I Want to Restart the Beat of my Heart

I Want to Restart the Beat of my Heart

What are we waiting for? We stand with our toes in the ocean of our own inspiration but are afraid of the pull of the currents of our hearts.

The moments that move my heart seem to happen at the most ordinary times. What my poet’s heart has taught me is to be alive to the possibility of finding the ‘extra’ in the ordinary.

On an early morning walk along the Durban beachfront, I came across Bongani and his sand woman. Bongani is a sand sculptor, and amidst the dolphins, a soccer ball and the fearsomely fanged cat that he was working on, stretched a Rubenesque sculpture of a woman. I doubt that Bongani has ever heard of Rubens but like the Master, (famous for his painting of voluptuous women), he had captured in his naïve work a sensuality and grace that ensnared my heart.

I want to re-start the beat of my heart

The figure was of a bountiful woman, clad only in a thong, lying face down in the sand. Initially, what caught my heart was her fragility; and with it my own.  A beach is not a place for fragile things. I watched boys playing touch rugby and held my breath, waiting for the inevitable injury. Whether we are sand or flesh, the hurts always come, but as I watched her stillness in the turmoil, I began to understand her message.

She was face down but not defeated. She was a symbol of the infinite possibility contained within each of us to restart the beat of our hearts. I meet so many women, who  are searching for new direction, for the hope of a fullness yet to be found. There seems to be a restlessness amongst women; there is a need to revisit our nearly forgotten dreams and to find the shape of our souls rather than another diet to shape our bodies. We have the power to reshape our lives but it takes so much courage and self-belief that we lie face down in our fears. I’m tired of being afraid – I want to restart the beat of my heart and dance through my life with joy and abundance.

The sand woman begins to take shape

If you could reshape your life, what would it look like? Reshaping is as much about removing things as adding them.  I have been lucky enough to listen to Irish poet, David Whyte, share his wisdom. There was one image that he used that was life changing for me. He spoke about how we get up each morning and tie a huge, heavy bag around our waists. The bag drags behind us all day and finally, when evening comes, totally exhausted, we remove it and go to sleep only to repeat the process the next day. In the bag are all the things of the past that we can’t change but that we drag around with us anyway.

If you could remove just one heavy thing from the bag that you carry around with you, what would it be? Take it out, look at it, feel the weight of it. Does it need to be part of your heart? Sometimes we forget why we carry the pain that we do, it becomes part of the story that we tell about ourselves and to ourselves. Even if you can’t bury it in the sand, become aware of it. There is enormous power in just observing our ‘stories in the bag’. It seems to lessen the story’s grip. Don’t rush to try and fix it – just bring it into the light and you might be surprised at how it begins to change shape.

Of course there are things that are too deeply part of us to change; I’m not suggesting an easy fix for the tragedies of our lives. I do believe though, that bit by bit, we can live a lighter and more authentic life. With each small thing shed, the sand woman comes closer to abundance, closer to lifting those buttocks, freedom sculpted, closer to rising in defiance and yes, closer to dancing. Despite herself.

She waits for a divine kiss to stir her dust

What are we waiting for? We stand with our toes in the ocean of our own inspiration but are afraid of the pull of the currents of our hearts. If I had to write a book of the story of my life, I would entitle it The Girl Who Could But Didn’t’. I suspect that it’s a title that might resonate for many. Life is always just around the corner, or, even though we are still breathing, we think it has somehow passed us by.  I have become so aware of the conversations around me that echo the voices in my head: I want to but…If only this then that…I’m too old now to make a change. No!

An issue of TIME, read a while back has stuck with me. It listed the 100 most influential people in the world, I was struck by the number of women on the list. I went back through the magazine and counted 31 women, then I wrote down a list of their ages. If you think you’re past it, take a careful look at this. Of the 29 whose ages were given, two were in their twenties, eight in their thirties, five in their forties, ten in their fifties, three in their sixties and one, Queen Elizabeth, in her eighties. I’m not a statistician, but if Nancy Pelosi, then American Speaker of the House and two steps away from the presidency could rock the world at 67, then what am I waiting for at 55 (nearly 56)? I think I feel a dance coming on.

It’s so easy to feel a rush of inspiration after listening to a talk, reading a book or magazine article or watching a film. It’s not so easy, in reality, to take a leap of faith. Impossible, perhaps to leap, with that heavy bag tied to our waists. Nevertheless, I watch people do impossible things every day. If you want to restart the beat of your heart, then you need to create a sense of urgency. The leveling, lazy tide of yesterday’s fears and failures threaten always to flatten our dreams. So it must be now. It must be now! Any move towards rising will break the inertia.

Bongani’s sand woman has long since been washed away, but she dances in my heart and perhaps, if you allow yourself some stillness in the turmoil, you too, might feel your toes begin to move in the sand.

Sand Woman

I want to re-start the beat of my heart,

To dig my toes into the soft sand of my soul,

To sift the dreamgrains through my fingers

And let them fall into their own forms:

The sand woman begins to take shape,

She lies smile-down and sun-stretched,

A breast spills round life into abundance,

Buttocks, freedom sculpted, rise in defiance.

She waits for a divine kiss to stir her dust,

A single finger of certainty will lift her –

But it must be now. It must be now!

The leveling lazy tide of yesterday is soon.

Ruth Everson