The Sensuality of Wrists

I know that many of you might disagree with me, but I will forever stand my ground on this matter. It’s my hill to die on… The most sensual part of a man is the gentle curve of his wrist.

I’ve been a wrist-gazer most of my life, and while I think little about men or romance these days, I do sometimes find myself relishing in memories of the wrists of the past. Of course, I’d say the next most sensual part of a man is the neck. I neck-gaze as well, but as we all age, and since I’m not a cougar, necks kind of diminish over time. Women’s necks do as well, unfortunately, as I think of that as the most sensual aspect of a woman.

But a man’s wrists… there’s just something about them. They’re like a neck–somewhat vulnerable to injury and somewhat delicate. Even on the most apish of men. It’s something about the bone structure there that draws me in and makes me weak in the knees. If it’s a fine wrist, I’ll always gaze further to see what my thoughts are on the hands. Are they the hands of an artist or a laborer? Neither is better than the other, but depending upon my whimsy, I might have dallied more on one or the other.

Mostly I’d say that I’ve always had a tendency to fall for guitarists, and I’d say I could point out a guitarist by his wrists and hands from across a room. They’re the most sensual. They’re wrists and hands that have recreated the vibrations and beauty of life. You can sense those hands without looking, almost.

Men wearing cuffs without the wrist exposed–well, they’re like women in burkas I guess. I don’t see them. I don’t even wonder, really. A partially-exposed wrist, though, that’s like a sexy slit-cut skirt. There’s an enticement of curiosity–a desire is immediately created to want more.

A fully naked man could stand before me, and several have in the distant past – and I’ll tell you where my eyes are. Gazing intently at his wrists.

Spring

Springtime has been tearing at my walls again, trying to blow out old stagnancy with huge gusts of wind and hailing down on expectations before erupting in sudden rainbows. Sorry. I slipped into “Johnny Depp in deposition mode” there for a moment. Expect Pinteresque pauses throughout this as I work out thoughts in a slow, meticulous manner.

I jest.

My opening thought was tied to the blossoming of friendships and how lovely that is. I’ve lived a pretty isolated life these past few years – and I know I’m not alone. I mean, much of the world has and many people globally still are. And it’s freaking hard.

I started isolating myself at least 3 years before Covid hit because I became rather stricken with social anxiety and panic attacks. I mean, I’ve felt like quite a loner most of my life despite some evidence to the contrary, but I’d never been completely stricken by panic leaving my house. I’d never experienced that kind of debilitating fear except on occasion.

And so somehow, I managed to be ok during the whole shut-downs and feel almost better because suddenly the rest of the world was plunged (albeit unfairly) into my internal psyche of fear and isolation and frustration with it all. And it bought me time. It was like an agent of the universe said, “Hey, lady. You got some serious shit to work through on yourself so here. I’ll give you two years to be isolated and walk through your own jungles – free of cost – except the rest of the world’s gonna be freaking out as well.”

And what a wilderness to have wandered through alone for years. I’m sure you’ve wandered in similar ones. It’s felt like being the roots of a tree, digging deeper and deeper into the earth to find what has brought you here and who you are and who you should be. To dig and dig to find nutrients rich enough to make you grow instead of rot.

But in all of that digging and solitude and thoughtfulness, you do begin to discover the minerals that are deep down. The nuggets of yourself that were lost along the way. The holes in your memory of good things and bad things and everything that comprises who you are. And you soak it up and it permeates throughout you. And slowly, you find your way to the surface again. To peek out. To see the sun. To find warmth.

And as you expand, the world around you is something new. It’s no longer the horrors of panic attacks in checkout lines or your insecurities or your grief. It’s a new world. A spring world. And it welcomes you.

“I’m sorry, did you say line 12 of page 53 of the deposition, sir?” Another Johnny Depp poetic rambling of my life. But an apt one.

I was going to write this post about friendships and how lovely it is to make new ones, but I guess I did.

New Gratefulness for Old Regrets

I just had one of those random epiphanies that creep up on you in life. I was watching some video about Fort Greene, Brooklyn, and it made me think of the spa and my year or so working there. And I thought how even though that period in my life was chaotic in ways, it was also the most stability I had ever experienced in New York. I enjoyed my walks to and from work, down Washington Avenue past brownstones and the little two-story building where Walt Whitman once lived, back when it was still more or less farmland. I remember wondering how the man who wrote “Leaves of Grass” could’ve lived under an overpass, but it wasn’t there quite yet, of course. And as I wandered into that rabbit hole of memories and fondness, I thought, “I wonder where I’d be now if that new manager hadn’t come in and I so impulsively quit…” I wondered if I could go back–would I? Would I still live in some random Brooklyn apartment with strangers and bartend every evening?

And no. I wouldn’t. I mean, maybe that’s out there in some alternate universe, but I do recall feeling kinda thrashed by bartending at about 31-32–just going “Oh my God are you going to become one of these haggard old women who snarl as they toss out drinks to an unruly mob at 40? At 50? But those thoughts didn’t come until a year or two later, after I’d walked out from my cushy life running the bar at the spa.

The spa was my first bartending job and I got a nice, slow introduction. I rarely had more than three customers at any given time (the bar had four stools), and although I ran my ass off on weekend brunches to wait tables for the room, it was simply lovely. An intentionally low-stress environment for people coming to undergo massages and spend time sitting in the various saunas.

There was always drama, though, unfortunately. The front desk staff was always at odds with the masseuses and everyone had issues with management in different ways. As the only bartender who worked there by then – six days a week from noon until 8 or 10, I learned about everyone’s transgressions, secret crushes, and alcoholic tendencies pretty well. And I had my own problems going on as well of course, falling into and out of love as I did in those roller-coaster days.

When the owner fired our general manager and hired a former corporate manager from the Walmart bowels of hell, it really all dissipated and I acted completely irrationally by standing them up on a busy brunch Saturday morning. I’d been interviewed like they wanted me to be a mole against the fellow employees–and they were all Russian, as I might have mentioned–so it all felt cagey and KGB-ish. And I was so frustrated. The manager had been fired, several employees had quit, and I think another couple were fired also. And I walked that mile-long walk home scowling at it all. At how they were making me feel like a traitor by asking me to tell them anything I overheard anyone saying. And I fucking quit. I didn’t tell them I’d quit. I didn’t think about what I’d fucking do for rent money. I did not fucking think. And I’ve always regretted that decision as something so impulsive and reckless that changed the trajectory of my life. But now… Well, maybe that was exactly the thing I needed to change the trajectory of my life.

I still spent another year in New York, further deteriorating into insanity and despair, but leaving the spa pushed me to work in SoHo, which eventually pushed me out completely. And I’m grateful to be out completely. I can’t imagine the past 14 years without the exploration and amazement I’ve experienced after severing the ties to dead dreams. So I’d like to send a thank you to that corporate manager that invaded the peaceful spa and sent me migrating off into a different world. You likely saved my life.

Mindless Existential Meanderings

It’s funny how our memories work. And our dreams. I just watched this 5-minute TED Talk the other day on how to know if you’re actually dreaming your entire life and I got so lost in a daydream that I didn’t hear the ending. I think it involved scientists, but I’m still not sure.

In a sense, I think we’re always dreaming. Everying we associate with “reality” is somewhat built in our minds, and our society is certainly built around some dubious conditions like enslavement and warfare that date back to the earliest civilizations.

I’m not saying we’re enslavers now in the sense that we’re pushing around ships of human beings to torture and kill them, but I mean that we’re an often heartless, cruel society that depends upon the poverty and degradation of societies in order to be called “First World Nations.”

We have some guilt stashed in the ol’ duffel bag and it’s not just about our past deeds–it’s about buying electronics or clothing made by factory workers living under slave conditions. You can’t just place the slavery across the globe, participate in it, and then condemn it, although we do every day. How much was the worker paid that made the shirt you’re wearing? You don’t know? Neither do I, but mine was made overseas and I can almost guarantee it’s far less of a living wage than most factory workers earn in this country.

I don’t think anyone can ever understand the disparity between what is “real” and what is important until we’re truly faced with a crisis–which is terrible. What animals, children, people can I fit in a car? Who can I help and who do I have to turn away because we’re full? Will I see this person tomorrow–or ever again? Will my husband die here fighting for us while we flee?

I can’t imagine the experiences of the citizens of Ukraine having their worlds ripped apart. How is this reality? Is it a dream?

Since the beginning of this war I’ve been dreaming about it. I first dreamed I was at the German/Russian border trying to get into the German side with a group of people who spoke Russian. The next morning, I awoke to make sure that Russia did not actually border Germany.

I worry that it will. I fear that Russia intends not to stop with Ukraine but dominating Europe. And, of course, chills run down my spine to even begin to wander down that dream vacuum.

So I attempt to pull myself back to reality, which I remember is completely fabricated by our childhoods, life experiences, and the billions of flashing advertisements we’ve been forced to consume since birth. And I wonder if it’s silly to feel scared. I wonder if I daydream too much to escape it all–the reality that isn’t really real. I wonder if we’ll survive as a human society.

The Loner

As it was, it shall be…

I was Alone

And out of nowhere, you find yourself lost. Standing in an open field, unable to name who you are or how you came here.

I created a false memory and now I don’t know how many of my memories are real and how many are simply dreams created by my mind to give myself some sense of peace. I don’t know what is real and what is fabricated. It’s my own mind for God’s sake and I’ve misplaced it like a set of car keys. And without it, everything is turned upside down.

How could I believe something that has no basis in reality? How did that happen? And what is wrong with me that I could believe something that just isn’t true? Is that sheer insanity?

I’ve believed for years that I was with my mother when the news of John Lennon’s death came on the television. I never saw the picture clearly–it was just a feeling mostly. That I was there. That she was crying. That I held her knees from the floor.

I don’t know where that image came from. I don’t know when my mind created it. But it’s far from true. I was in Arkansas by December of 1980. I was living with my grandparents and aunt. I don’t recall Lennon’s death except for that image of hugging my mother. That’s my only image of memory. And it isn’t real.

Did I hear of his death and associate him with my mother and create the memory then? Did I dream it? Did I dream it in my 20s and then associate it with some reality? Why was this image ever there? And now that I think of it, is anything real that I believed? Did any of those things happen? Did I create it all in my mind?

How much of my life has been imagination? How many relationships have I had in reality? How many dreams have I wandered into and out of, believing them to be true, when they weren’t?

Everything becomes a blur and I’m standing in this field alone, lost, and wondering how I got here. How did this become reality? And was there any reality before it? Have I always been standing here?

And if I’m the creator of this world–of my world–then what is true for the trillions of others who have lived on this earth? Are their realities true? Is it just me that’s lost in this abyss?

The world is trying to stop World War III from happening and everything feels hurdled into a vacuum of different realities that all feel tragic. So much devastation and so much potential for more. Can humanity really go there again? Can it go further? Will we go further? Will nuclear war become a reality? Will impoverishment and starvation and death? Will this really happen in my world? In my world that is based on a lie of a memory I made up and now realize never existed?

I was alone when John Lennon died. I was not with my mother, consoling her as she cried. I was alone with my thoughts and my imagination. I was alone when I created a fantasy-land of ghosts that talked to me and that let me talk to them about life and my questions about everything. I was alone and confused about all of it–of how I got there, alone in this field, forever wondering.

May Every Day Be Filled with Joy

SNOW!!!!

I’ve Held On

I’ve loved and lost

I’ve failed and survived

I’ve looked death in the face

Many times

And walked away

I’ve got scars

And wrinkles

And a throaty laugh

I’ve shed tears

Heaved sobs

Passed eons where

It all felt worthless

I’ve held on

I’ve held on

Because

Something

Deep inside my being

Told me it was worth it

Told me about Beauty

Told me about Hope

I’ve held on

Long enough

To listen to Myself

Happy New Year!

It is officially the last day of 2012 and despite the fact that it’s 28 degrees outside, I’m in a great mood. There are many things I could choose to complain about in the past year, but there are far more things I can be thankful for. I spent my third holiday season with Mark and Tenaya and my first with Denali. This is the second New Year we’ve been in this house, and the longest we’ve stayed in one place. Although I still have hopes for moving to Dunsmuir in the spring, it’s been nice to not have to pack up all of our earthly belongings to move yet again. Besides, I like it here. Aside from the overpriced water and the lack of grocery store options, Montague has been pretty good to me on the whole. I enjoy having a large yard for the dogs and an office and a garage with a door-opener. It feels grown-up, even if it’s just a facade of that.

I haven’t given much thought to making any New Year’s resolutions, but I guess that’s because that’s because most of the time they seem trivial. I’m far too apathetic to care whether I lose weight or not. I’d say I’d resolve to take off my bathrobe every now and then, but I know I won’t. I’d like to spend more time outdoors, but that’s a given knowing Mark anyway. Mostly, I just resolve to spend more time in the present this year. I’ve been doing that – more or less – for the past 3 years and they have been the happiest of my life, so I don’t know if I can call it a “resolution.” – Perhaps a resolution to keep doing the same thing–only better. I certainly hope to work more in the coming year–especially after the hiatus from my “regular” freelance job. I also hope to keep expanding my horizons for other work so that I’m not solely reliant on that job and left in the lurch when it disappears sporadically. None of these things seems impossible to accomplish. I end 2012 feeling hopeful, grateful, and happy. I hope that 2013 brings happiness and peace to you as well. Until we meet again…

Happy New Year!

The Meaning of Christmas

I’ve spent a lot of Christmases alone and many of them too poor to buy gifts to send home to family. While living and going to school in Louisiana and New Jersey, and the years beyond of struggling in New York, I would venture to say that only 1/2 of the time was I able to go home for Christmas. Usually, that didn’t bother me much. I was studying theater and quite often I’d have rehearsals for some play that would impede holiday travel. In that sense, being “alone” was not alone at all. I enjoyed each and every “theater family” I became a part of. At Rutgers, we’d often have Christmas or Thanksgiving in a communal effort for whatever students were trapped in town without family. In Louisiana, I often went to a friend’s home and ate boudin stuffing and oyster gravy–things MY family had never heard of and would never ever attempt to make.

I’ll never forget one Christmas that I spent alone as one of the most meaningful times of my life. It was 1998 or 1999, and I was sad and lonely and had just been through a wreck of a breakup. I was living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana–so there was of course no snow. I was working at a hotel at the time and I felt even lonelier there–not many people stayed at a highway hotel that catered to businesses during the holidays. When I got off work at 11:00, I considered going to the local bar to pass my time, but I convinced myself otherwise. Something about dive bars on Christmas is… well. When you’re with friends, they are awesome; when you are alone, they are a little too much like living in a Tom Waits song–even for me. Instead, I went home and sat up all night reading Joseph Campbell’s The Power of Myth. I sat up all night, fascinated. My loneliness had worn off around 2 a.m., but I didn’t want to stop reading. The next morning, on Christmas day, I called my grandmother in Arkansas and told her, “I think I might have found God.”

I don’t think I meant that in a sense that most people do when they say it. To me, “finding God” meant finding an abstracted idea of a higher power that permeates the human existence. It didn’t mean getting baptised by “Brother Jerry” at the Second Baptist Church. It didn’t have anything to do with church, in fact. Or with the Christian depiction of God. It meant finding something inside myself that felt good–something that seemed buried under the ashes like a phoenix. It also meant hope.

Many years and many Christmases–and many mistakes, no less–have passed since that revelation, but I always think of it on Christmas. The one time I was completely alone and yet I was completely happy. I wish I’d been able to hold onto that feeling in the following days and years, when I’d fall into relationships that were unnecessary and unwanted–just to be close to someone else. I wish I could have kept that sense of being “good enough” instead of coursing my way across the country many times in attempts to be just that. But I guess what I learned the most that Christmas has stayed with me in many ways.

This year, Christmas is again a poor one. In fact, it’s the poorest Christmas I’ve had since moving to California 3 years ago. That’s largely in part to my freelance work drying up completely a month before Christmas and Mark’s usual work also disappearing. It’s been a rough month in general, financially, and we’ve barely made it through paying bills and rent without having to take out bank loans to do it. I’ve felt stressed out and saddened that I couldn’t buy Mark something for Christmas–or the dogs–or my family back in Arkansas. But I’ve accepted it. Instead of “flipping out” or going crazy about it all, I’ve kept calm this year. I’ve kept hold of my inner strength and of an inexplicable hope that things will turn out okay.

I’m thankful that I have, because things have turned out okay. We made our bills without any loans, and my work should start picking up after the new year. I’ve made it halfway through another cold and destitute winter.

I realized this morning, though, that I’m not so poor after all. That Christmas that meant so much to me with Joseph Campbell’s book was important because it made me realize that I had myself to rely on. I had myself as a friend. And moreover, I didn’t hate myself as much as I’d done in the past. This year, I’m far from alone, even if I live in a remote location. I don’t have Christmas gifts to give to Mark and Denali and Tenaya–but I have them by my side. Tenaya is losing the ability to walk these days from hip dysplasia, and  for a while there I worried that she might not make it ’til Christmas. I’m so glad she did. I’m glad that she’s happy with ground hamburger as her Christmas treat instead of the big bone I’d have gotten her.

I’m also glad that we got Denali last year–just a week after Christmas. His presence has made my world a completely different experience. Being a mom to a Persian cat for 15 years did not prepare me for being a mom to a wolfdog puppy–in the least. I remember last year on January 3rd, the day we got the little round yellow ball of fur, cursing my life as I scrubbed vomit from the carpet in every corner of my office at 4 a.m. I remember sitting in the garage at different times, bawling my eyes out, because I “just couldn’t take it anymore.” I couldn’t handle the yapping, the neediness, the biting, and the general terror that Denali spread about his reign as a wee puppy. Now I look at this 90-lb. dog, and I laugh thinking about it. He’s still a complete mess–but he’s my mess. And he’s also my baby.

This year, like those others when I was less-than-fortunate, Christmas means a lot to me. More than it has on Christmases where presents were passed and big feasts eaten. Because of the lack of those things, I appreciate the people–and the dear souls–that surround me. I’m glad that I’m not alone on Christmas, reading a Joseph Campbell book–but I also know now that if I were, it would still be meaningful. Spending Christmas with my little unconventional family means more to me than any gifts that money could ever buy. I know that’s cliché, but as one who stands here and has lived it–I can say that clichés are often true. True meaning is a lot easier to find when you don’t have to dig through wrapping paper to get to it.

Merry Christmas. May your inner darkness find hope in the corners where hope hides, and may you hold on long enough to that hope until you finally find the love that you seek.

No Answers

I’ve spent the past few days, as I’m sure many people have, in an introspective and desperately saddened mode. Just like them, I wonder what it is in our society that creates monsters who kill masses innocent of anything other than the breath they breathe. I’ve questioned the gun issue and the mental health issue and the everything issue. I’ve grown both weary and wary of looking at the internet and at facebook. All I see is Babylon. Crime and violence have won–they have made us all hate and blame one another in the justification of easing our own souls.

I can’t take a stand on the gun issue because I believe that people who are going to do massive damage to innocents are going to find a way. Sure, gun restrictions will help in many cases, but they aren’t a solution. Neither is blaming mental illness or autism or Asberger syndrome.

The answers aren’t that simple. Regulating guns will make some people feel safer, but I’m not so sure that it’s any real solution. Taking aim at mental illness is only sure to make that many more people feel isolated, afraid, and disconnected from the world. I say this because I know.

As someone who was diagnosed with the all-too-taboo “borderline personality disorder” by a psychologist who treated me for years, I feel personally affronted when people mention “personality disorder” in relation to any major tragedy. But, I won’t claim that behavioral disorders or mental disorders aren’t a catalyst in current tragedies and those of the past. Just like autistics and so-called “normal people,” there is a chance that one of those who exist within your “social category” are going to go nuts and do some awful thing.

I understand why people want to label and to place blame–they can’t handle it. Neither can I, really. It’s awful. It’s terrible. Why would someone kill children?

And I guess the only people I can think who would understand the most are those who lived through World War II. In the aftermath of that awful slaughter, I think most people in the world wondered how something so awful could have come to be. How they could have witnessed it. How they could have let it exist. How could anyone?

Today, I think that we suffer from the same guilt–the feeling of “Why? What did I do that facilitated this awful thing?” And that makes most people angry–because they didn’t do anything personally to facilitate to this disaster. And because they can’t do anything to “make it go away.”

I want there to be an answer out there, but I don’t think it exists. I want us to be a more loving, more accepting, more embracing culture than we are–or likely than we’ll become. Now I feel the saddest watching friends and friends alike burn torches and crumble bridges based on their own instinctive need to fix the problem. I’m not even sure there is a solution.

Part of it, though, if there is indeed an answer to the violence and the sadness of today’s world is to be present. To really be there for those people that you love. To listen to them and to really care about what they are saying.

I, like anyone, fashion myself as a “present” individual–but the truth is that 8 times out of 10 I’m lost in my own universe. Denali points it out the best when he insists that I go and watch him “rock surf” on the back patio. I try and I try to avoid going out–especially now in the cold–and yet, he will just stand at the back door sulking unless I go out there and actually watch him. If I’m in the audience, he’ll surf for hours. As soon as I leave, he has no one to impress.

And he’s right. Because the rest of the time, I’m writing on my computer and I’m not paying attention. I “feel” like I am, but I’m not. And half the time I listen to Mark go on about car parts or camping adventures, I tune out and play solitaire in my head. I mean, what kind of asshole plays solitaire in their head? I do…

And I’m sorry for it. Because the biggest thing that I’ve realized in the past few days is just how “vacant” I can be when it comes to others. Some of that–like living in the middle of nowhere–is my choice and my right. Other times, it’s being neglectful.

I’ve felt for a large portion of my life that life itself can be taken from you at any random moment. I learned that lesson from almost dying in a car accident long ago, and it has taught me to follow my heart, more than anything else. My heart has been chaotic and has taken me to many places–none of them do I regret, although many weren’t exactly for me.

My life now seems to be ideal, in a quiet place surrounded by mountains, and with a goofy wolfdog constantly at my side. My life today is a little more present than it was yesterday. My life today is blessed. Not because I’m safe and sound–but because I’ve lived a life filled with wonderful people. I’ve learned to balance mood swings and distrust of others. I’ve fallen in love in a chicken shed – and before, in other odd places. I’ve come to appreciate everything that exists in my life because I’ve had people help me along the way.

Listen to each other. Even your pets. Play with them. Enjoy your life with them. Love each and every moment you have. No matter what you do, you cannot predict tragedy. So instead, take all of those moments that you take for granted, and relish them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR4PAhzMVls&list=UUvo00qAfkGRiCYEKBr1f_iw&index=8