Going to Miami!

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Tomorrow morning, at about 4:30 a.m. I will (hopefully) be heading to Newark to board a plane to Miami.  I’m going to a Mama Gena weekend again and I couldn’t be more ready to have some FUN!!!  It’s been quite a year, I remember last May when I was in Miami, I  received several emails from my lawyer.  Not a great way to relax on the beach.

And I can’t seem to learn the lesson that the future generally seems to take care of itself, so it’s best to stay in the present.   

I am grateful for this year, for all the tough lessons I learned…like bring friends with you to divorce court – it makes it much less stressful, hire a good attorney, and always show up for yourself. It was scary, it wasn’t much fun, but I’m going to Miami with two hundred women from all over the world – of all ages – and we are going to have fun! 

Welcome to Miami

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Our trip to Miami with 320 women coming together from all over the world to attend workshops with Regena Thomashauer (aka “Mama Gena”) was fantatic.  The time spent with the women I met last year in my pod was also very healing.  The message that we get at these gatherings is about women following their pleasure in all areas of their lives, their work, their relationships, their connections with other women, taking time to play, taking care of ourselves, supporting and helping each other to achieve our desires. I took a Nia dance/exercise class with Debbie Rosas, who created Nia and that was fantastic.  We went back to the Greek restaurant Opa again and brought more friends and everyone danced on the tables (including my friend’s seventy-something mom) and we all had a really fun night.  We swam in the ocean and the pool every day.  The weather was perfect.  Anthony Bourdain, my favorite foodie was at the hotel.  I haven’t felt so healthy in a long time.  My headaches disappeared and I stayed up late and my appetite came back.  It was a fantastic four days. 

And then last night, back in New York, my friend Emily and I went to see Robert Kennedy Jr. speak at Town Hall about the environment and about energy sources.  He calls himself a free venture capitalist and talks about the urgency to end our dependency on oil, to update the power grid, to increase our wind and solar sources and to stop allowing big business to control our lives.  He was articulate and funny and clearly knows what he’s talking about. And thank God that Obama is in the White House and beginning to make the changes we need to make to save our planet and that people like RFK Jr. and others are on the case. 

Message for today

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From “Healing After Loss” by Martha Whitmore Hickman:

“Bit by bit we need to loosen our hold on a past we cannot keep and get on with the life we have.”

I’m off to Miami today for a long weekend, to be with my Mama Gena women (250+ women from all over the world.)  I will miss my dogs and I’m sure they will be even more confused, wondering where everyone in their family has gone and why they are living in Soho again, away from their park.  But they seem to be adjusting, as we all are.  

I’m hoping to have some fun this weekend.  Enough grief – time to dance. 

Off to Miami

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I love the fact that the last post was titled “Fear” and this post is “Off to Miami.”

I am off to be with my women friends – all 160 or so of them and Mama Gena. We are going to have fun, to swim, to dance, to party and to generally do what I haven’t done in many many years. Flirt. Well, I have flirted, but not with any serious intent.

I’ll write when I return and hopefully I’ll have some good stories to share.

South Beach Sojourn

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I spent this past weekend in Miami, along with 120 other women, all there for the purpose of researching pleasure.

To be honest, it wasn’t that pleasurable for me, but it was filled with drama and some pretty exciting romantic adventures (not mine) and that were fun to witness.

My relationships with women have always been challenging, probably because my sister and I have always been in conflict, so sharing a hotel room, spending almost all my time in the company of women and also going to South Beach clubs were all challenging experiences for me. And I had a cold. (I’m still trying to figure out why my immune system weakened after the show and after the election.) Perhaps it has to do with my daughter and in that case, I don’t even feel like going into it.

It felt great to go to the new Jet Blue terminal which is very 21st Century, get on a 2 1/2 hour flight and arrive in Florida with the sun shining and a temperature of 80 degrees. (And I loved that Florida went for Obama.) It was fun sitting on a beach with mostly topless women and swimming in a pool. (There was lots of skinny dipping late at night while I was asleep.)

It was fitting to celebrate a really wonderful week in our country’s history – in the company of women of all ages and life experiences. What I love about this four month workshop with Mama Gena (Regina Thomashauer) is that while we call it pleasure research, it’s much more than that. It’s about owning who we are as women, discovering what gives us pleasure, which then spreads our good feelings to the people who are in our lives…AND it’s also about examining and accepting the pain that lives deep inside us.

It’s the light and the dark. The duality of life.

In two weeks, Dr. Christiane Northrup will be speaking at the workshop and she’s the primary reason I signed up. That and the dancing.