Edges
Where the good shit happens.
The razored edge of the grace of God is a place I know well. I can walk right up to it, lean over, and stare down at what could have happened if things in my life had been just slightly different.
When I say “God”, I’m referring to Spirit, or the Universe, or whatever higher power floats your boat. Or maybe it’s fate, luck, chance or karma that I’m talking about. The thing that seems to arrive from an external place, and stops you from making horrifying mistakes. The thing that produces the most gratitude.
Living near the edge soaks me in bracing clarity, like a spiritual ice bath. There are people in my past who went over the edge, and most of them never came back. They gained freedom but lost the beautiful world. Their sacrifice is unfathomable, yet also understandable, and this paradox sometimes fills me with interstitial melancholy.
But I also feel joy, I still have that capacity. Have you found that, in the wake of everything that’s going on in the larger world, joy kind of sneaks up on you? Recently I took a walk with a friend of 30 years. We exchanged updates and commiserated about our trials and laughed our asses off at some classic GenX shit going on with our friends, and at the end of it she hugged me the same way that she did when we were 22, and I felt like I got mugged by joy.
Joy always feels like a fire roaring up from inside, pushing on the edges of my hopes and fears and just like, clearing the way. Here is a joke that sparks joy: What did one strawberry say to the other? “If we hadn’t been in the same bed, we wouldn’t be in this jam!”
Sexual edging has returned to the dialogue. It’s that thing where you bring yourself to the edge of orgasm, and then pull back for a bit, then do it again a few more times. Try this! Your body will thank you once you finally cross over.
Across the street the neighbors are adding an edge to their hedge, and here is the part where I tell you that all my life I’ve wanted a hedge, because hedgehogs! But it turns out they don’t live in the Pacific Northwest, so I went to Instagram. I saw one wearing a weird hat and scuttling across the edge of a thick shag carpet. I wonder if it makes him think of home.
I don’t know what this essay is about. I’m going through a Big Life Event right now, and it’s all I can do to stay focused on what’s in front of me. But in the spirit of helping you strengthen your Power Voice, as I resolved to do at the beginning of this year, I will say this: in order for your Power Voice to grow stronger, you have to raise your volume and push it to the edge. I don’t mean that you should go over the edge into laryngitis! I’m saying that you have to push yourself to a place that feels emotionally uncomfortable. This is what we call a growth edge, and it’s where all the good shit happens.
Try it and let me know how it goes in the comments?