30/40: Day 2

Continuing on with “30 of 40”, 30 days of celebrating 40 years of Marie’s life, celebrating with something sweet and special every day this month.

On Saturday, I was worn out. Being out late in Minneapolis the night before and being in a large group indoors in public … oof. I spent most of Saturday recovering and resting.

Saturday night I had planned to go to a free concert at the Minneapolis Convention Center for my 30/40 of the day. Why a concert? Music and I have a weird relationship. I was taught through my church that that feeling you get when listening to (Christian) music is the Holy Spirit. And, therefore, if you feel that feeling while listening to secular music, that’s just the devil pretending to be the Holy Spirit. Yeah. And I haven’t really faced this imprint yet. I’ve certainly made attempts. I went to an in-home concert years ago with my ex and had to step outside in a panic and leave early. The collective energy of humans listening to live music is triggering for me after my evangelical background (where I didn’t listen to any secular music). And that’s why I was going to go to a concert. However, I was tired and didn’t want to do another late night in downtown.

So I meandered over to Meetup.com to see what events were going on that night. I came across a drum circle that meets in Minneapolis. I had been curious about drumming for a little while now. So I decided to do that instead.

I didn’t want to go.

I was comfy in my bed and my brain really doesn’t like resting and then having to get up again. One of the weird things about 30/40 was that the premise is to do something sweet and special for myself every day. However, I’m finding that the sweet & special things I’ve lined up for myself are also the same things I’ve been avoiding doing because of fear and/or inertia (or the lack thereof).

As I was driving to the drumming circle, sending a video message to a friend to help me stay focused on driving towards the location rather than turning around, I found myself thinking about a video I watched recently about how the mind works. The clip talked about how the mind/brain is a simulation engine.

So as I was driving to the circle, feeling this resistance, I asked myself, if I am a simulation engine, could it be that I am subconscious running a simulation for how I expect tonight to go, what types of people I expect to be there, and, then, a prescriptive mask my brain expects I’ll have to wear to feel socially safeish?

Yup. I checked my brain to see what it was expecting tonight to be and I heard that we were expecting there to be a small group of cisgender white men between the ages of 50 and 70 who really, really, really like to talk about drumming to anyone, particularly new people. And my brain has a template of who I have to be in those situations and I am not interested in wearing that mask. And so of course I’m feeling anxiety about going to this drumming circle. If that’s the kind of people that will be there and my behavior already feels predetermined and out of my control… well, duh.

So I asked myself, could I offer my brain a different mask/frame/perspective to carry while I’m there other than my usual mask around mansplaining older white men? Of course, it can.

So I began to think of other possibilities. The possibility of looking as guarded as I feel (instead of pretending I’m comfortable like I often do). There’s the possibility I only stay for an hour or less. There’s the possibility I just tell them, hey, I have some anxiety so I’m going to head out but I appreciate this space. There’s the possibility that I drive all the way there and just let myself watch through the window to wrap my head around the vibe before I go in. There were so many possibilities other than “center the talkative white man’s feelings”.

And that all got me in the door.

Was brain right? Yes, brain was mostly right. I got in there and there were just two (to my knowledge) cisgender older white men. However,… they didn’t talk my ear off. In fact, I had to kind of ask around to get a drum to borrow. After that, I was pretty much left alone, which is what I wanted. So at that point, I was able to begin to focus on the experience and less on the social safety.

The experience is a little hard to put into words, but I’ll try. I’ve never drummed. I have no percussion practice or teaching. I have performed music between Grades and Grades 12 plus sang and played the guitar a lot when a missionary. But after I left missions, my relationship with art and music altogether has been dead. And that’s something to unwrap for another day. I’m just trying to say, I had no experience with drumming.

But no one was in charge. There was no sheet music. You just hit your drum and stare at the flashing lights in the middle of the room and zone the fuck out. Multiple times I got lost in the beat of everything and found myself in a very vibey trance state. I was like, Ohhhhhhh,… yup… this is nice.

And that was honestly it. The rest of the details are very visceral and vibey, things hard to put into words, but feelings of wellbeing, peace, collectiveness, earthiness, human spirity. Yeah,.. the words for it are weird. None inherently true, but just attempts to describe the feeling. It was pretty cool and I’d definitely go again. I left after an hour, saying goodbye to no one.

Driving home, I was elated. Elated by my curious, my self-nurturance, my adventure, my Self respect, my play, my connections, my power, my creativeness. A lot of Self euphoria. However, I also noticed that I didn’t feel like my 30/40 energy for the day was fully spent. I still had something left in the tank for an adventure.

So I meandered my way home, looking for a small adventure. I drove past Lust, a LGBTQ bar/theater that I’d heard of but never been to. I’m not a bar nor a club person. At all. But,… something about it just peeked my interest and I decided to spend the last of of my 30/40 quarters on an adventure at Lush.

I went in and sat at the bar between two groups of people I didn’t know. I ordered a Long Island Ice Tea because I don’t typically drink, but I’m going to,… Long Island Ice Tea. The people to my right gradually left and the men to my left stayed but I got really in my head, imagining what they were thinking about me. This isn’t unusual at all. But it was a lot more in my face since I was there alone. I have a lot of social stories and anxieties that I’m only now just becoming familiar with. And this is definitely an instance where I saw them.

I also didn’t know where to look. I look straight ahead, these guys are gonna think I’m staring at them. I look up at the TVs, my neck hurts. I look down at the bar, that’s sad and depressing. I look up and around the bar at the art, I look like a New York tourist except… sitting at a bar. I dunno. I just didn’t know where to look and I didn’t want to distract myself on my phone. I wished I had brought a game to play.

And then the Long Island Ice Tea was gone and so was my 30/40 energy.

So I went home and pondered all these things in my heart.