Home in the cabin again. I have only gotten so depressed that it scared me once since I got home, yesterday for a few hours. I needed to get out of the house, I had been indoors unpacking all day since it was rainy. After doing laundry, taking a shower, and eating pizza I felt much better. Again I am truly surprized at how much I enjoy all this isolation in the woods. After seeing D I was sure I was really going to start going nuts.

When I first drove up to the old shack, it felt just like driving home after work at my old job. D came to the door to greet me with his sparklingly loving face, like he always did. I had been thinking, given all our talks on the phone prior to the visit, that we would be breaking up 'officially'. Not that we had been fighting on the phone. Our last fight was in person and I slept on the couch afterwards thinking "ok, dude, if thats how youre going to be fucking have fun by yourself after I leave. I'll be gone in two weeks" After I moved we talked on the phone, calmly, about our problems. They seemed, finally, undeniably insurmountable. So, breaking up was something I wanted to do in person, together.

When I saw him I just melted. How many times has that happened now? (flashing back to all the times he melted my heart after I had shut it, in cafes, in restaurants, over the phone, in the car, and once, looking at a photograph of him standing next to my mom.) I walked in the door of the shack and found instant comfort and relief in the familiarity of home, the familiarity of his arms. Then I was scared. This was not what I planned to do.

I did notice a strange double-emotion as the visit went on. I felt both inside and outside of our love at the same time. I felt an unprecidented distance. And reminders of my discouragement with him were everywhere. He wants me back, though. He is willing to let all his contingencies go in order to just be with me at all, or at least he feels that way momentarily. The type of reversal that is so annoyingly typical in this type of situation. I dont want him, so now he wants me. I swear I wasnt trying to play hard to get. I was just trying to take care of myself and to make rational decisions.

"I'm thirty five, Im nearing middle age, and if I loose you it will be the biggest sign yet that I am being defeated by my liabilities."

"I always told you all I really needed was for you to be nicer to me"

Its true. I didn't mind that he was broke, with no real prospects of exceeding the poverty line. I didnt mind that he spent all his time recording music. I was never jellous of that like girlfriends usually are. I loved his art and I did nothing but encourage it. I even appreciated his moodiness and mental problems. I let him be himself.

But I have problems too. The baggage I have from my childhood and family is that I am very suspicious and distrustful of relatioinships. I think this is probably actually a rational view for any person to have, given how often relationships and family cause people suffering in their lives unlike any other thing. I have a whole list of things that cannot happen to me in a relationship with a man, things that if they even happen a little bit send me into a panic that I am some kind of abused wife type. I can't deal with being yelled at or called names. Fair fighting only. This seems reasonable enough, but most people really have no concept of how to communicate and had horrible childhoods. I basically need to feel respected in my parner's every word and action. No typical male bullshit either- no interrupting me or acting like Im less intelligent or that my interests are less important than his. No financially depending on me, no expecting me to be mommy, no looking for me to civilize him or make him into a responsible adult against his will. No power trips, and no powerlessness. Lets keep all the abuse in the bedroom, please!

D was pretty good about most of these things. But he grew up in a family where people say horrible things to eacchother, and try to hurt eacchothers feelings on purpose. And no matter how concious he tried to be of it, he still slipped and treated me like that when things got too stressful for him. And each time, my heart would sink. It was too much like my family.

On this visit, he said all the right things. He said he wanted to go to a therapist and learn to behave himself, etc. But it feels like too late. Why do people too often do things only when forced? Given my childhood, I just cant tollerate fighting in a relationship like some peeople seem to do. My friend Amelia does it. She and her partner both fight dirty, and make up, and it doesn't seem to be a problem. Its normal to them. But it brings up too much for me, too much fear of being powerless and degraded like my mom was.

But the big question for me was always where to draw the line. Every relationship has problems, every person does, I do. Utopia cannot be found on earth, not even in love. So how bad is too bad? And with D. there was a lot that really worked for me in our relationship. Despite how many people I've had sexual experiences with, and how many I've loved, I actually do not enjoy people very much. I find most people tedious, annoying, with empty lives and empty conversations. Everything smacks of mass culture cliches, television, shopping. D. was so eccentric, so crazy really. He didnt bore me. His mind is lively, his conversation interesting and original. We shared an analytical nature and an artistic heart. I felt kept company by him in such a rare and necesarry way.

Which made it all the more painful when I felt betrayed by his temper.

Now that I am home, I simply turn my focus to building my own life here. I am not dwelling on him very much. I think of other things, but there is a dark bruise on my heart.

- posted by Zoe @ 10:55 AM

 
"You're very plucky," says my mother, when I tell her I am visiting D. When I tell her I needed to come pick up the last of my things. When I tell her I came to talk with him and say everything that needs to be said. "It's hard," says my mother, who is the source of many of my dilemmas about love relationships in my own life, "its hard because you don't want to say anything that leaves anyone with any damage, but sometimes the things that need to be said are unpleasant."

"Well, I think you can only be honest and direct." I'm a big believer in the old fashioned stuff, such as "the truth will set you free." I do believe that. That honesty is healing, that love heals illness of every sort, that being transparent with those around you allows some naked contact in this overcoated world.

"I don't know what I'm doing, Mom," I say. "I'm just feeling my way through everything."

"Well," she says, "you're living life. More people should be doing that."

She says it like she has said "Money is for using," when I have confessed my guilt about spending money on anything at all. And then she tells me, in the same cheerful tone she used on the phone when I was in college when she said "Go study!" she now says "Go live life!"

And I smile. She says it like a cheerleader. Who knows better than she what it is to live life? She who was cheated on and left for a woman 15 years younger than herself after she gave herself to her husband and marriage for 20 hard years, and then was single, dating, rejected by 3 different men she loved after that for another 15 years.

To whom is love a faithful friend?

If love is not, than what is? Love that has healed illness of every sort. Love that has caused illness of every type.

If only lovers could be better friends to each other than life is to us, than love itself is.


- posted by Zoe @ 8:17 PM

 
I am now writing from the little shacky house I used to live in, the one in the dunes. My road trip and visits with family and friends have been extremely special, loaded with significance. Now I am visiting with D, which is about as loaded as anything can be. I'll tell about that sometime soon, but first the road trip....

After leaving my divinely sexy visit with s. I drove to the next city on my route to stay with an old friend. A friend of D's actually, so there is no sexuality going on with him, out of respect for his relationship with D and probably general mutual lack of interest. Its hard for me to get turned on about anyone anymore unless I know they want kink more than sex. I did do something uncharacteristically dangerous (I am a little neurotic about safety) and ride two-to-a-bicycle with him in the city, weaving in and out of traffic, both of us more than a little tipsy. I was convinced at the time it was safer than driving. I felt like I was 19 again.

Then onward... I spend the next night sleeping in the back of my truck by a picturesque lake, my head out of the open the tailgate, below bright stars. The next day I arrived at my cousin's house after a day of driving. He is my favorite relative outside of my immediate family. My brother and I stayed in the mother-in-law unit in the backyard of hs suburban home. What a different life it is when I visit my cousins who have families and children and normal lives. I got to hold a lot of babies and spend lots of time with everyone's children. My cousin and I joke that he is living vicariously through my living a rustic life in the woods, and I live vicariously through his having children. Since I have always been the black sheep in the family, it is quite something to have had this particular cousin embrace me and my life. (what he knows of it, anyway) He and his wife are planning a visit to see me next summer with their two daughters, because they think I am a good example for the girls about being independent and breaking out of confining gender roles. Its the cutest thing ever. They are of course referring to me building things, using power tools, etc. Personally I think "women's work" is much more difficult than using power tools or building things. The only hard part is getting over society's lack of confidence in us to do things. And actually, building dwellings has traditionally been women's work in many cultures of the world throughout time.

I spent the first week of the trip visiting with my parents and going to a big family reunion. It was very fascinating. Many stories were told about immigration, life in the old world and the new. I met like 40 relatives that I had never heard of before. There were many distant 'cousins' my own age-- our great grandparents were siblings. The 20-35 year old crew was large and diverse, and it was such a cool feeling to walk around with such a large group of people my own age who I am related to. The entire family was against George Bush getting re-elected. It was a great visit for bonding with certain family members especially and for meeting new cousins, a few of which I feel I will be friends for life. One is a culinary geek like me, and he and his flamingly gay brother have the sweetest bond with their grandmother. They are the most wholesome grandsons and she is the most badass grandmother I have ever seen, I swear. She told me the secret to aging gracefully is not to dye my hair, stay out of the sun, and use Dr. Haushka (sp?) beauty products. "In our family, we never color!" she says, "grey is very attractive."

Then I visited with 3 different old friends from different eras of my life, first with Hannah, who I have known for 10 years. She looked happier than I had ever seen her, in a new apartment, her artwork going in new and stunning directions, her job and relationship going well. She and her boyfriend are in a very queerish het relationship, both of them being bi and he having been mostly gay, she looking very butch. He photographs drag queens and sex workers professionally, and he did a photoshoot of me for free in exchange for limited use of the pics. It was all very comfortable, non-sleazy, professional... I got some good pictures out of the process for my attempt at prodomme work. The whole femme image thing is a pretty funny ordeal for me. I have barely worn makeup in my entire life, and have no grasp of eyeshadow. Hannah gave me makeup tips she learned from drag queens and by toning them down a bit, I was able to figure out some eyeshadow strategies that weren't too awful. When I wear that costume, I am like a drag version of myself.

I saw my friend Christine for one evening, since she was in the city herself, meeting up with friends to leave for a long backpacking trip. We had delicious eggplant at an Eithiopian restaurant (I will never understand what spices they are using) and talked for hours about everything, after which we went for a long walk passing a bottle of tequila between us. We found a bench in a dark area and I'm sure we were about 20 minutes away from making out, which is always almost about to happen between us, when we looked at the time and I realized I was late to meet Hannah and her boyfriend to see a tranny performance show. Christine is more like myself than almost anyone I've ever met, except she is more organized, ambitious, and well-educated. She is like the Ivy League version of me, and I am like her only more sexual, a little more crazy, and more driven to write. I am so grateful to have her in my life. She and I decided once, sleeping under the stars snuggling on the beach, that if we don't start a business together and if she doesn't become a co-owner of my land at some point, then, since there wont be too much at stake, we can have sex. But oh my god, she has the best fantasies about secretaries, it gets very tempting.

My next stop was with Amelia, another longtime friend and also ex-lover. Out of all the people in my life, she is the one with whom I have best been able to waffle back and forth between lover and friend, seamlessly, with little conflict or confusion. She is training to be a therapist and she was very comforting to talk with about my heartbreak over D. And my big adjustment to my new life in the cabin. One night I cried, with tears streaming down my face without stopping for at least a few hours. I was not sobbing, just tears pouring as if from a faucet that couldn't be turned off. It was almost as if I couldn't allow myself to feel so much without someone there to supervise me in case it caused me to implode. It was 2 days before I would see him, and heavy moods washed over me unstoppably. Mood is such a strange phenomena, like a kind of internal weather. It frightened me, but there was nothing to do but get in my truck and drive to see him, to face that part of me and my world so recently left behind, so fresh and painful, so longed for, so lonely, so sad.

Now I am in the old house, writing while he sleeps like I always did here. When I am ready I'll write about how it is.



- posted by Zoe @ 10:05 AM