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We are three adults living in a polyamorous triad family. The content here is intended for an adult audience. If you are not an adult, please leave now.

4/25/2012

So Many Things Are Happening


There are so many things happening here.
It is a little overwhelming sometimes.  Not bad.  Not at all.  Just different, new, strange, mysterious -- and somedays, even flat out weird.
Some of what we are experiencing, trying out, playing at, and exploring is a little bit magical.  It feels to me like stuff made of gossamer and fairy dust and moonbeams.  A puff of wind might blow it all completely away, and I do not want to be the one to jinx us.
So...
I come here, and I feel like I should talk to all of you.  As before.  As we have done for years and years.  And...  I just can't.  Not now.  Not yet.  Soon.  I hope.  Soon, there may be great big bubbling posts full of news and excitement and wonderment and awestruck amazement.
I just wanted you to know that we are here and we are fine.
The quiet does not portend anything negative.
Be patient, friends.

swan

4/18/2012

Creative Solution to a Mundane Problem

OK.

This might just work...

I am so far behind, I am never going to catch up -- at least not until June gets here and I can rest and then focus (in that order).

Now then, where am I going to find some people with OCD to invite over for some kind of weekly gathering?

Things to ponder...  swan

4/17/2012

When Kids Grab Your Heart

I am a teacher.  From August to June, each year, I spend my days in the company of 6th graders.

I am fortunate to work in a wonderful K-8 school with an enrollment of about 450 students.  It is a vibrant place, nestled in the heart of the community that it serves.  The building is nearing 90 years old, and the budgeting is sometimes tight  Things aren't fancy around our place, but there is almost nothing that we won't tackle together.  Our kids are loved and disciplined and encouraged and given wings.  We prepare them to be citizens in an increasingly interconnected world, and then we send them out to explore the far corners of that world.

From my vantage point at the 6th grade level, I can see kids coming along through the years.  I see them when they arrive, brand new and so very little in the beginning days of kindergarten.  I talk to them in the halls when all their words come out distorted by their missing front teeth.  I admire their art work in the halls, and get moved to tears when they sing like small angels at holidays and celebrations of all sorts (yeah -- I'm sappy that way).

When they finally get to me and my classroom, I help them solve the inevitable conflicts in the halls and on the playground, and coach them through how to manage increasingly busy schedules.  I listen to their hopes and their fears and their sorrows and their dreams.  I laugh at them and with them.  I remind them that they are good people who know exactly how to do the right thing in most situations.  I grade their papers and mark their report cards.  I stay in touch with their parents, and I wake up in the middle of the night wondering how to make some apparently opaque concept more clear for those who struggle.

When they leave me each year in June, waving over their shoulders as they sail off into their summers, I am comforted to think that they'll be back in the fall -- for 7th grade, and then again for 8th grade.  I'll get to see at least a few of the seeds that have been planted begin to sprout, grow, and bear fruit.  I'll see the young people that I invest a year of time with mature; take on leadership roles; and begin to peer out of their adolescent faces with eyes that hint of the adults they will become in time.  It is breath-taking.

Except... Except that it doesn't always turn out quite like that.

Students who begin their educational career with us, have the opportunity to move, at the beginning of the 7th grade year, to a nearby public high school/junior high school that regularly ranks in the top 100 schools nationally.  It is huge, with some 1800 students in 6 grades.  It offers a dizzying array of amenities and options and opportunities -- and it is tuition free.  Students have to test to earn admittance, but by the time they've spent their elementary school years with us, most have no trouble at all.  Each year, some of my 6th graders leave and go "over there."  Each year, it breaks my heart to see them go...

This year, there came to be a sort of unspoken parental competition around the admission test to the place. Parents who had not considered sending their child anywhere else in September were often convinced to have their children take the test, "just to see," and when they were accepted, the DILEMMA was born.  As the months wore on, more and more 12-year-olds convinced themselves and their parents that they should leave our "small pond" and go off to the "big pond."  Out of 45 students there are probably 15 who will not return next year.

Aside from the obvious financial issues that reality presents to the principal and the finance committee people, I just hate the thought of "my" kids going off into the big, cold, cruel, uncaring world so soon.  I want them to stay where we know them; where we know their families; where we are not so far flung that a kid can get lost or vanish or become invisible.  I want them to stay closer, and test their wings in safer environs.  I want them to lead here where we so desperately need them to do that -- read with little kids, act as peer mentors on the playground, direct the lighting for the annual variety show, work to make sure we are implementing new and more effective measures to protect the environment in and around the school, help to develop healthier menus in the cafeteria, travel to our partner schools around the world...

I know they aren't my kids.  I know that it isn't my call.  I understand the things that drive parents to make the choice -- especially in these very difficult economic times.  Knowing doesn't ease the pain of losing sight of children who have grown close to my heart.  I know that those who finish the next two years with us will come back for years... stopping in from time to time for visits, sending emails as they grown and journey into adulthood, and someday (hopefully long after I am retired) maybe even send their own children to school right here where they grew strong and healthy.  Those who will leave in June with their eyes on the other place?  I know from experience that we will likely see no more of them.  Theirs will be a different path.  It makes me sad, and I can do nothing.  Nothing at all. They are not mine to hold -- not for the long run.  I am given only a few more weeks and what will happen will happen.

swan

  

4/15/2012

This Guy



Does anyone know where to find this guy?  Because -- I've got nothing.

swan

4/08/2012

Celebrating the Easter Holiday

I was raised in the Catholic church.  For me, the liturgical season of lent, especially as it was observed in my childhood, felt an unending darkness and drudgery that worked to extinguish all hope by the end.  Cap it all off by the annual ritualized retelling of the crucifixion, and I was never, as a child, ready to enter into the celebration of Easter.  Candy was nice, but hardly sufficient to shake off the depression to which I was prone in the end of winter and beginning of spring.

The memories remain, and I struggle each year with maintaining my equilibrium through lent -- generally by trying to stay clear of the whole business.  Early imprinting is a tough thing to overcome though, and if I do not DO lent, I feel BAD about doing Easter.

This year though, and this Easter, I am ready to sing that glad "Hallelujah" with the best of them.  It isn't that I've found religion.  I haven't.  If anything, I've got less "faith" now than I did two years ago.  The enforced fraternization with "old time religion" of AA extinguished, for me, any scintilla of affection that I might have still had for the religious traditions of my youth.  I am so done.  And yet...

This year, this day feels like an absolute celebration of new life sprung from the darkness.  This year, the coming of longer days and bright blossoms and budding greenery feels like a release from months of darkness and fear.  This year the feasting will be a feasting in the heart and in the spirit -- beyond the feasting that adorns our table.  This year, oh this year, the coming of spring feels like a pure miracle.  Reason indeed to shout for joy.

So.  I have avoided the gloominess of lent.  I am reclaiming the joy of the spring, and I am welcoming the return of light and beauty.  This is a season of fertility and new birth and life springing forth.  It has nothing at all to do with the tired religion that usurped the rites and celebrations of those who were there before.  It is about living in accord with the life that is, with the world that is, with the universe that enfolds us -- that is us.

We are born again.  Through all the darkness of our own private winter, we are standing fresh and new and alive in the light of this day.  That needs no fancy dressing.  It is reason enough to celebrate.  And so we herons offer a glad "Happy Easter" to all our friends.

swan

4/06/2012

Depakote Doldrums


I have migraine headaches -- or maybe, more accurately, migraine headaches have me.  Since I was 10 years old, the throbbing, pounding, I think I am going to puke/die misery that is a migraine, has come to be a major focus of my day to day life.  Do I have a headache?  Am I about to have a headache?  Have I managed to avoid having a headache?  What can I eat to head off a headache?  What if what I eat has MSG or Nutrasweet in it and I don't notice until it is too late?  If I go to a movie or a concert or a party, will someone there be wearing a fragrance that will give me a headache?  Did I sleep well enough to avoid a headache?  What if I travel?  What if I exercise?  What if I don't exercise?  Is there a big weather change coming that will start me on the path to a headache.  Will having an orgasm help?  How about a spanking?

Over the years, I've tried lots of different approaches to managing migraines:  medications, meditation, massage therapy, diet, herbal remedies, banana peels, accupressure...  Sometimes the darned things ease off and life gets easier.  Sometimes they seem to ratchet up and get a whole lot worse.

Sometime over the course of the last year or so, the frequency and severity of my headaches seemed to increase dramatically.  At the beginning of the year, I was averaging 20 days each month that I was needing to take prescription medication for my headache, and on some days, I was taking more than one dose -- a lot of pretty powerful drugs coursing through my system.  Beyond the pharmaceuticals, headaches that impact two out of every three days tend to limit my capacity to function and enjoy my life.

I consulted the neurologist that I've seen for a number of years.  He'd been maintaining me on a preventative medication called Inderal, but it seemed that was no longer working.  His next best option was an anti-seizure medication called Depakote.  It is not a new drug; has been around for years.  I asked him what I might expect in the way of potential side effects and he waved me off saying, "I'd rather talk about what it can do for you rather than what it might do to you."

That scared me, and I decided to find another doctor.  I located a local neurologist who specializes in migraines.  He is very Chinese, and his English is a little difficult for me to follow, but he seemed gentle and attentive and willing to listen and work with me.  I told him about the depakote discussion and he assured me that, while there can be a variety of side effects, depakote can be a real help with migraine.  He was clear that we might use it to simply interrupt the cycle of migraines and that I would not have to take it for very long -- probably no longer than June.  He told me that the st likely side effects were liver damage and weight gain.  He ordered blood tests to check for liver problems, and I agreed to try it and see what happened.

That was a month ago.  Within a couple of weeks, I began to notice that my sexual responsiveness (already compromised by the impacts of my hysterectomy) began to disappear.  Day by day, it has gotten harder and harder to achieve any sort of orgasm or even much in the way of sexual pleasure.  Then, I started to notice that my mood was flattening out.  Not depression exactly, but not anything resembling bright and joyful either.  And it is getting worse and worse and worse.

Here, our lives are getting better; happier.  We are beginning to feel as if there is something good and exciting for us in our life together.  I can see it.  I can feel grateful and relieved about that -- and I just cannot muster one ounce of enthusiasm about it. I know this is not me.  I know this is not the way I am.  I know that, even as we struggled though the last year, I was able to find the places where life was still good and hopeful.  Now?  Not much.  It scares me.

And so, today, I have decided to stop taking Depakote.  I was unable to reach my doctor, but I have called the pharmacy.  They have advised me on how to begin the process of tapering off -- stopping suddenly is dangerous.  On Monday, the staff at the doctor's office has promised they will call me with information from him about what to do with this...

I do not like the migraines, but I'll live with them rather than keep on feeling (or not feeling) like this.

Sheesh!  If it is not one thing...

swan