Saturday, July 30, 2011

My Girl Is Here

An exceptional day.  Love my lovers.  Love loving my lovers.  Life diving into life.  Love diving into love.   One of my lovers just called to tell me what a heart opening experience he had with us this last week.  It was the same for me...for each one of us.

An exceptional weekend.  An exceptional week.  My girl came to be with me.  Cloistered in the house together, receiving a few visitors.  And out and about a bit...thrift stores to inspire our sewing.  Food.  Friends.  Music.  Our boy was here too.  With his girl.  Other family and friends.  Life is diving into me right now.  Love is diving into me.  I am diving into life.  I am diving into love.

Love to sleep, the three of us intertwined.  Too warm to touch but too sweet not to.  Back and forth from side to side, coming together, pushing apart.  To the left and to the right.  I love the close physicality.

The push and pull.  Open and closing.  Separating and coming together.  Fear and love.  Love and fear.

Feeling an outtasortness with K...but not really.  A spot in me that realizes it's out of balance.  Unsure but sure.  Trusting...mostly.  Noticing the edge and trying to stay aware while wanting it to dissipate.  Yearning for the oneness.  Resisting the separation...but not always.  Feeling myself loving him.  Feeling him loving me.  Being the love. Being angry too.   And sad.  Appreciating.  Wondering. Trying to live in the moment without hope or fear.  Allowing what is.  Allowing for what I want too.  Wanting what is.  Wanting him.  Wanting myself.

Missing B.G...

I'm wondering about the whole concept of having a nice fuck buddy.  I've never been able to pull it off...

Really grateful that my husband loves to fuck me.  Loves to make love to me.  Wanting him.  Wanting all my lovers.  Always wanting all my lovers.  Always wanting.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Three Poems

I've been sorting through old papers and just ran across three poems from twelve years ago...

This first poem was written to me by the first woman I every fell in love with on August 3, 1999.  It was a fast and furious affair but she was a lesbian and broke off with me because I was married...to a man.  One day shortly thereafter, we ran into each other, she with a group of friends, and me alone--this poem arrived in my email the next day:

bee one bee two

I have been known to break my own rules
I thought as I watched them
watch her
walking up to the counter
secretly I feel a sadness
emerge from my pockets
and out from my beenie it falls
over my eyelids
soft to the touch and unto my cheeks
certainly as it falls
it fills me with hope
still as I am...
immobile...
my day burdened
by the honey
from her hands.

Three weeks later I saw her at a community function and wrote this one on August 30, 1999

I saw her on Sunday
in red hair and tee shirt tugging at her breasts
watching discreetly, I wanted her to see me
it was understood that we would offer no recognition
but her face...
indelibly etched in my mind the remainder of the day.

The third poem was about a dream I had about my eldest son, Brandyn...12/19/99

His letter to me was written in blue ink
between the advertisements for feel better drinks.
What he needs to heal--
an understanding community
a change of mind
lots of love and he'll be fine.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Relationships As Pathways to God


I'm reading John Welshon's book One Soul, One Love, One Heart:  The Sacred Path to Healing All Relationships.

In the foreword Baba Ram Dass says:


As a psychologist back in the 1950s and 1960s, I saw specific relationships in terms of their ability or lack thereof-to fulfill whatever emotional or psychological "needs" the people involved seemed to experience.  But over the past forty years, as my consciousness has become more and more identified with Spirit, i have come to treat relationships as pathways to God.

Ram Dass tells a story about love, truth and anger.  It was a very difficult time for him and he was experiencing a seething hatred toward just about everyone until it burst forth and he actually threw a plate of food into a sweet young man's face.  His guru, Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaji)  witnessed this, pulled him close, and reminded him to love everyone and tell the truth.

A quote from Neem Karoli Baba:

The best form in which to worship God is every form.













Saturday, July 23, 2011

So Fucking Fragile

I've been so fucking fragile lately and I'm trying not to beat myself up too much for being such a wimp.  The slightest thing just sends me off.   I've been an incredible cry baby and when the tears start they seem to want to flow and flow.  I'm watching myself take EVERYTHING personally.  I tell myself not to go there but do I listen?  It's all about ME folks so please don't forget that.   I'm so self-absorbed.  I loathe...have I mentioned before that I LOATHE playing the role of the victim?  If there is any possible way that I can point the finger at someone for doing me wrong...I absolutely despise that position.  Today I went wine tasting with my husband and a friend simply because I knew I would end up feeling abandoned if I didn't go.  And one abandoned is obviously the victim and I just couldn't bear the prospect of that.  Plus, staying at home crying just didn't seem to serve me.  So I went and actually enjoyed myself.  I'm so ready for this all to pass.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Raw

I am raw. Tears flowing nonstop for over an hour and a half now.  Trying to pull it together so I can go out and see my husband perform and enjoy the rest of the night.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Remember the Code

Last night I dreamed I was on a journey:

I was walking and leaving a "place". There was some code I was to remember.  I had keys in my hand.  On the way back to this place, (I had been somewhere) I saw some friends and I was tempted to not stop and connect with them but to continue on to whatever was so important.  But I stopped and chatted for awhile and then continued on my way.  I had forgotten the code. I started jogging to make up for lost time and then it started raining.  I had a way to go so I stuck out my thumb and started hitchhiking.  A few cars passed me by and then one stopped.  There were two men inside.  I had a large box which I put inside the backseat and then panic hit.  I scanned the inside of the back door to see if it was rigged in a way so I couldn't open it from the inside and it looked weird somehow.  There was no way that I was getting in that car.  I thought I'd probably just watched too many scary cop shows and actually said that out loud--then I asked the one who was driving if I was safe with them--he shook his head and said no.  I tried to run away but I was caught in that "secret saboteur" thing that happens in dreams where your legs don't work right you can't move very fast.  I was on the ground. He got out of the car and caught me.  I hoped for another car to come along, to see what was happening and help me.  I remembered my "box" was still in the car and knew I was going to have to abandon if I got away.  The box now actually had someone inside of it, like a small child or my baby self.  I needed to protect it but I was in no position to do so.

I'm contemplating the "self" this morning.  All this "dying" I've been experiencing. It's the death of a self that isn't really me.  Or my mom.  Or...

Of course all these selves need their due, but it's so easy to get lost in the drama of a dream when the real meaning is right there in the code.  I was suppose to remember the code.  I keep forgetting the code.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

The Depth Of My Being

Today I've been sewing and thinking about sex.  I just finished working on two summer dresses!  I tend to think about sex a lot and today the theme was how connecting sexually with someone is sacred to me. 


I'm not a trained tantrica who can pretty much accept anyone as a spiritual partner and make the energetic heart-genital connection happen. And although I'm very sex positive and horny a lot, I'm not an easy going, friends with benefits, sort of woman--even though I have gone that route a couple of times and it was fun. Mostly I've been quite picky when it comes to sex partners--not purposely really, it's just that I'm sexually attracted to very few men.  What I've learned about myself is that I need to trust someone and my heart needs to be very open to loving them in order for my yoni to want to open and receive them as a lover.  Sharing myself sexually is a spiritual gift, given freely from my heart when the love is there, and when I feel safe that I will be cared for in what I know to be an emotionally and physically vulnerable space for me.  It's not that I'm a particularly high maintenance lover either because basically I'm pretty easy going--but it's true that I do have issues of abandonment.  Sex and unconditional love make a sweet partnership for me because it's a piercing that plunges into the depth of my being.

Sleeping In Their Bed

Well, I must say that there is nothing like a good night's sleep without crazy dreams to give one an attitude adjustment!  I slept so well last night.  I often don't get up to pee but I usually have to at least sit up several times for a drink of water.  Last night I was crashed!

But now I'm reminded of a dream I had almost a week ago that should be written down:

My husband. and I were out at a party with a bunch of people including K. and his wife B.G.  It was very late and we (my husband and I) ended up back at K. and B.G.'s house.  They were going to be out of town for awhile and we had arranged to "housesit" for them.  We were actually heading home to our house but for some reason we were at their house and it was late and I was tired so I told my husband that we should just sleep there in their bed and go home in the morning.  He agreed so that's what we did.
In the morning I was trapped in a hypnopompic transition, both in my dream body, sleeping in K. and B.G.'s bed, as well as in my physical body, sleeping in my own bed.  I was agitated and confused, unsuccessfully trying to wake up while attempting to make sense of why I had decided to sleep in K. and B.G.'s bed.
What were we doing in their bed when they weren't leaving until that night, not the night before?  How could I have been so stupid and confused?  What was I thinking?  Where were K. and B.G. now?  Had they gone to our house to sleep because we were in their bed?  That concerned me because my house, and particularly my bedroom was a mess and I didn't want them to see it because I was afraid they would judge me. My mind was wreaking havoc with me, I was struggling and quite distressed. I finally woke up (in my dream) and went rushing through their house, naked, to find them.
I found them on a blow up air mattress in their family room.  B.G. was sitting up and looking at me somewhat strangely as if to ask why I had been sleeping in their bed.  I tried to explain how confused I had been, and still was, and then she explained how she had come home late, in the dark, took off her clothes and fell into the middle of her bed between me and my husband before realizing we were there.  K. and her were then trying to figure out what to do and she said they should go sleep on the air mattress.  He had asked her very pointedly if she was sure that was okay with her and she affirmed that it was.
I left them and their air mattress feeling extremely out of sorts, trying to make my way back to their bedroom, very aware of my nakedness and feeling vulnerable, with their house now full of various friends as if a party was going on.  When I got to their bed, I told my husband to get up so we could get out of there.  I was embarrassed, confused, and just wanted to go home.  I was extremely unnerved.

Emotions I experienced in this dream:

Embarrassed
Confused
Distressed
Vulnerable
Afraid
Agitated
Unnerved

Monday, July 18, 2011

The 23rd Psalm


The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
He leadeth me beside the still waters. 
He restoreth my soul: 
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake. 
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: 
He leadeth me beside the still waters. 
He restoreth my soul: 
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name' sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; 
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me: 
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;Thou annointest my head with oil; 
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, 
and I will dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

I visited with my mama this morning and was reading some of the grimmest passages out of the bible.  At one point she says to me, "He's really scolding someone."  Yes, talk about a fucking angry God.  Sheesh.  I wasn't sure she could be of any help but I asked for some guidance with the Psalms and she said the 23rd.  My mama knows her bible.

I don't think anyone would ever confuse me with a Christian, bible verse loving, girl but I've always appreciated the 23rd Psalm as well as a few others (even though I rarely care to remember what book the verses come from or how to recite them verbatim.)  I know the 23 Psalm has always offered my mother comfort.  My grandmother too. 

God damn have I been in the pits, or "the valley of the shadow of death" wouldn't be exaggerating none.  I'm just having a difficult time snapping out of it.  After visiting with my mom, I took myself out for a some shopping therapy.  First I hit World Market for some wine and fancy pasta.  K. got me a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon for my birthday that I really enjoyed and I was hoping to fine another bottle of it and I scored.  I also found a cheap bottle of white wine for the olive oil, garlic and wine sauce I'm making with two of my granddaughters for our veggie pasta dinner tonight.


Then I hit Costco and found a bunch organic raspberries and blackberries, a bottle of tequila and organic blackberry sorbet popsicles.  I also bought myself more reading glasses because there is a reading glass elf in my house who steals my glasses in a similar manner as the infamous sock stealing elves who live in most people's clothes dryer.


I'm still depressed but oh well, at least I got out of the house and I am looking forward to the overnight visit with my granddaughters who I'll go and pick up in a couple of hours.


Plus my sweetheart is coming to stay with me for a whole week.  OMG I'm so happy.  I need her so bad.  Or is it badly?  I know my command of the English language is atrocious.  Does my awareness of that make it better or worse?  I swear, I am getting English for Dummies ASAP!


This writing is making my life bearable right now.  Again, I'm sorry to be so pathetic.  I can barely stomach my own victim hood but I just can't seem to pull myself out of it.  If feels like someone took a crap on my karma.  Now I wonder who that could be?


Plus what really sucks is that I can't figure out if my awareness of what a truly blessed life I live, is making me feel better or worse.

Old Lazy Days

I've been awake for way too many hours already--tossing and turning for half the night in a half sleep, disturbed by thoughts that I am dying of cancer.  WTF?!  I don't do this.  This is so not me.

Another friend died a few days ago and only 4 weeks after he was diagnosed with colon cancer.

My mama is dying.  I know I keep saying this but she is still dying.  The living part isn't so great these days but there are moments of sweetness that I'm clinging to.  I was just talking with a friend who lost her mother recently and she said that even though it's difficult, it's also very life affirming.  I get that.  It feels like I'm preparing for a birth.

Another river of tears this morning.  Grief has gotten a grip on my insides.  So much loss everywhere I turn.  What is wrong with me?  Why am I judging all this loss so harshly?  Why am I judging myself so harshly?  I'm feeling so worthless.  Pathetic is a good word to describe myself right now.

An old friend visited yesterday and it made me sad.  He's not a friend any longer.  I felt the loss.  I used to care so much about him.

My lover doesn't want me (as his lover) anymore.

There is a hole in my life where my juicy women were.

I miss the old lazy days of lounging with my girlfriends and yakking incessantly.  Girlfriends who didn't care about my worth, only my heart and loved me in spite of my foibles...and defects that weren't so slight.

Maybe I don't really miss those days.

But my defects are definitely looming larger than foibles.

On a brighter note, I'm cleaning out the motorhome and got the refrigerator all sparkling clean and cold.  Preparing for Burning Man feels good.

I need my best friend to come and stay with me for several long lazy days of yakking incessantly and loving me in spite of my large looming defects.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Sex Sounds

I've been listening to my neighbor in the back house making sex noises all day.  Someone is fucking her really well.  I actually think that it's the house sitter that is making these noises as my neighbor's car hasn't been around in awhile and I saw a young woman I don't know going into her house.

Whoever it is, her noises are fabulous.  It sounds like new relationship sex and someone is giving it to her very deep and very hard.  Very slow and repeatedly.  In and out.  In and out.  Plus, he must be loving on her pussy and pleasuring her with his mouth until she bubbles forth.  Again and again. Part of me loves her sounds and they most certainly added to my horniness and where me and my husband took our sex play tonight.

Another part of me has been agitated by her sounds--this morning they reminded me of how K. isn't interested in having sex with me...but that awareness didn't stop me from opening the side door to make her sounds more audible. All in all, I am pleasantly pleased with her beautiful moans.  I love the sounds of lovemaking!

Love is good.  Fucking is good.  Making love is good.  Crying out in sex because that cock feels so damn good inside of your pussy, is an awesome gift.  Being human is outrageous!

Watching Dan Savage with Bill Maher right now.  Appreciating my life.  Today I sewed a lot.  Talked to my BFF who may be coming to stay with me for 5 days...(fingers crossed, hope and pray).  Had a nice bike ride.  Dinner with friends on the river.  Friday night concert in the park and sweet connections with friends I haven't seen in awhile.  Good wine with good friends at a good restaurant.  Making love with my husband who now rubs my feet while I blog.   Texting with another love under the full moon.   Tomorrow we'll be in a boat, on the lake with kids and grandkids.

I am blessed.

Life is good.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Gap

From Chapter Six of When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron:

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

It's a lifetimes journey to relate honestly to the immediately of our experience and to respect ourselves enough not to judge it. 

Here's the rub yes?  Letting go of the judgment.  It's difficult to want something and to have that thing pulled away from us and then to not judge that as "bad".  Judgment of our experiences automatically colors and changes the experience itself to become not of that original thing but of the so called badness of that thing.

The next step is refraining.  Mindfulness is the ground; refraining is the path..It's the practice of not immediately filling up space just because there's a gap.

In my relationship with K. I've practiced a lot living in the gap and I've been appreciating it.  Learning to refrain has made me a better person although being a "better person" is not what this practice is about.   But regardless,  I'm more allowing, more mindful, more grounded.   But also, and this is something that I particularly struggle with,  being comfortable "in the gap", not repressing and not indulging, seems to slow down the dynamic movement in a relationship.  It does allow for a natural evolution but issues that arise in intimate relationships need to be "pushed" sometimes in order to not to become stagnant, or boring or...lost? 

I'm in a relationship with myself, first and foremost.  But I'm also in a relationship with K. and I don't want to repress or indulge our issues but I do want to communicate in a timely fashion.  Mind builds castles from lack of communication and those castles can trap us, and devour our relationships.  K.'s way of being in relationship has taught me to slow down and allow for the gap, to move into it and experience it fully.   But K.'s tendency is to allow strong emotions to pass so he doesn't have to fall into the gap with them and sometimes it feels like I over allow for that with him.  It's as if he backs away from the gap and represses so he never has to fall in.

So what does that have to do with ME, being in relationship with him?
 

Monday, July 4, 2011

Freedom Dance

Just back from celebrating with friends in the mountains.  Went to a lovely music festival and shared some love with some good people.

I'm experiencing a lot of freedom today.   And I love my freedom.  Certainly, I still have many chains that bind me to the illusion of pain and suffering but dang, my wings have taken flight, once again.  I am still sad and disappointed over what has transpired between K. and I, but we are processing through it and I'm a lot clearer than I was a few days ago. Plus I'm not taking things so personally in regards to what is up for him cause ya know, we all have our issues and he's working through his just like I'm working through mine.  Just like we all are.  I totally support his process even if I don't necessarily like or agree with the way he chose to present this to me.  But I know he did the best he could, that it wasn't an easy thing for him to do, and that he didn't want, doesn't want, to hurt me.  I know he loves me.  And I love him.  Love is good.

The bottom line is that I am so glad that this all transpired just the way it has and I know there are many more chapters of this story.  Also, I've been hovering of the brink of the abyss for awhile now and K., simply gave me the push I needed to take a great and fucking scary fall into myself.  And I thank him for that.  I think about the only other thing I'm going to say here right now is that K. is not having an issue with perceiving me being old, fat, and smelling bad.  Ha.  Praise the good lord for that!  Always sweet music for a girl's ears.  ;)  If that was his issue I'd just have to say fuck him and move on...well after I had another good long cry of course.

I think I will try to describe what's going on for us, for me, in regards to all of this, by sharing some quotes from When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron.  In regards to allowing myself to fully experience my emotions:

When things fall apart and we're on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.  The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that's really swell. 
Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible be found in us. 
Nevertheless, when the bottom falls out and we can't find anything to grasp, it hurts a lot...Love of the truth puts you on the spot.  We might have some romantic view of what that means, but when we are nailed with the truth, we suffer.  We look in the bathroom mirror, and there we are with our pimples, our aging face, our lack of kindness, our aggression and timidity--all that stuff. 
How we stay in the middle between indulging and repressing is by acknowledging whatever arises without judgment, letting the thoughts simply dissolve, and then going back to the openness of this very moment.  That's what we're actually doing in meditation.  Up come all these thoughts, but rather than squelch them or obsess with them, we acknowledge them and let them go.   
After a while, that's how we relate with hope and fear in our daily lives.  Out of nowhere, we stop struggling and relax.  We stop talking to ourselves and come back to the freshness of the present moment.

So yea, anyway, continuing my practice of staying in the freshness of the present moment.  Acknowledging my hopes and fears in regard to K., and moving on in this beautiful dance of freedom.

Happy Freedom Day everyone!!!

Friday, July 1, 2011

Life is Strange

Take care of myself day.  Made pancakes for my grandbaby and then we walked to his swimming lessons.  Walking back home I decided that a good self pampering was in order, you know, treating myself the way we indulge our lovers to let them know how special they are to us.  And it's a given that we need to be good lovers to ourselves, first and foremost so...  I decided I needed a pedicure and manicure, a new blouse, and to make an appointment with my hair stylist. I stopped by her shop but disappointingly, her first available appointment was next Thursday.  "Oh darn, Rose."  I said, "You know I always do this last minute and I really want my hair done by my birthday which is this coming Wednesday."  She's seeing me today at 3:00! Then I got home and my lovely landlady asked me if I've been losing weight.  I told her "No!"  Then she said, she doesn't know what it is but I look so sexy and beautiful.  Life is so strange.

When Things Fall Apart

My husband texted and told me that he thought I should read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron and my husband is a smart and intuitive man so after making myself a cup of coffee and checking on my straw bale garden (which isn't doing very well) I sat down and read the first chapter, Intimacy With Fear.  The tears are back.

I already knew that I'm a courageous woman.  Duh.  Pema says, "When I was first married, my husband said I was one of the bravest people he knew.  When I asked him why, he said because I was a complete coward but went ahead and did things anyhow."

My journey with K. has always been a spiritual journey.  Sexual too,yes.  But my sexuality and spiritually are so intertwined there is no separating the two.  So when he said he was no longer sexually attracted to me, I interpreted that and him saying that he is no longer attracted to being on this intimate spiritual journey with me.   Telling a lover that you are not sexually attracted to him is one thing.  Breaking up with them is another.  I'm very unclear about what it is he wants.

My heart calls, always urging me on to persevere through difficult situations such as this in my intimate relationships.

When things fall apart...I think I need to experience the crumbling.

So much more in this first chapter but I need to dry my tears and wake my grandson up and make him pancakes.  He has swimming lessons in an hour!

Love and Fear

Awake again too early after hours of tossing and turning.  Good solid sleep evades me.  My mind is restless.  My heart hurts but the numbness that saves has settled in.

 It's like the rug as been pulled out from underneath me.

Yesterday was a good day all things considered.  I worked my last day of the summer at the college and I'm so relieved to put that behind me for awhile.  I picked up my grandson after work for an overnight visit and took him to see Green Lantern in 3D.  It was tough for me to sit though but he really enjoyed it and I feigned pleasure afterwards as he went on and on about his favorite parts and asked me about mine.  A couple of the themes in the movie were will versus fear and running away from the things we love which gave me something to occupy my mind while the silliness ensued on the big screen before me.  I also pondered love and fear and how it's impossible to do both at the same time.  I've surely been vacillating back and forth between those too polarities a lot these last few days.  After the movie we enjoyed a nice dinner on the outside patio where my husband plays music every Thursday night and then stopped by for a visit with my son and two grandkids who are here for the summer from out-of-state.

I'm realizing how much I've been depending on my relationship with Lover Who Is Not My Lover Two (really not resonating with calling him this and think I should stop.)  He's been standing in the center of what has become an important part of my life,  and now he's no longer comfortable in that position.  This place I've found with him and his...has served mostly as an extension of my joy, but as I'm becoming more aware of now, has also been a refuge from the storm.

It's not like I don't have my husband to depend on.  He is my rock, my heart, my home.  My life depends on him.  But ya know, I'd found another comfortable place to rest my head and now the pillow has been pulled out from underneath.  I feel liked a toddler who is being weaned against her will, "I know this will be hard on you and I want you to know that Mama still loves you, but no more nice warm milk from the soft tit. Here's a hard cup to drink your cold milk from." My immediate reaction was wanting to rest my head on R.'s shoulder and have her hold and comfort me but she isn't around.

My mama's dying has been hard on me.  My mama isn't dead.  She is dying.  She is living in both worlds.  My eldest son is going through an especially rough time right now and his immense pain is breaking my heart.  Then my daughter's cancer.  My friend dying of prostate cancer.  And I really miss my Lulu who is in Guadalajara with her father for the summer.  I worry about her.  When K. hit me with this it's like my house of cards came tumbling down.  I'm a strong woman too.  I can shoulder a lot of burdon. I keep on keeping on.  But I feel on the verge of crumbling.

And I have a damn good, happy life...