meeting humans in the real world without outside help. And I haven’t fully decided if I even believe sex with other people is worth it. When it comes to sex, the potential for kicking up emotions and wounds that live in our bodies goes through the roof. Do I want to take that on? Are both people going to be on board for figuring out how to be nice to them? Isn’t friendship + therapy + creative expression + enjoyable solo sex a pretty winning recipe for a fulfilling life?
Turns out I do like sex though. So this week I joined Feeld. Feeld is the app I’ve always recommended to friends, because it lauds itself as “a dating app for the curious; those open to experiencing people and relationships in new ways.” I love all the language they aspire to: For journeys, not destinations. In short, my jam.
Here’s a real-time arc of the experience thus far:
Upload profile (while in Portland), feel queasy.
Watch alerts for likes instantly flood in and fully want to barf because how are you going to say ‘no’ nicely to all these people.
Realize that’s not your job and you can’t even see who likes you until you also like them.
Like no one for many hours, just swipe and swipe and swipe. Realize this might be fun.
Delete no one for days (because you don’t realize they won’t get alerted and you’re still on that ‘not hurting peoples’ feelings’ shit), so every time you start over you’re looking through the same million people.
Definitely waste hours of your life.
Change location a bunch, start messaging, get bolder.
Quickly get good at “nope.” Ex: dude initiates by telling you you don’t seem to understand what “the friend zone” means. Cool, bro, nice to meet you too.
Find there are lots and lots of funny and deep and playful people out there who also want to have long conversations before committing to sex, but also some of them are so attractive and WAIT IS THIS A PORTAL TO THE WORLD?
Set up a bunch of meet-ups, attempt to temper addiction stuff: shut off notifications, log out entirely, delete the app. Everything is a drug.
what takes 2 years takes 2 days
***
In other “take flight” news, last weekend I proudly pulled off taking my 9-year-old to The Era’s Tour. I’d been banking the scheme in a corner of my brain for months, hoping tickets would drop enough day of to be feasible. By Thursday night I’d decided I was going for it, woke my daughter Friday and told her she wasn’t going to school but not why we were going to Canada. We got our nails done when we should have been crossing the border, didn’t buy the tickets until 4pm, spent 25 minutes outside the stadium circling from one sold-out parking garage to the next as I worried we might spend the concert doing just that. But we made it to our seats, donuts and lemonade (aka dinner) in hand, with plenty of time to spare.
Much has been said about the collective aura of the Era’s Tour. It’s true that I’ve never experienced anything like the shared anticipation of watching that clock count down, of tens of thousands of bracelets lighting up in sync in the dark, of the collective shit-losing the moment Taylor Swift rose out of the stage. What moved me most, at a moment in life when I’m embracing all the myriad parts that form me, was watching a woman a few years my junior on stage in front of the world embodying not one persona, but nearly a dozen. Say what you will about pop optics, that’s real. We all contain a soft witch, petulant teenager, adoring lover, rage-filled bitch and more. The Era’s tour is a spectacular depiction of what it is to pass through life as a woman.
Do I believe associating love with possession is crushing us collectively? Do I have to work to willfully ignore every “I’m yours” and “you’re mine” and “I want” as I sing along at the top of my lungs? Of course. Rom-coms have got to go, but I still eat that shit up. Walking to the bathroom, looking up at tens of thousands of faces aglow in worship of their individual and collective nostalgia and heartbreak and joy was absolutely a religious experience.
Not long ago it was plausible we all might never see live music like that again. It wasn’t lost on me we have no clue what the future holds. Though that’s rarely lost on me. YOLO, unless you don’t, but either way, once-in-a-lifetime and glad we went.
***
Another reading this week! Once again at the Orcas Island Winery, Thursday the 19th, doors at 5. Hope to see some of you there!
Your Optional Assignment: Join a dating app.
JK. Actually—if you’ve been considering it, you should. You can always delete it later. If you live here and the hump is, “But won’t people I know see me?” The answer is yeah, like 10 people and they see you at the store anyway and who cares and also you can put a picture without your face or there are settings you can play with. Doesn’t it seem worth it for access to the the whole world?
Option 2, for those who will not be doing that: Sit down for 5 minutes, close your eyes and imagine a phoenix strutting around on a high shelf looking down at you. What do you both know that you’ve never talked about? Talk about it.
I loved absolutely everything about this piece. May we play with the exotic bird til the end of time. Also, congrats on 1k....you're A WRITER.
1000!