Contact Info --

Email us --



Our Other Blogs --
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.

12/27/2012

How to Be...

As my Dear Tom indicated in His last post, life has brought us around again, and things feel good for the first time in a very long time.  We are wrapped up around one another, finding joy in just being here together now.  It feels like we have been snatched out of the maelstrom of misery that engulfed us, and settled onto some quiet and peaceful shore.  For us, it is enough to breathe and laugh and touch and sleep without those simple things feeling like trauma heaped on trauma.

It is a new beginning.  At least, that is what we have called it.  There is some sense that we have been given a second chance, and that we can now move on into the next part of our lives together with the potential of doing it “right” this time.  It feels good to know that is the possibility, however it feels daunting (and a bit presumptuous) since it is the NOW that seems good.  I think we are feeling tentative about trying to project very far forward from here, and I know that I am feeling unqualified to figure out how to do it “right.”

So, I am torn.  Part of me wants to just relax into this.  I feel like I could be happy just packing some sort of emotional picnic, and settling into the quiet here alongside Himself.  On the other hand, I am so very aware that we sailed merrily into this last calamity with no real plan; simply going along believing we had it all well in hand...  It begs the question:  would it be better to move more planfully?  How does one “stay in the now” while planning for the “not now?” I'd sort of like to fall back onto the traditional "submissive" role, and put the whole responsibility for figuring this out in His lap -- but that hardly seems fair. We got ourselves into the mess together, and we have survived to this point together, and with any luck at all, we will figure out how to make what life we have ahead of us be good for all of us ... together.

There is a list floating around the social networks, taken from Keri Smith's book, How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum. I think it is meant to guide young scientists and artists (or perhaps not only the young ones) in approaching the world as a studio or laboratory, but it seems to me that the world of intimate relationship might also be happily approached through these ideas.  It feels more open-hearted than that urge to grab control but more conscious and aware than my floaty picnic image.  A middle way maybe?  Loosely, here it is:

  • Alway be looking.
  • Consider everything alive and animate.
  • Everything is interesting.
  • Alter course often.
  • Observe for long durations.
  • Notice the stories around you.
  • Notice patterns and connections.
  • Document your findings.
  • Incorporate indeterminancy.
  • Observe movement.
  • Create a personal dialogue with your environment.
  • Trace things back to their origins.
  • Use all of the senses in your investigations.

So, maybe I can relax and actively engage simultaneously.  Maybe I can live and learn in the same moment.  Maybe I can be in the now with awareness that each now drives me and us into the next.  Maybe, finally, I can stop my endless and lifelong rounds of “what if” questioning, and simply see what is around me.  Maybe that will be enough of a plan.

swan

10 comments:

  1. Good to hear you are optimistic. But do you really need to plan your emotional life? I would have thought that impossible. Only practical stuff is amenable to planning, as I see it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like the list.
    -sin

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am all for being conscious and having strategies around our emotional lives.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9:17 AM

    Happy to hear the upbeat positive voice in the beginning of your blog. Why such worry? As Malcolm said, "Do you really need to plan your emotional life"? Take each day as it comes and enjoy the feelings and life. "What ifs" are detrimental to your happiness. Impossible to plan for every variable in life. You can drive yourself crazy and miss out on the good stuff. Remember the past is just that past, gone. The future is an unknown. The present, the now is where you are living each moment. Relax and enjoy the gift of your new beginning.

    Joyce

    ReplyDelete
  5. oooooh swan....

    No wordss...just lots of squishy hugs. Don't know if you actually like squishy hugs tho.

    Really, it's just that mouse is bubbling over with enthusiasm for all of you!! Read what Tom wrote too and thinking finally some real answers.

    HUgs,
    mouse

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Swan,

    It seems to me (of course that's what I always say) that you are already so different from that earlier self who "sailed merrily" into calamity, that you couldn't go back to her even if you wanted to. You are older and have different experiences than you had when you began. All the thinking and feeling and reflecting that you have engaged in over the years has made you who you are now. And it is that person (not the one from years ago) who is beginning this new part of your life.

    I hope this is the beginning of a healthier, happier and more prosperous new year for you all.

    Miranda

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Miranda. I am different. Older certainly. Wiser? I would hope -- but who knows? Perhaps it is only a silly conceit that lets me believe I might do this "better" this time...

      Sigh.

      swan

      Delete
    2. Oh dear! I did not mean to suggest that you couldn't or wouldn't do it better; just that you would do it differently.

      Delete
    3. Miranda -- Relax. I am just fussing, and you didn't say or do anything wrong. I appreciate your willingness to enter into the conversation here.

      swan

      Delete
  7. Malcolm, Joyce -- I appreciate the thought that "planning" the emotional side of life might not be ideal or feasible or even really possible. I am not sure that's exactly what my urge to "plan" is all about, though. My nervousness about what comes next is rooted in the sense that I really did fail to fulfill the promises I made here... Going forward, I want to be certain that I know what I am promising; know what is expected; understand what He wants of me; and feel confident that I am taking account of what I want and need... all before I make commitments again. So much pain grew out of my failures. I never want that to be true again. So, if it must be that my promises are smaller and less grand and less sweeping, then that is what I want to know ahead of time (if it is possible).

    swan

    ReplyDelete

Something to add? Enter the conversation with us.