Companionable Kitchen

My kitchen has a dish-washing machine.  It is the same age as the house, and that makes it "elderly" in dish-washing machine years.  It still washes pretty well; a good and faithful beast chugging away as it sloshes my dirty dishes with hot water and suds.  However, it has its quirks.  Most notably, the top rack is no longer very firmly attached to its anchors, and that makes it nearly impossible to slide in and out of the machine.  It is fairly well worthless, and so the utility of the whole contraption is diminished.

Of necessity, my regular kitchen clean-up routine has come to involve a significant amount of "doing the dishes by hand."  When that circumstance first evolved, I fussed about it.  "Just one more thing to do; one more chore," I labeled the business of making soiled plates and pans and tableware into clean and usable items.  But time has passed, and I have fallen into the routine ... warm sudsy water, and rows of clean dishes lined up drying on my counter.  And, I have learned something that I knew once, a long time ago, when it fell to my brothers and I to clean up after dinners in our family home.  Doing dishes is both sensual and companionable.

The water is warm and soothing to tired muscles and joints.  The scent of the soap is clean and refreshing.  The bubbles tickle.  The rhythms are made for quiet contemplation, or pleasant conversation.  If there is a companion, doing the drying and putting up, then the kitchen sink becomes the site of far-reaching philosophizing.

The time required is not burdensome.  It serves as a buffer between the pleasantries of the meal, and the quiet of the evening ahead; a natural and useful transition.  I like it, somehow.

Perhaps, I will simply clean it out and let the old dishwasher be.  Let it retire.  Maybe I will become an old woman who indulges in the simple pleasure of washing her own dishes.

Quiet in Mind and Heart

I am feeling quieter today.
Quieter than I have felt for many, many months -- years even.
Something in my insides has shifted, and I am finding some level of peace in my internal world.
I am glad for the change.

I have no big explanation, and no real understanding of how I came to be here now.  Anyone who is looking for me to point the way to this place will be sadly disappointed, I am afraid.

I've been noticing this happening for a few weeks now.  I've watched it quietly, feeling a bit skeptical.  Too many rounds, and too many ups and downs have taught me that it is easy to get knocked off this horse.  Better to hold on tight and not get too cocksure.

Here are the outlines:
I have learned to say what I need and what I mean.  If something upsets me, or if there is some circumstance that seems unfair or unreasonable, then I say so.  I am learning to do that without much heat -- trying not to let myself get SOOOOO upset that I cannot simply say what I need without bitterness or anger.  Being able to recognize my own boundaries, and defend them for myself, by myself, is important to me.  I do not handle resentment well.  Better to just own the things that make me unhappy, and ask for those things to be addressed appropriately.  I understand, finally, that allowing others to act in ways that make me unhappy isn't, in any sense, a good thing.  Not for me, and not for them.

I am listening more carefully.  Most of the emotional hurt, and the burden of fear and anger that accompanied that hurt has worn itself out.  Like some sort of tattered flag, whipped by stormy weather, the shreds of all of that have blown off.  They do not wave in front of my mind's eye any longer.  My vision is clear.  I can hear when he speaks of his own fear and his own pain -- and not overlay it with some sort of sense of blame.  I can sit with his struggles, and not feel that they either add to my struggles... or negate them.  Now, at last, I think that we can walk forward together as partners rather than adversaries.

Just yesterday, working to clear up the dishes after breakfast, I found myself rejoicing in that simple service.  I was happy to be able to do this small thing in support of our life together.  There was no feeling that there should be some quid pro quo.  I was able to give and glad to do so.  The sublimation of my own agendas; my wants; and my fantasies came as a gift.  I did not earn it.  I did not reach for it. I felt no sense of struggle at all.  It simply was, and I am so glad.

It has been 13 years since I came to this place, and entered into this relationship.  I came as a dreamer with wide eyes and big plans.  I wanted a very great deal.  My hungers and my fantasies drove me in a frenzied grab for the thing that I believed could fulfill me and make me whole.  I tried, desperately, to build the life that I could see in my life, and I believed that the strength of my own will could bring that dream into reality.  My own ego put me in a continual state of conflict between who I am and what I thought I wanted.  The fragile sky-castle that I was so determined to build could not stand.

I have grieved the destruction of all the pretty, brightly-painted visions.  And while I moaned over the broken bits, something stronger and healthier sprouted quietly from the rubble.  No phoenix, rising from the ashes this time.  This time, I will keep my eyes on the tiny, fresh, green shoots growing in the fertile soil of love and companionship and faithfulness.

One More Bit of Ruin

Over the weekend, we were at a wedding.  T's niece.  It was a pleasant weekend.

When we came home on Sunday afternoon, we found that trouble was brewing.  It seems that there is someone who, through the wonders of cyber connectedness, has put us all together; Tom, T, me, and the niece.  Niece is receiving nasty phone calls and texts, from at least two different phone numbers, suggesting that she does not really know what sort of people we all are, and directing her off to look at our online profiles.  There is no secret about our relationships with one another.  The niece knows who we are, and how we are.  She's a dear young woman, and she is, understandably, worried for us all.

When one of these storms breaks over us, it is always a place of uncertainty.  How exposed are we, and what is the level of risk?  How should we move to protect and shelter us from the inexplicable and unpredictable outside world?  Who might this be, and what motivates them?  Why?

At any rate, I have deleted all of the spanking pictures.  All of them.  No more evidence exists of the life that once was.  It is all gone.  What remains are blank, empty, place holders.  I feel that as an enormous loss.  But it is, or was, necessary.

So much ruin.  So many necessary losses.  So much of our history -- just wiped away, and gone forever.  I wonder when the losses will stop hurting.

Enigma

Winston Churchill once said that Russia was "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.  That would be me.  My sexual identity collides on a regular basis with my understanding of my own life and the world around me, and I end up a pure mess.

The sexual identity part ought to be simple enough, especially in this age of "Fifty Shades of Gray."  I am a sexual masochist and submissive... but only under very specific circumstances.  It is true that I eroticize pain, and that clearly puts me in the masochistic category, but it is a little more complicated than that.  For me, pain is just pain -- and pain served up all by itself, cold, with nothing driving it; nothing to justify it...  well, that just hurts and it pisses me off.  I am turned on by pain when it represents control.  I will submit, and submit at stunningly intense levels if it "pleases" a partner who is in control.  I will fantasize all sorts of spectacular miseries at the hand of an imagined dominant

partner who demands it, and holds me in place with his will.  It is the control that takes me there, and then it is the pain that tells me that I have relinquished the control, and then it is that sense of voluntary surrender that pushes my buttons.  Complicated.

For a few years, I was there.  I was able and willing to play at that level, and I'd found a partner who wanted that as well.  Sort of.  Actually, I think he mostly wanted the sadomasochistic element.  The responsibility of control was too much.  When the control crumbled around us, then the whole dynamic shifted, leaving us where we are today.

Now, I engage with him in sadomasochistic play, but I hold all the control.  I can stop the action at any point if it isn't going along just swimmingly.  He is quite considerate of my moods.  We're polite like that.  So, I am left to decide, at every step, at every stroke, if I am willing to go on.  Now I find myself trying to please myself instead of him.  And that is a challenge.  Because the beginning of a spanking often just hurts.  The endorphin cocktail that makes it all flip into something hot and sexy isn't there in the beginning.  In the beginning there is just endurance ... and the exercise of power.  In the beginning, I have to make the calculation:  "is this going to turn into something good, or is it just going to hurt for no reason at all?"  Because, it won't make any difference to him, and my own menopausal sexual response is pretty unreliable.  On any given day, the odds are far greater that I will not get off, than they are that I will.  It takes work, and luck, and some mystical mix of factors that I can't even identify to get me there.  No one is more surprised than I am when I achieve sexual release during sex these days.

Given all of that, I can talk myself out of it, before anything much happens.  If he starts in, and it seems tougher than I expect, I can  (and sometimes do) bail out before we have really started.  And then, of course, I wonder if I made the right call.  For me.  For him.  For us.  And there is the rub, ultimately... it is all in my hands; all in my power to control it.  I have the control.  And with the control in my hands, the key that unlocks the door to my sexual response is very, very unlikely to swing open.  So, I am left disappointed and empty and bereft.  I can't figure out how to untangle that tangle.  Seriously.

Maybe the only hope is that I will eventually get old enough to just not give a fuck.  Would that be better, I wonder?  Is it even possible to live long enough to just not care...  about sex and intimacy and that connection that only comes when two people cross over the barrier of skin and really touch one another?  I cannot imagine there will ever be a day when I don't long for that.  Ever.

Drama Llama

I work with a young woman who is completely certain of her own intelligence, wisdom, and just all around righteousness.  She teaches language arts, has her Master's degree, and has obtained the state issued designation of "master teacher."  There is no doubt that she is bright and she has great teaching skills.

She is, however, utterly convinced that she is entitled.  Entitled to be heard.  Entitled to be listened to.  Entitled to be indulged.  Entitled to whatever it is that she wants at this particular moment in time.  She has a very grandiose sense of her own worth and importance.  In her mind, I imagine, she is cast in the starring role in every encounter.  The script for life is written with her at its center, and all the action spins around her.  She is arrogant, boastful, and prideful.  She demands attention in every gathering.  She is the most narcissistic young person I have ever met.

If she decides that she should have some sort of privilege, and then she does not get it, she becomes angry and vengeful.  If she believes that "this or that" is not her responsibility; that she should not be held accountable for whatever, then she will pitch a two-year-old fit over any attempt to hold her accountable for "this or that."

She has a very odd sense of appropriate boundaries with students.  She steps into situations between students (situations that are generally best left to the young ones to sort out for themselves), and then she will choose sides, and sound the charge.  Young guys almost always end up on the short end of that stick, because, as everyone knows, they are forever on the verge of committing sexual assault on every female in sight.

She loves gossip, and even more, loves to be the one who knows and shares the scoop.  No one is safe; not her coworkers, not parents, not the administration of the school.

She makes me crazy.  I want to take her and just shake her.  I wish I could believe that she might be open to some "old lady" advice.  I would tell her to watch and listen more.  I would advise her to start from the assumption that she might not know all there is to know in any given situation.  I'd tell her to let students, parents, and others come to her with issues and problems, rather than running head on into the fray.  I would try to show here the power of letting things work themselves out; the wisdom of not meddling in absolutely everything you can reach.  Unwanted and unasked for advice, I know.

The good news?  She has found another position, and will be leaving us at the end of this school year.  We have only to make it through one more month, and she will be on her way -- and Godspeed!  I just need to hold my tongue and keep my mouth shut for a few more weeks.  I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.

Now It is Like This

Sometimes, I think to myself that it would be good to bring people up to date about the part of my relationship with Tom that once involved BDSM.  “People must wonder,” I tell myself.  And then, I hear the laughter in my own mind -- surely no one is sitting around wondering about me.  So, OK, the fact is that I feel like I need to take stock of where that relationship is.  For me.  Just me.  I am, truthfully, the only one to whom it matters.

I’m not going to look backwards.  The history of my foray into the BDSM lifestyle, and the details of the power-based relationship that I shared with Tom for about 8 years is all documented at www.theheronclan.blogspot.com and at www.theswansheart.blogspot.com.  My goal here, is to try and say what there is to say about where we are now.  

Some things have not changed.  

I still do many of the same things for Tom that I have always done.  For me, it simply feels right to do the things I do:  to manage his medications, to prepare his meals, to take care of his laundry, …  Most of the time, I just go right on doing what I do, because that feels appropriate and comfortable for me.  He still, almost unconsciously, just expects that I will keep doing those things.  It really isn’t about power exactly.  At this point, I think it is the sort of thing that might be pretty common among men of his age.  The fact is that, while he could do some or all of those things for himself, he isn’t particularly adept at all of those tasks.  It is easier for him to let me do it, and it is probably easier for me to do it than it is for me to try and “teach” him how to do all of that.  Sometimes, when I get a clear view of how it goes; when I am tired after working all day; when he is parked on the couch while I clean up the dishes from the meal that I cooked and served, I can be a bit resentful.  I sometimes fuss that, “for a guy who claims to not have any power; who claims to not be ‘Master’ anymore, he sure manages to get a lot of ‘slaving.’”  Yeah, I’m sometimes downright bitchy.  But mostly it is OK.  Just two aging people, with a long and tumultuous shared history, learning to live sort of peacefully together.

We do still play sadomasochistically.  Straps, paddles, floggers, canes, and whips are still a part of our lives; still hanging on the wall where they have always been.  It is a more equal sort of interaction these days; not precisely negotiated, but carefully nuanced and balanced.  I have much more control these days.  If I fuss at all, struggle at all, whine at all -- he backs off.  Where I once endured for him, to please him, now I do it for me -- to keep things going along for myself.    There is seldom any sort of euphoric sense of triumph or connectedness in our play -- no fire.  He takes from it whatever he does, and I do the same  We are partners in the quest to quiet the urges that still drive us both.

We are peaceful enough these days.  The fury has burned itself out, thankfully. We interact carefully.  We are conscious of one another’s emotional hot buttons, and we tend to avoid them. There are safe topics that we use as conversational stages; the places where we can enter into very considered and stiff dialogs that help us feel as if we are still talking.  It is a formal sort of relatedness, following its own peculiar rules.  We have traded in a very great deal that seemed important and vital and lively for this leaden quiet.  

Change is the nature of living.  Our lives together have changed.  I once believed that nothing could ever tear us apart from one another, but change certainly proved that belief wrong.  Now, I do not believe or hope for anything different than what is.  If there is change, and I am sure there will be, I have no idea what it will bring into my life.  For now, this is what is.

Learning Joy

“In my own worst seasons I've come back from the colorless world of despair by forcing myself to look hard, for a long time, at a single glorious thing: a flame of red geranium outside my bedroom window. And then another: my daughter in a yellow dress. And another: the perfect outline of a full, dark sphere behind the crescent moon. Until I learned to be in love with my life again. Like a stroke victim retraining new parts of the brain to grasp lost skills, I have taught myself joy, over and over again(15).” 
― Barbara Kingsolver, High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never

I am; have been for many years, a fan of Barbara Kingsolver.  I love her novels, but I keep close to hand her book of essays:  High Tide in Tucson.

Now, many years after it was first published, there are many places where it feels, on the face of it, like the writing is hopelessly dated.  But there, underneath the obvious, are these amazing gems of wisdom and truth and simple humanity.  I am called back, each time I pick it up, to my deepest and best self.

That is surely true of the quote that appears at the top of this entry.  I have been through one of those worst seasons.  We all have them, if we manage to live long enough...  Dry, dusty times when the water of life refuses to flow for us; times when the icy winds blast our bones; when it is too hard to stand, or move, or even breathe.  Times when we believe, in our small, frightened hearts, that we must surely die; that it is simply not possible to survive THIS.

However often I find myself in that darkness, I never seem to actually die. I survive.  I keep on living.  I find the places where I can focus on the beautiful and glorious and graceful...  and pull myself out of the dark.  For, there is life and beauty and joy in the miracle of being, and that is the core truth that remains; whatever storms may come our way:

Sunlight glinting off of fresh snow.
The slow, soft greening of the coming of spring.
The glimmer in the eyes of a young person when profound understanding comes in a flash.
The warmth of a hand slipping into my own.
The quiet of the night when sleep steals in softly with the ticking of the clock.
The unmistakable morning scent of bacon frying.
The watercolor abandon of a summer sunset.
The soft purring motor of a happy cat.
The satisfaction of a clean house.
Bird songs at dawn.
The "I love you,Grandma" that echoes in my heart long after I hang up the phone.

And much, much more.  Enough beauty and joy to keep me living and believing.  For the ladder that I can climb up out of the darkness, I am grateful.