Amandote! - Celebrate Yourself

Hello. My name is Random Calliope and I am a workaholic.

Long ago I learned that it doesn't do any good to analyze people. Free will, bad days, good days, happenings, reactions, and the general moods and attitudes we're all free to have and change always make any prediction from analysis completely unreliable. For this reason I have long been in the habit of analyzing myself too much.

There are times - long periods of time - where I think all of us fall into a funk of self-analysis. For some people it takes the form of melancholy, for others such as myself, these periods manifest themselves in the form of quiet contemplation.

From August until the beginning of December I've been in such a funk. I learned a lot, but it was time to come out of it. Unfortunately there aren't many ways to bring yourself out. Someone has to throw you a rope. If you're ready to take it you will.

Jacqueline Magne threw me a rope. I took it.

It is at this point I have to say I have always felt a strong attraction to the "que sera sera" cultural attitude that is prevalent south of the US-Mexico border. Life really isn't about getting things done. It's about living life.

One cold, hard fact is that if everyone in our lives were gone tomorrow and replaced by other people, we would care as much about the new people as we did about the first. True, there would be gaping holes of yearning and emptiness, but for the lucky among us (i.e. those who let it happen) the right people would eventually fill those as well.

This migration of very special people in and out of our physical lives happens to all of us over the span of our years of living. Our memories are full of faces, situations, and things we've been told or that have happened to us that make us smile - or that make us hurt inside or doubt ourselves. This migration is a slower transition at times than it is at others. In SL our hearts and our minds move so swiftly as our lives are touched by many and various individuals it is often startling.

Through it all, although we must always search for more, the only constant we have in our lives is ourselves.

Ouch.

So, Jacqueline threw me a much-needed rope and took me dancing. It was, in the grand scheme of things, quite a surprise when she took me for a salsa dance and, as we danced she described in stream-of-consciousness style the meaning of the dance and the meaning of the words to the songs that were created for the dance.

"Hearts synchronizing to one beat as the music lays in the background. You're so lost in each other's touch that you neglect to notice everyone's left you two on the dance floor. Eyes penetrate beyond the body flirtacious and sensuously wondering "how can this dance become so intimate..so addictive?" It's a mixture of the right ingredients: emotional, spiritual and physical alignment all in one passionate moment of bodies dancing to one rhythm.

"Small decription of what salsa represents for me. I imagine dancing in the heat of the dance floor.. you know.. rising through your body , a tiny drop of sweat sliding down my back. My hair in my face, red dress that...

"So as Jacqueline dances.. all these thoughts go through her head... He pulls her closer to his body, feeling the warm skin against his his hands slide down the sides of her legs, outlining her curves as they move to one, as they move as one, his breath on her shoulders... She feels the tingle rush down her body, her hair in his face... The intoxicating smell of passion arousing their bodies, their senses. He has the urge to pull her closer, making her part of him. It all just blends perfectly like the moon between the sun and earth in an eclipse.

"She smiles. Closes her eyes and pictures this perfect moment being symbolized by something. It strikes her. It strikes him. Celebrate your flaws. Celebrate defeats. Celebrate yourself. Awaken your senses."

It was a metamorphic moment of realization that it's about the celebration of yourself because all the above insists *THAT* is what people must do because que sera sera, what will be will be.

Amandote! is one of those pieces that, when it was complete, and when it became to say what I had learned, and when it became to illustrate the coming together of the individuals with much to give and needing much to take, and when it became to show the anticipation and filling and fulfillment, and when it even became to celebrate its own "flaws" I did not intentionally put there (and intentionally did not fix because I needed those flaws because analysis must be defied), tears happened, as they sometimes do when I feel something become so absolutely right for me.

Somewhere in the dreaming during the creation I felt the only right way to give this was to gift it, as Jacqueline, as Skinkie, as Tayzia, as Alanna, as Harper, as others had gifted me with shared dance to refill and remind me as the piece was created.

I told Tayzia that its cost would be a hug. It was a decision I made halfway through its design. In this it would be a gift anyone can give as reward for reminding us: Even though ourselves are our only constant, there is deep love and appreciation for those who pass through our lives and touch us.

Tayzia sent Desdemona Enfield my way. Desdemona appeared, spoke techie to me in such a way that it touched my man-parts (the mental ones), then she went away and, within a couple days, came back with a working hug gifter server thingy! She so believed in the idea that she contributed the means by which the whole world could share Amandote! So Desdemona, in turn, has given much to me and to you.

I made the hugger and put Desdemona's scripts in it.

The hugger, when worn, by default attaches to the left pec and sits deep inside the left breast. The design is inspired by the heart of a friend that was in my safekeeping because it had been hurt too many times. And do you see also.... "Oz didn't give nothing to the tin man that he didn't already have" - America. I have always believed there is valor in letting someone know they're loved. So the hugger itself is, to me, trust, protection, giving, needing, taking.

Tomorrow December 22nd, 2007 , the day of the night of the winter solstice, from 8am SLT until 10am SLT, I will be over at Popeyes club hugging everyone I can get my hands on. Each hug will gift one random color set of Amandote! It may take people 30 hugs to get all 18 colors, but all the better. Popeyes, which is managed by my dear and scrumptious friend Skinkie Winkler, will have the first available hug kiosk that gives free hug attachments that gift Amandote! to those who mean so much to you today. The jewelry can be transferred, but not modified or copied. The huggers are no mod/no transfer, so the only place to get a hugger is from the kiosk.

After the event at Popeyes I will put in my profile the location of hugger-distribution kiosks, which will likely only be available at WorthWhile in Ode.

Since I have done a terrible job here by fashion blog standards I want to save grace by mentioning that Nicky Ree is creating salsa dresses inspired by Amandote! I have no doubt they will be amazing for us all.

When eventually you are gifted with Amandote! I hope you take a moment to rejoice in the lessons of past pains, smile at past joys, embrace who you are today, and just let tomorrow happen to you as it will while you Celebrate Yourself.

I do wonder if maybe I'm a "good" type of workaholic, if there is a good type. I don't think of any of this as work at all. Would you?

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Tagged umpteen times so here are my 8 facts about myself.

1. Diet Coke

2. The salmon orange-pink of sunrise

3. 90 wpm with 9 fingers, 45 with two thumbs

4. Astigmatism

5. 74, 13, 18 1/2 and if I remember right 11 and 7 1/2

6. Just one gold stud earring when I feel like a rebel.

7. A swooping winged man on my right, no... my left, no... right shoulder.

8. None. Well, maybe Buddhism, but none really