01 2006 The Presbyterian Church

We went to look at this church. It must have stood there a hundred years, exterior of red brick, high peaked ceilings reaching from inside for the sky, like a woman raising her arms, throwing her head back and opening her heart as an offering to her God. The ceilings were painted with a fresco of pale blue & gold, and log harsh cracks ran through the paint. Through the plaster. Through the very soul of the place, this beautiful grand building silently weeping for repair. 'Neat and tidy' held its place desperately against the tide of time, holding back 'shabby' by sheer will alone. The acoustics in the chapel were amazing. You could almost feel in the air the ghosts of every beautiful note that had ever been uttered in this place. A single note, even slightly off key, wafted upwards and expanded and seemed to become clear and beautiful as it joined with the spirits of all the notes that had ever gone before it. It made me feel reverent in the quiet places of my soul, made me long to fall to my knees and send up prayer. Made me long to open my throat and offer up a sweet aria to all the forces of the ancient earth.
We poked our noses into room after room, and as my soul softened and expanded against the quiet workings of this place, the less I saw 'oooh, new exercise equipment!' and 'see what we're doing for our parish?' the more I felt a glowing peace wrapping itself around my inner sight. And the softer my soul became, the more I felt him, steps away, another warm and glowing presence wrapping itself around my inner soul. The two great and powerful presences mingled and flowed as one, bringing smile to my face and awe to my heart. I could feel his very heart beat, and I wanted to close my eyes and swim in these sensations. I wanted to sing and feel his heart change to the rhythm. I wanted to hold his soul against mine and soar, fly with him through this feeling of awe and wonder.
It's always tiny, pedantic things that bring one back to reality. We poked our noses into the downstairs. There was a kitchen, a meeting area like that in hundreds of old churches where they serve mother-daughter banquets and Sunday pancake breakfasts and potluck dinners. Against one wall was a large oil painting - real oils, whose sepia lends a certain lifelike quality even when the skill of the painter isn't all that large. He was looking at it, a little lost in thought, and as I stepped past him on my way to investigate another nook or cranny, he turned & stopped me with his comment. "I love this painting. I have always loved this painting." I stopped too, and really looked at it for a moment… I only needed a moment. Then I murmured something shallow in agreement & left, although I looked again before we left the building, for longer and while he was not a mere breath or two away from me.
A landscape. Stream wrapping itself happy and mostly serene around and beyond small rocks, a few old worn craggy boulders that had themselves sat there hundreds of years, wearing out a grain of sand at a time as the elements work on them and the centuries pass. A few trees lean their branches gracefully over the water's edge, some grass here & there, hinting of broad green fields stretching for miles, open sky, a vista rising in the distance. Tiny, pedantic things like being able to see clearly my daughter running & climbing over those very rocks on the far shore. A child investigating all the wondrous things that can be found along a stream's edge. There was a great rock on the other side of the stream where I could see me warming myself in the sunlight and reading a book, leaning against the bark of an old tree. And of course I could see him… walking in the long grass, soaking his soul in the miles of open air - no one else to break our beautiful solitude for miles and miles… any city just a far off forgotten dream. I could see him sometimes next to me, his head in my lap… sometimes cradling mine in his, sometimes simply next to one another… silent or talking about things great or small. I could see him rising long & leonine and crossing the stream to tickle his toes in the grass, or to share what new wonder my daughter had found now. I could sometimes see a dog - maybe a beautiful golden retriever, coat catching the sunlight as the day begins to wane, fur bouncing as he leaps & gallops his way back and forth between my girl and him. I could hear the barking of the dog, interspersed sometimes by child's laughter and sometimes by his delighted chuckle wafting deep across the water. I could hear the wind talking with the tree above me, the stream in its endless monologue, and the birds as they made their music unafraid in this untouched place.
Mingled with these oh-so-real visions, I felt the soul of the chapel above us reach down and join the ghosts of voices to the songs of that universe, join the very real, warm beating of his heart into the score. Join mine.
And then in that same few seconds, I felt the shattering of illusion: a Y in awareness, not making the other go away, but insisting on existing in tandem as another part of my brain reminded me of all the realities of our world. Reminded me of how often and far he remains separate from me even as other times he is so close. Reminded me of each time he has thrown warnings in my path that this thing we share will most likely see an end, and how every moment we share is shadowed and infinitesimally damaged for me by wondering if in a few days or a few weeks I will look back and find that moment was the one that was the last. Reminded me of letters he has written in which he sends excitedly to an old pal of the news and the stunning women in his life, and in which I was not even an honorable mention. Reminded me of other women who also write about sleeping in his arms and shedding tears to soak into his warm mane. A Y in awareness showing me in the same explicit detail the long deep cracks, much like those in the chapel above, that will line and damage the fresco of my soul if he leaves.
Sorrow often walks hand in hand with gladness. I simply could not in that moment bear the burden of how deeply they both run into and through me where he is concerned. So I murmured something shallow in agreement with his perusal of the painting and I moved on to look at something more of this world, less fraught with dreams. Dreaming is a wonderful thing, and I would not stop doing it if I could… but as I have to often remind my daughter, wishing something does not make it so.

Truth of Nature

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

- Captain Corelli's Mandolin

2006 Goals / Resolutions / Things to Strive For

1. B: In word, deed, and thought, work on being softer & more gentle with my daughter.
2. Self: Work to receive invitations into people's space, not take them; invite them into mine, not demand it. I want and need to know my presents and my presence are actually desired, not merely tolerated. (But do it without losing the hutzpah that is me -- Dial it down, not gone!)
3. Self: Try to shift the focus of some of my need to give to others outwards towards people I do not know and balanced more evenly among all those I love instead of innundating those I care the most about & need the most from.
4. Work: Plan my work rather than letting work plan my life... and do it so that my goals are successfully met before they are due.
5. Entertaining: Cook a real meal at home 1x per month, invite someone(s) to share.
6. Yoga: 1 hour w/ a teacher at minimum once per month. 20 min sessions at least 3x per week.
7. Music: 20 min at least 3x per week at home. Investigate options re: vocal/instrumental groups/sessions/lessons etc.
8. Family: Dedicated one-on-one time with B, 20 min at least 4x per week. Activity/outing with extended family at least 1x per month (kid focus).
9. Theatre: Attend 4+ performances. Take B to at least one.
10. Love: Live it.

Resolutions

My resolution for this year
Is to love you.
I laugh~~
I say that
As though I have a choice!
I do not
I only have choices as to how.
When and where
And how it will show itself.

But for today
And tomorrow
And the day after
One way or another
I will .
Until that indefinable
Something clicks in you
And you love me in kind and in return
Or until
Those miniscule wounds that
Loving you without return consistently brings
Finally damage how
I feel for you beyond repair
Or until
I simply can no longer find
Any more ways
To deal with half a love.
Until I can no longer heal myself.
Then I will have to find another
way to live this life
One way or another.

~~01/03/06

When You Hurt

You share with me your pain
Or some of it
And although the reasons for your pain
Cut me deeply
Still when I am with you
My own I put away
And the only impulse I feel
While you are beside me
Is to soothe and comfort
You

I ache that you ache
I want to ease it away
I wish to take your sorrow
Into myself
Break it into tiny pieces
And scatter it to the winds
Absorb it into myself
Leaving you only sure
Relief

My own sorrows
I will feel on my own time
I will curl into a ball
And let the hot tears
Fall
Sometimes silent
Sometimes loud
Mostly alone

If tears fall in the forest of my lifetime
And you are not there to see them
Did they ever exist?

~~01/02/2006

Counter Confusion

I counter
Thoughts of being without
You
Thoughts of walking
Running, tiptoeing
Away from you

With considerations of
Alternate possibilities

I think often:
But what if this meant something different
This word… this conversation
That look… that lack
This sharing of self
What if this is something different
Something I’ve never encountered
But only dreamed of

What if this is a sharing
A stepping deeper
Or is it a warning?
A making of space between us?
What if this is a tentative
Holding out of trust
An opening of heart
Or is it only you
Showing me intimate parts of you
So that I know what I
Do not have
So that I can see what we are not

What if the things he does not do
The things he does not say
The things he does
Are the very different thing
I have always been looking for

What if I interpret him
In the ways I’ve always wanted to live
And think
And love
Instead of the ways the world has taught me
I must

And yet
Fear whispers insidious
That you are
Another one
Only one of Them

Possible titles

How does goodbye begin?

Under a New Mexico Sunrise

I do not wish to be
An also-ran
Or a once-was
Or an afterthought
Of any kind, to anyone
Most particularly you

And yet, as distance allows me to take a step backwards
And breathe deeply, just a little,

I think perhaps if I am
Not already those things
Then I am certainly on the path
To being exactly that

I don’t know how to be
Anything other than I am
How to capture the sparkle in your eye
How to turn the interest in your smile
Or the frission in the pit of your stomach
Into something that always turns my way

I don’t know any other way
To be something worth claiming
Worth talking about to all & sundry
Worth fighting for, worth pursuing,
Worth loving
Than to simply be who I am

Perhaps that is not enough
For you… or for anyone

I am sorely tempted to quietly
Oh, so quietly
Tiptoe away in time

I think you
I have been oh so afraid you
I ache to believe you
Would quietly
Oh, so quietly

Simply let me go.

Behold the Conquering Hero Comes

Someone not long ago asked me what sexual position I like best. For years, the answer that came to my mind when asked such a thing was "Missionary", which I always thought too mundane & boring to be anything I wanted to have come out of my mouth. Particularly in the situations where it was generally asked! This time, as thoughts flew several directions at once in my head (I was, after all, being rather pleasantly distracted at the time), I realized that answer wasn't necessarily valid any more. It wasn't necessarily wrong, either, which - me being me - indicated a need for some dissection of thought & process. To be done later, of course! Why had that changed, and why did I not know the answer now? My probably unsatisfying "I'm not sure" to my partner was accepted... but this entry constitutes a more thorough answer.

((The remainder of this post has been removed for further thought/editing & possibly personal conversation. If you missed it the first time, you weren't paying close enough attention.))

Behold the Conquering Hero Comes

Someone not long ago asked me what sexual position I like best. For years, the answer that came to my mind when asked such a thing was "Missionary", which I always thought too mundane & boring to be anything I wanted to have come out of my mouth. Particularly in the situations where it was generally asked! This time, as thoughts flew several directions at once in my head (I was, after all, being rather pleasantly distracted at the time), I realized that answer wasn't necessarily valid any more. It wasn't necessarily wrong, either, which - me being me - indicated a need for some dissection of thought & process. To be done later, of course! Why had that changed, and why did I not know the answer now? My probably unsatisfying "I'm not sure" to my partner was accepted... but this entry constitutes a more thorough answer.

I've heard it said that a woman should be a lady on the streets and a whore in the bedroom. Well.. like so many other things in my life I've apparently got that one bass-ackwards too. Go figure.

I tend to be a fairly aggressive person in most areas of my life. I'm not sure "whore" is really the most appropriate term, but I can be a bit bawdy in the right company. In the rest of my life, I know what I want when I want it, and when I decide I want it, I take immediate and decisive steps to get it. It makes me itch to see IN-action, and I hate "wishy-washy". Nothing makes my skin crawl more than people whining about things they are unhappy with and yet not coming up with any solutions to make it different. Dating, I've gotten in trouble with oh-so-many-gentlemen when I grab the check at a meal, when I open my own doors, when I walk with confidence & aplomb & fail utterly to lean on them as though my own two feet weren't good enough & don't at all act like the spoiled princess who has to be coddled and taken care of to merely survive. I'm willing to bet large sums of money that 99.9% of the people I know, if polled (please don't feel it necessary to do that), would vote me as a "dom" rather than a "sub" in the bedroom.

They would be wrong.

What really makes my stomach flip over is when the man I'm with takes control. I don't mean that in a harsh, S&M sort of way, but in a firm, steel-in-a-velvet-glove sort of way. A Captain-of-his-vessel and King-of-his-castle sort of way. The bedroom is the one area of my life where I can easily & naturally let go the reins of control & hand them over to another person, letting them take us wherever they would like us to go. I like a man who is inventive, knows what he wants & what he likes & doesn't hesitate to ask for it... sometimes even simply takes it. I like it when he reaches for me in the night (or wherever), letting me know he's got just the glimmer of an idea, & 'couldI, wouldI'? (Most likely!) And I love it when he reaches for me in the night just to reassure us both the other is still there, too. Don't get me wrong - I'll match my partner's passion fire with fire, & we can take turns with pleasant ideas that occur to either of us in both life and in bed til the sun comes up.. .and goes down again! But if most of the time he directs our passage through passion's reign, I'm in bliss. That may be why sex IS important to me.. it's the jousting grounds on which we negotiate for 'who's in charge'. I put on a public face of being footloose & fancy free, a woman of the ages, sexually liberated, and perhaps a bit breezy on the subject... but the men who have bought that image for long have seen the hard side of the curb quicker than they would have liked. I truly give up more of myself to the man who shares my bed than I'm likely to admit out loud. It is the one place where I can relax from the iron control I hold over my life & what I'm doing with it for just a little while. It is where, each and every time, I experience for just a few moments the feeling of being the blushing virgin. The chaste princess saved from all things evil by her strong, virile immaculate white knight. Then both succored and plundered mercilessly by that self-same rogue. <~f~>

That sensation of control carries over, too. A man who engenders those sorts of feelings in the bedroom for me later may find himself a bit confused when I get just a tad more passive in public life. All of a sudden, I LIKE it when he opens doors for me. His hand on the small of my back is a possessive touch I welcome. (More than welcome - it sends frissions down my spine & warm glow into my heart.) I will wait just a little longer to let him pick up the phone and call ME more often than I call him. I don't object, but rather smile a small smile when he offers to carry my things, get me a drink, make a snack, and wonder of wonders... I don't raise nearly the ruckus I used to if/when he picks up the check at dinner. In fact, I begin to plan tiny ways to reward him for all these great big small things he does that early on, made me feel threatened, and now make me feel cherished.

So.. my favorite position? They're different with different people, and I'm absolutely certain there are tons I haven't experienced at all. But general, ones where my man is dominant, and ones where he has put me. Directed me. Placed me there to maximize his.. um.. our pleasure. Behold! The conquering hero comes :-)

T 12/20/2005 - The Power of Pineapple

Did you know that pineapple is acidic enough that given enough time, it will eat through a steel can? Truth!

I apparently don't make it to the back of my canned goods cabinet often enough. This morning I was frantically digging for "snacks" to send to school with the girls, & there was a mysterious brown gooey mess under & around one entire section. I just now went to explore & clean it up... an old can of pineapple (exp 07/2001) was the culprit. The pineapple had eaten clean through the steel can (yes, steel, not aluminum) on the bottom & the ooolllld icky juice oozed out. Yuck.

Hippos 2

Oh, bloody (*%&! I forgot the hippo! It's what got me to come out here to make an entry in the first place tonight, & there I went rambling on & forgot the hippo. Check this out... I think it's GREAT

And I found the hippo on this guy's page. Just in case you're in the mood for a good little read or two. or three.

Hippos

Wow.. Christmas. This week I was stunned to be greeted at an elevator with a "Merry Christmas!" Many things struck me about that split second...

• There is something categorically wrong about being "stunned" with a Christmas greeting. Must analyze.
• There was no snow on the ground & the air outside was juuuust balmy enough I'd left my coat in the car. It felt more like late October.. or perhaps late February... than just before Christmas.
• Noone around was wearing garishly snowflaked sweatshirts or santa hats, or holiday gear of any kind.
• The walls & floors of the building were institutional plain, no decorations in sight.
• Everyone I saw looked as rushed as I felt. The ONLY person who looked at all relaxed was the one who said Merry Christmas. Coincidence?
• The person who said it to me looked at me almost as though it were a dare, & they expected to be scowled at.. as though they'd done that many times in the last couple of days & while still defiant, had learned to stay wary of the public beasts.
• The person who said it to me deserved a return of Christmas cheer.

On quick review, I realized my insides felt much like the walls & floors of the building. I put out my psychic mirror, & knew there was no sparkle in my eyes (which is a shame, because they're so pretty when they sparkle!) They were for the moment so introverted that only a dull grey monotone was looking out at the world, and I was so busy looking inward I wasn't even seeing it anyway. Poor world! What had it done to deserve such treatment? I may joke about it from time to time, but I don't ACTUALLY kick the cat when I come home frustrated... why should I take out my own personal demons on unsuspecting strangers?

Sometimes I get so tunnel-visioned into an emotion or three that I lose sight of all the wonderful things around me. And holy cow, there are some wonderful things around me. People who are so jam-packed full of fantastical qualities I can't even put them all into words. Supreme beings of all shapes & sizes both inside & out. I have been increasingly tunnel-visioned this season, and to my friends I apologize for wallowing all over their holiday(s). I will try to shake out of it a bit in the season that's left and return to them all the good things they give me just by being in my life. (Although I still reserve the right to crawl off like a dog to lick my wounds in some secluded wood when necessary.) God love them for sticking around!

Tonight I took three hoydens with me to do some Christmas shopping and completely failed to annhilate them in the process. I did, however, interspersed amongst the running directional commentary (Get OVER here! Stop touching things, please? Keep your hands to yourSELVES! Don't push each other into people.. have you lost your minds? Do NOT lay down on the escalator! Walk, please. Walk, please! WALK!!! STOP TOUCHING THINGS!!) manage to remember to toss out a few "Merry Christmas"s of my own. Experimentally-like. I know my sparkle was only at half mast, but they didn't necessarily know that. You know what? Most of them looked as stunned as I felt at the elevator. That's just not right. My half-sparkle shoulda been lost in the blinding love of the season, not standing out as an anomaly. So now I'm going to HAVE to keep it up. Ripples in a pond & all that.

Blogger won't let me cut & paste, so although I know this reads a bit choppy, I'm hitting "go" & going to go work on wrapping up a little Christmas cheer. Maybe I'll stand on a chair for awhile & look around the house before bed. Maybe I'll lay down backwards over the sofa & look around the living room. Or backwards off my bed & look around there. Sometimes a change of physical perspective will - oddly enough - alter an internal one as well. I've settled myself into all sorts of nonconventional ways of thinking when hanging upside down off the edge of my bed... maybe a little "(upside)down" time will settle me into some new perspective again now!

It does do odd things when combined with mistletoe, though. I'm just sayin'.

Public Face

The cry leaves not my mouth.
Instead, I send it searing downwards
through neck..shoulders...arms
frozen in harsh winters rictus
where it pools .
Where your eyes cannot see,
making one single fist of passion
nails score slices from my palms.

I cannot unlock them
to hold you.
Were I to return your embrace,
that cry so tightly held
in frozen stance
might loose itself upon the world
and I might never let you go.

12/17/05

12/15/2005 - Friday

Wow... what a week! Christmas draws nigh & life just seems to keep escalating until your head spins, doesn't it? Got your Christmas shopping done yet?

Christmas has all my life been my very favorite holiday, so finding myself less than spirited by now is a bit unusual. Between frantic attempts to handle end-of-year business, Christmas parties that ought to be fun, and personal quandries of both the familial and the amorous kind, I feel more than a bit verklempt. Even long hot baths & a glass of wine aren't cutting the mustard at the moment! Yoga might... if I could just get my heart onto the mat with me. Bashing Charr (Guild Wars) seems to be an ever so slightly successful panacea this evening - if it only worked without putting a crick in my back! Bitch bitch bitch moan moan moan... I know: Quit complaining & FIX it! Well... some things don't fix. Others don't fix right away, and still others simply can't be fixed all by your lonesome. Everything that's fixable, I've fiddled with already. Everything else I have to sit back & let someone else (or SomeOne Else) handle. Fingers & toes are already crossed as many times as physics allow, & prayers are being carried Up by fragrant smoke 24/7. Thanks for the advice, though!

Have I mentioned that my B will be spending the holiday with her father this year? NO?! Well... it's the 1st in 5, and while I'm determined to be ecstatic for her (she'll have a great time!), there's a tiny massive wail of despair for me welling up deep deep inside me, scheduled to burst forth 12/24/05 at midnight proper. No Christmas decorations up in my house this year, and if a great deal on a flight out of the country dropped into my lap by the 23rd... maybe even the 24th, I'd grab my these-days-perpetually-packed-overnight-bag, toss in a handful of cash & a bottle of suntan lotion & I would be SO on that flight before you could say 23-skidoo!

Jim... I would kill to have Santa drop 1/2 a dozen more of your kick-ass mixes in my stocking this Christmas. (along with the mix detail, 'cause I'd never in a mil guess who/what they were) If homicide isn't your bag, what's the going price for happiness these days?

Touch

They seem so sure, my hands
As they roam this beautiful body of yours
Which houses such an infinite soul

They seek to touch
To know the fullness of you
To integrate self to self
To heal, to soothe
Connect one piece of self to the next

They seek, as a mother touches
Each tiny toe on her new child’s foot
To touch each part of you
Ensure you’re whole
That the world has not torn you asunder
Since last we met.

I am awash with wonder at your very existence.
11/26/05

Awakenings

We awaken to one another
Slowly, oh so slowly
Slight petals of self
Unfurl one by one

We come to trust
In miniscule increments
The affections we bask in
Will not blink out and disappear
With but a moment’s notice

Small furled parts of me
Creep timidly to the edge of shadow
Peer with longing eyes
At the soft warmth of your hands
As you stroke
My hair, my lips, my thighs

Ever closer they come
Respond to your coaxing
When you murmur sweet things
In a voice low & warm with flame and promise
While the soft warmth of your hands
Stroke more intimate parts of me
Until I must surrender one more bit of self
Then lie curled and warm,
Protected in your embrace until dawn.
11/26/05

You Don't Want to Hurt Me?

If you Love me
long enough
hard enough
deeply enough
Then there is no hurt you can cause me
however inadvertently
that we cannot heal
together or alone.

If, however,
you cannot find it within you
to Love me
that much
then there can be no action
no intent
no healing you can provide
that could seal the wound
that lack would leave.

So you see,
the only way through this
(and still have a chance
of succeeding in your desire
to not hurt me)
is forward.

--09/27/05

10/04/05 Tuesday

Have you ever had something or someone that makes you feel SO good that sometimes you find yourself fighting an urge to run away as far and as fast as you can? 'Cause if you run away, you'll never have to face watching them walk away of their own volition. I know.. faulty logic. But then.. who ever said the heart was logical?

August 2005! My spoil-a-blogger sent me these :-) The DVD was on my Amazon wishlist (funny story there..) & the little booklet is a picture album for school-size pics of B ... isn't that cute? There was a cute little froggy magnet, too, but B has already snagged that & run. Thank you, Ravyn!