All Except One (or Two)

A few years ago, I wrote a series of bitter break-up poems – everyone loves those :P – and then wrote another poem that said something like, should I now write something nice? something fluffy? and do tricks like a wind-up toy?

And at the moment, I sort of feel like that.

So much stuff is stirred up at the moment, that although alongside of it and indeed deeper than it, I have a center of joy that I’m glad to finally be exposing, the rest of the “up” material is rather dark. Old ideas, old traumas, old patterns that I’m seeing differently. And, truly, I don’t want to subject you to it, and also, it’s not necessary that I do.

You get it. We all work through stuff. Well, most of the people who are reading this are likely working through stuff. And it is like being forged in fire. Or tearing off scabs. Or, as I once wrote, like stone tumbling – the process by which a raw stone is tumbled about in this large drum and when it comes out, it’s become smooth and shiny.

Will I be smooth and shiny? I don’t know. I also said in that stone tumbling poem that it was like G-d’s savage grater going at me. (I like the double meaning of “savage” – in our slang, it’s akin to beyond awesome, as well as the definition of unfeeling carnage.)

I don’t think that G-d doesn’t have feelings about this. I just think I only have a very tiny portion of the map, and G-d’s got an atlas the size of Jupiter. Plus, I’m coming more and more over to the side of thinking, or knowing rather, that all this grating is actually intended for my highest good. That scraping away these caustic, rusted elements is actually an act of love and compassion.

Speaking of, it occurred to me last night, that there’s one aspect of Love that I didn’t address in yesterday’s “In All Its Forms” blog -- by which I meant Love In All Its Forms. And that’s romantic love, and physical love. (Insert Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical” music video here.)

This doesn’t surprise me, and is part of the swirling ickiness I don’t really want to talk to you about. But, let’s suffice it to say that my relationship with sexuality is actually very, very naïve. 

The truth is, for all of my midnight sweating with another person, the heart of sex is still actually very elusive to me. And I won’t go in to the whole line of “the intertwining of souls” stuff here. Cuz, truthfully, I have absolutely no idea if that’s true or not. I don’t have information about sex as tenderness. As respect and awe of … my body. I’ve had experience of treating yours with a care and sometimes speechless admiration. To me, the human body is – well, as has been said… a wonderland :P Or, further, it’s just such a novel thing to me each time I get to really see it – and that wasn’t a common thing for me in my past. It was get in, get off, get out. No, like, leave.

This does not set up a system of appreciation or intimacy with sex. To be intimate with sex. Sounds pretty novel. I haven’t sat still long enough to let you show me how you see me. (And this is not an invitation, just an observation/admission.) And on a few rare occasions when I have finally spoken up and asked for what I needed, I have experience being dismissed. How disappointing is that.

But that word brings me to another realization. Which is that I have a post-it in my kitchen which reads, “I can be disappointed and still follow my dreams.” And, it is occurring to me more and more that this whole plane of human experience has been lost to me. That I have cut off hope for it, and therefore don’t try very hard, or am “happy” with what I get.

This is another place where I’m being shown a need for change. Because on a cellular (and soul) level, my body is thirsty for something sweet. My body is thirsty for kindness. And, after years of telling it to get over it, I’m realizing this tender care is very much something I want too.