June: The Best Month Ever. My Stomach: A Work in Progress.

I cannot sleep.

It’s just past 7:20am and I’ve been awake for about an hour now on this Saturday morning at the ass-end of June.

Speaking of ass-ends, the reason I’m awake is that my stomach, which has been a seemingly unending Rubik’s Cube of indifference since I started periomenopause…

SIDEBAR: PERIOMENOPAUSE – a word that I hate invoking as much as I really deplore having to use the phrase “when my marriage ended” to qualify a before and after time in my life, so much so that I think it’s about time to have a well intended reflection on the definition of chapters my life…but DO NOT WORRY OR SIGH, I won’t do that right now. This is just a note to myself for later.
END OF SIDEBAR.

…my stomach woke me out of a fairly decent slumber in a now-familiar upheaval.

BUT the difference is these days, instead of getting anxious about the machinations of my gut, I’ve decided to finally…and with great self-care and compassion…lean into the situation and lovingly nurture the only body I will ever have, instead of getting frustrated as fuck with it.

SPOILER ALERT: Guess what? Frustration with my shell makes it all worse and nurturing makes it markedly better…what a discovery to make in my fifties.
Seems obvious, but life, right?

So, as the sun comes up this cloudy morning, instead of tossing and turning for hours, I get up, turn on the kettle and stretch out my lower back.
I light some candles, then brew and drink some tea…which seems delightfully witchy.
I breathe into my stomach, massaging it in the fashion my RMT taught me to ease it and help it along…which is slowly round and round to the left, just in case you were wondering.
I practice mindfulness.
I read a bit.
I quite simply relax.

I’ve decided to make self-care moments like this a sacred time, instead of a fraught experience.
Imagine that.

So, I’m using this special time to sit on the couch, sip my special stomach tea out of my treasured BEST AUNT EVER mug, and calmly reflect on the last few weeks of my blessed June 2023 life.

I’m gonna made a bold pronouncement.
Ready, people?

June is the best month of the Toronto year, maybe of the Ontario year.
Yeah, I said it. You can fight me about it but I will not change my mind.

Now, I believe June is the best month because it deliciously climbs and then sits at the very top of the roller-coaster hill of the season.
In June, summer is really just showing up to party, it’s meaty heart still laying ahead of us.
In June, we unveil limbs that have not seen the sun in months.
We lay on new grass under branches that we secretly feared would never hold green leaves again.
Buds explode from trees like they are belting out a show tune.
JUNE is the part of summer that reminds us, as in Camus’ poem, that we and IT are invincible.
The possibility of warm adventures of ANY kind still ahead of us, like a ripening peach on the vine.
It’s not too hot and the year’s longest day does not happen till the middle of the month.
Summer in Canada can feel exciting and a bit fleeting…but not in June.
June is everything to the promise of the possibly best summer ever.

This year, after such a long time away from people in general, I decided to take June 2023 in hand, and make it my month of adventure…with intention.
So, I made some plans, and during this early morning time of sacred stomach care, I’ve put down my book, picked up my IPAD and begun to unhurriedly muse over the month so far… beginning with my mighty week-long solo (with my JO) adventure to Manitoulin and then Tobermory.

I stayed in a lovely, possibly haunted, cabin-with-a-view on the island and, a few days later, a glorified lean-to (no bathroom attached) in the forest…with no lock on the door.

You guys, forest people are crazy with the trust.

When my I-GREW-UP-IN-HAMILTON ass pointed this out to a friend, they countered with the fact that tents don’t have locks, so why should my lean-to?
I told my friend that while tents have no locks, it takes an obvious-while to unzip one…and only a moment to open a door.
They had no come back.
Yet meanwhile, I still somehow slept like a forest person in that lean-to…heavy and hard…fearless to the monsters that might be outside the door…newly aware that I was probably very safe.

Imagine that.
What a glorious and challenging week that was.

Oh yes, it was.

Sipping my tea, massaging the belly that I’d put a little essential oil on to help out with matters of relaxation, I think back over views, beaches, cliffs, sunny days, bug spray, lapping water, fish and chips, very long walks with my JO, hills that go up, hills that go down, ferries, ham sandwiches, drives, stories I listened to, other cups of tea, stories I was reminded of from my past, Jo snuggled up to me in that lean-to and a blessed uncluttering of my spirit that led to 100% happiness.

I honestly think that week was the first time in years that I was TRULY and FULLY relaxed, and present in that relaxation enough to really rest my mind.
To clear out some cobwebs.
Yes, I was indeed 100% blissfully happy a number of times.
Just to keep it real, I was also anxious a few times and that’s because anxious used to be my go-to, so it’s still sometimes a large challenge to let go into the 100%.
But the happy was so present and glorious that I revelled in it. I was so aware of it, was so grateful for it and keenly knowledgeable that I created the space for it, myself.
It was something fucking else.

As I stood on the peak of the Cup and Saucer Trail with my JO AND when I sat on a rock on Misery Bay beside my Jo I realized that THESE were moments that I would come back to in my mind again and again in remembrance, so I endeavoured to be as present in them as I could possibly be.

Now, as my stomach relaxes into wellness, my tea finished, my bed almost ready for me again, my thoughts flow into my return to Toronto for a glorious summer solstice gig with the amazing Awesome Music Project at the historic El Mocambo room.

It was a fucking thrilling night.

A singular evening that began with truly wonderful music and stellar musicians and ended with me and my friend from grade six sitting, just past midnight, on one of the famous Church Street stoops eating equally famous pizza slices, while watching the youngs (and some olders) wander back and forth in front of us while celebrating PRIDE.

SUMMER SOLSTICE, PEOPLE.
Music. Lifelong friendship.  Magic.

I was so overwhelmed with feelings on that night that I wrote a little thing about it on the facebook that ended with this paragraph:

“I thought about how grade six Sharron would have been in disbelief at the width and height of this night, of this time…of the friends -vintage and new, the musical geniuses, worthy endevours, wonderful philanthopists, random strangers, working anxiety-free and competence-aware, wrapped in beautiful fabrics…and of this life….of this life I’ve hung onto so hard for so long…and yet lately, have loosened my grip on, so safe and sure of unsure-ity that does not strike fear into the depths of my sewn up heart…a long-time-gone wounded heart that I repaired myself…with love”

June is the best month ever.

As my sacred time almost wraps up and I feel almost ready to go back to bed for a spell…it’s Saturday after all…I still have one more thing to think over…which is the glow I’m still basking in over last-night’s joy, a June-Summer-Friday-Night in Hamilton…the city of my birth…spent with high-school friends.

HIGH SCHOOL FRIENDS.

A few years ago, after not seeing each other for decades, we somehow began a text thread called HAMILTON PEEPS, consisting of a friend I’ve known since grade two named Suzie, a friend that I’ve known since grade six (my Church-Street-Pizza-Eating-Pal from two nights ago) named Sue…do NOT mix them up…and four amazing gent friends with the names Alfie, Chris, David and Kevin, all who I did the high school musicals with. It’s a motley group with ties that extend back and forth between each of us like the makings of a complicated but shiny spider’s web.

Every six months or so we assemble…and remember…and fucking laaaaaaugh.

Last night, as we pretended it was not lightly raining on our heads for a very long time, we set a table in Suzie’s (not Sue’s) backyard.
There was fine linen, beautiful set-ups, a gorgeous potluck of food (I bought a couple cakes…when the FUCK did they start making cakes so friggen small?), and champagne.

I have to share that THIS group of people is literally the nicest, most real and kind group of people that I know, that I had the good fortune to meet in my youth and keep till now and hopefully beyond.

Honest, loyal, supportive and absolutely and TOTALLY unshady.

Just…good.

Seeing them reminds me that there is a lot to be grateful for in a youth that was fairly tumultuous.

Last night, we talked further into our youths than we have the last few times we’ve met up over food and drink.

Loves, losses, wins, names I’ve not heard in years.

I would love to put a picture here of our, the HAMILTON PEEPS, time together, but I’m happy to say we had such a good time we all forgot to take one.

 

Oh wait…this is the only pic taken…and this is me, Alfie…and my face.

Ha. Hahahahahahah.
Thanks to Chris for this. ❤️

Oh June.
You are fucking magic.

Well, it’s almost 10:30am…I know, I’ve been self-caring for a long while…and it’s time to close my eyes again for a few hours.

I think my stomach is ready…as is my spirit.

Lord, what a life change to make this kind of time a sacred time, instead of a tooth gnashing event…to mull over life and give myself grace and run through my wins and losses.

Ya know, this awake time was an almost-loss that I turned into a win.
It was its own special adventure…a self-loving one…which is my favourite kind of adventure now, to be honest.

See? June truly is the best month ever.

I’m gonna blow out my candles, go to sleep and dream of my next adventure.

It’s a good one. : )