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.

Love in the Old, Love in the New

And so ends a year that was both the worst and the best in my life so far.

Three cancer diagnoses, two deaths, surgeries, illnesses, and a near-death experience for me -- in ways it felt as though we were the Children of Job, a family cursed. For the most part, we chose not to make it mean that. Life Happens, I reminded everyone, And while we often don't get to choose what happens, we always get to choose what we make it mean.

I miss my sister, but at least I am missing only one, and not three out of the four. The long nights sitting at Caro's bedside whispering to her to get up, to get out of bed, to live the rest of her life, how ever long that was -- those nights paid off. She got out of bed, she did her chemo, and she is living her life. The hours and hours with Tess on the phone, urging her to choose life, to choose mental and physical well-being, to choose herself and get out of an abusive marriage -- those hours paid off. She will be flying home to California on January 1. And the hours spent with Granddad, loving him, caring for him, telling him it is ok to go home -- those hours, too, paid off. He died peacefully, before the pain from the cancer grew too great.

And through all this, I discovered that I was not alone. I was not alone in my loss, my pain, or my suffering. The world is full of it. Nor was I alone in getting through this year. I've been truly blessed with friends who are compassionate and loving. I learned a lot from them and through them this year. A breakdown in my health brought a breakthrough in Living. I learned that my own vulnerability brought out the best in people. I learned that people are inherently good. That people want to help, to give back, to contribute. I learned about the intimacy of suffering *with* others rather than suffering alone. And I learned that I am enough. That I am enough for myself, and my family, and my friends, and where I grow thin or tired or worn, someone will provide the energy I need to continue.

I have friends who held me the night my sister died. They offered no comforting platitudes, only the comfort of their bodies, warm and loving, pressed against mine. The antidote to grief is love, and they were fountains of it.

I have a friend who took care of me when I was sick, 500 miles from home. So sick I didn't recognize the seriousness of my illness, so sick that I spent three weeks on home health care after two weeks in the hospital. He was there for me in a way that I never thought anyone would be, in a way I've always tried to be there for others, and his willingness to do whatever it took to see me healthy again was a lesson in the power of my own vulnerability to move others to be better people.

I have friends who gave of themselves and enriched my life and I am grateful, so grateful, for the joy and laughter and the openness and the tears. They made this year a great year for me, one I will never forget.

Soon this year ends. Soon I go to the airport to retrieve the man I love, and spend the remaining hours of this year doing those things and feeling those things which I intend to carry forward into the New Year. And foremost of it all, is Love.

The pulse of a new and better year

Perhaps it is the pagan in me, but I think the new year begins the day after winter solstice. The day after Longest Night. But for most people, the New Year begins according to the Julian calendar.

And so, according to this modern calendar, my New Year began with dreams. Dreams fuelled by post-orgasmic endorphins. Endorphins from one of the strongest orgasms I've ever had. I was on edge for well-over half an hour, and when I climaxed, it was like an earthquake hit me--rolled through me in successive waves of orgasmic aftershocks. It lasted for a long long time, and when I was done, he urged me on again to one more. He knows I love the torment of trying to reach another climax on the heels of such an intensely satisfying cum. And when I was done, I fell immediately asleep. I know he spoke to me, but I do not remember the words, just the sound of his voice... and then sleep. And dreams.

I dreamed of all sorts of things.

One dream was that I was travelling overseas and was hit over the head, and when I came to myself I was walking with my bags rolling behind me, and they seemed to be too light. When I opened them they were empty, and I was panicked because my ID had been in my baggage. There was no way to prove who I was. It seemed very important to be able to prove who I was.

I dreamed of my sister, the one who has been ill. I was looking for her. I never did find her.

I dreamed of K as a swashbuckler. He strode up to me in his kilt, with a bottle of cognac in one hand and his hand on the hilt of his sabre. He pulled me to him for a kiss. I opened my mouth to him and time stopped. We fell into a dreamy place where kissing is the most intimate, sensual exporation of another person.

I dreamed of my friend J, that we were snuggled on his couch, and his belgian shepherd licked my bare thigh, making me squirm against him, and he hugged me and his fingers found my nipple... and then I slid into another dream.

I dreamed of M, who said he was inherently monogamous and he wanted me to be the same, that it hurt him, knowing I loved others, and so he pushed me away and disappeared behind an emotional wall. And I was a little girl again, banging on that wall, and there were so many things I wanted to yell over it, but I knew he would not hear me because I'd lost my voice.

I dreamed about planting bulbs -- that no sooner did I cover the bulbs with soil than they sprouted and started flowering. There was something frightening about it, about the accelerated growth, and I started putting the bulbs in the ground as fast as I could, to get them out of my hands. I was frantic, and when I realized it, I stopped, and sat back on my heels, and breathed, and in that moment I realized that I did not have to plant all of the bulbs in my hands, that I did not need to fear the sudden blossoming of the bulbs that I'd touched.

I dreamed of C standing before me, so tall, so fucking tall, reminding me that he is a patient man, but not a saint. He appeared again, later on, tugging on nipple-clamps while his fingers worked inside me, even as I flogged G's wife, my pretty little pony. The dream-memory of the pink stripes on her ass and the horse-tail dildo sticking out of it makes me wet, even as I type this.

I had many other dreams, most of them just little flashes in my head now. I slept until nearly noon, awakening groggy from last night's cognac to an oddly quiet world. There was a soft light coming through the bedroom window, soft and diffuse, and when I got up, I knew why... the sky was bright and white with thick mist, and a light rain fell. I moved to the kitchen to brew coffee and while I waited, stood at the window and watched the rain fall on the bamboo leaves. Beyond the bamboo the golf course glistened, glowed with the green of new grass.

I settled into the armchair with a lap rug and my lap top computer and began my New Years conversations with friends and loved ones, still fuzzy from my rest and dreams. I resolved to do nothing today, especially no chores, and to do minimal cooking. I am a human being, not a human doing, and it seems like I'm always 'doing' something.

I have high hopes for this New Year. I dare to have hopes. Certainly 2006 was one of the most difficult years of my life, more painful in ways than the year my mother and grandmother died. And yet I've survived, and more than that, thrived. My resiliance astonishes even me, at times. And despite shattering news from someone who has become a very dear friend, I expect 2007 to be a good year. The year I turn 39. Year three of the new me. Whee!

(Regarding the photo: Can you see the one heart, formed by cock and cunt?)

2006: The year of love and friendship

In the past year, especially, I've learned the value of open and honest communication, and more, of putting myself out there emotionally and being vulnerable. My awareness of the world and my inner life has deepened with both therapy and my meditation practice. I've had some insights and put into effect some changes in my life and I've found that my ability to relate with others has increased dramatically. Yes, in putting myself out there, I risk emotional pain, but life is as transient and uncertain as it is beautiful , and I've realized that if I'm unwilling to embrace the possibility of negative consequences, I'm not really living my life--I'm playing it safe.

These flowers are from a friend I've made this year. A wonderful man of intelligence, wisdom, and kindness whom I never would have met if it was not for the changes I've made in my life this year--of my choice to take risks, to be spontaneous, to follow my intuitions.

A retrospective of 2006:
I am, mostly, well. 2006 was a tough year--My sister spent January through September in and out of the hospital and I did a lot of travelling back and forth to Massachusetts. She seems to have stabilized, but the medical estabilishment says it will be another year before they know what the lasting effects of the illness will be, and if she will require convalescent care for the rest of her life. We did not think she would make it to her 37th birthday, but she is a stubborn wench and surprised us all. Work has been awful--so short-staffed that I was asked to stay on even after I offered to resign because I was having to leave for MA for weeks on end and at a moment's notice.

And yet, for all that, it has been a great year, too. I've been dating some amazing men, completed two years of counselling/therapy, seen friends and family, and done a fair bit of travelling. I am participating in an ecstatic dance group, have been exploring tantra and intimacy, and I've been developing my abilities as a writer and a photographer with the encouragement of professionals in both fields.

This year my friendships have deepened, and I've learned just how secure a support system I have. I've learned that I don't always have to be 'strong' and that it takes more courage to lean on others than it does to be the one others lean on. I've learned that I can feel fear without embodying it. As a consequence of my sister's illness, which was partly brought on by self-neglect, I've come to the realization that I need to learn to live in and with my body--to fully inhabit it--rather than driving it, or using it as a tool. The seat of my self-awareness and the source of my connection with reality are my flesh and my senses, and neglecting to care for my body means that there will likely come a day when it is unable to furnish my needs.

And so, while I am not the sort of person who participates in the New Year's Resolution ritual, I am committed to making 2007 the year I make peace with my body, learning to inhabit it fully, ceasing to use it as a shield between me and a world whose attentions I'd become so averse to.

I am off to the Coast for the weekend for a quiet retreat in a little 1920's cottage, where I can recuperate from 50 to 60 hour work weeks to the sound of wild surf and blustry winds. I expect to sit by the fire, read, watch movies, and enjoy the opportunity to write and photograph.