The Heron Clan

Vows

2012-01-24T20:09:00.000-05:00

There are traditional wedding vows. Words that are spoken, ceremonially, to define and enumerate, and announce the intention of the parties to a marriage agreement...

~~To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, until death do us part~~

Our agreement was never formalized in that fashion; never solemnized in any sort of legal or spiritual ceremony -- and so we have no vows to fall back on. That is the fact. And still...

As I look back at the path we have traveled in these months, over a year of months strung together with still more months laid out ahead of us, I am reminded of the work that vows (or the intentions that are embodied in vows) do in a relationship. Vows are promises, made in good times, against the coming of hard times. The making of a vow is an acknowledgement (although we almost never notice this) that things cannot always be as good as they seem in those beginning days when love is new and fresh and glorious. A vow says, in short, that we know that things will suck in time, and that we're good for the sucky times. That's it, pretty much.

Our relationship, for all of its alternative features (the poly and the BDSM), is very much the same as one bound by some sort of traditional vows -- we made promises, sometimes implicitly, dedicating our lives to one another. Wrapped up in those promises were all sorts of hopes and assumptions and aspirations -- and, yes, probably illusions. I am certain that most couples, in the beginning flush of love, believe that theirs is somehow a star-crossed, meant to be, nearly perfect connection. We surely did. We felt that way, and we lived in that dream. There were days and years of really good times when we felt as if we were the most perfect, the most passionate, the most compatible lovers EVER!

And ... we knew it couldn't last.
And ... we knew that dreams are a flimsy thing on which to build a life.
And ... we knew that, even as we embraced the possibility of our dream, life was furiously digging away at the foundations.

Life does that; and not just to us -- to everyone. Some people, it is true, get to cruise along for big, long stretches of relatively smooth sailing. If that happens for you, if you and yours have a run of good luck, it is probably easy to convince yourself that the way ahead is likely to be just as easy and gentle with you. And why not believe that? What purpose would be served by wasting sweet and peaceful days with worry about what may be in some yet unseen future? We lived and played in those soft, sunny, happy days with complete abandon, rejoicing in every amazingly heady moment. We were the luckiest people on Earth.

Good times. We felt that our lives were good, and our love strong and powerful, even as we were buffeted by a host of storms: health challenges, deaths of family members, financial setbacks, career struggles. We got knocked down more than once, but we held onto one another, kept the promises -- and soldiered on, living our happy dream in the midst of all the crashing and blowing around us. Foolishness? Maybe, but maybe not. Remember that the traditional vow reminds us to love one another for better and for worse. Remember that our love is to remain sturdy and steadfast through times when we are feeling richer and poorer. Remember that we are admonished to love one another in sickness and in health. For us, a decade of living and loving have proved that we are resilient, determined, and probably even sincerely stubborn.

This last passage? Worst ever. It has been a terrible, scary, miserable, exhausting, frustrating, and lonely time for us. We've battled with each other more than was good, but we've battled beside each other enough of the time that we have made it this far. If you've read right along, you have probably sensed the depth of our struggles more than anything else. We have frequently been too wounded to even talk about it all. Surely the usual stuff of most BDSM/sex blogs has been notably absent here; because, frankly, it has been mostly absent in our lives. We have worked to stay alive, minute by minute -- and we have worked to stay together. We are still here.

We have never, ever done one single thing the "right" way. We didn't, obviously, get "married" in the traditional way. We don't have a "regular" sort of family. We don't subscribe to the mainstream value system, especially as that is manifested in typical religious practices and beliefs. We have never done BDSM, or Master/slave like other people say it should be done -- no contracts, no elaborate negotiations, no safewords, no protocols, no rituals, no maintenance spankings, no fancy titles, no task lists, etc. We aren't perfect, and we don't figure to be gurus to anyone. We are just what we are ... fallible humans in love and willing, in spite of everything, to keep doing it "for better or for worse."

Sue

Polyamory Observations #20

2012-01-21T23:26:00.001-05:00

Earlier this week, the ex-wife of Republican presidential candidate, Newt Gingrich, told ABC News that he had asked her for what she called an "open marriage." Subsequent stories have made it clear that Newt, after conducting a clandestine affair with the woman who would eventually become his third wife, asked the woman he was married to if she would "tolerate" his mistress.

She said, "no."

The whole sensational business has caused quite a media dust-up, so let's talk...

I am no fan of Newt Gingrich. I will acknowledge that the man is bright, but beyond the intellect, he is a pure mess -- arrogant, dishonest, manipulative, ruthlessly self-absorbed. However, I am just fascinated to watch how the conversation about Newt's marital relationship foibles has evolved.

Newt is a "traditional marriage" guy, ironically enough. He is a signatory to the so called "marriage pledge," which reads, in part:

As President, I will vigorously enforce the Defense of Marriage Act, which was enacted under my leadership as Speaker of the House, and ensure compliance with its provisions, especially in the military. I will also aggressively defend the constitutionality of DOMA in federal and state courts. I will support sending a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the states for ratification. I will also oppose any judicial, bureaucratic, or legislative effort to define marriage in any manner other than as between one man and one woman. I will support all efforts to reform promptly any uneconomic or anti-marriage aspects of welfare and tax policy.

Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/newt-gingrich-vows-to-defend-the-defense-of-marriage-act.html#ixzz1k8tODpCP

As readers here might surmise, I am opposed to DOMA, and I believe it ought to be overturned. The catch-phrase definition of marriage as "between one man and one woman," is a great piece of marketing. It is easy to remember and it is easy to repeat in that sort of mindless, robotic sort of way that clever sales people love. Newt is, in a perverse sort of way, the perfect spokesman for the DOMA-ites. Hypocrisy is part and parcel of their insistence that all of us, every one, should be constrained by their paternalistic, myth-driven religion. Newt doesn't really buy that "one man one woman" thing. That is clear. He panders to his evangelical and conservative political base -- and they are gullible enough, and fervent enough, to buy the story he (and others like him) tells.

But, knowing that Newt Gingrich doesn't live up to his own press isn't all that interesting. What is interesting and instructive is the reactions and responses of the media types. They are the on camera actors who play out what they perceive to be the feelings and beliefs of all of us. Their almost universal "ewwwwww" is demonstrative of the assumptions that are made everywhere within our society:

If he was cheating on his wife, that's bad behavior on his part ... but for him to attempt to have that relationship and his marriage both? Well, that's just disgusting and scandalous.

From Fox News to MSNBC, and from ABC to CNN, the consensus is that there is only one way to DO intimate and loving relationships; only one way to have a "marriage;" and no reason to even question the assertion made by Gingrich's second wife, Marianne, that "that is not a marriage."

I've pointed before to our ubiquitous belief that the only way to do adult relationship is to march in lockstep and pattern our lives and our loves and our families on the template defined by the mainstream religious establishment and the wedding industry. There's no tolerance for differences... not even the capacity to imagine anything other than that one man one woman wedding cake topper fantasy.

There has been a flurry of excitement in the polyamory community as people point to the fact that just the mention of "open marriage" brings the conversation to a different place, and I suppose there is some validity to that perspective. I just don't know that I see much hope for this to move the needle. Those who cannot imagine themselves in anything but a traditional marriage aren't going to be convinced. The serial monogamy practiced by Gingrich might cause people to question his character, but it won't cause them to wonder about the essential nature of monogamy itself. The obverse argument that is Newt Gingrich and his series of weird and strange wives will never convince most people that it is possible to love more than one person AND do that with openness, honesty, and integrity. But then, I am not sure that Newt and the "ladies" are really a very good case for the whole marriage idea either.

Sue

Ambiguity

2012-01-16T20:24:00.002-05:00

We Herons are awash in ambiguity, and with us, those who persist in reading here...

Our story, to this point, is just full of the things that make our BDSM and polyamory lifestyle communities just crazy. Humans don't like uncertainty, lack of definition, confusion, contradiction, upheaval, chaos, paradox, and inconsistency -- and I am convinced that the poly and BDSM communities are even more averse to ambiguity than the rest of the crowd. We like things defined. We like to know who is who, who fulfills which roles, what the relational hierarchies are, and where the power lies. And, furthermore, once we know all of that, we like things to stay put -- no shifting and switching! Masters should stay masterful, and primaries should remain primary -- and, of course (as I have repeated over and over), submissives should submit. Get it all laid out, nice and neat and tidy, and then leave it alone. Yeah. That.

Except that life seems to delight in the very swirl of ambiguity that makes so many of us just squirm and avert our gaze. We Herons, of course, have embodied the complexities and contradictions of life. We've described our life and our love here for something over seven years, and when I go back and look at all those 1389 entries, I am struck by what we thought we were doing -- contrasted with the stark reality that I can see from this present moment's perch. Sometimes we thought we were "up;" on top of the world, riding high, with everything going our way -- other times, we've been, like Icarus, a flaming, streaking, disaster; plunging to earth after having dared to fly too close to the sun. Either -- or. What is so interesting to me, in retrospect, is that we never seem to have a clue; we never see it coming; and we pop up, time after time -- believing pretty firmly that it will "all be better when things settle down." Hope springs eternal.

The newest research tells us that we are not alone, finding that 47% of adults in the U.S. suffer with addiction. Nearly half! That's a huge secret that we tend to keep close to the chest; after all, it is easier to keep on believing that only those of defective character and weak will fall into the pit of addiction -- if they are not US. Science is finding the truth -- a perfect storm of genetic predisposition and environmental opportunity that works to capture those with the hidden vulnerabilities even though they make the same seemingly inconsequential choices as their peers.

So, as some warned over the course of the years, ours is a family that has had to confront issues created by addiction to alcohol. In doing that, we've learned to acknowledge and confront the multiple instances of child abuse by His mother, and by mine. We've begun to untangle that morass, learning slowly the pathways by which we come to react to one another as angry, frightened children -- rather than the intelligent and loving adults that we are in other instances. It is a confusing and befuddling transformation that happens in an instant, taking us from tranquil and happy to full on battle mode. Utterly exhausting.

It has, as friends might imagine, played havoc with our power dynamic. The question of "who is in charge," is living large in our intimate lives. We are uncertain of ourselves and of each other. We are each hurt. We are each on unfamiliar ground, becoming something completely new and unexpected -- and we have no clear sense of where that will ultimately take us. Now and then, the spinning brings us around, face to face, so that we can see exactly what a wondrous thing our love is -- but then we whirl off again in different directions and the clouds come flying back in. Somedays, He giggles, and on others He mourns. Somedays, I glow with joy as He fastens my collar around my neck with a familiar certainty, and on others I curse the impossibility of dealing with the sadness and seemingly endless misery that engulfs Him, and so all of us.

I know, we all know, that some might judge us; have judged us for being in this position to begin with, for taking so long to address what might have seemed a clear problem to those who were not IN the middle of it all, for flailing and faltering and fighting our way through this first year of sobriety. I know that there are those who believe that they would have never fallen into this kind of situation; would have chosen more wisely. I know that there are those who KNOW with an unwavering certainty that they would never have remained in this relationship, AND I know that there are others who are convinced that they would have been a much better slave through it all than I have been. I know. I can, on a day when I'm up for making myself miserable, list the names of those who's silent judgement speaks so loudly... They will never, ever understand me, and they will never "get" the truth of this family and our lives together.

A couple of weeks ago, toward the end of my therapy appointment, Dr. J. laid it out pretty clearly for me. I was twisting myself into knots around my mother's continual negative judgments through my growing up years. I was fussing about the sound of her in my head, telling me that I was incapable of making good choices -- too stupid to manage my own life. Dr. J. looked at me, and said, "You've been with Tom for ten years. That's a long time. A lot of living, good and bad. If, today, you had to decide whether to do it again, knowing what you know now; knowing that there would be all of this; knowing that you would have to live through this year of hell -- would you?" I sat there looking at her through teary eyes, and I could hear the blood roaring in my ears, feel my heart pounding in my chest -- and then I heard my voice, steady and strong, say an absolutely unequivocable, "Yes." She smiled a big, broad grin that lit up her face -- and said, "Good." We went on from there, finished my appointment, and I headed on home to my crazy, unpredictable, and completely ambiguous life -- but that YES has reverberated in my mind. I would do it all again.

Maybe I am completely crazy. Maybe no one else will ever understand it. Maybe it makes no sense. That YES is mine -- that YES is His if He wants it. The ambiguity is just the way things are.

Sue

I am Goose Girl

2012-01-08T12:52:00.001-05:00

“Ego: The fallacy whereby a goose thinks he's a swan” ~~Anonymous

Jean-Francois Millet

There have been so many changes in our lives... so many ups and downs. It is sometimes hard to know what to think or how I feel, and it is surely impossible to predict what will come next -- or how any of us will react. We three have stumbled and staggered and flailed through the last 15 months or so, spewing anger and hurt and fear and confusion everywhere. We've been a mess of grieving and longing and bitterness. If there was a way to do this badly, we've been there, and if there was a mistake to make, we've done it up in grand style.

I've been every flavor of crazy that you can imagine through all of it. Within the mental health care community there is an understanding that a caring and supportive partner is a major benefit in helping someone heal from the impacts of PTSD. I've not even come close. I've wanted to be good for him and I've done some serious reading and study, but the sad truth is that, when he starts making noises that sound like accusation and blame, I go nuts, take all of his anger on, and begin thinking of ways to "get away and get out." Sometimes I have literally run away -- I once made it halfway across Indiana, heading west and sobbing, before he managed to talk me into turning around. At other times, I've shut down and withdrawn emotionally -- or worse, come roaring back with my own anger and accusations. I went through a period of months when I was fascinated with the idea of cutting -- and I think that the only thing that kept me from acting on those urges was the inescapable association with adolescent angst. From time to time, I've even contemplated suicide -- seriously planning how to accomplish that without leaving too much of a "mess."

Thanks in large part to the steady presence and hard work of my therapist, I think I am past a lot of that -- at least past the most irretrievably destructive bits. She is slowly helping me to see what has been, what is, and what may be -- and "love my way" into it all without insisting that it be the way I want it to be. She doesn't use the word "ego" with me, but it keeps cropping up in the reading I am doing. I am coming to see the places where that internal sense of the me who controls and decides and defends and wants -- my ego, has been at work in so much of my life. It is becoming clear that it is time to find some different way to encounter life and the world. That ego thing hasn't worked so well to this point.

Finding the quote that appears at the top of this post was, for me, like getting smacked in the head with a stick. Homer Simpson would probably say, "Doh!"

I've been calling myself swan for a really long time now. I know it wasn't a name that I chose for myself, but I did take it on, use it, like it -- and increasingly see myself in that way. Silly goose! I'm not a swan. I'm not the ugly duckling personna that I took on in childhood either, but I never was a swan. I've felt terribly hurt and abandoned each time he's insisted that he is not (and maybe never really was) dominant -- but my reaction was about losing the bits of my own ego identity that were attached to that. If he isn't willing to be "my dominant," then I, by definition, am not submissive; not slave. Which sends my poor, little, scared ego-self into a tizzy of worry: "What or who, exactly, am I?"

Maybe goose girl. I found that Jean-Francois Millet painting, and I could feel my mind settle down. She's sweet and innocent and simple and sure. She's round -- a woman in a woman's body; comfortable with herself. She's dropped all the outside trappings, and is completely who she is as she dips her toes into the stream. She has real things to tend to; real work to do; but it does not burden her. She is alone and perfectly comfortable with that. She isn't frantic to be with someone, although I sense she'd be joyful with the presence of a companion. She is serene and aware and alive -- surfing along on the tides of her life. I like her very much.

Sue

My Dream

2012-01-07T22:22:00.007-05:00

January 6, 2010

My last post contained a stream of thoughts and feeling about my life situation that frequently runs through my head. As I am experiencing that thought process I believe that I have been wrongfully oppressed, harasssed by the police as a result of my family's calling them about me (sometimes without reason and other times for very valid reasons), and being forced to pretend a religious conversion to satisfy treatment professionals -- whose satisfaction I must achieve to be quite allowed to serve out my probation in the community and not in prison. All of those thoughts and feelings have some valid content.

At the same time, they fail to take into account that the first call to the police was because sue loves me and was genuinely afraid for me. She was sadly mistaken, but there is a centuries old classic bit of Shakespeare that recounted the tragic consequences of, "She loved not wisely, but too well." Shouldn't there be some major mitigation of blame for someone who sincerely believed she called 9-1-1 to protect a love she feared was in danger? The police abuse that ensued was not her intention, or her responsibility. The rage that I reacted with to that experience was most certainly understandable if one knows my history and background. My sense of betrayal at seemingly being set up for what ensued at the hands of the police by someone I felt was my trusted soulmate was devastating. Unfortunately my abusive and drunken response was equally, or perhaps, even more out of proportion than what I endured, however inappropriate that may have been. I was abusive, violent, and drunk in a manner that was hugely amplified by my Roux-en-Y gastric bypass altered gastrointestinal sytem. My two loves were legitimately frightened for themselves and me, and they sought help from the police again. Again too, the police were worse than useless, abusive, unprofessional, and ignorant ....................... but they are police. They did what police do. Ignorance and ham-handedness are their stock in trade. Then after my first imprisonment, in fully blown PTSD, I became chronically enraged, depressed, unendingly drunk, and finally alcoholically psychotic. The police were sought, in desperation, to protect my family and myself. I should certainly have been hospitalized not incarcerated, but life didn't go that way, and again, it was police who were involved -- not health care professionals or quite frankly anyone who cared what was right in the situation. It was the police. So, even as I recount my previous thought process, there is today ............... just recently, a competing thought process that runs along these lines: I was an alcoholic. In two years I underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost over half my body weight (175 pounds lost) and resulted my body's ability to metabolize alcohol being degraded dramatically; I lost my 35 year career; I lost both my parents and my mother in law; I had a daughter end her relationship with me; and I came to feel like a pretty huge failure. I now know from subsequent therapy, that I had a history of childhood abuse and trauma that predisposed me to PTSD. All of this led me to behave horribly, not out of malice, or sinfulness, or character defects, but just as dangerously to my family and myself nonetheless. I needed, and need now, to not drink. I needed to be protected, and they needed protection from me. None of us needed what was done -- which made matters inestimably worse. But my feelings of being completely abused and wronged at the hands of my two loves are distorted, and those feelings deny how hurt and frightened they were, and my own responsibility for what occcurred. Those feelings also ignore and discount how lovingly and loyally my two have gone through the treatment I had to go through with me, and have listened to my endless recriminations and anger. They made mistakes in all this but certainly none more than my own. There was not one of us that was not motivated by huge love, pain, and tremendous fear. The loyalty they have shown me, despite how difficult I have been, is heroic.

This new pattern of thoughts and feelings currently co-exists in an uncomfortable disunity with the very critical, negative thought process in my previous post. Then, with all of that evolving, I had an amazingly intriguing dream. This is a transcription of my logging it yesterday morning...

So, I had this dream last night -- that left me feeling sort of "weirded out" when I awakened.

I was in a very homey, intimate restaurant. It was in the second story of an older residential home that had been renovated into a restaurant.

It was not a large place -- maybe 8 or 10 tables. Good food was served, nicely, understatedly, classily. The place was pretty much full. Other guests were quietly enjoying their food and each other. The room felt warm and convivial. Guests were into their "own thing," but also open and friendly. I think I was with sue and teresa but I am not certain. After dinner, I know we paid with a credit card.

After we left, I became aware -- I think someone else leaving, or who had eaten there before told me -- that the people who operated the restaurant were all really dead; were ghosts.

Oh yeah, there was a youngish guy who worked in the restaurant who came over to talk with me -- related to me in a very friendly way when I was still in the restaurant. I realized that he must actually have been a ghost.

I went back again; I think the next night. I don't think I was alone, but i don't recall any other "actors" in my party either. As I ate there, and I think drank, the young man I'd talked with the night before came over and talked with me. We were very friendly and small talk-ish -- and then I told him I knew he was dead, and was a ghost, as were all his colleagues. He acknowledged that and seemed to not be disturbed or unhappy I knew their secret. He confirmed for me that the food and drink I was eating, or had previously eaten, was not real, and that my meal's payment was pretend as well.

He had me stay after closing in the restaurant. His family (I don't know if they really were relatives or just family-like) all came out into the living room and were all "hanging out" together after the work day. They became aware I knew they were all ghosts, and felt no need to maintain their facade. We all related like social friends. I was relating mostly to my new young friend and an older black man (ghost) who had worked in the kitchen. Suddenly, at one point, the older man looked sort of dizzy or disoriented and said, "Oh no, I am clouding." His head dissolved into mist and then disappeared altogether. he wrapped a white towel around where his head had been and moved about the living room and in and out of the surrounding rooms sort of randomly or hysterically. Then, suddenly, he flung himself through a second story window, right by where he and I had been sitting, and crashed to the earth, as in a suicide. He didn't move again, although I knew if I came back to the restaurant, he would be there again.

Then, I was outside the restaurant and I met people on the street whom I didn't know who were headed into the restaurant. I told them it was an interesting place; that all the restaurant staff were dead, and actually ghosts. The food was good but was not actually real, so they would not gain weight, and the charges they would pay for it were pretend and would not really cost them anything.

I don't know if the dream ended then or if I just don't remember anymore after that.

I believe I awakended once or twice during this dream, feeling very "weirded out" by it -- the only way I can think of to describe my emotion. It wasn't a nightmare and wasn't at all comforting or a "good" dream either -- far from that. When I went back to sleep, the dream resumed. This didn't end altogether until I awakened completely this morning and got up feeling a little "weird" and slightly afraid.

I had therapy yesterday after all this. And I discussed this with my therapist who has a good bit of experience with dream analysis/interpretation.

First of all, the dream and ensuing therapy have worked to shift my own thoughts from feeling so judgemental of sue and t in all this, to ones of appreciation for their loyalty to me and their seemingly unending love.

I feel this dream is a metaphor for my old life's status in my present circumstances. My drinking, my weight and health issues, my career, my/our dead parents, my daughter, my ex-marraige, my child abuse are all ghosts.....ghosts which I experience as though real, but which are mists...without reality any longer. I am like the guy who has worked in the kitchen of the ghost restaurant, and my seemingly never ending blaming of sue and t and the police and the treatment professionals for their roles over the last two years are evaporating, as did his head when, suddenly "clouding," these old thought processes in my head dissolve. Like him, as this no longer necessary "head process" dissolves, I become frantic and run about with a figurative towel where my head had been, until I leap from the window to the death of these out-moded cognitive defense mechanisms. And as in my dream, my cognition will live again tomorrow, because all of this "drama" is only a vivid dream, "filled with sound and fury and amounting to nothing." This is the status of my never-ending railing and melodrama.

It is amazing but this dream, and my recent values clarification work has allowed me to reconstitute my thought process from what you read here to this new awareness...........one that I think will allow me to go forward to live and to thank my loves for their struggling through this terrible period for our entire family.

Tom

In Life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.

New year, Maybe a New Beginning, How Things Seem Now

2012-01-07T13:51:00.013-05:00

It seems like enough has changed in my feelings, my perception of my status, that perhaps writing a new communique to the outside world makes sense or might even be helpful. I am 354 days into my "new life" of coerced sobriety. My big anniversary is ahead January 18.

I struggle much more realistically now with wondering if perhaps my life is better now than it was before, or at least if my present life is, well just so poignantly "present," so piquant or pungent, that the "ghosts" of the life I loved before, and my identity, have faded enough to become just mists. Maybe it is time to begin to see if there can be meaning in this new life, that is not my choice, but is all that the others in my life will allow me to live.

My work with our therapist surrounding my general life issues, and PTSD in particular, has been increasingly fruitful. As we have moved forward through, Finding Life Beyond Trauma, the PTSD workbook we are working with, I have progressed to the point of working in the realm of values clarification. It is a series of exercises and texts that leads you to explore how, since your "trauma" you have come to live your life Dominated by fear avoidance as opposed to being led by movement toward actualization of values. As I went through exercises to explore how fear driven my life has become and what losses that entails, I realized that I live a life of virtual isolation in terms of much of any meaningful connection with others, even socially. The only person I trust in my life to unequivocably act in my interest is my therapist. Any others may well have me imprisoned again, and while I realize that that is a jaundiced view of life, it is also my very evidence based reality after the last 15 months experience. There is no place that I am ever safe, not in my home, in my bed, in my car, no where that I am immune from the police coming for me because those closest to me have summoned them.

When all this happened I lived a value driven life. My motto which long time friends here will recall was "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined." I wore a bracelet all the time that bore that message's inscription. It was the imperator of our family. Everything emanated from that value. I threw that bracelet away when suddenly, violently, crushingly it was evident that I had no control, that what I wished, decided, enjoyed, believed, cared about was meaningless, and that all there was to my life was to avoid prison, and try to not be crushed further. I now spend my life pretending to worship a god I do not accept, believe in, or know, in a cult that I must adhere to or go to prison, denying myself what has always been my primary celebration of my humanity and my joy in being alive, to participate in rituals that leave me feeling subjugatged, humiliated, and worthless each time I submit yet one more time. This is, or has been my reality over the last year and a quarter. Each day I count a new day's extension of my sobriety, and another day since I last felt I was a man..............wondering if my life will ever have value again and realizing how good my life was until October 2010. That is or has been my life. I may be seeing a change........

I am torn whether to accept something new. My potential new reality feels better for the first time since all this began----not good, but better. It requires me to accept defeat and my ultimate eventual subjugation to this new reality.........where I will then likely be asked to pretend somehow to be Dominant, with loves who demand how I must live and who will crush and destroy me at my deepest levels if I fail to live as they demand. Yet the reality is, I AM overwhelmed. A glorious death gets me nothing. I don't have that courage. If I must live on, why not accept this. If I do, life becomes more comfortable again, and I may come to eventually resolve my cognitive dissonance, by coming to adopt the belief that this life is acceptable, even if not desirable, and perhaps if I live within its prescribed limits, at least those fears that haunt me most horribly, can be held more in abeyance. If I learn to lie to myself enough, I could even pretend that I have some semblance of security even as I know that is a delusion.

It is clear I can never be in control of my life again. It is clear I can never have my own life again. I never feel safe...................there is no security anywhere. There is no one, no matter how deeply I feel bonded to them, who will not wound or horribly smash me if I don't live as they choose. That has been true all my life. I deluded myself that I had achieved a new reality that had belied that truth. I was wrong. It is, and has been, crushingly agonizing to accept but I am reassured that is TRUTH. I will never forget that again. I now know I can trust others to crush me unless I behave as they demand. I was stupid to have believed life could ever be different.

This is not how I had intended for this post to go. There have been major "break-throughs" that began to pick up momentum in my feelings and thought over the past week. They have evolved from my PTSD therapy, as I began to describe earlier on, and from sue's getting me a simple sobriety token (odd how this classic AA symbol has effected me............clearly brain washing in the cult over the last year has potentiated some of their "stuff" to impact me), and a very vivid dream I had night before last that may well have been some sort of healing message from my sub-conscious, or input from a spiritual healer, or something that may allow me to move on.....maybe even to find some sort of value in life again.

I will write more, and in that more positive vein, in future posts. I feel a need to draw a line here now though and end this post,or this post will reach a cumbersome length. It will be better for me, and I imagine for readers, when I am less hopeless sounding. If so, that future message will be more completely understandable when contrasted with this description of my status as a back drop for comparison to these new more hopeful developments I have only, so far, just illuded to.

Thank you those who read here for listening with your eyes. Next I think I will post my dream.

Tom

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after check mate.

Mother said...

2012-01-01T19:02:00.001-05:00

In my high school years, I had a friend named Nancy. She was sweet and kind and a good friend, but what I remember most is the relationship she had with her mother. Nancy would go home from school each day and sit at the kitchen table, and tell her mother all about her day. They would talk, sometimes for an hour or more, discussing all the ups and downs of her teenaged world -- the classes she struggled with, the boys she thought were cute, the new music she was practicing for the next big concert, the latest traumatic outbreak of adolescent acne. Whenever I'd have the opportunity to see them together, I'd be just enchanted... and amazed. It wasn't like that between my mother and I. Not even a little bit.

When I think about what my mother said to me, I mostly remember her ascerbic, "You made your bed, now lie in it!" The expression is one that connotes that one must bear the negative consequences of one's own negative actions. It is normally said to someone whom one would feel free to criticize openly, and that was surely true when my mother said it to me. The other common bit of motherly communication was the question, "What were you thinking?" If you imagine either of those with a "YOU IDIOT" tacked on the end, you will give you a very clear impression of what I mostly heard from her throughout my growing up years. And, the sad truth is that I still have that voice in my head; making the clear case that I am not competent to make my own choices; that I will ALWAYS fall short; that, left to my self, the odds are I will make a mess of things.

Now, as I battle my way along in therapy, slogging through the swamps of my psyche, I am becoming more and more aware of the judging that I do constantly. I judge myself (a lot), but I am also inclined to judge other people and especially Tom, noticing all the places where He is human; all the ways in which He is somehow, less than perfect. The only possibly good news in all of that, is that I am noticing that, when that voice in my head is insisting that He is (or is not) __________________________ (whatever -- fill in the blank), and winding me all up into poor me mode -- I can hear that mother voice in the back of it all. The judgement that I am so quick to bring into my life is the exact same criticism that she always leveled against me... a judgement that always did boil down to "You are too stupid to do anything right, and here's the proof."

When I was just a teen, that nastiness just broke my heart, left me bereft, sent me into emotional hiding -- knowing that I was on my own; that there was no one in the world who was on my side. Now, at 57, I am doing it to myself, and in that, I am doing it to us all. I've got to start silencing that mother voice. I'm not that lonely teenager anymore, and I believe, with all that has happened, that I did choose well when I came to Tom. He's not perfect. Neither am I. No one is. The fact is that when I consider all that has happened; all of the joys and sorrows of our decade together, I would do it again. Absolutely.

That is the gem I've taken to myself for this week. It feels like a treasure to me. Stay tuned...

swan

A Quiet Winter Season

2011-12-30T22:21:00.001-05:00

These have been days wrapped around holidays, celebrations, and observances of the natural turning of the seasons. As we've passed through the winter solstice, Chanuka, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and approached the beginning of the new year, I have found myself not knowing what I might say.

I am aware that it is the custom to share greetings and good wishes of the season -- and I do.

I am aware that, culturally, this spate of winter festivals engenders a shared mood of joy and merriment, and that we really are all expected to join in the singing and gifting and feasting. To hold oneself apart from all of that is seen as, well, Grinchy.

I am aware that, as we turn the calendars from December, 2011 to January, 2012, the sense of having a fresh start is compelling; that the making of resolutions is our traditional way of acknowledging the simultaneous acts of reviewing the year just past, and anticipating the year yet to come.

Day after day, I find myself looking at this blog, and wondering what it is that I can say about all of that to those who read here...

Would it be good to recount the pleasures of gifts given and received? Surely, we have done that, and felt happy and amazed at the abundance of good things in our lives.
Would talking about the pleasant afternoon spent in the company of the youngest of our, now grown, children, convey how very special that one has come to be in the life of our family?
What about the bounty of holiday movies that we've been to see? We've enjoyed a remarkable crop of intelligent, provocative, and thoroughly enjoyable films lately.
Does it make any sense to talk about the luxury of time together? The days of the winter break from school have coincided with the time that T had off of work to recover from her surgery, and so we have had a rare space when we were under very few obligations outside our own little household.
Is it even possible to catalog or delineate the changes we are experiencing emotionally or "spiritually" or intellectually as we move, day by day, to live the life that is now ours? I don't think so... not yet.

Our lives have become quiet. The storms are, at least for now, moving off into the distance. It is oddly still in our world. We've learned not to look back at what was, and we are not inclined to look very far into the future either. Small pleasures, and quiet joys, and fragile-seeming moments of laughter and happiness are treasures that we hold close.

It is as if we have come through a dense woodland into a small clearing. The darkness and terror of the passage is still fresh in our memories, but the clearing is open and light, and it is less scary than what we've been through. For now, we are content to hang onto one another, and we are reluctant to test the edges. Life, here in the clearing, is gentler than the dark and twisting paths of the forest. We are resting -- and we wish you seasons of gentleness and rest as well...

swan

Talking

2011-12-28T13:16:00.000-05:00

In the beginning...

For us, the beginning of everything was wrapped up in words. We "met" on line, and it was an odd sort of meeting. Those were the days of listservs, and He and I participated alongside each other in one such online discussion community. In the beginning, we talked alongside one another rather than TO each other. It took us a bit of time, but we finally noticed each other, and the conversation was joined. Once we started, we talked and talked and talked. There really did seem to be no end to the flow of words between us. It was a river that fed our souls.

In this last year... a great silence has fallen between us. It has felt as if every attempted conversation ended badly, and day by day, we've become less and less willing to try. It has felt safer, most of the time, to sit quietly, side by side, without a word passing between us.

But, just in these last few days, words have begun to live between us again. We are tentative, cautious, seeking the pathways which we've lost... The threads of conversations are beginning to weave a web joining our hearts and minds. It feels miraculous and wondrous. Not making any predictions or forecasts. What might come next is opaque. I only know that we seem to have found our words again. It is a beginning place. Words.

swan

Two Wolves

2011-12-23T19:27:00.000-05:00

I am aware of feeling very angry. Inside. I know that I ought to let this all go, and find some quieter, calmer place -- especially at this season. Knowing is not doing. Casting around the web, looking for some bit of wisdom, I found this...

swan

Crashed

2011-12-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

Just a couple of weeks after Master got His new bicycle, I was struck with a serious case of bicycle envy. He was having so much fun with His new bike that I found myself wishing that I could have one too. T has a bike that she brought home from her mother's house. When spring comes and her shoulder is healed up, she'll be able to ride right along with Him. I was very caught up in wanting to be part of the fun...

The problem, or at least one of the problems, is that I haven't ridden for years and years -- probably not since my teens. And, I have balance issues. Some 20 years ago, when I lost my hearing, I also lost my balance. I stay vertical because I learned (or re-learned) how to do it, and if I lose focus or my attention wavers for an instant, I can fall over quite convincingly.

As Master started to work at His Christmas shopping, I let it be known that I'd rather have a bike than almost anything else I could imagine... And that is how I became the proud owner of my very own beautiful new Trek bicycle. It is wonderful; a far different two-wheeled conveyance than the old Hercules 3-speed I rode so many years ago. And, to my absolute delight, the balance issues that I worried about do not seem to be a problem. I ride along just fine.

So, we've been riding on days when the weather permits it ... round and round and round here in the condominium complex. It is relatively safe, if you don't count the possibility of being run down by a blue-haired old lady, and there are plenty of hills and curves and a wooden foot bridge that spooked me at first, but has been conquered in fine style. Yesterday afternoon, He and I began to discuss the possibility of a ride when I got home from school. It was cold here (in the low 30s), but clear and sunny, and we thought we could bundle up warmly and enjoy a ride. I told Him that I was wishing we could go ride in an upscale neighborhood not far from here... see something different, do something besides ride around "the circle," and He agreed.

I came home, and He was ready to go -- all bundled up in lots and lots of layers. I got changed, layered up, and joined Him in the garage to get the bikes out. We took off together and headed over to the ritzy neighborhood. We rode and rode and rode, all around all the curvy streets and cul-de-sacs with the fancy names. It was way more challenging than I had imagined -- very hilly, but we covered the whole neighborhood, and found ourselves, once again, at the entrance to the place. I figured that we would ride back the way we'd come, and head back to the house, but He took off the other direction, around a pond and down the hill. He turned onto another street, and rode on ahead. At first there was a sidewalk, but then we reached the point where the sidewalk ended -- a very Shel Silverstein moment. There was a lot of traffic, and the road was very narrow.

Suddenly, a car passed me by, very close. I hadn't heard it coming, and I jumped when it passed. The front wheel of the bike fell off the edge of the pavement, and the bike wobbled wildly. I ended up in a very undignified heap in the dirt at the side of the road. I laid there, checking to see if anything was broken. Nothing seemed to be, and so I untangled myself from the frame of the bike, and scrabbled up to my feet. Master was long gone... too far ahead to notice that I wasn't still behind Him.

I walked, pushing the bike for probably a half an hour -- headed for home. He, when He did notice I was missing, went looking for me... But really had no idea where I was (and I hadn't taken my cell phone). He rode all over the route we'd covered, but not back down the last part of the ride home. Eventually, He went back to the house and got the car, and came and found me. He loaded me and the bike up in the car and took me home. I was shaken, but not damaged, and very glad to have been rescued. What an adventure!

I guess the moral of the story is that being 57 years old is a lot different than being 16. Who knew? Anyway, I guess I am back to riding "around the circle" until I am more sure on the new bicycle. That may take some time...

swan

Teresa Here

2011-12-13T17:34:00.003-05:00

I have been pretty absent lately on the blog. My shoulder is finally recovered to the point that it doesn't scream when I try to type. I have also been just ready and listening to my family as they continue to struggle thru this difficult year.

I am good. I have tried to be supportive and loving. Sometimes I am not so good at it, but I still try. We have had a tough year. Tom and Sue are working together and apart to become healthier contributors to our family. I did the therapy and as much continued care as I could muscle.

When I saw Joyce's response to "It's All About Control", I was taken aback. I have never thought to be jealous of Tom's relationship with Sue. He isn't jealous of my relationship with Sue and I don't think Sue is jealous of Tom and I. The 3 of us have been together for almost 11 years. Certainly in the beginning, I felt threatened and jealous, but in a poly relationship, nobody moves faster than the slowest member. And I was pretty slow back then so they were considerate of my needs. And I finally caught up and found my better half, Sue. We have both said it before, the fact that we share a brain.....we also share Tom.

So no, I am not jealous. I worry that Sue is not as gentle with herself as she should/could be. I worry that they don't take the time to just be and let things go.
I want us to be together forever because I do not think I could live without either of them.

Well, I will go back to my sling and Percocet. Talk to you all later.

T

It is About Control

2011-12-12T22:24:00.000-05:00

Henry (called Hank) and Patricia met at a communication workers union gathering in the spring of 1954. He was, like so many men his age, a veteran of World War II. He served with the communications corps, stringing line across Europe ahead of General Patton's advancing army. She was seven years his junior; a woman who knew her own mind -- who liked her freedom and independence. She was a beauty, but cold as ice. In the years that followed, he'd sometimes get drunk and declare that she had "gotten married in June, but he had married in April." Officially, the date of their marriage was June 4, 1954. I was born in the early days of February, 1955. It was an event that neither of them ever intended.

I don't know what I called her when I was but a baby. I imagine that some variant of "Mama" served when I was just a little thing. I know that I have no conscious memory of her as anything but "Mother." There was nothing cuddly or sweet about the woman who bore me. She bitterly resented my coming into her otherwise perfect life, and she was never shy about letting me know that I'd ruined everything by my very existence. "I never wanted children," she would declare to me whenever some childish behavior of mine impinged on her routines. "I wish I had joined a convent!" -- the final and intentionally brutal finding on the value of my presence in her world.

She drank. So did he -- my father, although it seems that his drinking occurred late at night after we'd all been put to bed. Mother would drink as soon as he left for work in the morning. It wouldn't be long before she would be angry, raging around the house at the unfairness of everything. She would throw things and kick things and slam pans on the kitchen counter. I would cower in corners and behind furniture, trying to become invisible; trying to avoid making her more angry -- trying to keep from drawing her attention to me. If I failed to vanish; if her rage focused on me, then terrible things would happen.

There was a cellar under the house; reached by a cellar door from out back. A wooden ladder led from the trap door down to a concrete pad on the cellar floor. In my mind's eye, that pad is about six feet square and roughly finished. Beyond the concrete, the cellar floor was packed dirt. A single, bare bulb hung from the rafters, and when it was lit it showed a rank of wooden shelves built along one wall. I remember that my father stored paint cans down there, and lots of dusty cardboard boxes. A stack of tires sat on the dirt floor against the back wall, at the end of the shelves. When I committed the crime of being a noticeable child, spilling my milk, or dropping something, or fussing about whatever, her rage would boil over -- and she would drag me to the cellar. She would kick open the trap door, dangle me down the ladder, and drop me the last few feet to the concrete. The door would slam shut, plunging me into darkness, and I would sit there shivering in the darkness -- too afraid to even cry. I never knew how long I'd have to stay there in the dark with the spiders. I only knew that I'd be out and cleaned up and looking pretty for the arrival home of my daddy. Daddy became, in my baby mind, the source of safety and salvation.

My regular sojourns in the cellar came to an end once I was old enough to talk. I am sure, as I think about it, that Mother feared that I'd say something about it to my beloved daddy.

In time, there were brothers, three of them. The oldest of the three, was born three months premature, and was always a sickly and frail little guy. By the time he was big enough to play with me, I knew that it was up to me to protect him from Mother's rages. Our usual refuge was the small space between my bed and the wall. I managed to secret a box of dog biscuits there, under the bed, so that he and I would have something to eat while we hid and listened to her storming through the house.

I survived. Grew up. Learned the lessons: Be good. Be quiet. Don't cause trouble. Watch everything and everyone. Read every situation. Take care of everything and everyone. Don't let things get out of control. Soothe and appease. Manage. I went through all my years of schooling earning straight A's in every class. Never, ever had a problem at school. There was never a reason for the teacher or the principal to phone my house. I also never had any friends that I would bring home, and since I was always worried about taking care of the brothers, I made sure that I went right home each day after school -- so there was none of the usual social stuff that kids engage in outside of class. I never had a job, growing up -- not until the summer of my senior year in high school. Before that, I tended my mother's house; ironing and mopping, and watching the younger ones. I prepared most of the dinners for my family from the time I was 11 or 12. I was a solitary and self-contained child, and an isolated and awkward adolescent.

It is probably no great surprise that I "fell in love" with the first fellow who paid any attention to me. The man who became my first husband seemed "safe" compared to anything I had known. Not surprisingly, I thought that being safe was all and everything. By the time I learned that he didn't have what it would take to make my world safe, it was too late. I had babies of my own. I worked like a mad woman to make their world safer than mine had been. I didn't have much to go on; didn't know what to do; didn't really know what was needed. I did my best, and I missed plenty of gates along the way. By the time they were in my world, my pattern of isolation and suspicion was pretty well established. I worked to build distance between them and my Mother, knowing that she could hurt them in the same ways she had hurt me. In doing that, I kept them from knowing other parts of the family that might have enriched their lives. I had no good friends, and I think I worked way too hard and was too preoccupied with survival to be a very good mom for them. I have plenty of regret about the things I messed up with them.

In time, my life brought me to the turning and the choice to join my life to Tom and T. I believed he was the one who would, at last, give me safety. My life long desire to find the person who would control the things that I could not or would not, who would control the uncontrollable was over -- or so I thought. He told me He was strong, and I believed Him. He told me He was powerful, and I believed that too. He told me He knew what I needed, and He assured me that He would give me those things. I was desperate and needy. There were things I didn't look at carefully. There were questions I should have asked.

And now, after everything that has happened, I am working with the therapist using a book called "Finding Life After Trauma." The fourth chapter is called "Control Is the Problem." It is filled with spot on statements about the ways I've tried, all my life, to control my reactions, my emotions, my world. All the stategies that I learned so well as a small child, keep me in pain and turmoil as an adult. Those methods of controlling things "inside" of myself might have saved me then, but they cripple me now. But then, there is also control on the "outside." I do that too. I give up quickly when things get difficult. I let "others" make decisions for me. I worry excessively that others will disapprove of my choices. I instantly recant any suggestion if there is any opposition to it. I really hope that others will tell me what to do, directly or indirectly. All of that is part of who I am and what I truly want. I let myself be controlled via a whole range of means. Much of that, the book labels as "unhealthy."

I don't know what to do. I feel caught between what feels "right" for me, what has felt "right for me for as long as I can remember -- and the judgement of the "professionals" that says that is all wrong. I can't imagine that He and I will ever be "equals" -- just playmates and lovers without any power exchange. If I am supposed to somehow reacquire power and control, and stop letting / wanting / needing His control, then how can we be? I am scared. I can't stop; can't stay where I am; can't go back to what was; can't imagine what some other path might look like or mean. I don't want to do this. I am just terrified.

swan

All the King's Horses, All The King's Men, Survival Is What Remains of Life After the Fall

2011-12-08T07:23:00.020-05:00

Sue, I too have struggled to think what to say about my/our present reality as you express in "Borrowed Words." My present is so bleak and dark, and yet changing.

Nothing is accomplished by layering blame onto each other on top of the overwhelming remorse we all feel, accompanied by the grief at the losses of family members we have all recently experienced adding to our burdens. If we have proven anything over the last year, it is that guilt and remorse have achieved nothing of any benefit for us, other than perhaps providing something to hold onto as we pulled ourselves forward, hour after hour and day after day, as we slogged our way past sign posts that told us there was an end to pain in our own deaths. I have enough remorse and guilt for all of us. If there is some help in owning blame, let it be mine. I won't feel any worse and it may help you.

I know that living with me and contrasting this holiday season with times past (back in the days when you proclaimed living with t and I at Christmas was like having moved to the North Pole with Mr. & Mrs. Claus) it is clear that I am broken. It would be silly for me to try to pretend I am OK, when it is so obvious my present experience of life is basically hollow and worthless. I am sorry that I am not the celebrant I have always been. The aspects of life I enjoyed most at this time of year are gone. My sense of self is smashed and I have found no way to recreate it.

Too, I am better than I was a year ago. I hate this existence, but I no longer waste time feeling remorse that I don't have the courage to end my life. That is meager progress, but it is something. I find the life that remains amidst the horror that is 12-step recovery, probation, shame, grief for our lost loved ones who died over the last three years, my lost career, major health upheavals, and my loss of D/s orientation, bleak and gray, but it is better than the acute agony I was in a year ago. I am finding that with time my memories of what it was like to experience being a man dim from a previous reality to become a sort of conceptual vapor....................................something I can think of, but which feels so unreal that I know it could never be again, if it ever even was. Eventually this reality has become the phenomenology of my present. Perhaps someday coffee,kool aid, Christmas music, not being in jail, the fact that we don't live on the street and have food, will be enough to feel "good" again. Maybe this is some neurological inability to modulate reality up to happiness at the end of the first year of sobriety. Maybe the joy I used to feel in life, was all just pathological.

I only know that while I had "issues," as they say, in the past, I also had periods of joy, excitement, and felt great I was who I was. I loved you both, and wanted to wake up each day to have another day with you both. I cannot imagine life any other way than with you and would be devastated to lose you. Now there is no joy. There also is no drinking. There are no episodes of drunkenness. I cope with life without that. I am told that there is great value in "living life on life's terms." It is one of the huge "gifts" of 12 step recovery. AA-ers pray to God thanking Him for allowing them to live life on that basis. For me it is a living death sentence. I found living life on my terms a great joy. Life dictated by life is bereft of hope and light.

I am sorry you are feeling remorse. I feel sorry that I caused that to the extent I led to it. I imagine it was/is mostly my fault. Everything is.

We need to find a way to survive. It is what remains. Remorse and guilt get in the way. Don't we hurt enough without doing that to ourselves? I hope you can become free of self-flagellation. I no longer have blame and anger. I don't have enough value to feel anything close to that, and it changes nothing..............and hurts you. I want you to heal.............maybe, at least, you can live again.

I love you.

Tom

If this is "health," I'll take pathological joy.

Borrowing Words

2011-12-06T19:43:00.000-05:00

I come here day after day, and I cannot find words.
I am broken. Hopeless. Without faith. Believing, finally in nothing.
In one moment of weakness, inattention, fear, and foolishness, I destroyed everything I ever valued.
Some things cannot be fixed.

The silence inside my mind feels oppressive.
I've nothing at all to offer but the borrowed words of a poet... swan

Fear of the Inexplicable

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished
the existence of the individual; the relationship between
one human being and another has also been cramped by it,
as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of
endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the
bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone
that is responsible for human relationships repeating
themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and
unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new,unforeseeable
experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes
nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation
to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively
from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of
the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident
that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a
place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and
down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous
insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in
Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons
and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about
us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us.
We are set down in life as in the element to which we best
correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of
years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we
hold still we are, through a happy mimicry,scarcely to be
distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to
mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors,
they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abuses belong to us;
are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we
arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us
that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now
still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust
and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those
ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into
princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses
who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps
everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless
that wants help from us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Doesn't Everyone Have One?

2011-11-29T19:13:00.000-05:00

We have our own private, personal orthopedic surgeon. We do. Really. Well. OK. Not exactly. We do however have the very great good fortune to have found a wonderfully skilled and accomplished orthopedic surgeon.
In July of 2005, our Dr. F. performed a total knee replacement on Master using a relatively new "minimally invasive" technique. At that time, he was the only doctor doing the procedure in our area, and it was precisely because he was able to promise far less muscle and nerve damage, and far easier and faster recovery and rehab that we chose him for that surgery. Since that time, Dr. F. has also replaced a knee for T, and done a total reverse shoulder replacement for Master.
Today, once again, our family's future was in the capable hands of Dr. F. This morning, it was T, reporting to the hospital for rotator cuff repair surgery, and once again, it was our own private, personal orthopedic surgeon on the job. The surgery was "outpatient," and everything went perfectly. By 4 PM, we were headed for home, and tonight we are all snuggled in with a lovely warm fire. T has had her pain medication, and so is feeling sleepy and what she always calls "stupid" on the couch with our Pranzer cat. Now, the shoulder that has been increasingly painful will hopefully heal and feel better and better over the next weeks and months.
There will be some post surgical follow up appointments, of course, and then it will be time to head back to see Dr. F. as we prepare for Master's next knee replacement -- tentatively planned for next summer.
Our orthopedic guy is not getting any younger, and replacing joints is demanding physical work. We've told him over and over and over that he cannot retire until we get all these aging joints taken care of. Wherever it is he plans to retire someday (on the yacht that we have surely bought a significant share of), it needs to wait until all of us have all the "bionic" joints that we might need. That could end up meaning another 4 shoulders, 3 more knees, and all 6 heron hips.

swan

Giving Thanks

2011-11-24T17:12:00.000-05:00

“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.”

For us, this Thanksgiving day feels very precious. I hope that all who visit here are safe and warm and with those you love this night.

swan

Two Billion

2011-11-24T09:59:00.001-05:00

In January of this year, the UN's communication bureau noted that the number of internet users worldwide had reached the two billion mark. That is 2,000,000,000 individuals who are online, surfing the interwebs. I share that number with you, dear readers, because PK asked a question:

"I have often wondered with this openness if you ever worry about your students or their parents stumbling across it?"

I "get" the question, and I understand the concern. Obviously, this blog is not intended for those I teach or for their parents. It isn't meant for my co-workers or my boss. Should any of them find this blog, and identify me as the author, the consequences would be catastrophic. I'm sure there are plenty of other people who could make the same statement... Writing in this sort of public forum carries risks.

But here's the thing. I teach math. I deal in mathematical realities, and I work to help students understand the ways in which math can help us describe our world. As bloggers of a certain stripe, it makes sense for us to be aware of the risks of what we do, but it also seems reasonable to understand how big or small those risks really might be...

There are about 400 students at my small school. Most of them have at least one sibling, so figure a total of 800 students. Add on a couple of parents for each family, and we are looking at about 1600 people. Let's kick in a few extra just for the sake of an argument and make the math easier in the bargain -- so we'll assume the whole population of people from the school community who might "stumble on" this blog totals 2000 souls. That would mean that the SET of "my students and their parents" amounts to 0.0001% of all Internet users (that is one ten thousandth of one percent).

Now, this little corner of the cyber universe is a small place. I don't pull down big traffic numbers, and even if I did, I would still be one of an estimated 266,848,493 websites available to any given user (as of July of this year). Let's face it -- any one of us is competing with Justin Bieber fan sites and Twilight fan sights and Farmville on Facebook and Angry Birds websites and whatever it is that has "gone viral" on Youtube today. I've got dozens and dozens of sites linked to this blog, but the truth is that, on any given day, I'm doing well to squeeze in the time to actually visit a handful -- maybe 5 or 6. So, if we were to assume that the students that I work with have more time to spend surfing the web than I do (after finishing their homework, of course), then maybe they manage to wander around to 25 different places. That would mean that, in a year's time, each one of them could possibly "hit" 9125 different sites. Once again, if you do the calculation, that means that each person manages to visit .0034% of all the possible websites. Put that number together with the percentage of Internet users who actually know me as their teacher (or their kids' teacher), and the likelihood that we are ever going to run into each other at this blog goes to 3 chances in 10 million.

Could it happen? Absolutely. Am I going to lie awake at night worrying about it? I don't think so.

swan

Life on Display -- Blogging

2011-11-22T23:00:00.000-05:00

There has been, in recent weeks, a surprising and remarkable level of concern for my children, who might possibly be reading here -- although I very much doubt that. For, the record, and as I've stated repeatedly, the two human beings that I once bore into this world are well into their 30's. They are adults, and no longer children. They both live their own lives, and make their own choices (one of which might be the choice to read this or any other blog or website). Some of the "concern" for them is clearly intended to slap me down; is purely nasty; and deserves to stand on its own for what it is. On the other hand, there is one individual who has on a couple of occasions expressed "surprise" at the openness of what we write here, and those comments refer more broadly to the breadth of our lives and our struggles -- not confining the worry for the "children" to a mere exposure to sex, but to other things as well. I don't know that this person is intending anything negative in their comments, I hope not. That is the assumption I am willing to make at this point, and so I want to talk about this particular comment:

My surprise at your kids reading here was much more about the other, non-sexual aspects of your relationship. The fights, the drunkenness, the arrests, the pain.

We do discuss our lives here; openly and with very little veiling. It has been our mode to attempt to honestly convey the reality within which we live. Sometimes life is joyful, sometimes sad, sometimes painful, and sometimes funny. We tell stories on ourselves here -- the good and the bad, and if you read from the beginning, you can see us grow and change and age. We've made mistakes and we've been spectacular. It probably really depends on the day. More than anything, these blogs (our blogs) chronicle the humanness of our lives.

I sometimes go back through the archives, and find the person I was in 2005 or 2007 or 2010 -- and I can be surprised. I sometimes wonder at the things I've written -- and long forgotten. Did I really write those words; was I really that person? And, the answer is, "yes." The words are mine. The words were mine. That is the very nature of a journal (which this surely is) -- it records the passage of time and the journey one makes during the writing.

The reader here will find the bones of our past -- the joy, the sex, the fights, the blunders, the anger, the pain, the embarrassment, the follies, the triumph, the love, the sorrow, the perseverance, the reconciliations, the diatribes, the poetry -- all of it, woven together. Master will sometimes tell people that to read our blog is to come to know us better than our mothers do (or did). Absolutely. That is the truth. We say things here we do not say out loud to anyone anywhere. Here, we are often talking to ourselves, for ourselves -- as if we were all alone in an empty room. Readers may find themselves privy to an internal monologue that some may find disturbing in its intimacy. I can well imagine that. To read here is to take us up on the tacit invitation to share what is happening with us. We keep this blog marked as "adult" for a reason.

As much as I can be surprised by things written here over the years, I am not ashamed of any of it. I have had moments of naivety, and moments of hyperbole, and significant flights of self-indulgence -- but it is all an honest reflection of wherever I was in that moment. If there is hyperbole, it is because I was caught up in my own melodrama. If there are bits of fantasy, or scraps of dreams, I believe I've been scrupulous about identifying those things. I've fallen into the occasional meme, but in general, I've avoided those kinds of canned tricks that can eat up space on a blog like this. Whatever else one might think about The Heron Clan, and associated blogs, the place is largely composed of substantive writing -- not particularly good writing, but of substance. And the pictures? Those are, likewise, not anything that I feel the need to apologize for. There are pictures of my butt scattered here and there. My teary, pouty face appears from time to time -- and it is pretty obviously true that the immediate aftermath of a spanking is not a time when I am at my radiant best. Even that "fisting" picture that has evoked so much consternation seems iconic to me. It captures and encapsulates the desperate and frantic scrambling of my post-hysterectomy fight to rediscover and reclaim my truncated sexuality. In those dark days, I was furious and frightened, and I'd have done anything -- ANYTHING -- to have myself back again. I'm betting that my struggle is echoed everyday by other women suffering the same loss.

But this blog is, as my presumably non-judgmental, but surprised commenter points out, is full of way more than just sex and poly and spanking. We have documented the times when we fight. We've shared the crazy, chaotic, destructive descent into addiction and co-dependence. We've flailed and stumbled and dragged our feet through the early months of recovery. We've been clear about the legal troubles, the relational troubles, the financial troubles. If it happened to us, and we could get words around it, we've put it out here. If we learned something new or useful or hopeful, we put it out here. If we wondered about it, or thought about it, or disagreed with it, or hoped for it -- we put it out here. It has been rough, painful, and uncomfortable, and we have chosen to keep writing here. Some might think that was crazy -- others might call it brave. There's not one bit of it that makes me think we should reconsider and begin to hide our lives from those who are important to us -- families and friends.

I see things differently. This life I live is honest and real. I am not ashamed of it. I am not ashamed of my loves. I've done things that I do feel ashamed of, but not recently:

I am ashamed that I stayed so long with my ex-husband. That decision kept both of us in a marriage that wasn't good for either of us.
I'm ashamed that I allowed my children to grow up with that marriage as their model for a loving relationship.
I'm ashamed that I worked for years in a corporate environment that required me to do work that I was not proud of. No amount of money could ever pay for what I lost of my soul in those years.
I'm ashamed that I spent so many years allowing my mother's poison to spill over my life and the lives of my kids.
I'm ashamed that I never found a way to create a safe and sane life for my daughter -- that her mental health and developmental struggles remain such difficult challenges in her life.
I'm ashamed for every time I've been a witness to injustice and done nothing... or nothing much.

There are probably other places where I've fallen short, but that's a pretty good list. It isn't about sex or spanking or even battles with addiction and violence. It is about growing and learning, over years of living, how to do things better than I might have once. I can't change the things I did in my younger years. I can only try to live more consciously and more openly and more honestly today.

If my kids ARE reading here, then I hope they will learn from their mother's mistakes. If they read this story today or tomorrow, I hope they will learn to live life fully and completely and courageously. I hope that they will watch me making a life for myself, with those I love, and come to understand that we each have to do that no matter what anyone else says. If some of these words help that to happen for someone else, then I think it is worth all the false starts and prat falls.

swan

Bike

2011-11-21T10:01:00.001-05:00

the answer my friend
is not blowing in the wind -
it's riding a bike

jaberwock

We were the beneficiaries of a bit of good luck recently. Part of a promotion at T's work place resulted in her winning a gift card to a local upscale bike shop. The amount of the gift card was sufficient to make it possible for us to purchase a very nice bike with very little cash outlay. And so, Master now has an alternative mode for His daily exercise routine -- He can choose between walking and riding. He loves His new bike, and as He rides more and more, He is regaining the confidence He remembers from His college days when a bike was His main mode of transportation...

It is something He really enjoys. It is really good for Him, both physically and emotionally. He is like a youngster with a new toy. This new bike has made Him very, very happy, and it is a good thing...

swan

Sex Positive

2011-11-20T18:02:00.000-05:00

We have, and in particular, I have a (I believe) small following of commenters who are wildly, rabidly, intensely negative about the sexuality that I live and talk about in my writing here. I don't exactly know how many of these folks there are visiting here on a regular basis. I can identify some of them, recognizing where they come from in my stats, and feeling some familiarity with their writing styles. My little anti-fan club does seem to focus very specifically on me; there is little or no significant judgment or vituperative language aimed at Master or T. I find that interesting and intriguing...

It could just be that, where we have posted pictures of naked body parts here, those photos have almost entirely been of my parts and pieces. If it is pure and simply nakedness that sets them off, then I can see how, sifting through the years of archives here, you could find enough nakedness to achieve that... But it would be some work. Page for page, there are not that many butt pictures, and they are repetitive enough that it would seem to me that the shock value would diminish pretty quickly.

It must be something else; something else that tips my little posse of critics over into anger and negativity. Perhaps, it really is just a reflection of the larger society. Maybe, those who go out of their way to come visit here, over and over, and dig through the archives, and compose comments filled with bitterness and hate, are simply unable to shake their own background and cultural imprinting and see my (and our) living out our sexuality in a loving relationship, as anything but just BAD.

If you believe, incontrovertibly, that sex is bad, shameful, sick, and meant to be severely limited and constrained, then it is very likely that the "sex positive" nature of many BDSM blogs would make you just crazy. After all, we talk publicly, and at length, and in detail about things that many people won't discuss with anyone except their partners -- and maybe not even WITH their partner in some cases. There are plenty of otherwise healthy people, who will not make love with the lights on; have never looked at their own genitalia in a mirror; never touched themselves in an intimate way. There are grown men and women who cannot comfortably say the words to name their own sex organs.

Ours is a culture that is steeped in sex-negativity -- the belief that sex is inherently bad. That is, for our society, one of our most deeply rooted convictions. We are so caught in that belief system that we who violate the norms cause outrage. It is outrage born of discomfort. My bunch of unhappy commenters are clearly horrified that I have an active sex life; that I enjoy my sex life; that I talk openly and freely here about my sex life; that I do not hide my sexual choices behind locked doors; and that, as a result of all of that, there is some possibility that my adult children might learn about the "SHAMEFUL" behaviors in which I engage.

If I just ignore the irony that the sex-negative ones cannot seem to find the internal self-discipline to not come here, then I find it instructive. They just assume that their sense of moral outrage is, OF COURSE, right. They can't begin to fathom a point of view that differs from their own. They don't even have language to express a more positive attitude toward sex -- if they could formulate some different notion in the first place.

It is as if, we as a society, had defined that the only acceptable meal for adult humans was oatmeal and black coffee. Such a definition of the "right" way to eat would leave out a whole host of wondrous and delectable and delightful food choices. There would be no pizza, no strawberries, no sashimi, no hot fudge sundaes, no Thanksgiving turkey -- and except for those filthy degenerates who gathered in sleazy hotels and private basements to indulge in "unacceptable" food choices, no one would even contemplate that there was anything that one might choose to eat but oatmeal and coffee. It is just absurd to think of that kind of world. Most of us can't even imagine it, and yet there are those (and they are likely the majority) who would insist that those who don't subscribe to the "white lace dress, married to one person, until death do us part, missionary position sex once a week" sexuality diet are somehow "icky" and to be censured.

I don't think there is a thing wrong with making choices about how and when to satisfy one's sexual appetites in consensual ways. If consenting partners are enjoying varieties of sexual expression that are not to my taste, that is just fine -- I don't eat raw oysters either. I think that those who choose chastity at certain points in their lives are making valid sexual choices. I think that practicing safe sex with multiple partners is a valid sexual choice. I think that those who live inside of long term committed marriages are making valid sexual choices. I think that loving someone of the same sex is a valid sexual choice. I think that choosing to bear children is a valid sexual choice. I think that choosing to not conceive children is a valid sexual choice. I think that loving more than one is a valid sexual choice. I think that sexual modesty is a valid sexual choice. I think that sexual flamboyance is a valid sexual choice. I think that enjoying gentle caresses is a valid sexual choice. I think that finding pleasure in sadomasochistic play is a valid sexual choice...

What I do not, truly, understand is why my choices should be targeted by someone who simply would choose differently than I do. And, I will never, ever understand why those people believe that they should get to be the arbiters of my sexual choices, and my speaking as I choose about those choices.

swan

Cast of Characters

2011-11-14T00:01:00.001-05:00

Last week, for the 6th year, many of the bloggers around our circle participated in what a community event originated by Bonnie -- Love Our Lurkers day. We don't participate, having opted out several years ago, but it is hard to not see it happening all around us. This year, watching with some bemusement, I got to contemplating not just those who lurk on our various blogs, but the whole cast of characters that populate our online world. Lurkers do have their part to play, but they are not the only denizens of the cyber universe. And so, I suggest the following as a sort of playbill style cast of characters for the spanking/BDSM blogging universe:

Bloggers -- We are the writers. We put ourselves out here; telling our stories; spinning threads out of words. Some of us are eloquent, and some are funny, others are smart or witty, and some are vulgar or just plain crass. Whatever the style, and whatever the content, we are the ones who do the work and take the risks to share the ups and downs of our lives and our loves for whoever might care to read.
Partners -- These are our opposite numbers -- dominant or submissive or switchy, we cannot live our kinky dreams without partners who are willing to make the journey with us. Most often, they are our loves (and I understand that is not always the case). They guide us, guard us, hurt us, help us, tease us, aggravate us, challenge us, confuse us... And we, more often than not, return the favor.
Relatives -- We've all got them. These are the people that are related to us, by blood or by choice. Some of them may live with us or near us. Many others among this group populate the world outside our front doors. Maybe they know some of our proclivities, and maybe not. It may be that we show a vanilla face to those who share our lives. We make choices and decide carefully about what we tell them and what we don't. They are the "do they know" segment of our cast of characters.
Exes and Outlaws -- We don't always talk about these folks, or the roles that they play (or once played) in our lives, but many of us have former spouses, or past lovers, or a once upon a time play partner... We might remember them with fondness, or sadness, or bitterness, or indifference -- but at some level, the exes and outlaws have helped to shape our lives.
Imaginary Lovers -- They are the ones who do not really exist, except in our minds and fantasies. Like a fantasy football team, they are the ones that we imagine and dream about. For some of us, the imaginary lovers allow us to work out the darkest imaginings -- the ones that are too intense to ever live out in real life. For others, the imaginary lovers are more gentle, or more inventive, or more demanding... We may never name them, and they may never appear openly on our blogs, but there are lots of imaginary lovers wrapped around our back-stories.
Friends -- It could be that these are girlfriends, or best buddies, but however they show up, we tend to connect, through this medium with a few kindred souls. They "get" us, and they share our path in that easy to maintain way that friends have. We know that we can count on them to hold us up through every trial, and tell us, too, when we are full of it. Our friends come to know who we are -- and like us anyway.
Cheering Squad -- These dear souls are most often friends, but they take on the sometimes thankless job of affirming us, encouraging us, telling us that we are really OK ... no matter what happens and no matter who thinks otherwise. The cheering squad assures us that we are not alone; insists that we are valuable and appreciated; and gives us the ego-boost that makes it possible to keep on doing this ...
Mentors -- Teachers. Examples. Guides. These are the ones who, whether they know it or not, show us how to become whatever it is that we might aspire to. Not to be confused with a guru.
Lurkers -- Unseen visitors, identifiable only by the traces that are left behind on our stats. Lurkers have their own agendas and their own needs. Something that they find in our words draws them in and keeps them coming back. They are not seeking "relatedness" with us. Perhaps they are learning something, or perhaps they are merely peering in the windows for their own gratification. Whatever they are up to, they cannot be dragged into the light without fundamentally altering their natures. A lurker who becomes convinced to leave a comment (as is the goal of Bonnie's LOL Day) ceases to be a lurker. By definition.
Gurus -- They find their way to some pinnacle and sit themselves down there, waiting for the adoring crowds to flock to their undeniable wisdom and brilliance. They take part in structured Q&A's. They sometimes write books. They offer guidance to those who are new and still trying to find their ways. I am quite sure that, somewhere there exists the "BDSM/Spanko Board of Certifiers and Credentialers" from whence the gurus earn their authority.
Stalkers -- These sort of scary and usually intense ones are prone to hook onto various ones of us and grind away at whatever it is about us that bugs the living shit out of them. It never seems to occur to the stalker-ish ones that, whatever is ringing their bells, they do not have to look. Why do they insist on visiting our blogs, over and over and over, knowing even as they do it, that the likelihood is that everything they read on our sites will freak them out? Why, if you felt the way they so obviously do, wouldn't you just go off and read at www.nationalgeographic.com?
Poor Unsuspecting Vanillas -- These are the regular folks who stumble into our places entirely by accident. They clearly weren't out looking for spanking and other kinks when they found us. They most often type something innocuous into a search engine, and land on our pages without any idea what they are getting themselves into. For them, those warnings that most of us post about the "adult" nature of our sites is the last safeguard -- if they heed the warning. If not... Oh, dear. Poor dears.
Search Engine Trolls -- These are the ones who creep me out whenever I see their tracks on my keyword search list. What kind of critter goes looking for "gay man spanking grandma," or "teen girls in lacy panties?" I'm inclined to insist that it ought to be a "to each his or her own" sort of Internet, but really! Some things are just icky.

I bet there are lots of others that I haven't thought of. Probably, some bloggers get types that I don't ever see. I can imagine that those who are younger, more attractive, more adventurous, more sexy, more kinky -- get other kinds of visitors. Feel free to suggest additions to the cast.

swan

Weekend

2011-11-13T19:39:00.000-05:00

We've had one of the best weekends that we've enjoyed in many, many months.

We had time yesterday morning for sex. Whoo Hoo! It may seem like a "well duh" kind of thing to most of you, but for us, the simple connectedness of making love has been a huge hurdle. We've loved our way through this last year, but it hasn't been warm and cuddly, and there have been many many days when we have really not had the heart for the intense intimacy of sex. Ahhh but then, we came awake together in the soft light of a November morning, and there was time and inclination -- both at the same point and place. We'd have spanked too, but there wasn't enough time to pull that off and still get me on the road in time to make it to my therapy appointment. Sigh. "Later, maybe," we promised each other as we rolled out and got busy with breakfast.

We spent yesterday afternoon watching an array of college football games, and while it just did not go the way we would have wanted it to for any of our favored squads, still it was good to have the time and space to spend a few hours doing something so normal. I had lots of grading to do, and so sat at the dining table plowing through that pile while He growled and grumbled about the various games. I know there are people who view football as "just a game," but He does tend to get pretty serious about the teams He cheers on. When it was all over with, He was feeling down -- and so He took some time and went out to ride His new bike (I think we haven't talked about the new bike yet -- maybe that is the topic for another post). An hour or so later, having flown around our condo complex on His two wheels, He was in a much better mood.

We had barbecued ribs and potato salad for dinner. With a little applesauce to round things out, it was a pretty good meal, and one that seems to do pretty well for the post-surgical tummies in our family.

Settling in for the evening, He cruised from channel to channel on the TV, and there was, of course, more football. He flipped between a couple of different games, and was sort of engaged, but not really. At some point, He began to consider the possibility of going to see a movie. A little online research and He found that the theater near our house was showing J. Edgar at 9:58 PM. It is one of the films that we've thought we wanted to see, and so we decided to go -- even though it would make a late night for us. T decided that she wasn't that interested (I think she is thinking that her big movie event will come next weekend when the new Twilight movie opens), and so He and I went alone. It was an enjoyable time; a very interesting and well made film; probably too cerebral to be an enormous hit, but still good entertainment. It was about 1:30 AM before we finally tucked into our bed and fell asleep in each other's arms.

We slept late this morning. It was 10:30 before we awakened to the gray light of day streaming in through the window in the bedroom. That's when the miracle happened ... He suggested that we could "spank and fuck" -- if my shoulder would tolerate it (another long story). I figured He wasn't going to spank my shoulder, and so we got all set up for a good old, fun and games spanking. It was good. It wasn't brutal, although I think there were a few points where I was grunting and growling and moaning -- so not nothing either. Afterwards, I had a nice, hot, red, stingy butt, and He seemed satisfied at His handiwork. We made love (twice in two days -- hooray!), and then headed out to get some "breakfast."

The rest of our day has been spent doing what we most often do on Sunday afternoon -- Bengals football (they lost), and school work, and laundry -- the non-kinky stuff of life and living. A nice, enjoyable time spent just being together. Tomorrow is back to work and into another week, but we are fortified by a weekend that was "nice" and not "horrible." For those who have been following the saga, you may have some sense of just how big a deal that really is.

swan

Seven Year Itch

2011-11-13T00:50:00.002-05:00

In a dream you are never eighty. ~Anne Sexton

One of the conversational threads from my therapy session on Saturday afternoon revolved around the notion of the seven year itch. "What you and Tom are experiencing, is a sort of seven year itch," she told me. I just looked at her. We are well past the seven year point, after all. We are approaching the 10 year mark for the 24/7, living together, not long-distance relationship. That milestone will happen next summer.

So, she explained that, for us, the point where we might have begun to experience the "decline" that is characteristic of the "seven year itch" was fraught with incipient crisis: the bariatric surgeries, the attendant health struggles and lifestyle changes, and ... the severe ratcheting up of the impacts of drinking as a result of that passage. There was the shock and adjustment in our lives with the loss of His career. Too, we were dropped precipitously into the deaths of His parents, and then T's mother's stroke and long illness and death... And so... our "itchy" phase seems to have been delayed.

I'll admit I was a little mystified by the whole conversation, but then she went on to explain that the latest thinking is that with people our ages, the "seven year itch" is really about deciding whether you really want to grow old together. It involves the question of spending the time that is left with this person...

When I got home and told Master about that part of the session, He looked at me and said, "Well the truth is that we don't want to grow old." And that, is really so. There is no choice. The continued aging is inevitable and unavoidable, but it isn't something that we are anticipating with eagerness. We are too entirely aware that the likely trajectory from here on out is through a series of never ending diminishments. Bummer, that.

I would dearly wish to stop the progression of the years; to stay as we are; perhaps even turn the clock back and regain some bit of those more youthful, stronger years that are forever behind us. It cannot be. And given that we all understand that I'd choose not to have to go through the indignities and inevitable losses of growing older -- there is still no one that I'd rather walk that path with than Master and T. If we have to go, then I fervently hope that we will get to go all together, hand in hand in hand.

swan

You Mean They KNOW?

2011-11-10T20:47:00.001-05:00

One of the challenges of having blogged for years and years is that it can feel like absolutely everything there is to say has been said. Repeatedly. There are times when I stare at my glowing computer screen, and draw a complete blank. Under those circumstances, it can be a relief to get any kind of spark of an idea. Sometimes, someone will ask a question, or a series of questions, in a comment -- and I'll realize that there are still some things that I haven't written about here; bits and pieces of life that I never imagined anyone would care about. An anonymous comment left today worked exactly like that, pointing to a gap in this long-running conversation...

So let me get this straight, your ex-husband's wife reads this blog, which means your ex and almost certainly your adult kids must know about it as well. And we know Tom's daughter knows because she referenced this blog when she uninvited Tom to her wedding. So the rest of Tom's family probably knows about this blog too, human nature being what it is.

And yet you still blog! I'm honestly curious, I'm not trying to be mean or negative, why doesn't it bother you? Or does it and you feel it's too important to give up? Or maybe you want your family to know about your intimate thoughts and feelings? You believe in total transparency? Or do you feel that if they read it, that's their problem, that you didn't invite them here, etc.?

I'm honestly curious because I know I would be unable to do it myself. I'm trying to understand. :)

So, anonymous, this is for you. But first, you seem to have been reading here long enough to know that we don't really appreciate anonymous commenters. We like names; some sort of moniker by which we might recognize you should you choose to reappear here in the future. Probably it is a function of our ages... we think that conversations begin with a polite "hello," and an introduction where appropriate. Given that you and I missed that "hello, my name is ___________________" step, I'll just call you "Santa Rosa." I hope you don't mind.

Santa Rosa --
I have to admit that your questions really caught me off guard. And, actually, that isn't true. It wasn't the questions themselves so much as the shocked tone that surprised me. Even with your "I'm not trying to be mean or negative" disclaimer, you sound scandalized. That's where I'd like to start. What is it about our relationship; our family that would give cause for scandal? We love one another. We care for one another. We do the things that families do -- gathering over dinner, sharing chores, making decisions about finances, supporting one another through the tough days, and rejoicing for one another when things go well. We are a family. Admittedly, there are more of us than you will find in a traditional marriage. We are three and not two. Tom and T were already a couple when I met them. They were in love, and in time they married. I was there to celebrate the occasion with many of their friends and family members. When love grew up between He and I, we did not do what is so often done by those in "traditional" marriages. We did not decide that someone had to "lose" so that someone else could "win." Rather than kicking one love to the curb in order to actualize a loving connection to another love, we chose, deliberately, to stay together -- and love each other. What is it about that choice that causes you to sound so shocked?

Maybe it is our sexual and erotic lifestyle that give you pause. Maybe it is the clear and unvarnished admission here that we are sexual with one another, and that our erotic preferences are out of the "mainstream." There is, sadly, still societal bias against our BDSM and poly relational styles -- a deep seated prejudice insisting that there is something wrong, perverse, sick, and shameful about us. I reject that set of assumptions and biases. There is nothing wrong with loving as we love. Our erotic orientation toward BDSM is not perverse or sick, although it is surely different than what we sometimes call vanilla sexuality. You may assume, Santa Rosa, that there is something for me to be ashamed of in what is written here -- but that is your perception and does not match anything in my reality.

Begin with that perspective, and the rest of your confusion and bewilderment will probably lessen significantly.

So, let's tick off the cast of "known" readers who are related to us, one way or another:

My ex-husband's wife. Yes. Clearly, she is a reader here. She didn't learn about us through her marriage to the ex-husband. She knew of us before my divorce. In fact, she was in a spanking relationship with Master before I arrived on the scene. So, I very much doubt that anything she is reading here is shocking to her.
Ex-husband. I don't know if he reads here or not. He may. I have nothing to hide from him. We were married. For 28 years. We are no longer married. He knows about my life and my relationship. He lived the beginnings of this with me. It wasn't for him. I hope he is happy in his new life. I wish him all the best.
My adult children. My son is 35, and my daughter is 33. They are really, really all grown up. They both know about my lifestyle. I don't bring it up, and they generally don't ask. What is important to the two of them is that I am well and loved and cared for. They understand and appreciate that this is my choice. They know about this place. They might read here -- or not. I suspect that they do not. Probably, they are like many adults who would prefer not to know the details of their parents' sex lives, and so simply do not look. Like you, Santa Rosa, they would have to make deliberate choices to read here. They are surely welcome if they are curious.
Master's ex-wife. Yes. She has made it clear that she knows about this blog. Our stats show that she peeks in from time to time. She doesn't bring it up and neither do we. If she had questions, we'd be happy to answer them. Our relationship with her remains cordial.
Master's adult daughter. Yes, she did, indeed, make it clear that she knew about us; had read the blog; and was, like you Santa Rosa, shocked and appalled. In her anger with her Father, at the time of her wedding, she made some pretty clumsy threats about perhaps exposing us... But I imagine that her better instincts kicked in and she chose to take the high road. After all, if she isn't going to relate to us, why would she care what we do or do not do. It does not impact her life in any way.
Master's adult son. Hmmm... I always think that one knows everything and understands more than that. He is the wisest young person I have ever had the privilege to know. To date, he has not given us any indication that he knows about this blog, but I wouldn't be surprised if his sister, or his mother, put him on to us. Again, there is nothing here of which we are ashamed; nothing in our lives which we hide from our families.

We DO still blog, Santa Rosa. We have blogged for a very long time now. It will be seven years next month. The words here tell our story. The words here give us peace. The words let us talk with each other and with our community. The words help us work out confusions and conundrums. It is an important outlet for us; an important connection.

You suggest that perhaps it doesn't matter about our families reading here because we didn't invite them to read this blog, and so it is their problem. Actually, for some of them, that isn't true. My adult children were in fact told about this blog and invited to read (or not) if they wanted to do that. We invite everyone in some sense. We do not hide. We never have. Some people find this blog interesting. Some, I think, find it helpful as they chart their own course. Maybe some even find it titillating or exciting, although I have to admit that I find that one hard to comprehend.

When it is all said and done, Santa Rosa, this blog is for us. We do it because it works for us on a lot of different levels. There are risks. We know that. We understand that what we write here is "out there" for anyone and everyone to see. We live with that reality. The fact is that the danger is there whether we write or not. The society in which we live is continually in opposition to people like us. The threat never ends; never goes away; is never completely out of our awareness. We live our lives in hiding. We keep ourselves to ourselves. We are ever alert to the potential of exposure in the wrong place. We write to connect. We write to affirm our lives and our reality. We write because that is what we can do. Those who love us, love us. For the rest? They will never see what is wrong with their righteousness. I have no time for them.

swan

Life Story -- Six Words

2011-11-09T22:35:00.000-05:00

Could you write your life story in six words? Listening to the chatter in my own head, set off by the pointed, and from my perspective, unjustified judgment contained in L's comments, I stumbled across an interesting book, published in 2009, titled I Can't Keep My Own Secrets, a book of 800 six-word memoirs by famous and everyday teens, collected by the editors ofSmith Magazine.

There are lots and lots of things that I could say, if I were inclined to engage with her about her assumptions, her misconceptions, her limited perspectives. I am not inclined to engage that. She may believe in some sort of old testament, eye for an eye-style retribution, but I don't; never have; will not start now. I could go on and on for a very long time, telling the story of "my" life -- and that would intersect in significant ways with the story of L's now husband (who once married me). That feels self-indulgent, potentially mean-spirited, and not even very interesting at this point in my life.

Six words seem artistic. Six words seem powerful. Six words seem disciplined. Six words seem to insist that only that which actually, really, vitally matters earns a place in the story. Six words intrigue me...

I'm His. He's mine. We are...

Do you want to play along? Leave a comment with your story in six words.
swan

Love and Power Exchange

2011-11-06T11:50:00.004-05:00

Sin started a conversation about the conjunction between love and D/s, and Oatmeal Girl picked up the thread here. It is one of those discussions that comes up periodically in our BDSM community, and I’m certain we’ll never agree on this one one – does participation in a power exchange relationship mean there is also a “love” relationship? Will one lead to the other? Can the two things exist independently or each other? Like so much of what we do, the commingling of love and power exchange is uniquely expressed in each relationship. We all do it differently, and we’re ferocious in the tenacity with which we cling to “our” way of doing “our” relatedness. Which is exactly as it should be.

Brain scientists are learning more and more about what makes us "tick." According to an ever expanding body of research, we feel the emotions associated with being "in love" because of a stew of hormones and neural chemicals acting on the pleasure centers and memory circuits in our brains. Sex stimulates the release of vasopressin and oxytocin. Dopamine, serontonin, and endogenous opioids play seemingly critical roles in romantic love and long-term pair-bonding. The systems overlap and interact in order to enable mating, pair-bonding and parenting. Of course, cultural and social factors, and learning, play big roles, too. If we are successful in love, it comes down to knowing the range of factors that lead from arousal to the rewards of sex, love and attachment.

It really seems that, at some level, when it comes to love, we all dance to a tune of which we are hardly even aware. It might not be so surprising then, that we have conflicting reactions to the intricate patterns of love and sex and power that rise up in our unique and intense kinds of relatedness.

Within the BDSM realm, we already understand that there are parts of what we do that stir up the chemical cocktail that includes the whole list of pleasure related hormones and endogenous opioids that are also, intimately, connected to the experiences of lust, romance, and long-term attachment. It is definitely possible to play with all of that, and not land in the lap of love and romance, but it is a risky business. If we don't mingle SM play with sex, maybe it is easier to not find ourselves "caught" in the web. If we don't mix D/s with sex or with SM, probably things are going to be less tangled. If we don't pair up in long term partnerships, but stay with a more footloose play style, the odds of staying unattached are likely going to improve.

I can't speak in generalities. I won't even try to classify or explain the ways that other people do this thing we do. I may be able to say one or two things about how love and power exchange have co-existed inside the relationship that Tom and I share. It isn't intended to be prescriptive. My path isn't one that anyone else ought to follow. Consider this to be just me rambling -- maybe even just reminiscing.

First -- We met. Online. We shared a common interest in "spanking," and in the beginning, that was contained within the context of Domestic Discipline (DD). We had some common interests, and we were "emotionally" compatible -- we liked each other. I know that all seems pretty self-evident, but the truth is that, especially within the context of BDSM, the necessary first step of finding each other is critical. It may be easier today than it was just a decade or so ago, but we are still in the minority, and still persecuted to a large degree. Making connections is a challenge that has to be surmounted if anything else is going to happen.

Then -- We talked. A lot. Online, and on the phone, and in person. We came to know one another as friends. We discovered that we didn't have big deal-breaker differences. We had congruence around our world views, our political views, our life paths to that point. We saw things in similar ways. We might have done better at that. Might have talked about the things that have proved to be huge roadblocks for us, and maybe if we'd done that, we'd have saved ourselves some pain... Or maybe we would have chosen not to walk this path together. I don't know. We did what we did.

And -- We began to play together, and talk about playing together... obsessively. We were crazy for each other. It might have been love. It was surely lust. Across 1200 miles we longed and yearned and pined for one another. We couldn't wait to be together, and we couldn't bear to be apart. We made decisions that changed all of our lives, and we did that in the heat of passion. Would we have been more cautious without all that fire? If we'd managed to evaluate all of it in the cold, calculating calm of a business transaction...?

In Time -- We came together to live and love and learn and grow. It was, in the beginning, glorious. There was so much delayed gratification. We felt as if we were a perfect match. We loved and played and talked and laughed and explored. We were completely wrapped up in each other, and there weren't enough hours in a day for us to BE together. We looked out into a future and I thought we were looking at a long, lovely, happy path that would carry us through to the end of our days.

But -- Of course, life happens. Over time, we dealt with every kind of challenge -- surgeries, and illness, and death, and financial trouble, and divorce, and all the myriad everyday disappointments that fall on top of everyone's life. I just kept saying to myself... someday it will all settle down and we'll go on to live happily ever after. My parents didn't name me Pollyanna, but they probably should have. I was in love. I felt loved. I believed we could overcome anything. ANYTHING!

And Then -- The earth opened up and swallowed us whole. The things we never really talked about caught up with us. My childhood abuse history. His Childhood abuse history. The things that grew out of that -- issues with abandonment and a demand for safety from my side; addiction and disengagement on His part. We were a disaster careening toward an ugly crash. And, people tried to warn us. We ignored them all. We were in love after all -- star-crossed and meant to be. We broke the rules and made our own way. We were big on "going confidently in the direction of our dreams -- living the life we imagined." We had our battles, but we always recovered. We didn't live easily with the places where we were at odds, but we never addressed them either. We pretended we could just avoid looking at the monsters lurking around the edge of our beautiful world. We were wrong.

Now -- We are living in the rubble of what was. We are each miserable, angry, confused, bitter, frightened. We cling to loving each other. And we still tend to fall into patterns that have been established between us over the last decade. We don't trust each other. We don't believe in each other. We don't talk, and we don't listen. We fight... continual battles of recrimination and blame and accusation. We are a mess. There's no power exchange anymore. He insists He has no power. I assert that He has all the power. We go round and round and round. Long days and hours pass where we don't speak. At all. We love anyway.

I guess there's no answer to the question I started off. Seems there is no way for me to not bring everything back to me. I apologize. It is all I can do.

sue

My Latest To Sue in the Aftermath of Our "Impasse"

2011-11-03T11:17:00.019-04:00

Two posts below, in "Impasse," I described our most recent developments as we continue to struggle through my/our recovery or sentence or whatever it is this now year long passage has been/is. The aftermath has led me to question what is the basis for our power exchange relationship, in that it has clearly profoundly changed from what it was through our past years together.

I am struggling to figure out what it is that can still work for us. I am seeking her involvement in that process with little success. Anything I do feels to me as though it is defined as being abusive, no matter how I try to approach it..............or that is my perception.

I wonder if since Sue has trouble discussing this with me in person or IM if perhaps corresponding here she will feel more comfortable responding to these issues.

Perhaps too someone else has some wisdom that can help resolve this.

Anyway this is an email I wrote to Sue this morning, after my trying to discuss the issue of what the status of our current M/s is in the aftermath of the events of the past week, and then having that discussion being ruled out as one that she could engage in because that was an excuse to beat her up. So here is my email:

OK so I get that somehow you think my feeling sad and hurt about the end of our M/s is some sort of abuse or one-up-manship or something................I don't understand what.

Maybe if I write to you it will make some sense. It is clear that you are in control of this relationship. You control my life. You want to be benevolent in that control and you want me to express a sense of power too (if I ever have that sense again). You would welcome that.

I am confused entirely about this business that you want to assert your power and then you want to go back to what we had before--our M/S or something like it. You want to dictate the terms of that relationship by making ultimata of what it must be or else you will pull away or end it. I may not share about my feelings if they are topics you have ruled out of bounds, or you will end conversations or go away. I don't understand how all this can be true..............I am Master who is dictated to.

The M/s we had you sought and you defined. I certainly concurred and then took the Master role from your definition and consent. I had ultimate power to decide. There was never anything like you telling me what you would or not discuss. There never was anything like you telling me if I stepped out of line by discussing things you didn't want me to you would just walk away or leave. That was totally out of bounds. Now we have this............and your need to label what we are now M/s, and my huge need for us to be OK together and to feel some sort of well-being between us again.

Please do not see this as some sort of "abuse." Talk to me...............or if that is not possible write to me.

What is it you want under the lable of M/s. You want me to give you your collar back. What does that now mean? I don't get this. I am not trying to abuse you. I am lost, confused, hurt. I don't know how to relate to you or what I can say or do. Could it be all we have to do is negotiate a new power exchange (DUH as I write that it is so obvious to me I can't even believe it took writing this for me to express it.)

I was dumbfounded this morning when you told me that you were ending the conversation because for me to bring this topic up was just a way for me to beat you up. I don't know where I can go with you in conversation.

Then when you bemoaned your not having a collar despite this, I feel like I have landed on some new planet where I am dealing with an alien with no cultural commonality as a basis for conversation.

So what is it you want for us to be? Let's go back to M/s if that is what you want. What would that mean to you? I will respond from my perspective as best I can, although I don't know that I have enough sense of my self to even know what it is I want....who I am to want anything.

This is just yet one more final loss that I don't understand, don't know what to do with..........

I love you,

Tom.

A BIG Thank You!!!

2011-11-01T15:49:00.002-04:00

I just want to take a moment to thank Serendipity with Polycharms.com. The pendants she made for me are beautiful. The stone to the left is Sue/Amethyst, the center stone is Tom/Diamond, and I am to the right/Garnet. She made this custom order for me for Christmas, but after the last few days, we all needed a gift to get us back on track to what is most important.....family.

Thanks again, Serendipity!!

T

We Came This Close...

2011-10-31T20:25:00.000-04:00

We came so close.
We were at the end.
Of everything.
Too tired and too sad and too broken to go on.
All of us; heartbroken; but unable to see a way through yet one more day -- one more battle.
Done.

And, then, these pretty little charms arrived in the mail. Today. Ordered weeks ago, by our T, for Christmas. But of course, by the time they got here today, it seemed impossible -- meaningless. Because they were custom made, just for us, they were not returnable either. One more disappointment to add to the misery that engulfed us.

It may have been just that bit of mystery and magic that saved us. That caused us to bend a bit, swallow our pride, notice that we were in real pain, and reach out to one another.

We backed away from the edge. Took a deep breath. Hugged. And turned, once again, to face our lives together. Saved by a gift from T. Merry Christmas!

swan

Impasse

2011-10-30T13:51:00.027-04:00

Another Sunday and another day in the Heron Household a year after check mate.

Life is too strange. As I drove home from my therapist's office Friday (ironically the one year anniversary of the 9-1-1 call that in my reality started all this) after completing a difficult session with my therapist mostly focusing on my work with the first chapter of the PTSD workbook she has suggested it might be helpful to work through, what in my rear view mirror should appear but the flashing lights of a police car. I pulled over and it turns out that the Smart car I drive had six month out of date license plate tags. Typically we receive those license expiration notices each year, the renewal form is sent in, and we receive the new license tag in the mail to affix. Reconstructing events, I would have been in jail last January when the expiration notice would have come out for this year. Everything was in great turmoil here and nothing much typical was occurring. The license was never renewed. None of us realized it. And so I was cited. I held it together quite well during the traffic stop I thought, even thanking the state highway patrol woman for the ticket. Internally I was freaking out. I have been told any police contact beyond superficial socialization (like a socialize with cops a lot) will violate my probation and I will serve my sentence. I am required to report any police contact as soon as possible to my probation officer, or the failure to report it is an additional violation. I drove home (I was about fifty miles away....our therapist has moved) and phoned them immediately. The probation office appeared to be closed so I left a voice mail for my p. o. It turned out she was on leave so I left a voice mail as well for another officer as her voice mail away message directed. Then Sue and I left for the license bureau to go renew the plates. Of course we arrived at the license bureau just as they closed.

I was (am) terrified that I will be arrested and serve a year in prison. Sue and T feel certain that my thinking that could happen is absolutely nuts. Sue had her session with the therapist yesterday who concurred there is no real reason to imagine this could violate my probation. Now I feel like I am being told once again that I am just stupid, and paranoid, and crazy for even imagining the "system" could ever be that unfair. This is the same "system" that sent men out to shoot me when they were called because an IM comment led to concern I might harm myself.

It doesn't matter that when I was in jail I met people serving out terms for probation violations more minor than this.............I am told that everyone in jail lies, and how do I know what they really were in for. Who knows.......certainly not me? Increasingly I believe I know nothing and I truly am insane.

I was depressed, freaked out, and afraid all Friday night and Saturday morning. We got up Saturday, had breakfast, and Sue was off for her session with our therapist. I went over to renew the license tag which was not difficult....just the usual wait in line and fee plus a $20.00 late fee (which will combine with the $125.00 fine for the citation to "cap off" the most tremendous year of legal expenses in my/our history). I affixed the new tag and settled in to wait and wonder if the police were going to come and get me. I had to go do my required AA meeting at 1:00. I had exercised before that, and had had enough interaction with sue who came back from her therapy session acting as though she was angry with me, to glean how ridiculous she thought it was for me to be feeling afraid there would be any further consequences from the ticket for the expired license tag.

I came back from AA, and remembered we had discussed all week going to see the new movie Anonymous. I found where it was showing on line, and we decided to go in time so we could come home and see the Ohio State University football game that night. We went, and all three of us loved Anonymous. It is not a movie we imagine will have lots of mass appeal. It is complex, cerebral, and esoteric, but the three of us are steeped enough in theater, history, and literature background and interests, that we were enthralled. On the way home we found a restaurant the three of us had not tried together before, and we all really enjoyed dinner together. (By the way if any of you are part of the debate that is growing up around Anonymous, we happen to think whether the hypothesis that Anonymous is built around , whether Shakespeare really wrote the works commonly attributed to him, is valid or not, is meaningless).

Then we came home and that evening watched one of the most exciting and nail biting Ohio State football games ever. I was thrilled and whooping and hollering over the last minute victory OSU pulled out. Sue watched it with me and was right there as well. She has converted to become an avid Buckeye fan in her time here, and I felt really happy and close with her (I am giving up ever again trying to interpret what sort of feelings she may be experiencing.) I had forgotten about the police. I just said to myself, Sue, T, and our therapist all think it is absolutely ridiculous to think the police could come for me for an expired license tag. I was just sick and wrong to even be concerned (as usual), and so forgot my fear, and had a good time.

We went to bed last night and I expected today we would continue to build on the kinds of positive steps I thought we both have been feeling really happy about the past couple of weeks, as in Sue's post "Small Things" that precedes this post.

Then Sunday dawned. I have come to dread Sunday's. Even before all this happened this past year, Sue has had a pattern for several years of being depressed and angry many, and in some periods most, Sundays. I am accustomed to awakening to her being withdrawn or angry, or some mixture of both, on any given Sunday, but last night felt so wonderful, especially in contrast to how Saturday had begun, that I had imaginings of a pleasant day together today possibly loving, maybe even playing some, watching football, having some good food, taking a walk, and being happy together again, as we had last night.

I woke up this morning and thought we might begin relating with some love making. She was stiff lying next to me. She had little emotional response and no physical response. I tried a few times to get her to tell me what was going on with her and was always told it was nothing. We did finally make love........or she basically tolerated my fucking her while she was with me, as is all too often the case anymore.

I tried again to find out what was wrong..............what had happened................what I had done................what could I do..............our usual 20 questions game. Finally she shared that she had had a difficult session with the therapist yesterday. The therapist had explained to her that in dealing with me right now she was effectively dealing with a hurt, raging child because of my history as a child abuse victim, which has linked to the events of the last year, and that needs to be the basis of her response to me. She told her that if parents of severely behaviorally disturbed children tantrum, the parents are taught to lock themselves in the bathroom, with food and books and blankets and whatever makes them comfortable, until the sounds of the child raging outside stop. Then they can try to relate to them again. That is essentially what she suggests metaphorically for me, in that I am a raging child in a man's body. That if in any way I discuss that I have problems because she called 9-1-1, I am being abusive, and she has to end the communication, or go to another room, or leave. That I am going to keep telling this "story" as long as it works for me, and that she should not listen to it. That if I continue telling it I will destroy our relationship.

I was momentarily angry, but then quickly felt too crushed to maintain anger. This is not some story I have made up or that I go over and over because it pleases me, or gets me some sort of proverbial "cookies." It is what happened to me, and I am hurt to the point of being broken about it. And yes my worst pain is mostly about feeling betrayed that it was initiated by the people I thought I could always trust to not harm me, and that does absolutely tie in with my feelings about my parents who harmed me when I thought they were the most important people in my life I could count on to take care of me.

I became a mess. I tried to talk to her and got a classic "talk to the hand" straight arm move body language along with the equally classic, "I cannot discuss this with you." I told her how devastated I felt. I sensed from her reaction that that is expected, and perhaps desired, and is just part of the process that she is implementing. I feel manipulated and crushed. I got up and tried to watch the Sunday morning talking heads doing political banter on TV, something I usually enjoy almost obsessively, and I couldn't follow the conversation. I tried watching Sunday morning football commentary and I couldn't follow that either. I even, in the aftermath of watching Anonymous last night, went to a website and began reading Shakespeare on line. I just feel at this point like anything I can do that will get me through the pain of being alive another minute is something I can do to try to pull myself forward. Finally I couldn't stand being here any more. I went out and drove around in the car. It is a nice day out.........................bright sunshine. Somehow moving aimlessly about in that capsule in the sun felt OK....better than sitting at home. I tried listening to radio and finally I did find something I could relate to..............the mindlessness of AM radio sports talk .............I despise AM radio.............but it was all I could seem to follow the thought pattern of.

I came back home. Sue was out. I called her to find out where she was....was she OK.......just out shopping.

I have no one I can talk to about this or who will take how I feel seriously, or not discount it as a crazy story I have concocted to get attention, or to work out my childhood trauma, or whatever. I feel desperate. I am just trying to kill time until I feel like being alive again.

It struck me I could write here. There is no need to respond. I just need to feel I can say this and that someone else will see it.

Tom

Unlike chess, in life the game continues after check mate.

Small Things

2011-10-27T22:38:00.003-04:00

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.
Lao Tzu

For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.
Carl Sagan

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.
Anais Nin

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
William Faulkner

Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you.
George Harrison

It feels like we may have broken through some sort of barrier to an easier place. It feels like we may have started to be better together; different than what has been for the last year.

We are beginning to have moments that seem good. We are beginning to experience small joys and tiny intimacies: a warm and welcoming hug, a genuine smile, a playful swat on the behind, a cocked eyebrow and THAT look, snuggling together in comfort, sex that gives us chills. It is almost scary... we are so aware of how very, very fragile it all is.

It is as if, in finally finding the words to reject the AA model, a very important piece of our lives is reclaimed. It feels as if all the long, grim, miserable months of trying to fit into that weird box are now over and we can breathe again -- live again. Months of feeling that there was no hope; believing that everything was lost; slogging through our days and nights in tandem -- never really touching; alone and broken and grief stricken... all ended. It is like the sun came up for our little family.

It is clear that we are not nearly "all better." There's a lot to do before that is the truth. Now, though, we are not pretending to believe in some sort of voodoo. Now we are clear that the work that lies ahead is ours to do -- and we are beginning to have some sense that the strength to live these days lies within us.

swan

Lies

2011-10-23T14:21:00.016-04:00

Nikkiana's comment to the October 22, 2011 post:

One thing that we've been told over and over and over is that alcoholism is a disease -- like any other, and that is an interesting and somewhat helpful notion. Except that -- It is the only disease we know of that you can get yelled at for having (and I have done my share of that yelling, to my shame). It is the only disease for which the sufferer is subject to arrest, trial, enormous fines, and incarceration. There is no other disease that is "treated" by forced participation in bogus religious brain washing, ritual, and practice against one's will. I know of no other disease that exposes the victim to ridicule, humiliation, and public censure like alcoholism.

This sums up so perfectly so much of my frustration and anger in life right now. It's the only disease that I know of that is openly regarded as a moral failing by the masses with everyone saying "Well, you did it to yourself."

There are more thoughts on that... but I haven't had my morning coffee yet.

Nikkiana thank you for commenting. It has been good having you here the past couple of weeks. It is good to have a friend (I hope we may presume to use that descriptor) who shares the double stigma of the feeling many in the poly community have towards those effected by alcoholism and the way the typical recovery community responds to polyamory. It is a double bind. How interesting that in your Internet search under the keywords " alcoholism" and "polyamory" our Blog popped up. I'd be honored for the notoriety were it not that dealing with this is such a nightmare

AA's founders coined the concept that alcoholism is a "disease." They proclaimed it in The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the bible of AA. This "disease concept" is at best a hypocritical paradox that AA uses to leverage people struggling with alcohol and or drug dependency under its tent, and into the treatment centers with whom they are parasitically linked with our courts. I have been declared to have the "disease" now for 10 months. The 12 step treatment paradigm is that there is only one treatment and that is God (always followed with, "may you find Him now") in order to achieve remission of the incurable disease you must "turn your will and your life over to the care of God, make a searching and moral inventory of yourself, admit to God and yourself and to another human being (i. e., your sponsor) the exact nature of your wrongs, and be entirely ready to have god remove all these defects of character, Humbly ask Him to remove your shortcomings, make a list of all persons you have harmed, and become willing to make amends to them all, and make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others, and continue to take personal inventory..................and on and on...... (paraphrased from the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.)

Firstly, is it any wonder that society has a view that alcoholism is a character disorder which results from godlessness, character defects, and sin? This is the "treatment" that is universally performed by alcohol and drug addiction treatment centers all over the U. S. and to a good extent world wide. It is the treatment that is mandated by the courts. In my case acquiescence and public profession of adherence to this, is the only way I have to stay out of jail for the remaining 459 days of my probation. WHAT OTHER DISEASE DO WE TREAT WITH A REQUIREMENT THAT WE CONVERT TO AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS CULT OR GO TO PRISON?

My circumstances are not rare or unique. In our mid-size large urban area there are literally hundreds of these organic cells ("meetings") of this cult called Alcoholics Anonymous, with literally thousands of people in them. Many have been converted. It is not at all uncommon in the groups I attend to meet people who have literally decades of sobriety who after 15, 20, 25 and sometimes even 30 years of sobriety attend AA meetings several times a week, even daily.

As you hear people talk of how they came to AA new folks arriving generally reveal that they are there because of a court mandate. Occasionally there are folks who are there as a result of an ultimatum of an employer to get to treatment or lose one's career. There is this myth that AA purports during the ritual readings of AA's sacramental dogma at the beginning of each of its meetings that AA IS A PROGRAM OF ATTRACTION NOT PROMOTION. They purport and have said so often that people come to AA because they wanted help or because they saw what people who were in AA had and wanted that in their own life, that AA participants come to believe it. I have made a point of talking to A. A. participants who mention that AA is a program of attraction not promotion. I ask them how they first came to AA. Almost universally these folks tell me they came to AA to stay out of jail, or to keep their job, that they didn't want to be there and were angry about it when they came. They see nothing about that that is inconsistent with the "AA is a program of attraction not promotion" principal. The truth is AA IS A PROGRAM OF COERCED RELIGIOUS INDOCTRINATION into a late 19th and early 20th century evangelical Christian sect called Buchmanism. Buchmanism still exists microcosmically as a sect that is based in Kentucky, but has spawned this huge state mandated religion called 12-step based alcoholics or narcotics or insert whatever other addictive agent or behavior, anonymous. It was a Buchmanist subsect called the Oxford Group that founded and promoted AA.

If alcoholism is a disease, something which I am not convinced of, then why would it be treated in this fashion? Why do we not have requisite religious cults to which cancer victims must convert to save themselves from their defects of character and enable them to be forgiven for the sins they have committed to cause them to have cancer, and once forgiven, why do we not have them start the whole confession, forgiveness, penance do-loop over and over again for the rest of their lives as the only possible way they can be cured. In AA it is not enough to quit drinking to be cured. You must instead become a convert. Why should being in remission from cancer be thought of as being well.......why should they not have to attend weekly, even daily, religious revival meetings, and why should their failure to do so not result in their being jailed? That is how alcoholism and addiction are treated.

The difficult thing for me is that I begin to question whether everything that they tell me in treatment is suspect and untrue....the fruit of the poison tree dynamic. If they can ethically and rationally espouse this dogma, then is it likely everything they have told me about drinking is just as much a lie? I have said I am not convinced that alcoholism is a disease. How can I be when it is these folks and their adherents who espouse that explanation for addiction?
How do I know that were I to ever have a glass of wine again I would of necessity then go on a huge bender and drink myself to death or become a violent murderous criminal or whatever other horrors they have told me? This problem is tough, and there are no reliable partners from whom to learn about it or to try to get help. The ones there are all rely on the drivel that is AA that has become the basis of modern "science." It is as reliably scientific as is the scientific reasoning upon which creationism rests.

The treatment of addiction is lies...told over and over and over and over so often and with such authority, and foisted through a multibillion dollar network of treatment centers, treatment programs, treatment practitioners, and 12 step cult groups which operate primarily via court mandated participation, that our culture has come to believe this whole nonsensical mythos.

So Nikkiana and sue it is not difficult to imagine why it is that we have these stigma-laden attitudinal and dynamics to deal with. I just hope that I will be allowed to continue bluffing my way through participation in the cult long enough to have my freedom restored to me in 459 days.

Tom

Unlike chess, life continues after check mate.

Anyone Know Anything About Lube?

2011-10-23T13:49:00.000-04:00

THEY have told me that this day would come -- for years. Ever since I entered into surgically induced menopause, doctors have been clear with me that there would be a time when I would no longer be able to rely on my own natural lubrication to make sexual intercourse a comfortable and pleasant experience. Frankly, with each passing year, I've allowed myself to believe, just a little bit more, that THEY might have gotten it wrong with that prediction.

Call me "Pollyanna."

It is seeming though, in the last few weeks, that I am having more and more trouble achieving enough lubrication to make it work well. The dryness is, surely, uncomfortable for me, but I am thinking it is starting to be an issue for both of us... the slip and slide seems to be out of business.

Probably, I'm going to need to deal with some kind of artificial personal lubricant product. And that's a challenge. I don't know much about lube. I avoid lube. It is icky. Slimy. Gross. Back in the day when we were still able to pull off vaginal fisting, we bought an inexpensive, store brand version of KY Jelly -- and then used it by the quart. It was yucky, but it worked in that situation and got the job done.

Today, getting to some kind of pretty good sex is a tricky business. I need to really be able to focus. I need to be able to feel subtle cues and subtle shifts in muscle tension and friction. Sticky, gooey, slimey glop is a real distraction in that process. It makes everything way more difficult. And... it irritates my girl parts.

So. I am hoping that I am just not aware of the really good stuff out there on the market. I am wishing that there is someone out there who knows the "ins and outs" of lube, and knows the secret to finding one that is both functional and nice to use. Is there such a product?

swan

October 22, 2011

2011-10-22T21:38:00.001-04:00

A week has come and gone; another seven days; the weather has turned definitively to fall; the first quarter report cards are due in a week; meals prepared; bills paid; the usual round of meetings and groups and therapy completed in its course -- of such is our life. I am pulled into the writing urge tonight. Wanting to somehow wrap words around what is, and feeling inadequate to the actual doing of that.

Sin wrote on her blog today about the breadth of purposes that the writing there serves, and she wondered what it might mean that her comments seem to have dropped off. Is there disapproval in the silence? Are people tired of hearing about it? What is going on? I know the feeling. When one writes this type of blog, a mixture of sex and daily happenings and mental meanderings, it is hard to know where to pull the curtain -- and easy to feel the weight of judgement.

One new recommendation from our therapist is that we acquire and go through a workbook about post traumatic stress together. So, Master ordered us three copies -- they will arrive next week, and we'll begin that study together. She is the one resource that we've acquired in this passage that truly does seem to be positive and helpful. She is utterly accepting of our family. She works to understand our dynamic. She gives every sign of being honestly and sincerely in our court -- appreciative of our efforts to love in a unique way in a world that is not always supportive of different relationship styles. We are coming to understand, with her help, that while we are certainly dealing with the aftermath of the events of last fall and last winter, there were underlying issues resulting from childhood abuse that set the stage for that to be the "perfect storm" in our lives. She is clear that nothing that ensued in terms of the interventions and involvements of the legal system was appropriate or helpful -- and has set herself to help us find a way to deal with it and move forward in spite of all of that.

We were touched by many of the responses of our readers to our latest crisis. The gentleness with which some touch our lives here is remarkable and a gift that we have no way to ever reciprocate. Some of you seem to understand that we don't need lectures, reprimands, "I told you so's," accusations, judgements, or blame. Some of you really do seem to have an instinct for being tender with us. To find that there are people who will simply stand with us; hold us; give us their support is ... There just are no words. Thank you.

Of course, the flip side is that some just cannot seem to resist the snide comment. Some cannot stop themselves from taking sides and trying to stir up battles between the three of us. Some are quite certain that they know what we ought to do, and they are just peeved when their unasked for advice goes unheeded. Some are clear that we are people of low character who deserve what has happened to us. Some, I am sure, are praying fervently for our ultimate downfall. And, what is more, those are the folks who insist that when we object to their consistently negative input here, we are the ones who have it wrong. They are quick to suggest that we "suck it up," or quit being here, or take it private, or only write what THEY would write, or... Everyone of them is an expert it would seem.

We are not experts. We are ordinary people with ordinary lives who have fallen into an extraordinary mess. No doubt, there is some significant part of the "blame" for the mess that belongs squarely on our shoulders. That would be the opinion of those who are sure that we "made our own bed." What we have learned, in the last year, spans a whole range of disciplines. We've looked into what the science says about addiction, and trauma, and the workings of the brain. We've picked up the tarot, and tried to figure out "The Power of Now." We've gone together through all the facets of the rehab program, and that continues. One thing that we've been told over and over and over is that alcoholism is a disease -- like any other, and that is an interesting and somewhat helpful notion. Except that -- It is the only disease we know of that you can get yelled at for having (and I have done my share of that yelling, to my shame). It is the only disease for which the sufferer is subject to arrest, trial, enormous fines, and incarceration. There is no other disease that is "treated" by forced participation in bogus religious brain washing, ritual, and practice against one's will. I know of no other disease that exposes the victim to ridicule, humiliation, and public censure like alcoholism. We may find our way through this in time. We may survive all the impacts that have come about as a result of our family's encounter with those who "protect and serve" in our community. We may manage to come intact through our required association with the AA cult to which we have been sentenced (in absolute denial of the constitution of the US). We may. Time will tell.

Whatever becomes of us, our world will be forever different. We will have learned a great deal about ourselves and each other. We will have learned just how strong we really are. We will have fought and raged and cried and laughed. We will have learned who our friends are, and we will have learned that some only seemed like friends when things were good and easy and sexy. We are a long way from the end of this road. We've only just begun to find our way out of the murk. There is not going to be much lightness here for the foreseeable future, but for those with the strength to bear with pain and growth, I bet there will be something to see in time.

swan

Better

2011-10-18T21:44:00.002-04:00

Tonight.
We are some better. Things have settled. The weekend insanity seems to have passed on, and we are tired and tentative. It feels as if each of us is peering out from behind our protective cover, like shy and timid forest animals.
We are a little befuddled by the suddenness of the storm that crashed over us; brought on by seemingly small things; convoluted and obscure and senseless -- and no less painful for all of that.
We survived. Again. Intact. Still all here; altogether. It seems a miracle -- and what is that we wonder...
So the blackness is gone from this place again. We are, still, The Heron Clan. A bit older, and no claim to wiser. A lot more battered and beaten up. Walking a path that makes no sense to us; that leads to where we cannot know; that seems fraught with hazards and barely imagined risks. We are feeling clumsy, unsure, and awkward -- and so no graceful herons in flight; we'll stick (for now) with the image of the funny, rumpled baby heron. He seems to epitomize our current ruffled state.
We've shared as we are able here. Not fully, to be sure. There aren't enough words to paint the picture of this passage in its entirety. We write as and how we may here depending on our capacities in the moment. Some of our days are better than others. Sometimes we are stronger and wiser than others. Sometimes we see more clearly than others. We are not very sturdy. We are tender. We are touchy. We are easily wounded. We'd be grateful for gentleness and kindness. Negative, judgmental, critical and confrontational messages are not helpful to us. That is the honest truth.
Tonight, the fall has arrived with a great stomping line of storms. It is blustery and rainy and cool. We are tucked in warm and safe. He and I took a walk when I got home from school. We debated about what to do for dinner; then ordered pizza delivered, and enjoyed our simple meal together. We are sitting watching the Republican presidential debate -- because we remain political junkies. The cat is curled up on the middle cushion of the couch, purring contentedly. The dishes are done. The bills are paid. Except for our various and sundry aches and pains, we are in pretty good health. There is not one thing about our life right now, in this moment that is horrible or awful. Around the country and around the world, there are plenty of people who suffer and struggle in fear and desolation and pain. We know how truly lucky we are. We are coming to hope that the hurts of the last year may fade away in time. In time...

swan

Horrible Weekend

2011-10-16T19:35:00.001-04:00

It has been an awful weekend.
Criticisms lodged here by various commenters set off a firestorm of bitterness and depression.
I can't imagine what people think their negativity achieves.
I am so tired of it all.
If it were up to me, I'd delete this whole blog.
He won't allow that.

swan

Comment Commentary

2011-10-15T21:58:00.016-04:00

weirdgirl thank you for commenting even when you feel uncertain how your input will be received. It takes courage to do that in the interest of trying to be helpful.

I do find it difficult though to follow your reasoning. sue has responded to morningstar's input that I should discuss how hypothetically I would have preferred for sue and t to have handled their interactions with the police about me last October, November, and January. sue explained that we decline to do that. We can't change what happened in any of those incidents right wrong or in between. Nor can we change whatever harm resulted or enhance any benefit that ensued either.............for any of us. We could though revisit recriminations, that we all have had months of to no end, and that we work to find a way to end. God knows I would have had those events handled differently if I had been able to control sue's or t's decisions. How could my expressing that yet one more time help us...............or do anything but further wound our family. It would achieve nothing for any of us. You feel that would have value. We disagree. We have enough real issues to live through without wallowing about in hypothetical actions we wish had occurred.

Having said that you believe it would be helpful for us to do that, you then go on to decry my reliving what happened to me (or as you put it, what I "perceived" to have happened to me...............which makes me wonder whether you question if I know what happened). Why is it that it would be helpful to replay what sue and t did in light of what I wish had happened, but it is harmful if I relive what actually happened to me? I re-experience what happened to me when I was in police custody and in jail several times each day. These were not hypothetical events. They were real. The feelings and thoughts that well up when that occurs to me are not mere unhappy memories. They are experiences that repeat in my consciousness and push other thoughts and feelings from my mind when I am awake and asleep. It would be wonderful if they would stop. Can you really believe that I am so stupid that I wouldn't stop thinking about them if there was some way I just could? Gosh why didn't I think of that! Perhaps you have the new cure for post traumatic stress. I shall have to ask my therapist next week, "Gee, why didn't you just tell me to stop thinking about it and move on."

You go on to posit that by now I should be enjoying the "quiet treasures" of sobriety. I had quiet treasures in my life. Many of them are detailed in posts here over the years but they were before my sobriety. There have been none since last October 28. You suggest that I should enjoy these quiet treasures despite the horrific way that sobriety was forced on me. That reminds me of reasoning that perhaps someone who has been violently mugged and robbed should somehow enjoy the opportunity to experience the quiet treasures of poverty. I hope I have quiet treasures in my life again. They have not existed since the end of last October.

As for whether I will drink again I am working on that by deciding I will drink again ........just not today. The decision to drink in the future quiets a huge internal debate that I have, and helps me feel not quite so humiliated and subjugated by having no choice whether or not to drink.............other than prison. The decision to not drink today assures my continued sobriety.......................and as painful as it is to acquiesce to any of the 12 step mantra......"one day at a time."

I'm glad you are so joyous in your sobriety. I want my/our life to be joyous again . If that joy is in sobriety fine, I will perhaps get past what has happened to be able to enjoy life even without freedom to decide how I live it. I find myself thinking of an interesting reversal of the mind techniques alcohol rehabilitation professionals recommend you use when you are tempted to drink. They tell you that if you are tempted to drink again because you are thinking of how we enjoyed drinking at times in the past, you should "complete the tape," that is we should remember the horrid consequences that befell you, that brought you to alcohol rehab in the first place, and remember too, that will happen to us again if we return to drinking. I am finding myself these days imagining my life going forward as it is living in sobriety, and AA meetings, and aftercare meetings, and step work and ...............................that I need to play it forward....to complete the tape. If this is the life I have left, I think my thoughts on my death bed are hardly going to be that I am grateful to have lived.

Tom

Polyamory Observations #19

2011-10-13T19:34:00.000-04:00

The polyamorous community has its own particular, and sometimes rather peculiar, vocabulary. I suppose that is true of almost any subgroup that shares some esoteric interest -- we have to talk to each other, and since we are animals that are wired for language, we invent the words that work for us. Talk with poly people, and you will hear them describe their relationships with words like quad, triad, web, network, clan, and tribe. We'll give you words meant to evoke the geometry that we perceive in our relatedness: hinge, vee, triangle, and line. We'll name our hierarchies, and we'll mess with the labels for our partners, referring to them by ordinals (like primary, secondary, and tertiary), or the cute appelation for plural spouse-types: spice.

Much of our inner-circle jargon is borrowed from the larger culture, and tweaked to serve our purposes. That is not true, however, of the word "compersion." Compersion is the gold standard of poly loving. It is understood to be the feeling of pleasure experienced when one's love finds pleasure in another lover. There's a lot of good writing out there about the theory and practice of compersion -- like this.

I've mostly avoided discussions of the how to's of polyamory; choosing instead to share what the practice looks like inside of our household. There's no "poly for dummies" lurking in the archives here. I've particularly eschewed expounding on the idea of compersion because, frankly, I suck at it. THAT you can find in our archives -- over and over and over.

To be fair, although it is sometimes true that compersion is paraded out in poly circles as a "should do," most of us understand that compersion may or may not be the first response to the appearance of a new love in the life of a partner. There are poly people who claim that they do not experience the emotion of jealousy. Others, though, acknowledge that compersion develops over time as the underpinnings of jealousy recede. We know, intellectually, that jealousy is often the over-arching emotion when a person is experiencing fear, loneliness, anger, and uncertainty at the start of a partner's new relationship. I seem to drag through that development phase really, really, really slowly -- irritating the crap out of Master in the interim.

Now, I am finding that there's a new wrinkle in my uneasy dance with compersion. I've come to ponder the possibility that if He were to find a new love -- a new play partner -- then maybe He would work out some of His current ambivalence about His Dominance there, and so be restored to me. Yeah. Compersion with a selfish bent -- "find another lover and work this thing out so I can have more of what I want from our relationship." Maybe that isn't really it (compersion). Or maybe it is... Maybe that's what all those proponents of the "compersion" miracle keep trying to tell us -- set the partner free to love fully, and that love will come back to you. Enlightened self-interest.

Hmmmm... Interesting.

swan

Let's Try This Again

2011-10-12T19:51:00.000-04:00

Commenting on my last post, Kate said...

"You've been very clear that you do not wish to hear from anyone unless they are supportive and encouraging, and that any opinions short of unconditional positive regard are not wanted."

No. Kate. You have it wrong.

Support and encouragement are, of course always welcomed. We have been through a very long, very difficult series of events, and those who find it in their hearts to hold us up are treasured. Is there any human anywhere who doesn't appreciate being treated kindly when life seems challenging and dark? We are no different, whatever you might think of us.

We do not, however, limit the participation here to only those commenters who are "supportive and encouraging." Not everyone that comments here sees things exactly as we do, and there are surely those who hold ideas and opinions that vary from our own. If the hallmark of that "unconditional positive regard" that you find so objectionable is a reluctance to confront us and offer differing opinions, then some of our longest-standing, most reliable commenters seem to be lacking in that quality. They have no problem at all suggesting that we try something different, or encouraging us to investigate another path, or asking us to consider things from an alternative perspective. We really don't have a group of rubber stamp friends.

What we do have is a group of people who understand the notion of respect. These are decent people who understand that nothing is served by mean-spirited and abusive commentary. They come here as visitors, and they behave like visitors. They mind their manners. They consider whether the things they want to say will contribute in some positive way to the dialog, and if the answer is no, then they don't say it. They do not call names. They do not try to set us against each other. They don't take sides. They own their own opinions, and they offer advice for what it is worth (taking no offense if we choose to not take what is offered).

I really don't know why this is so hard for some people to understand. This is our place. We created it years ago. We've kept it going with some 1200 posts to date. We've poured our hearts out here, and we've nurtured this through a lot of ups and downs. To us, this place is important and valuable. It is a refuge; the place where we can safely pour out the confusions and worries and hurts along with the joys and triumphs and giddy moments. We do defend it. We reserve the right to have it be what we choose to have it be. And... we fully understand that some people may not want to "play" inside of those constraints. That's OK. No one should feel compelled or required to be here. There are probably hundreds and hundreds of blogs out there. If somewhere else seems more congenial, then we will wish you well.

There are a few cyber denizens who seem drawn to our blog, and perhaps others. They cannot seem to manage to say anything positive, or even polite. They must find fault. They are driven to be insulting. They are disrespectful and ill-mannered. They seem convinced that we somehow NEED them to point out our faults, failings, and pure fuck ups -- that their clear perception of our imperfections will, all by itself, endow us with the magic to turn everything around and convert us to the right path.

I imagine that these people would not accost some total stranger, out in a public place, and lambaste them with obnoxious and abusive nastiness. Consider -- who among us would walk up to someone in a crowded grocery and begin to rail at them about being enormously fat and slovenly and disgusting? Doing that would create a scene-stopping social crisis. The target of such rudeness would be entirely justified in taking whatever actions were available and appropriate to protect themselves and end the assault. We have commonly agreed upon social norms that almost always prevent that sort of scene from happening -- in real life. Here, though, on the Internet, it seems that some forget (or choose to ignore) the customs of civil interaction. Most often, here, the worst and rudest commenters will not only break all the rules, but then they will insist that it is their right to do that. "How dare we react negatively to their abuse?" they will wonder incredulously.

That sort of thinking just causes me to shake my head in wonderment. So, I am afraid, Kate that you will continue to be offended and disappointed in our recalcitrant insistence on having things our way here in our place. I imagine our opinions and attitudes will continue to annoy and irritate you. Maybe you will keep on coming here for some unfathomable reason. We won't move to stop you... And even when your opinions differ from ours, as today's so clearly did, we'll respect that. Just keep it civil. I don't think that is too much to ask.

swan

Words, Words, Words

2011-10-11T20:50:00.000-04:00

I knew, yesterday, that Tom was working on a post. He told me that it was about the last year and where He feels the journey has brought Him to this point. We didn't really talk much about the content -- more about His work (real labor) to try and get it done. It wasn't easy for Him to write, and as the day went on, I could hear the strain in His words... His post is so raw. When I read it last night, I found myself without words -- awash in roiling, swirling, tumultuous emotions. We went off to bed without discussing it. It is hard to read -- and I can understand the reactions that it evoked; just as I can understand the overwhelming silence emanating from nearly 800 people who read His words.

Today, He was at pains to assure me that He did not want to hurt me with the words He wrote... and I told Him I was fine. I was not hurt by His words. I've been hurt by the things we've been through in the last year -- we all have, and I am impatient for the hurting to come to an end, even as I know that we have still got a long road to travel before we are able to feel that we've healed from what has happened.

It is very likely that there will be more posts here in the coming months and years that will be difficult to read -- the stories that we've told to this point represent only a part of what has transpired. The bits and pieces of what we each experienced are still becoming clear; we are still figuring out where each of our separate perceptions match up; we are still identifying the gaps in our shared experiences and knowledge. We are only now beginning to be able to really hear each other; really feel for one another; really reach out and try to support and comfort each other -- and we are just beginning to reach the point where those overtures feel welcomed.

As always, readers here are invited to look in on us; invited to share the struggles and triumphs; invited to spend a bit of time in conversation with us about the things that we are engaged in. We're going to live this part of our lives, as we've done most of the last eight or so years, right here in public. Reading what we come here to share will give a clear and unvarnished picture of our good days and bad days, our love and our struggle, our pain and our hope. Those of our readers who sit comfortably with us as we flail and scrabble -- thank you. Your calm and gentle presence is a balm to our weariness and fear. Those who come and read and then go silently on, you are welcome here. We will assume that your kind thoughts and good energies are holding us up as we work to heal. And those who react with frustration, confusion, judgement, blame, anger... You will assume that you know what is and is not. You will assume that you know what we're doing right and what we're doing wrong. There's probably nothing that we will say that will convince you that you might not have it figured out...

Tonight, I wanted to respond to the comments that were made on Master's post. I am not going to defend or explain, but I want to try to cast things in a different light maybe:

LynLass, you have been a good and steady companion to us for many, many years. Along the way, you have often shared generously of your own experience and your professional expertise to try and guide us through thickets that might have snared us otherwise. I well remember that you were a valuable resource to me in the days and months after my hysterectomy, helping me to understand the various factors that were contributing to my depression, and rage. Thank you for that. Too, I know that you are convinced that there is great value to the AA model for recovery from alcohol addiction. We are locked into that model these days, and not by our own choice. We are following the path defined by AA, but we are not finding it a good or helpful experience. I do hope that we will, at least, make contact with a few good, sane people through AA, and perhaps those friendships will prove to be valuable going forward. But I cannot imagine that AA is going to be a way of life for us once we don't HAVE TO do it anymore. That is just the fact.
Beyond that, your continued positive affirmation that there is a way through this, that health and healing are possible, that we may all find ourselves in a better place in time is more important to us than you can know. I hope that you know that, while we may not implement all of the suggestions you make, we read what you write and give it real consideration. Thank you.

morningstar, I think that I understand that your "what was the alternative" question is well meant, but it isn't helpful or germane. What was done, back a year ago, was done. As Master puts it, we were each "naive" in our own ways; we were each blind to the consequences we were bringing to bear; we were each and all wrapped in our misconceptions, our misunderstandings, our ego trips, our fears and frailties. Looking back is about fixing blame, and I think we've finally found our way through the maze of blaming and bitterness. More important, for us now, is the question of how we can change -- change ourselves and change our lives together so that all of us get more of what we want and need than we did before. If we'd known more, known better, been better -- we might have made different choices and maybe avoided this crisis (maybe).

And finally, Rhonda -- You judge that Master is a "selfish bastard." I'd hazard a guess that there are very few BDSM Dominant types who wouldn't happily lay claim to the "bastard" label. Most of them cultivate that quality -- and hone it to an art form. Some of us find those "bastards" to be remarkably sexy and way more interesting than those "legitimate" and nice fellows that some prefer. Different strokes for different folks...
As for that selfish thing... Our household; our family is dealing with addiction. Addiction is selfish. It moves always to maintain and sustain itself. Addiction does not care about anyone or anything beyond the next fix, drink, or hot fudge sundae. We believe that there is hope for us to recover from the effects of addiction and that is the work that we are doing right now. Your observation simply highlights your inability to empathize with the struggle to overcome the impulses that drove Master to drink too much. Perhaps that lack of empathy points to your superb impulse control. Maybe you have never struggled to resist the urge to gamble, the urge to shop too much, the urge to overeat, the urge to spew nastiness across the cyber universe at total strangers who never did you any harm...
It is, in my opinion, easy to look casually at the story of our family over the last year and take sides -- easy to designate victims and victimizers, and think that tells the story. It is also intellectually lazy. We are a group of three complex humans. We have long histories and unique personal stories to tell. You, and all who read here, see bits and pieces, but cannot know the whole. I'd think that, knowing that, one might be cautious about making judgements.

Master has declared the truth of how He feels about the potential for us to engage in M/s or D/s interactions at the present, and I think that is reflective of how He feels about what has happened to Him, but I also think it is grounded in how He perceives of power exchange within the BDSM context. He is a spanko and a sadist. For Him, almost all of the "real" practice of D/s or M/s is about the erotically charged realm of sadomasochism. It is, literally, sex and violence. When He does not feel sexy, He does not "feel dominant."

I experience it differently. As Dominant and submissive, or Master and slave, we are really not "the same only different." Even as He has gone into a quiet period regarding sadomasochistic play and "active" D/s or M/s, I still feel owned. Absolutely. The "fun" stuff has fallen off, but I am still operating to take care of Him, meet His needs, do the things that are part of my pattern of service. I cannot help myself -- and He cannot help but expect those things to continue to be done... I still manage His medications, take care of the bills and finances, maintain the household files, keep things around here relatively neat and tidy, fix the meals, handle the laundry (with lots of help from T), maintain my career so that I may make a financial contribution to our household, keep myself readily available to meet His needs sexually, offer what I can of emotional support, act as His exercise buddy... Somedays, I wish it weren't true, but there it is, and what is more, even when my inner brat is pouting and insisting that it isn't "fair," it remains immovably in place. I can't change one jot of that routine -- and believe me, I've considered the possibilities.

And here we are. We've lost. A lot. We've recovered. A bit. We've got work ahead of us, and we're not always happy about what we're faced with. We are taking the good with the bad. Learning to live a new life with new rules and new goals. It is all very new and still pretty fragile. Watch carefully. This should be a learning experience for us all.

swan

"Now" for me and the Question of My Dominance

2011-10-10T07:36:00.026-04:00

It seems that our Blogging has become a chronicling of the progress of our (my) life as we proceed through this now almost year long chapter.

I have always found October to be the most evocative of months. I love fall and the transition it brings in weather, smells, colors, shorter days, return to school, football, and the soon to follow holidays. October has always boded what for me has seemed as a wonderful awakening, that I adored until now. I used to love fall on the campus during my ten years in and around college. Even after finally finishing my last graduate work, I used to take a day off in October and go spend a day on the campus to enjoy the atmosphere, the fond memories, and be with students who were living through their own college days.

In two weeks it will be the anniversary of a weekend sojourn we made last October to a state park lodge on Lake Erie. I was as happy then as I've been in recent years. We three spent the weekend being together, reveling in the nature offerings that the park preserves, visiting my old haunts from when I lived in Northwest Ohio, dining in favorite restaurants and just being happy. It was like life somehow said that I would be granted a "last-supper-like" delicious interlude so that I would have a contrast as my life descended into the nightmare it has been since.

We returned home. Sue posted about our glorious weekend. We resumed what was then a new routine for us, and particularly for me. My career had ended suddenly and sadly four months before. I was staying home alone weekdays since sue had returned to school from her summer break. T was of course at work in her career. I was passing my time on the Internet, doing household errands, exercising, chatting with sue on line, and yes, drinking (that seems now like it is some sort of horrendous confession........like saying I was murdering children or some horrific crime against humanity.)

The following Thursday Sue and I were chatting on IM while she had a few minutes break while at school. I made what I thought was a meaningless comment. It was the sort of passive aggressive remark lovers sometimes exchange when they are cross with each other. Sue decided it meant I was going to kill myself and called 9-1-1 thinking she was trying to save my life. What ensued was the beginning of a nightmare that has been life since. Sue was genuinely afraid, and swears that she had no idea that when one calls 9-1-1 it means you are summoning the police. From many conversations with her, she had no idea what calling 9-1-1 would set into motion, but she never imagined police, and what ensued. Apparently she thought somehow some sort of psychiatric crisis intervention was being summoned. I did know absolutely that 9-1-1 meant she had called the police with a complaint about me as being dangerous. I left the condo not wanting to be here when they came for me. We live in a very right wing, repressive, conservative Republican, devoutly fundamentalist Christian, suburban, strong hold. I feared police coming here and encountering BDSM paraphernalia might well have dire legal consequences for both she and I. At least t lived in a separate condo next door providing her a shield. I don't know which of us was more naive, Sue in not knowing that when you called 9-1-1 you were calling the police to intervene into a crisis (or that if it wasn't a crisis, police would certainly aggravate it into one), or me for thinking that if I was not here when they knocked on the door, they would just go away.
A half hour later I was in a nearby Wal Mart parking lot, under arrest in handcuffs. They interrogated me, harassed me emotionally and physically, and wanted to search my car, which I refused. When some additional police arrived as this melodrama played out, they told me that they had been patrolling our condominium complex searching for me with rifles and flak vests with shoot on sight orders, if they found me. They joked about how they had frightened several of the "old folks who live there while they were taking their morning walks." It was clear that they wanted to charge me and take me in, but I was 61 and had no previous police record. I didn't fit any profile they were used to seeing. Had I been black or Hispanic I would have been gone I am certain, but I was caucasian, educated, apparently middle class, had a nice car, etc. Eventually I was able to get them to see this as just another example of how women (or "bitches" as all women were generalized in that discussion) were guilty of always victimizing poor unsuspecting "guys" and bringing their life to grief. Amazingly, after we all grunted and scratched ourselves in masculine solidarity against the great feminist castration conspiracy, they took my cuffs off, told me I needed to end my relationship with sue, and let me go home relatively unscathed. So the last year's sojourn into criminal justice and alcohol rehabilitation began.

I was enraged. My adult life began in the anti-Viet Nam War movement, druggie, hippie, counter culture of the late sixties and early seventies. If there was any credo I lived by it was, and is more so today, that never, no matter what, do you call the police. You don't deal with the police. You avoid the police. You don't ever support the police. Police are evil, harmful, despicable, hired thugs. They never help, anyone or anything. If you have any sort of a bad situation one thing is certain. If you involve yourself with the police things will get immeasurably worse. It is a betrayal that you wouldn't even visit on your worst enemy to call the police on them. My slave, my great love had called them on me!!!!!!

I was enraged and felt crushed by the betrayal! I was devastated. That devastation on top of the losses of my parents and my career, and my body's dramatic changes and the two serious and medically difficult surgeries in 8 months that involved, and t's mother's horrible illness and disability and her imminent death all combined I quite frankly became insane.................and yes...............I drank! I drank to oblivion. My drinking, had become increasingly problematic. The gastric bypass surgery I had undergone changed entirely the way my body processed alcohol. It enhances the effects of alcohol immensely. No one seems to know for sure the exact extent of this, and there are likely individual differences in response, but there is some research that indicates it may intensify the intoxicating effects of alcohol to 6 to 8 times the effect on normal people. I did not know about this altered affect of alcohol. And I was drinking, drinking a lot now... I was absolutely not dealing with the pain I was in. T spent that next weekend..........Halloween, about 50 miles away at her Mother's taking care of her in the aftermath of her stroke. Sue and I joined her for dinner and trick or treat on Halloween. On the way back home I launched into another of my horrific enraged tirades against sue for calling the police. I was convinced they were going to come get me and take me away. The following day in a drunken enraged stupor I became threatening of sue and she and t, who had returned here from her mother's, joined her in a motel room feeling it was unsafe to be at home with me, called the police.

My memory is a blur. I recall coming to semi-consciousness in our living room. I'd been passed out on the couch. Five police surrounded me. I don't know what transpired. I was carried, handcuffed and screaming, to the police car. I was devastated and sure this was the end of my life. I still wish it had been. I was taken to my first ever experience in a jail. I was booked, and stripped and thrown naked with a weird quilt wrap like quasi-garment into the cell that would be my home for the next four days. The first two days I was in solitary. They later explained to me that I was not in solitary. I was on suicide watch, which meant I was locked down with no human contact 23 hours a day, and let out in the middle of the night to shower and exercise when there was no one else around but a guard. If I had been in solitary I would have been locked down 23 hours a day, and let out for just one hour in the middle of the night for shower and exercise. It was a discrimination without a difference. It was cold typically in the 50 degrees range. I was naked. I was not allowed to have anything on my feet. I was not allowed to have soap, towels, or even toilet paper. There were no blankets or bedding. My cell had a metal slab "bed" with a one inch thick pad that really provided no "padding," a sink, and a toilet. The lights in the ceiling stayed on 24 hours a day. There was no window you could see out of. There was no clock. The first morning I was arraigned. I was dressed in prison orange pajamas hauled in chains to court. I was allowed rubber thongs on my feet which were of little use. It had snowed. It was better than being barefoot but not much. I had little understanding of where I was or what was being done. In court I asked where I was, what I was charged with, who had charged me. The prosecutor made of this that I was dangerously violently mentally ill and a risk to the community. I had a defense attorney who was a public defender who stood at my side. We had never laid eyes on each other before and she said little or nothing other than telling me where to stand. My bail was set at $20,000.00. I was charged with inducing panic and domestic violence. I was taken back to jail in chains still of course, stripped naked again and put back in my cell.

After another day in solitary I was evaluated by a very elderly lady who was supposedly a mental health professional of some ilk. I am a mental health professional. What she did would not have constituted a mental health evaluation anywhere else. She pronounced me no longer a suicide risk. I was given the same orange pajamas I was dressed in for court, and I was now allowed soap, toilet paper, rubber sandals, a sheet and a blanket, and to spend non-lock down time in the day room and meals with other inmates................my first contact with others other than those I was chained to for transport to court that first morning. After four days I was released pending trial. Eventually, after $5000.00 to an attorney, I went to court the end December. I agreed to a plea bargain dropping the domestic violence charge, and pleading no contest to inducing panic. I was sentenced to 6 months but released in lieu of 6 months probation. The terms of the probation were misrepresented to me by my attorney, apparently due to his ignorance of the practices of this court. He'd never practiced in that court before but had been referred to us by teresa's work. They have an employee assistance program (EAP) which offers referrals to legal services and mental health services. They referred us to this attorney. Accessing him via the EAP we paid about three times what his service would have cost us, if we had simply contacted him directly. That was how we wound up with an attorney who was ignorant of the court we were being heard in. The same EAP did however refer me, and eventually all three of us into the care of a psycho-therapist who has proven wonderful.

I had not intended to write the great American novel here this morning. I had intended to further update where we are now, not describe our path here, but I seem to have unending finger twitching on my key pad. I will try to summarize the long story from then until now....at least for today. I did not do well after all this. I continued drinking. I raged. I was suicidal. I didn't want to live and prayed each day I would not face another. Finally I became suicidal and violent with sue and t in mid January and was taken to jail again. This time I was in eight days and charged with aggravated menacing and domestic violence. The same attorney did as marvelous a job this time, as he may have been somewhat lack luster the first time. I did not receive a violation of my probation despite this offense which is indeed miraculous, and I am sure due in large part to his skill. I plead guilty to domestic violence. The Aggravated Menacing Charge was dropped. I was required to do alcohol rehabilitation and thus to participate in AA, and subsequently to do a year of rehabilitation aftercare, and on-going psycho-therapy all at our expense of course.

We have all of us written here about our experience with AA and rehabilitation, which are interconnected. They are essentially intertwined programs of religious indoctrination. They have helped literally millions of people. If you are willing to, or the only way you are able to survive your addiction to alcohol, or whatever substance is to, shift your addiction to obsession with magic and religiosity, and the dogma of a cult, AA may serve a to provide you a lifeline. I am not orthodoxly Christian, nor will I be, particularly not upon the requirement of a court. If there were ever to be any thought or opportunity for that conversion to occur, this experience has ended that. I do have to pretend to have been converted fully however. If I fail to behave as if I have been gloriously converted to sobriety, by the grace of God, I will go to prison for a year. I have 26 weeks of my aftercare program yet to serve, before I will have completed the program. Aftercare monitors my twice weekly attendance in AA meetings (and writing reports on each one), and requires a weekly hour and a half long Aftercare group meeting to discuss how our higher power is keeping us sober. I am so far thankfully managing to successfully bluff my way through this. I receive accolades about my progress in my recovery.

Soon I will be awarded my nine month AA sobriety coin. I will receive numerous joyous congratulations and hugs. The grace of God will have saved yet another poor drunk. I will stay out of prison another week. sue and t will be glad I am not drinking. Life will be good.

This is a life I despise. It is daily continual coercion to achieve goals that are not mine, and never were. The only place where this life and my aspirations intersect is where I get to not go to prison for a year, and where I will no longer be required to play this game the end of January 2013. The only other intersection is that because of this my two, t and sue, remain with me and we keep our family in tact. That means there might be hope of some semblance of happiness again some day.

As all this progresses I feel better than I did at first. I no longer wish I had not awakened each morning, although I do still find most of my first morning thoughts involve my remembering that I am a criminal, and a drunk, and could well be in prison or jail by nightfall. I feel physically better not drinking of course, and I am doing well with my exercise and diet regimen.

T and sue seem generally OK. They are glad I don't drink any longer. On the other hand they wish they had "me" back. They have been told by the so-called treatment professionals I will be OK again..............someday

So the big thing lately is that I am supposed to recover my Dominance. If you read here, you have read that discussion. I am supposed to spend my life in an intensive program to never drink again, the goal of which, my sobriety, is the goal of my two submissives, the courts, the police, my probation officer, my rehabilitation professionals, everyone in AA, my fellow aftercare participants,..........................everyone, BUT ME. I am to spend a few hours every two days in meetings focused entirely on that topic, and particularly how I can, and will be, saved from alcohol by the grace of God, and only by that grace, in that it is the one, and only, way I can be saved, and joining in group prayers to that end. I must pretend and fake adherence and adoption of this farce, or they can, and will, put me in prison for a year. This active program will continue through next April. Beyond that I will still be on probation for nine months after that and be expected to at least continue with AA meetings throughout that period, and to never deviate from sobriety even once. If I fail, I go to prison...........a year. Beside that, if I have any contact with police, e. g., if I would get a traffic ticket, I would go to prison for a year.

NO I DO NOT FEEL DOMINANT! THIS IS NOT A LIFE I CHOOSE. I AM CONTINUOUSLY SUBJUGATED TO RUTHLESS RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION. THIS IS ALL AT THE INITIATION OF MY SUBMISSIVES TO WHOM I AM SUPPOSED TO BE FEELING THAT SOMEHOW I AM DOMINANT.!!!

That is how it is for me now. I am alive, and that feels like not much of a gift. I am out of jail and that is what I can manage for now. To achieve that, I am required to pretend I have accepted a religion I believe to be false and evil. Were this religion not evil, it would not be a party to this coercion and brain washing. I am not willing to go to prison for a year, to stand up and express my real feelings. I will complete my program and my AA until I am free again.

So it goes, day in and day out. To be Dominant I would lead a self-determined life. My current life, my "now" personifies of the antithesis of self-determination.

Tom

So, How's it Going?

2011-10-02T22:35:00.000-04:00

You, Dear Reader, might wonder (if you wonder about us at all) how things might be going with "The Herons" in these early days since my unilateral declaration that I was resuming my place as His slave. Is it really possible that it could be that simple -- just decide and it all snaps back into place?

The simple answer to that question is, as it turns out, not all that simple...

Yes. For me, things are back in place, or perhaps more accurately, I feel as if I have snapped back into place. Habits that were formed over years and years of service to Him, and anticipation of His wants, needs, and moods, and intense observation of His every response and reaction -- have all resurfaced. My late snappishness and bitterness and hurt have mostly dissolved away. I can feel myself quieting, waiting more gently, softening. That feels good and right to me.

And no... the place I once occupied in His world is unalterably changed, so there is no real way to go back to that same place. I think I will still have a place to be in His life. I hope I do. I just don't know, yet, what that place will be.

Lest my uncertainty be misunderstood, let me be clear... He and I are better, I think, than we have been. It feels like there is healing happening -- real and tangible healing. The anger and frustration that were the currency of our days for so many months are dissipating. We are better... but not the same. Not the same.

And so... I am back to the most basic of slave skills. I wait. As gently as I can manage. Quiet -- or as quietly as I can manage. I cannot claim to follow His lead if I insist that He lead at my speed and in the direction I would choose. We will move along paths that He chooses at the pace that He sets. I do not know where that path leads. Knowing isn't part of my life anymore.

swan

Maybe It Depends on How You Look at It

2011-09-25T23:34:00.000-04:00

In her comment to my last post, morningstar said...

i will follow this (what shall I call it???) journey??? i don't know what to call it swan.. but i will be interested to see how it goes....
i have been trying to be submissive without a "leader" so to speak.... some days it is just damn frustrating....
i wish you luck

I'm not at all sure if she meant that to say that I am "trying to be a slave without a Master," or if she was really only speaking to her own current situation. I know I tend to do that in comments on a regular basis -- read someone's words about their life and their experience, and then speak to whatever that brings up for me about my own life and circumstances.

I know that the implication that I am somehow trying to do the submissive/slave side of the power dynamic without the accompanying Dominant/Master side caught me off guard. I never wrote those words, and I'm surprised to find what I did say interpreted in that fashion. So let me try to clarify --

What I discovered, Saturday morning, sitting in my therapist's office, was a truth about myself. More accurately, I suppose, it was rediscovered... because I have known it for years. I am, if it can be possible, happiest and most fulfilled when I live from the place of "slave" within my most intimate relationship. It is what I wanted through nearly three decades of marriage, and it is what I chose when I came here to be with Tom some 9-1/2 years ago. It is what I choose for myself today -- and for as long as I live. For myself.

The changes we've come through have rocked us to our foundations. We've been lucky to survive. We are, I hope, through the worst of it, but we are still in the early days of clearing the debris and laying the foundations for "new stuff" in our lives. It is hard work -- exhausting both physically and emotionally. We haven't yet come to a place where things are easy or simple or familiar. Every move and every task and every undertaking seems daunting and oppressively complicated and difficult. Every single success; every triumph; comes about because we've managed to successfully navigate the delicate business of working at it together with whatever tools, skills, and talents we can bring to the effort.

I am not faced with trying to be "slave" in some vacuum where there is no dominant counterpart. He is the One that I serve, and the only One that I want to serve. He is learning His way into our new reality, even as I am, but He is still "Master" to me -- always and all ways. That is far more about who and what I am than it is about Him. I belong to Him; bound in heart and mind and body by threads that span our two lives with a strength that is more than steel. The fact that, as I became fearful and hurt and angry and resentful, I pulled myself away from those anchor points does not change the truth of their existence. It is only evidence of my own willful foolishness and blind panic.

I needed to flail around in that place until I realized where I'd gone wrong. I needed to correct my own course. I needed to come back to my home and my center. That has been my work and my healing in these months -- to come to understand that, and then to accept that it was within my power to choose to do it. He couldn't "lead" me to this. I would have battled with Him and fought Him -- just as a drowning swimmer may fight her rescuer. Far better, I imagine, that He let me work through this on my own, and find my own way back to "us."

I know that there is a common belief, in the lifestyle community, that it is the Dominant partner who leads, and the submissive partner who follows that lead. That may, in fact, be precisely the model that prevails in many of our relationships most of the time, but I have come to believe that it isn't always so. If the goal is to build strong and healthy relationships that endure and work for the partners, then the power flows between them in natural and organic ways, and the leadership can pass back and forth depending on what the circumstances demand. Just as climbers might share the lead in ascending to the summit, so we move in and out of "leadership" roles in our relationship. I have skills and knowledge and wisdom to share, and sometimes it makes sense for me to be the one to take the lead. That doesn't mean I am less slave or that He is less "Master." It only means that each of us offers the best we have to this life we are creating together.

So, I will be "slave" as best I can. I will work on the things that still bedevil me in that context -- my fears, and my tendency to extrapolate from bits of nothingness, and my quick leaps to judgement, and my jealousies, and my insecurities. I will do the best to serve Him, to anticipate what He might need and want from me, to be where He needs me to be, and to cultivate the graceful, respectful, kind, and loving attitudes toward loving Him that were once my habit. He'll give me whatever guidance and direction seem appropriate and necessary from His perspective, I'm sure. We'll grow together into this -- even as we have over the years that have gone before. I doubt that we will avoid all the frustrations and battles and pitfalls that may be lurking along the path. I hope we manage to bypass some of them.

Bad things could happen, but I am not looking for them. Good things might happen just as easily, and I want that for us. So that's where I'm going to put my energies. I want more joy, more pleasure, more intimacy, more love, more sex, more S/M play, more laughter, more adventures, and more friendships. I am the slave. I may not be able to make all of that happen by myself, but I can bust my tail to do my share.

swan

Be the Change You Want to See

2011-09-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

I started back today seeing the same therapist that I saw a few times back last winter/spring. I was not happy about beginning that process again. I am not one who appreciates the soul-baring vulnerability of therapy, and I deeply resent the time and the money and the emotional cost. However, I finally found myself so tangled up in my own thoughts and fears and hurts and confusions that there was simply no good option. I am lost and feeling alone, and I need someone from outside myself and our immediate family to listen to me fuss and whine and spin around -- and point me toward the exit. I can't do it for myself anymore.

She is J, and she is very good. She is now, with my return to counseling, working with all of us in individual sessions. If one were keeping an accounting of the "good things" and "benefits" to accrue from our struggles in this year, surely finding J would be on that list. We've been lucky to have her wisdom and acceptance and simple affirmation of who we are individually and as a family.

When I worked with her back in the early months of all of this, I felt pretty solid and pretty secure and pretty centered. She declared, in those days, that I was "the pillar" of our family. I found that intimidating, but was also flattered and a little proud of my own sturdy strength. Except that, as time has passed, I've started to wobble and tremble. I'm not feeling so strong these days. I am exhausted and weary and scared and desperate. I veer from hopeful to hopeless and back again at a dizzying speed. When I sat down in J's office this morning, it took only the simple inquiry as to how I was doing to send me into a flurry of tears and whimpers and a shaky-voiced litany of fears and woes that left me limp and trembling.

She listened to my random, stream-of-consciousness outpouring, and then proposed this version of my dilemma:

You are divided in your approach to the challenges in your relationship. You could respond to any of the situations that you are trying to deal with from your strong, powerful, capable, intelligent woman persona -- or you could respond from your slave persona. It must be hard to figure out what to do with those two possibilities. Which one do you want?

That stopped me in my tracks. I could tell, inside myself, that what she said was true. I know that strong, independent, capable, powerful woman. She is the one who runs a busy classroom of growing pre-adolescents with a sure and steady hand. She deftly handles the many unpredictable shifts of the school day, and never breaks a sweat. She judges and evaluates and decides the course to take through a thousand minor (or maybe not so minor) tumults every single day. Too, I know the slave who is quiet and calm and secure and soft and yielding. She is the part of me that waited and waited and waited to be taken in and held close and given the gift of a place to safely lodge a heart that longs to submit. In my mind, I rolled that question around and around -- if there were a choice to be made here, which would I choose?

Deep breath. "Slave," I told her. "If I could choose, I'd choose to respond from the slave mode." And, saying it, I felt some bound up place inside of me release just a bit...

I've pulled myself back from that place through the last year. I've chattered away in my mind, and been absolutely convinced that I just COULD NOT continue to live as His slave for a whole variety of reasons. I've been stiff necked and stubborn and hellbent on having it be the way I think it should be. The part of me that has "control issues" has put together a very convincing list of whys and wherefores -- all the justifications for pulling myself away from Him and the promises I once made.

This morning, in less than an hour, affirming my stated desire to live and respond from "slave mode," my oh-so-perceptive therapist turned me around; showed me what I wanted; and showed me how I'd been sabotaging that for myself and, possibly, for us. I sat there breathing and knew that I couldn't do one thing about changing how He feels about me or us or the M/s dynamic we once enjoyed. He won't be pushed or manipulated or coerced by me. That doesn't work -- never has. I can, however, resume the role that I once lived with grace and joy. Whatever He might choose for Himself, my living as His can't hurt us (at least, I don't think it can).

I've wanted Him to fix things for us. I've wanted Him to make me feel safe again. I've fallen into the trap of believing that the only way for me to give Him my submission is for Him to "take" it from me. I don't know what I've been thinking -- I know better than that. I know how this works, and I know what my part is. I need to walk the talk. If I want our current intimate stalemate to be broken and our dynamic to be restored, I need to bend -- to "assume the position" of slave.

It may not be easy. Probably, it will be very difficult in at least a few places. I am afraid; terrified even; at the reality of His continuing anger with me. I don't want to face that -- or deal with what it may mean, but I am ready to lay that down and trust Him to find a way through it for the two of us. I have been fierce about my efforts to steer things, and it has been catastrophic. I am not a good ship's captain. I can't keep insisting that He see it my way, do it my way, make me happy. I have to let this go; believe in the heart of who He and I are together; and take the risk of trusting once again.

And so, once again, I will be...

swan

Current

2011-09-17T21:06:00.004-04:00

It has been such a year. Things have changed so quickly ... and then there have been times when it seemed as if there was never going to be any change at all. We've lived together through it all; and we've lived, each of us, locked away in our own private struggles. We've tried to lean on one another, and we've tried to be strong for each other. Often, there has been no strength left between us, and we've collapsed in a jumble of swirling feelings and hurts.

Today, I awakened with the word, "current" in my brain. Long-time readers will know that I have a thing for words; their meanings and their roots. I love it when a word comes to stay with me for awhile, and I enjoy the act of wandering around with a word in my head -- turning it over and tasting it and seeing what secrets it may have to share. So... current...

One of the first things to occur to me as I thought about the word "current" early this morning when things were still quiet and sleepy around here was the multitude of meanings the word carries. The dictionary gives us a view of the territory that gets covered when we start contemplating this particular linguistic gem --

adj.

a. Belonging to the present time: current events; current leaders.

b. Being in progress now: current negotiations.

2. Passing from one to another; circulating: current bills and coins.

3. Prevalent, especially at the present time: current fashions. See Synonyms at prevailing.

4. Running; flowing.

1. A steady, smooth onward movement: a current of air from a fan; a current of spoken words. See Synonyms at flow.

2. The part of a body of liquid or gas that has a continuous onward movement: rowed out into the river's swift current.

3. A general tendency, movement, or course. See Synonyms at tendency.

4. Symbol i, I Electricity

a. A flow of electric charge.

b. The amount of electric charge flowing past a specified circuit point per unit time.

Interesting, to me at least, is the etymology. The word first appears around 1300, meaning "running, or flowing," from the Old French corant "running, lively, eager, swift." That seems to derive from the Latin currere meaning "to run, or move quickly." There's a whole world of words pointing to the eventual meaning of our word, "current." The Greek -khouros gives us "running," and the Lithuanian karsiu is literally "go quickly." The Old Norse used the word horskr to mean "swift," and in Old Irish and Middle Welsh, we find carr which gives us "cart, and wagon." The same word, for the Bretons was karr which turned into "chariot." In Welsh we find carrog which meant "torrent". Meaning "prevalent, generally accepted" is from 1560s.

So, having indulged my fetish for fun with words, I can imagine that some readers will, by now, be wondering what the point might be -- or maybe even if there IS a point... Be patient with me. I'll see if I can make my thoughts line up and actually say something coherent here.

I started out this morning with the word current in the sense of flow. Specifically, I was thinking of the flow of water in a stream or a river or even the rip currents one might find at the ocean's edge. Currents can be relatively gentle when the body of water is small and the forces that create the directional flow are slight. A gentle stream can be moved along down a slight slope, and the force of the current makes the water sparkle and gurgle over rocks and logs in a melodic and calming passage. But change the slope, or the volume of water, or add some additional factor into the mix, and that gently flowing water can change into a deadly torrent that sweeps away everything in its path. Floods and tsunamis and storm surges and cloud bursts can all bring the destructive power of swiftly flowing water to bear on anything standing in the way.

I have felt like we have been swept along in currents that simply overwhelmed us this year; currents resulting from storms that we never saw coming. That's one of the things about a current -- it isn't necessarily easy to see. It may flow beneath the surface, and capture you by surprise. I'm sure there will be those who would ask how it was that we didn't see what was bearing down on us. I'm aware that there are those outside our lives who saw clearly the mistakes that we were making, and of which we were so unaware. I can understand their frustration. I often wonder about people who build homes in the flood plain of a major river, or directly in the likely path of some significant number of Atlantic hurricanes. What do they expect, after all? Do they somehow believe that they will be immune to the almost certain disasters that are aimed right at them? Is it the pure and irresistible allure of the shore? The compelling loveliness of the stream side? Maybe I understand that set of choices better now than I once did -- I too have walked to the edge and stood there entranced, even as everyone around me shouted that it was shear folly. And so the currents knocked us down and dragged us under and swirled us against the sharp-edged rocks -- and tossed us, broken, upon the shore. Current...

Then there is the "present" meaning of "current," as in current events or the current state of affairs. Currently... we are -- or things are -- or life is... like this or that. Except that, as one describes the present moment, it careens past at the speed of time. Gone. And now there is the new moment. And now that too, is flown past. The now of the current moment happens and is gone -- like a dream awaking. Reach out to touch it, pin it down, capture it to think about later -- and it evaporates in a sparkle and a mist and a vague sense of disquiet. I've always found that to be one of the benefits for me of spanking. Spanking brings me right smack (I apologize, but I couldn't resist that one) into the present moment. In fact, it is one of the tricks I've used through the years to get me through an intense spanking -- never think about the last stroke or the next. In the middle of a spanking, if you could get into my head, what you would hear would be me saying, "now, and now, and now..." Or, perhaps, "one, one, one, one..." It may be that there are lessons there for this life we're trying to cobble back together: Stay away from the past, and don't gaze too far into the future. Keep it current -- now, and now, and now, and now. Current.

In another context, current can be about electricity, power, charge, juice, energy. Between He and I, there remains something electric; something so elemental that we are drawn together -- maybe at the atomic level. Maybe. George Carlin once opined that electricity is just organized lightning. Oh yeah! I well remember being struck by that lightning when, very early on, I found myself drawn, elementally, to the magnetism and power and energy of this man. He will remind me, these days, that I knew what I was getting into -- knew it all up front and ahead of making the commitments that brought us to this place. I'd probably argue that point, but there seems no point. And anyway, I was, like Paul, thrown from my horse and struck blind. In those high energy, electrically charged early days, He might have explained in careful detail that He was, in fact, an axe murderer and a cannibal and a Republican -- and I'd have still followed the same path. I have no doubt. I like electricity. I like it in my life and I like it in my play. I am a great fan of the violet wand (although, sadly, He is not). The current of our lives makes sparks and sometimes one or the other of us gets struck by a bolt from the heavens. It may turn out that, if we are going to insist on keeping hold of each other (and I do hope we will), that lightning will strike the same place over and over. Current.

Don't give up on us, friends... And for those who are not friends -- I wouldn't count us out. The current still runs between us. We're unsure and uncertain as we work our way back to playing in the flow, but we are testing the waters. There remains the energy and the electricity and the spark. We've been tossed and left half-drowned, but we are alive and we are still present with one another. Current.

s.

My God! I Feel Like Writing

2011-09-08T09:09:00.014-04:00

I have been locked inside myself, lost, confused, anguished, grief ridden and "crisisy" for a long time now. I have longed to write about what is raging inside me, my head, my feelings, my soul, and "locked up" whenever I attempted to even approach the prospect of writing, let alone doing so. It seems being "locked up" is my life's primary learning the last year.

This morning suddenly I WANT to write....................I need to. I feel like Forrest Gump when he said he felt like running one day and so ran. There was no antecedent. There was just action...........being as a verb not a noun.

It has been almost a year now since last October 28, the day that was my personal 9/11. It kicked off a series of real injuries for me. It culminated a string of losses over the last two and a half years. Little has been good since and nothing is the same.

Over the last two and a half years I lost my parents, lost my thirty-five year long professional career and concomitantly what I stood for publicly as a man, lost 60% of my body through gastric bypass surgery that was medically very difficult, had a crisis bowel resection from a life threatening bowel obstruction that became medically complicated, and lost the majority of my personal income. These losses occurred in the run up to last October 28.

Then October 28 occurred. Sue phoned 911 when she became concerned a comment I made in an IM chat with her reflected suicidal intent. Police hunted me in our condominium complex with rifles, flak jackets, and a shoot on sight order. I had fled to a local WalMart when she told me she had called 911. They found me there and about a dozen of them harassed and interrogated me in handcuffs in the parking lot for a half hour or so, before, having no police record at all, they felt they had nothing on which to base arresting me and so I was released. I was enraged . I lost my trust in the integrity of our D/s. In my drunken raging about that a few days later, I lost my sense of safety in my home, as I was carried screaming and struggling in hand cuffs from my home. I've not felt safe a moment since. I know at any moment anyone, likely those closest to me , can call the police and they will do whatever they want to me for whatever reason. I was released with my first criminal conviction..................suicidality treated as a crime, with no services offered or provided. A month later even after seeking services on our own, I was worse. This time I was psychotic and murderously self-injurious and intent on harming sue and t as well as myself. Again I was in jail in chains. My second conviction......................two years probation...............pending a year in prison if I fail to complete that, or if for any reason at all they decide to violate my probation. Again no services were offered or provided, but they were mandated. I did 8 weeks of alcohol rehabilitation. It was a 6 week program, but my family felt I shouldn't graduate at the end of six weeks, so they took it on themselves without talking to me, to have it extended.

I have no trust or sense of security ever. I am depressed. I am in constant fear. I have lost my trust in the those whom I love. I have no faith in our government. I melt down if I see a cop. I have murderous fantasies of retaliation against police, and rejoice every time I hear of police injury or death.

I attend two mandated AA meetings a week and submit reports about them to the weekly continuing care meeting that I must attend to stay out of prison. AA has helped me at times. More often it makes me feel worse. It is a religious cult that focuses on replacing substance addiction with addiction to magical thinking. One must, to fulfill their program, develop a vision of a higher power, be that Christianity's vision of God, or coming to believe in a "door knob." (I am not exaggerating. That is one of the examples of what AA says you might do if you are an atheist or agnostic). Whatever that vision is, every gathering ends with a remarkably non-secular recitation of the Lord's Prayer, as they sanctimoniously purport they are not a Christian cult. I have jokingly wondered if they ended each meeting with readings from the Koran, they would be able to get away with claiming to not be an Islamic religious cult. I am keeping up my compliance act. I behave as though I have thrown myself into AA and aftercare. My aftercare coordinator called me last week to tell me she enjoys reading the insights in my AA meeting reaction reports as much as any she has seen. I must or I will serve a year in prison.

I've lost a life long love with alcohol, a lover that I traveled every road and experience with for 47 years since I was 15. It was time for that to end, and a very harmful love affair. My feelings towards alcohol are like my feelings for my ex-wife. My life is better for not having her. There is no aspect of my life that is not better without having my ex-wife or my not having alcohol in it.

The loss of my first marriage benefited me hugely. It was a terrible loss after 31 years of marriage and involved huge grief and loss. The loss of alcohol benefits me hugely. It is a source of huge grief and loss.

So on top of the losses leading up to 10/28/10, I have lost alcohol. I have lost the privilege of ever working as a professional again because of my now permanent criminal record. I might well have not chosen to return to my profession. But there is a huge difference between choosing to never work at your chosen profession, and knowing that your society has said you are too criminal to ever do that again. We have lost about $10,000 in the process of this. I am 233 days sober today and 225 days into probation. We will continue for the next 505 days paying probation to handle my supervision. Probation entails nothing, but a meeting with me every two months to collect my probation fees. They do consider whether to approve a pass for me if I want to travel outside of my community. I am not allowed to travel without their permission. In the midst of this we lost t's Mom. My loss in this compared to t's is minuscule. Her Mom took me in and treated me as a valued and loved son when I was divorced and my own parents shunned me, and accepted our family completely as we came to include sue. Her loss is a painful void.

I've lost self-esteem. I don't correspond with or relate to any of the people I knew before this. I feel such shame and humiliation I don't want to face them.

I've felt a loss of my BDSM orientation and, it has, as sue has written, effected our relationship. I don't know how to have a trust based relationship with loves who clearly had so little trust in me they wanted me locked up, and who even though they thought that the way the police and courts treated me was wrong and harmful, support what was done to me anyway. They do not trust me, and I want desperately to trust them, but often when I try to, my mind flashes to being naked in solitary confinement, freezing, in the middle of the night, not knowing where I was, or why.

I am in therapy now for about 10 months with a private psycho-therapist. As we have wound our way through this, it has turned out, that I am a child abuse victim. I certainly knew my childhood was not happy. I've certainly seen other people whose childhoods were far worse than mine. I was an only child and it was the only childhood I knew. I assumed my childhood was as childhood is. My therapist asks me questions about if I had an experience like this or that. I recount experiences that I don't usually think about, but that occurred, usually between my mother and me, some with my father. She then reacts vehemently, and tells me it is no wonder that I have issues I have, and react and feel as I do.

It is her hypothesis that it is this history of child abuse trauma that is the root cause of the intensity of my post traumatic stress reaction, paranoia, grief at the events of the last year. Not that those feelings would not be normal, but that the overwhelming debilitating extent of my feelings is likely me, harkening back to feeling as I did as an abused helpless child when I was four, five, or six. She says I feel as I did then, when now I am in the hands of an abusive system at the hands of the women I love. Friday she is intent on our working together, the therapist and I, through an inner child healing exercise with hypnotic suggestion. I am a Masters prepared counseling psychologist. Psycho-analytical early childhood trauma based theoretical approaches to people's issues, have never had much credence for me, feeling it better to focus behaviorally and affectively on present life on life's terms (the 12-steppers in the crowd will be pleased to see that bit of "Big Book" jargon.) On the other hand, I am being treated for traumatic stress, I am coming to see that my childhood was pathologically abusive, and certainly what I am experiencing now is debilitating. If my childhood abuse is catalytically ratcheting up my trauma exponentially, why not try this? If nothing else, it should be an interesting experience. I don't see it making anything worse. She is very good, this woman I'm seeing and she feels it may well help. I guess it's a classic "in for a penny in for a pound" situation.

She is adamant that I am one of the more intelligent men she has known. She tells me that it is rare for people who have my childhood history (abuse, dyslexia, chronic acute illness, etc.) to have had the fairly highly functional life I've had.

Over the last two days I have had a re-emergence in my consciousness of my BDSM orientation, and a realization too that is it not only a sensual erotic orientation, but a spiritual one. Likely this spiritual twist is a function of my time with the Alcoholism cult folks. I am being reminded that I am who I am. The fact that I have lived through this last two years, and have relationship issues in the aftermath does not change who I am.

I am a Dominant man who is a BDSM practitioner. I am polyamorous. I will recover my strength. My current life is (in the words of my therapist) all scorched earth, but green is beginning to sprout again. I will heal someday.

I realize as I read back over this, how somber this all is. I suppose it is. It could be read or heard as accusatorial or blaming of sue and t. They were overwhelmed and fearful in the throws of dealing with a very distraught, angry, violent, depressed, grief ridden, drunk, paranoid man. They did the best they knew to do for themselves and me. Mistakes were made. None more than by me. Our loves are, I believe, preordained somewhere and sometime before any of us even knew to be. We will heal together. We will be back, not as we were, but better. Our family will be stronger. I feel that as a fact, even more than I desire it.

I need to write more. I need to write here. Sue and t and my therapist and my inner self tell me that I have books to write. I may in fact begin that process.

It is good that, despite the absence of our input here, this Blog still exists for me to be able to do this. That is because sue, in this awful interim has (at times quite laboriously), stirred the ashes here to keep this option alive, and to keep us connected to the love of the many friends here who have so supported us as we have struggled through so many challenges over the past two and a half years.

This period has been/is more traumatic than any evolution I have gone through before....whether adolescence, or any other of my life passages. I have made it traumatic for those around me.

Finding my voice here again is, I suspect, a milestone on the way through it.

Tom

Icky Dream

2011-09-05T18:21:00.001-04:00

My sleep is often troubled; fitful and filled with ugly dreams.

Last night, well actually early this morning, I dreamed myself into an unpleasant and ugly situation...

There was a party -- a dinner party. It wasn't at our house; we'd been invited to another person's home. The details are fuzzy, but my sense is that it was some sort of kinky gathering.

I was in the kitchen -- alone. Everyone else was in the dining room, separated from the kitchen by a swinging door. For some reason, I was trying to warm a bowl of chicken noodle soup in the microwave. Suddenly, someone was behind me, smacking me on the ass. I just assumed that it was Tom, and I smiled to myself, but continued to watch the microwave and my soup. Then, the butt-smacker began to rub against me -- humping on my back, and I knew instantly that it wasn't Tom.

I whirled around, in a fury, to confront a beak nosed, man with a fringe of dark greasy hair around his shiny bald head. His dark, glittering eyes were glazed and glassy. He fumbled and pawed at me, trying to turn me back around. I planted both palms on his chest and pushed him away, croaking out a strangled, "NO!" In my dream, it felt as if my throat was constricted so that the sound wouldn't come out. He stumbled but then puffed all up and lunged back at me with renewed determination -- as if he was somehow entitled. This time, I managed to kick at him, and my "NO!" was much stronger. I ran from the kitchen and found myself out on the front lawn of the house. My attacker was right behind me, but I had room now to maneuver and fight -- and that is exactly what I did. The "party" had emptied itself out onto the front porch, and the railing was lined with curious, excited people. I didn't recognize a single friendly face. I was completely, utterly, and profoundly alone...

And when I woke up, I was right in the middle of a full fledged knock-down, drag-out fight -- and I'd found my voice: "Mother-fucker...cock-sucker...cum-wad...limp dick...asshole...dickhead...cunt-face..."

"Maybe You Should Try Something Else For Awhile"

2011-09-04T18:16:00.001-04:00

That's the advice left here by sin, when I determined that I had completely exhausted my capacity to keep writing here as I have for nearly 7 years. It feels to me like that is a bit of wise guidance -- just let things be and go on to write something different...

It shouldn't be hard to do. Things are different, so just go with the flow and write what is. That will be different, by definition. No need to get fancy or even fanciful.

Maybe I just need to start from the simplest of facts about NOW and go from there.

We keep assuring one another that we still have each other; that we are still together. That is true.

He says that he doesn't feel dominant anymore, so there will be no more of our former Master/slave dynamic.

I guess that necessitates a shift in how people are labeled as I write here -- time for me to resume being Sue.

Probably, there will be very little, going forward for me to say about the practice of BDSM between us. I don't expect that to play much of a role in our lives together. Still, I may find things, in general, to say about BDSM and the community. I hope I can do that without it feeling dishonest.

I'm not likely to write much anymore about polyamory. I've discovered, through all of this that I have little interest in submerging myself in a plethora of "relationships." It isn't for me. I understand the concept. I am just not interested. And, yes, I do "get" the irony of my situation in light of that reality.

I still teach. I still am the "mom" to two adults who were once my children. I still read widely and follow politics. I still dream dreams and think thoughts. What rolls across the screen here in the future is not likely to be sexy and I doubt there'll be anymore butt pictures, but I need the place for the words to live.

Sue

2011-08-25T21:19:00.000-04:00

Or Maybe it was Really a Dream

2011-08-20T22:43:00.007-04:00

For awhile, I dreamed dreams featuring Cole, the cellist. They followed very closely along the lines laid out by the first imaginary/dream-like encounter, and seemed to occur when I would fall asleep trying to get myself back into what I think of as the fantasy of him. I am now convinced that the whole first part of the story was really a dream and not some sort of waking construct, although it surely seemed like the latter to me at the time. As the days have passed, I've begun to believe that the very first appearance of Cole happened when I was actually asleep -- dreaming that I was awake and engaged in an elaborate fantasy. That's a little convoluted, but I'm not going to put it out of the reach of my brain.

So... I am thinking that my subsequent Cole dreams have been some kind of "lucid" dreaming, driven by my intent as I drift off to sleep. A good Jungian analyst would insist that everyone that appears in our dreams is, in fact, US, and so I am finding my ongoing encounters with this itinerant cello player to be illustrative of my own interior state.

Cole and I seemed, for a good while, to be stuck in the same little funky Italian eatery where we went in the first elaborate fantasy. It is a classic, with red and white checked oilcloth covered tables and flickering candles, and rough wood planked walls and floors. Somehow, the place overlooks the Ohio River, and he and I spend hours talking and watching the boats go to and fro. This in spite of the fact that, in my dream/fantasy, the place is somewhere near the school where I teach -- and that is nowhere close to the river. Wherever the place might be, he and I sit right there, night after night in my dream, and talk and talk and talk. I dreamed about Cole for a number of days, maybe a couple of weeks -- and then the dreamy cello playing mountain man packed his things in his nice, solid car -- and drove away.

How pitiful is that?

I've often been accused of "living too much in my head," and the fact that I cannot dream a dream in which Cole and I cannot get up from the red and white checkered table, and get it on seems to point directly to my headiness -- because the man seems to me to be eminently fuck-able.

Dossie Easton, author of the well known book on polyamory, "The Ethical Slut," would be able to give me a host of reasons why it would be healthy and good and freeing for me to at least be able to dream a poly "thing" with this guy. Clearly my brain can conceive of the eroticism of such a connection... I guess I would fail the slut test. I liked Cole. I thought Cole was attractive and sexy and interesting. But I made no moves to initiate anything with him beyond talking -- and he made no moves on me (but then remember those Jungian types would insist that he is me).

So, what does Cole mean? What purpose is served by Cole surfacing out of the inner workings of my brain? Is that whole business only about releasing some of the pent-up sexual tension of these last months? Is Cole and his lovely cello just an elaborate fabrication of my sex-starved psyche? Is that funky little eatery my dream version of Disney World vacation?

I really do think that is the reality. I've created an interesting little playground for my silly brain -- a place to go find a bit of amusement and relaxation from the daily stresses and strains. I've been to Disney World. It is a fun place; interesting and full of things to do that are completely different than the day to day realities that most regular folks deal with. I spent a great week there with my family years ago, and we loved the place. But, when the week was done? I was glad to head home to the life that was mine; the life that was real. I feel the same way about Cole -- it was an interesting diversion, but I am really not interested in the fantasy of a Cole. I am, perhaps more than ever, invested in and committed to the life that is real.

swan

Family

2011-08-15T23:06:00.001-04:00

Here, because I just love this one, is a picture of my son, my grandson, and the three of us. My dear daughter-in-law is behind the camera... swan

Almost Home!

2011-08-15T16:52:00.003-04:00

I had a wonderful visit with Sue's son's family. We went to Boulder and the Pearl St outdoor mall. Ate at the Buff in Boulder..... a Mexican restaurant in Denver, who's name escapes me...... and The Fort, outside of Denver near Red Rocks.

But the bestest part of all was watching Sue with Zander. She was delighted with each breath, sound, movement, hug, kiss, and giggle. He looks at her and just breaks into huge grins. He is more comfortable with Tom this visit and even gave me a few hugs, kisses and fist-bumps.

My family just called and they are doing a dinner break in Terra Haute Indiana. They are about 180 miles from home and I CANNOT WAIT! Even though I just left them yesterday morning, I miss not being together. The cats have missed them. It will be good to have them home tonight.

T

Oh Wow!

2011-08-12T13:58:00.000-04:00

We left home on Tuesday morning, for an almost impromptu trip to Denver and a late summer visit to Xander and his parents. This was a trip we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to make, but Master's shoulder has progressed so well and so easily that the idea of a trip to Denver blossomed in His mind just a few weeks ago.

He and I made the drive, over two long days, in my new little Hyundai Accent -- and it turns out to be a great road trip car. We've gotten pretty good at driving long distances; carrying our own food, and making sure that we have plenty to drink along the way. We know, for this trip, where to stay and where to stop for a "real" meal. We know which rest areas are "nice" and which are less than spectacular. We do pretty well for the first 1000 miles, and then there are those last 200 when we both seem to hit a wall. That last bit is a real slog.

T didn't have enough time off to make the drive with us, so she is boarding a plane this afternoon, and we will be fetching her from the airport at about 5 this evening. She'll spend a couple of days with us here, and then we'll put her back on a plane on Sunday morning -- and begin the drive back east. That works.

Xander has grown so much. He is very tall for a two year old. He exclaims, "Oh Wow!" and "Neat" at each new thing. He gives the greatest hugs, and sloppy baby kisses. He runs everywhere -- no more wobbly monkey walking for him! And his laugh is enchanting! He chortles with an almost phonetic "ha ha ha ha," and it is simply delightful. He is much more interactive with Master this visit; apparently deciding that it is "safe" to play with Him. It is just such fun to see him and talk with him and be close to his growing self.

When we get back home, I'll have just one day to wash up the laundry and sweep out the dust and get ready to plunge back into the school year. I am torn -- looking forward to a new start and new, fresh kids to love and teach and laugh with... but reluctant to cut short the healing time of this summer with Master. These long, slow, warm and humid days have been a balm for us, and it feels like we may be coming into an easier time with each other. I think that is true and real, and I am sad that we'll lose the time we've been given. And, yes, I do know that sooner or later, He and I have to learn to live well inside of the lives that we have -- and that includes my teaching work. Mixed feelings seem to just be the thing that life is built from.

swan

Total Absolute Complete Fantasy

2011-07-31T16:26:00.000-04:00

DISCLAIMER -- WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS UTTER FANTASY. NOTHING THAT YOU WILL READ HERE IS REAL.

Life has been difficult and different here for most of the last year. Much of what has always constituted the core of our erotic connection has fallen away, or been put on hold. So, perhaps it is not entirely surprising that my mind has begun to concoct elaborate erotic fantasies. This was where my brain was last night -- keeping me awake until the wee hours of the morning...

January blows raw here in the Midwest. The snow swirls in every corner, and muddy slush splashes and then freezes in eerie forms on every surface.

A few weeks into the new year, my students are deeply engaged in learning and growing with the winter break fading into memory. The ninety-year-old bricks of the old school building echo the sounds of children from floor to floor as we all wrap ourselves into sweatshirts and warm socks to ward off the winter chill. On this particular afternoon, we are given the gift of a visit from a traveling musician -- a concert level cellist from far away Montana. His name is Cole Hammond, and he is as weathered, rugged, and beautiful as the wild western regions that he hails from. I sit on the floor in the old gym with my students and am transported by the full, golden warmth of the music he shares with us -- Bach, and Handel, and some bit of Celtic enchantment.

When the last quivering notes fade away; when he has answered dozens and dozens of questions from students young and old; when we are milling around working our way toward the doors and back to class, he materializes beside me -- and I smile my thanks and reach to shake his hand. He asks my name, and I happily give it. He sweeps his arm around my gaggle of pre-adolescents, and with a twinkle in his startlingly blue eyes, asks me who they might be. "These are my kids," I tell him. A smile spreads across his face, and he replies, "Why, yes Ma'am, I believe they are." And then, I have to head off to class, to teach, to be who I am in my days.

Hours later, after the bells have all rung; after things have been put away for the day; after the desks have all been straightened; after all is in readiness for the next day -- I head out to my frozen car in the nearly empty and windswept parking lot. It is bitter cold, and the car is covered in ice and drifted snow. Muttering and cursing the rotten weather I dig out my scraper and begin to do battle with the frozen mess.

Suddenly, a big, leather-gloved hand covers mine, and a low, quiet voice says, "Here, Ma'am, let me do that." I look up into his smiling eyes and leathered face, and he is so spectacular that I am struck dumb. Like a silly, star-struck girl, I hand him the scraper and wave helplessly at the still icy car. His low chuckle rumbles from deep in his chest, and I can feel myself blush.

It doesn't take long and the car is all cleared off and ready to go. I thank him for his help, and prepare to leave, when that big hand comes to rest, light as falling snow, on my shoulder. He turns me around, and asks me, "Wouldn't you join me for a bit of dinner?" I think, for just a minute, that I need to call home, explain what is happening, get permission, but then (and I am not lying) my fantasy addled brain speaks up -- "No, dummy! You don't have to call anyone. This is your fantasy -- just go!"

And that is how, at three or four this morning, I was lying there, wide awake, all hot and bothered, while in my head, I was sitting across the table at the funky little Italian place, sharing interesting appetizers and amazing conversation with my imaginary cellist from Montana.

I don't know what to make of all of that. I didn't consciously invite Cole Hammond into my head, but I'm not unhappy to have "met" (invented?) him. Will he come back again? If he does, what do I do about him? I'm so confused...

swan

A Little Bit of Sex Talk

2011-07-28T13:46:00.001-04:00

In December of 2005, I had a total hysterectomy. It resolved a number of difficult and potentially dangerous "female" problems, but it also created an enormous loss of sexual functioning. I whined about it here for a very long time -- some would probably have said that the whining was nearly endless...

The state of medical knowledge is such that, while the doctors and surgeons were very capable of performing the surgery that rendered me sexually inert, they had nothing much to offer to remedy that situation. I tried a wide variety of lotions, potions, exercises -- and even a course of psychotherapy. It was all fruitless. My libido remained intact, but my amputated parts and pieces were just as gone.

I lived, for a couple of years (or maybe more), with a towering anger that overshadowed just about everything. Until, finally, even I wore myself out on that rocky shore.

I've learned, in the aftermath of all of that, to find the secret and hidden paths to my own pleasure again. I can and do achieve sexual release these days, and it is different than it was, but good in its own right. There is a mystical and magical glow around that, and I understand why it is that no one could show me the way. It is a very subtle and delicate thing -- like chasing butterflies in a dense fog. I am always surprised and delighted when I "catch" one of those glorious "butterflies." Coming suddenly upon it, out of the shrouded mists is, indeed, a wonderment.

And there is, I am learning, a benefit to having made that journey that I never would have guessed.

Catching butterflies is a matter of intense focus, deep attentiveness, quiet calm, and unwavering persistence. Years of hunting butterflies have shifted my love making. I am become a seeker of joyfulness, and it turns out that, for us both, those skills are turning out to be a treasure.

Now. Most often. I come to the sex act with knowledge that I did not have all those years ago. Back then, it was enough to be hot and juicy and open and willing. No more. Now, I know that I need to bring my whole self into being with Him. I know that I need to allow the sensations to flow through me and through Him. I understand that I must quiet all the chatter and silence all the worrying. It is about the sensations and the connections. Nothing more and nothing less:

His breathing -- and mine
Firmness against yielding
Velvet softness and power throbbing into the darkness
Veins and ridges and folds and hollows
Pulses and quivers and shivers and electric thrills up and down the spine
Eyes that meet and slide away and meet again
Warm touches stroking places only we know
Groans and sighs and startled gasps of surprise
Scents and smells and salty sweetness

I have learned to follow the signs and discern the trail that leads to my own pleasure, and going there for myself, I bring Him along with me. It is a "trick" that I've learned, largely out of my own desperation, and without really knowing what I was about in the doing.

And so it was that He and I collapsed in giggles the other day when, in the moment of His orgasm, I made a sudden shift of muscles and position that sent Him soaring. When He asked what had made me do "that," I had no answer except to tell Him that "the penis was giving directions." And it was. Directions that I have come to understand and follow in a dance that has brought us back around again.

swan

Name Silliness

2011-07-25T22:27:00.000-04:00

You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic.

~Elias Canetti~

My parents called me "Suzanne." Well, truth be told, my mother called me that, and following her lead, all of my brothers used the name I'd been given at birth. My father always called me "Suzy" -- a moniker that I would tolerate from no one else.

As a young adolescent, I tried to get everyone to use my middle name, and so for a short while, I became "Beth" outside of my family. It wasn't something I ever successfully convinced my parents to accept, and the whim didn't last very long.

In college, I wanted desperately to be one of the guys. The mining college where I studied as a young woman was a seriously male dominated world, and my jeans and denim shirts and combat boots belied the feminine handle I'd worn all my life. There, I became "Zimmy," a shortened version of my surname.

I spent years of with no name at all save the tags of "wife" and "mommy."

Arriving here nine years ago, to create a life of my own choosing, I flirted briefly with calling myself "Ahnold," but became instead, Master's "swan." I've been swan for a really long time, and it is a name that I've loved and cherished and held close to me. Of all the gifts He's given to me, that name holds a particular sort of mystery and magic.

Just lately, though, it seems that I've lost my "swan" label in favor of a more prosaic and less melodious appellation. As Master has recovered from His shoulder replacement (and so been pretty restricted in the use of His right arm), He has taken to calling me without actually doing that directly. It goes a little like this:

"Dammit! I wish I had some more coffee."
"Dammit! I wish I had my sandals."
"Dammit! I can't find my glasses."
"Dammit! I left the remote on the table."
"Dammit! I dropped my pen."

And so it was that, about two weeks ago, I asked Him, teasingly, if He really thought that my name was "Dammit?" I wondered out loud if I'd missed the one where He told me, "I love you, Dammit." Wink!

I don't know that I'm back to being swan, but I have heard way less "Dammit" in the last few days.

swan Dammit

Saving Ourselves -- Part 7

2011-07-19T16:06:00.001-04:00

I began this series with a list of suggestions from Mark Gregston about ways to repair and rebuild a relationship after encountering struggles. This last segment will be all about the last remaining technique in his list:

Remember the past and believe in the future

I've avoided that one; worked my way around all of the others; and tried really hard not to see this one looming inexorably. This one feels really hard to talk about -- but I started this, and I intend to finish it somehow.
Part of my difficulty with talking about what I remember about our past and what I believe is possible in our future, is that it forces me to contemplate the flow of time in a linear stream -- from back there, to here, to out there somewhere. That pushes against what I think is true -- that time doesn't really work that way, that time is more like a tapestry than a stream. I like feeling that the time that touches me is connected to all the other times that have ever been. Some pull on me more strongly than others, but there I am, caught in the web.
Trying to put the past, present, and future into some kind of sequence takes me out of that "one day at a time, or one moment at a time discipline that has brought me through these last months. Just as I get through the hardest spankings by deliberately focusing on just one stroke; and just as I steadfastly refuse to count because it becomes overwhelming; I am afraid to look very far back, or very far forward.
Too, I am reluctant to revisit the past because I am afraid to disperse the magic with the clearer vision I now possess. I know that there were plenty of warning signs that I should have heeded, and plenty of opportunities to pull myself, and possibly all of us, off of the path that we ultimately followed into the darkness. Knowing that doesn't change the fact that He and I played to the point of rapture. It doesn't change the fact that I once felt utterly free and safe inside of His embrace and under His care. It doesn't erase the memories of moments when we were so close and so intimate and so connected that we came to believe that we were souls forever linked along the pathways of eternity. The future isn't something that I can predict or control. Much of what I hope for myself going forward depends on Him -- and honestly, it is likely too soon to tell where He will ultimately find Himself; or how He will come to feel about me when that does occur. I want to believe that the day will come when He will pull me back, hold me close again, and take me again as "His."
Some days, when I am weary and frustrated and angry and sad because we've had to go through this, it is all that I can do to hold onto that belief -- that dream. Sometimes, when He seems so tired of the whole business, and so unwilling to believe in any future at all, I can feel my own fear wash over me -- and I want to shake Him and somehow MAKE Him figure out how to save us. But I can't make Him do this anymore than I ever could make Him
do anything -- and so I try to keep my balance, hold my tongue, do the things that need doing right now, and believe in the magic that I once held in my hand because I loved Him.
That's all for now...
swan

Saving Ourselves -- Part 6

2011-07-18T06:02:00.008-04:00

Alright. Surely, by now, it is obvious to just about everybody, that I am filling space here -- working hard to find things to talk about when there is very little to talk about. I have become one of those bloggers who pretends to write about a lifestyle dynamic that I don't actually live. That is the reality, and it is clear that pretty much nobody cares what I offer here. All these heady, academic posts are about as exciting as watching grass grow. I get it, but I don't have anything else, and I can't seem to help myself. I've done this too long to quit now, and doing that would be to admit defeat. I'm not ready to give it all up just yet, so let's go on shall we? I'll do my best to make these next few quick and painless. Here are three more Gregston tips for healing broken relationships:

Establish boundaries…
Practice selfless confrontation…
Correct and discipline, even when it makes you uncomfortable…

Now, whatever it may seem like to those of you watching from the outside, and whatever judgments may have been made about my actions over the course of the last year, I FEEL like a submissive inside. My reactions and responses and instincts are all tuned to pleasing Him and serving Him and earning His approval. For years and years now, my boundaries have been His; my wants and wishes have been driven by what He wanted; my opinions and beliefs and values have all been shaped by Him. I don't know where my boundaries are anymore. I wish I didn't have to find out. Surveying the perimeters of my own psyche seems scary to me. I don't want to find the edges, and I don't want to have to defend those edges. I will but it isn't what I was planning to be doing at this point in my life.

As for "practicing selfless confrontation," I understand that it may be useful to Him for me to try to point out the flaws in His reasoning; to shine a light on the things that keep Him stuck; to demonstrate what works and doesn't between us... and I know I should do that even when it isn't what He wants to hear. It makes me uncomfortable, and it leaves me feeling "out in the cold" when that confrontation makes Him angry, or causes Him to withdraw. What if I'm wrong? What if, in doing all of that, I break the bonds between us? What if He never comes back to me? I do not feel at all secure in all of this, and if it looks otherwise to you, then it is because I am faking it.

And, as for "discipline and correction?" I don't know. We've incorporated those elements into our lives from the beginning. We've never been of the "He's perfect, and she's the only one who needs discipline" school of thought. We've always switched, and while it isn't easy, I can take the disciplinarian role when necessary. So that set of tools belongs to us. I hope it doesn't come into play. I really do.

swan

Saving Ourselves -- Part 5

2011-07-16T22:02:00.044-04:00

In the work of Mark Gregston, one piece of advice about relationship building and rebuilding is to "listen more and answer less." The advice is to stop telling the other what you are thinking until your are asked for your opinion...

Just be quiet.
Stop lecturing.
Start listening.
Hush and get out of the way -- let the other take the lead.

For those of us who live inside of unequal power balances, this presents an interesting set of challenges and begs the question -- "who should be quiet, and who should listen more -- or answer less?" Most often, and surely within the relationship that He and I have, the tendency is to assume that His opinions and ideas are more valid, more "right," and more likely to be heard than mine. After all, He is THE MASTER, with all that that implies. Working our way through the difficult days, part of the work has been to "renegotiate" that understanding. Moving forward, we both need to know what the expectations are within our relationship. He and I have never been inclined to do that sort of bargaining in formal terms, and so for us, it has been a slow and organic process -- we have felt our way along, pretty tentatively, trying to understand where we are.

Before our crash, I tended to simply retreat when His views and mine did not match. I'd say my piece, and then, if He contradicted it, or disagreed, I'd simply concede the point. Even when I knew He was "off base," (and yes, it is possible for Master-types to be seriously off base), I'd let it go. That worked to maintain the peace, mostly, but it likely contributed to us veering dangerously off course. Some might have viewed my silence, in those instances, as appropriately submissive, but I sense that I did not serve well in allowing myself to be bullied and pushed into acquiescence with behavior and choices that obviously put us all at risk.

In Gregston's view, the idea would be to remain quiet; to listen until you partner initiates the inquiry into what you think -- until they WONDER about it. I can't imagine that I will ever live long enough to maintain sufficient quiet that He will really wonder what I think. When He is interested in generating a conversational give and take between us, He has plenty of skill around initiating that exchange, but I believe that I'll never "wait Him out" on that "what are you thinking" field of play.

And there's another facet to this that Gregston doesn't really address, and that is "sound." For me, it
is not so much what I say, or don't say, but more about how I sound. As long as the voice I use is sweet and light and happy, He'll talk and relate. If I let my voice convey frustration, hurt, anger, or any sort of darkness, He pulls away and things get miserable. So for me, for now, the "telling" part of our communication is more often a problem when I am reactive rather than when I am actually trying to just simply SAY something. It is a verbal sort of female teasing and flirtiness that lures Him into conversation much more successfully than my grumpy, aggrieved voice.

swan

Saving Ourselves -- Part 4

2011-07-14T23:03:00.000-04:00

Summer time is "project time" for me. All of the big, complicated, high energy things that I don't tackle through the school year get put off until the long, uncommitted days of summer. Give me a bit of unscheduled time, and I make stuff happen. So far this summer, I've rearranged my kitchen, planted a fair garden of flowers, vegetables, and herbs, replaced bulbs and cleaned the ceiling florescent in the kitchen, reinstalled all of the smoke detectors, undertaken to revamp our meal planning and eating routines, reworked and tidied up the family records filing system, and created a significant new set of curriculum materials for my social studies classes for next year. Of course, I've been actively engaged in helping Master through these first four weeks of post-surgical recovery -- lots of help with dressing and undressing. Too, He and I have been investing about an hour and a half each day in our power walking exercise routine. The big, gnawing at my brain, making me crazy, summer project though, has been the garage. My garage is the primary storage space for our family, and over the years, I've struggled to keep it neat and make it work efficiently in that role while simultaneously providing the intended shelter for an automobile.

When we first moved in here, some eight years ago, the "then" husband installed a hodgepodge of shelves all over the place. Some were wide and some were narrow. Some were up high, and others were so short as to cause one to wonder what the hell he was thinking. Over the years, I've tried a number of approaches to the garage storage dilemma, but I've never just ripped out the whole mess and started fresh. I'm not sure why, but it all just seemed too daunting. Last summer, I created a serious "Rube Goldberg" style shelving arrangement that involved stacking a number of trunks and plastic storage bins up, and using them to support the wooden shelving boards I'd gathered from all over the place. The bins and trunks would, I reasoned, do double duty that way -- acting as both storage and supports. It looked great and it functioned pretty well ... just as long as you never needed to get anything out of one of those bins at the very bottom of the whole jumble. And, of course, because the universe operates on the principle that, "left to themselves, things follow the path of maximum perversity," everything I have ever needed from the garage in this last year has ALWAYS been at the bottom of the stack.

So, for obvious reasons, my summer project list included a major overhaul of the garage. Which brings me to the point of today's conversation about ways to help strengthen and repair a damaged relationship (other parts of this series are found at posts about Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3):

Share challenging experiences…
Develop a sense of humor…

The redesign of the garage storage space may not seem to you to be particularly challenging, and it probably doesn't appear, at first glance, to be the occasion for any significant humor. But, my friends, that is only because you underestimate the ways in which the universe likes to fuck with some of us. Me, in particular.

I had, at the very beginning of the summer, shared my thinking about the garage situation with Master, and I told Him that I intended to tear out everything that had been put up by "He Who Shall Remain Nameless," and put in something straightforward, simple, and functional. I wanted maximum storage with minimum mess and hassle. He accompanied me on several scouting trips to explore the possibilities, and we saw some awesome and amazing storage systems -- at prices that took my breath away. I became convinced that there had to be a way to install workable storage at some reasonable cost. In fact, I got very caught up in that idea of "inexpensive" storage. That was the beginning of the "challenging experience" that He and I would ultimately share together around this project. It also turned out to be the driving force behind the cosmic joke that played out at my expense.

I searched and researched for weeks, and I finally decided that the best approach to the garage of my dreams was a simple system of wall mounted uprights and brackets with plain dimensioned lumber boards for the shelves. I measured, and calculated, and headed off to the local big box hardware store to acquire the needed hardware. I found some very inexpensive standards and brackets and bought up what I needed, dragged them all home and worked through a wickedly hot couple of days to get the old stuff taken down and the new ones installed. It looked great, and I was awfully proud of myself: forteen feet of 20" deep shelves, running three high all down one side of my garage.

Last night, I loaded them up, and called it a job well done. We stayed up late watching a movie, went off to bed about midnight, slept fairly late this morning, got up and had breakfast, and then got ready to go out and walk. When I walked out of the front door and down the sidewalk, I could see, through the window into the garage, that all of my wonderful shelves had collapsed -- and dumped all of the stuff all over my new little car!

I would like to tell you that I took it all in stride and laughed at the joke -- but that would be a lie. I was furious! Panicky about my pretty, new car, under all of those boards and brackets and boxes of stuff! I must admit that I said bad words. I did. And, He and I walked our 4-1/4 miles with me fuming and fussing the whole way. Yeah! Develop a sense of humor my ass!

The good news? We walked at the fastest pace we've achieved since the surgery. Rage is a great energizer. We got home and He helped me excavate the car and haul all of the stuff out to the front lawn -- WITH His one good arm. And... underneath it all, unmarked and in fine shape, the little car survived just fine. OK. So, then I was able to laugh at the absurdity of it all; laugh at myself for going so cheap that the project didn't serve its purpose; wander off, with Him in tow, to buy better brackets and better supports (and a new rug for the living room -- HIS idea not mine). I got everything torn down, and reinstalled, and all the stuff moved back to the new shelves in just over two hours. And it looks good, and sturdy, and functional.

Lesson(s) learned.

swan

Saving Ourselves -- Part 3

2011-07-11T11:13:00.004-04:00

This is the 3rd part of a series of discussions about ways to recreate relationships (especially BDSM relationships) after surviving a major "bump in the road." For the first two segments, look here and here.

Continuing with thinking about the work of Mark Gregston, today I want to discuss the idea of "Looking for opportunities for discussion" with your partner.

We are quick, in the lifestyle, to exhort each other to "talk" with our partners. We pride ourselves on being more open, more honest, more transparent. We learn skills that help us to negotiate; to state our needs; to define our limits. We make checklists and contracts and mantras. Oh yes... we are big on talking, and we create relationships that are awash in words.

So, what would be different if we looked for opportunities for discussion?

Discussion is more than talking. It is inquiry and examination. While talk is about conveying information, discussion goes further, looking to explore, examine and discover things that might not be contained on the surface of our words. The word comes from Latin, and the stem, discussio, means "a shaking." Literally, to discuss is to "strike asunder," or "break up," from dis- "apart" + quatere "to shake." While the usual meaning of the word is to "talk over" or "debate," the early sense seems to have evolved from "smash apart," "scatter," and "disperse." So, when we discuss, we break things down; we shake up our assumptions; we smash through our biases and preconceived ideas. We inquire and examine. We talk things over, and we debate.

I am reminded of the ancient and traditional practices of divination -- "throwing the bones" (and comparable techniques). In bone divination, bones of various sorts (and sometimes, other small objects like shells, seeds, and nuts) are ritually tossed onto a mat, an animal hide, or into a circle drawn in the dirt. The resulting patterns are interpreted to provide information and guidance about travel and love and fortune. It seems to me that discussion, as opposed to more casual conversation, might be the path for us to divine the deeper mysteries and fortunes of our relationships.

In discussion, we'd ask questions of our partners, and keep digging -- searching with them for answers and ideas that might be beyond what we anticipate and expect:

What is important to you?

Why do you feel that way about _____________________________?

Where did you learn about?

What would you do about this problem or that challenge?

Where would you go?

Explain that to me...

Our discussions, whatever the subject matter, might well be the pathway into journeys of the mind. Together with our partners, we could find ourselves amazed at the places we might go together.

swan