Settling into 2012

As I was lying in bed this morning before getting up to make green smoothies and coffee for my husband and me to start our day, I was pondering all of the varied tasks I might tackle and blogging came to mind.  I see that I haven't visited here since August 17, 2011.  That's over 5 months.  Time sure does fly.

I've been to Burning Man and Italy since then.  H and I had our 15/18th anniversary (together and married).  My mama is still here (I was under the impression that she was going to leave her earthly form in 2011.  I'm happy I was mistaken).  It's been over seven months since my lover informed me that he didn't want to be my lover any longer.  I guess those are the main highlights to the end of one year and the beginning of another in the life of She.  I say, bring the year of the dragon on!  Dragons and horses (moi) are supposed to share a powerful sexual chemistry (obviously LWINMYT isn't a dragon).

I finally gave myself a "Burner Name" this year.  It took six years of over-anxious friends offering artificial names that never stuck.  My full and proper name is SheWhoWillNotBeNamed and it's really just an evolved moniker of the name Rob Brezsny christened me with back in (1999?)  SheWhoBeHot.  I wish LWINMLT thought that I was hot but obviously he doesn't (well, at least I don't get him hot).  Yes, I'm still fucking stuck on that.  Don't worry, I'm sure I'll get over it in another five to ten years.  I'm quick to let go of these things.  NOT.  Besides, he loves me and who needs sex when you have love?  I seem to be on a roll. I guess I'm in the mood to rub it in (my own face).  More on that later.  But anyway, you can just call me She.

H and I came home from twenty lovely days in Italy to a torn apart bathroom that was supposed to be completed before we returned.  I really wanted to soak in a hot bath.  Of course.  It's been a week, and at least now I have a toilet and a sink I can use in there.  I think I'm supposed to wait another month for the painting to happen...sure, I'll just leave the contends of my bathroom stacked in the parlor until the handyman returns from another job.

Italy.  What can I say about Italia?  It was just about the perfect trip.  I don't really like flying for long distances and I got sick on the flight home but besides that it was an incredible journey.  H and I travel well together.  We only had a few minor spats along the way.  He annoys me when he is trying to explain the route of our destination and keeps turning the map upside down.  I tell him that totally discombobulates my sense of direction but he does it anyway so I yell at him and he hates it when I yell at him.  Then we kiss and make up.  Those sort of moments.  We visited Roma, Firenze, and Venezia (as well as the islands of Murano and Burano).  We walked everywhere, with mostly churches, museums or ruins as our final destinations, with the intent of discovering whatever lay in our path between point A and point B.  Sometimes we just wandered and got lost.  We eat a lot and I drank a lot of wine.  H drank wine but not as much as I did and never at lunch.  I never drank wine for breakfast.  We drank cappuchini (don't know why you always see it spelled cappuccino) because they always said "chini") day and night and sometimes cafe lattes.  I learned to never shorten my order to a latte in Italy.  The baristas in the states may know you are ordering a cafe latte but in Italy they just look at you weird because you are ordering milk.  And the size of the coffee drinks in Italy make Americans look like gluttonous giants with our coffee drinking habits.  The trip was all I could have asked for and I want to go back.

A friend asked me if Italy was on my bucket list.  Travel has always been on my bucket list but it's interesting because there weren't many particular places I had in mind to travel to, I just wanted to travel.  H was set on Italy and that was fine with me.  And of course, once my sights were on Italy I was over the top excited and it turned out to be an awesome choice.  I have held the idea of wanting to experience Buddhist countries as well as always being enamored with and wanting to travel to Persia since I was a young child.  I always though of Turkey as being part of Persia (where not parts of Turkey part of the Persian Empire back in ancient times?).  I should study my history on this part of the world.  Anyway, I know that Persia was actually Iran, but just the same, Turkey is where my imaginings always went as a child, the markets, the architecture, the mosques, the heat, the smells, the magic carpets... The plan has been for me to travel to Turkey in June with K and his family but that may be off. I hope not, but there are likely changes up with his job and it may not be possible.  I will be sorely disappointed if that's the case but time will tell.

I'm happy my mama is still here.  I've been visiting her most days and reading Longfellow to her.  We've both been enjoying it a lot, even though I don't read it very well. I'm so grateful for every moment I have with her.  My heart will break when she is gone.

While H and I were in Italy, LWINMLT sent me a Rumi quote, "Lover's don't finally meet somewhere, they're in each other all along."   It struck me how true this is for me.  Since LWINMLT told me that he is not sexually attracted to me and therefore doesn't want to be my lover, my ability to orgasm practically vanished.  Of course I understand this to be a part of my grieving process.  I've been in a lot of pain around it (mostly covert rather an overt) but the anger and hurt is immense.  Thank goodness that big love numbs the pain and the fact that I have a great life otherwise (mostly great).  My orgasms, as with many women, are pretty throughly connected to my emotions and my ability to trust my partner and open to a deep vulnerability.  The other thing that is related to the Rumi quote, is that whenever I orgasm, all of my lovers come rushing in.  My orgasms open the door to EVERYTHING.  While in Italy, I orgasmed in Roma.  I orgasmed in Firenze.  I orgasmed in Venezia.  That made me very happy and it was a powerful release.  It also made me sad because seeing that I carry my lovers around inside of me--whenever I orgasmed, all the grief I'm holding on to related to LWINMLT not being my lover would escape and wash over me.  It's been obvious to me that I've been protecting myself from deeply feeling this loss, and it's been a real drag to not experience the vulnerable opening that allows the full pleasure of sex that leads to orgasm for so long.  So, orgasming while having sex with H in Italy was nice because he is a generous, hot, and spicy lover and I prefer being open to receiving all he has to offer me.  So it was very nice.  And it was also like pouring salt on my wound.

But I'm happy.  That's important to acknowledge.  I have a good life.  A good husband.  Good friends.  LWINMLT is one of them. I am blessed with family and friends and opportunities to learn to be a better lover, to love in ways that gently caress the tender underbellies of us all.