Weh Yuh Deh
- Apr 18, 2022
- 11 min read
Hey. Hi. Hello. Weh Yuh Deh?
For me, just livin' life (the MB way). This post is dedicated to an incredible week I experienced and some very special people that have once again changed the trajectory of my whole life. At this point it's probably starting to sound dramatic the amount of times I say that but my heart is so open to life's experiences and teachings right now that the trajectory of my life truly feels changed week over week, day over day, hour over hour. I have SO many songs that have shown me things, made me feel things, and taken me somewhere else all together so instead of cunningly working one song into a post theme I'm going to switch up the format and tell my story from the standpoint of each song.
Airplane Mode - Fireboy DML
"Man living like an animal
When a problem goes
Life comes with another one"
This is my Sunday song, 4/3/22. On repeat the entire day as I put together pieces of my 2022 journey and made some deep rooted peace about where I'm at and everything I've been through. I found gratitude and SO MUCH PEACE about how life is cyclical. Life, death, rebirth, and so mote it be. This song puts my mind at ease. I noticed how I don't have a lot of resistance to hard things these days and I love that about myself. I've been allowing some of the hardest things to come, stay and go when they need to without judgement. This kind of relationship with my journey is making every day feel like a beautiful day to live. My life feels good to live (even the hard bits) and this is simply a songful representation of this notion, from within.
There is another part of this song that really resonates with the day that I found it...
"I just want to be alone, I don't wanna see no message on my phone"
I have really needed this season of aloneness, notifications off and everything. No one or no thing is priority more than me, to myself, and this song makes me feel that way. I just turned it off from a mindset perspective and Oi, no Wahala! It's new for me to pick and choose that which I allow in my life but I'm learning that there is no better way to curate a life you love living than to be selective in this way. Not everyone is worth your time and energy and it's no fault of theirs or lack of worthiness, it's just simply true that we have to choose people who choose us. If they feel like home to be around then spend more time with that type. I'm checking in with my body more these days and if people make me feel safe and seen then I spend more time there.
Lights Off - Jahmiel
"She say weh yuh deh
I'm missing you"
The opening line is the perfect intro to the week because "What are you doing? I'm missing you" is the song of the season for me. I have made so many beautiful connections. Not all of them are forever but even still I think on people and energetically say, "What are you doing? I'm missing you". I've become very acquainted with "missing you" so much so that it brings me happiness to know I've created connections with people worth missing and also that in missing others it means they meant something to me. Who doesn't want to experience having people in your world that matter?
Gustav, my dear/sweet/angel human friend came to Austin, Texas to visit me because we've been missing each other since La Fortuna, CR. My week started by picking him up at the airport in a full on "get out of the car and jump on him" way. WEH YUH DEH, GUSTAV? I was listening to this song when I picked him up and it's appropriate as hell because the way this song feels is exactly how it felt to be back in G's company. The song feels soft, smooth, gentle, flowy, kind, exploratory, captivating in some sense. It's like the abrasiveness of the world falls away in his presence.
In the first 10 minutes of G being here I could already feel that I had learned what it means when people say, "the people you do life with should make the hard things easier". I was able to actualize the idea that people don't fix, take away or eliminate the hard abrasive things but with the right people, these things fade here and there. Also, we can lightheartedly laugh about serious things knowing that when it's time to return to the seriousness of it all, we will. G is the reprieve I've begged the universe for for over 14 months. G, as the lyrics state "Ano just a one night stand", you have become so much more than those few wild nights in La Fortuna and my heart explodes from the ways you notice me every day.
Nasty - Hafthaly Ramona
Sexyyyy 🥵 I love the word "Nasty", I say it all the time. This song takes me deep inside or to some other place all together. It's tantric for me, sexually and otherwise.
G and I explored intimacy together. I think the universe knew that I needed a good experience and some deep restorative, healing in this way. The universe also knew that Gustav was the right person to facilitate this because I really needed to explore these things with a human that I am comfortable and emotionally safe with. It feels incredible to rediscover pieces that I have lost over the years and have genuinely missed. I didn't realize how bad I was craving genuine intimacy, or how pressed down it was because the people in my life couldn't hold the space. Most interesting to me, is how many different spaces we found intimacy in... deep conversations, zouk dancing, tantra practices, prioritizing play/fun/laughter, engaging in community together, having conflict then also resolving it in a way that expanded our space vs. constricting it.
For me, it was a feeling that I had to allow myself to have, a practice like other things, but at times it also came very naturally. We both prioritized each other and the space, that was key. We were FOR each other's wellbeing/healing and it was all mutual, BALANCED. We were laced with such pure, deep rooted love and desire for the other to feel safe, appreciated, held, and heard... to have these moments that our souls had been deeply yearning for.
Our exploration was both intended and unintended; by the time the week wrapped up I cried for days over it all. I released pent up bits that have been waiting to meet strong, safe arms and a sensitive, open heart. I came face to face with discomfort and was able to say, "I already know what waits on the other side of you discomfort and I CHOOSE to be with you because I know that I will feel peace when I face you". This is deeply personal so no amount of words will do justice to what it evoked inside of me. I mostly bring it up here so that I can tell you to be scared and do it anyways. How could I tell you to do to this without having tried it myself?
You're queer and can't connect with a man? Try it anyway. You know you want to end up with a woman some day so there is no point in exploring with a man? Try it anyway. You just met this person 2 months ago and feel like you couldn't possibly be capable of intimacy with someone you only just met? Try it anyway. If there is even a 1% curiosity, connection or calling inside of you to try something then do it the service of giving it a chance. My god, the healing that ensued this week... it was FOR ME and it has likely been waiting a long time for me to just say yes without all the excuses and parameters. And to be clear intimacy is not a sexual exchange, though it can be. In fact most of G and I's intimate moments came from being seen so clearly and effortlessly by each other. I was getting this sun tattoo anyways but now I know why. Gustav, you feel like sunshine...
Also, it's the sexy female voice for me in this song. It not only turns me on but also reminds me of the energy of myself. The ways that I relate to perceived "Nasty" things, and the sexy, dark moon Lilith, seductress, empress ass goddess that I am. I find it empowering and it makes me want to move my body (shocker, lol).
Till the Morning - SuperJazzClub
Here is something you might not know about me... one of my favorite music genres is Afropop. I genuinely don't know what it is about African music with an up tempo but I'm here for it. I feel it in my body and it consumes me! I'm drawn to the culture, and the way people shake their shit off while dancing to it. Afropop is one of the things Gustav and I really connected over at first and this is important because it's what lead G to invite me to a Zouk dance class while he was in town. I didn't even hesitate, "I'M DEF GOING", I thought. I will NEVER, repeat, NEVER, turn down a chance to dance... to anything... even if I've never heard of it or have to learn it. If there is dancing, I am there.
Bunny trail, one of my biggest dreams is to travel around the world, learn the dance of each country and dance it in the streets with the locals. I can feel in my body how phenomenal this dream will feel to live!
Circling back around to Zouk. I didn't even know what Zouk was 3 weeks ago except that a few people had mentioned it relatively recently in my life. It was brought up enough that I started to get curious about it. Gustav told me that he has been dancing Zouk for over 4 years and that it would mean a lot if I shared this dance experience with him. To be honest, I was looking for an invitation into that world anyways. I remember that Wednesday night so clearly. I walked in and was like... "holy shit, I'm way out of my fucking league here" as I looked around the room at all the gorgeous gorgeous girls twirling and body rolling on the dance floor. All I know is that I wanted to be them, to dance so fluid and free and look like a goddess doing so. To connect with a dance partner in that way, to allow my body to be liberated in that way... LFG! G had taught me some of the basics earlier in the day. A cute lil moment of us dancing on the boardwalk, I'll never forget it. I felt like I understood something of the dance but then 2 seconds in that room and I'm like.... DAMN. It's actually quite challenging to remember everything that is happening and also feel into the music and just dance.
I went to the beginners class while G peeled off with the advanced dancers. This is where I met and danced with Joseph, who plays a key roll in my dance story the past few weeks. I'll likely expand on later. Joseph has danced Salsa and Bachata and wanted to learn Zouk which is why he was in the beginners class with me. I have never formally danced anything, except when I was 11 and made a really disgraceful scene out of ballet.
I came alive learning each step, dancing with each new partner as we rotated in class. After the class, was open dance and most of the new dancers left after the first 10 minutes of this. Since I was with Gustav I stayed until midnight dancing. I didn't know enough to even be on that dance floor and I remember feeling incredibly awkward... another moment for me to whisper to myself "be scared and do it anyways, be awkward and do it anyways".
I had to hype myself into getting out onto the floor but when I finally did is the same moment that Anthony approaches me, "Mandee?". I met Anthony the week before I left for my Costa Rica backpack adventures in January. We went on a date because this man was brave enough to approach me in a coffee shop and ask for what he wanted. I felt like that courage deserved some recognition and we had a few key things in common. Long story short we spent 5 hours together on a really fun date and never spoke again until this moment. Anthony asked me to dance and I obliged (obliged as in I was desperately needing someone to invite me onto that floor, haha). It wasn't my best work but he was patient with me and I am beyond grateful for that encounter because it was such a warm welcome into the Zouk world (which, spoiler alert, I am now obsessed with).
It was so special to watch Gustav in his element. Damn, he is such a good dancer and it was sexy as hell to watch him dancing with all these gorgeous gorgeous girls!
"Almost midnight and I think I'll be here till the morning.
Pass the bar, I need a refill, or I'm just getting started.
Music is loud, coursing through me and I'm really here for it"
The night went so fast, like in a blink of an eye, that's how "really here for it" I was. It is so good for my ego to be a novice at this. It is so good for my world view to be expanded in this way. It is SO good for me to feel like there is a world outside of the world I've been living in, and in this moment I was able to dance, release and shed what has not been serving me, like FOR REAL!
Go Go Club - Bokoesam, Chivv
Dropping Gustav off at the airport on Sunday was insane. Of course we both knew that we would miss each other but there was so much more to unpack about the week that we had just experienced (and we would). We started the day out with bunch at Magnolia. Interestingly enough we got sat at the table that I was at the last time I was here, with my ex when we got back together. I had a moment of great healing thinking about the stuck place I was in sitting here with her vs. the liberation I feel sitting here with G. I smile. We talked about it and he said something along the lines of, "What a better place to be in, darling. I'm glad that I get to be here with you while you have a better experience". We started crying knowing the day would inevitably end and that Gustav would be off on his next adventure in Brazil. It's a weird thing to deeply love another human and also be totally FOR them living their life, even if that may or may not include you. I think we both sank into that and felt the weird disrupting feelings of not wanting the other to go but knowing it was in both parties best interest.
Not a photo of me crying off and on throughout the day 🤡; Walking south congress hand in hand, coffee and kolaches at little brothers, the pop up shop where G bought me the most beautiful moonstone ring, smoking American Spirits on the patio, dancing in my apartment one last time, and of course in the departure line at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. After a goodbye scene from the movies I return to my car where this song was playing (so naturally, it will always remind me of Gustav). I waved goodbye, tears in my eyes as I put my car in drive. I looked up to see the license plate in front of me... 222. I knew that this was hard but right. Gustav and I needed to let go, releasing all expectations of what comes next for our dynamic. Feeling your feelings while also releasing control/expectations of an outcome is probably one of my hardest life lessons that I've been practicing. This was another opportunity for me to practice and I embraced it fully, despite the hard feelings wrapped around it.
Gustav, Zouk, the timely presence of this entire week, you've captured me 💛🌞🦋
Please dance away with my heart,
MB, Beth Unbound, Mandeebeth, Andee, Mandee (all parts of me)
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