South Beach Sojourn

I spent this past weekend in Miami, along with 120 other women, all there for the purpose of researching pleasure.

To be honest, it wasn't that pleasurable for me, but it was filled with drama and some pretty exciting romantic adventures (not mine) and that were fun to witness.

My relationships with women have always been challenging, probably because my sister and I have always been in conflict, so sharing a hotel room, spending almost all my time in the company of women and also going to South Beach clubs were all challenging experiences for me. And I had a cold. (I'm still trying to figure out why my immune system weakened after the show and after the election.) Perhaps it has to do with my daughter and in that case, I don't even feel like going into it.

It felt great to go to the new Jet Blue terminal which is very 21st Century, get on a 2 1/2 hour flight and arrive in Florida with the sun shining and a temperature of 80 degrees. (And I loved that Florida went for Obama.) It was fun sitting on a beach with mostly topless women and swimming in a pool. (There was lots of skinny dipping late at night while I was asleep.)

It was fitting to celebrate a really wonderful week in our country's history - in the company of women of all ages and life experiences. What I love about this four month workshop with Mama Gena (Regina Thomashauer) is that while we call it pleasure research, it's much more than that. It's about owning who we are as women, discovering what gives us pleasure, which then spreads our good feelings to the people who are in our lives...AND it's also about examining and accepting the pain that lives deep inside us.

It's the light and the dark. The duality of life.

In two weeks, Dr. Christiane Northrup will be speaking at the workshop and she's the primary reason I signed up. That and the dancing.