Covid. Again. Happy Birthday. (Patreon)

Hi loves.

I just posted a variation of this to social media as well, and I just sent out emails to the people who were backstage at the shows, and those who were registered for this week’s upcoming movement workshop (Coco is still leading, but we are offering refunds).

Well.

I have covid, for the second time. (I had it last August, right after coming home from New Zealand). I tested positive the day after my birthday. This photo was taken right before I found out. I was so, so tired. Happy birthday Amanda.

My shows in NY and Boston were intimate, messy, and beautiful emotional triumphs (I am so grateful to all of you who came - thank you, my god it was special) and then…boom. I tested positive as soon as I got home. If you were there - especially if you hugged me, or Manta - get tested. (He’s positive, too).

Other parts of my life have been ravaging my piece of mind, but these shows - and Vancouver and Tacoma - had started to set me free again, as did the substack piece I published about TED (and the ensuing ego-flattering interest it drew from editors and publishers.)

I was just starting to feel normal. Getting back to work. Feeling ready to write, to make, to engage. To rip in. Hooray. Times.

Dude. There will be no intermission.

Here is what I have learned from the last three years of being gripped by circumstances and bad actors - human and governmental and viral - out of my control. You do this: you stay on stage, but lie down. Sit it out. Go slow. Go slower. Stop. Still. Still. Be still.

Now, instead of posting up oodles of writing and photos from the shows, and rehearsing like mad for the upcoming dolls tour, I’ll let it…wait. I’ll rest for a bit while my body fights off this virus for the second time.

And oh, my friends.

I don’t think I have ever been more grateful for these friends who know me, who hold me, who see me, who weep when I tell them stories; not out of any kind of pity, but out of an earnest compassion for just how dark-deep some human hearts can plummet. How much empathy we need to have for the unloved, the scared, the lashing-out, the wounded.

How these moments draw us together, bind us together, how the fragile moment makes us raw, but makes us love.

These Anam Cara friends. Anthony-like. Scattered, but present, who know the difference between patience and stagnation, wisdom and bullshit, heart and ego. These friends who bring soup. Who pen birthday poems that make me cry in a bookshop. Who sing me songs. These friends who hold the entirety of all the jagged souls in our wakes, who bow heads in recognition of just how far we have to go as a family to dig out from all this inherited pain.

These loves.

I kvell in their presence.

Wish us a speedy recovery. Manta doesn’t have bad symptoms. I’m on paxlovid, and my symptoms ain’t too bad. Coughing. Tired. Sleeping. Hydrating.

We are making teas and vegetables.

I should be good to go by Denver.

If you were at the shows….say hi. I’m reading comments.

I am extra grateful now that I didn’t squeeze in a patron-gathering on Sunday morning - as I was kind of tempted.

I would have given you all Covid!!

Aie Aie Aie.

♥️🦠🎉

xxx

A