Pathos, Eros, and Aramis

 [This will be posted as a Silken On Sex podcast episode in the near future]

The weather is California cliche: the sun is bright, the sky is a cloudless blue. The scent of California bay and eucalyptus waft by on a sea breeze. Children splash in the pool. Laughter bounces around the courtyard.

From my chair on the balcony I try to extend my senses, to feel something -- anything -- but what I’m feeling now.

Pathos.

I am doing my best to be present with my body, to understand how this pathos feels, not just emotionally, but physically.

Right now, it feels under-oxygenated. My breath is shorter, faster. It no longer fills my center. My muscles are tight. Twitchy. Restless. My shoulders ride higher, up near my ears.  I feel it in my gut, too, the tightness. An ache has settled in my chest, my eyes. It is a long list.

This is what anxiety and anguish feels like in the flesh.

In my head, it feels like being small and afraid in the face of uncertainty. Trapped. Cut-off. Cornered. I feel like I must act, must do something, anything. But what?

And so I remind myself to breathe.

Life is uncertain, and no amount of resistance to that fact is going to change Reality. Reality is mutable, transient, turbulent. Unpredictable. And yet, it is what it is.

Accept, my mind says. But my body betrays emotional resistance.

I figured that my sisters and I would grow old together, the three of us. The Three Musketeers. I thought we’d be hard-of-hearing old ladies sitting on the back porch swing, laughing until we had to pee, talking about the good old days with Grandmother, the rides down the hill in our little red wagon, and riding horses on the mesa in Colorado. I thought we’d go on vacations, bicycle rides for three, and scold grandchildren.  Then one sister died in 2008 after a long illness, and I revised that dream to just the two of us. But today, the likelihood of my baby sister surviving to my age is slim, never mind to old age. And I feel. A lot of things.

I know we all die. And I know it isn’t anything to be afraid of. I got that, really got it, when I was holding my grandfather’s hand as he exhaled the last bits of himself two years ago.  I understand the beauty of the life-cycle, the transitory nature of it, the glory of a life well-lived. You could say that I am at peace with Death.

But to die young, ah. To lose someone in the prime of life. To watch them hunch in on themselves with pain. The pain of living. Of breathing. Of being. I can handle it. Watching someone die from cancer isn’t a new experience for me. But I’m not enjoying it. It is very stressful on everyone. Especially my sister.

Underneath it all, I’m sad for me. And for her kids. And for our parents — who will have to deal with out-living another of their children.

Life is. And quite often these days, life is Pathos.

Eros and Aramis.

Citrus, cinnamon, and sandalwood: the scent of his Aramis cologne envelops me as Gabriel’s arms do. I rest my forehead against his shoulder and breathe him into me. He always seems to know when I’m in that place, that overwhelmed, anxious and impatient place. He hugs me hard, his arms forming a tight band that pops my back. A welcome release.

“You’re cold,” he murmurs against my ear. “How can you be cold? It’s over 80 degrees out here.”

“I’ve forgotten warmth,” I mutter back, dispirited and exhausted. And cold. I’ve been sleeping with the electric blanket on. In Summer.

He steps backward, holding me at arm's length. He starts to say something, but his eyes are riveted on my breasts. My nipples. Bra-less and cold, my nipples were already hard, but his nearness, the scent of him, have added additional length.

His hand reaches toward my right breast, thumb grazing the nipple. His touch sparks through me, little electric arrows racing along my nerve-endings, dissipating the fog of despair wrapped around me like a comforter. I feel!

Another brush of his thumb and I gasp and sway, my eyes closing. So good. So sweet. Pleasure is so life-affirming.

He steps nearer, his hand never leaving my breast. I can feel the warmth radiating from him. I tilt my face up to his, eyes closed, like a flower following the sun. My mouth trembles with a sad smile and tears well up under my eyelids.

“Make love to me,” I ask him, implore him. “Make me feel alive.”

He steps around me. Pulls the hair away from my neck and brushes my skin with his shadow.  A sharp, hissing intake of my breath. I feel that! Mmmmm… yes!

His arms encircle me, one around my shoulders, the other, my midriff. He draws me backwards, off the balcony, and guides me down onto the persian carpet. With feather-light kisses and touches he opens my blouse, exposing my breasts.

More tears at his gentleness. I need this.

When his mouth closes over my erect nipple, my entire body vibrates with erotic energy. My pathos subsides beneath a tide of Aramis-scented eros as I surrender to a new feeling: I’m alive!

So gloriously fucking alive!

*  *  *

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Choosing my Self in difficult times

I'm journaling this because it helps me find clarity. Gives me perspective. Lets my friends know what is going on in my life... and might be helpful to others who are experiencing similar difficulties.

The topic is catastrophic illness. That, and how the temperment of the one who is ill affects both the outcome for themselves and those who love them. And I'm trying to figure out what I can do differently.

We are born. We live. We lose loved ones. And then we die. And I'm cool with that. Really.

I've had two sisters and a step-sister struggle with catastrophic illness. One died, one made a miraculous recovery after being on hospice, and the other... is... complicated.


With the sister who died, she was very headstrong and high-strung. She didn't want to make the changes necessary to recover from her illness. She lacked the patience and the self-control, frankly, and so she died, though a year later than I estimated, mainly because as her condition deteriorated she'd get scared, comply for a few weeks or a couple of months with medical care, and then she'd pull the plug, literally, and go back to a lifestyle that was physically depleting. She would get angry, and cry, and ask why this was happening to her, and I'd get her to a place where she'd acknowledge that she had been neglecting her health and that she was willfully non-compliant with regards to medical care and she'd agree to do what needed doing. And then she'd get to feeling better and revert to her prior way of being. And then she'd get to feeling worse, and she'd cry and beg for help, and get angry and irrational and verbally abusive when she didn't get what she wanted.  She pushed people away with one hand and pulled with the other. It was a vicious cycle that last two excruciating years. My only consolation, my only rationalization, is that she loved what she did, and she died doing what she loved.


Sister number Two was put on hospice when she came out of remission and her cancer was found to have metastasized to several places. She was in discomfort, and my step-sister's twin, who is a pharmacist, and my step-mother, who was a home health care nurse, did everything they could to "make her comfortable." They'd lost their grandfather a few years previously after a terribly painful and drawn-out experience, and they didn't want her to suffer. This sister knew how to ask for help, and how to accept it. She was angry, feeling like her life was being stolen from her, etc, but she invited people in. Her church congregation stepped up, brought food and comfort and companionship. Her friends visited. And I visited. And I spoke my truths to her, too. I told her to get up out of bed. Told her that when people are asked what they would do if they were told they have weeks to live they don't say "I'd lay in a hospital bed drugged out of my mind." I told her her life wasn't over, that she had as much time as I had -- today. Get up. Get up. Live. And yeah, maybe saying those things was a bit harsh, and maybe I could have found better ways to say them. But she got up out of that bed, and she lived her life, and she did her chemo again, and she is here now, two years later.


Sister number Three is like sister number One. Headstrong and high-strung. She's never been very good at asking for help and she's very reluctant to accept help. She's also extremely contrarian, and bi-polar or similarly biochemically imbalanced. I wouldn't go so far as to call her mentally ill, though she does have her moments -- she did try to kill herself two years ago last month, and she battles both depression and "fits" of some sort in which she says and does things that are completely unacceptable and often doesn't remember what she said or did during her outbursts. She's lovable, but makes loving her very difficult. It's a push-pull thing, a cycle of trial-by-fire testing followed by love and affection. Enter another cancer diagnosis. We thought she'd dodged the bullet in Feb 2008 but it turns out the tumor the doc found and removed was not the original one.

So in October 2009 the original site was located, typed, and radical treatment was recommended. And she didn't tell anyone. She decided to delay. Couldn't make up her mind what to do. And her behavior, her normally high-strung, difficult behavior, became that of someone who was nearly unhinged. I thought it was a bad case of her usual Seasonal Affective Disorder. I asked her to talk to me. And she would, sometimes. But mostly she'd call and babble and cry and when I'd repeat what she'd said to me back to her to ask for clarity she'd get verbally abusive, yelling and asking me why I was saying things like that or putting words in her mouth. She was that... disconnected from what she was saying and doing that she could not remember it 2 minutes afterwards. She got fired from her job and lost her medical plan and her ability to take the medical leave of absence that she should have taken in order to treat her illness and have financial security.

Finally, in February, she started treatment. Not the full treatment the doc wanted, which involved radical surgery and radiation and chemo. But she did start the chemo. For a few weeks. And then quit in March after a few treatments because they made her so sick and was putting her at risk for cardiac arrest. And then she called and told me and our step-sisters that she had a very aggressive form of cancer, and that she wasn't going to do the chemo or surgery or any of the radical/aggressive treatments suggested by her oncologist, and would I please take her daughter when she died.

Of course I said yes, and of course I drove the few hours to see her, and to spend a few days with her. And though some of the time with her was good, some of it was unpleasant. Her outbursts, her way of communicating when frustrated or upset (which was often) felt like verbal assaults. I'd watch her daughter jump and freeze and then run off to do whatever her mother said. Anything to stop the yelling. We talked, and she told me she didn't want me to change my life right now, not yet, that she was doing ok, for now. After a few days I returned home, and I had a guest arrive from out of town, and she tried mending fences with our father, with whom she'd been at odds since her car accident Christmas Day. I researched her cancer, sent her information on recommended treatments that didn't involve surgery or systemic chemotherapy.

And I heard back from a friend about my inquiry about taking custody of my niece. This friend told me that when my sister dies, my niece's father becomes her legal guardian, that he is, in fact still her legal guardian. My sister is legally separated from her husband but there has not been a formal custody agreement, and regardless of whether or not there was one, when she dies, legal custody automatically reverts to him as her natural father. That the only way I'd be able to keep my niece would be if my sister's husband signed her over to me. And she didn't want to hear it.

There are a lot of things she didn't want to hear, didn't want to talk about, but they are things that needed to be said, needed to be addressed. She could pretend that things were going to go the way she wanted, she could pretend that she could keep her daughter from her husband so he wouldn't win the epic war that had been their relationship of a dozen years... but ultimately, I felt it would be damaging to her daughter to tell her that she was going to stay in CA and live with me, only to be taken back East to live with her father, who loves her very much and only recently agreed to let his daughter stay with her mother indefinitely.

So I put it in a letter, and mailed it off -- this reality-check, and it was not well-received. Shortly thereafter, Sister #2 used a photo I took of Sister #1 all bald and curled up in her bed as a poster-child of sort for Relay for Life fundraising. Without asking either of us, and seeing as I'd made the photo available to Sister #2 and a few others without her permission, I accepted what followed as my responsibility. It was a firestorm.

It took me a couple of days to figure out what happened. The different stories I got from my nephew, my father, and my sister made no sense, and in many cases, were technically impossible. But I figured it out, and once I did, I accepted it. All of it. Still am, even as my partner asks me why I take it, why I take the 3am phone calls, why I listen to the yelling and abuse that doesn't give me room to say anything before the call is ended by Sister #3. Only for the phone to ring again, 3 or 30 minutes later,  for a new line of invective. She said she never wanted to talk to me again but she keeps calling. Her most recent call was to tell me that our step-mother told my niece that she needed to diet, as she's put on a fair amount of weight the past few months (not surprising given the stressful conditions she's living under) and that it was my fault. I'm not quite sure how that logic works, but somehow it makes sense to her.

My partner says that I am the most loving person he knows and that I do not deserve the abuse being heaped on me.  He wants me to disengage further, to remove myself from a situation that makes me so sad, that dims my inner light. He says he's looking forward to answering her next phone call, since she keeps calling the line in is bedroom even though I asked her not to. A deliberate bit of inconsideration on her part, I know.

I do not know what to do. I know that I want to be with my sister. But I know that the price for that privilege is admission to a roller-coaster ride of emotional ups and downs, verbal abuse, irrational behavior. And keeping my mouth shut.

The latter I can probably do. If she can't handle the truth, she can't handle it. But its the roller-coaster ride I can't handle. She thinks we can't handle her being ill. She says that is why she took so long to tell the family, because she didn't think we could handle it. But that is self-deception. We've handled so much -- what's another bout of cancer? Another death? No, she's the one who cannot handle it, and what is more, her inability to handle it makes life unpleasant for everyone around her.

I can handle her having cancer. I can handle knowing that she's a good 3 years into an aggressive form of cancer that has probably spread to her liver and kidneys and bones. I can handle the care-giving. I've done it many times before.  I can handle the normal emotional ups and downs of cancer patients, the anger and the sadness and the tears. I know how to be with, really be with others. And I'm not afraid of death and dying.

But what I can't handle -- is the frenetic, boiling, ever-changing emotional states. It's like being pounded by waves while caught in a rip-tide. I feel overwhelmed and afraid of capsizing. I feel like I'm suffocating on her emotion, like I'm choking on it as it fills the room, as she vibrates with it, blares it, assaults everyone around her with it. And whether she lives 3 months, or 6 months, or a year -- I'm not sure I can make the trade-off, pay the blood-price. I can't take abuse. Its like cancer -- insidious, invasive, deadening. I had enough to last me a lifetime already and I just don't want to see if I'm up to enduring the unendurable one more time.

Will I regret not finding a way to placate her and work things out whatever it takes? Possibly. But in the long run, I'll have saved myself the inevitable experience of her instability, rages, and abuses. In the end, I'm the one who is going to survive her, and I'd rather be mentally and emotionally capable of handling the mess she'll leave behind when she dies. I hoped that some how, some way, I could show her that path I've found and walked these past years, the path of inner peace and love and joy.  But I can't choose those things and offer myself up denigration and abuse at the same time. So, I guess the place I've arrived at as I've written this down is... I choose me. My mental health. My vitality. And if she wants me to be a part of her life, whatever is left of it, she's going to have to accept that I'm not going to be her whipping boy just because she feels the need to vent her rage at the world at someone. I'm not a masochist, Sister. Find another puppy to kick. This one is staying out of harm's way.

Haunting Dream

I was in a house. It felt like my house, though it was mostly empty, and I was waiting.

I heard sounds and went downstairs and my lover was there, with some workmen.

He looked very surprised to see me and pulled me aside, into another room.

He said, "What are you doing here?"

I stood there, with every bit of love I felt filling me, shining out of me.

"Waiting for you," I answered.

He looked surprised, looked like he didn't know what to say next.

"I have just one question for you," I said to him. "Did you try to contact me even once in the past two months?"

His eyes fell away from mine. "No," he said. "I've been very busy with work, very distracted."

It felt like a literal blow to my chest. There was a "whomp" feeling there, like the feeling I get when I'm at a fireworks display and they launch the canisters into the air.

Something fell out of me, fell from chest height and shattered like a pane of heavy glass, showering our feet with shards of light.

I woke up crying. Shivering. My chest aching. Still partly in my dream-state, I watched myself push past him, heard myself say, "You broke my heart. I never want to see you again."

I lay in bed for a few minutes, disoriented and soaked with dread.

"It was just a dream," I told myself, but I couldn't shake it, couldn't shake that pressure in my chest, that horrible heart-broken feeling. Tears fell, and shivers rocked me.

I got up from my bed and went to his, crawling up to him, saying "I had a bad dream."

And he pulled the covers back and said, "Put your head on my heart," and I did, my hands gluing themselves to him.

His heart beating in my ear, I shuddered against him, and tears fell on his chest.

"You broke my heart," I said to him, and my voice sounded like a child's, plaintive, and faintly accusing.

The arm around my shoulder tightened. I told him the details of the dream.

"Do you hear that?" He asked. "That sound in my chest? Lub-dub. Lub-dub?"

I nodded my head. His heart beat strongly in my ear.

"I love you double," he said. "Love-doub, Love-doub."

My smile surprised me. I wanted to groan over the bad play on words, but couldn't. He hugged me close, and slowly the pain seeped out of me. The last time I woke up crying was from a dream about my sister.

I got up from his bed. He needed to get going, I knew. He had to be at a meeting in 15 minutes.

A few minutes later I was standing at the bank of windows in the living room, looking out at the rain, when he slipped his arms around me. The feelings from the dream still draped me like a pall, but they were far less crushing than just a quarter-hour earlier.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

I folded my arms over his, hugging him back.

"Much," I answered.

"Good," he said.

With one last squeeze, he turned away in search of an umbrella, his mind already distracted with his work.


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Feeling fortunate

There are certain qualities I like in my men. Sitting in the same space with My Beloved and My Lover, it was quite obvious. Physically they are very different. M is dark of eyes and hair, while D is fair. M is slender and smooth-skinned. D is nearly 6" taller and hairy. But they both have those hands. The hands of an artist or a surgeon: graceful, long-fingered, expressive. They are both introverts, though D makes the effort to be outgoing. Low-key and yet intense. They are both deliberate speakers. Thoughtful, they choose their words carefully. They are both highly intelligent, and comfortable with it -- geeks in the sense of being techno-fetishists. They have the systematizing, mathematical, analytical minds. Delightful senses of humor, with a penchant for puns and other word-play. They have a British influence to their upbringing and their tastes in food. Neither cares much for alcohol or vegetables. They are playful, love to learn and travel, enjoy being touched to the point that they purr, and are very aural. They know how to Be Present in the moment. They have alpha male qualities but don't flaunt them. And they are keenly sensitive. I won't go into the sensitivities because they are not mine to share, but like me they experience the world very keenly, to the point of debility at times. The other men with whom I've been intimate over the years have many, if not all, of these same qualities.

I enjoyed that the two of them seemed comfortable with each other. For most people it would seem counter-intuitive -- a recipe for disaster -- putting the man who was, for all intents and purposes, my common-law ex-husband in the same room with my current lover, a man who expressed an interest in me while D and I were still together a decade ago. But they are kindred spirits, the kind of people who know each other upon first meeting on a level far deeper than the ass-sniffing and territory-marking behavior one expects of most men in that situation.

M is in the midst of a life-changing project and his mind churns problem-sets in the background most of the time, something I accept for now because I understand the potential pay-offs, even as I miss the attentiveness, the focus, to which I have become accustomed these past few years. D seemed to understand what that M's distance wasn't disinterest. He gets where M is -- we've had other friends make it big in Silicon Valley and we both know the effort it takes to bootstrap a company to the point of attaining those life-changing rewards.

M is secure in who he is and how I feel about him, and so he does not worry about D the way most men would. He is not concerned about the time I spend with D -- there are no worries about loss or relationship-changing developments, and when he misses me, he lets me know when he wants time with me -- just as I do with him. Which reminds me, once again, about how much I love the way we communicate.

I'm a lucky woman. And I've got great taste in men :)



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Reclaiming the stories of the past

When My Beloved and I stopped speaking, it was because the woman who would later become his wife urged him to cut off communication.  We'd broken up over a year previously, and it didn't make sense to her that we were still so connected, still prone to ache over our separation and the strained conversations. And so he stopped. Just stopped. Stopped taking my calls and answering my emails. There was no explanation, no "Goodbye" communication. He just willed me out of his life, and ceased being a part of mine. Poof! Four miles away from me, and working for the same company, but he was gone. And knowing him as I did, and fearing further and more painful rejection, I did everything I could to respect his obvious desire to eliminate me from his life.  And here it where it gets interesting.

When we split up, he cut me out of his life, physically, but still carried me around in his pocket, as he says. He tells me that he mentioned me to others as a formative force in his life, etc. Though I was no longer physically a part of his life, I nevertheless remained a part of his life story.

But I dropped him from mine. I was aware of him physically, of where he lived and where he worked, and every time I crossed the street he lived on (almost daily) I wished him well. But I stopped speaking of him. Stopped thinking of him in personal terms. I told no stories of him. Carried nothing of him within me. His withdrawal was so sudden and so complete that there was nothing left behind--the memories of our seven years together were swept back from the shore of my life, carried off by the tide of emotion to waters that run very, very deep. The hordes of friends I made in Portland post-2000 never heard his name. They heard of MAR, who came before him, and SEK, who came after, and of my Dutchman and CAW, and MR in SF and even KR in Seattle. But never Him. Two close friends of mine have both told me how odd they think that is, that this man, My Beloved, has been missing from my personal narrative so completely that they'd no idea he'd even existed.

And when they each communicated this to me, I was reminded of something that Elie Wiesel once wrote in Gates of the Forest, something along the lines of "When a friend denies you it is worse than death; it is as if you never existed for him, or him for you." His denial of me seemed so complete to me, that it was as if he didn't exist, and neither did I -- In fact I re-created myself in the following years, even to the point of using different names: The one he knew me by was reserved for professional me, and I chose a new one for playful me, for the me I wanted to be.

In thinking about it, in thinking about him and me, I recognize that I wiped a very important person and several years from my life story, and it is time to write him back in. It is time to graft that branch back onto the trunk. The question is how? The difference in our ages (5+ years) means that I was more often the one imparting knowledge and lessons. I was the one who handed over books to read and confronted him with new experiences, who noticed his hubris and challenged his opinions. What did I learn from My Beloved? What did I take away from our relationship? I thought learned from him that I was lovable, that I was worthy of being loved--but the magnitude of his rejection obliterated that. I was left instead with a powerful need to apologize for being me. An apology he didn't have ears to hear. As I pick now over the jumble dotting the shore of my consciousness since he swept back into my life, I'm struggling to find a common thread, trying to find a way to string these random, disparate bits of memories and emotions into stories. Stories of us.

And I think I've found a way. He mentioned, after reading some of my erotic stories, that he thought some of them were about him/us. Nope. Not a single story. We lived together for 7 years, had sex every day, sometimes two and three times a day, and with all that material to work with, I never delved into those experiences, never drew from them. And I think... I think it is time to change that. It is time to open up to those memories and write some stories, naughty stories, about two people in their early twenties, exploring their sexuality with the exuberance that is born of love and adventure and acceptance.

Yes. I've some stories I can tell, and in the telling, return My Beloved to his rightful place in the story of my life -- and his.



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Polyamory: Know Thyself First

 Earlier today the friend of a friend sent me an email:

I am currently working on reading the second edition of The Ethical Slut... was wondering if you had any ideas of other books I could read on poly that are any good?

Here is my response:

Regarding polyamory and reading material -- I've not read *any* books on it and very little in the way of online material. I come to polyamory by nurturing -- my parents are poly and I lived communally until I was 10 or so. So I can't really recommend any reading material from personal experience of it. I actually own The Ethical Slut but I've not read it. Why? I found myself resisting reading it and after thinking about it, decided that I didn't want to influence my own innate understanding of it with someone else's attempt to explain it or persuade others to give it a try.

That said, I have read a bit of the Loving More site (http://www.lovemore.com/) with an eye toward being a contributing writer. My friends Y and his wife X run the Poly Circle Discussion Group (http://pcdg.portlandpoly.org/) and the books I know they recommend in addition to The Ethical Slut, are:
'Polyamory: Roadmaps for the Clueless & Hopeful' (Ravenscroft)
'Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits' (Anapol)
'Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships' (Taormino)

I've met Tristan Taormino and she is a friend of Y. She comes to Portland often to speak, so I'd say to try her book next.

I can tell you that the tendency of society to insist that we chose one person to be all things to us creates a lot of unnecessary tension and stress. A lot of people get into that mode of feeling like they settled for someone, settled for Mr Right Now instead of Mr Right, or worse, withhold forming intimate bonds thinking they'll miss out on something better later on if they do.

I can also tell you that being self-honest is an absolute necessity. Self-inquiry and contemplation are practices that you are going to need to be comfortable with -- you can't really have healthy relationships with others until you've established one with yourself. In many ways we are each of us the biggest mystery to ourselves. We don't know why we do half the shit we do -- we just do it. Getting eye-level with your consciousness and being alert to your feelings and reactions helps resolve a lot of the self-sabotaging that goes on in each of us. I recommend meditation and journalling. We are blessed with being self-aware and each of us is a book-in-progress, so write your story, revise it, consider how things could be done differently in future situations, and outline the future chapters. We can live life intentionally, rather than accidentally.

Establishing good self-communication then makes it possible to have good communication in relationships. Especially poly ones. Jealousy is the biggest problem in any relationship, be it sibling, friend, colleague or partner. And the root of jealousy is issues with scarcity / abundance. Being self-aware and having good self-communication means we can often intercept the negative self-talk that arises as a result of feeling threatened by the prospect of scarcity / loss. Being able to share our feelings and thoughts with partners is both beautiful and necessary, so long as we learn to approach it in such a way that it is not a Blame Game. As soon as we make someone "wrong" or as soon as someone feels we are making them "wrong" we've lost the opportunity to communicate effectively.

My ex-girlfriend used to say "You made me do it" or "You make me feel like I'm crazy" and it really pushed my buttons when she did. If she could find a way to make something someone else's fault, she would. She lived her life as a victim, and last I heard, she still does. But not me! I accept responsibility for my thoughts and actions, and I recognize that in the arena of thoughts and actions, I have control. But I also know that feelings are feelings, that they are what they are and that they arise from deep within, and I honor them and recognize that while how I feel is *always* appropriate (because it is how I feel) -- I get to choose both what I think about how I am feeling *and* what I'm going to do about it -- and thus I am responsible for the outcomes. There is no escaping that, no matter how much I may want to deny it, and did live in denial of it -- ultimately I am responsible for my life, and being involved with others who also accept responsibility for their lives makes everything easier.

So basically, I guess what I am trying to say, is the best thing you can do is to make sure that you're in a good place with yourself. If you are healthy and happy and self-aware, then everything flows naturally from that place -- if you have a loving relationship with yourself love comes naturally, and the more you love the more love comes your way. From there it makes sense to keep expanding the circle of loved ones and exploring the various permutations of loving -- there is little to lose and much to gain.

Lastly, be aware... things change. Like the ocean, we ebb and flow. One day or week or month we may want to be free to love anyone and everyone, and then the next, we want someone all to ourselves. Some of it is tied to hormones, seasons, lunar cycle, and emotional rhythms. Some if it has to do with aspects specific to each person we are involved with. It is important to remember that how we feel and what we want is valid AND that what others feel and want is also valid. Sometimes the two (or three or four ;) are in conflict and that is ok. The "conflict" may be temporary or permanent but it is only an earth-shattering disaster if we choose to make it one. Giving ourselves room to feel the emotional intensity while not succumbing to the pressing urge to act now is a good pressure valve to develop.

I hope I don't sound too preachy. You may already have some or all of this down and if so, great. If not, that is cool, too. I mean no insult or injury in what I'm trying to communicate, only a desire for you to know love and happiness. I've learned to operate from the space that everyone is perfect, whole and complete just as they are while also understanding that most people just don't realize they are ;)

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And so it begins anew

Conversations with My Beloved. Hours spent on the phone. Understandings achieved. Retrospective awareness of the necessity of separation and the unnecessary pain we perpetuated out of our grief. The ending of our relationship was as real a loss as the death of a loved one. We'd spent 7 years together and who we were was lost as well so there was a struggle to form independent identities. And my weirdnesses, some of which were caused by 4 deaths within 18 months of our break-up, and some of which was a matter of him becoming conscious of things that had always been so but unquestioned while we were together. Like mind-reading and emotional connections over distances. My calling and leaving weird messages like "I have a feeling that something intense is going on with you -- are you ok?" When he was indeed going through something intense. The scientist in him could not find a rational explanation as to "why" and he was spooked by the implications. Relief that each is doing well, thriving, in fact. Wanting to meet up soon to exchange hugs.  So much delight. I look forward to getting to know each other again, after nearly a decade.

I used to feel like an outsider in the world and in my own life because I experienced the world so differently from so many people. I saw things people didn't see, smelled things people couldn't smell, sensed things people thought I shouldn't feel. It is the curse of having a sensory array that has a broader spectrum than most people -- like someone whose eyes can discern a broader spectrum of wave-lengths and sees colors that do not exist for others. Like hearing the earth singing at dawn. The one-eyed man in the land of the blind, I nearly stoned myself to death, wishing I was deaf and blind and dumb.

I was saved by my inner mystic, who defied my inner scientist to prove that the evidence of my own experiences were false. I met extraordinary people. Went into therapy. Studied agnostic Buddhism and quantum physics and human sexuality and psychology and philosophy. Meditated. Broadened my experiences of Polyamory. Learned to trust my intuitions, my perceptions, my sensitivities. Discovered the SENG site. Completed the Landmark Curriculum for Living.  Found soul-satisfying intimacy through Love Tribe and the sacred through tantra and ecstatic dance. Made peace with my fears, my past, the voice in my head, death, uncertainty, and suffering.  Most of all, suffering. And fell in-love :) Yes, that was the best part of my transformation -- falling in love with someone who is amazing in his own way as I am in mine.

And into this stumbles my ex. My beloved. It seems he arrived here, at my blog, via a chain of coincidences that seem almost contrived. As if there is something at work in his life, guiding him here. He mentions to me things that have happened recently and asks if they aren't weird and is confounded to hear that it is part of my daily life, my reality, and that it is my understanding that it is part of everyone's -- it's just they aren't open to it so they don't notice it.

I understand why he has been drawn back into my life. It seems he is ready to accept the pain of opening to his own considerable gifts, a transformational experience I am deeply familiar with. I am reminded of something Anais Nin once said,  “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” The question I have for myself is "why have I drawn him into my life?" And the answer probably lies with my inner child, who felt abandoned by her mother and her soul-mate. I was inconsolable for years, and while I developed the tools and skills to heal myself,  my understanding is still incomplete. There are stories to be heard, blindspots to be revealed, and possibilities to be created. I feel certain of it.
-------------------------
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Love lost, love found

November already! Wow. It has been a year since I left Portland for San Francisco. And while I miss my friends, and the life I had up there, I have no regrets. I love being near my family and friends here, and I'd be a fool to complain about living in San Francisco, now wouldn't I?

Halloween would have been Tammy's 40th birthday. This one was a big contrast to the one last year, when I had a friend visiting from Denmark and after showing him around town I curled up in bed and cried. This year I poured a drink and imagined the party she would have had for herself at her nightclub. I imagined her shaking that wonderful ass of hers on the dance floor, her blond hair shining in the darkness. Bittersweet, and no tears this time. Time does heal... I can think of her without tears falling, though they still well up in my eyes now and then.

A friend of mine sent me a "Firsts Meme" on Facebook, and as I completed it, I dredged up old memories of my first best friend and my first kiss and my first love. I thought about the boy I first kissed, when I was 7 or 8, and who I did not see again for 8 years but became my first love, and certainly the only boy I loved when I was a teen. My childhood sweetheart. Everything was so sweet. I loved him. I always have. I never quite understood how things dissolved between us. So as I was filling out that meme, I looked up his name on Facebook. There are lots of people with his name, but only he has his face. It is the same face. And so I sent him a message.

Minutes later he responded and then we were chatting away, filling each other in on our lives. And within minutes we both had answers to the questions that had gone unanswered for over 20 years. Parents. Our parents had thwarted us. My dad called his mom and told her I was 'late'. She in turn told him. He never heard anything again, so he thought I'd had an abortion. Lots of pain and sadness and feeling stupid on both our parts. And so it goes with teens. Our parents have stayed in touch all these years, and despite both of us asking our parents about each other, they never, in all these years, provided us the means to get in touch with each other. He's known for years that I was in Oregon, and tried to find me. It wasn't until I left Oregon that my father told me he was there. Funny that. And Hooray for Facebook!

And now, back to work. I've got a podcast to release tomorrow, and a naughty story to finish.

Sitting here in the little courtyard, the sky is incredibly blue and the sun warm, but the trees are losing their leaves anyway. M was just leaning his head in my lap, and I rubbed his neck and forehead, mussing up his hair just before he has to go off to a meeting. The days are so much shorter now. I think I'll go to Ocean Beach tomorrow. I want to crunch sand between my toes. I want to taste the wind with my skin.

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Who Would I Love

(a love poem in the style of Rumi)

When my sisters ask
Why him?
How do I tell them of the sweet satifaction
of laying in your arms?
They would only feel envious.

When an old lover says
Remember when?
How do I tell him that your scent has driven away
the memory of other men?
He would only feel forgotten.

When a friend sings
of broken hearts
How do I tell her that the lyrical sweep of your voice
healed me completely?
She would only feel injured.

And when the moon wonders
why my bed is empty
How do I tell you that the warmth of my flesh
is reserved for you alone?
You are not here to feel me.

Who would I love
if not you?
Who else can meet my soul when it leaves my body
at the eternal moment of ecstacy?
There is no one else for me.

A week into the new year

I am sipping coffee from a french press, a strong, dark roast whose beans, when ground, scented two rooms. When brewed, the smell wafted up the stairs. I could smell it while I was showering. I showered late, partly out of laziness, and partly out of reluctance to wash away the reminders of last night's lovemaking. The morning light is filtering through the ornately-carved teak screen in the living room. The day is clear and bright, deceptively so. It is cold outside.

Things are slowly coming together as I unpack my old life and fit it into my new one like pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. His stuff and mine, commingling in this townhouse like our fluids in my body. Artwork hung, furniture moved around, oriental carpets laid like lines in the sand, and so far, no conflict, and very little criticism.

"This is a big change for you," he said yesterday. "How are you doing? Are you happy here?"

It is for his capacity to ask questions like these that I love him. I know him to be caring and playful, in addition to the intensity for which he is well-known. His forceful personality and self-confidence are intimidating to some, but not to me. They are simply aspects of who he is. After dating for 3 years, I know him well enough that he finds it scary. Yet I rarely put the depth of my understanding into words. A wise woman knows how greatly men treasure the mysteries of the feminine -- and allows men the illusion of their own mysteries. It is one thing to penetrate another's mysteries. It is another to reveal them.

It is now a week into the New Year, and I can honestly say that I have begun the year as I would like it to continue. It has been full and rich already.

To Sir, With Love

Within an hour of his death, my cousin and I poured some whiskey and drank a toast to Granddad, a toast taken from the title of the book I'd been reading to him the past two days. To Sir, with love. May he rest in peace.


He was waiting for me to come to him, and his decline once I arrived was stunning in its swiftness. He kept his faculties the entire time, and he died peacefully at home, with loved ones at his side. It has been my role in this family to help ease passings, and perhaps because I have finally fully embraced that role, this passing was the most peaceful yet. I was in a place of love and acceptance, and every thought, every word, every touch was loving and grateful. Thank you for letting me take care of you, it is a priviledge, I told him, after he apologized for his incontinence and need to be cleaned up. Its ok, you can let go now, I projected my thoughts at him. I'll be here to care for the living.


My aunt home from work, I made sure he was comfortable, and then I lay down for a nap, my first bit of sleep in 36 hours. I was unsurprised when my aunt awakened me 90 minutes later to say he was gone. I rose and held his hand and watched the last of his breath leave his lungs and I felt so radiant inside. I could not help but smile through my tears, fully at peace, both with his death, and that of my sister.


The year began with a death and now it ends with one. Another few days and it will be Solstice, when the dying of the light is transformed into renewal. A new year, with new beginnings, and new endings. I can live with that knowledge, just as I can live with the uncertainty of details. Life is a brush that paints in broad, sweeping strokes. When I look ahead, I can see the outline, the dips and curves. But the details, ah, those are completed in the fullness of each moment -- and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Gratitude

(Thank you PS for the gift of your breast.)

Tears blur my vision, dripping onto the keyboard. My heart is filled with Gratitude. So much Gratitude for so much Love in my life.

Two years ago I created for myself the possibility of being fully self-expressed. And as I manifested that in my life, I found myself struggling with freedom, with feeling truly free to be myself, to be whatever I wanted to be. And then something happened. I had a breakthrough in 'being' and found that I was free to fully express myself as Love. Mahatma Gandhi once said, "be the change you want to see in the world." And this freedom to be the change I want to see in the world, to Be Love, has enriched my life and the lives of those I touch, and the lives they touch. It is a wonderful thing, to know love and to be love, and to feel its presence in my life when it comes back to me, manifold.

In my heart there is sadness and longing and anticipation and joy and... so many things simple and complex. But gratitude and love are foremost. It seems that every day I've been in Portland this year, an extraordinary person has come into my life. And there has been such a sense of urgency to bond with these people, to make that connection that will withstand distance. I'm trying not to mourn the loss of easy access to my friends new and old. At times I am more successful than others, but I am comforted by experience: I know I can maintain deep and meaningful relationships over long distances. And I do plan to come back to Portland often. The sense of community here is so amazing. There is so much going on, so many people committed to doing good things, great things. People committed to helping others and growing and being and sharing and co-creating a livable world.

The pain and loss this year have broken me open in a way that I always feared. These feelings are at times so intense that I find myself unable to breathe, unable to stop the tears. This is what love feels like--the other side we don't want to think about--the side that keeps many of us from being open to love, and to Life. Everything superfluous and unreal, every barrier and mask and inauthenticity was burned away from me and I am standing naked to the world, exposed, pink and new and vulnerable and terrified and people have responded with unanticipated love and tenderness and kindness. Who knew there was so much lovingkindness in the world?

It has been a whirlwind week. Work during the days, play during the evenings, repeat as necessary to satisfy myself and my friends. I have hugged, kissed, nuzzled, danced, wined and dined, tried butter shots, licked chocolate off of body parts, slept snuggled up to a wonderfully curvacious bottom, wandered the halls of a hotel during Orycon in my pajamas, enjoyed an impromptu cleavage convention, watched lap dances, fire dances, and asses dancing under floggers. And that's just the PG to R-rated stuff ;)

And as it hits home that I am leaving this wonderfully expressive, connected, touch-positive community this week, I know gratitude, and love, and grief. But my world is not ending. I am embracing what life brings next, and I will carry this community in my heart and mind, and I will create it anywhere I go, because I am Love.

Kahlil Gibran wrote:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the
sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life,
your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always
accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Winter is coming, and soon the Spring. I will sow the seeds of a new life in a new place and find joy in discovering what grows out of my efforts. Thank you, my friends, for letting me love you. And thank you, so very much, for returning it ten-fold and more. Truly, I am blessed.

Conversation on feeling Loved (I know)

I snuggled up to him, pressed my face into his shoulder, took a deep breath, and exhaled with a contented sound, my voice vibrating into him.
"You remind me of a cat purring," he said.
"Mmmmm," I responded.
I tightened my arms around him in an embrace that was not quite a hug.
"You know..." he said.
"Mmmm hmmm," I answered, willing his brain to turn off. I love geeks, but sometimes their mouths flap like the turnkey on a toy as their minds unwind.
"...when I'm with you I feel loved." He put emphasis on the word feel.
"Oh?" I lifted my head and looked at him.
"Yes, there is a difference between knowing I am loved and feeling loved."
I grinned at him. I wanted to say Its about time! but instead said: "Go on."
"I know my parents love me, I know my wife loves me, I know my children love me. But with you, its different. I feel it. I feel loved and accepted by you in ways I've never felt before."
"And how does that feel?"
"Good.... Peaceful.... Free..."
I squeezed him again, let my fingers trail over the fine hairs on his hand.
"How do you do that?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Make me feel it." Again that emphasis on the word feel.
"Its simple, really." I looked him straight in the eyes. He has beautiful eyes. He has beautiful everything, this man, this friend of the heart. "I love you."
"I love you, too," he answered.
We held each other for a long moment.
"Do you feel it?" he asked.
"Sometimes," I answered.
"Only sometimes?" he sounded a bit forlorn.
"I know you love me. And sometimes I feel it," I answered carefully. I felt myself tightening up a bit, worried about where the conversation was going, and how I was going to explain without hurting his feelings.
"You hoard love. You treat it like a commodity, like you are afraid you will run out of it if you aren't careful. "
"Hmmm.... I do?"
"Yes, you do. And until you give love freely, give love like your goal is to give it all away by the end of the day, people aren't going to feel it from you that way."
"I am afraid..." he said.
"I know." I said, simply. And I did know.
"There was this girl..."
"I know."
"I've never told you about her."
"I know. But I still know."
"How?"
"Because everyone is afraid, and everyone has a 'there was this girl or there was this boy' in their past." I squeezed him. "It doesn't matter."
"It doesn't?"
"Well... it only matters because you think it does."
"Sometimes Kay, you are an infuriating woman."
"I told you once that I was one of America's most frustrating women and you didn't believe me." I bit him lightly through his shirt.
"Once upon a time there was this girl," I said, spinning the story,"and you loved her very much. And something happened, and you were very hurt. It was your first real try at love and it hurt so badly you decided that never again would you let anyone in so close, that never again would you let yourself love that way again."
"You know."
"Yes, dear. I know."
"You had a 'there was this guy'?"
"Yes, and a 'there was this girl', too..."
"How did you... you know... how did you learn to love like that again?"
"I accepted that I was afraid, and chose not to let it stop me..." I started to say something else and then stopped.
"And...?" he prompted.
"And... well... I stopped trading in love. I started seeing the beauty in everyone, and loving that about them, loving them without strings. And then I started sending it to them, that love, just putting it out there, the thought-form that they were loved for who they were. I remembered what it was like to be a child and chose to love people like a child does."
"What else?" he shook me a little.
"Love divided multiplies. The more I love the more love I feel. The more love I feel, the more love I have to give, the more love I receive."
"I noticed that about you."
"Noticed what?"
"That you wanted only one thing from me."
I frowned at him. "Oh?"
"Yup. You just wanted me to let you love me."
I got tears in my eyes. I wrapped my arms and legs around him the best I could and I kissed him.
"Thank you for letting me love you," I said.
"Thank you for loving me so much I can feel it."
"My pleasure."
"Speaking of pleasure..." he moved against me a bit. He was tumescent.
I smiled. "Loving and being loved is a big turn on, sweetie. But I'm not here for sex."
He gave me a hard kiss. "You sure?"
I rubbed my mound against his thigh to let him know that I felt the charge, too. "Positive."
"Ok.... I had to try," he sounded half-amused and half-apologetic.
"I know," I said and snuggled back into him, my face pressed into his shoulder. I know.

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.

Phone call.

His was the last number I called from the airport.

"I'm here."

"Where is 'here'?"

"I'm walking up the ramp from my plane."

"Oh good! You're close."

"I am?"

"Yes, I'm at the marina, just put the boat back in the water."

"I thought you were keeping it in dry-dock til next year."

"Meet me here?"

"I'm tired, Kurt."

"I know, but I want to see you, see how you are doing."

"I'm tired, its after 10. How about I see you tomorrow morning?"

"Good idea. You can sleep here on the boat and I'll see you when we wake up."

"You're so bad..." I chuckled tiredly.

"I'll hold you, and the boat can rock you to sleep. I know you like that."

"I do..."

I stopped by the escalator. I was so tired that I swayed under the weight of my briefbag.

Kurt gave me directions from the airport to the marina, the rich timbre of his voice flowing through me. Potent, it was like a caress down my spine. I felt his large hands scoop my ass and pull me close to him.

"See you in what--half an hour?"

I was too tired to argue, and his boathouse was much closer than my place.

"Sooner than that. I left my luggage in San Francisco."

"You're going back?" Kurt sounded cautious. He accepted my relationships with the other men in my life, but he was concerned about the one in San Francisco.

"Yes. My sister..." My throat tightened and tears welled up.

"Ah. Poor Kay. Come here and let me pamper you."

"Deal."

Beautiful Soul

I was fortunate to be her sister for all of her 38 years. She was a vibrant, extraordinary woman with a smile that never grew up. She always looked so vulnerable and sweet when she smiled, like she was six years old and sharing a part of her soul. Her last two years were pain-filled and exhausting, and now she is free. For this I am grateful, though selfishly, I wish she was still here.

I'd gotten lulled by the daily routine of my life, and forgotten its transience. If the only certainty in life is that we will die, and the time of death is uncertain, then it is best to live each day as fully as possible, lulled by nothing, taking none of it for granted.

The sexual is spiritual

It had been 6 weeks since I'd felt him moving inside me, and as always, that first time it was difficult to fit him in. Even kneeling astride, juicy with longing, my weight pressing down, I struggled to fit him in. A few inches and I wanted to start moving, to rock on his cock, but he likes to savor the feeling of being fully engulfed. So I worked myself down on him, feeling him stretching me open, feeling the upward glide of his heat. I stopped and moaned. "Almost," he said, and turned himself into a bow, his body arching, pressing the arrowhead of his cock deeper. I gasped, winced a little, my body stiffening. I love the place we were approaching, but getting there is not without discomfort. "Almost," he said again, and we pressed against each other and I tilted my hips a fraction and then, ah then, I felt like swooning. "There!" he said, and smiled up at me, and his eyes glowed. "You can feel that?" I asked him, as I ground myself against him, as I ground that spot inside me against the head of his cock. "How can you tell?" I wondered in awe. How could he tell that where he was, right there, gave me so much pleasure that my nipples tightened and my entire being felt like it was balancing on the point of orgasm. "It fits like lock and key," he answered. I smiled, knowing the analogy to be an apt one. We stayed that way for a full minute, at least, and I worked my muscles around him, and he purred with pleasure, and then I started moving, posting on him, up and down, the thickness of him charging through me, forcing me open again and again. I came, hit an orgasmic plateau, and rocked with a series of orgasms that hit in waves, one after another. My body tingled, I felt light-headed, the way I would after a fit of sneezes, and I rode him still, sliding the key home in its lock, over and over again, until my throat was raw from my cries and I was swaying atop him, all equilibrium gone. I slid off him and sprawled on the bed, my chest heaving, my thighs trembling. "Water, please," I whispered, and he got up and brought me a glass of blessedly cool water and helped me hold it to my mouth. He put the glass aside and got back into bed. "Mmmm... thank you," I purred and moved to snuggle up to him. "I'm not finished yet," he said, and fit himself between my thighs. I said hello to the gibbous moon on my way to the stars. Our heavenly bodies moved together, slowly at first as he gave me time to adjust to the different angle of penetration, then faster and harder, until his sweat fell on me like divine rain. Little sounds and changes in breath, harbingers of male orgasm, alerted me, and I worked my muscles around him, clenching and releasing, worshipping the divine spark in him, intent on maximizing his pleasure. We kissed as he climaxed, and it tasted of salt, and he pulsed inside me, and moaned incoherently, his sounds a benediction, his seed a sacred gift. Love was the afterglow, spreading through me even as he continued to gasp and twitch on me and in me. Tears pricked my eyes. I was reminded that beyond the urgency of orgasm, sex grants access to the sacred. Love is sacrosanct in all its forms of expression, and the sexual, in particular, can be deeply spiritual.

The tides of life take another sandcastle

More sad news this weekend. One I love is on hospice. I will likely be attending her funeral before the end of the year. It is agony, knowing this, knowing this on the one year anniversary of my failed attempt to commit her to medical care involuntarily. She's lived longer that I expected, though I don't think few would consider her existence anything resembling 'living'. Ah well.

The nice thing is that I had someone at hand to hold me after I'd gotten the news about her condition. He lay with me on my bed and held me, and kissed my forehead and my eyelids, and soothed me with his hands and his mouth and his words. Genuine intimacy in combination with vulnerability has been a balm for the pain of loss. It has opened doors within us both.

Elie Wiesel said, "When a door closes, another opens. It is the same door." Life, pain, death, loss... None of it has any meaning except what I give it. What will I make her death mean about her life, my life, the world, the legal system, the medical establishment? What will I make the love I feel for him mean, I wonder. Even as something ends, there is a beginning. It is cyclical, ebbing and flowing like that tide, and the lives we're building are castles of sand. It means nothing, in and of itself--it means only what I make it mean. Soon the tides of life and death will claim another sandcastle, and in that clearing, something new will arise. Let it be Hope, I beg. Let it be Hope.

Everybody's got a story

So.. I was contacted by a gentleman via my stories on Literotica and we've entered this dialogue . He told me a bit about himself and asked me if I had any advice as to how he could be more sensual. I responded as follows:

If you want to be more sensual in a sexual way, more comfortable with your sexuality, then I would recommend that you make love to yourself. Masturbation, with self-love. I masturbate daily. I treat myself to long baths twice a week... I shave, oil my legs and mound, and retire to my bed for an evening of fantasy and voluptuous masturbation.

And because he'd not had much success in his intimate relationships the past few years. I asked him some questions:

You say that the women you have been with in the past you were able to be open and sensual with, but now, you aren't sure you can. What has changed? What happened in your past that you are getting hung up on?

He responded with his story. A good story, a painful story, an honest, self-revealing story that moved me and inspired me. A story of a man who suffered a profound loss and still went on to create an extraordinary life for himself. I responded with:

As for what you wrote.... There isn't anything wrong with you. Really.

I think that what went awry for you in your relationships is what happens to most of us, including me. And it has to do with Fear.

The thing about Fear is that we will always feel fear. Our fears will never go away. We may resolve some of our fears, but we will always encounter situations in our lives that cause us to feel afraid. And most of us respond to life out of fearful places. We let our fears get in the way of living life. We allow our fears and our pasts to dictate how we respond to the current situation instead of being present to what is really going on. But I've learned that it doesn't have to be or stay that way. Before I tell you what I've learned, let me share a bit of my story with you, so we can establish that I do understand where you are coming from and why you feel as you do.

My mother left me with my grandparents when I was 10. My grandfather died that same year. My father got custody and moved us to a new town, and he moved my sisters and I nearly every year from then on. I lost my mother, my friends, the life I knew, over and over again. I was so tired of the pain of loss, and so afraid of losing people, that I stopped bothering to form attachments at all. When I entered romantic relationships, I insisted that my lovers understand that the relationship would end, sooner or later, and that I could not, would not, be possessed. I was an emotional coward hiding under the guise of being a 'free spirit', and I knew it, and I knew myself for a fraud.

In my early 30's things started changing. I faced the fact that the way I approached life and the methods I used to cope with the stresses, disappointments, problems, and fears in my life were not working, and I went looking for something that did work. I read self-help books, did two years of therapy, wrote in my journal, conversed with people, attended worshops, and contemplated my life.

And one of the things that became apparent was that I needed to be courageous. I needed to have the courage to face that I would always have fears and problems--that there was no magic wand that would smooth out the road of life ahead of me--and that I needed to find the courage to not let those things stop me from living my life right now.

One of the Christophers in my life told me that I also needed to stop trying to plan and predict life. Intellectually, I understood what he said. I understood the argument that if one can plan and predict life, then one is not living life... one is re-living the past by over-laying it on the future. But recently, I GOT it. I got what he meant on a visceral level. I got the whole thing Jung said about neurotic suffering. I got the whole thing about fear of the uncertainty of life causing me to pull as much of the familiar past forward into my future as I could. I realized that in my fear I was forcing myself to re-live the past, even though I really didn't want to. I really, really, don't want to relive the past. It is dead, and there is nothing for me there.

Today, the future is wide open. It is a vast nothingness, a place of potentials, and I have the power to chose to either fill it with the expectations and fears and disappointments of the past, or create the life I want to live out of it. And I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life. And since I want to live an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled life, I am choosing to BE an extraordinary, vibrant, fulfilled person. But in order to be those things, I had to accept that fear would always be a part of my life, and find in myself the courage to not let it stop me from living the life I want to live and being the person I want to be.

So there it is. That's my story, and my advice. Find the courage to let your fears remain where they belong, in the past. Sure, you may open up to someone and you may get hurt. That's Life. That's the risk we take. But being hurt isn't so bad, and adults are by nature far more compassionate than we give them credit for. So open up to lots of people. Play the odds. Keep trying. Keep living. Keep being the person you want to be, and you will find that others will be drawn to you, to that person you are being, and you will have the love and companionship you have chosen for yourself. Really.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

May Day

CW sent flowers. And a poem. He knows my weakness for Qabbani. I've right-justified the poem because that is how the author wrote it in arabic:

The two years
You were my lover
Are the two most important pages
In the book of modern love.
All the pages before and after
Were blank.
These pages
Are the lines of the equator
Passing between your lips and mine
They are the measures of time
That are used
To set the clocks of the world.