Old Relationship Energy

“Never regret thy fall, 
O Icarus of the fearless flight 
For the greatest tragedy of them all  
Is never to feel the burning light.”

~~ Oscar Wilde

Tom has taken to saying that we are experiencing a season of Old Relationship Energy -- ORE.  It seems to be an emotional habitat comprised of feelings of warmth, security, comfort, gratitude, and long-lasting love.  We are living in a space where we feel just amazed at our great good luck to have one another; to still be here in this place and this time, and still together.  We snuggle a lot these days.  We sit together and hold hands while we watch TV.  We play and spank, back and forth in our currently nebulous and highly variable power dynamic.  We chat online whenever we can during my work day.  We smile at each other like giddy kids in the first blush of love.  We share kisses, sometimes stolen as if they were forbidden.  We walk and talk … and talk and talk and talk.  We have finally healed from the hurts of our struggles and come to a shared awareness of and empathy for one another’s various and evocative scars.  It really is like waking up after a bad, bad dream, and finding the one you love above everything standing there smiling at you.  It is an enormous comfort.  

The truth is that we have aged.  We are older and, perhaps, wiser.  We know how absolutely mortal we are, and how close we, like Icarus, flew to the sun.  We got our wings singed.  Seriously.  And, we are still here, still in love, still able to live the story and tell about it.  It is a joy and a wonderment and an absolute amazement.  Perhaps, along with our heron, we will need to add a phoenix to our cast of bird totems.

swan

Faithful Sidekick

Robin the boy wonder did it for Batman, and Tonto did it for The Lone Ranger.  Ed McMahon and Chewbacca both played the role for their respective "main men."  Over time, lots of names have been cast in the role of "faithful sidekick:"  Barney Fife, Enkidu, Sancho Panza, Kato, Spock, Gilligan...

The sidekick is, most often, cast in a subordinate role to the main character.  Sidekicks generally do not make the rules or choose the goals or set the course.  Instead, they reflect the best of their "main man."  They provide a context, and act as a confidant.  They are simultaneously friend, guide, interpreter, voice of reason, conscience, fall guy, and straight man.

As things have evolved here, I have struggled to find the words that would describe my sense of who I am in His world.  Clearly the old language doesn't really work anymore.  No more of that sensationalized BDSM lingo:  Master/slave, or Owner/property.  We have shared history that will not allow for those designations to work anymore.  Somehow, though, in the last few days, I've heard my head whispering this "sidekick" idea in  my mind.  So maybe that is it...  Maybe I've graduated to being the "faithful sidekick."

swah

Spring Break

Tomorrow morning, the alarm will pull us up out of sleep at 5:30, and I'll take care of our early morning routines; showers, breakfast, lunches ... and be off and out on my way to school by about 6:50.  "Spring Break," will have come to an end.
For years now, we've traveled during spring break; driving 1200 miles over two days to visit in Denver with my children and grandson.  Generally, that allows us about three days to visit, and then two more days to drive back.  Every year, I head back after spring break feeling exhausted and completely worn out.  There are a number of reasons we did not make that jaunt this year, and the week has been, instead, sort of quiet, laid back, and restful.  Nice.
Coming into the week, I was looking forward to days of playing, spanking, and sex.  It didn't turn out that way...
We woke up on Monday morning to heavy rain, both outside -- and inside.  The window in our bedroom had lost its seal, and the rain water was coming in right around the frame.  We cleaned up the puddles, did our best to catch the leaking rain water, and called for help.  No messing around while we waited for the call back on the repair.  Another day, we were waiting for a package to arrive from FedEx -- one that we knew would require a signature.  So... another day through which we were reluctant to get into spanking knowing that we might be interrupted by the doorbell.  There was a doctor's appointment.  The window repair was scheduled on another day.  I had a teacher workshop that occupied all of Friday.  The days seemed to just melt away in a wash of stuff -- the stuff that life is made of.
We have spanked just a bit.  A couple of spankings for me, and one or two quick ones for Him, and yes, we've made love.  All fit in around the other parts of our life.
And tomorrow, I'll go back to school.  I'll plunge into the end of the year, the rush toward the ending that looms just twelve weeks away.  I will take with me some simple lessons learned over this spring break:

• Life is made up of all of the moments.
• Spanking and sex are part of life.
• It is easier to just go with what comes rather than railing against the fates.
• It is better to understand that I'm only human; He's only human, T is only human.  We are all doing the best we can.
• Things balance out in time.  The good and the bad.  
• Through it all, I can go gently and with less judgement.  Things will just feel better that way.

So, no journey across the middle of the continent.  Instead, a sweet and calm journey into who we are together.

swan

Angling

An angler is, most commonly, a fisherman.  Not here, however.  In our household, it seems that Tom has evolved into a full-fledged "angler."  "Angler" in this case refers to the alternative meaning of the word; the idiomatic infinitive "to angle for:"

to scheme or plan to get something; to "fish" for something.

Angling for ... what?  Well, more and more, around here, it is Tom angling for a spanking.  As things have lightened up around us and between us, He has gotten more and more "switchy."  Where He once chose to bottom once in awhile for the broadened understanding that it gave Him for the experiences of His partner, now it is really much more about a desire and drive that is entirely about Him.  He wants to get spanked, and His approach to that is not a simple and straightforward asking.  No.  He schemes and plots and manipulates and maneuvers and brats and hints broadly.  He is a shy and blushing bottom when He is in that place, and it is adorable... just very sweet and very cute.

The angling has introduced a new level of uncertainty and ambiguity into our power-based dynamic.  Now we have to not only negotiate the approach to a spanking encounter; we also have to navigate through the shallows and currents around WHO plays which role.  We are learning to try and balance the energy between us; keeping a sort of informal accounting of who got spanked last, or who is feeling more needy, or more toppy, or...

I'm not too sure what I think of all of that most days.  Not sure that He's sure either.  We are wandering along through a world that seems to have very few boundaries, where what was clearly defined now seems entirely movable and malleable.  Where we once "exchanged" power, we are now more likely to try and power balance.

swan

Kinky Kitty

Our Moonbeam Kitty (who you will remember came to us last summer while we were out for a late night walk) has grown to be quite a character.  She is amazingly social and friendly.  She loves everybody; especially, she loves her Daddy.  Moobie and Tom have become best friends, and He regularly remarks about how amazed He is to be so in love with a CAT.  It does seem that this particular cat is well matched to us -- or us to her, depending on how you want to look at it.
Not too long ago, around the holidays I think, Tom and T were out shopping at a local western wear shop, and they picked up a new riding crop.  After all, you can never have too many riding crops, and well.... the price was really good.  Or something like that.  I don't know -- I wasn't there.  I came home, and the new crop was here, and that was that.  We put it in the pile of toys on the headboard, and didn't think much about it.
Somewhere in the intervening weeks, we've discovered an interesting and amusing truth about the riding crop.   Moobie loves it.  I mean she really, really loves it.  She thinks it is a cat toy, and sometimes she plays with it like a cat toy.  She leaps and jumps and chases after it, and it is pretty funny.  But then, she also love the riding crop AS a riding crop.  If we use the crop to smack her with it, she will get all glassy-eyed, stick her tail up into the air, and fairly vibrate.  She'll stand there and let us whack her with the riding crop, over and over and over.  Yeah.  We have a spanko cat.  So, along with sending us a really sweet, really friendly, wonderful kitten, the summer moonbeam brought us a kinky kitty.  How perfect is that?

swan

Changes

It is still March, and still Question Month.  I have run through all the questions that people asked in the beginning of the month except this last one that Ordalie asked (If you have anything else you are wondering about, do please ask):

I sure am a bit curious but I marvel at the changing appearance of you blog:  photos or drawings, font...  Who makes all these changes?

Me.

I do it.

I get bored with things when they stay the same for too long.  Sometimes it is about making things look sort of seasonally appropriate.  Sometimes it is about my mood.  Sometimes, I stumble across a picture or a piece of art that I like, and that becomes the inspiration.

Sometimes I get crazy and make some wild change that I look at the next day and think, "What the hell was I thinking!?!?!?"  Those variations don't last very long.

It is really just a way of entertaining myself, of using up excess energy.  When I was younger, I used to do the same thing with the furniture in my house...  My kids used to hate it when they were teens...  They would go out in the evening, and I would rearrange the whole place.  If they didn't make it in by the time I turned the lights off, I'd hear them crashing around in the darkness trying to figure out what the new lay of the land might be.

swan

Why a Heron?

The last question in the current "pile" is one from sequoia about out "Heron" totem.  She writes:

Why the heron? Beautiful water bird.... but I often (change that: sometimes) wonder why it was chosen as your moniker? 

When we first "met," it was online.  We were members of the same listserv, 1HouseholdDiscipline, and our conversations there led to deeper and closer ties over a period of time.  When we began, I lived in a northern suburb of Denver, Colorado.  I grew up in the west, and most of my experience of the world is from that arid, high plains environment.  I grew up in a world that was occupied by blue jays and magpies and meadowlarks and hawks and eagles.  There were no herons that I ever saw, living in the Rocky Mountains.

Moving to Cincinnati, I found myself in a totally different world.  It rains here.  A lot.  There are four recognizable seasons here.  It is not at all like Colorado where we used to joke that there were only two seasons:  winter and company.  There's a lot of naturally occurring water here; lots of ponds and lakes and rivers.  And, there are great blue herons here for a good part of the year.  They often don't leave us until close to the end of November, and if the winter is fairly mild, they can return in the middle of February.

When I first came here, the appearance of a heron, standing majestically at the edge of the water, seemed magical and mystical.  Too, it seemed to me that at every major juncture of our transition from online acquaintances to friends to play partners to lovers to family, the herons would always appear.  I will swear that the herons come to us whenever we are worried or frustrated or frightened or just uncertain of the path to follow.  They land on the pond outside our doors, and they stand there, and they stare in through our windows until we see them, take note, and say to each other, "Oh look, a heron..."  Then, most often, the heron watcher will lift into the sky on those stretched out wings, and circle away into the blue.  It may not be any sort of magic, but it simply feels to us like the herons watch over us, and empower us, and cheer us on as we travel through this world together.  We've come to believe that, for us, herons hold some sort of power.

And that is the story of why we are "The Heron Clan."

swan

Books

I never would have guessed that inviting questions would spark my mind into such a chatty frame of mind, but it seems to have worked that way.  I am enjoying thinking about all of your questions, and then trying to answer them.  So, here's the next one:

weirdgirl wrote: 

swan, you are always so eloquent and have such a wonderful grasp of language, I am curious to know which books (if any) you consider inspirational in terms of your education (both personal and professional)

I read lots.  My reading interests are pretty eclectic.  I tend toward non-fiction.  When I first read this question, my mind went a dozen different directions at once...  books I loved as a child and a teenager,  books I've loved as an adult (the ones I've carried around with me throughout my life), books that I find really interesting and full of thoughtful and thought provoking material.  I'm not sure most of these would be considered to be inspirational, and maybe many of them are just things I like for whatever reason.  But here goes -- the list:

Rose in Bloom, Louisa May Alcott
Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs
Pavillion of Women, Pearl Buck
Mrs. Mike, Benedict and Nancy Mars Freedman
The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran
The Aquarian Conspiracy, Marilyn Ferguson
Reincarnation:  The Phoenix Fire Mystery, Sylvia Cranston
Bridge Across Forever and One, Richard Bach
High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver
Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now, Maya Angelou
Math Doesn't Suck, and Kiss My Math, Danica McKellar
Spiritual Literacy, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Slavecraft and Ties That Bind, Guy Baldwin and a Grateful Slave
Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Gloria Steinhem
Women Who Run With the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Cloister Walk, Kathleen Norris
The Geranium on The Windowsill just Died But Teacher You Went Right On, Albert Cullum
Incognito, The Secret Lives of the Brain, David Eagleman

Is that list weird enough?  That's not everything...  That's a fair selection.

swan

Living in Cincinnati

The next question, from Ordalie, asks about our life here in Cincinnati, in the southwest corner of Ohio, on the banks of the Ohio River:

Ordalie asks:  I seem to remember you live in Cincinnati. Do you enjoy living there? Where else would you like to live? Don't you miss the proximity of the sea? 

I think that none of us would, necessarily, have chosen Cincinnati out of all the possible options of places to live.

I grew up in Colorado, and I remember that as a teen and 20-something, I believed that Colorado was "God's Country" (my Dad's words).  My family traveled, every summer, "back to Ohio" because that is where my parents were from.  I had a whole pile of aunts, uncles, and cousins (4o some), and our summer visits were a two-week period of time where I ran wild with the cousin herd while the adults partied and reveled in being with one another.  But, I remember always saying that "although I was born in Ohio, it was a great place to be from..."

Cincinnati has a reputation (well deserved in some respects) for being very conservative; very Catholic; very "stuck in the 1950's."  Some of that is true.  This is not a progressive, liberal-minded city.  People who are native to Cincinnati, can tell you what neighborhood they grew up in.  Many still live in the same neighborhoods; often, blocks from where they were raised -- and their siblings all live down the street or around the corner.  They still cheer for their high school athletic teams, and there are clear boundaries between the east side and the west side.  It seems odd to me, having grown up in the "wild, wild west" where everyone was from somewhere else.

I have, on the other hand, been here for over 10 years.  I work here, and I have learned to love the quirky parts of this place.  I love the seasons.  I am especially fond of springtime here.  I think that spring comes on slowly in this place, greening from the ground up, slowly -- leaf by leaf.  It is like living in a slowly developing impressionist painting, and I love it.  Summers are hot, hot, hot -- and sweaty.  But there is something deeply satisfying about being out in the full heat of a July day, sweat pouring from every pore.  And there is the pure, animal pleasure of being able to step into a cool, dark, air-conditioned house when the heat becomes oppressive.  I love the cardinals that flash from evergreen to evergreen here.  That elusive fleeting flicker of brilliant red just thrills me.  I am always delighted by the uniquely Cincinnati inflected "Please?" that one hears from lifelong residents of Cincinnati.  That "Please?" is not intended to request something from the listener.  It is the equivalent of a more prosaic, "Pardon me, would you repeat that?"  It is simply charming.  I know that I can find all sorts of interesting ethnic restaurants tucked into the corners of the city, many of them very very good.  I like the diversity of the place.  I've become a dedicated Cincinnati Reds fan.  I grew up with a father that loved baseball, and he instilled that love in me at a very young age.  This oldest American baseball team is a treasure, and although I know they will likely break my heart each year, I am willing to be among the ever-hopeful throng.  All in all, it has turned out to be a good place to live.

If I could choose a place to live, that place would be more politically and socially liberal.  I'd love to live in a place where our family would be accepted and given the same rights and privileges as other people enjoy.  I'd be happier in a place where there are mountains, and pine woods, and aspen trees.  I'd be glad if there was water near by.  The Ohio River doesn't do it for me.  I'd like an ocean, or at least, some big lakes or a really, really big river.  If I could, I'd pick my kids and the grand kids up and move them all here where they would be close by.  I'd love to be able to just drop in on the grand kid and find out what he is up to this afternoon.  That would be awesome.  Finally, I miss the Mexican food that was so ubiquitous in Colorado.  One finds a very Americanized version of it here, and I have learned that, unless there is somebody's "Mammacita" in the kitchen (or someone who learned from their own Mammacita) cooking her very own version of green chile, or making the tortillas -- it just isn't going to be the same.

In the end, we are transplants who have made this place home.  It is a good place.  I fantasize about finding the perfect house in the perfect place -- there is an "exotic" feeling to that house hunting thing, but really -- this had become "home."

swan

Hobbies and Stuff

Continuing in the "question and answer" mode:

ZarahPDX wrote: 

After a couple of years of reading this blog (I'll admit, I've only glanced at the others), I feel like though I know quite a bit about the trials and tribulations that you've gone through, I know very little about you. I know you teach, I know a little about your family, certainly about your BDSM interests and polyamory, but what else? What are your hobbies? What would you do with an entire day all to yourself, without any household stuff to do, with our without Tom? Is there anywhere you would like to go in your remaining years?

This made me laugh ... especially that phrase, "in your remaining years."  I come from some long lived stock. My mother is 85 and still just as mean as ever.  Her mother, when she died, was 98.  She lived on her own until her very last days.  And, if my own mother is mean (and she is), my grandmother was just wicked.  Somehow, I think (I hope), I managed to duck that inheritance.  The point, however, is that I hope my "remaining years" are still likely to be fairly extensive.  I acknowledge that there are fewer years ahead than there are behind, but I imagine I might still have some number of good days (and years) ahead...

But then, there was more to this question beyond the assumption of my imminent demise.  Right.  Let me see:

1. What are your hobbies?
2. What would you do with an entire day all to yourself, without any household stuff to do, with or without Tom?
3. Is there anywhere you would like to go?

Hobbies?  Hmmmm...  I am really not a person who has cultivated hobbies.  I am a passable cook, but I cook to eat.  I really don't get into cooking as entertainment.  I have never developed any real skill with sewing or knitting or the like.  I can sew on a button, repair a seam, and make some crude and simple garments with my old, crotchety sewing machine.  I do not do embroidery or cross stitch or weaving or...  I like to read, but find that I have limited time for it.  During the school year, I read mostly so that I can prepare for my classes.  In the summer, I tend to immerse myself in reading non-fiction, and that tends to depend on what I am currently interested in.  Over the last few years, much of my reading has been related to brain science and addiction research (for obvious reasons).  I sing for myself, and it is probably pretty dreadful, but I don't usually inflict it on other people, so no harm done.  I don't play any instruments.  I'm no artist, and I take pictures of stuff with a point and shoot camera.  I have no urge to hone that into some sort of skill that would rise to the level of "photography."  I like to hike.  We don't hike much.  We walk.  Round and round and round the path we have walked a thousand times (so that He can calculate time and distance).  Walking is not hiking.  It is exercise, and exercise is not a hobby.

What would I do with a day to myself?  What would I do with days to myself?  I can imagine a life that is other than the one I am living.  Inside of THIS life, that I've chosen, and that I have no desire to give up, there is no such thing as a day to myself.  I have a family and a demanding career.  Myself and my life are all tangled up together.  That is fine.  But the question posits some entirely different life.  So, imagining that hypothetical, left to myself, I would likely redecorate my home.  I'd paint and organize and rearrange and generally create a space that was "mine."  I might take a long drive out to visit in Colorado.  I'd see the kids and the grandkids, but I'd also just wander and see the places that I remember from my youth and young adulthood. I'd probably haunt my public library, browsing the shelves, randomly, picking up this and that to just read as I felt drawn to things.  I'd hunt down interesting and quirky little restaurants to try.  I might go off with an old fashioned road map and follow the little roads...  Just going with no destination in mind.  I don't know.  Does that answer the question?

Finally, are there places I'd like to go?  Well, yes, of course!  I like to travel.  I do not like to fly, however, so there are places I'll likely never see without the help of a huge inheritance and plenty of sedative medication.  I guess that leaves the dreams of seeing Australia and Victoria Falls and the Great Wall in the realm of dreams.  If I can drive to it, I'd love to see it.  Favorite places that I'd like to revisit over and over and over:  Valley View Hot Springs, Glacier National Park, The Hoh Rainforest.  I've always wanted to travel to the northeast of the US, and am hoping to be able to do that this summer (there is a teacher grant that I have applied for that may make that possible).  I want to see the Everglades.  I'd love time to spend in Washington D.C.  Lots of time, so that I could wander and look and study and go back again and again and again.  I'd love to spend a season in New York city, seeing plays on and off Broadway.  I'd love to visit the Getty Museum...  Is that enough?

swan

"Journaling" Question

I am gratified at the response to my question about your questions.  It is interesting to me to know what it is that readers want to know.  I would have never guessed at the questions that people seem to have.  So, thank you!  I'll tackle the questions in order here, post by post.  Here's the first:

Conina -- I think it's amazing the way you've continued blogging through all these years, in an area of the blogosphere where people crop up and can disappear so quickly. I've been a sporadic writer of journals all my life (since I was 11 or so). I've only been reading here for about two years, sorry to say I haven't pored back through your archives so it's possible you've already written an answer there.

SO - my question is - have you always journaled? If yes, do you attribute the long life of your blog, your continued interest in posting here, to that? Or does blogging fill a need for an outlet, or...?

I am not a lifelong journal writer.  I grew up in a house with three younger brothers, and they were into EVERYTHING all the time.  Too, my parents were great believers in "parental sovereignty," and there were no privacy rights in their household.  There were no locked doors, or locked drawers, or even locked diaries of the sort that I remember my girlhood friends had.  In the house I grew up in, writing your inmost thoughts down was likely to mean that they were going to be the topic of discussion around the dinner table.  I was a lover of words, and I did love to write, but I poured my words into angst-riddled adolescent poems that were more cryptic, and gave me a "plausible deniability."  All these many years later, I still have the tattered folder full of those dreadful poems penned on scraps of paper so many, many years ago.  This one, in particular reminds me of the girl that was:

Golden fallen autumn leaves   Caught in an evergreen  Hanging there like ornaments  On early Christmas trees.  Out of place, yet somehow right  Like autumn flowers, blooming bright  Speak to me  Of what I have become.

All I am, and all that I will be  Is different from the plans they made for me.  I'm just a colored autumn leaf that's flown  To occupy a place not quite my own.

I began to write in this blogging format at Tom's insistence.  It was His response to my sense of isolation and uncertainty in the early days of our power dynamic.  Without a local community of like-minded others, I worried and obsessed about what I "should" be doing, and whether or not I was "doing it right."  The command that I write about my life and my worries and my efforts was to help me develop the connections within the community that would strengthen me and put my mind at ease.  I was not an eager blogger in the beginning.  I did it because He told me to do it...

But then, I got caught by the whole business.  Today, I write here because I want to write.  I have periods of time when I find myself quiet, and this blog sits for long periods of time without me finding anything to say.  I read what others write in those days, but there are no words of my own sometimes.  Then, for whatever reason, the ideas pop up again, and I come back to writing my thoughts and my days here.  I think the ebb and flow here is more placid than it once was.  I am not as frantic about how "right" or "wrong" our lives are in contrast to others.  We have lived our way to something more steady and secure, and I am no longer that fussy, obsessive, worried submissive that first ventured out onto the blogging stage.  Nowadays, I tend to say what I say, with far less need to justify or teach or find deep meaning in all of it.  It is what it is.  I am what I am.

And that seems a very long way from that young girl that saw herself in a place that was "out of place."

swan

A Question for Question and Answer Month

It has become the custom in our corner of the blogging universe that March is the month when we blogging types open up for "Questions and Answers."  I have never, once, taken this blog into the "question and answer" business -- and I'm not entirely sure that this is the year to break that pattern...

But here's the thing.  We (well, actually, mostly I) have been writing this blog (and The Swan's Heart) for a very long time -- since the end of 2004.  It feels, to me, like just about everything that could possibly be said about us has been said -- sometimes over and over and over.  Many of you have sat with us through the trials and tribulations of the years -- surgeries and illnesses and death and loss and addiction and codependency and despair and recovery.  From my whining and angst over BDSM, and polyamory, and waning sexual responsiveness, and masochistic wimpiness, to stories about who sleeps where and how far we walk when we walk -- from the funny to the sad to the absolutely crazy parts of our lives, it has all been poured out here.  If you've read along the way, you know us really pretty well.  We've been known to say that "you know us better than our own mothers do... or our kids... or just about anyone else."

And... we are not youngsters anymore.  Well, we weren't youngsters when we started all of this, if you want to know the truth.  I'm 58 years old.  T is younger than me (as I'm sure she would be happy to tell you), and He is some older.  Age is a thing.  Age is a very real thing.  I have wrinkles and scars and saggy places -- and the hairs that I hide with color from a box are graying.  I don't have the same energy or stamina as when I was younger.  I get tired.  I won't speak for T and Tom -- but I'm pretty sure that the two of them are able to give you their own lists of "aging" complaints.

So, I wonder ... Is there anything at all that you want to know about us and our lives together?  What can we say that you haven't heard before?  What are you curious about?  I am fresh out of ideas for things to tell you about us, but maybe I've missed something?

I am not promising to answer "anything and everything."  I'll do my best.  I do promise that.  But, if you hit a tender place, we'll probably just politely decline to go there.  And, I tend to resist anything that sets up a "guru" thing.  I don't have any answers for anyone else.  If you want advice about how to do TTWD, there are people who do that sort of thing -- but I'm likely to just tell you to talk with your partner, and try to make each other happy...

So, with all of those caveats, is there anything you would like to know?

swan

Spanked to Tears

In the very very early beginnings of my spanking life, I remember that I longed to be "spanked to tears."  It did not happen.  Between my own appetites, which were huge, and my former husband's proclivities in that realm (which were pretty low key), it never happened.  We tried, on a number of occasions, but I never managed to squeeze out a single tear.  Not one.

That was a long, long time ago.

Now, I find that spanking is an enormously emotional experience for me, and I never seem to know what will come bubbling up from my heart? subconscious? mind? gut?  Sometimes, I end up responding with joy, or horniness, or softness, or love, or anger, or power, or sadness, or loneliness, or connection...  Any one of those can bring me to the point of tears and sobs.  Not always, but sometimes -- and I never know what to expect.

We didn't spank last weekend -- I was sick with some sort of flu-ish nastiness that left me feeling wimpy and washed out and not fit for human company.  I managed to get my school work done, but not much of anything else.  And then it was an insane school teacher week, crammed with evenings full of parent teacher conferences -- long days when I left home at 6:30 AM and returned around 9 PM.  It was a week where the word "tired" took on gigantic proportions.  We snuggled a lot -- at least, I think we did... but then I was most often asleep before my head hit the pillow.  So what do I know?

Leave me alone for a couple of weeks, without any spanking play, and I start to fantasize and crave and long for it.  I dream about His hands on me, and I ponder the sensations created by the various toys we have, and I wonder if He still wants me in that way -- because I know I still want Him in exactly that way...

And to further complicate things...  These days, we tend to sleep and sleep and sleep when the opportunity arises.  More and more often, we wake up very late on the weekends; and then -- well by the time we come around, we are both HUNGRY -- and not for sex and spanking.  So, it is off to the kitchen to whip up some waffles or pancakes or French toast to ward off impending starvation.  Sigh...

So...  When "the opportunity" presented itself this morning, I was more than just willing.  I was eager.  Ready.  Hungry for that connection between us.

But...  I was also trailing the tendrils of a very dark, very scary dream -- of being lost, separated from Him under very difficult circumstances, and of not being able to figure out where I was or where He was -- or how to find Him.  The emotional hang over from my dreaming was heavy and sad and lonely feeling, and I hoped that the spanking would help me find my way back in the present reality.  I really wanted the ghosts of my dream to be dispelled.  I wanted to feel myself pulled into Him.  I needed the reassurance of His calm and steady presence, and I needed the pain and the energy of spanking to get my head cleared.

He started off with lots of hand spanking, and it was good.  He stroked me with the tip of a knife, tracing the lines of the cutting on my back.  I followed every move with a transfixed intensity.  Then he moved on to a fairly light leather tawse, and it was sharp but I was there with it -- feeling it, breathing with it, following His lead.  There might have been one or two more fairly low intensity toys, but then He began to smack me with a paddle.  I don't know which one, but it felt like a short, thick, heavy club to me.  I tried to keep on breathing.  It just hurt.  HURT.  And, very quickly, I tipped over into feeling lost and alone and sad.

The tears came, unbidden.  I could hear myself sobbing.  I was ashamed, and disappointed.  I wanted so much from this spanking, and I felt like He'd barely started when I "wimped out."  I think He paddled for awhile while I clutched a pillow and whimpered and wailed.  Then He went and got a paddle from the living room -- one we keep on the wall (more as a piece of art than a spanking toy).  It was heavy, but not awful, and I was slowly starting to calm down.  But then, it was over.

I thanked Him for my spanking.  Snuggled into His arms.  Apologized for being so wimpy.  And that is when He told me that I'd been "sweet."  His word.  Sweet.  And all the angst, sadness, and loneliness melted away.  Or maybe they washed away in all those tears.

swan