Reunion

Available in audio / podcast here.

When I see him, I smile self-consciously and say, "Hi."

I have a 'looking-good moment,' one of those moments in which I am conscious of every perceived imperfection in my appearance and I wonder if he can see them, too. Wonder if he sees the lack of grace in my movements, that slight hitch that I still have in my step, the stiffness in my body from pain I am not supposed to medicate away. I wonder if he will notice that I've finally grown a few grey hairs in the weeks since he saw me last. I wonder if he can see how desperately glad I am to see him. I wonder if he can see the toll the troll under the bridge I've crossed again and again this year has taken. And given.
I wonder if...
if....
if he will still love me even though I've been through another metamorphosis and am so changed. And yet the same.

All this goes through my mind in a heartbeat, perhaps two, and then he opens his arms. I walk into them and lean into him, resting my forehead against his shoulder. His arms encircle me and he gives that giggle-laugh of his, his inner 10 year-old laugh, his chick-laugh. And when he laughs the breath I didn't know I was holding flees my lungs. Tears smart in my eyes as he holds me for a moment that stretches, neither of us in a hurry, both of us basking in the comfort of the others body.

He holds me in a way I have not been held in what feels like a long time, holds me with all of him, with his heart. I pull back and look up into his eyes and I see the metta beaming from him, shining on me like a spotlight, and I know...
I know....
I know that he loves me, right now, in this moment, loves me like every person on earth wants to be loved every moment of their lives, and I am content to bask in the feeling of being loved so fully--just for being me.

Confessing an inauthenticity

I spent 12 hours in a workshop yesterday. Friday I was all jazzed about going there, about hearing about what everyone was up to. But Saturday morning I had this pall hanging over me. I felt down, suppressed, contained and constrained. When I tried to examine why I was feeling that way, I touched upon the issues of my mother's death 6 years ago and my sister's imminent death sometime in the next 6 months. I sat down and wrote the blog entry for September 8th, titled "Death, peace, and beauty" as an attempt to work through what I was thinking/feeling, but what I ended up doing was rationalizing and deciding how I should think and feel.

I was being completely inauthentic, because I was evading allowing myself to feel what I was feeling. For some reason I've always found intense emotions personally dangerous, and with regards to my mother and my sister, there is such a swell of emotion that if I even so much as crack the hatch on those feelings, tears well in my eyes. So I wrote up this elegant little lesson to myself about what was appropriate for me to think and feel about the situation, hopped into my car, and drove to the worshop. And the closer I got to this workshop that I had been looking forward to, the worse I felt. I was positively glum when I got there, and when someone asked me how I was, I said "I'm here, but I don't want to be."

The woman I sat next to asked me what was going on. I told her. She asked me how I was feeling. I told her I was feeling sad, angry, resentful that I had no choice but to accept that my sister was going to die. She said to go with those feelings. Tears filled my eyes. I was appalled as a couple slid down my cheeks. I rarely cry. I hate crying. I shook my head and said, "No." She asked, "Why not?" and I answered, "Because it won't make any difference." She said, "You're being inauthentic. You won't even honour those feelings. Be with them. Be present to them." And then we were interrupted, and I was grateful. The tears subsided, and I did my best to be present to what was going on in the workshop: a discussion about self-expression and leadership, about integrity and personal power, and creating successful community projects.

Early on, someone expressed that she had a real breakdown in progress on her project: she was stuck. So the leader of the workshop coached her by asking her some questions. And the questions resonated with me, and I answered the questions she asked in my mind, and as I did so, I made some powerful connections. I had not spoken to my mother in the five years before her death. It is one of the very few regrets in my life, and it had a profound impact on me--I told myself never again. Today, my sister is very sick, and she won't talk to me. Oh, she will say hello, and when I ask her how she is doing, she says fine, but that is it. If she cannot find someone else to hand the phone off to, she tells me she has to go. She doesn't want to talk to me because she is mad at me about what happened a year ago when I tried to have her involuntarily committed to medical care. She saw it as me trying to take over her life and humiliate her. I saw it as me trying to save her life, trying to prevent her from deteriorating to the point she is at now: the point of no return. So she is still angry with me and her illness comes with a form of psychosis when it reaches the advanced stages, and her periods of lucidity and connection with reality of her condition are fewer and farther between. And the overlap of the anniversary of our mother's death and the hopelessness of my sister's situation in conjunction with the life-coaching questions brought about a breakthrough.

A breakthrough in recognizing the inauthenticity in nearly everything I'd been thinking and feeling about the entire situation...

Yes, I was sad and angry and resentful--but not about her death. No. I could accept that she was dying, that she had made her choice a year ago. I was at peace with her choices and mine. No, what I was upset about was the fact that I was facing another situation in which someone I love is dying and because she won't talk to me, yet another person I love will die and there will be unresolved issues and bad feelings and no closure. I've made it about me, not her. I've made it about my loss and my frustration and my feelings of helplessness, instead of about her. And then to avoid being honest with myself, I wrapped it up in more acceptable packaging: my sister is dying and I'm terribly saddened by it.

Something clicked when I recognized this, and while I still have those feelings, and while I still feel stuck and unwilling to allow myself to really be present to how I am feeling and who I am being and the impact it is having on me and on her, I feel fairly certain that I'll connect with my real feelings and work it out soon, and be able to read yesterday's blog entry and honestly say "Yes! My sense of connectedness with myself and others is the measure by which I understand the the beauty of life and the beauty of death. I am at peace."

Great wisdom through painful experience

Our day-to-day lives are a series of experiences chained together. Something happens, we respond, the next thing happens, and we respond, and on and on. Some of the experiences are memorable, and some are not. Some have a huge impact and some do not. And some impacts we are unaware of on a conscious level, but they are still there, powerful motivators in the unconscious realm.

Recently, a friend of mine has started facing some nasty past memories that have created blocks in life as well as a decade of nightmares. The memories are a decade old now, but they are resurfacing, fresh as new wounds, and consequently, my friend is experiencing crippling anxiety and self-doubt.

In an attempt to help my friend make sense of it all and choose transformation and transcendence over trauma and tragedy, I sent the following email. In re-reading it, I decided I would post it here, on my blog. I expect that what I've written might help others make the distinction between their experiences (ie what happened) and the interpretation of those experiences (ie the meanings we give them and the stories we create around them) and hopefully find healing as a result.

[...] From my own experience, I've realized that the memories of What Happened are not the worst part. No, What Happened isn't the worst part at all. The Meaning is. You see, when things Happen, we try to make sense of them, we interpret them, and in doing so we give them Meaning. We give the things that happen meaning, and when our minds fold those things away as memories, it collapses the event and the meanings we gave it together as a unit. And when we are reluctant to remember something, it is often not the event that we fear so much.... but rather, what we made it mean about ourselves and the world. It is not what happened that we fear. It is the meaning we gave it.
But why?
Why?
This is harder to get. Our ego-identities are founded on meanings. On the meanings we give our experiences, on the meanings we give our lives as a result of those experiences. Remember how I keep telling you that you are not the voice in your head? (By voice, I mean that voice that says, What voice? I don't have a voice in my head.) Your ego-identity is the voice in your head. And it likes being there. It wants to survive. In some ways its survival is dependent upon those fears and anxieties that have resulted from Its interpretation of your experiences and the stories its made up about What Happened. They feed it, give it things to talk about--all that negative conversation in your head. The ego wants to keep What Happened and The Interpretation of What Happened collapsed together, because if you actually realized that What Happened is simply what happened and has no meaning in and of itself except what you gave it---well, you might be free of those fears and anxieties. And then your ego-identity is uncreated. Part of its foundation is gone. And then what would it use to stay in control? Your ego-identity does not fear What Happened so much as it fears being undone. You are afraid to lose who you think you are. You are afraid to lose the identity you have fabricated for yourself out of the meanings you have made of your experiences. In those moments, it helps to remember that who you are is not the ego-identity that you've created as a result of your experiences. Who you are is that Consciousness that is aware of the negative conversation of your Ego.

Life is a conversation, love. It is a conversation between your Ego-identity and your Self. It is a conversation between the stories you've made up about yourself and the stories you've made up about the World. Its not Real. Little of it is. What Happened was Real. Your fear is Real. But the meaning you gave it is Not Real. So what you are afraid of is Not Real. And what you are afraid of, of losing yourself, is not real either. You are afraid of losing your illusions about yourself. You are afraid of losing the stories you have made up about yourself... you are afraid of losing all those reasons to think you are a horrible awful person, all those reasons to give your ego something to talk about, to keep its hold over you with all that negative conversation in your head.

Those who love you, we keep telling you what is Real: That you are a wonderful, amazing person worthy of love. But you cannot hear us, you do no believe us. Something in you, your ego, has convinced you that you've somehow snowed us. Deceived us. That some day the lies or stories that have convinced us that you are a Good Person will unravel and we will see you for what you think you are. An imposter. Something defiled. But in order for something to be defiled, it has to be sacred, too. And you are sacred. And one day--one day I hope you not only recognize that you are Sacred, but that you will laugh at the absurdity of it all. You are Sacred, and the one who is convinced that you are Defiled is you. You are Sacred, and you have Defiled yourself.

Wake up. Wake up my friend. Come out into the Light. You are Sacred. You are not the meanings that you have given your experiences. You are Sacred, and you are Loved.

Stages of pleasuring

I have lived an interesting life. Before I reached puberty I witnessed a wider variety of sexual intercourse than most adults see in their lifetimes. As a child, I did not know that other kid's parents only slept with each other. I did not know that the limit was usually two adults to a bed--my parents always seemed to have friends in their bed--nor that sex is usually reserved for the bedroom. I did not know that boys having sex with boys and girls having sex with girls was taboo. I did not know that nudity in the home was uncommon, etc.

Masturbation was something we were very open about. When I was 4 or 5 and my mom found me touching myself in a sunny spot in the living room, she didn't slap my hand. Instead, she told me that if I wanted to do that it was probably best to do it in my room. I understood early on that sex was something grown-ups did, and it was not something I was eager to rush into. It did not have the secrecy, the shame, or the thrill of the forbidden for me that it did for most kids. In this environment, my sexual identity flourished, unfettered by the boundaries most people develop. I am free, uninhibited--my sexual self is fully expressed. But this does not mean I am promiscuous or indiscriminate, an assumption that mainstream, vanilla humanity tends to make when they catch wind of my lifestyle.

I am polyamorous. I date a wide variety of people. I have sex with two of them. Most of the ones who are not my lovers I have been dating for a year and more. I form deep, intense connections rather quickly, but I do not rush into sexual intercourse, or sexual intimacy for that matter. Without a mental connection, sex is just a form of exercise that may or may not result in orgasm, and if I want to cum, no one can do it better for me than I can.

Recently someone asked me what I did do with these people if I did not have sex with them. Heh. It depends. Some get kisses, which may not sound like much, but I have it on good authority that kissing me is better than some sex people have had. Kissing is wonderful, delicious, arousing. It makes me feel sooo good. It is its own journey and destination. Then there is frottage. I love to frot with people I feel connected to. I'm very good with my hands after so many years of practicing massage. I like pleasuring others with my hands and I love the rub of bodies against each other, both languidly and with rising urgency. I haven't dated a woman for a while but there is nothing quite like scissoring with a woman, rubbing together on a dance floor or in bed, lost in the tribadic subset of frottage. Mutual masturbation (to orgasm) and languissement is something I've experienced with two of the men who are not my lovers. Lastly, there is the intercrural form of 'outercourse'. This is very intimate and little different from actual coitus save there is no penetration... just delicious friction and body movements that simulate coitus. I particularly enjoy it from behind, while spooning. There is someone I am dating that I am approaching this stage with. We had a frot session a couple of weeks ago that had my roommate convinced I was having some amazing sex, when in fact he was worshipping my back with his mouth and grinding himself against me in a way that had me moaning deliriously with pleasure. Or maybe it was the nipple-play that had me moaning that way? Its a sensual blur, to be sure.

The point is that there are many ways to enjoy others, many stages of pleasuring without sexual intercourse, depending on the level of mental, emotional, and spiritual intimacy I feel I have with that person. We each define 'sex' differently, and pleasure, particularly pleasure that results in sexual arousal, is so nuanced. So coloured by the experiences of childhood and adolescence. So limited and charged and judged by social mores and conditioning. I've thought about my sexuality, the stages of sexual arousal and pleasure, about intimacy and what it means to love and be with--to really love and be with--others. Have you?

Making connections

Its too easy to make a 'lesson' of the past, to take what happens and turn it into a decision about myself, the world, and others. A decision that is carried forward into the future, affecting how I participate in my life, frozen in time, like the water droplets in the photo above whose ripples eternally ruffle the surface of the tidepool.

In the work I have undertaken for myself in my personal life (encouraging sensual immediacy and connection) I have encountered all sorts of people. I thought that I have been operating from a place that was open and genuine in my dealings with people who have contacted me regardless of venue (my blog, Literotica, Yahoo, HypnoFantasy, etc) but the truth is that, while I have been genuine with people, I've used the experience with CD earlier this year as an excuse to shut down a bit, to be less open, to be wary of new people.

And thus I've been less connected.

But really, Life is about Connection. We live for ourselves, but who we are for ourselves is lived through our connection with others. And a life of self-limited connection and self-limited expression, well, its... unsatisfactory at best.

So fuck it. I'm not going to let the lesson I take away from what happened with CD be that I'm going to close myself off from others lest I get hurt again. Because of course I'm going to get hurt again. That is rather inevitable if one is living life. Really living life. And by that I mean... living life with gusto, experiencing every vivid moment of it, participating fully in it. And I like living life that way--it beats that shadow realm that so many people seem to dwell in, feeling disconnected from themselves and others, feeling like imposters in their own lives. I prefer to be connected. I'm jacking back in, 100%.


And speaking of new people and new connections...

I was contacted by Alicia Night Orchid last week. She asked if she could feature me and my writing on her site. I was very flattered and looked through her site. I enjoyed it immensely. She is a talented writer. So, I consented and she put my story "Jack" up on her site, here. Please do pay her a visit... reading her stuff has given me the impetus to get back to work on some of my story sketches... particularly a very hot little sketch taken out of my portfolio of personal experiences. We all know how it will end, but its the journey there that makes it so very erotic.

Women as objects of love and desire

Photo: The Sandstone Pudendum in Kolob Canyon, Zion National Park, Utah, USA (c) KR Silkenvoice
This is an essay about women as objects of love and desire. It is long and rambling, but it does have a point. Hopefully you will get it.

I tried to deny it for years, but I finally came to accept that my earthiness and sensuality can be powerfully attractive to people--regardless of gender. I am open, warm, relaxed, and most people feel comfortable around me--and feel comfortable talking to me about things they normally wouldn't dream of discussing with someone else. Due to the type of work I moonlight at (that is, writing & recording erotica) I come into contact with a lot of people who are already primed for conversation with sexual content. Especially men. Especially online.

Often, when I am conversing with a man, it becomes apparent that he is married or otherwise partnered and looking for a vicarious sexual outlet. Now, I'm not interested in wrecking homes or stealing husbands. Nor am I looking for another lover. I've never had an interest in marrying, and my chosen love-style, polyamory, is one that most people cannot handle well -- they're conditioned to the possessiveness and jealousy and insecurity which the socially-approved institution of serial monogamy engenders. So men talk to me. And depending on my intuition, on their responses to my questions, or the ideas I put out there, I'll often guide them towards erotic objectification of their partners -- instead of (or at the very least in addition to) me.

Now, I should state that I've observed that when men have been with their women for an extended period of time, their women become 'self' instead of 'other'. Which is a good thing, right? Well, mostly. The problem is that when a man internalizes a woman -- takes her identity into himself and begins to see her as an extension of himself -- she is no longer an object of mystery, novelty, denial, teasing. She is no longer a stand-alone individual -- instead, she is his, a part of himself, loved as he loves himself -- and thus she is no longer an object of erotic desire.

The happiest couples I know, the ones who are powerfully in-love after years and years together, seem to have one thing in common: a heathy sex life centered on her erotic objectification. For him, she is a fetish object, a talismanic creature radiating mystery and sensuality -- a Goddess. For her, he is the Summer King, her lover and acolyte, eternally in her thrall. They re-enact the ages old rites of worship between male and female, seeking to penetrate the barriers of their solitude in order to become as one, even if only for those few moments of orgasmic bliss.

Otto Kernberg wrote a book on love relationships which contained an analysis of a Hindu text known as the Ramayana, and in this book he stated: "...the beloved presents himself or herself simultaneously as a body which can be penetrated and a consciousness which is impenetrable. Love is the revelation of the other person's freedom. The contradictory nature of love is that desire aspires to be fulfilled by the destruction of the desired object, and love discovers that this object is indestructable and cannot be substituted."

At some point we all make this discovery, realizing, at least subconsciously, that the object of love and desire is both within our grasp and eternally beyond it. At this point, one of three decisions is made: one, to abandon the object and go in search of one that can be fully possessed/internalized, two, to hold on to the object, internalize what we can of them, and ignore/deny/attempt to destroy what we cannot possess, or three, celebrate the oft-times conflicting duality of love and desire, taking as much of the other as we can into our selves, and enjoy the mystery and delight of trying to grasp what can never be held -- no matter how hard we try. The way in which we cope with this love conundrum determines how well our relationships work, and how long they last.

End of spiritual and psychological analysis. Lets get back to sex.

So, as I established earlier, when men are with women for a long while, the women become 'self' instead of remaining 'other', and in order to re-eroticize their partners, men seem to need to objectify them -- to restore the mystery to the object of their sexual fulfillment. And for some reason I want to help make this happen.

How? Well, I'll sometimes guide conversation or role-play towards erotic objectification of their partners... sometimes the fantasies will be woman-woman, asking questions like, "Would you like to see her face between my thighs? Watch her press her lips to my bare pussy?" I sometimes invite them in..."Would you like to slip up behind her, and fuck her nice and slow while she eats me?" Once I have made the decision to re-eroticize someone's partner, I rarely, ever, suggest sexual intercourse between myself and him. I do not want him to focus on me as an erotic object, but on his wife. In general, my goal is for him to get 'off' thinking about HER, not ME. If he has D/s leanings, sometimes I'll suggest that I'll make his wife submit to me, and allow him to watch -- so long as he does not move or speak unless given permission -- regardless of what I do to her or what she says. This suggestion is powerfully erotic to many men. Sometimes I'll guide him through use of his wife in such a way that will 'please' me.. get him all worked up and then tell him to go to bed and wake his wife and take her... and report back to me on her responses. This has had spectacular results for some couples, results that have amazed the men... they wonder how I know that their wives will respond well to x or y or z, and I tell them its from what I learn from them about their wives...

I am sure a lot of women would freak out about this type of exchange... and here is where the humour of it all comes in. I am a woman who understands men. But I also understand women -- as much as it is possible to understand women. And women, well, we are raunchy. We tell our girlfriends things that make grown men blush. Our girlfriends tell us things that make us roar with laughter, make us horny as hell. We tease each other, flirt with each other. We talk about the best places to buy lingerie and sex toys, about the latest things we tried on our lovers. But heaven forbid if our lovers talk about it. Especially if the person they are talking to is another woman. Heads will roll. Tears will fall. Words like 'betrayal' and 'violation' will resonate in the air. And its ridiculous, the hypocrisy of it. Because for women, their lovers are also no longer 'other', they are 'self' and so talking about their lovers to whomever they choose is their right. But heaven forbid their lovers show an ounce of individuality and discuss such deeply private and personal things with someone else--especially another woman! Oh my.

It is illogical. I call it fuzzy feminine logic. And unfortunately, we're stuck with it. But we can work with it, keeping in mind that simply because women often defy logic does not mean they are irrational. I mean, part of what makes women an eternal mystery to men is this fuzzy, nuanced, emotional logic -- men don't 'get' it. In the everyday world, women are nuts and men are baffled. What men need from women is very simple, and what they want from women is very simple, but women are not simple. We are complex. We think that what we want most is to be understood, but really, we do not. We are complex and what we want from men is not that they understand everything about us, but that they understand that our natures dictate that we be true to the moment, and that this is both valid and rational. We like change, we need change, we are change. We are the source of creation and sustenance. We are mystery incarnate. We are objects of love, of desire, of denial, of fulfillment.

I suppose, when it comes down to it, my argument is that 'objectification of women' is a good thing. Perhaps the feminist movement's efforts to change the fundamental tendancy of men to eroticize women needs to take into consideration the archetypes which this touches upon, the deep-seated psychological reasons for objectification, and how it benefits both genders. Because as I see it, if romantic relationships between women and men are going to be fulfilling in the long term, women need to find ways to continue being erotic objects -- and men need to find ways to continue being enthralled by the objects of their love and desire.

Word-choice nuances

What is the difference between childlike and childish, between impulsive and spontaneous, between sensual and sexual, nevermind sensual and sensuous? What is the difference between acceptance and passivity, between aggressive and assertive, between creative and inventive, between religious and spiritual, intelligent and intellectual?

And then there is love. In English we have just one word to use. Sure, we can add modifiers such as maternal, filial, erotic, romantic, and platonic to describe who we love or what love or how we love them -- but love is such a deep and yet broad-spectrum emotional state, how can we possibly find the words to describe how we feel, and if so, how can we be sure that the words we use mean to others what they mean to us?

I was asked by CW today how I felt about someone.
I said, " I love him."
He asked, "Could you be more specific?"
I said, "He's one of my dearest friends, the friend of my soul."
He said, "But he's your lover, too..."
I made a face at him. "Yes, sometimes, but that is not the focus of our relationship."
He said, "I know you say men and women can be friends, but then you break the rules by having sex with your friends. Isn't that confusing?"
I looked at him and smiled. "Sometimes."
"C'mon Kay, talk to me."
"What do you want to know that won't violate his privacy?"
"How can you be friends and lovers?"
"Look, its not romantic. There is none of that new relationship energy, none of that passionate 'oooh baby I want you' stuff. I love him. He loves me. Sometimes... sometimes being sexual is a natural extension of the intimacy and affection between us, a natural progression of sharing ourselves."
He thought about it. "If it is so natural, why doesn't it happen more often between friends?"
"That is a good question. I will answer it with a question: how often do you think friends want to make love to each other, but refrain?"
"I think quite a few. More than people would willingly admit... I know there are a few times I've been really curious."
"Ok. So..there is curiousity, and there is desire. And then there is trust and love and sharing. I've got friends that I would never have sex with--mainly because I'd worry one or both of us getting 'romantically' confused.... It happened to me a couple of times, and... well... I like to think I've learned enough from those experiences that I do not need to repeat them again."
"How do you decide then?"
"Decide?"
"Which friends to sleep with and which ones not to..."

I swear, the groan I let out came all the way from my hara. Why is it that so much boils down to sex? I don't get it. I will never get it. Sex itself is an act we are programmed to desire to repeat as often as possible, partly for reproductive purposes, and partly for pleasure. It alleviates a need, like any other, like eating alleviates hunger and pissing alleviates a full bladder. And yet, sex, with love, can be so much more. It is a gateway to the spiritual, I find, and that is what gives it significance beyond reproductive and pleasure drives.

"Its more a matter of spontaneity. If, in the moment, it feels right, and there are no reservations, I act on it," I tried to tell him.
He looked surprised. "You're not the impulsive type."
"Ah, but there is a difference between spontaneity and impulse. Impulses are internally motivated, often subconsciously. Impulsive is going shopping when one does not have the need or the funds. Spontaneity is responding naturally and appropriately to the present moment."

And so we went round and round about nuances and verbage and his insistence that I need to remember that though I may choose my words to express exactly what I mean, that those hearing me are catching the words through their own emotional filters, adding their own nuances. Since I've been told the same by others, I suppose I should give this point more thought. It doesn't help my efforts to communicate if other's are not understanding what I mean.

Absent the need for certainty: growing a friendship

Absent the need for certainty: growing a friendship. Enjoying being present. Facing and discussing what arose. Struggling to remain open and vulnverable. Allowing energy to flow.

I had an interesting evening with a friend-in-the-making who asked perceptive questions that made me think, and because I was open to him, often triggered emotional responses.

Opening to possibility (Me: One of the first things I tell some one when we get into a relationship is: "I promise I will hurt you. I also promise I will never hurt you intentionally." He: Wouldn't a better choice of words be "I may hurt you.." The way you word it you are guaranteeing it will happen instead of allowing for the possibility of it. Me: Its a certainty. Miscommunication happens. Things happen. No matter how hard we try, the ones we love still feel hurt by things we say and do. So, that choice of words is deliberate. He: But wouldn't you rather chose an option that allows for the possibiltiy of not hurting the ones you love? Me: That is possible, but improbable. He: Still, we're not talking about statisical probabilities here. We're talking about relationships and allowing for the possibility.. why do you feel it necessary to set those expectations? Me: I am pragmatic. Its a warning, an acknowledgement that at times I will hurt the ones I love unintentionally. And a reminder to myself that the ones I love will hurt me, as well. Hmm... I will consider what you are saying. You are right that such wording does negate the possibility of not hurting someone.)

Opening to fears (He: Are you afraid of connection? Me: Yes. He: Why? Me: *hesitation*. He: Don't think, just answer. Me: Some of it is that childish abandonment issue from my mother disappearing when I was 9 or 10. Some if it has to do with Love. Some people stop loving, and I don't. The relationship may change but the reasons I love people are still there. I still love them. I don't understand how people can just stop loving someone, loving me. And that hurts. But more than that, it confuses me, baffles me, rocks the foundation of my inner-reality (love). So I'm very cautious about who I build connections with.)

Opening to what we want or need from each other. Expectations of our relationship, or more suitably, lack thereof. What we sense can grow between us -- there is a sense of boundless intimacy. That question I have--will he become a friend of the soul? I would like that.

Talking about the difference between being terse and being succinct, and my tendancy at times to be the former in an attempt to be the latter. Discussed Polyamory and Monogamy. His desire to educate not only the monogamous masses, but those struggling to make polyamory work for them so they don't participate in a string of divorces or serial monogamy. Awareness that one person cannot be all things to another, and even if they are, that such a state is unsustainable. Jealousy, and my statement that I do not feel it or experience it, and how this hinders my ability to understand it in others.

My face pressed to his chest, hot tears for no real reason. Simultaneously knowing it was alright, and fearing this release would be too much for him. I fiercely hate crying. But he is far more comfortable with tears and emotions than I am, and he did all the right things. And in that moment, one of the petals of the lotus unfolded. And that first petal was trust.