Processing Out Loud

I fear I could end up in the medical detective section of the New Yorker as the woman who became mysteriously stiff as a board. Probably in Victorian times, they had a name for it, a certain type of hysteria perhaps. Everyday it seems as though a new part of my body rails against movement, as if in protest. Today it was my tongue. It was hard to talk. Yesterday, my hips. My neck and back have been almost completely solid for months. After hearing my body woes for several sessions, my therapist said the more she thinks about it, she suspects the stiffening is grief-related. Try Grief yoga, she said and, Is there anything you feel sad about?   I don't know, I said, as tears streamed down my face. Well, there IS that picture of a murdered elephant kneeling forward on his knees with two maniacal hunters standing op top of him with their guns in the air posing for the camera that I saw on Facebook a couple days ago while innocently scrolling, if there is such a thing. Unfortunately...

So, I had a Bigfoot encounter last Summer. At least I am about 97% sure of it. I have tried to talk about it with my friends, as it was a life changing experience only to end up feeling ignored and embarrassed for telling them - as every single person has either chuckled and/or changed the subject as soon as I have finished. I hear a lot of folks who have had a run-in with the Big-Guy get the same reaction when sharing their encounter, so I don’t feel so alone. But I still feel sad mostly because there is something amazing out there that appears to be our inverse. And few care to think about it. Most people probably think I am a bit crazy anyway. I have been thinking and talking about Bigfoot for a long time, even before it came into vogue - along with Aliens, the Inner Earth Kingdom of Agartha, and the impending socio-economic collapse of the patriarchal-capitalistic system, among other things. I must be endearing or amusing enough because they endure my outspoken curiosity on a reg...