the old-school guestbook archives
my amazon wish list... my favorite astrologer... my favorite artist... yerba mate revolution! erowid: a travel guide for interior journeys... no more war: MoveOn.org United for Peace and Justice True Majority seek the truth: Common Dreams Unamerican Activities The Nation people I adore, diaries I read: rev.raikes ariana cubiclegirl epiphany glitter333 laurakay wammo the music: the asylum street spankers backyard tire fire blue highway bill camplin wendy colonna freedom tribe joules graves guy forsyth band hamsa lila hanuman libby kirkpatrick leftover salmon pamela means medeski martin & wood the motet the nice outfit nickel creek open road rose polenzani railroad earth south austin jug band string cheese incident taarka tha musemeant the devil makes three tim o'brien band trolley wild sage keller williams yonder mountain string band |
hard travels ~ may 4, 2001 - 4:17 p.m. mmm, so, yes, I've been out of touch for a while... my apologies to those of you who work at computers all day and check in with me, hoping I'll provide a moment or two of entertainment. I know you're out there, even if you lurk in the shadows without ever once signing my guestbook. thanks for being there. it means a lot to me that there are folks out there in the universe who read my random scribbles. I spent all week up at mt. madonna, which was good, which was hard, which was healing, which was a whole lot of things. I don't know if I stayed too long or just long enough, but I think it was about right. and now I'm ready for a break. it's been an intense week. ever and I ran around in the woods when I first got up there, gathering up things to put together a natural sculpture with, a first attempt to make art together instead of separately. he came out of the woods with poison oak. I am blessed with immunity to the stuff, don't ask how I got that lucky. the first day it wasn't so bad, but by the second it had spread all over him and developed into a full-blown physical and emotional nightmare. hard memories coming to the surface, the desperate desire to claw the skin from his bones. the second night I spent holding his hands and wrestling with him to help keep him from scratching, while he moaned and cried and bit back the urge to scream. neither of us slept much. a long, long night. the next day I took him to the emeline clinic in santa cruz, where us poor folks go for medical treatment. the doctor gave him pills, suggested a skin lotion. the third night was better only because his attitude had shifted, not because the pills helped or that he was in less pain. he'd learned that yoga helped, that fighting the urge to check out of his body was, paradoxically, exactly the right thing. he was working at staying with it, learning what he needed to from his body's loud, neon-flavored messages. and I, I was working on a meltdown of my own. it's been building for a while. I can always tell when there's things I'm holding back because the world gets distant and two-dimensional, like I'm watching my life on a movie screen. it gets hard to see things. it gets harder to be open with people. and yesterday morning it just all fell apart. I'd been planning on getting up and working in the garden, wanting to give something back to the community where I've found spiritual and emotional shelter for a time. instead, I spent the morning in bed, in a fetal position, while a freight train of emotions tore through me. all the really big emotions. rage. grief. terror. especially the terror. it was a hard day for both of us, and we kept triggering each other, both of us covered in raw nerve endings. I cried a lot. I became afraid that he'd stop loving me, the way men seem to tend to after they experience the depths of the vulnerability of which I am capable. he said beautiful and reassuring things to me while I cried, and I chose to believe them. chose not to think to hard about how many men have told me those same beautiful and reassuring things shortly before packing up the light in their eyes, checking out emotionally, and heading for the door. it's just the men. I don't know why. it seems the women can handle it. the women tend to stay. to love my vulnerability as much as my strength, and to not just be saying that. but here, in this moment, I know that ever still loves me, and loves me well. and me, I still love him as much. and here, in this moment, that's enough. I love you, we say, often, several times a day even, when we're together. and we always mean it. it's been a rough week, an exhausting week. we've been completely vulnerable with each other, hurt each other's feelings, made each other angry. we've cried and shared headaches and felt each other's pain even while we were drowning in our own. we were both exhausted when I left today, both needing space and alone time, but both knowing just how strong our love for the other is. it's more than enough. it's just exactly right.
(((rings))) |