feeling rough?

people have been feeling edgy. edge-y.

the good news is that it will pass. the bad news is that it probably won't pass fast enough. the real news is you don't give a shit about later, because now is hard.

i can't tell you anything you can't refute, even if i am right. that's how powerful our emotions can be. that's how we convince ourselves all kinds of things are true.

look around, you think you aren't fallible to all kinds of prey? physical predators, mental predators. external predators, internal predators. see those being preyed on around you? see how they tell you they're fine, tell you they can cope? sometimes we aren't fine. sometimes it's not worth coping, sure.

but even when we feel boxed into a corner, the show ain't over. if you think you only have one choice, i can guarantee you have forgotten something.

sometimes we want to see big change fast. sometimes we think we can't wait, it's not worth waiting or waiting won't change anything.

but who judges a party at eleven o'clock? stay until it's over. stay until four. stay until the cops shut it down or it ends in breakfast.

if you're having a bad time, i have several things to say to you:

- me too. sucks eh? ah well. i've got some things i want to do and while i'm trying, i'll drink some water and talk to you.

- yeah that happens sometimes.

- i know someone who was having a bad time and then figured out some of their needs and got some met (not all, but hey, they're still working on it) and now they feel better.

- tell me.



sometimes when i'm doing a sewing project, it gets all knotty. i get frustrated when that happens. i was working, and then some tiny twist of thread fucked it all up.

at these times, i am very tempted to quit. sometimes i want to burn the whole project.

if i am lucky, i take a deep breath, cut the string, tie it off and start over. it takes longer, but i get it done.

if i am feeling especially choked, maybe because it has happened several times or other things have frustrated me already, i have to leave the project, leave the room.

today that happened. i feel like it's some kind of conspiracy, like the threads are out to get me.i can hear their evil laughter.

when i am feeling persecuted, that's when i know there is something else at work in my brain. so i go upstairs, pour myself a glass of water, and express myself in some way that comes more easily. work it out of me.

i'm lucky today that this feels easy. some days, everything feels hard. some days i give up, and go watch tv. some days i do something that i know i can do, and then at least i can feel slightly proud of myself when i am done.

i'm not confessing or giving advice, i'm just talking to the people who feel edgy. i feel it too. 

merry merry

weekendia! welcome to the land of strangely-timed meals and hobby-cruising queens! welcome to a visitation from Chaos, and only one broken thing after he left (the queen's flask; how i don't know, because i went to bed at a reasonable 1am. but really, how do you break a metal flask? it has no neck anymore, just an empty hole - so sad). welcome to people sleeping on available surfaces, and blatant napping. welcome to greasy breakfasts and another bodum of coffee.

i feel good! visitations are lovely for cleaning the mental and emotional slates. and the queen puttered around yesterday resulted in a hangout spot in the basement for loudness and messiness. it's remarkably satisfying not to worry about cleaning up when i go to bed, and still get a functional table for breakfast.

the dumpling also enjoyed the company, and of course increased her fan base with big smiles and shy waves. we played radiohead and the girls, and Chaos played the banjo. deep and shallow discussions were had. wine was spilled. food was prepared. yay.

exorcised nightmares

okay, here it is:

it's really hard to be a stay-at-home parent for the same reason it's difficult to be a stay-at-home, DIY anything: motivation rests solely on one's own shoulders. in a slump? no one will notice except you (especially if you're good at faking it). no one will beat it out of you, challenge you to better yourself, or come to the rescue.

however, it is really awesome in that YOU choose the course, you choose how things play out. and i have needed that for a long time. i have a strong tendency to blame authority figures for my misery, and i have made the queen out to be my authority figure, when in fact he is just the only other adult in this household. yeah yeah, he's a man, but that doesn't make him The Man. i am my own boss and i always have been, as everyone who knows me will laughingly attest.

so i finally finished a painting (or at least took it off the easel and hung it up). and i am finally figuring out a rhythm - coffee breaks come with a workday, so there is both work and coffee in my day but the order they come in is of my choosing (well, allowing for things like business hours of the post office and family time with the queen - today we danced with the dumpling to this awesome wagonchrist song). it doesn't matter how it looks to other people, it doesn't matter if it's weird, it just matters that i feel the balance works for me and my family (because if it worked for me and not my family, that would be sad - shared space needs to be respectful for all parties), that i find some peace in my day.

okay. there it is. i'm living the dream. thank you.

hilarity, and beer.

so i'm sitting here, drinking an illicit afternoon beer. (yes, i know. the gluten! the gluten! what can i say? the queen and the weather have worn me down. plus i hear that the lighter beers have less barley or something. by this i mean heineken, not the nasty coors.) the peanut has tooth number two coming in, so there have been random furious midnight awakenings. today has been reasonably good, and a longer afternoon nap means i got to do this! with a beer!

spicy potato salad awaits our evening. there has been talk of a fire and some smokies, which sounds absolutely fabulous to me. the peanut got introduced to cherries yesterday. yeah. cherries-everywhere later, it's a hit. well, everywhere below her nose. thing is, it wasn't actually cherries that made such a mess. it was cherry. one.

we made it out to the city for two nights. the awesomes dropped their children off at mister awesome's sister's place so i challenged mr awesome to a drunken idiot contest. of course i lost, but i did some great acts. deep conversations - at least on my part - and some dirty dancing with the queen at the falafel place after two shows at two bars... mr awesome won though, by spraying the band at the first show with beer - by accident and then on purpose. then he group-hugged them. he actually does this a lot.

it was great fun and we had many party buddies. field-in-bloom made an intersection getaway on our way to the second show. i wasn't in that car, but i hear he hopped out at a red light and thanked everyone before disappearing into the neon-lit night. i actually couldn't remember how we got from show 1 to show 2, but the queen reminded me later it was our musician friend with the big gasket problem who was more focused on playing us a great phish tune than his steaming hood upon our arrival. and it was a pretty great phish tune...

we inherited a strange weirdo as we came back to hank (parked behind the gnome wreckage, where we made use of the old patio table and firepit. long live gnome spirit!) who we had to kick out eventually. i was passive-aggressive about his presence for most of the couple of hours we spent playing music, but to no avail. proper passive-aggressive techniques involve persistence and repeated follow-up, which is difficult when drunk.

the next day we were more mellow; visited a festival, had a fire and swayed the wife into coming over with a friend of hers. they were like elves, which just shows what happens when the gnomes are released.

i was reading this post on puking (the end is the best) and it reminded me of 'morning' sickness. my favourite place was sitting on one of those old railway ties people use in their yard, quietly puking under a tree.

crisply depressed; like deep fat fried emotions

let me start this post off with a musical recommendation for those among us who are feeling depressed, with shout-outs to this sweetheart and this poor sod (who wrote and starred in a cool video but man does he ever seem low). seeing these people depressed reminds me we don't have to be ugly or poor or otherwise destitute to feel depressed. they honestly seem like smart folks, and they're both cute. depression: illness for the successful among us. (it seems to help to live in a developed nation, and perhaps be white.) i wonder if all of us were dropped into circumstances of extreme physical challenge, would our emotional problems resolve themselves in a poof of perspective? likely.

we are who we are. i thought being pregnant was rough, but now i think facing an imminent c-section when i'd planned for a home birth is way, way rougher. no doubt there is a corner i could turn whereupon this reality would feel like a fucking parade.

most of the time, the old "hey, it could be worse" option does not make me feel better. like drinking water upside down to cure the hiccups, it's been used one too many times for it to be effective any more. but every now and then (usually just after things have gotten worse) it feels like the truth it is.

i've been feeling totally wrapped up in my own problems, which aren't major on a scale of zero to "is your baby dead?" but merely disappointing like "oh, your vacation got cancelled. sucks." and reading the poor sod's blog while not terribly enjoyable nonetheless sparked in me the reminder that not everyone is wrapped up in my pregnancy. thank god.

(side fear: what will stop me from becoming domestically disabled? i mean, today i made cake to solve my problem. gingerbread cake. with whipped cream and pineapple. it actually worked - i feel way better. but i fear this blog will turn into "this is what my baby did today" and "great new recipe, guys!" do we really need another blog like that? i really prefer the "read this, listen to this, try this emotional process it worked for me" kind of blog i have maintained up til this point. which i suppose we also don't need more of. anyway.)

where was i? oh yeah, not defined by being pregnant - still human, just with a kicking dolphin brewing escape plans out the emergency hatch of my uterus, instead of the door. human. which, given that it's a windchill of minus thirty outside, would probably involve cake and goulash (well, sort of goulash - some substitutions ended up happening) were i empty-of-womb.

really, the major difference with me now and me not-pregnant is that i would probably have gotten stoned today. which would have made for a fuzzier entry. admire the crispness. and listen to the song; it's all i can share since you aren't coming over for cake. at least i've spared you a tale of how difficult it was to clip my toenails today.

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.

titillation, thou name is us!

had a wee potluck last night. 'twas lovely.

initially, i planned it in self-defence, not having enough time to visit with everyone. and i wasn't actually looking forward to it too terribly much, as larger gatherings aren't my favourite - i often get drunk just to get through it all. it's not terribly dysfunctional as i don't need to get drunk (as last night proved) but it sure is convenient since it's a social gathering, and alcohol is freely available. but it was really lovely, and i enjoyed myself (until the nausea and tiredness put me to bed).

last night i had one sip of johnny walker blue label, which is their highly debated, highly expensive, rare blended scotch whiskeys. it was wonderful and amazing. they don't put an age on it, and it changes from year to year. this was a good year. sadly, i later felt gross. sigh. one tiny sip. you think the kid could hold their scotch, being our kid and all.

before the booze turned everyone into apes, it was really nice. a variety of potluck items, a variety of my life represented (bookstore crowd; an old school friend; miz lovely of the lovelies, who teared up as she touched my belly; single moms and their kids; old roommates; someone from the non-profit i just quit; some friends of the queen; and, a nice cross-section of old hippies).

after the booze turned everyone into apes, there was much ribaldry. the good witch was celebrating her birthday three doors down (she caught a fair amount of people who weren't sure if this was my gathering or not) in a peaceful, folkish manner, and members of our gathering later went off to be drunk there. they came back rather subdued, clearly having been overwhelmed by the sobriety and bluegrass, much in the way that the british experienced when trying to take over india - "hey, we have all the brash loud powerful bigness, how come they just manage to swallow it, smile and keep being them?"

there were crass jokes and drunk blubberings, heavy flirtation and after i went to bed, wrestling! hot. cheers and shouts from around the fire, shouts between the houses, drunken stumblings and a tumble, and the fire burned late into the night. the next door neighbour just came in and was excited to find his necklace, which had been ripped off in the wrestling. he described the shenanigans as having been both ridiculous and exuberant.

the queen came to bed later and told me tales. most of them were really funny. i wish i could say they were all funny, but they weren't. i think one of our greatest failings as a pseudo-evolved species is our habit of forgetting how easily we can do stupid things. thankfully, it sounds like the stupid story the queen brought back was headed off at the pass by another community member. let a drunk chick lie, that's what i say. thank goddess we don't just share time and stories with each other, we share responsibility. "dude, you don't want to do this right now. come with me back to the fire. drink this water."

sexy kitchen fairies ran a load through the dishwasher, so the clean-up this morning was more interesting than a pain. the backyard booty consisted of various items of clothing, the usual empty glasses cans and bottles, and a random box with several snackpacks of nachos and a timothy leary book. the inside of the house yielded significant evidence of children and post-party strategically placed dishes. they're like easter eggs! on tiny shelves in the hallway, stacked on top of the toaster, rolling around on the floor near the futon and other places people passed out with a glass of water next to them...

of course the best part was none of this madness; the best part was catching up with these amazing people i know, people i have known since i was fourteen, eighteen, twenty-five. people who think about their lives, who wonder and weep and work hard. meaningful people. people i will miss. and yes, people who can seriously still rock out even though our median age is somewhere around thirty.

the next town over

two words: ness creek.

such a lovely festival. we drove out with a mutual friend, fieldofdreams, who was on incredibly stellar behaviour. such a ray of sunshine fieldofdreams can be. the queen was excited; he and fieldofdreams had gone to the festival last year, and we were all meeting up with a lovely family that the queen counts among his closest friends - they were at north country too. this time their girls were coming.

we got to the site so late, it had closed, something i find amazing for a festival. so we turned around and drove down a long scary road to a lake, and camped there. in the morning, the queen and i got up and went swimming on a quiet beach. the water was fantastic - cool, quiet, tingly, clean.

i love rural environments because they still have dragonflies. i saw two little bluets mating on our tent. i sat and watched them for a while; poised, frozen but for tiny, occasional pulsations. fascinating.

we went back to the festival and found our pals camped in a far back corner near the drum circle. the festival is pretty folk-based and surprisingly chill. although my idea of chill was no doubt coloured by my sleeping through the nights. and napping a lot in the day. there was some great napping.

i heard a hauntingly beautiful accordion during one of my naps. not the kind of hauntingly beautiful that makes you think of unrequited ghostly love. just a bittersweet little ditty from a soul who's seen too much sadness today. every day.

like all things, the festival was a long, epic moment and then it was over and we were packing up the livingroom. on the way back across the border, the fuel pump "went". on some trips i've been on, this would have meant an expensive tow or being stranded until some garage could haul it in, order the part, etcetera. but the queen just sighed, unpacked the gear, opened up the back and fiddled around with some wires and some pliers. then repacked the gear and started the car and we came home. during my sighing and murmurs of manly heroes (wearing barrettes in his hair the whole time, might i add) he confessed it had taken a lot longer to fix the first time, on last summer's trip up to the northwest territories.

we saw foxes and the cutest little skunk. no bears at the festival, though previous years had told tales. and the milky way was milky. i miss this. this outdoor world reminds me of all kinds of wonder. sharing it with the queen brings me happiness.

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?

simple

day off. rejoice. do whatever i want:

- sleep in
- start reading margaret atwood's new novel, the year of the flood.
- find forty dollars in my purse which hadn't been there before. think about cream, strawberries, and a bottle of wine. (i just used a comma in the style of university papers; counter to the style of journalism. how exciting!!!! and probably inappropriately formal for a blog!)
- listen to manu dibango
- pick up some groceries, noting to myself that 'tis the season again for running into people i know while walking. three in a twenty minute walk, not counting my favourite low-income paper-seller victor. (he only doesn't count because he's the rain-or-shine type.)
- find a note from the queen - a letter really - and rejoice over it, curling up on my mattress to treasure his sweet words. mmmmm. tasty.
- visit the gnomes, who were making soup
- welcome the queen home; make a great supper of salad, curry and vermicelli noodles
- have a fire in the backyard of the gnome home to welcome all the random folks who come by (including a friend who's been in new york for the last three years)
- drink some wine with friends
- go to bed
- finish this post the next day

dancing on the edge of the coin of readiness

HEY , IT'S BEEN SO LONG
really enjoying my life these days, which is surprising since i have scored yet another illness. at least this one isn't the flu. but i was reading some buddhism stuff, and it reminded me that my state of illness or health is separate from the human condition: what kind of human being i am does not change. the meaning and purpose i bring to my life does not change.

epic meeting with my therapist. really feeling whole with some of the broken past. not even sure how it is possible, just know that i am including parts of me in my decision-making process that i long thought were lost, dead, gone.

i noticed the pace of my life was ramping up a bit since the roommate had moved in. and i wish to slow it down again. slowness brings me more pleasure, and that is a good thing. also, then i drink less. again, a good thing. why do so many of my social groups still use alcohol?

WHAT'S REALLY HAPPENING
thinking about what it is that brings people to a readiness to be in relationship. i realize (through the course of listening to friends talk about their own processes) that i don't want to admit when my needs are not getting met, because i don't want to make the other person feel bad. i don't want to ask them to change, i don't want to hurt their self-esteem. so i betray myself? doesn't seem like an effective compromise. hello, ugly past! you're not that ugly. come here. let's meet...

instead of being honest, i just decide i'm done. and once i decide that, it seems pretty hard to reverse it. but i wonder how it would look if i shared? if i was brave enough to have said "i want to go hiking with you, not walking. i want to dance wildly with you, i want to throw our bodies, unencumbered by egos, to the wind." or if i had said "i miss your kindnesses, the ones you gave me before we started dating, when we were still friends." or: "i don't want to be the only decisive person in the relationship." would those relationships have progressed any differently?

still, i have trouble even with the idea of being that honest. i don't want to be the big judge, telling someone they aren't good enough. i have been there. it just makes you question every single thing about yourself. you second-guess all your actions. it sucks. why should they need to know? except i guess when i follow through on the path of not telling them anything, that doesn't work either. begin overthinking now.

i think there is something to be said about the delivery. i mean, it's not that someone isn't good enough. it's that they aren't right for me. but when is it a deal-breaker and when can it be worked out (is it a sliver or a bullet)? not to mention that if it's something like how they deal with their own body or their own past, something more abstract and slower-moving, how patient can i be? even if they agree that is something they want to work on?

also: can i receive that kind of feedback? i basically spend my spare time in self-development (okay, not as obsessed in the last few years, but it's still a theme), and i know part of this is defensive in nature: i will fix everything so that you will never leave, and i will do it before you even notice there was something wrong. how do i respond to the fact that this is a game in my head ? that i am as imperfect as the rest of us?

Buffet of Metaphors at Vitamin B's! Free Drinks!

wondering what lifts me, what hit me,
what it means, what's drifting
away
or floating toward
me, grinning and sinning,
ripe to be born


poetry, poetry; that part of my mindbody that opts in and out of linear timelines, scoffing gently at the 'not allowed' signs of social context.

what an interesting few days! says this mindbody:
breakup, epic gnome visit (oh the laughter. oh the tears. oh the size of the bottle), loss of wallet (hopefully left on a bus and returned to lost&found, but probably lying in a school field, buried in a lot of snow), visit with sincerely pregnant friend (Seeking still has an innie, but it's more like a tight wink) and a saturday morning bookstore shift.

yeah, i tried to slide the breakup in there, like it was 'just another crazy day'. but it wasn't crazy.

thoughts of vulnerability float, unhinged to any relationship, on the river of mindbody. previous breakups have had an aspect of 'broken', but this, this sparks a different light. this just didn't fit me right now. notwithstanding the incredible comfort i feel when he touches me, notwithstanding the volumes of common language we share or the deep chimes in my heart that sing for this man. i feel sad for letting something go that is so beautiful. but if the dress doesn't fit, the quality of it is irrelevant.

how it doesn't fit, i think: i want to travel, emotionally. i want to explore the vistas of personality, the garden of people, the variety of sentience. this tends to result in long absences, emotionally, from 'home'. the Home within me (slowly being inhabited more and more, as i see how easily it travels) is a different matter, but the external emotional home, the people and relationships i keep... it's asking a lot from a partner; that relationship is heavy in time and energy. to be emotionally gone, for weeks at a time... it's not how most people work, and it's not how Special Friend works. and it's not something i see changing about myself anytime soon.

that said, i know i use emotional roadtrips to 'get out of homework free'. it's important that i maintain intimacy and vulnerability in my life, that i'm not just present for the good times, that my relationships are based in both joy and suffering; in the sharing of what is, and what isn't.

so i speak the mantra, and turn the page.

notes will suffice

i really enjoyed this post from poetry of flesh. she's been adventuring into what sex means for her, and pulling apart some hefty strings that pull her from the inside, but here she stops to fully lambast the critics of sexual freedom for women. i love how she can bear her naked heart in one post, fully showing all of her vulnerability, and the next moment, bring forth the conscious commentary on sex & gender hypocrisy. i have no doubt she gets painted into one corner or another by people who can't handle her being both ends of the tender/logical spectrum. fantastic.

i, myself, am far too busy to make any indepth posts about love, relationships, sexuality or even politics (politics generally don,t take indepth posts to make points, but they do still require more than just skimming all the info sources in the five minutes available to me each day before i head off on my train of activity). volunteering at this awesome festival and trying vainly to work more hours at work as well as learning the assistant job is creating a schedule requiring serious discipline. since i generally am not the "cram self full of activities" type, this is interesting. also, first time i've bicycled in a couple of years, i decide to bicycle for hours every day. wow.

trying to remember to eat well and drink water, and get sleep. these are the moments self-care is vital. next week, as i'm enjoying iron & wine, i'll remember and be thankful.

merveilleuse!

happily exhausted, home from the two-legged road journey. mountains, prairies, then further into the mountains. some of the time solo, some of the time with longtime friends. meeting new people, including myself, all along the way. soul journey, celebration of love, natural wild. very, very beautifying.

renewal and bliss experienced: deer, music, silence, shared moments, expansion, lakes, smiles and laughter. adventure. hiking, driving, train-rides, gondolas, ferries.

best kind.

follow the cat's example

i think a rejuvenation of sorts has occurred. i skipped all gatherings (except a board meeting), washed the walls, did laundry, journalled about love and abundance and read the newspaper. i talked to the practical, happy people in my life. i thought about lovely things and made a big meal. i hugged the cat.

i feel more well. a lovely friend was talking about taking her fresh new lifestyles with a grain of salt, knowing that they tend not to overcome the ingrained habits right away all at once, but also of knowing when enough was enough and she had best get up off her ass and get to it. it was a nice mixture of 'take it easy' and 'just do it'.

i still feel tired and uncertain, a little wound up. a daily practice of basking in love will probably ease out all that old tension. it's so interesting to remember how many directions i receive love from: the role of giving in love and the pleasure of reciprocity, and how all this sharing happens within me as well as outside me. intralove and interlove. treehugging, childrearing, meditation. oh my.

brilliant and beauty-filled

the grass got greener, on my side of the fence! wait, did the fence actually just come down? maybe i wandered away from the fence and toward the field over yonder. where we can't be bothered to measure how green it is.

the greenest solutions seem to pop up when i stop aiming for the highest profit. and although that sounds painfully simple (especially when applied to capitalism), it's the painfully simple things that often go unnoticed by the personal ego-on-a-rampage-for-something-better. "oh, those laws apply to my life too?"

returning from an intentional gathering this past weekend, i had a great homeward-bound conversation. we chatted about how many people attracted to the alternative lifestyle and alternative communities, whether they be blissful zippies or passionate activists, have had traumatizing or difficult pasts. who would be attracted to something different but the people the status quo is failing? i've thought about this before, but it shed new light on the increasing friction and dissension i have noticed running amuck through the communication pathways. it reinforces the need to educate myself on as many perspectives of a disagreement within the community as i can, before forming an opinion. because people tend to leave things out. and in the heat of the moment, it's hard to notice how we ourselves are contributing to the trauma/drama. but we are. oh, are we ever.

and as much as i feel concern over the disagreements, i am also impressed and excited over the growth. this weekend, i saw old wounds healing, i saw once-awkward people way more relaxed and natural, i saw those who once had a tendency to overdo it sitting serenely, having contributed their gift and now witnessing others do the same. it was incredible.

i also participated in a great workshop that actually inspired me to eat food again! who knew gorillas were vegan? and how awesome parsley is? wow. As soon as it's available in canada, i'll be purchasing this book. i feel energized and motivated to eat more raw food. who knew it was going to be easy? i love it when i feel uninspired to cook beans all day and then it turns out i don't have to.

quietly masquerading as grace

sharing is weird. i love it, need it and caress, in my heart, the situations in which it happens. but sharing also has a strange and discomforting side to it. 

today i discussed breakfast plans with k, who then wandered off to water the garden (an honourable decision, i figured). i made coffee, then toast, which i ate while browsing the business section. when k came in with herbs and started frying up some food, i surprised myself with some guilt. i guess i'd figured our plans had been forgotten.

as i was served, i got myself a fork while forgetting to get one for k. in haste, i wiped off a section of the table, strewn all over by my saturday paper. eventually, k asked me how the food was. honestly, it was tasty, but i was still thinking about 'being a good guest'. quietly, k mentioned this had been the first cooking session in a while. 

ah, the things of import. and how i miss seeing them. and love being shown, when i can get over myself long enough to appreciate it. who gives a shit about forks? they aren't the gift. 

we're learning how to share, k and i. when we hang out a lot, i notice our behaviour cycling in patterns of teasing, mock defensiveness and 'haughty judgement', followed by more teasing. 

i think we use it as means to step back from the intense emotional sharing, a method that allows us to continue sharing physical space while breaking from the mad dance of love. 

mind you, maybe i'm not seeing the reason for the teasin'. 

an aspect to our play that's soul-pleasin'.