What Barbie and Emma Kok Have in Common

On the divine state of being human.

Hello Beautifuls,

It started with a video of a young Dutch woman, Emma Kok, singing in French. I don't speak French. At all. I understand moi and the occasional word that sounds like its Spanish or English equivalent, but other than that, I got nothing.

That's part of the magic of her performance. It was truly an act of the Universe wanting me to listen, because the recording starts out in Dutch, which I understand even less than French, then moves into a story about Emma's brother and then finally a story about Emma. She hadn’t even entered the stage yet and there I was still listening, compelled for a reason beyond logic, to hear her sing. 

And then she began. A quiet, soft and powerful first three words (at least I think it's three. It's at least two. Something, something, moi.) Just from that first second, I know I need to hear what she has to tell me. In a language I don't understand, with not just her voice, but her whole being. 

This girl sings with her soul.

I was so moved, I couldn't stop watching it. She brought me to tears. I didn’t know the words she was singing, but I knew the feeling. So much feeling. It took me somewhere outside of myself that was also inside myself. Three nights in a row. Oh, and yes, also during the day when I was supposed to be working.

One of those nights I also watched the Barbie movie for the first time. I'm slow to take up the pop culture trends, but I usually get there. Except for low-rise jeans coming back. I will never get there again. 

Did you see Barbie? 

Besides the humor, the spot on assessment of being a woman in a patriarchy, there was spiritual depth. 

"We were only fighting because we didn’t know who we were." - Ryan G's Ken on the Kens war.

I had just finished the movie and was on another binge of Emma Kok when my once-husband called. We don't talk on the phone all that much, though recently more, which is a beautiful story for another time. I picked up and we talked of important things and not important things. He is on a round-the-world ticket this year, finding some peace, finding some parts of himself, finding a dream he's had since we were kids.

Among wonders other than my Once and I having what I can only classify as a chat between friends, I heard the birds sing in Africa through the phone line. Miracles, both.

Our story is much too long for any one post, especially this one. And maybe it is one that I will know how to tell someday. But for now, I can sum up by saying we are tentatively learning how to be friends again, this man I’ve known since he was 12 and have been unmarried to for almost 13 years. This is due in large part to his bravery and vulnerability, a gift I didn't necessarily need, but one that turns out I really wanted. 

We finished up our call, and as I listened to Emma again, I had one of those moments where I feel connected to the Universe, and something I've been struggling with becomes unequivocally clear for the briefest of moments. 

For me it's like a download, this little download from the Universe, where things are seamless for just a hot split second.

This was the message:

The entire purpose of being human is to experience the divinity of humanity: to bear witness to the miracle that we create music. That our voices can move each other, that we can emanate beauty and love. It is also to bear witness-while holding the truth of that exquisite divinity-to the fact that we are capable of great darkness, individually and collectively. 

In that moment my entire being understood that the purpose of being human is to experience the excruciatingly gorgeous and horrible truth of being both.

They say the only way out is the way through and that is true for healing and fear and all manner of things. I also believe that the only way out is love. And to love you have to go inward first.

There is beauty, there is horror, there is death, there is life, there is redemption. And that's it. Holding all those things and standing upright, that's the experience.

Do you ever have these moments? 

I wish I could hold onto them. When I'm in it, I feel such a sense of peace, so connected, so comforted and held. That's how we are all of the time, we just forget because holding all of that gets tiring. We get worn out with just knowing what the human experience entails, let's not even talk about what going through it requires.

It's like that last scene in Barbie, where Rhea Perlman takes Margot Robbie's hands and shows her how to feel all of the love and woundedness of the human life. 

And then Barbie says yes. Yes to it all.