Here's an old poem of mine:
Balance
in right hand
smoothness
unbroken promises
held tight
fears
slippage
through fingers worn
by years of clinging
in left hand
roughness
frayed edges
break the pattern
of days
keeps spirits alive
for each new
alteration
I've been pondering a lot lately. The times require it. And how to balance is weighing heavily on my mind. When I started this blog, I honestly didn't think many people would be reading it. I was wrong. Oh, I've yet to have a triple-digit day, and I have no fantasies of anything more than that. But that's not why I started this blog.
This is my think out loud space. If you're not interested, you can just click away from here. You don't have to read me bitch about a bad day or muse on losing a friend. But there's fun too - that's where the balance comes in. Like the Blow Hard Tour or leopard slug sex or having a story accepted.
The fun that I'm having as Erobintica seems to be doing a very good job of balancing any unhappiness that has come into my life lately. At times I'm afraid I should feel guilty for that. Shouldn't I be miserable? Sulking in the dark of my room? Tearing my hair?
Fuck no! Somehow, after 51 years
- of worrying what other people think
- of trying to please the unpleasable
- of oftentimes not liking myself
- of feeling ashamed and embarrassed at my own thoughts
I've decided that none of that matters.
Don't want to get to the end of life saying I coulda, I shoulda. The time of wishing for some elusive something to happen so that something else can happen - well, excuse me while I just go ahead and do stuff, without waiting for that slippery something to show up.
Yesterday several things happened (haha, there's a pun there somewhere if you've been reading) that made me think hard.
One was that yesterday was the start of the Blow Hard Tour and Sommer Marsden had made pins for us. I wore mine all morning while running errands. I'll wear it through April 11. I wonder if anyone will ask what it's about. (I'll tell them google it - hahaha) It may seem like a small thing (small and pink), but it's a big deal to me.
Another thing was that yesterday I picked up the unfinished quilt that I intend on finishing. My late friend and I (with some help from others) had been working on it to give to the girlfriend of another departed friend (too fucking many departed friends lately). I thought it would be hard to look at it, but it wasn't. Oh, I felt sadness. But something has shifted in me lately and I still can't find the words to describe what it is.
Then I read Donna George Storey's column over at ERWA. In it she talks about (among other things) that taboo topic of the tree's roots. And that made me think about why it is that I haven't been able to tell certain people, people important in my life, about Erobintica.
It comes down to this: I will lay claim to being a marked woman (ah, there's a reason I used Randy's piece above). Not everyone will understand WHY. But I'm beginning to get to a place where the silence is too loud. Randy's piece touches something inside me. I Love the apple (Eve anyone?) - the negative/positive, yin/yang, black/white, good/evil(?), right/left, life/death ... oh, I could go on.
Why a marked woman? Because from time immemorial, women who dared were to be feared. Like women who dare to write about sex in an honest way, even if it's fiction (and my apologies to the wonderful men out there writing, but it's not the same). Sex is dangerous. It can get you hurt, can kill you. Isn't that what the moralists tell us? Well, yeah. Some of us have been hurt by sex at some point in our lives. But some of us also have realized that it isn't sex that hurts. Silence hurts. Shame hurts. Ignorance hurts.
Writing down words that are meant to arouse is a transgressive act in today's society - still! - despite Dr. Ruth and Sex in the City (I never watched) and all the screaming headlines from the covers of grocery store aisle magazines. Admitting to any sexual thoughts outside the "norm" is considered both reprehensible and titillating (maybe that's the balance in action).
So, what to do? I've decided to be daring. Here's my hand. See? It's marked.
