Fantasies Are Not Bad

Fantasies are not bad things. In fact, fantasies can be good. Those bits of mental imagery that so fire our hearts, minds, and bodies are capable of enlivening and invigorating our sexual responses. For many of us, living inside of BDSM relationships, fantasy is the stuff that we use to drive our connections forward.


It is, however, important to know where the edges are. The thing about fantasy is that it is not limited by practical or physical reality. We can imagine all sorts of interactions that may seem incredibly hot, and have no relationship to anything that can or should ever happen in the real world.


So, it is not uncommon for women to have vivid rape fantasies -- which do not even remotely resemble the reality of violent rape. Dominance fantasies are among the most common fantasies for women, and in those fantasies, women most frequently are the top partner. Many of us indulge in fantasy role plays: school girl, interrogation, sexy nurse... lots and lots of costume dramas. Commonly, women report fantasies about sex with a stranger -- involving them or involving their partners, and many of us have voyeuristic fantasies. The realm of sexual fantasy is a rich and fertile source of sexual excitement and pleasure.


There's one element that is common to every single sexual fantasy, though, and it is important to understand this -- we are in absolute control of our fantasies. We do the casting, the set design, the scripting. We call the shots, and we decide when and how we will engage and participate in the various scenes that we play out on the internal screens of our minds.


So, I think I absolutely understand the sort of excitement that may be a driving force when someone talks the way kaya did about her fantasy that her Master engage sexually with another woman. There's a great masochistic flavor to her vividly drawn imaginary scene where she is confronted with the potential for Him to connect with another woman who is better...

So here’s something that I had totally dismissed as being worth blogging about:
Master left yesterday for a short business trip. The first thing I asked him was if he’s going to fuck/use another woman.
He shrugged. Said he didn’t know. Said maybe. Said it would depend. I told him he should. In fact, I practically begged him to.
Encouraged it.
He’s never done it. Never. Oh, to play with another, yes. But fucking? Nope.
When he talks about it, he talks too much about my feelings. He wants me involved, he wants me there, he wants me to not feel cheated on. He thinks something like that should be a joint activity.
This frustrates me.
He’ll talk about threesomes, things like that, and I just shake my head. I don’t WANT to have a threesome (well. I mean, I DO. And I would. But that’s a separate thang.) What I want is to be at home while he’s off fucking another woman. Or to be in the room, but not allowed to participate while he fucks/uses another woman in front of me.
I want my face rubbed in it. I want to cry about it. I want to hurt about it. I want to wonder if she was better than me- No. I want him to tell me she was better than me. I want to be compared, and found lacking, even if it isn’t true.
We have these repeated conversations, pretty much every time he takes off on a trip. He keeps saying that he doesn’t want or need another. That he’s content with me, that I take care of his needs, blah blah blah. And I keep saying that it isn’t ABOUT that (and think that maybe I should stop taking such good care of his needs if’n I’m ever gonna get my way. But *smack my hand* them’s bad girl thoughts, dontchaknow.)
Finally he was like, wtf is your deal? Why do you push this all the time?
So. You know why? I’ll tell you why.
It’s not just about emotional masochism, though I’m sure that factors in.
It’s because I want to… I NEED to… have this prideful contentment erased. Scrubbed out. Obliterated.
I want to feel less secure in my slavery. I want to experience jealousy and fear.
I want to be reminded that I don’t own him.
Plus, you know, it’s perverted as all fuck.

Yeah. Fantasy. A number of her commenters said, "Be careful what you ask for," and that is good advice -- because real life relationships are not as easily controlled or scripted or well mannered as our imaginings might make it seem. We tend, in this poly-fascinated world, to believe that there is no real reason for relational jealousy or insecurity, but that is just not the reality. People do get hurt emotionally when there are "extraneous" relationships -- not every time. Not all the time. But it isn't unheard of; not even uncommon.

So... In real life, the mystery woman that plays that part in the "hot" fantasy, just might not behave "properly" in the event:

IF your partner decides to take on another relationship, that relationship will have its own life, its own parameters, its own boundaries and values.
That other woman that you create in your imaginings isn't real, but if what you imagine comes to pass, it will be with a real, flesh and blood human person.
SHE will have her own feelings, her own wants and needs, her own ideas, her own agenda -- and you will have no control over any of that.
SHE will not follow your script.
SHE may or may not come to know who you are.
SHE may or may not care about you, and you may or may not like her.
SHE may or may not value or honor your situation, station, or role.
SHE doesn't have to.
SHE will occupy space and SHE will soak up energy and time.
The time will come when SHE likely will be in your home, sitting on your furniture, sleeping on your sheets, using your towels, toiletries, toys.
SHE will not be put away when you are tired of your fantasy.
SHE will be back tomorrow and next week and next month. And if not her, then someone else.
In all liklihood, SHE won't contribute anything much to your world. The chores, the bills, the worries, those will all still be yours.
SHE will come and go on a schedule that has no time for the boring details of real life.
What you work to create and provide, SHE will just take as her right.
SHE will be around for the goodies.

Fantasy and reality are the two halves of our emotional, sexual lives. We who claim the label of masochist are sometimes prone to a sort of bravura that can lead us into damaging and destructive choices. We know that is a risk to those who are new, unattached, and hungry, but what about those who are "into" established dynamics? Is it possible for us to talk ourselves into places that are simply not healthy. There are people who create good and positive poly relationships, but that isn't what this is about. This is about generating extra relational dynamics that are designed to be hurtful and painful. I'd say that's an OK fantasy, but a really bad idea when it comes to real life.

swan

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks...

I've been craving some spanking. That is the simple truth of being my sort of masochist -- if it doesn't happen for awhile, I start to get edgy and out of sorts. Especially, it seems to me, when I am feeling ill; even more especially if I am feverish, the little, feisty, spanking demi-urges begin to march around in my brain carrying picket signs and claiming unfair treatment on the part of the management.

Now, I do my best not to ever accuse The Management of anything unfair, so that sort of internal mob behavior is very unsettling. But here's the thing... I'd first filled Himself in on how I was feeling about all of this in the middle of last week (while I was still really pretty sick). That "date with fate" did not happen due to a whole pile of circumstances, and I understood. I did. I just hoped that when the weekend came along, we'd catch up with one another. Except that on Saturday morning, I woke up feeling crummy with a miserable headache. I eventually shook the headache but by then, it was college football and grading papers and all the stuff that gets wrapped up into our weekends, and the opportunity just drifted away like a puff of smoke. I turned my anticipation on Sunday -- surely Sunday morning we'll get some time and be able to work a spanking into the schedule! It all seemed promising in the beginning. He woke up and seemed horny -- a good sign. He messed around and humped on me for a good long while, and then He was ready -- to make love. So. OK. That's cool. I jumped on board and did that voodoo that I do, reducing my evil sadist to a silly, grinning, cooing 16-year-old in a flash. And, then He was hungry -- for breakfast.

Imagine the air hissing out of a very big balloon... ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

I got up. Made breakfast. Finished my school work. Surfed the Internet. He went for a walk -- still too cold out for my recently sick self to go with Him. I got a shower. Did some laundry. He came back and turned on the football games. I tried not to fuss; tried to keep the voice quiet that tells me that "if He doesn't want to spank, it must be because He's getting that need taken care of somewhere else." The afternoon wound on into evening. I made dinner. Cleaned up the kitchen. Puttered. He wasn't feeling all that terrific after dinner. It happens nowadays. Food is often "the enemy;" making Him feel queasy and uncomfortable. It was all I could do to keep myself from dissolving into tears. I just wanted to cry from the combination of pent-up wanting, loneliness, and fear of rejection. The world series game came on TV at about 8:15 PM. I'd long since given up hope. I'd started to write a blog post, but He asked me to come snuggle on the couch with Him, so I put the computer away, wrapped up in a blanket, and snuggled in next to Him. It wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but it was still nice.

Somewhere along the line, as the game got rolling -- and yes, Mr. Upstate-New-York is a Yankees fan, He suddenly chuckled and said (mostly to Himself), "I just had a wonderful idea." He was up off the couch, wandering here and there. I was about half asleep, drowsing and feeling sorry for myself. Suddenly, He was back with His New York Yankees ballcap, and a fistful of paddles. "I've figured out the best way to watch this game," He told me. "Now get up and get over my lap." He stuck the ball cap on my head, grinning at my astonished face, as I scrambled up and around to drape myself over His lap.

Of course, by this time, I'd managed to work myself into a pouty place, and dragging back from the pouty place takes a bit of time. He didn't seem all that into it which fueled my doubts. I could hear myself muttering away to myself in my head -- on and on and on.

Oh yeah, and there was the matter of that baseball cap. It is impossible to lay face down in a baseball cap. The bill sticks out! I sputtered and growled, and finally just turned it around so the bill was in the back. That made Him laugh! "You look like a catcher," He told me.

It was an interesting spanking; slow and almost laconic. He just seemed to whomp away on my butt, sometimes with His hand, sometimes with one of the paddles, sometimes just rubbing me or stroking me with a knife blade. There was none of the usual intensity and ferociousness. It confused me -- made me think He was just humoring me. Eventually, He had me stand up and pull my jeans off, and then it was back down for some more spanking on my "pretty panties." It went on and on, slowly and leisurely, and in time He got around to pulling the panties down and smacking away on my bare skin.

It never once seemed to me that it reached the level of feeling very difficult or very intense. It did go on for a good long while as the game droned on in the background. I think He might have had it in mind to spank through the whole game, but He quit much earlier than that because He got too hot with me draped over Him. And so, I ended up curled up back on the couch next to Him, and that was when I began to notice that my rear was really tender. Really. Tender. Apparently, slowly as He went, the cumulative effect was pretty significant. Even today, as I've worked and taught, I notice that I am sitting carefully. Wow. I guess I did finally get what I'd been hungering after. After all.

swan

Good or Not-Good?

There is a fair amount of self-congratulatory, smug and righteous back slapping going on around our corner of the blogosphere these last couple of weeks. It isn't everyone, thank goodness, but there are folks that seem to feel that it is needful just now to tell each and all how good and right they are, and then share the accolades from blog to blog.


It has me thinking, when I'm not muttering about how pissed off the whole game makes me, about what exactly it is that makes us "good" or "bad," and how a person can be certain which category they fall into? I think I'm a pretty good person -- not nearly perfect, but pretty decent most of the time. But, I imagine, based on the sorts of things that the "we're just awfully good" crowd are pointing to, I'd be way out on the "not so good" end of the scale. Part of me wants to growl the question: "and just who in bloody hell do you think you are deciding who is and is not good," but part of me is intrigued with the question.


So... simple stuff first: humans, throughout history and across cultures have a pretty straightforward view of what is and isn't good. In nearly every human society, good people avoid harming others; they respect the property of other people; they contribute, according to their capacities, to the general well-being of the community. Those general social precepts form the basis historically for the creation of systems of law. As complicated as we can make it, the fact is that social laws and rules are based on our shared understandings of what is important for us each to protect -- the things we most value. So it is, that "civilized" people tend to agree, with very little discussion, that murder is wrong, theft is wrong, damaging children is wrong, abusing animals is wrong, lying is wrong, ... There is really not much incremental difference between us on most of that. We may argue passionately about the ethical edges; hence the endless and usually fruitless debates about abortion, the death penalty, justifications for war, and end of life decisions -- but the reasonable ones among us mostly don't square off and determine that the other side is "bad" simply because they disagree with our views.



None of that is IT when we are working at convincing ourselves that we are "good" and someone else is "bad." Nope. It's sex. Even in our circle; even with our shared interest in spanking and assorted kinks, there are cliques and clubs and in-groups and out-groups. There are some pretty convoluted measures of "good" and "bad," but I suspect that a very great deal of that judgement is firmly anchored in Puritanical notions of "proper" displays of sexual attraction and interest between men and women. However carefully we choose our words; however we work to attend to the politically correct views of our community; however we congratulate ourselves on our open mindedness, when the less than truly open minded are in the company of their peers, it seems there is a tendency to revert to very norm-driven conventions. So it is that we find our back slappers declaring that monogamy and long-running marriage are marks of "goodness" while relating outside of those institutions points to something "less than." Old cultural habits die hard. Never a single moment's thought that there is more of luck and skill to forming a long-lasting loving relationship; that it is not so much virtue as a sort of win in the great lottery of love and life. What amazing personal arrogance and hubris!



Whatever. I judge no one's relationship but my own, and that is very good indeed. I am exceptionally lucky. It wasn't always my luck to be partnered with a qualified and well-matched love, but the stars brought me to the right moment and the right people, and I am in exactly the right place -- not socially sanctioned but way better than my youthful and ill-advised "good" marriage that was so entirely horrible and dismal. I suspect that the smugness that is pouring forth at the moment is perhaps unconscious and not intended to come across the way it does to my ears. It is simply the way our society tends to look at this part of adult relating. Shrug. I believe that in time, we will stop valuing love based on who the partners are -- the longevity, the conventionality, the gender, or the numbers -- and come to see that love is a very great gift that ought to be celebrated wherever and whenever we manage to conjure it up.



swan

Modesty

As melissa so perceptively noted, I engage in the occasional contradiction. I think all kinds of things, about all manner of subjects, and much of the time I express opinions on topics about which I have little or no expertise. My opinions are not always tidy and they don't all fit neatly together in a coherent whole. I have a curious and restless mind, and it leads me to ponder across a wide range of ideas. I've been writing here for nearly five years, and I imagine if someone wanted to go on a hunt there are probably dozens and dozens of contradictions and reversals and plain old inconsistencies in my thinking. That is the fact. Mostly, being inconsistent and contradictory doesn't bother me in the least.

Today (without apology to melissa or anyone else), I am interested in trying to think my way through my own conflicted and inconsistent thinking on the subject of personal modesty. I may flatter myself that I am, in this regard, like many others in our society in that I have views and reactions around this idea that are all over the place.

So, what you might ask, and SOME surely will (in their very best snarky voices), does a woman who lives as "the other woman" in a polyamorous relationship, who on some sort of regular basis strips bare in public venues and engages in sadomasochistic "play," who frequently posts photos of her naked ass online -- what does a woman like that have to say about the concept of modesty? (and my good friends, who know better, are probably holding their heads and thinking -- "OMG! She probably has PLENTY to say; don't encourage her!")


I have a whole lot of "trained" into me notions and feelings about this subject -- many of them acquired long before I had the skills or sophistication to examine what was being taught to me.

I never saw either of my parents less than fully clothed. Even if I called out in the middle of the night, sick or frightened, the adult who would appear at my beside was always clad from head to toe in pajamas and a bathrobe. While I often helped to care for the baby brothers as they came along, and so came to know the realities of naked boy babies, once they reached toddlerhood and were no longer in diapers, they too vanished behind the veils of their clothes.

I was educated in Catholic schools in the 1960's. In those days, the teaching was that girls were "the near occasion of sin." It meant, simply, that my just being alive and female was enough to cause me to put some poor boy at risk for his immortal soul. We wore our heavy, scratchy, woolen school uniforms long enough to hit the floor when we knelt. Our blouses were, likewise, heavy, solid, respectable. No patent leather shoes -- they reflect up, after all. There was not one shred of that "sexy schoolgirl uniform" thing that fires the imaginations of some with a particular sort of fetish. By the time I was in 6th grade, we were taught to keep a section of the newspaper in our desks -- so that we could drape it over our laps when we sat, and thus further protect the poor, innocent, young men with whom we shared our classes.

There was little in the way of sex education for us in those days. We all understood that sex was "to be saved for marriage," and if we did not entirely understand what it was that we were saving for marriage, it seemed that suited the adults around us just fine. I proceeded into high school and on to college with only enough working knowledge of my own sexuality to allow me to manage the monthly menses with which I was "cursed." I knew I wasn't supposed to have sex before I was married, but with hardly any information and not a single viable argument or strategy, it was no surprise that I found myself pregnant at the age of 19, and married just a month before my 20th birthday... "Bless me father, for I have sinned?"

Well, the sex genie came roaring out of the bottle for me, and there was no stuffing the brazen fellow back in. What no one bothered to tell my poor little Catholic school self was that sex was fun, delicious, wondrous, intoxicating, and completely irresistable. I woke up sexually inside of a marriage that was really not ideal, but for a very, very long time, I managed to make it suffice. I was a faithful wife. Until I wasn't. But that's another conversation.

Along the way, I had other experiences that caused me to consider what I'd been taught about being "modest" as a child.

Very early on, following the births of my own children, I trained as a Lamaze childbirth educator and labor coach. I was privileged to guide hundreds of couples through the very sexually charged and very intimate process of preparing to give birth, and for dozens of them, I was called in to help coach through labor and delivery. I never lost my sense of complete wonderment at the awesome act of being born into this world. I've never ever had the slightest inclination toward lesbianism or bi-sexuality, but in those amazing hours spent with mothers giving birth, I loved the female form for all its beauty and all its strength. Most women, having given birth, especially in those pre-birthing-room days, would tell you that the process ripped every shred of modesty from them, but I wondered...

Later, when I was in my early 30's I discovered two other sources of great physical pleasure for me. A friend introduced me to Valley View Hot Springs in the southwest corner of Colorado. Valley View is a very rustic, clothing optional resort, and I spent many a blissful time there, basking in the warm waters under clear, blue skies and star-dazzled nights. There, I hiked and swam and pondered the natural world, wearing nothing but my shoes. Days spent naked and pure would send me back to my busy life refreshed, renewed, calm and centered. There, I never felt like "the near occasion of sin." In the high mountain air, I felt completely whole and good. Too, in those years, I would go every couple of months with a group of women friends to a local bath house. Built years before for the use of the local Orthodox Jewish community so that the women could go and perform their ritual cleansing after their monthy menstrual cycles, the bath house became a sanctuary of luxuriant warmth, relaxation and good company. The group of us, tall, skinny, voluptuous, saggy, would lounge together in the heat and the steam and chat and gossip without a single thought for the variances in our physical appearances. We simply rejoiced in being women together.

Years and years into my marriage, I finally found my way to the exploration of BDSM that has charted my course these last ten years or so. There was so very much that was new and unfamiliar in the beginning. I was often shocked, and taken aback by what I saw and what I read. I learned to observe carefully -- both the activity before my eyes, but also my own internal reactions and responses. I remember my first time playing outside my own home. I remember the first time I was spanked by anyone not my husband. I remember that very first trip to a public dungeon. I have very clear images of all the many times since that I have played in public places, and played in my own home with friends and guests. The sense I have of all of that is of power and truth and beauty and passion and triumph and great soaring joy. For all that there are those, even in this circle, who would paint that as somehow sordid and "immodest," it has none of that scintilla for me -- and I was there.

So. My views of modesty are shaded by my experiences; as are everyone's.

Each year, as part of my social studies curriculum, I teach my students (11 and 12 years old) about various cultures and countries around the world. As part of that, we annually encounter the practices of Judaism and Islam. In both cases, there is occsion to discuss the very different values in those cultures related to personal dress, and the connetion that those customs have to beliefs about personal modesty. For children raised in our American society, the notion that there might be some reason to choose to be less revealing and less provacative in one's dress is pretty foreign. Even our Catholic school kids have trouble wrapping their minds around that. It is a very long way from my youth spent with a newspaper draped over my knees...

Oddly, I find it intrigues my students to consider that they have the right and the ability to choose their "presentation" to the world. I insist to them that they are perfect and wonderful just the way they are, and that they do not need to buy into the constant drumbeat that tells them they must have the right jeans, or the right deodorant, or the right makeup, or the right logos on their clothes. Somehow, it seems to me that we have lost our way in thinking about "modesty," and when I am with my children it seems so entirely clear. To be modest is to value who and what you are. To be modest is to be willing to celebrate the beauty and strength of your personhood, to care for it, to protect it, to share it with generosity and integrity, and to come away at the end of each encounter with other humans feeling enriched and knowing that you have been a great gift to them as well.

We have allowed the conversation about modesty to be co-opted by religion, and in doing that, we've lost the ability to talk sensibly about it. We drown in media messages full of sex for sale and general vulgarity and bad taste, and unless we are willing to side with those who would impose the burqha or the veil, we find ourselves with nothing at all to say. That is a very great sadness for each of us, for our children, and for our world. How much better it would be if we could see the human form as entirely "proper" and "good." How much better if we could universally teach our children what they need to know to grow into full possession of themselves and the bodies they inhabit -- giving them the power, all of their lives, to choose wisely for themselves.

swan

Autumn is My Favorite Season

The trees off my patio are in their full autumn glory. This is a phenomenon that was barely a blip in my Colorado days. To see "fall" color in the Rocky Mountains, one had to travel up into the high country to see the displays created by the changing of the aspen against the pines and spruce. So, each year, when this magical splendor splashes itself across the landscape, I find myself fascinated and filled with something joyful and childlike. This morning, as the sun caught in the leaves, I couldn't resist the urge to take some photos. My poor skills don't do it any kind of justice, but I hope somewhere each of you have a tree that is purely magical as this one...

swan

Wanting Spanking

I am still sick. Better but definitely still sick -- weak and achy and coughing my lungs out.

One of the odd things about me is that when I am feeling ill; when I am feverish and everything hurts -- I seem to want His touch more than ever. It grows into a hunger that fills my mind waking and sleeping.

Of course, since we suspect that what I have is H1N1, we've been trying to follow the advice of professionals that those who are well should stay away from those who are ill. It's a little silly -- we live in the same house and sleep in the same bed, after all, but we've worked to minimize the physical proximity -- no kisses, no hugging, no snuggling, no hand holding. It has been a week of Him on His side and me on mine.

For days now, all I've wanted is to lie across His lap on the sofa. Just that. Since we embarked on our current exploration of OTK spanking following the acquisition of the leather sofa last spring, I have come to associate being there over His lap with safety and security. In these days of feeling ill, it is all I've wanted.

So, last night, around 5PM, I went to Him, and in my very weak, very tiny, very needy littlest voice, I asked if He might have some time during the evening when I could just lie down across His lap. I assured Him that He didn't have to do anything at all, and I promised I wouldn't breathe on Him ... just please?

He laughed and assured me that He was happy to oblige and that I could get spanked too. He even went and collected some paddles to use in the event.

There was just one hitch. Callie the housecat OWNS the middle of the couch -- the cushion in between "His" end and mine. He was reluctant to move the cat out of her spot, and so we sat and watched the TV and petted the cat.

And then it was time for T to come home; time for dinner.

After dinner, T told Him that she wanted some of His time -- wanted to snuggle. She went off to read her e-mail, and then came back, ready for Him. They headed off to the bedroom, and I headed to the kitchen to clean up from dinner. I sat and surfed the web for awhile -- reading here and there.

And then it was bedtime, and He was very sleepy, and wrapped up in the baseball game.

Today, I'm still sick, still home from school. He's got a ridiculous schedule and an evening board meeting. He'll be home late tonight and out early tomorrow and again on Saturday. Sometimes, even when everyone wants a thing -- life conspires.

swan

Online BDSM?

I don't usually think much about the keyword search terms that our stat counter captures, but this one is just so far out of line with what we are and how we do this that it merits a conversation:

online bdsm lifestyle rules and discipline

That search brought someone to us because of posts that discussed similarities and differences between BDSM and Domestic Discipline. Looking for rules and discipline protocols for online BDSM relationships, they would have been disappointed reading here. There is not one, single, shred of anything here that addresses online BDSM relating -- because we really do not do that.



Before I go on with this, let me be clear -- I don't discount the reality that people do meet online and create relationships from those online meetings. We met in exactly that way -- online with no previous connection except a shared interest in spanking and Domestic Discipline. Our first contacts were as correspondents through an Internet listserv, and in the beginning, we were not clearly aware of, or focused on, one another. When we did notice one another, we circled with some wariness and caution. That said, once we began to relate with each other, it took only a short bit of time before we made contact with each other by phone, and IM, and fairly quickly, face to face. Ours evolved, fairly quickly, from an online acquaintance to a long distance relationship -- and those two things are not the same.



I will admit that I am not any kind of expert when it comes to online BDSM. I've hung around the edges of that realm now and then; watching; shaking my head with bemusement. I have never participated beyond the occasional "hello," because it just seems silly and juvenile when I encounter it. The fact is that I can be cordial and polite when conversing in an online forum, but I cannot sit on your lap, serve you a drink, or feel you spank me. The "kneel before me slut" online wannabe dominant is not just a lifestyle cliche. Those critters really do exist, even as most of us joke about it. I try to be pretty non-judgemental, and I am always reluctant to get into discussions of "real" and "not real," but online BDSM is not real. All of that chat room and second life driven stuff is a pure fantasy. It is not real -- no matter how intensely people (or their avatars) get wrapped up in it.



BDSM is about a power exchange between partners. Aside from the specific details of the particular relationship regarding sex and SM play and service orientation and all the rest of it, the core remains the power exchange. In that context, one person takes some of their personal power and autonomy, and offers that to the partner -- who may choose to accept it. At that juncture, the locus of control within the relationship shifts to the "Dominant" partner. There are a variety of mechanisms for making that exchange, but the endpoint is the same. Simply, in a BDSM relationship, one person gives up the control and the other assumes it. That does not and cannot happen when the relationship is entirely and completely online; webcams and the like not withstanding.



Long distance relationships can, in my view, certainly include BDSM dynamics. I know several pairs who make that work -- and it is wickedly difficult. Master and I, in the beginning, related long distance. It was the fact of where we were when we first met. Those 1200 miles were very, very real, and it took us some time to arrive at a plan to bridge the geographic gap between us. But long distance partners, do on occasion, see each other. They lay eyes on one another. They touch one another. They share, face to face and in realtime, the simple truth of their beings with each other.



So there is not any information here for conducting an online BDSM relationship. No rules or protocols to follow in the myriad chat fora that cater to the pretenders and the wannabes of that ilk. Making rules for someone you cannot see; cannot touch; cannot ever be with (and maybe don't actually plan for any of that to ever happen) is just silly. "Of course, I am following the rules; doing exactly as you say, Sir..." Or, perhaps, not depending on how I feel about things -- maybe it suits me better to report failure to comply and have you (Oh Dominant One) discipline me for the infraction. All online of course. All in our imaginings with one another. Not one ounce of control ever moves from either end of the spectrum. It is all just an elaborate online game -- more sophisticated, perhaps than Bejeweled or Bookworm, but no less a game.



I understand that those views will not win me any popularity points in the online BDSM crowd, although I'd be surprised if there were too many onliners reading here. I don't mean to cause hard feelings or dash anyone's dreams. Never that. But in fact, the only way to have an actual BDSM relationship is to take the risk to build something truthful and intimate and physical and emotional and demanding with another human. That requires that we bring our skins and the selves inside those skins to the place where we meet. This I believe.



swan

I've Got Plane Tickets

Well, we've shopped and talked and shopped and fussed and wrangled and shopped -- I've gone round and round and round, trying to figure out how I could get to go visit Xander and his parents while minimizing the impact on our family in terms of time away and financial burden. I'd convinced myself that I could book a trip on Greyhound, leave in the middle of the night just after school breaks for the Christmas holiday, sleep the whole way there, crash on the floor at the kids' place, and then do the 28 hour trip home and be here in time for Christmas. Total cost for that adventure (except for food along the way) -- $181.00.

Except He just couldn't get comfortable with that idea, and I don't do things He isn't comfortable with. He worried about how many times I'd have to change buses along the way, how I'd cope with the lack of sleep and the lengthy travel times. He worried and worried and worried.

And then I got sick, and just quit caring. I have felt too crummy to think much and surely wasn't up for negotiating travel plans with Him much less with the purveyors of travel. Just contemplating that makes my head hurt and my stomach churn.

He, however is not sick, and for whatever reason, in the last couple of days, as I've wallowed miserably on the couch, He's been like a travel arrangement pitbull. He has scoured the web looking at options and fares and costs, and somewhere along the line, the discussion shifted from travel by bus to travel by plane. He worked and worked and worked until He found a great fare and a reasonable hotel rate -- and then He booked it. Done.

I am going to Denver to see the kids and grands. Just before Christmas. Flying and staying in a very simple and inexpensive hotel, but I'll have my own room and a place to shower. I'll rely on the kids to pick me up and get me to and from. I've called and talked with them and they are thrilled and glad to provide transport while I'm there.

Master is the best. Ever. I've got my Christmas present.

swan

En-

It is no secret that I have a fascination with language and words. I've long believed that the words we use shape our perceptions and consciousness. So, my current thinking is caught up with en- words:

• enlightened
  
• enchanted
  
• enraptured
  
• enthralled
  
• ensnared
  
• enslaved

It seems to me, that when I make that list, it describes the progression that brought me into this life of mine.

To be enlightened, according to Merriam Webster, is to be freed from ignorance and misinformation. In 1382, some Old English scholar wrote that enlightenment served to remove the dimness or blindness (usually figurative) from one's eyes or heart. For me then, that was a first step. I had to find my way through all those things that I did not know (and all those things that I thought I did know) to discover the truth about myself and my sexuality and my very nature. I had to discover the true community to which I could belong; and I had to struggle through the blindness that kept me locked into my traditional and socially sanctioned way of being. Discovering another way gave me a place to begin and a way to dream the dreams that brought me to here and now.

So, then I fell, like Alice through the Looking Glass, into a magical place where all the things that had haunted my yearnings for so long were real, and I spent a time being enchanted with all the amazing possibilities and all the delicious wonders I found there. To be enchanted is to be charmed and delighted, and that was surely me in the earliest days of my explorations. Even as I explored with the anchor of my former husband (who simply was not for this in any sense), I found a whole realm of experiences that amazed and delighted me. Like a child chasing butterflies, I ran here and there, trying this and that, and wanting more and more and more. Enchantment can be intoxicating, and I was surely there.

Very early in all that exploring, I tumbled into the beginnings of a conversation online with the Man who would, in time, come to be "Master." It didn't happen quickly. We circled around one another for a good bit of time, testing the wind, questioning, drawing boundaries -- and then re-drawing the lines. He was bright. He was wise. He was warm. He was funny. He radiated power that was simply undeniable and irresistable. I was enraptured -- held spellbound. I thrilled to His every word; waited from moment to moment for the chance to talk with Him again. Knowing there was no place for the feelings I felt to go, I still could not look away. I was entirely dazzled.

Enthrallment is another thing altogether. To be enthralled is to become captive. It is related to words like arrested, beguiled, caught, held, mesmerized, rapt, and subjected. He and I played together in the beginning -- just a few times, very casually, and always with care not to step beyond the limits of our existing relationships and roles. We were cautious and careful and very deliberate about it all. Except that hearts are not well behaved when it comes to things like this and I grew to be His long before either of us acknowledged what was happening. There might have been a time, in those early days when I could have ended it all, stopped the progression, and walked away from the blossoming relationship with Him and all that promised -- but I was enchanted, remember...

After a time, I was ensnared. To ensnare is to capture or trap. There came a point where the control of the whole business shifted from me to Him. I'd moved from step to step, knowing what I knew, and choosing as I chose, and then He decided. That was it. Really. Ensnarement is active. I imagine that I could have still said, "No," and walked away. I could have ended it. I didn't do that, and so the decision stood. I don't have a clear idea of the exact when of that. I think that by the time He declared His love, sitting at the other end of the couch from me on that very late night so many years ago, everything was in motion. Had I become angry with Him on that evening; stomped my feet and told Him that He was over the line, none of it would have happened. But I didn't do that, and it happened.

Enslavement took longer. We grew to know one another. We understood better and better what we meant to one another -- until we finally knew what was true about us. He knew that I was His. I knew that I was His. There was plenty of road ahead still, but there were very few unanswered questions. We've described before the progression to the point where we simply accepted the truth of that reality for the two of us. What, I wonder, is the en- word that describes the perfect outcome of that journey?

swan

I'm Sick

I have the flu.

What kind of flu is not clear, although here as elsewhere, everyone is assuming that if you have the flu it is most likely H1N1. I think early on we quipped that when you see "H1N1" it looks like "Hiney," and we have referred to it as Hiney Flu ever since.

Well, I have to tell you: Hiney Flu sucks ass.

I started with this on Sunday very early -- probably 2 or 3 AM, and I've been laid out ever since.

Master and T have been taking care of me. It isn't the way it should be. I'm supposed to be taking care of -- not being taken care of. But I am doing good to stagger to and from the bathroom or struggle out to the refrigerator for another glass of orange juice.

He's been making sure the humidifier is on at night, making sure I take my medicine. Making sure that I eat SOMETHING. T has run to the store over and over -- to get me Coke and NyQuill and to bring soup home for dinner. I am so lucky.

swan

Power vs. Size

I just love this...
All you have to do is look at His face, and you know there is no question about who "owns" who -- even as I plant a smart-alecky, really tall slave wearing my highest high heels kiss right on top of His head.

We break the rules in so many ways. This one seems pretty mundane, but it is there. I am TALL. He is not nearly AS tall. Still, in my world, His little bitty self is HUGE, and I could not be more thrilled about being where I am.

swan

Words from my Youth

I was in high school ... just 15 years old, when Richard Bach first published Jonathan Livingston Seagull in 1970. I still have my copy of that little, almost trite novella. I have dragged it all over the continent; packed and unpacked it out of untold moving boxes. I've let hundreds and hundreds of books go from my grasp over the years, but the story of the seagull who wanted to learn the secrets of perfect flight has remained an unchanging presence on my bookshelves.

There are books that I keep and read over and over and over on a regular basis. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves, falls into that category. Jonathan Livingston Seagull -- does not. As enchanted as I was when I first encountered those words back in my middle adolescence, I've never revisited it in all these years.

But Sunday, I pulled it out of the stack, ran a hot bath, and crawled in. Jonathan is a very short, very simple read. There is nothing tough about it. So, I floated lazily in the warmth of my bath, and let myself travel back to the very first time that I understood that we were beings without limits; that there was more to life than just getting along; that it was important, even critical, to follow the dream no matter what the flock says.

I am older, by nearly 40 years, than I was when I first met the detemined little seagull who would break all the barriers. It seems more trivial now than it did; more trite. I'm more sophisticated and more jaded. I know from personal experience, what it costs to buck the social tides and norms. Still, Jonathan Livingston Seagull still speaks to me in the depths of my spirit. That makes me feel quietly glad.

swan

Is Blogging Dead?

More and more, we wonder if there is some major shift afoot in the blogging world. It seems that there are fewer and fewer posts from our regular circle of neighbors -- as if everyone has become overwhelmed with life, or perhaps has run out of things to say, or perhaps people just wandered off to engage in other forms of on-line community.

Maybe, all those that used to hang out here, making keyword searches, and pushing our numbers up, have decided that life is better and more interesting on Fetlife or Twitter or Facebook or Ning. Definitely, interacting on all of those venues is way different than our nice, normally sedate little blog.

Really. Nothing exciting happens here most days. We live and love and work and take care of our various responsibilities. We seem to have a habit of being civil with those we come in contact with (mostly), and so the increasingly common practice of working to incite battles and flame wars is difficult for us to understand.

Twitter seems inane. Fetlife goes by too quickly and there is far too much mean spirited nonsense. I tend to keep this part of my life separate from my Facebook personna -- where I engage with my children, my cousins, and my colleagues. And Ning? It seems the same only different, perhaps a bit more edgy, but ultimately dull -- how many pussys and cocks can a person look at and still get a charge?

I notice that there is some online discussion of whether the blog is a dead medium; following in the same course as the once ubiquitous listserv. If not dead, perhaps moribund? Old fashioned and outdated? No longer "hawt?" Maybe so...

But here's the thing -- I like this place. It has come to be "mine." I've left my stamp all over it. It documents so many roads traveled, so many lessons learned, so many insights gained. Through all of that, there have been friends made here, and they are people who are steadfast and thoughtful. They don't follow along here like worshippers at some exotic shrine; they participate with kindness and gentleness and honesty. Whatever I or we might come to need, I believe that we've made friends "out there" who would do their level best to take care of it. I have often thought of this place as akin to an online living room; a place where good neighbors gather to partake of one another's lives. Truly, as things have shifted in these last days, I am finding that I have a deep appreciation for those who drop by here and leave a word now and then.

Perhaps the days of multiple hundreds of hits have come and gone. Perhaps the days when there was hardly enough time to read all the new posts around the circle are at an end. I am guessing that we've grown up together in these years. That feels just fine to me. I am so glad for the good neighbors who share this environment with us. So, tonight, here's a thank you for all the friends and neighbors we've gained over these many years.

swan

Inner World

One of the fairly pervasive notions in power exchange relating is the idea that there should be transparency. The usual view is that the submissive partner must convey all pertinent information about their emotional and intellectual state to the Dominant partner in a timely fashion. It is this open and total access to information that is seen as giving the Dominant the tools needed to exercise control and make decisions about the direction of the relationship. From a theoretical perspective, a requirement of absolute transparency makes perfect sense. In practical terms, I'm not entirely convinced that it is doable or even desirable.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, of course. For me, though, being transparent would mean that He'd be deluged in the flood of responses and reactions that flow through my brain from moment to moment. That pageant really is remarkably similar to the Raveonettes video shown here; lots of random impressions and responses to whatever it might be that my very sensitive emotional radar picks up from the air around me. My very busy left brain narrates a running subtext for the whole show, and unless you are me, the whole tumult is potentially overwhelming.

Anger, frustration, giddy joy, confusion, fear, worry, triumph, confidence, uncertainty, sorrow, loneliness, satisfaction, relaxation -- all of those and a raft of other reactions may be swirling around in my head at any given moment. Making it worse, I tend to nudge at the whole mess, trying to analyze and understand the bits and pieces and details. Sometimes the story that I come up with is loaded with deep personal awareness and great insight. At other times, I concoct the kind of wild imagining that veers dangerously close to sheer craziness. And, I can careen between those extremes in an eye blink.

He doesn't need all of that. Doesn't really even WANT all of that. He can't do anything constructive with it, and the only likely outcome of my spewing it everywhere is that He will become confused, overwhelmed, and frustrated.

So. I do choose what to share with Him -- and what to simply keep to myself. I do decide when there is something going on in my mind that is "real," and germane to our relationship. If it is just me, talking myself into feeling sad, pouty, anxious, or angry for no real reason, then I most often decide to keep the details to myself. I may tell Him that I am just in a "bad" place; or perhaps that I am "having a moment," and I assure Him that I can and will work it out. He is generally content to have that happen, although I know that He will then watch me do that work with a very careful eye.

It is, in my view, the corollary to our physical power exchange dynamic. He doesn't try to micromanage my daily routines and choices. He trusts me to do that -- expects that I will do that in accord with what He would wish. He has no use for the clingy, dependent, helpless sort of slave who cannot function independently when the situation calls for it. And He insists that I have the responsibility for my daily activities and choices. He is also clear that I have the responsibility to hand those choices over to Him immediately when and if that is what He wants. There is no option, within this dynamic, for me to abandon my own adult responsibilities, and sink into allowing Him to deal with all of it. The same is true of our emotional dynamic. I remain responsible for my thinking and my emotions. Should He want to know about some particular part of what is going on with me, He asks -- and I'm expected to come clean... immediately and clearly. Otherwise, He leaves my thinking to me, and He expects me to handle it in His (and our) best interests.

It is just us, of course. We are probably way out of line with what is "typical" of our sort of relationship -- but for us, it is what works.

swan

SPANKING FEVER

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

About Lurkers

Yesterday was "Love Our Lurkers" day; an annual event that I believe was initiated by Bonnie at My Bottom Smarts...

I didn't get the memo. By the time I noticed what was happening, it was well into the late part of the day, and it didn't seem to me like there was much point in jumping in after all everyone else had left the party. I looked around a bit, reading all the clever and creative invitations issued to the ubiquitous lurkers -- and found I had not a single thing to say about the whole business.

I have, however, been pondering those lurkers and the social implications of lurking. As with so many other things that I wonder about, I turned to Google (what did we do before Google?) to see if I could get some sort of workable definition of the term. There I found that lurkers are people who read, but do not participate in online communities, such as forums, discussion groups, blogs, and wikis. The one per cent rule-of-thumb suggests about one per cent of people contribute new content to an online community, another nine percent comment, and the rest lurk. ...

If something like 90% of all those who read within any given web community do not otherwise participate, there must be some reason (or perhaps reasons) why that occurs. Why do people read, often regularly, and yet never participate? Maybe...

• Maybe they feel incomptent to participate; intimidated by a perceived level of expertise or intellect beyond what they believe they possess.
• Maybe they are simply passive observers who read blogs in the same way they might watch a sitcom on television.
• Maybe they are feeling new and uncertain and are waiting to feel "experienced" enough to join in the conversation.
• Maybe they worry about establishing an online identity that could possibly be traced or tracked -- a legitimate concern for privacy risks.
• Maybe they are simply shy and introverted.
• Maybe they feel they have nothing valuable or helpful to add to the conversation.
• Maybe they feel pressures related to time or personal energy and so limit their participation to a minimum.
• Maybe they are simply voyeuristic and not interested in "creating a connection."

There are likely a dozen other possibilities that I haven't thought of. That list though, does cause me to consider the potential for the annual Love our Lurkers event to accomplish what it advertises as its purpose. As I have watched over the years, it seems clear that the pervasive invitations on this day result in very few actual delurks. Does our cajoling, entreating, insisting come across as welcoming and friendly? Do we manage to actually speak to all those anonymous lurkers in a language that reaches out to them? Or is it possible that our annual round robin of visiting here and there and leaving comments for each other, misses the mark altogether? Perhaps as we connect with each other we draw an even more intimidating picture of our very tight-knit community -- and make it harder for our lurkers to decide to risk joining in? I just don't know...

I don't actually spend much time or energy thinking about my lurkers. I know they are there. Every now and then, one of them decides to jump in and take part. Any and all of them are always welcome to do just that -- on any day of the year. As for that other, much larger mass of folks. They come to visit here for reasons of their own, and they take away whatever it is that they find of value (whether wisdom or entertainment or pure titillation). We share this space without ever interacting with one another. And, to tell the truth? If every lurker chose to suddenly open up and let loose with a barrage of comments, I'd be completely overwhelmed. I guess I like my conversational circle small enough to keep track of.

swan

Loved and Treasured

As humans, we all want to be loved. That very simple and very basic human want can sometimes complicate a power exchange relationship like ours. There are even some, within the lifestyle, who insist that love and power exchange cannot exist in tandem. I know that many around this circle have discussed the conundrum that arises when a Dominant and sadist comes to love a submissive and masochist "too much" to maintain the part of the dynamic that takes its energy from the sadomasochistic duality.

Without coming right out and saying it in plain words, many lifestylers tend to hold to a view that for a submissive partner to want to be loved is somehow inappropriate and selfish. Sometimes, we are made to feel guilty for wanting to be loved, and sometimes we berate ourselves for harboring that desire. We are told, and many of us believe that we should give love and not expect to receive it. The theory is that the model submissive is constantly doing good and being attentive to the needs of the Dominant partner, looking for nothing in return. That may sound noble, but it belies our very human and very natural desires to love and to be loved.

Love is, for me at least, the driving and motivating force behind and within my and our power dynamic. What I do within this relationship, I do out of love for Him. I want His happiness. I want His life to be full and good.

More, I want to feel loved by Him. I absolutely crave the loving softness in His eyes when He looks at me -- it melts my heart. I delight in the feeling of comfort and security that I gain when He pulls me in close and wraps me up in His embrace. I thrive on the knowledge that He pays attention to what is happening in my life; that He is willing to invest energy in helping me grow and be strong and healthy and happy; that He will direct my course when He believes that doing so is good for me. I'd never want to be without that connection.

I think that some look at my relationship to Master and, if they don't understand what powers it, they assume that I must be needy and desperate -- lacking in self-respect and self-confidence. I absolutely believe that it is commonly thought that voluntarily making the choice to live as a consensual slave indicates some deep lack in my own psyche -- or perhaps a real character flaw. There was a time when knowing that judgement was out there bothered me. It doesn't anymore.

I do what I do with full knowledge (or at least as much understanding as I can possibly muster), and I do it deliberately and with conscious intent. I understand that my singular goal is to be and do whatever it is that will make Him happy, and I freely admit that the primary "why" behind my striving toward that goal is the understanding that as I submit more completely, He will love me more and more intensely. I practice the skills and attributes that enhance my submission to Him. I listen carefully to the way I speak to Him. I evaluate the ways that I choose to expend my energy so that I prioritize those things that serve Him. I pay attention to my emotional state, knowing that while my feelings are real and to be honored, they don't have to define my behavior. I am vigilant about my thought patterns -- I know that I can work myself into a place where everything seems horrible, but doing that puts my focus on me, and takes it off of Him.

I didn't always know all of that. It has taken me years to learn. I remember wondering, in the very beginning, even before I met Master, where this would all lead me. Would it get "old," or "boring?" Maybe, I thought, I would get my fill and just outgrow it all. None of that has come to pass. There's been plenty of change -- challenges and hurdles to overcome, and the energy and excitement and sense of being in the absolute right place remains. I undestand, way better than I did some nine or ten years ago, what makes me tick. I know and understand that I do have a seriously masochistic nature and that it will not be long denied. I have learned how much better I am when I am not the ultimate and final voice of control in my world. Being here, in this life and this relationship has taught me how to love, and in the doing of that, I've learned how to accept the love I always wanted.

swan

Talk About It!

We finally got a bit of time to play this morning. Life has gotten so complicated that our once sure thing -- playing on weekend mornings -- has become much more iffy. I am no longer ever sure that we really will find time to spank and make love on the weekends...

Today, He decided that He wanted me in bed, over the pillow. We've gotten away from that position in the last few months as we've become enamored with the leather sofa and positions either over His knee or over the arm of that sofa. For me, the advantage to playing on the bed is that I am securely supported there. I never have to struggle to feel balanced or safe from sliding/falling off. It is a comfortable position. On the down side, it feels more isolated. There is less contact between us, and I can get to feeling like I am completely on my own for coping and staying in place.

Anyway, I was just glad to play, and was happy to grab the pillow and get myself into position. He is a lot more mobile these days, and way more physically capable. He was everywhere, moving around the bed, playing with knives on my skin, tickling my feet with the sharp point of His blade. I think that having me over the pillow gives Him more freedom in choice of implements than the OTK position, and it seemed to me like He was using a whole group of paddles and a couple of pretty intense straps.

I was distressed to find that there seemed to be one spot that He would hit every so often, just at the top of my pelvis and just off to the left side, which would send shooting pains down my leg and up my spine. It was like every stroke was firing a rocket up my back to explode at the base of my skull. It happened once, and I shrieked. A second hit in the same spot had me gasping for breath and struggling to hold on, and then He hit it again. It finally dawned on me that there was a problem, and that it wasn't related to the pain of the spanking -- it was something much more intense, and perhaps more serious.

I've written before about the thinking in our dynamic about the purpose and use of safe words. He is adamant that a safe word is to be used to keep me safe, and that if there is a situation that is unsafe, then I am required to let Him know that immediately.

Now, the truth is that we do not have any kind of formal safe word. There is no fancy phrase that clues Him in that I am in trouble somehow -- no "purple monkeys are nibbling on my toes, Sir" silliness. We don't even use the very common public dungeon signal system of "red" and "yellow." Horrors!

So, when I understood that there was something unusual and out of the ordinary happening when He hit that spot, I just told Him about it. Simple. "There is something wrong and when You hit that spot, Sir, it shoots fire up my spine and down my leg." he was immediately solictious, and stopped to find out more about what was happening and where it was exactly, and if there was anything painful that was not related to those exact and intermittent strokes. When I told Him , "no," He resumed His play, but was scrupulous about avoiding the area that I had indicated was a problem. We finished our session just fine, and I've had no problem at all during a very busy day.

I know that there must be agreements about how and when safe words are used by those who play together casually; who do not know one another well, but when the relationship is as long-standing as ours is, there is a very simple way to handle "issues" in the middle of a session -- just talk about it.

swan

Mom Update

I arrived at the nursing home today as a woman who resembled my Mom was walking down the hall.... I was not sure it was her, she was doing something my Mom has not been able to do... When I got to Mom's room, I learned that it WAS her....annnnndddd......

SHE WAS WALKING WITH A CANE!!!!!!

Now that might not seem like such a big deal to anyone else, but she was beaming from ear to ear and her eyes were "Twinkling Mom Eyes".

She had just returned from PT and was getting ready for Speech when I arrived. She is doing more words. She is eating better, less aspiration. And then we hauled to the car to go to a Dr. appointment. Who knew 3 weeks ago that I would be able to tool around town with Mom in tow?
After the Doctor, who told Mom she was doing GREAT, we went to the bank. Mom added me to her accounts so I can assist her with bill paying, etc.

On the trip, I explained to her that we are NOT going for Guardianship. She is much better than we expected and see no reason she cannot manage her affairs with minimal assistance. I told her that a Power of Attorney was a smart move, so if something were to happen, I could step in and carry on as she would wish. She agreed.

Language is still a challenge. Her brain is telling her mouth to speak and what she is saying is not what's passing her lips. We are now at "Noise, Noise, Noise"... we started at "Wa wa wa", then "Why, why, why", then "Boy, boy, boy"....of course you need to insert the ever present "No, no, no. Nebber, Nebber, Nebber" with appropriate finger scolding action when I make her nuts over something.

Tomorrow she and I are having another outing. Every year, on the weekend of Columbus Day, Mom's best friend does a party. All their friends come and bring food. I am bringing food and MOM. Not sure how long she will last. The crowd might be too much. But, dammit, she wants to go and I say "why the hell not?" The party is about 2 miles from the nursing home, so we can escape if necessary.

During OT today, she was touching her right thumb to her other fingers. This is new. I was in tears as Mom was shouting "Yes! Yes!" and "high-fiving" the therapist. She was also batting a balloon with a tennis racket in the right hand.

I have no doubt that Mom will be in her home before Christmas. As the staff all say, she is a miracle!

T

More Tales from the Classroom -- Riddles

Her name, she tells me, means "faith." She also tells me that no one has ever asked her about it... And she looks at me with eyes that are just a tiny bit more open.

"Faith" is a sullen faced African American girl child, and she has that bone structure that points to a royal ancestry. She is lovely, but when I met her, she wore her anger and frustration on her face like the armor one might don for a joust.

Like so many girls, Faith believes that she cannot do math. In her words, she "sucks at math." Just being in math class makes her anxious and fearful and unhappy. I have encountered this before. Many times. Elementary school math teaching tends to favor those who can compute, who learn the "rules" and apply them well, who are quick to process things mentally. Those who need longer to understand, who tend to come at things in some more round-about fashion, who struggle to rattle off the FACTS of multiplication and addition, learn early that they are just BAD at math. It isn't true, but that is what most elementary math education really teaches.

Much of my work, in the 6th grade, is aimed at breaking through that fear, and counteracting the messages that tell them they can't speak this language. We chant and cheer and dance and clap. We play games and we take our partners to the board with us when we work problems. Like contestants on the game show, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," my kids learn that it is always OK to call a friend.

Things almost always improve while they are with me, but it takes time. The first grading period mid-term progress report may quite possibly show that math is still a challenge, and that is what happened for "Faith." I reported to her mother that she was missing some work, and not participating in class discussions -- not asking questions. Her mother told me that she was confused about how to use the concept of "order of operations," and that she was afraid to ask for help. Mom wondered if she needed to hire a tutor. I told her that I thought that might be premature. I suggested that perhaps Faith could spend 5 or 10 minutes with me at recess, and that we might clear up her confusion, and things would be fine. She said she would suggest that.

The next day, just as we prepared to go out for recess, Faith appeared at my side. "My mom said you might help me with my math," she said. I smiled at her and asked her to wait just a few minutes while I got the rest of the gang out to recess. She found a desk and sat down.

We went to the board together, and worked our way through a couple of examples. Nothing that we hadn't done in math class, but the room was quiet and it was just us. She asked a couple of questions, and we worked a couple of example problems together. She nodded her head and said, "This isn't hard."

I grinned at her and told her, "Nothing is ever hard once you know how to do it. You can always come and find me -- we can do this anytime." She smiled -- the first smile I'd ever seen from her. It made her lovely face light up, and I was thrilled. She went off to recess and I went to eat my lunch.

The next day, just at dismissal time, Faith appeared next to me and asked, "Do you like riddles?" I told her I wasn't very good at riddles, but that I thought they were fun anyway. So she said, "If you are in a room with no windows and no doors and all that you have is a table and a saw, how do you get out." It's a very old riddle, and I'd heard it as a child, but couldn't remember how it went.

"I don't know. Tell me," I said. She grinned and said, "You saw the table in half. A half and a half makes a whole. Then you climb through the hole and climb out."

I laughed out loud and exclaimed, "Oh! It's a math riddle! How wonderful!" She grinned and walked off, headed for home.

Faith. Indeed.

swan

Peeling the Onion

It is not unusual, or particularly original, for people to compare their lives to journeys. Perhaps especially for lifestylers, the analogy seems apt because most of us started out "somewhere else," and end up "here." Our discourse is full of trip and travel related expressions as we talk metaphorically of our "path," or "the road," or "coming safely home."

I have used that kind of language myself. Over and over.

In simplest terms, the journey analogy works because nearly all of us have found ourselves in different "places" throughout our lifetimes. Most of us are entirely immersed in western philosophical thinking and we perceive time linearly. Ours is a cultural milieu that supports our left-brained tendency to string moments together in a line, one right after the other like so many beads. That is the understanding of reality that creates for us the sense of past, present, and not yet.

So, I can very easily imagine how my sometimes difficult childhood put me on the trajectory toward my safe but stultifying marriage. It doesn't seem at all outrageous to postulate that the constraints of that life drove me to push and poke and imagine. That emotional looking toward the horizon eventually led me out of that life and into this one. The hungry and sexually curious woman used her need and her courage to move out of the expected into the alternative -- and her fire and passion drove right through the dry and arid transition to post-menopause. Reading here, and before this, at The Swan's Heart, there does seem to be some sort of current that carries us all from one thing to the next, step by step -- on the journey.

And maybe that really is the way it is. One thing follows another. Antecedents become causative. String the bow, release the arrow to its flight, and the arc of its flight follows as surely as the hours of the clock come in their sequence.

Sometimes though, I sense that there is another way to think about the coming to where we are now. Because there is something about the journey image that I find disquieting -- in traveling, one has to leave behind one place in order to arrive at another. Did I really travel away from that child who struggled so with the vagaries of life with alcoholic parents? Did I somehow leave that earnest young wife back in the shoals of those unhappy years? And the me that dared to take the chance to reach for a possibility?

Aren't they still right here with me? I think I can feel each one of them, remember each of the moments they lived, be who they were with just a bit of a slip of my awareness... Layers upon layers, and each of them are me.

It is like peeling an onion. Me. And me. And me. And me. Until there is nothing at all left, and that too is me.

That sort of imagery endorses the sense I have that being in the life I am living is part of being whole and authentic and vividly myself. I like that. I like understanding that who I am today is simply a deeper and richer expression of who I was in each of those moments over all of these years; and that, for all my days, layer by layer, there will be deeper depths to explore.

swan

Quiet and Happy

It was only a matter of just over a year after we first started blogging when we figured out how to start tracking the statistics about how many people visited us each day. Our interest ebbs and flows, but it is a rare day when we don't at least check to see what our numbers are. The hits rise and fall according to a variety of influences and factors, and we've learned that, while there are things that we can do to drive our numbers in one direction or another in the short term. If we post "butt" pictures, the numbers soar with predictable regularity. Should we write about any sort of turbulence in our relationships, the stats increase -- people do seem to love a train wreck. If there's nothing much to talk about; if the time between posts lengthens, then the numbers drop off -- you can take it to the bank. More often than not, though, the numbers do whatever they do and we can't explain it at all.

I really try not to let what I say here be influenced by the ups and downs in the stats. This was never an exercise in building up a following or driving traffic. Still, I do feel pressure when the numbers begin to slide. For right or wrong, I am convinced that I have some responsibility to put things up here on a regular basis. It doesn't rise to the level of active worry; more a sort of nagging fussiness that just won't leave me be.

And that's a problem because in the last few weeks, I've felt less and less urge to write here. It isn't that there's anything wrong. To the contrary, things feel good in terms of our relating. We do surely have our stresses. T's mom and Master's dad both have their health issues. Keeping up with what the two of them need is a steady demand and drain on our family's energies and resources. But that is just life, and nothing that any of us really find any reason to complain about. All of us continue to be employed at jobs that pay us well and allow us to live in comparative comfort. On any given day, any one of us can be up against things at work that are worrisome or annoying or just plain exhausting, but that is a story that anyone might tell -- it is hardly news and definitely not particularly exciting.

The truth is that we are happy. Our lives are good. We have the great good fortune to be able to live together as a family. We do not have to manage long distance relating issues, and we are not constrained by "other" relationships or partners whose needs must be considered in the mix. We enjoy one another. There is little about our day to day lives that creates drama or angst or relational wrangling. We've settled in, knowing exactly who we are with and for each other. T and I manage the household together with hardly a hitch these days. She does my wash, I fix her meals. She stops by the store to pick up a few groceries, and I get out the bucket and scrub her floors. We balance and support one another, and take care of Him between the two of us. He and I spank when we have time and energy, and it is still a deep connecting between us -- satisfying to each of us in very specific and particular ways. Our sex life improves more and more as He loses the extra pounds that have burdened Him for so many years. It is not at all unusual, anymore, for Him to elicit gasps as He makes love to me with a virility that was unimaginable six months ago.

I read around the blogs as I have time, and I find myself less and less able to engage in the typically angst-y discussions I find there. I can't speak to topics like rules or protocols or tasks or punishments or maintenance spankings or good girl spankings or any of the rest of it. I don't see anything wrong with any of those things, but it all just seems too complicated and contrived. I read about partners messing around with orgasm denial and I wonder why anyone would ever do that -- since life will surely impose that requirement in due time. I read about those who spend hours and hours and enormous energy in working to modify the speech patterns of the submissive partner -- creating odd speaking requirements for referring to oneself in the third person, and avoiding the declarative statement. Those bits cause me to evaluate my own reality where the simple and overarching expectation is that I speak in a voice that sounds respectful and conveys my love -- it is perhaps more intentional than the communication between most partners, but for me, it is the way of things.

I live the life I could never have imagined. I might have spent hours dreaming this, but I'd have never ever believed that any of it was possible for real. I am so terribly lucky. I am well and healthy and loved beyond anything I ever expected. So, as the stats sort of putter along from day to day, sometimes up and sometimes down, it is partly a result of the fact that our lives have cruised into calmer waters. This has turned into a drama-free blog. Many a day, I imagine simple getting on here and putting out a sign that says, "Move along. There is Nothing to See Here."

swan