In that Mile-High City, Denver, I discovered weightlessness.
And the discovery of that bliss came slowly hand – in-hand with the realization that all I had to do was wait….wait and release…wait and let go…wait and breathe.
QUILTERS was in rehearsal at the Denver Performing Arts Center , and our company of singing actresses was slowly, emotionally, trudging through the places within ourselves that we needed to access in order to fulfill the stories of the pioneer women, those inventive quilters, whose lives we had been given to portray. Each character’s dramatic journey was an encounter with one monstrous bear after another, one natural catastrophe after another, one life misfortune after another, and in giving truth to those women’s stories, we had to face the events in our own lives that scared us the most.
I was going through a separation from a man I adored; Lynn had had her third miscarriage and was once again pregnant; Rosie ‘s estranged husband had just committed suicide in their old apartment; Kate’s life was a penniless mess; Barbara’s life was one long pained opera that robbed her of an appetite she could barely afford to lose; and Lenka was facing an old age she could not stand the thought of…BUT, since these women we were to play had their prairies to cross, real dangerous prairies, we understood we had to lend them our courage and in so doing discover our own courage as well.
It was a rigorous rehearsal period.
And I was utterly exhausted…not to mention the rarity of the thin air we were all breathing in that city above the clouds! Breath-taking indeed…which we came to understand was what Life could be all by itself, even without the high altitude.
Those pioneer women had courage, and whatever energies they had left over after maintaining impossible odds, was spent making beautiful art with whatever fabric scraps they could rescue from their daily drudgery.
Along the way, I learned from stage hand named Eric, that Denver had a new thing called Flotation Tanks, and he thought that maybe if I spent some time in one, I could find the energy that was being sucked out of me on a daily basis…he knew a place…in fact, blessed Denver already had a thriving community of flotation devotees, and more than one establishment that served them.
So Erik introduced me to Mile High Flotation Center, not far from our rehearsal hall.
It actually did change my life, this Mile High (you should pardon the expression) Flotation Center. I adored it from the moment I stepped inside its moist, chlorine-smelling waiting room. I guess I’ve always been a creature of the sea.
I recalll it even now, though it was decades ago that I first floated.
After showering, I was led to one of their themed rooms- I chose a tropical forest room over the lunar landscape room I almost chose – and after being given ear plugs and a couple of lush towels, I disrobed, opened the top of this odd looking tank thing that filled half the room, and slowly waded into the warm, soft saltwater that half-filled it. I slowly immersed myself until my entire body was warmly covered in the most relaxing cloud of water that i could barely feel though it was keeping me afloat, since the temperature of it was matched to my body temp…. the water and I immediately became one…it was shockingly easy to let my self go with out fear, without judgement, with only the feelings of ease and relief that flooded my nerve endings. The shock=less-ness of it was shocking in itself. It felt so natural.
And soon i was floating in utter darkness, though they did pipe in the piano music i requested. Me and Chopin, Chopin and me, in that moist darkness.
Slowly, cautiously, I felt undiscovered muscles letting go. My breath became deeper. My jaw let loose. Tears flowed: salt met salt.
I wept with the joy: I had no reason to carry the burdens of the entire world on my shoulders : I only had to meet them, bear them, bless them the way that tank was blessing me.
I forgot I even had to think.
So, I didn’t,