Un-inhibition.

Let me first say that:
I am home.
We are together.
I wore my boots and my hair is short.
My life has raced forward in the past six months,
the time since I last turned on my bedroom light.
These things are all good things.

Tonight we had a surprise appearance from
Miss Scarlet,
Colonel Mustard,
Professor Plum,
etc.
And I realized that nothing makes me gasp for air
like the breathless laughter of my dad.
Tears, abdominal workout, the whole bit.
We were rolling!

I am on an upright computer
and Michael Buble just came on STAR 101.5.
Ooh, I haven't heard this one yet.
Michael's syncopated rhythms jam through me,
especially those piano chords.
Music is being invited into my thoughts again.
I have scribbled across pages and pages
in my attempt to answer:
Where has my music gone?
And then I realized that I let it go--
without wanting to, I let it go.
This is good to pinpoint,
because how could I let it wash through me again
without realizing it had been missing?

I poked through the movie closet to see
which DVDs have recently decided to move in.
And I scatted.
I went for it
loudly and proudly
without notes to follow
and without a set rhythm.
"The music is all around you."
I have finally decided to listen again
and am finding much relief.

Before my plane even left solid ground,
I was out like a light.
Head back, mouth open, OUT.
Uninhibited by the close-quartered crowd,
chomping on pretzels and slurping Diet Coke through holes in their ice cubes,
I slept.
The beverage cart woke me up and I was terrified that someone had heard my snores.
I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

How about this:
my father's desk is strewn with business cards and stake directories and books on knots and Nancy Drew computer games and diagrams of the human body and Japanese swords and race medals and packets of guitar strings and medical tape and loose change.
Every article is HIM all the way.
But they are also me--
my past
returning to the present
as I let them soak up in their own time.
Steeping memories.

To find connection:
I lean back in an office chair and type
without looking.
Must have been that typing computer game
I spent hours on around age twelve.
Earlier
I leaned forward in an airplane chair and read
with barriers set aside.
I listened to those printed words.
"What does our true heart want? We have to give it at least 50 percent. Otherwise we fill our whole life with busyness. I have to do this, I'm going here, I'm making that. Daily life is very seductive. Weeks go by and we forget who we are." WDtB, pg 184
HELLO CLAIRE!
You have forgotten what it means to live
without inhibition
without a to-do list
without outside forces.
There are times when you need to try to catch your dad cheating at Clue,
or spend an hour making up stories for people who walk by,
or sing to yourself out loud,
or type for forty-five minutes until something makes sense.
I am remembering the things that make me tick.
A tidal wave of how I once was
is repeatedly slamming me into the sand,
but as I trace the footprints forward from Day One,
my horizon seems to sharpen ever so slightly.

I hereby vow to press toward un-inhibition,
to live my deepest dreams,
and to sing my heart out loud
because I can.
Even if it means sleeping with my mouth wide open
and realizing that everyone is staring.

"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back...

Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now."

--W. H. Murray