“I am effing immortal,” I thought on my photo shoot, feeling a naughty giggle like a kid wanting to make things true by stomping my foot. I don’t usually swear in writing but the f-word wishing for a forever life and spelled out in Swarovski crystals made sense to me. People have crazy dreams and this is one of mine. I felt empowered and the photo shoot was a kick in the butt of my doubts.
“Fucking immortal.” There. I said it.
“Haha”, the Universe responded.
Back in the car I turned around to my dog, I thought she was scratching herself as the car was shaking lightly. She was motionless in her Zen mode.
The car was shaking heavier now… this… was… an… earth… quake…. I envisioned the huge power poles crash on my car. The shaking of 30 seconds felt endless. I was holding my breath, there’s nothing else you can do. Think positive thoughts but I was too numb for that.
“Haha”, the Universe had responded to my big mouth and sent me an earth quake. Okay, the earth quake was for everybody but I take things personally.
For a woman who takes life as a movie script with clues and cues and lines to learn, with supporting actors, heroines and heroes and opponents who push, shift and guide me, this was a biggy. Nothing crashed, only a clothing rack fell off the door at home but the earthshaking moment became me-shaking.
I felt fear, powerlessness, the need to connect with friends, create a back up system, create safety, hug my loved ones. I texted my son, what now? I felt flight, “I move to Seattle” and fight, “I fulfill my Los Angeles dreams and face my fears.” The series of emotions ended with a bang of immense gratefulness. Thank you for protecting me.
Did veils fell off my eyes?
I realized that I am not ready. Looking at the sold out shovels, earth quake putty and first aid kits at the local hardware store and empty water shelves at Gelson’s not many people are.
But for me it’s not just being prepared for a disaster but for life; for opportunities. I had talked about it often, wrote it in my morning pages; be open! But to be open we have to see clearly, remove the clutter. My physical action was to start cleaning up my act from papers to tons of script notes and piles of outfits to legal stuff and those boring bureaucratic needs. No wonder the posts of my declutter friend Rebecca are poking my soul since weeks; get organized, babe. Clean up and write the outlines for your books and your life.
Get ready.
Remove the boulders, sticks and pebbles.
Be open.
It’s the context, it’s always the context in which things happen that tell their story and reveal their message; I posted the immortality picture and my earth quake story in my social media.
“Yuk,” a woman called Mary said in an online women’s group. “I will report her.”
Mary hated my guts; she hated my swear word, the audacity of immortality and called me classless and awful. I had behaved badly, like a teenager and I all I heard in her yelling was her parents reprimanding, stifling her.
Did the Universe reprimand me? I say that I am immortal and she answered “shame on you?” In my old ways of thinking where I was “guilty to just be a girl” and everything was “my fault” it would have been just that and it came up as the first thought. But I wasn’t punished, I was shown that I was safe.
Many women jumped in online to defend and protect me from Mary’s and two other women’s attacks of the improper behavior for a woman your age. My old beliefs of having to apologize for who I am squealed loudly and were silenced by women’s empowering voices.
“Do not apologize for your truth,” they said.
“Some of us (including some churchgoers who have seen our 60th birthdays) think Angie Weihs looks positively fierce in that outfit. So very nice that we live in an age when women our age can take a pass on the orthopedic shoes and granny pin-curls and wear whatever pleases us,” commented a different Mary.
And so the online world interfered as my my Guru again; I encounter philosophers, priestresses, mothers and medicine women, sisters and warrioresses who hold my hand or swing the sword for me. Because I hold the banner of our empowerment high up and intend not to be hindered by those who throw stones at me and would love to see me burn on the stake. “I will report her,” to whom? The FB inquisition?
“See,” said the Universe, “you are protected, your are untouchable as long as you believe you are.”
I never believed in growing old and I never did; I am over 60 and move, think and feel like a 30 year young person, sometimes like a teenager, other times like 1000 year wise.
I believe that I am ageless and in agelessness lives the magic of immortality.
Maybe the Universe shivered because I had finally owned my power? Maybe I am immortal, as a human, a soul, as a writer or all the above? It was Marianne Williamson who said years ago that humans are more afraid of their greatness than of their mediocrity.
What I experienced again is that my social media tribe is one of the most mindbogglingly beautiful think and feel tanks a woman can ask for.
The earth shook and told me to be open my eyes and see the beauty and love we extend to each other.
Did veils drop?
Yes. I am connected to the bigger picture.
Yes, I am not alone.
My next IGTV is about fantasy and fairytales in LA and her gorgeous walls.
Storytelling magic.
OUTIFIT
I felt my Cinderella in this outfit but also my love for magic and the power of my imagination.
I added the ribbon sleeves to the top, and the handmade angel wings belt from the 80’s to the skirt I bought from a friend; her mom made it for her theatrical ventures and my friend sewed the flower bundles when she was a kid.