Let Go or Be Dragged

It was said that in an interview with The New Yorker in 1952, Robert Frost said “freedom lies in being bold”.  He had enrolled at Dartmouth College, my alma matter, in the Fall of 1892 but dropped out before completing his first term.  

During women’s history month I feel compelled to note that Dartmouth did not coeducate until 1972, eighty years after Robert Frost enrolled and less than 10 years before I was born.  My son is now 10 years old and he articulates frustration that there is an international women’s day and not one for men.  He was born into a world where in his eyes, his two little sisters can do anything that he can do.  But I don't have to go back too far to give him examples of how this was not always the case, and how we still have a long way to go. 

I grew up with two brothers and an unwillingness to accept that I couldn't do anything they could do.  Ironically this winter I worried that I might have a panic attack taking my daughter on her first chair lift ride but I used to jump off the chair lift mid-ride to keep up with my big brother. I must have been scared but I did it anyway.  I think this ability to be scared and do it anyway, has taken me pretty far in life.  

But in 2020 I was transported back into the middle school bathroom stall, listening to my female “friends” talking about who the heck did I think I was to play hockey on the boys team. Suddenly I was again pants down faced with the reality that our world was not set up to support me in my bold endeavors.  I felt defeated, I felt frustrated, I felt huge amounts of grief and I nearly let it break me.  But perhaps the boldest thing we can do in life is to get up one more time than we fall down.  It’s nauseating watching my son Ellis get pinned by his wrestling opponents. It literally turns my stomach in knots and some days I wonder why he doesn't just quit. But I know exactly why he doesn’t and as difficult as it is to stomach his repeated defeat, I think I am prouder every time he gets pinned than when he takes a rare win, even if his response is to hold back his tears by pinching my arm so hard I can't hold back my own tears.    

In 2008 I bought my first set of kiteboarding gear.  Most every kiteboarder has a “kitemare” that taught them an important lesson.  I had my first on my very first outing with my new gear and I’ll save that story for another blog. After I scared the shit out of myself I might have quit the sport entirely had I not invested so much in my equipment.  So for the next several years I would only kite when the conditions were near perfect and it was a weekend so I could drive down to Cape Cod and get myself into Waquoit Bay, the spot I had taken my first lesson.  It is a shallow enclosed bay and they teach lessons there because you can allow the kite to pull you downwind and then theoretically de-power your kite and walk in the shallow water back upwind until you learn to kite upwind or to body drag upwind to retrieve your board which is a fairly painful, and yet absolutely necessary skill to learn if you want to have any chance at success in the sport. When you kiteboard you are wearing a harness around your waist and the control bar that attaches to the 4 or 5 flying lines attached to the kite is typically attached to your harness by something we call a chicken loop. If you visualize the wind window as a dome overhead you can imagine your kite gaining its maximum power when you fly it through the window essentially filling its sail with wind.  If you fly it to the edge of the window either directly over your head or off to either side with the wind directly at your back, the kite has virtually no power because the wind is flying past not into your kite.  Because of the way the kite is designed and how the lines attach to your control bar, if you pull your control bar towards your body you are sheeting in your outside flying lines and allowing the sail to catch more wind. When you let go of the bar you are essentially dumping wind from your sail. In my early days of kiting I found myself crashing my kite onto the water at Waquoit Bay.  I think in the explosiveness of my crash I somehow managed to unhook my chicken loop from my harness so as long as I was holding onto my bar, my kite was fully powered.  I was face first in the salt water, kite fully powered directly in the most intense position on the wind window directly in front of me and pulling my body face first through seagrass as I managed to leave the comfort of my protected bay and travel through the estuary.  Because I was filled with terror my grip tightened on my bar.  As my kite dragged me along the water it would occasionally bounce off the surface of the water, my terrified body flopping along the surface of the sea dragging behind it.  Each time I bounced off the surface of the water I would fly a bit higher and at one point my spine extended enough that as I bounced my feet hit the back of my head. It was not until after my body took the form of a scorpion that I realized all I needed to do to stop this terrifying ride was to LET GO.  

On this International Women’s Day, I found myself sitting in a circle of women at a WellWork Workshop.  Rituals on the wheel of life is what Santjes, the creator of WellWork, calls the experience and it was truly like nothing I have ever done before.  I could spend hours unpacking this experience but I will start by just noting a few key components.  When we introduced ourselves to the group we passed a “liberation stick” a beautiful piece of art in its own right and we attempted to capture our essence boldly, which was challenging for some but not for me.  At the same time that the Universe brought me to my knees wondering if I had finally bitten off more than I could chew she also introduced me to the practice of Yoga Nidra or Yogic sleep- a space between where our bodies are fully at rest but our minds are awake and aware. When our mind is our master we can spend time over-thinking.  As Santjes teaches so beautifully, when our heart is the master, our mind becomes the student.  When I let my mind become a student and I released control; my sankalpa, or soul whisper, was a loud and clear call for freedom.  

I have practiced a significant amount of yoga over the past year, asana but also slower practices like Yin and Nidra.  I have been so fortunate to have so many amazing teachers on my yoga journey, all of whom remind me that life is our greatest teacher.  That scorpion wasn't the yoga scorpion pose or Vrschikasana, a powerful combination of back bending and inversion the “king and queen” of asana according to Santjes but it was my first guru in letting go.  

I do believe Freedom lies in being bold but probably more importantly it lies in letting go.