First Person Singular

What I found when I finally told my own story.

Going into my own event, I should feel like an expert — on myself, at least. It’s the only thing I’m really an expert on. But still I feel unaccountably nervous. I’m breathing a little shallow, my jaw is tight. I’m not just here to show my jewelry. I’m also planning to speak without a script and without a cookie in my hand. I’m not sure I can do it without the cookie.

I have plenty of time to prepare, which means I don’t get to rely on that adrenal rush to push out the cortisol and whip me into the comfort zone of full ADHD frenzy. I’m on my own.

Krishna Das and Sting harmonize while I warm up like I would for a performance. Pliés and tendus, a walking meditation, a little chi gong for grounding, and some loud and pitiful vocalizing that I hope no one can hear through the walls.

Something’s still irking me, so I text my husband.

Picture everybody in their underwear, he says.

That’s not helpful, I tell him.

Mauri. He says my name like it’s a full sentence. You’ve done other things that made you nervous. You climbed a telephone pole. You surfed. It’s just people — no better than you.

For the record, the telephone pole was part of a yoga retreat activity designed to observe how the mind behaves under stress. So the first part is true. The second — surfing — I’d like to revisit.

Baby, he says. You are a fairy. Gather your fairy dust and sprinkle it all over the room.

I mean. He’s not wrong.

What would your meditation teacher tell you right now?

I know exactly what he’d say. “Remember everything you’ve ever worked through, learned, embraced. Believe in your own possibility. Sit with your breath. Be present with all of it, all of the feelings — and everything will be fine. And if it’s not fine, you’ll get another chance.”

And he was right. It was fine.

I got to show up as myself but better, with a great hair and makeup artist to fancify me and so much love and kindness from the people who came to hear from me.

I think I’m beginning to experience myself as shy — which is new, or maybe not. Maybe what I thought was outgoing was always a little performative. Maybe this is just more honest. All I know is it felt true.

There are things we do, and then there are things we inhabit. When we move into flow state, the critical mind takes a back seat and something older and quieter takes the wheel.

What I discovered in telling my story was the weaving — how what looked like unrelated chapters were actually the same root system branching in multiple directions.

Modern dancer. Then choreographer. Then, inexplicably and completely naturally, director of all things Nutcracker.

Yoga teacher training, then into the schools, then into Bedford Correctional Facility — a women’s prison where I taught meditation and pranayama and watched women connect to their bodies in a place specifically designed to make them forget they had one. That mattered, and when I turned around and saw the guards and the inmates, all moving with me, I was profoundly changed.

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The transition from teaching into making jewelry was so organic I almost missed that it was a pretty significant pivot. I’d teach a class, take the $75, go into the city and buy stones, make a necklace. Teach another class, buy more stones, sell two necklaces. And my next life began.

As a dancer you don’t depend on getting paid a lot. You lead with passion and accumulate what I call cultural collateral. But redefining myself as an artist who could make things of lasting value — that opened something else entirely. I wanted my business to mean something. And magical thinking allowed me to believe that I would be wildly successful and a great philanthropist. I aligned with organizations supporting women whose voices deserved far more visibility than they were getting, creating symbolic pieces that could represent their work and bring them greater presence in the world. These were my passion projects. I called it the karma collection. Alongside all of this I started making gardens, out before dawn with my hands in the dirt, which felt like the same thing in a different language.

In telling my story that evening, I got to hear it for the first time.

The connective tissue between all of it lives in the process of creating. If I have one note of wisdom to offer, it’s this: when you find something you love, keep tending it. Keep rebirthing it. It will be your nourishment. And anything that truly emanates from you doesn’t feel like work — it feels innate. Necessary.

I’ll tell you what I remember with great clarity. When my designs started getting copied, I went to an attorney and simultaneously sought counsel from my meditation teacher.

The attorney wanted a large fee with no identifiable satisfying outcome.

My meditation teacher asked me a single question.

Who do you watch, he said, when your kids are on the playground? Do you watch your own children — or do you spend your energy watching other people?

Follow what you’ve birthed. Don’t spend yourself trying to stop other people in their efforts. Put your energy where your heart is.

The best advice I’ve ever been given. And I gave it without a script, without a cookie, and without once picturing anyone in their underwear.

Tend what you’ve made. Follow your own children. Sprinkle your fairy dust and mean it.