Mating Dance

He and I have seen our BDSM relationship change over the years.  We've both noted that the heat that was so characteristic of our early years together has cooled as we've passed from crisis to crisis and challenge to challenge.  Surely, there were major changes following my hysterectomy, but just as surely, the various health hurdles He's had to face have taken their toll.  Over time, I have been less and less willing -- less and less able (I'm not really sure which it is to tell the truth) to engage in the same level of high end sadomasochistic play as we once enjoyed as a regular thing.  More and more, as I felt hurt and abused rather than turned on and thrilled by our play, He responded, lovingly, by scaling back, going easy, acting more in the role of service top.  The fires of His sadistic urges were banked and burned lower and lower.

Then we put ourselves through the role reversal of disciplinary switching, and things seemed to skid to a complete and total halt.  His interest levels fell to nothing.  Through these last weeks, He's been glad to snuggle, He's been very verbally affirming and loving.  He's been happy to make love, and I suspect that we engage with one another sexually on a much more regular basis than many people who are nowhere near our ages.  He just has not felt particularly Dominant, and has been relatively disinterested in spanking. 

The really ironic thing about that circumstance has been that I have just begun to experience a sexual renaissance.  My libido has risen, phoenix-like, from the ashes, and while I have no explanation for that, I am thrilled.  The new incarnation of my sexual self seems (to me) to be almost entirely wrapped up in sadomasochism, and I find that regular vanilla sex, while pleasant enough, holds very little potential to excite me.  For me, in these days, sex and SM play are equivalents -- one and the same. NOW I've got longings.  NOW I've got imaginings.  NOW I've got fantasies galore.  Figures. 

And that is where things have stood.  I've felt sad about it.  I've figured it was my doing.  I have heard my mother's mean and nasty voice in my mind -- "You made your bed, now lie in it!"  I've told myself that aging is an unavoidable reality, and there is nothing to be done about it. 

Then, today, things shifted suddenly.  Today, He's been after me, in hot pursuit, wanting to take me where we haven't gone together in years and years.  Not service toppy, but full on sadistic Dominance.  He's suddenly come roaring up out of whatever slough of despond had Him mired down, and the whole world seems different.  NOW my longings, my fantasies, and my imaginings are matched by His wants, fantasies, and desires.  We are locked in a mating dance.

I am nervous.
He thinks that is cute.
I am filled with doubts and performance anxiety.
He finds that exciting.
I want with a breathlessness that seems more like 15 than 55 years.
He wants with an intensity that belies His years. 


We are locked in a mating dance.

We need time.  We need opportunity.  We need hours to be with one another.  That will come.  We are locked in a mating dance.

swan

Gratuitous Election Season Screed

It will come as no surprise to those who have been reading here for any period of time, that our house is "into" politics, and hence increasingly focused on how the pending mid-term election picture will play out.

I know that we have lots of readers from places outside the U.S., and I do apologize to all of those folks for foisting our crazy political wrangling on all of you.  Too, I am certain that there are many, many U.S. based readers who hold political views in opposition to ours.  If you are one of those people, and you are inclined toward the politically conservative end of things -- this bit is just going to annoy you and it is entirely unlikely that we are going to change one another's minds about anything, so feel free to click away from what follows.  What I have to say here tonight, is really aimed at those who would typically find themselves aligned with us -- politically liberal and/or progressive.

We were Obama voters in the 2008 election.  We weren't naive.  We knew he was young and relatively inexperienced, but we saw in him great potential, great intellect, and that remarkably eloquent facility with language that was such a relief after 8 years of utterly inarticulate babble.  We acknowledged our doubts but chose to vote for the potential and the promise.  We were completely thrilled and amazed when the results came in on election eve and our country elected Barak Obama for the highest office in our government.

The disappointment set in very, very quickly for our family.  Obama's invitation to Rick Warren to offer the invocation at his inauguration, gave us a jolt, but made it clear that our newly elected president lacked a viable understanding of the most basic of political tenets:  "Always dance with them what brung you."  We'd had great hopes that this new president would work to implement some of the changes that would begin to improve the quality of our lives and the lives of others like us  -- that he would end "don't ask don't tell," dismantle the "defense of marriage act," pass and implement the employment non-discrimination act" (ENDA), get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, pass real health care reform, reign in the corporate welfare state, and make our lives better in a dozen different ways.  These two years have been a nearly continual round of disappointments.

Feeling especially betrayed by that Rick Warren invitation, we very quickly declared that we'd not invest another dime or another hour of effort to support this administration.  That has been our steadfast stance.  We've watched with dismay as President Obama, along with the democratic legislative majority in both The House and The Senate, romanced and wooed the political right, compromising and giving ground, delaying those "controversial" liberal agenda items that might stir up the conservatives -- until finally there was nothing much left of the dreams we'd once dared to dream.

So, now, another election looms.  Next week, on Nov. 2, we'll go once again to the polls to cast our ballots and make the choices and decisions about who will lead us for the next two years.  Like so many others on the left, we are angry and frustrated and tired of all the compromising.  It is awfully tempting to use our votes to "teach the democrats a lesson."  How simple it would be to vote for some alternative, but not viable, candidate -- a green party or marijuana party vote...  Even simpler to simply stay home and not bother to participate at all.

Except.

This year.

Doing any of that would very likely turn the government over to those who would determinedly and deliberately hurt and harm us.  Not some theoretical "them," but US.  The ones to whom power might pass in this election are people who would pass restrictive laws about marriage and family, who would work to appoint anti-gay, anti-sex, anti-abortion, anti-female, anti-worker justices to the supreme court for decades to come, who will gerrymander the House districts all over this country -- ensuring reactionary government well into the next decade, who would repeal minimum wage laws and work to roll back what minimal progress has been made on health care reform, who would eliminate the equal protection language from our constitution and finally accomplish the dismantling of the public school system, who would privatize social security, who would limit assistance to those without work, or with too little work, who think they know better than we do how we might best live, who choose to believe whatever it is they choose to believe -- and then decide, arbitrarily, that all the rest of us must believe that as well.

I am so angry at Barack Obama, and even more angry at the democratic leadership in the House and Senate.  They had our votes and they had the majority and they frittered it all away, trying to compromise with the opposition when it was abundantly clear that there was no shred of compromise to be had with that bunch.  I am frustrated, and I dearly wish there were a way to "teach them all a lesson."  I am not willing, however, to hurt myself and my family in order to teach anyone a lesson.  "They'll be sorry when I'm dead," might have had some sort of emotional appeal when I was a child contemplating running away from parents who seemed somehow unreasonable and unfair, but this is no time for childishly emotional acting out.  I think this bunch has been foolish and inept and just plain stupid by times, but I KNOW, without any doubt that those others who would seek to replace them are far worse.  They are mean, narrow-minded, hateful -- along with foolish, inept, and plain stupid.

If you are, in any sense, in any part of your life, like US, then please -- do not stay home next Tuesday; do not vote libertarian or green or whatever; do not talk yourself into believing that it is better to have someone in office who openly hates you than to have someone who claims to be sympathetic while acting contrary to that claim.  Be angry.  Stay angry.  Vow to show them all, over the next two years, exactly what they are supposed to be doing with the trust we've placed in them, but act in your own best interest and vote.

swan

Forbidden Fruit

Forbidden fruit is any object of desire whose appeal is a direct result of the absolute knowledge that it cannot or should not be obtained or something that someone may want but is forbidden to have.  Metaphorically, the phrase generally refers to any indulgence or pleasure that is considered illegal or immoral and potentially dangerous or harmful, particularly relating to sex.  In western culture, the apple is the fruit specified by Christian scripture as forbidden to Eve in the primordial garden.  Other fruits are sometimes thought to fill the same role -- the pomegranate for example... 

 I think that the metaphorical "forbidden fruit" of illicit sexuality plays its part in our drives, even today, even when we may or may not buy into the scriptural stories of "the fall." I have, for the last few weeks been periodically contemplating how it is that so many women who would never step outside the traditional boundaries of socially acceptable sexual relatedness, step out into spanking and BDSM first.  Not as some sort of sexual evolution after years spent learning that plain, old, garden-variety, missionary-position sex doesn't really do it for them -- but right out of the chute... I wouldn't even have imagined that there were so many 40-year-old virgins, and I find it mathematically improbable that so many of them show up in our world.  Something is at work here...

Consider how many women have wandered through our lives, over the years, looking for "something."  They've all had their stories to tell, and each has had a belief system and value system that they were willing to set aside and overlook in the interest of pursuing the "forbidden fruit" of spanking in our very sexually constrained society: 

• One who, in her 40's, remained a virgin and had never appeared undressed in front of a man who was not a physician -- more than willing to disrobe for the chance to get spanked...
• One, an ordained minister and a firm believer in "saving herself for marriage" who was nonetheless eager to pursue her spanking desires, and then return to her nice, safe, sanctioned life and wait for "Mr. Right" to come along and make an honest woman of her.
• One who, believing her husband would never tolerate her interest in spanking, sought to fit spanking into the occasional open spaces in her life where "he would never become wise" to what she was about.
• One who believed that somehow what she called "anarchistic BDSM" could help her to atone for past failings.

There is an undeniable appeal, for some -- perhaps for many, to sexual connections that have the added scintilla of the illicit.  Breaking the rules seems to increase the excitement, and the risk of "getting caught" seems to ratchet up the "hot and sexy" feel for many.  Women who keep their blouses buttoned up to the very top, who wear sensible foundation garments, who would never be caught naked in a public locker room, who cannot easily utter the words that name their own genitalia -- seem hungry for sexual trysts that let them think they are somehow daring and bold... but "good girls" just don't do that sort of thing.  So they all come looking for spanking.  Spanking has the valance of coercion, of force.  If you really do believe that, in indulging your sexual drives you are somehow being sinful, then with spanking, you can simultaneously get your jollies and atone all at once.  A real time saver -- that.

I will probably never entirely understand it.  I only know I keep seeing it happen.  

swan

The Water Speaks

We are back. 
We had a lovely weekend, nestled in the beautiful lodge at Maumee Bay State Park.
It was intriguing and endearing to watch Master at the edge of this great inland sea. 
He was emotional and joyful and tearful and enraptured.  Alternating between exhilaration and longing, it was clear that the proximity to the enormity of this Great Lake speaks to Him -- in ways that a mountain girl used to the semi-arid Rockies will never quite understand.  For me, it was a lovely, quiet, restful place where the water lapped at the seawall...  For Him, so much more.  We walked and walked and walked.  We traversed the boardwalk through the swamp, and we combed the beach down to the water's edge, and we struck out for the tiny little lighthouse that we could just barely see on the distant point.  Along the way, we walked smack dab into two deer, who were only just a bit startled by the crazy people crashing along through Their forest...  I can now officially add Lake Erie to the list of places I've been spanked, but the most moving part of the whole weekend for me was witnessing my Love in communion with this lake that He clearly loves...

swan

Mini Vacation

We are away from home this weekend.  Just a few hours drive north from our comfy Cincinnati condo homes lies Maumee Bay State Park on the shores of Lake Erie.  So, we've packed up ample provisions and enough warm clothing to accommodate the autumnal weather in these parts and traveled north for a few days of quiet and relaxation.

We drove up this afternoon, leaving home at about noon, and arriving at the park around 4 PM.  We got into our room, and almost immediately stepped out onto the patio of our room.  There, right outside our door, is the magnificence of Lake Erie, and so we wandered down to the edge of the big lake -- with an almost simultaneous, group "wow!"

He and I went walking this evening on a boardwalk nature trail that runs out through the woods and the marshes.  We did not walk as far as we normally might, but found the uneveness of the boardwalk to be a good bit more challenging than our usual path.  Too, even with our headlamps, the walk through the woods in the dark was a bit spooky -- even with an absolutely lovely full moon.  Tomorrow, we are looking forward to exploring a bit more in the daylight when we can actually see the place. 

We've just returned from enjoying a very nice and very simple dinner at a tiny little Chinese restaurant that Master remembered from the years when He lived here in Toledo.  We are all tucked into our nice little room.  Relaxing.  Nothing at all driving us and no place at all that we must be.  It is good for us to get away sometimes, and so for the next couple of days, we'll rest and recreate and play together as a family.  If we haven't much to say here, that is the reason.

swan

The Spanking Thing -- Resurgence

I am a spanko.  At least, I have been a spanko.  And...  it seems to me, in these last few days, or maybe weeks (I'm not exactly sure), that my spanking thing seems to have undergone a resurgence.  A revival.  It is springtime here in spanko land.  I've always liked springtime :-)

The timeline goes like this --

• 10 years ago, when we first met online, I was just beginning to explore, and I was sooooo... hungry.  I'd spent years -- even decades -- dreaming about what it might be like to be spanked in an erotic context.  I'd masturbated, since my very early adolescence to mental stories of strict and immovably controlling, very dominant men.  The fantasies that I constructed around all of that sustained me through a nearly three decade long, sad travesty of a marriage.  
• Eight and one half years ago, I moved to live full time with Master and T.  There were four of us in those days, but the husband that I brought with me when I made the move across the country was already beginning to fade out of my life.  Even as that was happening, Master and I were deep in the first throes of NRE.  We were new lovers engaging in wildly erotic, over the top SM play and we were insatiable.  We played everyday, sometimes more than once a day, and our play was high end.  We frequently worked our way through the entire toy collection -- dozens and dozens of implements -- and it was our usual practice to DO 100 strokes with each implement.  We'd spank and spank and I'd love it, and then curl up and sleep -- drifting away on an endorphin cloud.  Most often, New Relationship Energy runs its course in a few months or a year.  For us, NRE went on and on. 
• Five years ago, I underwent a total hysterectomy.  I had uterine fibroids, and less invasive forms of treatment failed.  I was, more and more frequently, experiencing extremely heavy, hemorrhagic bleeding that interfered with my work and our lives.  Too, my health and well-being was increasingly at risk.  The aftermath of the surgery left me with severely limited sexual responsiveness.  Although we sought out medical advice, and although I went through a significant course of hormone replacement therapy, my sexual responses were forever changed.  I sank into depression.  Medication and therapy were part of my road back, but mostly it took time.  A long time.  We went on spanking through all of those years, but my joy and my desire were just not there.  I submitted, sometime more successfully than others, but it was a struggle and He knew it.  My unhappiness lived between us -- hurt us both.

Now, years later, I've healed.  I've adjusted to what is my sexual reality.  And, for reasons that I do not entirely understand, I've come back around to the awareness of my spanking orientation as intimately linked to my sexuality.  I dream of Him spanking me.   I imagine His hands on me.  I spend the long, late hours of the night lost in the fantasy of SM play with Him, and that is good and sexy and hot.  My spanking thing is back...  My mind and my body are back in sync, and the spanko me is thrilled. 

swan

The State of Our Union and a Clarification

In the post just previous to this, swan recounted her uneasiness in our relationship's evolution to a more fully developed and perhaps more egalitarian D/s. She was feeling unsure and potentially destabilized by changes she perceived to be coming. In her insecurity she was having imaginings of implications of these changes that had her frankly frightened that she would no longer be able to base her life trusting in our power exchange. She was imagining we were about to become entirely equal she and I in our relationship. She was catastrophizing relationship dynamics that fortunately don't exist between us. I have in the meantime explained my perception of where we are in our relatedness with her, and since I am still Master that perception is of course what in fact matters:) Oh yes, and, BTW too, I have clarified to her in no uncertain terms that she of course continues to wear her collar, as she has, if not more.

We don't live to adhere to a model of some BDSM archetypal paradigm. Rather we live our lives and adjust the language we use to describe ourselves to fit our reality. We are not BDSM, but BDSM is (to a great degree) us. I know this sounds like double talk but it is an important distinction, at least to us.

So what this means is that we are still very much Master and slave, i. e., M/s. I am not likely to ever reverse my essential nature to innately be in control and to lead. It may sound like a gift to some. There are times it is. There also have been times it has been a curse. I am however in my control of our relationship finding myself wanting to explore sharing some of the control. That finds its way into our SM expression in my wanting to explore switching. In all these developments I am being quite intentional and they are occurring at my direction not because of some sort of acquiescence. If I demand you spank me I have not lost control. I have gained a fuller sado- masochistic experience. It also doesn't mean that I am no longer a sadist or Dominant. I am, in fact ,(surprise...surprise:) sado-masochistic:)

None of these dynamics evolve for us unless I decide for them to and I could just as immediately withdraw or alter them should that seem pleasing or appropriate to me.

So those who are feeling, as I have seen written, that somehow our relationship's evolution is evidence that there can be no 24/7 M/s power exchange really aren't "getting it," at least in terms of how we perceive and feel about our relationship's definition. We haven't altered our relationship. We have evolved over the years and have altered somewhat our language in describing who and what we are to each other.

I would be remiss too, after all the time and attention that has been paid here to my drinking, if I did not update where that stands. I am drinking again, and quite happily so. I have wine with dinner. I have Kahlua in my coffee. swan who was abstaining in concert with me, is now feeling free to have the occasional Dos Equis. My drinking is much more moderate and I am enjoying the taste and the experience. I am drinking much less than when I quit in early September. Moreover I am not getting drunk. I am surprised and pleased that despite my surgically altered physiology, I am having no trouble with becoming uncontrollably inebriated, or inebriated at all for that matter. I had feared we would not get to this point. That I would not be able to. I am pleased and relaxed, happier, and much more healthy. We all are. I had feared my medical team had misinformed me when they said it was possible to drink with care after this surgery. Just as I had to learn to eat very differently than ever before after my surgery, I have had to learn to drink very differently and, at this point, my new regimen is working very well.

So now at about eight and a half years into our living together as a polyamorous triad D/s family, at the age of 61 in my case, I am finding us to be very much healthier and happier than we have been together.

We have just learned today that despite t's mom's Doctor's requesting that we get advanced directives in place regarding whether or not we would want her to be placed on a ventilator if that were the only way she might survive (we don't), he does not feel it is time for her to engage hospice services. That has us feeling very comforted that we may have her for a while yet. We are very much relieved and bolstered especially with the Holidays drawing near.

Our next major hurdle is that t is planning to have a total knee replacement surgery in mid-November: something very necessary, but not without risk or major discomfort in the near term. swan and I are determined to see her through that with caring, love, advocacy, and strength so that we can have her more fully functioning, and without pain in her knee, by next spring.

Thank you so much for the caring support input and friendship so many have extended to us here as we have had our last passage into this new phase of our life and love.

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

Collaborative Evolving Power Exchange

Some readers may have noticed a verbal shift in that long and convoluted conversation between He and I the other day -- our long custom of exchanging affirmations of our power exchange relationship was modified by Him:

Raheretic: I love you

Swan: Yours always and all ways

Swan: bye for now

Raheretic: Mine Always and All Ways

Raheretic: Too..............Yours Always and All Ways

Raheretic: I/we need both

Swan: well then ... Mine always and all ways

Swan: bye, Love

 

That was intentional on His part, meant to point to what He perceives to be our new and evolving reality.  As He has come to feel more switchy, His sense of our relationship has shifted.  He has increasingly indicated that what we are about is more collaborative and less definitively tilted toward anything that might reasonably be called M/s or maybe even D/s. 

Things have changed.  Things do change.  We are, clearly, not the same people we were 2 years ago, or 5  years ago, or 10 years ago.  Not as young and not as intensely dedicated to the sort of BDSM interactions we once enjoyed.  We've experienced real changes in our health status -- mostly for the better, although there is no denying the fact of ongoing aging.  We've seen significant changes in our career paths and our incomes.  We've withdrawn completely from the public scene -- finding it simultaneously dull and almost incomprehensible; not to mention ridiculously expensive.  We never imagined the road we'd travel in this last decade.  If we had, we might have chickened out before we ever started.

We've shifted the control back and forth between us, over the years, depending on what the circumstances dictated.  Most often, that has been driven by health issues, and I have sometimes been the controlling, and guiding partner as He has needed to focus on surgeries and illness and recovery.  There is no doubt that I am capable of assuming control when the situation warrants it.  

Now, it seems that He does not feel any need to be THE ONE IN CONTROL.  It seems that He is comfortable with our sharing that; switching not just in terms of erotic spanking, but in the much broader context of our day to day power dynamic.  I am made uneasy by that baldly stated truth -- even as I must acknowledge the fact.

I don't know what it means.  Perhaps it really doesn't signify any big change.  Perhaps it is simply the statement of the reality that has evolved between us.  Perhaps it is the natural landing point of the trajectory that we've been following from the moment when, out walking together, we accepted (with a sense of trepidation and wonderment) the desciptor of Master/slave for our relationship.  In that moment, we adopted language that we'd resisted previously, and made it "ours."  We've lived that in the years since, and found it made some sense for the two of us.  Now, there is a new understanding -- a new reality and awareness.  

We still play with the power dynamic in our relationship.  We are aware of it and deliberate in our manipulation of the power flows and energies.  Those who do not understand the use of power inside of intimate relationships are unable to use those energies to their mutual benefit.  That is not us.  Now, though, we seem to meet more as collaborators and partners in that balancing.  Truthfully, maybe we've always collaborated in that, but been more content to have the balance be more radically tilted.  Perhaps it is the fact that I've moved more toward the fulcrum point of the balance, and He has allowed and accommodated that -- until now we stand, face to face across from one another, and right in the center.  

There is no exotic descriptor for what we are engaged in -- no fancy uppercase/lowercase delineators.  We will likely, eventually, stop using the Master/slave lexicon altogether.  The provocative scintilla that came with all of that business will just slip off and away and we will gradually become more apparently "normal" and "mainstream" than we have appeared previously.

It makes me a little sad.  It scares me a little.  There is something easy and sure about being able to sum up the nature of your intimate life in such simple terms.  This new collaborative, evolving, power exchange dynamic seems much less defined and way more nebulous.  I don't know what it is and I have no clear sense of who or how I am inside of this.  It is disconcerting and unsettling.  I have no good experience or working model to draw upon for plain, old, garden variety relatedness based on some sort of equality.  The only time I ever tried that, it turned out to be a total disaster.  Sigh.  

I am full of questions.  What is expected?  What will this mean for us sexually?  Will we still play?  What about the collar I wear?  Should I -- or should I not?  Still?  Will He still be "Sir?"  "Master?"  Will I still be "swan?"  "His?"  What are the lines, the limits, the agreements?  I feel like I am living in a new and uncharted place where I do not know the rules.  And then, I tell myself that it is all silliness -- we are doing this already.  There is no tidal wave of change happening here.  The changes have come incrementally over the years and months leading to this point.  All I need to do is just go on doing it day to day and it will be whatever it is going to be.  There is no going back, even if I would wish it.  

I just don't know.  I just do not know.

swan

After Weeks

We haven't spanked.  Not for a very long time.  He's not been interested -- not in sex and not  in SM play. 

I've tried, on a few occasions to talk Him into it, to tell Him I needed a spanking, maybe even to tempt Him with a wiggle and a wink...  No go.  He told me that it just el like "service topping" to Him -- and He HATES feeling like a service top.

After awhile, I quit asking, stopped hoping, tucked my collar into a drawer, and resigned myself to a life without... 

So, this week, when things began to come back around, when He and I finally reconnected and began to understand that we could choose to walk another path from the one we'd embarked on, things started to feel better.  He began to look at me again, with eyes that actually saw me.  I got my collar back out and put it on.  Walking past me, in the kitchen or in the bedroom, He would playfully swat my butt, and my heart would skip a beat and soar.

This morning, at last, we woke up together, wrapped around each other, having slept well and long.  We made love and it was good.  Afterwards, we curled into one another and drowsed in the warm drowsiness of a bright fall morning.  I didn't know what He was thinking or planning, and didn't want to seem to be demanding.  I softly asked if He wanted me to make breakfast so we could get out and walk.  He told me that He thought He'd rather spank me. 

Joy!  I was ecstatic and thrilled and desperate to be "good" for this first venture back into the play that has bound us to one another for years...

I got myself arranged over the pillow that we often use for spanking, and He seemed intent on lots of knife play and a little light hand spanking.  I was completely focused on Him, wanting to just follow His lead and be whatever it was He wanted me to be in the moment.  Lots of knives, so many different edges and sensations, and some light straps -- and then... WHAM!  WHAM!  WHAM!  It was a paddle, and so heavy that it pounded into me, jarring my pelvis and eliciting grunts and howls.  Not many strokes -- perhaps six or maybe a few more.  It left me quivering, shuddering, shaking, with only a few whimpers as I calmed back down.  He told me, "After all this time of wanting to get spanked, you needed at least a little intensity."  Then, He went on with other implements that were more in keeping with what we most often do these days.  It was good and powerful and I felt "successful" at the end of it.  Successful in my world has to do with being good, with reacting well, with coming to the end of it all knowing that I've done what He wants.  Today was like that, and I was thrilled and happy.  I wasn't feeling terribly spanked, although I knew, at the end, that I was limp and a little foggy.  I did ask Him what it was that He'd used that was so heavy and so intense in the beginning part of the session, and He told me that it was the Jokari paddle.  Wow!  It really was as intense as it felt!  It wasn't until later this afternoon, that I really noticed that I had some sore places -- not awful but there and just having that sensation made me feel so much better than I have for weeks now.

Just one more place where we are recovering our footing in the aftermath of this latest passage.  Whatever we thought we were about, today it seems we have found our way back into life and health and happiness and love.

swan 

It Has Been Awhile

We've been writing in this Blogger format since December, 2004.  For nearly six years, we've shared pretty regularly, the ups and downs of our lives together.  Sometimes, what we've written has been funny, and sometimes sad.  Sometimes our lives are interesting, or sexy, or chaotic.  Occasionally, things around us even rise to the level of high drama.  Whatever, we've poured out probably millions of words about it all by now. 

Blogging, as we do, about our personal lives and beliefs and struggles and triumphs, is an interesting exercise.  It is, by definition, public in that it appears here, online, open for anyone who is interested to see.  On the other hand, it is intensely personal.  We have always held ourselves to that standard -- that what we write will be the truth as best as we can understand it about our lives in the moment.  There is, honestly, an aspect of blogging that seeks out the audience.  If no one were reading, it would be less affirming to write this.  The obverse of that audience awareness is that we understand that we write for ourselves -- we work to not get wrapped up in "writing for the traffic."  It is a balancing act, and one that we are conscious of. 

There are very few readers here who have been around from the beginning, and it seems unlikely that those arriving now, after all these years, would delve back into those earliest days and try to read it all -- a nearly impossible and dreadfully boring undertaking.  Too, as a recent commenter pointed out, there are those who read here casually, or sporadically, or situationally -- pulled in be the topic of the moment.  We have good friends, the greatest gift of the blogging endeavor, who have stayed with us throughout all of our various moods and dustups, and we have committed critics who seem to obsess over their need to correct and refute our every word.  As blogging is a form of this age's "social media," so this place has come to be a small society with its own set of interesting and unique denizens. 

It will be no surprise to our long term readers that the bunch of us routinely go against the grain, defy the norms, and reject the common view.  We do not simply claim to be practitioners of alternative lifestyles.  We actually hold and endorse alternative beliefs and alternative ideas, and we are not shy about saying so.  That is, perhaps, part of the appeal -- and part of what so frosts our detractors. 

It is easy, as an author of a "sex" and "BDSM" blog, to understand what draws some people to us.  We are proud to be counted among the community of spankos and perverts and kinky folk who populate our blog roll and who have been our companions in the life for so many years.  We don't always see eye to eye with all of those folks, and they don't always agree with us, but we all know that we share a unique and special gift, and we honor one another with acceptance and tolerance -- even when we may not understand or agree or even approve. 

It is also easy to account for the appearance of the occasional "lost soul" who stumbles into this place by accident, and is surprised and appalled by what they find here.  Those folks almost never stick around.  They walk right in, look startled for an instant, and beat a hasty retreat.  I always have a bit of regret for their discomfort, and hope they have no lasting trauma from their encounter with us. 

What is harder for me to comprehend, as a writer, are those few mean-spirited ones who seem hell-bent on coming here to be nasty.  Why?  It takes an active choice to arrive here, for the most part.  What is it that drives some people to come here, day after day, sometimes more than once a day, when clearly they find us and everything about us to be repellent?  I.  Do.  Not.  Understand.  Those people have an uncanny similarity to one another.  They are rude.  They insist that we have no right to take offense to their obnoxious behavior because this place is "public."  They seem to believe that we are somehow obliged to give credence to their views, no matter that our own are in complete opposition.  Somehow these crazy fools seem to be convinced that if they beat at our doors long enough we will wake up suddenly one day and be "redeemed" -- whatever that would look like to them.  How very odd...

Anyway, I started out here thinking that I'd write some sort of "Everything You Need to Know About Hanging Out With Us" post, and that isn't the way this is shaping up.  It is just too complicated.  Or maybe it is just too simple.  Why complicate it?  We are who we are.  We live the life we have chosen to live.  It isn't LIKE most of the rest of the world.  We tend to not believe what "everyone" believes, or to do what "everyone" is doing.  We are not ashamed.  We are not afraid.  We are not easy to get along with or to like.  The ones who find us interesting and true and reliable, put up with our quirks and love us anyway.  Those others, who cannot accept that there are people like us -- find us completely irritating and annoying.  We do what we can to protect ourselves from their attacks and rude behavior. 

And, whatever comes, we keep writing... 

swan

A Glimpse into How We Talk

When He and I are in a good place with one another; when our lives are flowing along a course that makes sense to us; we talk.  We talk over dinner and we talk while we walk and we talk at bedtime and we talk through the commercials on television.  When we are apart from one another, we check in by phone -- I call Him when I get to school in the morning, and I call Him again when I leave school and head for home.  During the school day, when there is time (and if the computer network gremlins cooperate), we chat on IM.

In the last two months, as we wrestled and wrangled with the issues surrounding His alcohol use; as we arrived at the iterations of The Plan; as we lived through all the long and miserable days of a month of abstinence; and then as we came out of that phase and He resumed drinking; we have slowly but steadily drawn apart from one another.  Moment by moment and day by day, as He struggled with the ups and downs of all of that, we talked less and less, and touched less and less.  We still maintained our routines and patterns, but we were like strangers going through the motions.  He was sad, depressed, angry.  I was baffled, confused, lost.  He felt rejected and devalued.  I felt betrayed and hurt.  Our world had grown very quiet.

By Thursday, we'd reached an impasse.  He had concluded that our M/s dynamic was a sham and a facade.  In His view, He'd relinquished control under pressure from me to change the drinking behavior.   I thought I was doing a good thing.  I thought I was working to protect His health.  I thought we'd arrived at the goals and the plans together, but that wasn't how it felt to Him.  He was clear that I'd seized control and that He was, therefore, in the position of being submissive to me.  The power exchange that forms the foundation of our relatedness was topsy-turvy and we were at odds with one another.  It wasn't what either of us wanted, but we seemed completely unable to wrench ourselves out of the spiral.

I had a wickedly long day on Thursday, with a full day of teaching followed by a three hour teacher inservice that was to run until 9 PM.  During my planning period, I managed to make contact with Him on IM, and so we chatted.  Neither of us had slept well, and we'd about come to the end of our patience with one another.  It was a very difficult and very blunt and very painful conversation.  We told one another some hard truths, and we wound our way through some murky territory.  Eventually, we came to understand that we had ourselves in a box -- and that it was a box that we'd constructed for ourselves.  "The Plan" which was making us so utterly miserable and crazy was OURS.  We'd developed it and set in motion and we could modify it at any point that we chose.  Duh!  We were not answerable to anyone but ourselves.  He was not answerable to anyone but Himself.

And, just like that, life snapped back into place.  We enjoyed our evening (what there was of it after my late workshop), and slept soundly, wrapped around each other through the night.

Today, we had a fair amount of time to chat (in several sessions).  We were almost giddy with the shear joy of being back in touch with one another, and so our conversation was light and animated and ebullient.  I imagine that there won't be many who actually care, but for those who find our relatedness intriguing, the rambling conversation may be of interest.  Be warned that we are, with one another, inclined to be unrestrained in our opinions.  Those who have tender sensibilities; who find us unduly sarcastic; who think that we are too mean-spirited towards those who hold views in opposition to ours; will most likely find our unedited commentary to be outrageous and distressing.  The running narrative will be given in highlighted boldface to distinguish it from the actual conversation--

swan

The beginning greetings go very quickly to His/hers apologies and proffered forgiveness for whatever it was that either of us might have done to get us into the emotional mess we've suffered through.  And then there is the clear frustration about the continual assaults by anonymous commenters --

Raheretic: I thought I heard IM-ing but thought it was too good to be true it could be you

Raheretic: how wonderful

Swan: maybe its a sign

Raheretic: How are you?

Swan: a little strung out and stressed but ok

Raheretic: feeling drained here too

Raheretic: what an experience this has been

Raheretic: I am sorry this has been so hard for you

Raheretic: It has been terrible for me too

Swan: and I'm sorry for however it is that I've overstepped

Swan: that was never what I meant to do

Swan: and I never meant to devalue or reject you

Raheretic: If you did..............who knows?

Swan: or make you feel that I had done that

Swan: I am so sorry

Swan: please forgive me

Raheretic: We likely need some anonymous person to try to tell us right from wrong

Raheretic: I forgive you if there is anything to forgive

Swan: I imagine there is one who will try that

Swan: thank you

Raheretic: Neither of us was doing anything except to do and try to be what was best

Raheretic: in difficult times and dynamics

Then we shift into some discussion about Master's former job, and the changes that have happened there since He left.  This transition to retirement, which came about because of difficult economic realities, has challenged us for months.  On one hand, it has been good and the cause for significant stress reduction in His life and in ours.  However, there have been difficult feelings and a real sense of loss after so many years spent in the disability advocacy realm--

Raheretic: I just looked at the Agency website staff list

Swan: anything interesting?

Raheretic: one fewer staff and if they can do the work, then that becomes a significant profit center

Swan: if

Raheretic: I bet they can if they emphasize production and cut quality

Raheretic: take a "good enough" sort of attitude

Raheretic: after all just because "quality" is in the program's name, do we really have to.....................?

Raheretic: well they will be of little value to the community if they are out of business too

Raheretic: so it has to be tough

Raheretic: I' rather be out of business myself

Raheretic: I did look on line to see if anything surfaces derogatory regarding me in a google

Raheretic: nothing is there

Raheretic: were there to be that would violate the agreement and they would be come fair game if nothing else for breech of contract and defamation

Raheretic: I am off "pursuing other interests"

And that bridges us into the discussion of our "moderation" adventure --

Raheretic: like how many drinks constitutes moderation?

Swan: I think my venture into the realms of moderation is over

Swan: I'm not going to fuss about it anymore

Swan: you know what makes you feel well and what doesn't

Swan: not my job to manage that

Swan: and I think MM is just stupid

Swan: so...

Swan: this poor slave is done

Swan: with that crap

Raheretic: I think MM helps me moderate -- reading there

Raheretic: it is interesting watching folks cycle in and out of "success"

Raheretic: I am already performing in their 95th %-ile

Swan: life is a series of cycles in and out of degrees of success

Swan: in every arena

Swan: none of us live "on the mountain top"

Raheretic: I think there are a lot of folks who really do get into cycling through drinking and sobriety as a game

Raheretic: neat melodrama

And then we spend time just reveling in being "good" with one another again, talking about the simple realities of my teaching work --

Raheretic: Boy, I feel good chatting with you today

Raheretic: better than in a while

Raheretic: maybe better than since I lost my job

Swan: L stopped in to talk

Swan: about testing

Swan: we just got word that all the testing has to be done by Wednesday next week

Swan: and we thought we had until the end of the month

Swan: so there is low level panic ensuing

Swan: building wide

Swan: I just told her I think we ought to start off first thing Monday morning and just go

Swan: until it is done

Raheretic: wow what a stunningly bold solution!!!!!!

Raheretic: why don't they just make you Queen

Raheretic: They would if they were smart you know

But I am feeling very tender about even the implication that I might be "in control," and so refuse the enthronement --

Swan: well -- I am done with being the fucking queen

Swan: queen never works out for me

Swan: sucks

Raheretic: that is not true

Raheretic: you are my Queen if i say you are

Swan: you can be queen but everyone will hate your guts

Swan: I'd much rather have a collar than a tiara

Raheretic: well it kind of comes with the territory sometimes

Swan: I can't stand it when You hate my guts

Raheretic: well with me you have both

Swan: it kills me

Raheretic: BIG COLLAR......................little tiara

Swan: if the world hates me I can live with it

Raheretic: I never hated you

Raheretic: Sorry I had lots of confused mixed difficult feelings in all this

Raheretic: and guess what I projected them and acted them out

Swan: I know

Swan: but it still sucked having you hate my guts

Raheretic: I didn’t hate you or your guts

Swan: no matter what sort of psycho babble bullshit we use to describe it

Raheretic: love your guts very much

Raheretic: I think through this whole ABS/alcohol withdrawal thing I have been terribly depressed and I am suddenly feeling way better

And then we veer off into serious fantasy land, talking about a house in the wilds of Alaska --

Raheretic: my god I just saw my dream home

Swan: I'm so glad you are feeling better

Raheretic: 499k

Swan: a yurt in Montana?

Raheretic: in Alaska on a lake with 1.4 acres of woods

Swan: I think that qualifies as a definite dream

Raheretic: giant chalet

Raheretic: dock on great lake at end of front yard

Raheretic: set up for boat or sea plane

Swan: nothing in Alaska is a "dream" Sir

Raheretic: showed pic in dead of winter.................no smow

Raheretic: sun

Swan: nightmare maybe

Raheretic: LOL no it is so beautiful

Swan: mosquitos that have to be cleared from a control tower

Swan: do they show THOSE in the picture?

Swan: I bet not

Raheretic: and no one to interfere if you want to go run around naked in the summer

Swan: and get eaten by a giant mosquito

Raheretic: they have those in Michigan and upstate New York

Raheretic: I grew up with them

Raheretic: they die when you smack them

And then, at last, for the first time in weeks and weeks, there was talk about spanking --

Raheretic: unlike your ass

Swan: which just glows

Raheretic: beautifully as does all of your beautiful body

Raheretic: god you make life a joy

Swan: thank you

Swan: for remembering me finally

Swan: I've been so lost

Swan: and so afraid

And another shift as we fall off into discussing a trip we have planned next weekend -- off to the "big city" of Toledo--

Raheretic: this will be a nice weekend

Raheretic: Maybe tomorrow even better

Raheretic: Neither you or t have ever seen anything like Tony Packo's

Raheretic: because I don't think there is anything else like it

Raheretic: different and good

Swan: that will be next weekend

Swan: this weekend we get to just be...

Raheretic: and on Friday night like their Dixie land jazz band will be playing

Raheretic: called The Cake Walkin' Jass Band

Raheretic: and lots of sausage eating, chili eating, perogi eating, drunken Hunky's

Raheretic: who are glad to be there and glad to be alive because they are there

Raheretic: in what is called the Birmingham Section

Raheretic: little Hungary

Raheretic: There are time I miss being ingrained as a player in that community

Raheretic: it was a good place to be

Raheretic: and offers so much more than people know

Then back to school stuff, as my day does what days often do at our crazy little school --

Swan: insane here this morning

Swan: I'm trying to give a social studies test

Swan: and the professor from NKU is grabbing groups of kids for interviews about the exchange project

Swan: and then just now, a group of about a dozen teacher from Denmark wandered in unannounced to "tour"

Swan:  “…well. hello. welcome. 6th graders -- what is it we're working on this morning?"

Swan: good grief

Swan: just out wandering from room to room

Raheretic: melancholy Danes just wondering the halls in small herds

Swan: wanted to borrow a dictionary so that they could see a picture of a hedgehog

Raheretic: well there's usually interesting things going on in your room

Swan: just testing this morning

Swan: not all that interesting

Raheretic: kids wiggling pencils

And back to our favorite topic --

Raheretic: just watching Today show guys’ wardrobes

Raheretic: damn they are doing butt exercises

Raheretic: so far I can't do any of them

Raheretic: due to arthritis

Swan: butt exercises?

Raheretic: saying besides the aesthetic it is crucial to balance

Raheretic: yeah.......glut's

Raheretic: Ok now here's one but I don't know if my shoulder would let me do it

Swan: a butt exercise that uses your shoulder?

Swan: sounds like an exercise for my butt

Raheretic: LOL

 And our sense of joy and wonderment at finding ourselves back in our lives again.  Here is where we begin to identify the "wrongness" that we feel in trying to adapt our lives and our world view to an essentially "disease" driven model of alcohol management and recovery.  The insistence on powerlessness doesn't work for us -- and it feels right and empowering to really know that --

Raheretic: god I love you

Swan: and I love you

Swan: and I'm so glad to be back to us

Swan: and I never want to go away again

Raheretic: It is so good to feel OK

Raheretic: I felt so broken

Raheretic: and deficient

Raheretic: and lost

Swan: and I was too lost and afraid to know what to do or say

Swan: until I finally got that it was ok for us to modify our own stupid plan

Swan: duh

Raheretic: I don't think I realized how badly I felt until now that it is better

Raheretic: thank you

Swan: we can be sort of stubborn the two of us

Raheretic: and we did do justice to it

Raheretic: we really did do it

Swan: IT

Raheretic: and then modified

Raheretic: IT

Swan: except that while doing IT we couldn't do it....

Raheretic: no while we were doing it we couldn't do IT

Swan: so now that we are not absing and not moderating you into total abject misery, what will we talk about?

Raheretic: hmmmmm.............spanking, sex, vacations, the weekend, food

Raheretic: politics

Swan: Abuelo's

Raheretic: the rest of our lives

Raheretic: happiness

Raheretic: yay for Abuelos

Swan: Abuelo'sAbuelo'sAbuelo'sAbuelo'sAbuelo's

Raheretic: I think the thing i am enjoying most since resuming drinking is 1800

Swan: and spanking and sex and spanking and sex and spanking

Raheretic: oh yeah, and, spanking and sex

Swan: and you might find, if you are not just drowning yourself in alcohol that you like different things on different days -- like you were drinking for the taste

And here is the precise point where He comes up with the idea of inflicting all of this on our readers -- and saving it for ourselves.  The very idea of sharing the conversation sets me off, and I go straight to the things that I'd just love to tell the 12-steppers and the nasty and hateful anonymous ones --

Raheretic: I think maybe I should see if i can save this chat and post it

Raheretic: As how we are

Swan: oh arrgggghhhh

Raheretic: since everyone is so interested

Swan: then be sure to say that I have had it up to HERE with all the meddling judgmental asshole anonymous pricks

Raheretic: And then all the 12-stepper disease model assholes can feel remarkably superior to our daring to be happy

Swan: them too

Swan: I do not 12 step

Swan: don't even two step

Raheretic: and not recognizing how truly powerless we are in the face of alcohol without help from the Great Beyond

Raheretic: and degenerately happy

Swan: and if we are in fact powerless, then knowing that -- realizing that -- helps us how?

Swan: since there isn't fucking anything out there in the great beyond

Swan: except "Billions and Billions and Billions of stars"

Raheretic: well then The Maker would heal us

Swan: and stamp us with the Maker's Mark

Swan: the whole place is one giant distillery

Raheretic: I think my next bourbon therefore will be Maker's Mark in honor of Him

Raheretic: ROFL great minds

Swan: what absolute silliness

Raheretic: Billions and billions of stars each one matched by a dollar that was paid to Recovery disease model based treatment programs that indoctrinated drunk people in the cult of "12 step-ism" with no outcome

Raheretic: other than most of them became powerless and more drunk

Swan: and their families sucked right into the vortex along with them

Swan: al-anon

Swan: and al-a-teen

Swan: and on and on and on

Raheretic: research does show that 32% of problem drinkers of whatever degree quit, and more resolve their problems by moderating all without treatment.

Raheretic: only 16 % with treatment have a successful outcome

Raheretic: for the drunks

Raheretic: lots of success for the treatment professionals, and administrators, and operations staff

Raheretic: who make very good livings thank you very much

Raheretic: and feel quite wholesome about helping the poor downtrodden souls whom they "serve."

Swan: what an amazing scam

Raheretic: Interesting scam mostly paid for from tax dollars and insurance reimbursements

Swan: more voodoo than even religious voodoo

Raheretic: Great minds again

Raheretic: very Catholic or Mormon like in its "voodoo" quotient

Swan: you would think we were compatible or something

Raheretic: replace drinking with cult dependence

Raheretic: no cirrhosis of the liver...............just the brain

Swan: once a 12 stepper, always a 12 stepper

Swan: the corollary to “give me a child until they are 7 and ...”

Raheretic: yeah just like a Marine

Raheretic: Didn't I read that somewhere recently?

Raheretic: Oh yeah it was in an anonymous comment on our Blog

Raheretic: wisdom from the disease model 12 step recovery folks

Raheretic: and true Christians no doubt

Swan: same only different

Raheretic: having given their wretched lives over to God

Swan: like god has time for this crap

Swan: if in fact god is god

Swan: wouldn't god be sort of busy?

Swan: making bees and tree leaves and clouds and shit

Raheretic: if he is, I bet he doesn't care if i drink or not

Raheretic: He might feel he gave me will, and intelligence and resources more than most human beings ever get, and a moral code, and expect me to live my life fairly well.

Swan: we've resolved all the important questions

Raheretic: mostly and in just one morning

Raheretic: Likely "post-ABS zest"

And then, the most remarkable transformation came pouring across my computer screen -- a flash of insight, wisdom and understanding that just took my breath away --

Raheretic: I just did have a flash

Swan: oh?

Raheretic: It dawned on me how much wisdom I had in my twenties and while I've experienced so much

Raheretic: and fleshed it out with hugely pragmatic information, and empowerment, and maturity

Raheretic: I've lost much of what benefit and life I had then

Raheretic: Then I was more poor as I/we are now

Raheretic: but not destitute because I worked hard

Raheretic: I broke my ass building mobile homes in freezing cold and blazing heat

Raheretic: and when I wasn't there I partied with great friends who I valued and who valued me
Raheretic: and when we got the chance we did hand to hand combat in the streets with police to end the war

Raheretic: and life was so good

Raheretic: and when I could I went to school

Raheretic: and my wife then was a good young teacher

Raheretic: never attaining or having the capacity for who you are as an educator

Raheretic: but still better than most

Raheretic: and life was good

Raheretic: and we never felt deprived

Raheretic: we were thrilled at the life we had

Raheretic: and valued the gifts we could share and the joy of fighting for good

Swan: and it was enough

Raheretic: It was more than enough...............it was absolutely abundant and we were continually grateful

Raheretic: and I woke up each day being helpful

Raheretic: and when we celebrated which did involve chemicals, we were celebrating our lives and our humanity and our loves and who we were and the strength we had to do good and to damage evil

Raheretic: and each morning I woke up happy for the day

Swan: and ready for what would come

Raheretic: I’ve learned and done much and had children and made a lot more money than I thought I'd ever see
Raheretic: and had victories and vanquished evil foes more effectively than I ever did then
Raheretic: although injuring them in hand to hand combat was far more rewarding

Raheretic: I should likely leave that to young people in their 20's

Raheretic: All this came to me oddly

Raheretic: I got thinking that I would love a denim work jacket

Raheretic: and I never see them anywhere

Raheretic: and I got thinking about that western wear work clothes shop out here in the country somewhere where we bought that long brown bull whip
Raheretic: and that they assuredly would have one

Raheretic: then I thought and yes they have real actual "cowboy oil skiin slickers" and that I have always wanted one

Raheretic: and that we should not spend money

Raheretic: and then it came to me that then we would have said that it was something I dreamed of having and that that dream would give me power

Raheretic: and I dressed and appeared in ways that I felt powerful
Raheretic: not correct

Raheretic: and as I recalled that all this rushed into me

Raheretic: As well as the belief I could recreate that life and it could be better than then

Raheretic: wow!!!!

Raheretic: this felt....feels powerful

Swan: a break through from the way you have been seeing things

Swan: a chance to create a life that is good and strong and fulfilling

Swan: if less monetarily lucrative

Swan: huge possibilities

Swan: for you and for us

Raheretic: way different than I have felt, seen things for decades

Swan: HOORAY!!!!!

Swan: I've been waiting for this for so long

Raheretic: maybe money is not the only conveyor of capacity

Raheretic: thank you for waiting for me to catch up

Raheretic: I am almost in tears

Raheretic: reading the whole earth magazine last weekend started to bring me back to this

Raheretic: I used to live by the Whole Earth Catalog

Raheretic: and read it like a Bible

Raheretic: I love you so much and I feel better than I have in decades

Raheretic: thank you so much

Swan: I am so glad

Raheretic: I love you

Swan: Yours always and all ways

Swan: bye for now

Raheretic: Mine Always and All Ways

Raheretic: Too..............Yours Always and All Ways

Raheretic: I/we need both

Swan: well then ... Mine always and all ways

Swan: bye, Love

And now you know a little bit about how we are when we are good, just us, and together...

Our Family's Newest Crisis

Our friends and readers here may recall that last August (2009), in the aftermath of a carotid artery clean-out surgery, t's mom, Eleanor, had a series of strokes which almost killed her. Amazingly, despite a month in a vegetative state, and after three months in a rehabilitation facility that was nothing short of wondrous in the quality of their care, she was back in her home for Christmas 2009. She has been cared for tirelessly by her niece, who relocated from Michigan, to live with her grandmother, with respite provided by t and her brother, and, even swan, has taken a relief stint. We have only, just in the last month, gotten a home care company in too, to help provide professional support. She has limited speech, and significant physical disability between the impact of her strokes and her respiratory deficit. She has to be on oxygen always, and takes dramatically impactful medications that are usually used as chemo-therapy in oncological treatment.

She has in the interim suffered further strokes, and has been diagnosed with interstitial lung disease. Her condition is treatable, but terminal. She had an appointment with her pulmunoligist today. He has told us that soon (and of course no one knows exactly what "soon" means) there will come a time when the only way she will be able to survive is on a ventilator. After that there is no way she will survive without the vent, and there would be no conscious life. t has arranged for us all to be together tomorrow evening, including swan and I, with her brother, niece, and of course, her mom, to decide whether we will ever introduce ventilation into her care, or will enact advance directives which would prevent that from being implemented.

t's mom, Eleanor, is one of the strongest, and simply and purely, the best women, I have ever known. She has always taken into her home, and had at her table people who were lost and needed family and help, whatever their story, including me, when my first marriage ended and I discovered, came to love, and eventually marry her daughter. And, as our lives evolved, and our swan came to become part of our lives and our love, she accepted us all, and welcomed swan as a new daughter to her life and family, as only she would, without fanfare, but just as a matter of course. Only she could be who she has been for us all. As this hurdle looms, I find myself feeling that this damnable year will never end with the losses it has brought us.

We will gather as a family and spend however much time we have celebrating the coming holidays as heartily as we are able, while we still have us all.

All the best,

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.