you & me

The Extraordinary Fire Of Being Alive.

Someone once called me an extraordinary animal. I wanted to break the words in two. With my mouth and hands. Extra ordinary animal.

Perhaps I am extraordinary, perhaps I am unique, but I am not alone.

There is a class of beings, and we are growing every day, every minute, every drop of a glass on the barroom floor when the clock strikes 2:13 and you realize, really, you’d rather be running through the streets painting words with your feet, and quickly, than wasting any more moments simply dying slowly staring at the Exit sign.

There are women who eat stars for breakfast.

They stay awake, or don’t sleep at all, simply because there is no use when life is consistently panoramic and kaleidoscopic, and it’s like Fellini’s in the other room never yelling Cut, and maybe John Waters pulled the wool over your eyes because here you are, never yelling Cut.

You just keep asking for more. You just keep showing up. Ravenous.

There are women who eat stars, there are men who look skyward and think what a great thing to build with my hands, constellations and insurmountable blazing things. The humdrum is not for them.

The grind and cycle of the day-to-day will only find them pent up somewhere, hurriedly churning out whatever their mind begs they replicate immediately, in tangible form, because someone somewhere needs it desperately.

They rise and fall with the same intensity as an oil drill, without the same noise, digging for the same gold, getting covered — just covered — in the oily black of it all.

They greet the birth of the morning with eyes wide open like someone taped them so, and know that each face they pass on the street is not just another being but another opportunity to see and understand the inner workings of everything we might never understand.

And time is short.

In this knowing-ness, this extra ordinariness, or this extra-ordinariness, we may cross paths one fine day. There may be small explosions or legions of feelings like waves down your back and dreams of dripping fingers.

There may be visions of white light white heat white road to beyond.

I was once on a bus to Woodstock sitting behind a couple of wild hearts turning the calendar on its head.

She was beautiful, Japanese, with electric blue hair, and the brightest smile. He wore cropped riding pants with bowling shoes, a Rowing Team sweatshirt from the 70’s, and was carrying a taxidermied animal head.

He had the thickest New York accent I’ve ever heard. I had the distinct pleasure of briefly watching them make out. I swear I could feel the earth quaking underneath me.

Two people who so clearly create their lives around subverting the everyday, combining, colliding into each other. Laughing. Discussing the nature of being alive. Breathing. Not worrying. Finding the unexplainable when mouths meet.

Leaping off the bus in Phoenicia to greet an old man who embraced them both.

People who eat stars for breakfast, and drill for the oil of every moment.

We find each other sometimes and remember.

We remember the days when we trail around alone wondering what it feels like to jump instead of move carefully, like why are there all of these rules around the quaintness of my walking or my conversation, and what if instead I just want to somersault down the street.

What if, instead, taking small bites doesn’t interest me. What if, instead, everything tasted and nothing was left unturned.

We see each other and remember, life is a fire and you are a flame and a match and a gallon of gasoline.

Some people choose a life like a wet towel and smother all of their own ideas about breaking out of the cage with a damp and old little thing like fear of the unknown.

Some of us threw that old rag away years ago, after we polished our chamber of secrets to a nice sheen, because we figure if we’re going to fling the door open, it may as well look nice. “Come in! Come in! Come one, come all, come in.”

You meet eyes, the match strikes, and friend or foe or sworn enemy or lover or comrade or king, for that moment, and for many after, a bridge is formed.

It leads from one to the other and back again, and back and forth like a dance, like a feverish pace of shaking it all off on a dance floor on a hot summer night in 1982. Wild. With bright eyes, because who knows about the future? Who cares about the future?

It’s coming, but we’re here, and night happens, but it doesn’t mean we have to close our eyes. And we don’t.
We eat stars for breakfast, dig through moments like oil to be unearthed, and we’re greedy, we never close our eyes.

In you
At night
At dawn
At all hours
There is a fever
It is a fortune-teller
Put down your palms
And hold your gaze steady
Forget everything ’cause
Once you taste fire
You will never
Be the same
Again.

***

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Robin Lee

Robin Lee

Founder at The Babe Collective
Robin Lee is a writer, healer, and modern medicine woman. Professionally, she is an alchemist and empoweress of humans and ideas. She is the founder of The Babe Collective, and is a seasoned Women’s Sexuality and Confidence Coach as well as a Registered Yoga Teacher, Breathwork facilitator, and Reiki practitioner. She has devoted her life to the studies of ancient mysteries, transforming trauma, and the wisdom of the Divine Feminine. A perpetual student of Tantra, alchemy, and magick; she seamlessly weaves together these bodies of inquiry with healing practices - delivering them through a modern lens of accessibility, pleasure, and laughter. She is equal parts dark and light, Kali and Shakti, and lives to encourage the wholeness and wildness of others. She lives in Brooklyn, travels often, never stops creating, and eats a lot of avocado. You can contact her here.
Robin Lee
Robin Lee

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