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I saw a pod of wild dolphins off the condo balcony this morning and my heart did that leaping and pounding thing she does when she gets excited.

I was torn between just watching and trying to capture the moment on my phone camera, which is notoriously not great at capturing moments, selfies and cute outfits…yes, big life moments, no.

I took a short video with my hands shaking, then I just stared in wonder.

4^th year here and I have never seen this. Tiny miracles.

A John Mayer song popped into my head 3X5, “Didn’t have a camera by my side this time, wanted to see the world through both my eyes.” So I did.

I left my good camera at home. On purpose. No regrets. I have taken the same shots of the same migratory pair of osprey for almost 4 years running. Of course one flew over the balcony at close range yesterday and all I could thing was ‘you fucker’.

I haven’t been up early enough to catch the sunrise, yet, and the full moon shining off the water was a sight to behold, but we all know what moon photos look like with mediocre lenses. Not great, like a light in the sky.

That being said I did get a cool shot with my phone wherein the moon had wings.

“All of us with wings.” Jane’s Addiction.

Giant had wings, but he is gone.

But this is about none of that.

You see dear readers, I am in Facebook jail. 23 hours left and counting. The first 48 were a bitch.

I feel naked and strange. Neutered and muted. Like I am wandering the halls of a high school I no longer go to and I can’t tell anyone why I am there.

My ban is due to an article I wrote 18 months ago and have probably reposted 18 times. Wherein I pontificate about wanting a gang bang.

In the days that have passed since my hand was cut off, I have taken to Instagram. I’ve realized yes, I am addicted to social media. I miss my people. Someone is having surgery and I cannot wish her luck. Girls have gone missing from my old town and I cannot post a warning. This fucking sucks.

And I saw dolphins.

Now, a few things have become clear.

My sexuality is a threat to some. I kinda knew that already. I am an articulate, out spoken stripper, not everyone’s cup of tea, I get that. So just look away of you don’t like it. No one asked you to walk into the strip club, or my head for that matter.

I have also accepted the fact that some people cannot just scroll on by when they don’t like something, ESPECIALLY if they have an opinion about it.

THERE IS NO OUR LADY OF LUST AND GRACE. I am mocking the catholic church, get a fucking clue.

People leave my page like rats on a sinking ship often. If I get to crass, too political, too sexy or too muchy much. Happens to all of us page runners at one time or another.

In speaking to another page runner she suggested I change the title, which I probably will if I can. And the picture has to go, I figured that already. But she said something else that struck me and fuck it HURT.

She said

I think some women equate a gang bang with rape. It is a stereotype from old movies in the 70’s. Many women are damaged and abused sexually and we have just hit the tip of the iceberg. They’re angry and it is now erupting. So it’s a hot topic. Women will start attacking each other and pointing fingers at each other. That is what they have been trained to do. There needs to be a revolution of women taking their power back and standing together.

The line in italics knocked me on my ass.

I grew up like that. I felt very little danger from men, but the women were poison.

We HAVE been trained to fight and compete with one another. There ARE women who like things the way they are, who think sexual harassment is the price we must pay for existing and the idea that it’s wrong wold mean they would have to first admit, then deal with how they have been treated and that is a much too big a burden to bear.

I’ve gotten to that point in my own evolution that I sometimes forget, some people don’t want change, and it’s not just the men who are afraid, (And they fucking should be) it’s the women too.

“Better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.”

― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale

Whether that worse is a reality or not is their own perception. Case and point the Handmaid’s Tale. Women accepted and participated in the slavery of other women. Because, in my opinion, they felt they needed men to keep them safe.

I have felt that way. Luckily I am surrounded by a group of incredible men that I have chosen because of who they are and how they treat me, and if protection is needed I have it. I tend to these friendships and relationships like some would tend to a rose garden, with diligence and care.

I also can get laid whenever I please, which is a good thing because I do so love sex.

But not with ALL men though.

See what I did there.

I think therein lies another problem. Some men can’t seem to grasp the idea that it’s my body and I get to choose who I want in it. It is possible that some men fuck more indiscriminately than I and with ego comes ‘I want what I want so it must be the norm.’

Sorry honey. It ain’t.

For no other reason than my own, I am thinking that a gang bang is not in my future.

Maybe two good boys.

But again…it’s my body, my blog, my business.

Two things happened, as they often do.

I was sitting on the balcony (we no longer have what I would call a porch) and I looked up, I smiled a hello to MamaMoon and went inside.

When I came back out she was shining bright in her half-moon state, illuminating the clouds in a fairy ring. The kind that denotes sexy times ahead, not a storm comin’.

Although I suppose it’s gonna get wet either way.

And suddenly, after a bout of the sads, I kinda wanted sexy time.

I jerked off a couple of times, for the first time since before we moved. So unlike me. But my heart and my vagina have a covenant, and we miss the Last One something fierce, still do.

I found creature comfort with the Giant and honestly, that was enough to keep me sated for a bit. Just something familiar, now with extra lightning.

The second thing that happened is the one I called “Coach” posted and Instagram video of his new fuckboy haircut. He called it that, not I. But if the fuckboy moniker and lovely fade fits, wear it.

I messaged a compliment and voila. It’s a date. Except it isn’t a date. It’s a bootycall and we both know it.

Observe

Me: Are we going to eat and watch a movie or should I just be naked when you get here?

Him: Whatever you want babe

(well played sweetness)

Me: Honestly I just want to get laid and cuddle before I go away

Him: Okay beauty, let’s just fuck a couple times

Me: Hope that doesn’t sound like I am using you
I mean I am, but I don’t want it to sound like that.

Him: lol. We’re on the same page

And we are. We both keep trying to date and we both keep coming up empty.

Then he gets a haircut on a day I feel like getting laid and ta da. Definitely same page.

It’s a really good haircut.

I answered the door in panties and stockings, we did not pass go, he did not say hi to my roommate, we just went straight to bed.

Fuck. Spoon. Leave.

He has earned himself a new nickname. Once upon a time he would have been Bad Fuck, but that was taken years ago, by a guy who ended up being a crack dealer. Not a good time in my life, I was at my lowest. I didn’t stay long, but ya…he was a bad fuck, like the worst. I make better choices now.

He was also formerly known as Coach, but it didn’t really suit him even though that is what he is. We were internet ‘friends’ for a year prior, bitching and moaning and asking questions about the other’s gender as in “why in god’s name did he or she do that?”

He asked me out gently for the bulk of that year, I always declined as he was affiliated with someone else I had been with, and again, he is young, like 22 young (Lord where do you keep finding them and why do you keep sending them to me). But you knew all this, then we had a perfect date, and a week later had pretty shitty sex. Months passed, we discussed the elephant in the room and here we are.

His new nickname is Big Spoon. He earned it. Right after, and I mean immediately after, he pulls me close and holds onto me. It is the sweetest fucking thing. And strange, he is also, for all intents and purposes and asshole jock/jerk. We bicker, I would never speak to him of magical things, just the weather and whether or not he likes that thing I do with my tongue, and he does.

Almost too much

Oh Big Spoon, you little shit.

I heard that hope in your voice when you mentioned not bringing condoms.

I was hovering over him, about 3 inches or so, close enough to feel his body heat radiating towards mine. Biting, teasing and throbbing if I am going to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me, “god have you been working out?’

The ‘allergy’ to latex seems to have died out with the last generation, these young un’s don’t try that shit, or I am just picking better young un’s.

He didn’t want raw, no no, not that. He wanted me to keep blowing him. Who wouldn’t? I have a talented tongue and no gag reflex.

Poor dear has come up wanting every time his cock ends up in a girls’ mouth.

He thought if he ‘forgot’ to bring condoms, my accommodating personality and mouth would just get him off out of…pity, obligation? Dunno.

No

I will blow you again, after I eat.

Always do. He knows this.

So I reached into my bedside table and grabbed a condom.

I learned a million years ago, bring your own.

He fed me.

“You spoil me” he said, right after, as he was holding onto me like the grail.

I know he meant it as a compliment but it torn through me like a knife. Echoes of that Swain boy.

I dug my fingers into him, trying to keep my grip on this reality and just stay in it for a minute.

I had to take a deep breath, I know my voice waivered a little, he kissed my forehead and I said…

“I worry about that. Sleeping with men half my age and then letting them back out into the mediocre world. I know what it’s like to have the best piece of cake you are ever going to eat when you’re young and the yearning that comes with it. But I want you to remain optimistic. If I exist, and I do, there must be others.”

Find the others.

I was soothing him and myself at the same time.

He is not lightning sex, he is not magic in any way.

But he is really good food, and I am full. Ani Difranco

It is a little early for a retrospective, but I don’t care. Nostalgia hit me like a freight train today and I let it.

Hold onto nothing
As fast as you can
Well still pretty good year

Maybe a bright sandy beach
Is going to bring you back
May not so now you’re off
You’re gonna see America

Tori Amos ~ Pretty Good Year

I do hold onto nothing. Scraps, memories, t shirts in Ziplocs, screenshots and echoes.

But I am getting better at letting go. Better than nothing is still something.

I am on my way back to the ocean, but far enough south that I can touch it without freezing.

I am going to see America, the Motherland. It’s on fire and I don’t even care, I just want to be warm again.

I need in the water. I have to remember how to float. Been sinking for a week now. Longer really.

I have been sleeping under the blanket we took to the beach and quarry  all summer.

One would think this would be a good thing. That it somehow absorbed the sunshine and happiness I experienced this year.

But in this new house, this new room, in my old bed. I can’t sleep right. Something isn’t right.

Stumbled on an old post I wrote last year. Random suggestion, of course I peeked. I always do. These are my archives after all. My pushpins on a map to show me I have been here.

https://www.ourladyoflustandgrace.com/sleeping-sickness.html

It’s been a year right about now. My new bedroom looks an awful lot like this picture I randomly pulled off the internet to go with this thing I wrote, and now I am thinking about how much has changed in a year.

A fucking lot.

Still miss this one, hope he is well wherever he is.
He was a good boy. My Moonface, my Black 19.

It’s been 12ish months since we met and 10 since he left, give or take.

He was 19 years old and he lied about it, by the time he did tell me the truth, I pretended to be offended but really, I didn’t mind. I am beginning to actually believe age doesn’t matter and everyone who comes into our lives is supposed to be there, in whatever way for as long as they stay.

Ya, I fucked a 19 year old. Aaaaaaand I kept doing it after I found out. The lineup for the lynch mob is over there, plenty of pitchforks and torches for all. Or you could just let me be happy, in these little stolen moments where I am.

That ain’t even the worst of it.

I was still ‘with’ Lumberjack at the time. But I was starting to atrophy from the lack of actually seeing him. As far as I can tell he and his actual girlfriend had a lovely Christmas together, when he wasn’t sending me selfies and dirty memes/messages from the basement he was posing in front of the tree with her while I was begging to see him for 5 minutes before I left.

He didn’t acquiesce to my request and I left him when I got home.

Then he came back and was nice for a time.

Until it turned back into the thing it never stopped being and I left again.

Then I dated a boy, like a real boy/boyfriend. That was nice too, until it wasn’t.

Had to stop myself from calling him just to get laid last night. I am hungry. But that dog is sleeping and I must let it lie.

I am packing for Florida on the heels of just unpacking from Newfoundland. I feel better with this suitcase at the end of my bed. Packed my favorite things, all of them almost. And I realized, I can do without almost everything I own. I could, in reality pack a couple big suitcases and be happy where I land.

I did a righteous purge of everything I had been carrying since the farm. I sent the poet’s ‘gifts’ to a witch and she burned them and buried the ashes by a stream, I can feel that flowing away from me with every minute, every drop of rain. Away away away.

I have visited islands and realized how good I feel completely surrounded by water.

Must get back to the water.

This trip, this pilgrimage to the ocean I have done almost 5 years running is early this year, and honestly, my brain doesn’t have a clue as to what time it is or where we are or what in the actual fuck is happening. I am scattered right now, but this weather and countdown to ocean has me reminiscing about last year something fierce.

Not this fall but the one before I was dealing with chronic, cystic ingrown hairs on my most holiest of holies. I had been burnt and scarred by a woman during a routine wax. I was gunning to get stateside where this magical cream was supposed to fix me, but it didn’t. Spent 500 bucks on varying creams and medications, specialist appointments and nothing really worked.

I think that is why I stayed in the nothing of Lumberjack. I felt like a monster. He always fucked me in the dark. I didn’t want to present my fucked up self to anyone new. Lest I be judged.

It has been a calendar year since the worst of it and I am better now, still have 2 scars to remind me wax is bad.

And the only real cure was time.

It always is. Everything spirals in and out, wounds heal and eventually everything is alright.

I can tell you that things changed after the eclipse.

I reunited with the Giant, fell in love with someone that wasn’t him but was kindred, same kind. And I now know that lightning can strike in the same place twice.

It’s been a calendar year since I heard the Lumineers Angela, and my ears have finally began to hear it the way it was meant to be Home at last, not Hope it lasts.

It’s been a calendar year since I said to Moonface/Black 19 “I promise to come back from the ocean happy” and a year less a day since I decided I could just decide to be happy on my own, without waiting.

I am waiting though.

I don’t know what’s coming. This year has been a lot of coasting, maddening build, mediocre lovers, let downs. I think every year is.

But this year I had cosmic love.

Vacancy, hotel room, lost in me, lost in you
Angela, on my knees, I belong, I believe

Home at last

Still, pretty good year.

I am in Facebook jail.

For 5 more days and 20 more hours.

But what happens if I have a cute outfit, or I hear a song lyric that must be shared, or like yesterday I was eating a mediocre chicken sandwich and they were playing old batman episodes and I found it odd.

I laughed at the absurdity that anything that happens to me matters enough that it just has to be posted.

There will be a 7 day gap in my memory.

Doesn’t really matter.

I am a broken record girl. This boy did a thing and I am sad. Recipes for things I will never cook and other peoples words, peppered with my own.

I was put here by some woman or man who thought that me owning my own sexuality by admitting anecdotally that given the right circumstances with the right men, I would like to have a gang bang.

Happy, Fun, Consensual, Sexy Time with a few Partners

There is no violence here. No nudity. Just a banned perfume ad, or maybe it was jeans.

The idea of being touched by many hands, filled by many men appealed to me.

Had they read the caveat I don’t know if that is what I want anymore, but I posted it because someone else might.

I already know I am not the only one. A rousing chorus of the good kind of ‘me too’ followed every time I posted said article. 338 shares. I am not alone. 40 positive comments, and 2 negative. The ayes have it.

But that report button, so appealing to those who have their opinions and nothing else of substance.

I wonder what happened in their lives that this offended them so deeply, that they felt the need to shut me up.

Then I realize, they didn’t read the article. And that some people are dumb enough to still believe after 3 years, there really is an incarnation of Mary called Lust and Grace.

I suppose I am. We are all incarnates of Eve, or one of the Mary’s. Lilith maybe if you dig deep enough. The bible laid out stereotypes and enforced them by force until we swallowed them and the good Mary’s held the Mary Magdalenes down just like the men.

The goodwives screaming witch in Salem because they didn’t like the curve of her lip or her skin or her smile? What did any woman have to smile about back then unless it was a gentle man. So they cried witch and even as their sisters burned, they weren’t happy.

I think that is what it is.

I expressed my wantonness, to all eyes and ears I appear to be free.
And I am.
I went from thinking, believing and participating in relationships I thought were necessary, that I had no value outside of a man that single mother was the worst thing you could be. To realizing no, the wrong relationship is a lie, and the worst. So I shook my keys and stayed out of jail. The idea of permanence a prison.

And now I don’t know.

I don’t know because I am comfortable in not knowing. It is the only way to learn.

I have kissed mouths that tasted like home and found them sweet. Maybe just a summer home, but home nonetheless.

And maybe this woman who sought to silence me only did so because she saw my grass is greener. Because it is, I planted it myself surrounding this home I built myself. No words like divorce or separation can take it from me. But only because they already have and I chose not to return to any land where anything can be taken from me. I have already lost everything so many times. I paid for this.

And maybe my grass is greener because sometimes I just let it grow wild, because I can, because it should and because I don’t care what the neighbors think.

But it took a long life of living in fear of the neighbors to get here.

And here is alright. Here I am mine.

I wonder if she knows that some days I envy her. Not enough to block or report her for living a life I can only assume resembles oatmeal, bland, yet full of iron and filling.

That some days I do wish a man would come along and open that jar, or cut the lawn, or fix the showerhead, because as strong as I am, it still leaks.

I have a son for that, I know. I raised him strong, stronger than I was. It’s just a matter of remembering when he visits, and I don’t. We have more important things to discuss.

And speaking of, I wonder if this woman who reported me realizes how often I discuss things on Facebook, how it is my mainline of communication with the outside world and by removing it, when my cell network went down, I couldn’t speak to anyone.

I am a ghost haunting Facebook. One would think I could just walk away and find other things to do, I have other things to do. But I find myself just scrolling, wanting to hit like and I cannot.

Inbox full of messages I cannot answer.

And I wonder if she realizes, even me, the girl who writes about gang bangs, is painfully shy. Scared of people, hates leaving the house and this is all I’ve got.

The report option is almost easier than the like button.

Everyone has an opinion, and I am no better.

I am assuming here that it was a woman, but there was a man who was vocal about his dislike of my post.

Probably because I wouldn’t let him come to my gang bang.

What is an 11:11 wish worth if I don’t know if what I’m wishing for is even in the same time zone as I am.
The same country, continent, planet or even universe as this body of mine.
I know there’s other worlds. I’ve seen them and felt them and this body I have in this place and time that I am knows they exist so I’m drawn to others who are with me in other worlds.
But not this one.
I’m out of place and time and I cannot begin to find the words to describe how lonely it is on this ball of dirt spinning around this sun.
Maybe somewhere I’m happy.
But not here and not now.
Not yet.

The Last One hurt.
Shredded
Bruised
Maimed
Whatever words I use don’t matter so much as how I felt
Loss
And
Lost
But then
I was found
And for a brief moment in time
Everything made sense.

Maybe I had to be all those big words for hurt because everything was simple as soon as we kissed.
And I was soothed.
Calm.
The juxtaposition of how I felt before, then after, making the after…better.

Maybe I’m just a writer
Addicted to words
Saying prolific when a lot will do
Crying evisceration when it’s just a flesh wound
Seeking out magic just to have something to say
Spelling out abracadabras after the fact instead of manifesting my own destiny
But I tell you right now.
I’d burn all the old words and worlds.
Give up all my scars and stories told in their raising on my skin.
Erase everything.
Just be happy with words like content good more please yes this. HIM

But for now, every shower is a betrayal washing away what’s left of your touch from my skin.

I don’t want to.

I don’t want to do sweet fuck all, except sleep so I can dream maybe.

I don’t want to get dressed I have nowhere to go, nowhere I want to be anyways.

I don’t want to be apart, see above where my atoms are missing you.

I don’t want to eat because that is an earthly thing and I don’t want to be here.

And when they buried me, they put these coins over my eyes, and I used them as bus fare to get back to Earth, just so I can look for you. That’s why sometimes, when we hold hands, ever so often, I tend to hold on a little too tight, and I’m sorry. I just don’t want to lose you again. Rudy Franscisco

I want so badly to be able to write like that. To express myself that way.

But I steal and quote other people’s words to match the moments and movements in my life.

I wanted so badly to just leave it as it was. Just one miraculous day. Keep ego out of it. Be grateful for it. Faith restored and all that. But even as I’m typing this. Those words make me cry. The idea of letting it all go. I try so hard to be graceful and grateful. To let them go and it’s always been the right thing to do. Young in the first is marrying his girl. Hulk is as happy as he can be. Giant found another Becky and her hair is glorious. Like a golden halo.

I don’t want to let go. I was worried about sullying things. The first fart. The first fight. Being human in front of each other. But I want that. It’s not enough to be perfect for a day. I want more. I never let myself want.

I’ve had dreams lately.
Vivid ones.
In one I was with two boys.
I was stealing kisses from one.
After some adventuring we all ended up in a hotel.
It was a magic place and I knew it.
There was a portal and they all went through.
I couldn’t get there.
The bellman saw me sitting alone in the lobby and told me I had to let go of something.
I woke up.
A few days later I met the boy. And his bestie. Stole kisses. Ended up in a real hotel room after an adventure and it wasn’t like anything I’ve ever experienced before. It was a portal to somewhere mystical and magical because I let myself let go.

My head says he’s 22.
My heart says shake him and tell him this is the best there is It doesn’t get better. To give it a shot. Worst case we will live in bliss for a while and he’ll still be young when it’s done.
But…
(there is always a but…)
This goes against everything that I believe and how I live. I want free will for them. I don’t covet. I just experience and hope.
Add that to the dream and…
I’m lost again
He’s in the woods right now.
I’m waiting to see what he says when he comes out.

The answer is nothing.

I have been home for a week. Feels like whatever it is between us weakens with time and distance. The opposite of that movie we watched where they were made in pairs and their gift was to find their ‘other’ and stop being magic. I was stronger with him, I am weakened without.

The withdrawal is almost unbearable. I feel hollow.

I don’t know how he feels.

Drunk words are sober thoughts.

He got drunk a week ago, went to the place we met, called me from the stairs to tell me he was coming for me.

Took it back the next day.

I understand, I do.

I always understand. I never take and rarely let myself want. Never interfere. Do no harm.

Sara says loving me is not a punishment.

I have to swallow that, want what I want.

I want to try for once instead of waiting for the next life.

I took a little journey to the unknown,
And I come back changed. I can feel it in my bones.
I fucked with forces that our eyes can’t see.
Now the darkness got a hold on me.
Oh, the darkness got a hold on me.

How long, baby, have I been away?
Oh, it feels like ages though you say it’s only days.
There ain’t language for the things I’ve seen.
And the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams.
The truth is stranger than all my dreams.
Oh, the darkness got a hold on me.

I have seen what the darkness does.
Say goodbye to who I was.
I ain’t never been away so long.
Don’t look back them days are gone.
Follow me into the endless night.
I can bring your fears to life.
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
Meet me in the woods tonight.

The truth is stranger than my own worst dreams.
Now the darkness got a hold on me.

I have seen what the darkness does.
Say goodbye to who I was.
I ain’t never been away so long.
Don’t look back them days are gone.
Follow me into the endless night.
I can bring your fears to life.
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
Meet me in the woods tonight.

Lords of Huron

The compulsion is back.

It never really left.

Panda has gifted me with some time alone and this new chair I have for my desk is not comfortable.
I have to get up and drag my sad ass to the couch.
I have to buy a new chair.
Also I am sick of looking at my clothes.

I have been home for days and the remnants of my trip, the unpacking, has yet to leave my bed. Chipping away, slowly.

I am on auto pilot.

I have written probably 6000 words in the last few days. I cannot stop, I don’t really want to.

I met a boy.

When my ears heard Swain, my mind said Wate.

A quiet bell of recognition rang out. Took me a few days to place it.

Ethan Wate: There’s no way that what Lena and I feel for each other is going to turn into something wrong and evil. There’s no way.

Macon Ravenwood: As long as I live I will never understand you creatures. You have no real power, you live at the mercy of forces outside of your control and yet you believe that what you feel, will somehow make it alright.

There it is.

Anyone following up until this point knows I have a rather embarrassing and prolific love for supernatural teen romance. Warm Bodies, City of Bones and ya the evil that is Twilight.
But in reality, I simply have a fondness for movies wherein they figure it out at the very end.
Garden State, Silver Linings Playbook and Notebook come to mind.
They wait, they miscommunicate and then suddenly everything is okay.

Wait.

Wate.

I watch these movies. 90 or so minutes for one moment. The end.

I have a few that top the rest. Where lightning strikes at the end and after a maddening build the promise of happily ever after begins and the credits roll.

If you haven’t seen Beautiful Creatures and you want to, now is the time to stop reading. There are 400 other posts in here without spoilers, read them instead.

It’s a star-crossed love story, aren’t they all?

I mentioned it to him when we were lying in bed. “There was a boy and there was a witch”. I didn’t say any more than that, one of us smiled and the other came in for a kiss. We must have kissed a thousand times in one day.

I watch these movies that I have seen one hundred times before and I know the moment is coming. I feel the build, my synapsis stand at attention, my mouth curls up or down depending. It’s like a rush really. Funny how I can see something over and over and it still elicits the same response, the same rush of emotions. I am addicted to feeling things. With the ones I mentioned before, it is almost always at the end. But in Beautiful Creatures there are two such moments.

In the middle when everything is a mess and they have been forced apart, he comes. Breaks through a barrier meant to keep them separate delivering an eloquent speech about everything he has been through to get to her and poof, blockade gone. It satisfies me. I like the idea of someone trying instead of giving up. As he holds her, a witness says “It’s not us who protect her now. It’s the boy.”

Thunderpunch to the heart.

I want to feel that safe, that wanted.

And for a while, everything is alright. Until it isn’t. Wouldn’t be a very watchable movie without some kind of conflict now would it?

A curse has to be broken.

She makes him forget everything about them, to keep him safe.

“There are many ways a person can die.”

“We don’t have words for all there is.”

And in the end, when he has been forced to forget her, he breaks through a spell again and remembers.
Calls her name and she hears him.

My chest is forced to expand and my heart just grows you know?

Ethan Wate: Most people spend their entire lives waiting for a moment that’s gonna change everything. It never happens.

I disagree.

It happened.

Now I am in the vexing part where I don’t know what to do or what is going to happen next. I haven’t seen this movie before because, despite all the beauty and the moments and the damn fine dialog, this isn’t some neat and tidy thing that gets wrapped up in a satisfying bow after 90 minutes. This is my life.

Amma: Close your eyes, say with your mind what you’re looking for as if you’ve already found it.

Ironically I only go dark when I am shut out.

The Last One smiled and I saw a future in it.

The one who might have seen my future and knew I had things to do that didn’t involve him.

He who went dark and I can’t say his name because he won’t hear me anyways.

He is no longer listening. Even though my voice soothed him too.

It soothes them all.

I have seen various versions of varying futures.

No often. I usually know they are not mine to keep. Just to enjoy.

But those rare times I do see something that looks like staying, when they go, it about kills me.

I’ve found rib cages I wanted to crawl into and call home because their heartbeat was music I always wanted to listen to. Because I felt safe behind the bars of those particular cages made of flesh and bone, not trapped at all, just safe as houses.

Three times I wanted to go home, and stay there.

3 times I saw a smile with my future in it and 3 times I have been denied.

Each one a little more magic than the last.

“She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you young, so you’ll know loss the rest of your life.”
― Junot Díaz

Two of them were young. One exceptionally so. And I am turning over in my mind this bit of grit, polishing it until it becomes pearl. So what if he is young? He isn’t forever but he could have stayed a while and still been young when it was done. And yes, it would have hurt less later.

That hardly seems fair when it pains us both. I love them, I don’t want to be the thing they miss in the night when they roll over next to whatever girl didn’t scare them.

“The Uses Of Sorrow

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver, Thirst

I have been turning this over in my mind too, trying to interpret, understand, glean what I can and I think I am the box of darkness. When my light goes out. When they shut me out.

I am a gift. I prove what is possible. Then they wander off and try to find pieces of me in another. But they come up wanting, and look for me again and again.

I have to remember/process/understand/believe this new thing I have just been told…
“It is not a punishment to love me or be loved by me.”

I think I have stumbled upon some answers on this third time of getting so close to the sun, melting and then plummeting back to earth, all feathers and wax and failure.

My heart is a clumsy child. She doesn’t know fear. She uses others to gauge the extent of her pain. She is innocent, wild and a dork really. You would think that they would see this vulnerable wonderful beautiful thing and want to scoop her up and protect her, keep her safe.

But nope.

They never see it, they don’t look.

They only see a challenge to be a better man and it scares them, they don’t see the reward on the other side for just trying a little. Just one step up is all it really takes to look over the wall and see into Eden.

My heart has a body guard and that is me. Grown strong from rebuilding over and over with the bricks of houses that collapse. Throwing back the stones that were thrown at me. Basic survival in harsh climates that were never meant for us. I am hardened and hard. And that is all that gets seen. This warrior made out of titanium wielding a sword, wayward wolves at her feet. Surrounded by a fortress of friends who are loyal; who protect and love me and suddenly I become work.
Indestructible, impenetrable.
Too much to bother with.
But the door is right here. And it’s open.

My heart is an unmade bed
It may look messy
But I swear it’s a safe place to rest

~Moriah Pearson

Mama Susan is probably not going to like this. She’ll call me monkeygirl and tell me to buck up. I am trying mama, I am trying so hard.

She dislikes it when I think the sky is falling, it usually isn’t really.
Unless it’s in that good way where the clouds come down and fog wraps itself around me like angel wings and home and solitude.

I can’t stop crying.

I want to.

But right now, I don’t have a choice.

Tried to contain it. It is a beautiful sunny day in November. My car is working again. I am home, puppers is here. I am heading back to the ocean soon. I have been writing and writing and writing. But something is wrong.

Maybe if I could name it I could logic it out.

The closest I can get is I am homesick but I am home.

It’s no secret that I watched the Secret, probably 1000 times. Not exaggerating. I would put it on before bed and fall asleep that way. Like learning a new language subliminally. Eventually it worked.

I also believe in souls and chakras and energy and auras.

Something is fucky.

My alignment is off.

The Secret says to listen to your body when it’s in a state of discord, you are doing something wrong. But I don’t know what it is. I am not fighting but I can’t float.

“Tell me teacher what’s my lesson” (Gary Jules), fuck, please just tell me. I will learn it, write it 1000 times until my hands ache.

Anything but this godforsaken limbo.

Where am I supposed to be?

Am I supposed to fight for something? I gave up fighting years ago.

Maybe there is a balance I am missing. Somewhere between letting go and holding on.

I spent 7 years on and off married. Mostly crying. Out of the 7 years there, 5 years sad.

And fuck. I am back there again. No earthly reason for it.

I was on the porch, absorbing the sun, content in the warm and I just couldn’t contain the flood. I cried without trigger or thought. Panda told me to just be in the moment, just get it out, but it’s hours later and I still feel sad.

I’ve had a low grade depression since October 6^th. I am not drowning in it, but I am walking through water. Except for the magical times I walked on it. Maybe that’s it, maybe I am having magic withdrawal.

I feel out of place out of time and like something is wrong.

This isn’t the time for it. I am not ovulating or bleeding. My hormones are as balanced as they ever are.

I keep thinking maybe if I masturbate I will feel better. But my bed is full of the clothes I dumped out of my suitcase against my will and something in me is refusing to put them away. And it feels like betrayal.

I need to make a list of the simplest tasks today, like plant the bulbs and hope that in 121 days things will make more sense. “I know where the cupboards are, I know where the car is parked, I know he isn’t you.” (Tori Amos) that reminds me, I have to pick up the car. Pay the bills. Take out my contacts, order new ones, these are full of salt and grit and they hurt. Everything hurts. I am tired even though I slept like the dead. This isn’t a sickness of the body, although my body is on board with my brain and the ache is somewhere in my soul.

Everything I am feels battered and bruised and I am lost as to how to fix it. Other than rest and write and hope. But I don’t even know what to hope for anymore.

I am enough of an empath to wonder if maybe all this angst isn’t mine, but I don’t have the energy to sort through. I helped a girl today and it was the best I’d felt in a bit. Same thing happened last month. Random message turned into bonding and soothing, and with it came some relief for me.

She asked me how I could be so calm. How could I let logic come through the rowdy tea party in my head full of wailing angst and feelings of abandonment and unworthiness.

I sound calm and I type these words and I mean them but inside my chest my heart is having a fucking 4 year old hopped up on mountain dew and pixie sticks tantrum.

Some of these men I have loved left indelible marks on me. I have a scar tissue paper heart.

I have been home one day.

Not unpacked.

Not showered.

Written 3 articles, working on this and another.

I have “have to’s” tomorrow. I am on a roll. Set my alarm for 7, I will probably shower and not much else.

I messaged Giant to tell him I am home. He texted me last week. Thought it was sweet he couldn’t wait to talk to me. In retrospect I think he had something to tell me and didn’t spit it out. I spooked him most likely. I do that sometimes.

I said “I thought I’d come home and you’d be moving her in”. “Her” being his version of hot neighbor.

This one has a name, but I won’t speak it. She is not a traveling waitress, and she is rather lovely. She has good hair, just like Becky.

He invited me for afternoon tea, and I just knew.

I think I knew last week. Had a thought that soon he would be with her so it mattered not what I was doing or feeling, which happened to be a lot.

I knew about her because he told me. Just like I told him about the Last One.

Never did come up with a nickname for him, as ominous as “The Last One” sounds, it suits him. He with the freckles and the dark eyes and the ridiculously beautiful hair. Did I mention he was a ginger Italian? I didn’t know they made those. Like unicorns or other mythical creatures, he has disappeared into the woods, leaving me to question whether he ever existed at all.

He predicted the future, maybe he was more psychic than I knew. Maybe he was saving himself and freeing me to go away. I am glad I did, even with the withdrawal I am experiencing at this moment.

Away was good, so good I am going again. I decided to base this next trip to Florida on how I did on this last trip to Newfoundland. Then changed my mind and realized I get this one life and I will not pass up a chance to be by the ocean. So that’s that then.

Had I stayed with the Last One, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere but to him. I know this to be the truth and I said so out loud. I think I only went to Newfoundland because I was so sad about him. I needed reprieve from this house I built for his return.

What’s really gonna cook your noodle later is would you have still broken the vase had I not said anything? The Oracle, The Matrix

Did he know something I didn’t? He very specifically said I was going to fuck a fisherman. And I did. And if you have been reading up until now you know it was so good I can’t find the words for it, that’s how good it was.

You might even be disappointed that this isn’t about that. Suck it up. I said I’d get to it and I will.

Sarah Connor said there is no fate but what we make. Carved it into a picnic table. And I think she is right.

I think I was so sad for a while there because it wasn’t my destiny to be broken, barely able to get out of bed.

I spent years at the farm having my hand forced by the whim of a man. I decided on the Last One, but the universe had other plans, and I was to launch no matter what.

It was like a bow and arrow, I got pulled back through immense pain and stretching, nestled into my most comfortable and hurled into the literal future. I touched heaven and have now began my long decent back to earth.

While I was gone, things reset again.

I remember the grieving that never ended when the Giant went away the first time. As easy as I remember the elation when he returned.

This time I just asked if it was “time to exit quietly, stage left?”

“What’s the protocol?”

I answered “second verse same as the first, you’ll have to drop my movies off here and I will try to be good.”

No drama. Just falling leaves. Seasons changing again.

He went on to say my pussy is magic. Yep, some kind of rabbit in a hat that makes men vanish.

Silk scarves of neverending bullshit pulled from their mouths.

Wow, I got bitter there for a second.

I am back now.

And I am grateful.

Grateful for knowing how to love these men who come to me.

And for finally having the grace to let them go.

I do not subscribe to the cult of celebrity.
Never have, beyond teenybopper crushes on Corey Haim and the New Kids. But those feelings had no basis in reality, I knew I wanted them, but what I wanted? No idea yet. Just whispers and ideas in the dark at slumber parties. Kissing and then…and no and then.

Being famous doesn’t make you a good person.
Let that sink in
These people on this list and everyone in Hollywood or political office or police force or any other positions of any kind of power are still fucking human…and just like any other human they can be angels or monsters or any shade of grey between the two.
Fucking athletes too.
We glorify these people and somehow expect them to behave better.

Then we have these two, very opposite reactions when they do fuck up. We pounce and celebrate their fall from grace, or we rush to defend them.

Huh?

You do not know this person. You have seen them on a screen, that is not who they are. Wake up buttercup.

I was working in a strip club far, far away the day Robin Williams died. I plugged my phone in to charge for an hour or two and heard the news when I logged back in. That hit me in the childhood. I will admit, I cried a bit when I got home. Difference here being, a lot of his work was His, he improvised a lot of dialog, and by all accounts he was a good man.

Carrie Fisher, same note. Except she had a great life so I did not mourn.

I will admit I had never heard of Harvey Weinstein before the news broke a few weeks ago.

Was I shocked that a man who wielded that kind of power abused it?

Nope.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

He had their careers in his pocket. Used his (presumably) micro-penis as the key to the kingdom.

The average dude walking down the street has no idea the kind of power he has over me, late at night, dark street, walking my dog. My heart beats in my chest I look for weapons and escape routes, street lights, people…anything really that gets me away from the perceived danger.

He could be the nicest man in the world but in vulnerable circumstances, my brain immediately switches to fight or flight, and until #metoo became a thing, I don’t think all men knew this. They were quick to dismiss ‘but I’m safe’, not all men though’.

Maybe not all, but a fucking lot.

I slept with a man for almost 2 years, casually, we had an agreement/arrangement and it suited us just fine until one night, I wasn’t feeling it and he didn’t care how I felt. I did the thing almost all women have done, which is just give in, grin and bear it until it’s over and it’s safe to leave.
Then never go back.

That was just once out of countless times I forced back my rage to stay safe. I am tired of choking on it.

That is the problem, too many times to count…

I have lost count of the number of women who were assaulted by Bill Cosby, and for months after the fact, even now, there still exists people who say “no, he couldn’t have”. Mind you there are flat-earthers and those who think dinosaurs are a hoax too. The ignorance of man knows no bounds.

I have a short list of celebrities I would sit on a park bench with.

Tom Waits

Keanu Reeves

Russel Brand

Last week, it got shorter.

I had a grown woman crush on Louis C K.
I jokingly said I would fuck the shit out of him, never wanted to marry him as he seemed like that was something he would never do again, but ya, I was sexually attracted to him. I mentioned it to a friend of mine and he thanked me for giving hope to smart, funny gingers all over the world.
The difference between Jeff and Louis C K, I have been alone with Jeff many times and the only time I ever saw his dick is when I asked to see it. I feel like had I ever met Louis, it could have gone a different way.
Louis won me over with his logic, his delivery, his humility and how he just seemed so human you know?

And therein is the answer.

These golden calves up on the hill in Hollywood that we bow down and worship are human, and thereby fallible.

Obviously.

But we airbrush them and put them on pedestals so high we can’t see the bags under their eyes or the filth in their hearts.

“Are you not entertained?” Maximus, Gladiator

I was, now I am grossed out.

I can walk into a theater and leave this world for 90 minutes, enraptured and transported by whatever is on screen, but when I walk back out I know that whatever character whatever actor just played for me is not who that person is in real life.

It was different with Louis, he never pretended to be anything he wasn’t…except when it mattered.

He stood up on a stage and said “historically speaking the number one threat to women is men.” Then he did the thing.

I threw up a bit.

Felt like betrayal, not gonna lie. What you say in public doesn’t count for jack shit if what you do in private is the opposite.

But we see this phenomenon over and over. Regular Joe and Jane on the street being positively destroyed by the death of someone they have never met.

And now this.

It is a type of death really. The death of perception.

Like having a soft chewy oatmeal cookie in front of you and taking a bite only to discover those are Not chocolate chips, but raisins instead.

Which is basically how much this has affected my life. Its just raisins and a little bit of disappointment.

These women who are coming forward to tell their stories of how men have treated them in private have the real battle to fight here. Starting with public opinion, which, guys…really means jack shit.

I see a reckoning coming.

I see women getting more powerful by the day.

I see men being afraid.

They should be, this is a witch hunt and the witches are the ones coming for them this time.

Two lines from Hollywood movies keep running through my head…

“We are not things” Mad Max Fury Road

And

“This is all man’s bullshit, they make the weather then stand in the rain and say ‘shit it’s raining’.”
Cold Mountain

Every day this stays in the media, every new parasitic worm that gets dragged into the light and exposed, the more powerful I feel. Kinda like I did walking out of Wonder Woman.

I feel something changing in me and hopefully in other women.

Personally?

I’m done.

No more pressure sex

No more benefit of the doubt

No more rape jokes

No more giving guys a chance.

Burden of proof is on you now.

Prove to me you aren’t guilty

Prove to me you don’t condone and perpetuate rape culture.

There is no earthly reason for me to entertain you.

I pay my own bills and get myself off just fine.

No more getting away with it.

Get used the word NO said loud and often.

And no…its not a challenge.