anger, yours and mine

i need to figure out my stuff around holding onto other people's emotions.

specifically, anger and frustration. for some reason, these emotions were taboo in the household growing up. so when people raised their voices, it was a seriously bad deal.

now that i think of it, i wonder if actually, i made it a bad deal. maybe other people in my household just raised their voices, felt frustrated and angry, and then worked it out. maybe they didn't carry it around like i did. like i still do.

other people's moods are just that. but then, emotions can be so... easily absorbed? so... fluid. they can just wash right over me, and get in my ears and up my nose.

i think my problem is actually that i take their anger personally. when someone is sad i don't look for a cause in myself. why do i blame myself for other people's bitchiness? that is complete and utter crap (trying to swear less). taking other people's bad moods personally makes living with people who are easily frustrated rather traumatizing. i remember this from experiences in cloud nine, and at the speakeasy (that's what was going on in that post).

so, now that i have identified the problem, let us stare blankly at the wall for some time.

ugh. okay, first, try to notice when this is happening. what do i do? try and appease. okay, first step, don't appease. need to do something else instead. opposite of appease is incite, which i'm not sure is wise for anyone, but might provide comic relief in my head.

"yeah, you're feeling pissed off? well fuck you!"

so much for less swearing.

okay, so what is a neutral action? on a side note, since i think a neutral action is no action at all except some kind of non-violent communication like "i see that you are swearing and hitting this inanimate object," did you know that one of the synonyms for appease is to 'be enough'? there is some deep shit stuff in there, which i am going to just cruise on by for now.

you know, i should probably just cop to my own anger. then maybe other people's anger might not scare me so much.

i am not sure how to own my anger. i can feel it. is that it? sometimes it helps motivate me to accomplish things. in a bit of a fury, sure.

i think other people's anger bothers me because of the loss of control. i fear what they can and will do to me. i am not a very good judge of when someone is going to, say, strike out physically. so i live in fear when other people are angry. do i take it personally, or do i simply seek to appease out of fear?

perhaps the question is 'how do i deal with being afraid of other people's anger?'

take up martial arts? ha, i just misspelled that 'marital arts'. maybe it is a hint. 

half a glass weeps its heart out

i was chatting with another parent today and we were discussing Things We Should Be Paranoid About. i'm surprised i am not more paranoid about more things. before parenting, i was very paranoid: cancerous foods, cancerous plastics, cancerous stores. now, i'm paranoid about my child eating known allergens too early, and our cleaning products. seriously, the dumpling chews on toys that will probably be banned in fifteen years and i'm only mildly traumatized. why is this? because i exist on way less sleep. i shove aside paranoia in favour of exhaustion quite regularly.

this is also my justification for reading less, reading more crap, watching more tv and eating more (gluten-free) toast (okay, i always ate too much toast). also, not watching foreign language movies; too tired or distracted to read the subtitles. it's good that i find some meaning in parenting, because i sure as hell get less meaning elsewhere.

case in point: i came across this blog entry, and in my previous life, i would have been fascinated by the linguistics of it all. and i still find that interesting. but mostly i was caught by a mention of an author of a cool mystery novel i read, and disappointed that what with his interest in physics and politics, he just didn't get much mystery-writing done. sad. see how far i have fallen?

the wife says a lot of free time and brain power returns with the fifth birthday. i just want my ability to construct reasonable sentences back. see what i'm saying? not sure. right-o.

i miss free time, and the freed-up mental space that came with it. i miss perspective. i miss having taken the time to rub out my own sore spots so that i am free to help others. now i'm just proud of shovelling the driveway. but it's only our driveway. i have friends that are Occupying, and i don't even know why. i have a friend who is going to jail for activism and government interference, and i'm worried i won't write her enough letters because i will forget she is in jail.

i have never felt so selfish, and yet, my life has never felt so challenging. what the aitch.

what makes it suck sometimes

- because counting one's blessings doesn't take the suck away, and i never have enjoyed watching people trying to "fake it to make it" all better.

the queen working weekends.
no weekends?!#@!$ yesterday he got off early (three) and we went to the lake. we met two brothers there. one has a boat and two kids; older boys who like cliff-jumping, and watching the fight that broke out after some douche sucker-punched a guy (douche got told). we ended up having a fire at the farm, but the queen's parents are off doing something horse-related for a few days and weren't there. i touched one of the feral kittens! cute.

on the way to the beach, we stopped at a garage sale and i got some super cute stuff for the peanut. while the queen was at work, a mutual friend we went festivalling with this summer came by, and we had a good greasy breakfast. so it was, all around, weekendy. and it made me feel SO MUCH BETTER. but one day isn't enough! labour movements and studies have shown! and he thought he only had to do a couple of hours today, but now it looks like he'll be there 'til three again. hopefully, some people are coming by tonight and we'll have a fire. and eventually the busy season will end. but i don't know what my life will look like, how it will change, because we haven't been through this before, together. so it's not entirely reassuring. we have no "bigger picture" routine yet, if ever! do i need routine?

at least there's a hammock now

so we didn't end up going to the city after all. our friend came down here for a night instead. it was lovely to see her. we made a fire in the front yard, and had put the hammock up earlier that day (why had we not strung the hammock up between the two apple trees immediately upon moving in? we have discussed this but failed to arrive at a solution. i saw it in hank yesterday and was all "hey, we have trees!"). we drank wine and talked about old crazy stories and a few new things.

last night the moon was full full full and the skies were clear. we went to sleep at about midnight and were woken at quarter to three by howling coyotes. of course, i couldn't appreciate it because i knew olive was outside, hopefully terrified and hiding. she came in later that night and seemed to appreciate a warm, coyote-free bed.

i've been feeling a bit down. well, actually, hella down. the queen's mom recommended that i take a daily walk, which is an excellent habit that i've fallen out of. so i started that again and have been exploring the parks and alley raspberries. i stopped promenading for a bit because the siren in town was going off. but i've asked a few people and no one seems to know why or care, plus the dogs were explained to me, so now i feel safer again. i was hanging laundry and noticed a police officer and trained dog booking it down the alley. i'm thinking "kay, drug bust or escaped prisoner?" but the bartender at the pub says they just train the dogs here. whew.

i started writing a bit but i don't feel very excited about it.

anyway. still a bit bummed i guess. going to try and enjoy the morning; the queen went golfing and his mom has the peanut. i guess this is the time where i should do all those things i want to do that i can't remember now. seriously, i don't have a clue.

beans

i'm back! my balls, it's been six days at least.

we're still settling in to the new place, but three out of four of us like it better (it's hard to tell how the peanut feels - she likes the new things to look at, but wakes up three times a night again). the queen likes how spacious it is, i like the neighbours and the light wood paneling, and olive likes the windowsill that looks out onto bird café.

the queen went camping for a night and left us in a quiet house with many boxes. the next night, we went camping together. hank looks very lovely in a field made by logging and gas companies. we spent the afternoon at the beach - i had my first swim of the season; shockingly late! it was awesome, and i realise how out of shape i am. things just don't settle back into place after what i've been through. but damn did it feel good to jump in a lake.

anyway, i am enjoying the boost of energy i have from all the forced labour and change that comes with moving. i think i'll go enjoy it.

baby steps for adult me

we went camping on hank this weekend. 20 000km around the continent, and hank breaks down two hours away in a national park. we had to call the queen's parents to pick us up. right now, the queen is up trying to fix it so we can use it to move in nine days. i spent all day packing, when i wasn't taking care of the peanut or -gasp!- getting a driving lesson! the queen's youngest brother's girlfriend is teaching me in exchange for the queen hooking up her stereo system all fancy. i'm pleased to report that i only messed up a few times, and fortunately country roads are big enough that people could drive around me. i did not pass anyone, but i did drive into a small town, stop for coffee and turned left through an uncontrolled intersection with only mild panic.

while i'm packing, i've been watching 'house' tv show. it's traumatizing; surgeries, dying babies and repressed emotions. i've cried once and had to breathe deeply several times (needles to the belly - i remember).

camping before hank broke down was awesome. playing cribbage, the occasional shot of tequila (i quite liked it for sipping, but then, my previous experience with tequila involves being eighteen at the bar, so maybe i have no taste), and some great views of nature - the pembina river is raging! the last place we camped had shut down the spots closest to the river for fear of flooding.

we really want to spend more time on hank, and theorized about living off the bus for a summer. we could get gym memberships somewhere, or kick someone a few dollars for their shower and washing machine use. we're sad we signed a lease, but oh well. i guess we'll spend this year doing things more easily accomplished in larger spaces. for me, that means sewing! i want to spend at least one evening a week on the sewing machine. when i gain confidence, i will start projects instead of just mending. i have ties collected to make a purse out of them. i have one already, but i didn't make it. friends have told me that it's important (both as a new mom and as a smalltowner) to pick up hobbies wherever i can.

i had this great moment standing outside the bus at dusk, realising that i still know my wounds, but i don't identify as wounded anymore. mostly.

this is what after-care looks like

slowly mending.

i know i'm still holding a bunch of fear. i feel really weird about the surgery. i faced death, but i was unconscious or out of reality for so much of the crucial time. so what happened to me? the things people say happened; this abdominal surgery, the breathing tube, the amusing statements while i was mentally elsewhere (apparently i called the surgical prep team bastards, and had a bad dream involving breastfeeding, gardening and darth vader. darth fucking vader. can you get any darker and deathier? he's the grim reaper for an entire generation. he's our big mean dad in the sky who probably just wanted the best for us but it turned out really fucked up), the almost-dying? or did nothing happen to "me" because nothing is all i remember?

my conclusion is that something definitely happened, or at least i have convinced myself that something happened. i am still in reaction mode. i am slowly realising i can stand straight up, but i keep hunching over, trying to protect my belly. i was increasingly afraid of things done to me at the hospital, even though the things that were done were increasingly less painful. i have reactions to scenes in movies about pain and bodily harm that are similar to reactions i was having to seeing pregnant women. i am identifying with trauma and surgery, integrating it slowly into who i am. i am accepting that what happened while i was unconscious still happened. i guess i did face death - just not with the part of me i remember. not with the waking me. doesn't really narrow it down, but yeah. not this bit.

but this bit is around for a fair amount of the recovery time. never in my life i have been so grateful for extra-strength tylenol as the period since little peanut's birth. i was "not the painkiller" type, and i will be that type again. but like western medicine, there are times when painkillers are really appropriate. don't worry; i won't forget i'm not 100%. i won't re-strain the muscle. i'll just be able to get up without nearly weeping. yeah. good plan.

strength is coming back. granted, it's just strength to climb the stairs right now, but hey. from here, the world.

friends have been lovely. the wife came out, and it was like living with her again; the on-the-bed talks, the kitchen fun... also a member of the healing party is trixie, whom i referred to in relation to the g-20 protests. she's being charged with conspiracy and has been under house arrest for a number of months. anyway, her conditions have been relaxed (to still tighter than people face for their ninth armed robbery) enough that she could travel out to our small town and stay with us with only a minimum of legal paperwork and a note from her sureties. so she stayed for several days and was fabulous; telling me when to get out of bed, when to go back to bed and what to eat. i lost a lot of weight in the hospital and came back skinny enough to make everyone nervous. but i have already gained some of it back and am on my way to get the rest of it. i've never been too skinny, but it's sad to see your scrawny self. eat some almond butter now, just to be on the safe side.

so i don't have any wise words, i haven't figure anything out and i still want to cry. but i'm sticking around to mend, and this too - you can be damn sure - will pass.

hydrogen or helium?

okay, i need to actually blog, with emotions and all that.

i feel really sad about the baby being in breech. i want to have a home birth. i want this baby to pass through the canal and join the world having felt a little pressure. i want to know that experience for myself as well. i want this to change my life, not in a surgical way but in an opening way. i want to feel the pressure and the tightness and the release.

i am accustomed to finding the silver lining, finding a way to be okay with whatever happens. i am probably better at adjusting/accepting than at creating what i want. i don't feel very skilled at bringing about the changes required to get what i want in this case. but i want it enough to try, to risk doing all this work at turning the baby and failing anyway. this is hard to own up to. this is another kind of vulnerability that i have worked hard to avoid facing.

i am also tired of being pregnant. and yet still pregnant for four more weeks, give or take. i am getting lost in all the priorities; eat well, drink well, move around enough, not too much or in the wrong way, do the breech exercises, read up on all the choices we have to make (strep b antibiotics? vitamin k drops? blah blah blah?), continue to abstain from all the things i have already been abstaining from for a long time, collect baby supplies (which brand of cloth diapers? how many onesies? where do we get diaper pails?), collect birthing supplies (which we may not need if we are obligated to hospital birth our breechy mcbreecherson), rest, get the house in order both for us and for baby, deal with the stressed out cat who occasionally pees on my floor (she has NEVER done this even though we've moved several times in her life, and of course now is the perfect time to start), remember my relationship with the queen (knead the bread of love), accept visits from his parents and mine, talk about the baby to all my friends, communicate with the baby, relax, practice the breathing-for-birth exercises, read up on the birthing and baby care... i just pick up and put down the priorities, and don't have a clear idea of what is more important than what else. it really seems to depend on my perspective. i'm not sure i have perspective anymore. i guess there is a me in all that, but i don't see her.

and i want to stay upbeat and positive because now is not the time to get all mopey, but i'm tired of staying upbeat: i feel like i'm in some kind of spotlight which i sometimes enjoy because i get more attention and have been inaugerated into this club of pregnancy survivors (it's fun to belong, a rare feeling for me), but also would like to be able to take off the dress and go hide in the cloakroom like i have been able to for my life up til now. there is no off button for pregnancy. and i am REALLY annoyed when people cheerfully tell me that 'this is the easy part, wait til you're a parent!'

oh thanks. that really helps me look forward to it. c'mere, you have something on your face...

home shweet home

boxes unpacked, internet set up, first piece of mail received, cell number changed, addresses mostly updated (if you don't have my new contact info and want it, message me), cat acclimatizing, record player set up.

we did an insanely large grocery run. i have never filled a cart so full. we'll be eating for months, we have tp til the kid graduates... i have tended to live thus far in tiny houses, with many hippies and no storage space or money, so this whole pantry-to-ourselves, buy-in-bulk-to-save-money concept is new to me. we'll see how it goes.

both the queen and i have come down with colds, which sucks ass. i am nursing a cup of horrid, make-you-feel-better tea, and wearing a tuque and scarf on top of my bathrobe. i can hear the queen coughing and clearing his throat. my nose is red. ah yes.

i had so much to say ... of course it's all stuffed into a tiny, unused corner of my brain, competing with mucous. i survived christmas, and moving, mostly because i didn't do much except thank other people for either of those occasions.

moving into the new place has been wonderful; the queen and i each have our own spaces as well as shared space, and we really like it. it's lovely to share a house with my love, after four weeks of sharing a room followed by twelve weeks of sharing a bus followed by ten days of being homeless together. nothing like insane lifestyle choices to give one perspective on how wonderful life can be. also, sharing can get very interesting when you don't have as much.

i wish i was sleepy as well as tired so i could go to our comfy bed and fall asleep. maybe i will try anyway, and wax on poetic some other day. self-care at its most glamorous.

oh yeah, first: read zora neale hurston, and listen to alberta hunter. i plan to do more of both. also, if you have one, pet your cat.

unravelling

i really like this xkcd comic, mostly for the message in the scrollover. i have an amazingly good ability to make myself feel like shit for feeling like shit. i've been practicing said ability for years, so it makes sense that i'd be good at it by now. being smart and able to form decent arguments are skills that can be put to use when flogging oneself. none of this explains why i would do it, but then, science doesn't tell us whether we should make the atom bomb, does it? that would be the messy realm of ethics.

various statements can be made for self-torture: "it feels so good when i stop." i think that's the brief relief from the derisive scowlings of the inner hater (outer pain takes away from inner pain). willing participants in flagellation exist in various religious practices: sometimes for the altered state the suffering brings, sometimes it's seen as pleasing to god to welcome and appreciate the suffering.

(there's also the erotic aspect of pain, which i am not going to talk about here.)

in the environment of privilege and psychology, self-punishment is regarded more as egotistical dwelling on one's personal state. we are encouraged to think positively, and to take personal responsability for our emotional state (notice that's still quite ego-driven). all kinds of messiness can happen through following this advice too strictly; people end up feeling responsable for lousy things that have happened to them. (we cause our own rapes and our own natural disasters, have you noticed?) or people repress pain and trauma to "focus on the positive", but denying your arm is broken won't help it heal faster, it will just make you look delusional.

so it seems to me that we are at a loss for how to deal with suffering. we don't have a healthy relationship with it. dwell or deny; what is healing? how can we be whole through pain and trauma? through practicing patience and compassion toward ourselves. how can we acknowledge our own participation in our suffering (we do have will, after all) without trying to take all the blame? (this one's trickier.)

i was reading through old journal entries; i have almost completed the journal i began when i was falling in love with the queen. he was in thailand, i was dog-sitting. there is a portion of entries from early in the pregnancy; i hadn't told anyone outside of the gnome home, was having morning sickness, struggling with the queen to get on the same page and figure out what we were going to do. reading these old entries was illuminating; our love has evolved, through struggle and patience on both our parts. we have become a stronger unit. sometimes it is easier to focus on the things we still struggle with, and to look toward the future like it looms in front of us, ready to break our wills and destroy our relationship. (i have seen so many breakups occur in the first two years of a child's life. yes, i feel terrified.) so any reminder that we have come a long way is a good reminder.

i'm not going to pretend that everything is perfect for the queen and i. i am not going to buy into a false family image and try and paint it over us (though i admit i have been buying christmas ornaments with the dream of "our tree"; the only part of christmas i like is the tree part). moving toward the positive without shedding all the weight (that weight sucks now, but sometimes the things in that bag will help you later) is a delicate balance. i struggle with anything delicate. the fear of breaking it sometimes inspires me break it just to get it over with. another version of "it feels so good when i stop" translated as "it feels so good when the voices in my head that tell me i am going to fail finally stop".

i know there are aspects of our relationship that suck for one or the other or both of us; i know we have no easy solutions to these, and sometimes don't even agree on what the source or identity of the struggle is. sometimes it's a different struggle for each of us. i don't know what will happen to us; will aspects of our relationship turn septic? will healing together make us stronger? asking myself these questions feels draining, so i try and just do what i can now. and not try so hard to make it better that i miss enjoying it now, for what it is.

at the end of all this ruminating (dwelling?) i have no more answers; the way is not illuminated. but i do know a bit more about why i feel this way, which helps me when conversing with those voices. "i am doing the best i can, voices. what are you doing to help?"

ups and downs

back in canada. i never thought a 7-11 could look so good. we're staying with the red-haired nutritional vixen in southern ontario. it looks like we'll be here for a few days, since i seem to have a bladder infection. :( apparently they're pretty common in pregnancy, but i feel sad and disappointed. this is my first. the establishment has me on antibiotics, and i have to stick around for a few days to makes sure my bad little bodies aren't immune to the vengeful heroes i swallow three times a day (ever since i was a kid i've personalized my immune system. it really helps with the visualizations).

fortunately, the town is quaint and has gluten-free dining options. hank could use a few days of chillness, and the queen might take off for a day so we can each have some solo time. especially in the states, we've been sticking pretty closely together since we started out. it's healthy to remember how to miss each other.

after wisconsin, we drove through michigan. the upper peninsula seems like it's miles from anywhere else, and the locals (called "yoopers") are weird and proud of it. the great lakes are big enough to connote the sea - you cannot see the other shore. we drove over the mackinac bridge and then we were pretty much done with michigan, so we stuck to the interstate to get back to canada faster.

i just finished a great collection of ursula leguin's science fiction stories, published under the title "a fisherman of the inland sea". in it, there's a story of space travelers. the custom is to spend some time together before the journey connecting, building up their rapport. they call that period an "isyeye". basically, it's the coming together of something if it is going to come together at all. this trip is an isyeye for the queen and i. it's our chance not just to get to know each other better, but to learn if/how we work together.

for example, the bladder infection. normally i am pretty blasé about my physical health: i don't have a very strong connection to my body, so i just try and put the right things in often enough that i don't have to worry about it. i have been trying to develop more of a body connection, but i still know my brain far better.

being pregnant means i need to take my body more seriously; i need to pay attention and take less risks. this stresses me out. when i realised i might have a bladder infection, which increases the risk of developmental delays and preterm labour, i totally shut down. i don't like being solely responsable for this child's life. it sucks. i am excited to bring it into the world where the queen can bear some of the weight. i know he is looking forward to that moment as well.

he spoke sharply to me as we got to the hospital, probably because i was totally distracted and not helping with anything (the bladder infection grew in my mind until it ate my baby and reduced me to catheters), and then i got scared in the hospital (i do not like large buildings, i do not feel comfortable in new places and i don't like sharing my body with strangers, so there i was, profoundly unhappy). my feeling scared in a "legitimate" environment (where people aren't supposed to be scared - my fear in a dark alley looks totally different) leads to meekness, which sparks frustration in the queen (i think), so we were not the happy couple in the emergency waiting room. having driven a lot on little sleep probably didn't help.

i wanted the queen to be strong so that i could be weak. that was an expectation and an assumption of mine. if i had been single, i would not have behaved the same way. it frustrates me when i find situations where my behaviour changes because of who is around. i mean, i know that is inevitable, but it bothers me when i feel like i am bringing less of myself to the table because i think someone else can contribute that attribute better than i.

i also feel sad that we've been finding a good groove together lately, but we couldn't do that very well. i guess stressful situations maybe aren't the easiest things to build teamwork through, but they are the ultimate testing ground. the queen apologized for his frustration but i wasn't really interested in paying attention, because i couldn't think about anything else until i asked the doctor about the baby. the baby seems fine. ze was quiet for a couple of days, but that may have been my stress and the travelling as much as anything, because i felt ze kick a few times this evening. and i feel happy. damn motherhood, it's got me already.

north country fair

a plethora of tastes: some at the vendor's tents, some on the wind.

i had the strangest fair. i decided not to volunteer, thus being able to spend more time with the queen, who couldn't get a lot of time off work. we camped with the queen's friends way way back in the woods. i ended up hardly seeing my friends at all. basically, the whole structure of my fair changed. add to the changes that i wasn't drinking alcohol (i had one drink per day) and i was camped with some heavy drinkers. it all ended up being kind of weird when compared to pretty much any previous year. i didn't hit up the electronica stage at all, i wasn't backstage, i wasn't at über camp with the LED hippies...

we swam a lot, saw some pretty good bands (maria in the shower) and had a great tent spot way back in the woods, near the river. we fell in love with a thai hut that put love in their food, and sat on the net of a pirate ship to watch hank and lily. we saw eight deer on the way up, and four deer and a fox on the way back (the queen saw an eagle but i didn't catch it). when we swam upstream, further away from most of the folks, i saw a wonderful tiny frog. there were multiple colours of butterfly and the cutest bird with a nest in the grass near our tent - it kept trying to lure us away from its nest by running several feet away and squeaking loudly, like a muppet beep.

still, it was hard. i feel like i am going through a lot of changes, and i don't think i gave myself the support network that i needed. the queen's friends are lovely; some i have met several years ago. but they are his friends, not yet mine. i don't want to be vulnerable around them, which means i spent the whole weekend subtly on guard. the combination of that and the lack of seeing my own friends (i went by über camp several times but only caught brief connections with any of them - it was that weird festival thing where you can be looking for someone at the same time they are looking for you, and thus never see them at all) ended up with me feeling pretty lonely. the queen didn't drink as heavily as some of his friends, but he was still drinking, still on the party train, and i was not. and the thing that made all the difference was that i wanted to be on the party train too. but for some health reasons, it was important that i not do so.

on the last day, we had planned to stay an extra night and then leave really early so the queen could make it into work by noon. but most of his friends were leaving, and i was really tired, so i checked in on leaving early too. he consented, and we agreed to leave around six or seven. at that point, he went off to have a scotch-fueled mud fight, and i went in search of other connections. i wish i had found someone i could have talked to. i think that might have made a difference in the rest of my day. but i didn't. i found someone who had had a very traumatizing fair last year, and who needed to check in. so he checked in, and i helped him ground and uncrinkle. and then we parted ways. i went to visit a woman i know who was giving massage, because i had a wickedly brewing headache. but she was busy. so i went back to camp to lay down, and hopefully nap the headache away. i read for a bit on a blanket i laid in the shade of the car. i tried to nap but the headache got worse. the queen came back, and i checked in on leaving again. we were all packed up. he wanted to visit with his friends some more. a combination of feeling guilty (because his craziest friend wanted us to stay another night and get really wasted with him, and i wanted to go home, and the queen seemed torn) and feeling like absolute shit (it sucks to not party at a party and still feel horrible the last day - all the punishment, none of the sin) made my communication of "i feel ill and would really like to go now" pretty shoddy.

the queen went back to visiting, and i continued to lay down, only now i was crying, which i don't like doing in front of people i don't know. crying gets such weird reactions from people in general; pity, the need to know "why" you're crying, the desire to do something about it... most people don't just let you cry. not that the queen's friends hadn't been nice all weekend and wouldn't have kept being nice if i had cried in front of them, just that i would so much rather cry by myself. it's just easier.

so i cried til he came back, and i cried as he boosted his friends, and i cried as we looked briefly for a friend of mine we were going to give a ride to (who had already left because we came by later than i said we would), and i cried when the queen spoke sharply to me (i think he was annoyed because he felt pressured into leaving his friends quickly; i am still not sure, because the headache made it hard to do anything reasonable like listen or have conversation. but he was definitely upset). and i cried as i tried to explain to him how sorry i was, but i just kind of cracked. too much newness, not enough familiarity, too much trying to keep a 'stiff upper lip' and not enough connections with people i knew deeply enough to share all the real stuff swirling around beneath my surface.

the queen cannot be my only emotional support. generally speaking, the wife is another key figure, but she wasn't there. and of the two people who were there that i could have connected with, one i only saw briefly and the other i didn't see at all. i think if i had been able to share my experience with someone (feeling lonely, not yet connected to the people i was camped with, dealing with health issues and not using alcohol as the usual psychic dampener, trying not to tell the queen i was feeling so ill because that's pretty much all i say to him these days and he has expressed through feedback that he would like to hear about some other things instead of how crappy i am feeling).

once i started crying it was really hard to stop, even though i think it just made the headache worse. i cried for a good chunk of the ride home, and we barely spoke.

self-serve buffet

i'm not sure how to begin this post. i feel my posting has wandered in theme from where i originally intended it when i began blogging here. not that i am sure of what i originally intended. i tend to be reborn in purpose, over and over again. why am i here? let's try this...

i feel it is late at night, but according to common agreement, it is only ten thirty at night. i feel tired; i have accomplished things today. though my waking hours were relatively few, it still seems like the short day was way too long. not in a bad way, just that i feel slightly exhausted from all that. all that what? all that whatever.

detailing out a list of what i "did" wouldn't convey the pleasure i felt, the looks i exchanged with the queen or the pumpkin curry we made (and fed to the wife, who came down from her nap to the sweet scent of supper). wouldn't show you how dirty my floor was before i vacuumed it, how on-and-off rain all day made it a curious day to go outside (drizzle or drops? brief respite or further showers?).

i want to share how i took care of myself today, making decisions that suited my health and disposition, mixing my accomplishments with rest and nourishment. i want to show you the slope of my shoulders, seeing in a reflection how calm i may or may not appear. i'm not sure.

i want to hand you the case for wholphin's 11, and tell you i liked "the six-dollar-fifty man", "young love" and "doc ellis and the lsd no-no". that "can we talk" disgusted me and then redeemed itself. i want to laugh about how i could recognize werner herzog's name but didn't know why (it's because of "where the green ants dream"). that the reason i might be blogging at all tonight is that the itch to make my connection with mr herzog and my memory drove me out of a warm and lovely bed to this apple of knowledge.

but even if i say this all so clearly it hurts, who knows what you pick up. only what you want to hear, or if you're healthy, what you need. and who am i to say you should take any more than that?

twiddle twiddle

i think i need to sit and write, to clear some of the backlog on my mind.

i have neglected to check in with myself. just that inner touch-base that reassures me i am being present, i am taking care of myself and not getting swept up in the desires of others. because sometimes the desires or needs of others come through louder than my own. it can be easy to neglect myself with the knowledge that i will be here later, but this person in front of me may not (they'll go to that elusive 'somewhere else').

in actuality, the other person is no more likely to disappear than i am, if i take a big enough perspective (ie not just in my company, but somewhere in existence). moreover, i probably have more information regarding my own needs than i have for theirs. so jeez already, heal thyself.

but. i have this secret stupid ego thing i used to think of as compassion: that the other person won't listen to themselves and if i don't help them, they won't get help. never mind the countless examples of emotional vampirism, false martyrship and other nauseous hijacking of actual kindness. never mind the road that good intentions paves. never mind all that and let's just look at the hilarity of that thought. me in a cape, saving others from their own emotional inadequacies. awww. what a cartoon. gotta love finding those young-child beliefs we didn't know we've been harbouring all these years that let us make strange and often unhealthy decisions. awww.

then notice how i shortchange other people's abilities to take care of themselves. one wince allowed in general direction of childhood and then look around at smart people i know and sigh (slightly tremulously) in relief.

linkland, via deeper understanding of life

do i EVER love this comic. introduced in the previous entry, it has pretty much taken up all my time since then. i did sleep and go to work, so the comic hasn't achieved life-wrecking, obsessional status. in fact, it's like gorging on fruit - the more i click the little 'next' icon (a monkey) the more i breath in life: the loving trials and wise tribulations of unfolding consciousness.

regarding the nature of relationships.

and the simplicity of self-care - how much do we really need? make sure to tend the needs...

what feeds our tendency toward destruction, ultimately self-destruction...

very sweet. along with an epic tea - algonquin's herbal immune booster, creamed with coconut milk and topped with ground ginger and a bit of crushed fennel.

but i would like to exist in other states as well, today. like having a shower, breakfast, a few exertions, some company. so i intend to move on with my day ("Come on, Day, let's go see what else there is!") after just a few more ... clicks.

great comic, great day

i love webcomics. especially ones created by artists who seem interested in the unfolding of the s/elf. today has brought the discovery of a webcomic, wapsi square, that has been around since 2001, thus reinforcing my feeling that everyone else knows everything online and i wander around in the dark, riding my wee apple like it's a child's pony.

two of my favourite strips thus far (a newly found comic tends to prompt me spending entire days reading from the beginning and drinking tea - laundry, plans and books forgotten, outside world a dream) are here and here. beautiful portrayals of the inner one we rarely let loose, the part of us we're afraid of, the same way we're afraid of people with underdeveloped social skills. we fear being left alone with these people, they scare us with their unknowing, their need. but there is value in these people, these selves.

in other news, the queen phoned me from thailand and it was exquisite to hear his voice. i can still hear it. not saying anything, just sounding in my ear.

tarting oneself up

accepting love.

this is what i fear. it's interesting to question why i might fear this, but i get bored of questioning, or even positing various theories. the fear sticks around anyway. i can logic away some fear, but not the fear of accepting love.

still, i am tempted to draw correlations between my own desire (and failure) to help others by loving them (i've picked really sad cases, people who don't love themselves, emotional black holes, if you will) and my fear to be on the receiving end of such an attempt. what if i am a failure at being loved, and the other person ends up feeling like i did?

but then i look, honestly look, at my own case (not scrutinize it for pimples with that terrible mirror that gigantisizes one's pores). i'm not a lost cause. i can touch the ground occasionally. and the people who love me, to how many of them am i a case, a cause, a damaged specimen? i am probably that to one person i know, but i notice that person misses half of what's going on anyway, poor thing. i am pretty sure most people just love me because they want to.

in which case, the saving part is back to me. ugh. i would really like to be done with saving. for a while, it seemed necessary, but now the only villain left in my life is me. have i really reached the tawdry point of needing to be saved from myself (by myself - cue heavy eye-rolling)?

i remember deciding one day that instead of saving myself from, i would save myself to. to what? who cares! to the gigantic program in the sky, to a better day, to make a cake with.

to love. saving myself to love. that has more of a preserving air to it. preserves and pastries, mmm. hopefully that becomes the dominant paradigm in my mind. maybe i'll change the blog name to "pastry-in-self".

with pastry, comes better relationship. who knew?

i'm going to go read a math book now

amazing break up video: wow. ah, four tet. ah, caribou. the video well reflects the inadvertant grace we are so capable of.

the more i tap into joy, the more sadness rolls out. how could i ever be only one half of the emotional sphere anyway? half a sphere would just lie flat on the empty side.

guess how delicious i am?

i am so delicious that i have moved the laptop into the bathtub area of the master bedroom, set up the 'tender' playlist, lit candles, opened a nice bottle of red and started to run a bath with forest-scented bath oil in it. i am so delicious, i feel like writing myself a love letter.

dear self,

you are so ... dammit, oh woman, words cannot be used to bring your beauty to life. keep on keeping on, you slim tower of strength with your arm in the maw of the tiger; you delectable creature of earth with the grace of the highest mountain dancing in your neck and shoulders; you burning star paradoxically holding the darkest oceanic depths in your blood; you.

i light a candle for you, for all of us, and for you again.

sincerely,
your self

i would not have gotten to this place if it were not for other people loving me. yet, there are many people who are loved by other people who still cannot bring themselves to be-their-own-loved. so, though i could not have done this without you, i did it on my own.

thanks, everybody. thanks, me.

meaning, past and present

when i was younger, i was drunk with meaning. purpose was epic, epiphanic, and it extended out of my heart and into everything i did. i closed my eyes and saw rainbows of colour. i opened them and saw beauty. even the sadness of loss was beautiful.

i grew older. i saw how commonplace and preventable a lot of tragedy seems. i saw how the ignorance grows back, even after the most amazing of events. i saw how humans backslide, how we would rather be comfortable than give up what we have so that others may have. i saw how easily we disconnect our savings at giganta-mart with the persecution of entire nation communities. i saw how greed and fear whisper in our ear and how we listen. how we get tired. i got tired.

THEY AGE, AND WRINKLE
even though i kept on practicing kindness, i learned to defend myself against people wrecking judgment on themselves, using me as a scapegoat. even though i shopped local and fairtrade, i forgot to feel the difference i was making. even though i recycle, i donate, i still feel like part of the problem. and i lost sight of the epic solution my young brain had proposed, found fault; how difficult it was to get off the grid completely, how easy it was to think i knew what i was doing, how many people had tried and failed before me. i realise i give up too easily, i don't want to keep fighting what's all around me - i cut a deal with myself to settle.

part of this settling was a greyer realisation that even the solutions are part of the problem. we solve the wrong problems - we teach nike how to give money back, we teach our children to be kind because they want something, we justify society's change as a result of how angry we are, how we 'aren't going to take it anymore'. and what else can we do, when we're still half-broken ourselves? when development agencies just pave the way for industrialization? how is this ever good for anyone other than those in power anyway? even when the actions are good, the results are the same. as michael franti says, "they handin' us the bible while they walkin' off with all the gold."

and i came to the conclusion that it was far better to doubt one's own beliefs than to try vehemently to solve or save anything. terrible things happen at the hands of people who've had epiphanies. the word means that a god has appeared to you. it's a dangerous word.

CUE ATHEISM
so i became a fan of science. because at least science doesn't tell you it's okay to kill someone else (and don't tell me that science is bad because it teaches you how - EVERYTHING teaches us how to kill). at least science can agree that light can be both wave and particle, that both sides can be right. at least science doesn't try and convince your ego that you're special.

except that again, this decision of mine, aside from inviting my life into a permanent grey area, didn't change my nature. it may harm more slowly, but it still harms, because second-guessing oneself is what the silent, complicit minds do, to pass the time. never picking a side, so i'm never wrong. i never make a mistake. oh wait, mistakes are made through inaction as well as action. fuck.

so. to summarize: living with fervent meaning is dangerous. living without meaning is dangerous.

THE INEVITABLE BOOK REFERENCE
reading kim stanley robinson's eco-sci-fi-thriller, forty signs of rain, allowed me the realization that i am suffering from an excess of reason. people who know me might giggle at this, because they know i use my intuition on a fairly regular basis, even when i have a host of data to support my decision.

i think many of us are suffering from the yearning to explain things and the reluctance to accept that we might never know, but that we need to keep on keeping on. how many suicides are brought on not because the person logically deduces they should die, but because they can't find another way that hurts less? we must continue to make decisions on inadequate knowledge, but bear 100% of the consequences.

sorry for all the italics, but it is, to me, a subject deserving of drama. we want to be all-knowing because our egos like the idea, but we also really want to know so that we can stop with all the pain. because we walk into the pain all the time. we flounder like a drowning person, making it worse. some of it may be inevitable, but this much?

and the brief epiphanies are not enough. brief flashes of lightning on the recurring, inevitable, generations-long dark and stormy night. but they're all we seem to get.

this was actually designed to be a really light and wonderful entry, but i needed to slog through ten years of pain i've held in my everyday actions first.

the years of doubt, of trying someone else's plans, the excitement of "this time, we'll make a difference!" and me thinking "and that's the point? okay, i'm in!" they sound so sure of themselves. and except when i am angrily denouncing a sexist bastard, i do not feel sure of myself (later, when i realize he was sexually abused as a child or some other equally horrendous thing, i wonder if there might have been a better way than just taking my turn at wielding the paddle).

SO HERE IS THE CHEESY
and i am ready to not defend myself.

it feels the best when i can just sit in the light and be love. but always, i am pulled out into the dark world of action. and shamed when this is not where i want to be. because i should be grateful for my legs and use them for my country, for my religion, for the kind of change i want to see in the world. blah blah fucking blah.

i am meant to sit. and to love. sorry if that's not in your plans. suck it up. it's in my plans now.