Spring Break

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

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

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

swan

Change of Pace

My summer days are relaxed.  The hours pass by in a long, slow, bumblebee haze, without much in the way of schedules or deadlines.  The obligation list gets simpler in the summer:  mealtimes and enough clean clothes and the regular round of tidying the house and an occasional appointment.  He and I spend lots of time together in the summer.  Not programmed time, and not structured time.  Often we sit side by side and read, or we watch baseball, or we walk, or we journey out to the ice cream place for a late evening treat.  We sleep late because we stay up late.  Summertime and the living is easy.

No matter how I try to plan the inevitable transition out of that, the start of the school year always comes as a bit of a shock.  Suddenly, we are thrust back into a world that is bracketed by the 5:20 AM alarm clock, and the necessarily early bedtime.  I'm out of the house and on the way to school by about 6:45.  He and I try, most days to stay in touch by IM during my planning times, but our extended hours together vanish in a flurry.  Weekday evenings are busy:  home from school, fix dinner, clean up the dishes, handle whatever chores (home or school) need to be taken care of, try to watch the baseball game, and stagger off, exhausted, to bed so we can do it all again the next day.

Weekend times take on exaggerated importance during the school year.  I really look forward to those lazy weekend mornings -- time to play, time to make love, time to enjoy leisurely breakfasts...  When things get in the way, I have a hard time making the allowances needed.  This was a three-day weekend, because of the Labor Day holiday, and those always seem like a real gift.  Three days feels like a "long time" somehow in the midst of the wild and wooly first weeks of a new school year.  I shouldn't let myself get all wound up into expectations for the weekend, but knowing that is not the same as doing it.  I spend the school week building up silly, girlish fantasies about the weekends... and more often than not, I get my hopes dashed.  Life happens, after all.

This past weekend, the big bad wolf, was a monster, intractable migraine (compliments of the excrutiatingly slow moving remnants of hurricane Isaac).  No matter what my mind fantasizes, spanking in the midst of a migraine headache is just ugly.  He loves me and won't add to the pain and suffering that is a migraine episode.  So, added to my physical misery is the disappointment...  Logically, I know what dashes my hopes, and I know it isn't, in the first instance, His idea or His choice.  Emotionally, though (and migraines mess with my emotions in very weird ways), I start to believe that it is really because He "doesn't want to."  And then I start to get all tangled up in an emotional tizzy...

And that was the weekend.  We did, finally, spank this morning, and He tells me it was good for Him.  I think I finally shut down all the nasty internal voices -- just as it was all over with.  Sigh.  Ahh well, it is a four-day week, and then there will be another weekend.

swan

What's the Word for "Doesn't Matter -- Not Important?"

irrelevant

 adjective

not important or not relevant to what you are discussing or doing

inappropriate

 adjective

not suitable in a particular situation

unimportant

 adjective

not important or relevant

marginal

 adjective

not considered important or relevant

immaterial

 adjective

not important or relevant

unrelated

 adjective

not connected to a subject that you are thinking about or discussing

extraneous

 adjective

not relating to the subject or situation that you are dealing with

academic

 adjective

not relating to a real situation, and therefore not relevant

beside the point

not relevant or important to the subject you are discussing

neither here nor there

used for saying that something does not matter because it is not relevant

I've had lots of time for thinking here lately.  Watching someone heal and recover from surgery can be busy by times, but there is also a lot of time to just wait...  I've gone back through the years of archives here and at Swan's Heart, and read a lot of what I wrote way back then.  I've also noticed that, in those earlier days, it was common for posts to draw comments.  Not dozens of comments, but sometimes a half dozen or even a dozen (singular).  And it used to be that the things I wrote about here sparked responses from Tom.  

Now, if I do think of something to say; something that seems to matter to me -- mostly there is no response.  I have, after  all this time, run out to the end of my "useful blogging life."  Things have been too serious here for too long.  We hardly spank anymore, and most often when we do, it is me doing the spanking.  There's the beginning of exploration into shamanism, but that is just weird.  I could put up menus and recipes but that's not what this place is supposed to be about.  Baseball?  Football?  Politics?  Our aging and living and quietly loving as we've come to?  I've just got nothing to say that matters to anyone but me.  

It makes me sad.  I feel lonely.  I wish for the days when there were lively conversations here.  Things change.  Life goes on.  This has been a good place, and I have loved knowing the people who visited here.  Time to move on; draw the curtains on this public thing.

swan

Empty Classroom

There are so many calendars by which we humans measure the passing of time.  In our western culture, we measure the year from January to December and think that is THE calendar.  But of course it isn't.  There are calendars that mark the passing of fiscal matters, and they start and end quite often in months not designated by our traditional Gregorian calendar.  There are, for those of us who work and live in the U.S., the tax year, and that calendar has its own peculiarities.  Too, our multi-cultural society includes those who may mark the flight of days and years by calendars based on the cycles of the moon rather than the sun, and so their days and weeks and years are "other" than what is the norm for the majority.  However that all plays out, there are those of us who live lives centered around schools and teaching, and whatever the rest of the world believes about the date, our calendars begin and end each year with empty classrooms. 

The empty classroom that is mine at the end of August is a space filled with anticipation.  It lies quiet but vibrant, awaiting only the arrival of the children who will fill it up with lively curiosity and joyful growing.  Throughout the year, as we move from month to month and topic to topic, there are days (I'll confess) when my classroom seems full to overflowing -- full of bodies growing into adolescence; full of projects and posters and the things that a gaggle of youngsters bring with them into their daily lives; full of desks and chairs and backpacks and coats -- and the ever present litter of papers and crayons and erasers and whatnot.  We work in that busy and crowded space, sharing the work and the triumphs, crying and laughing together, building and shaping a small community inside those walls.  The days can fly by sometimes, and then there are the weeks that seem to never end.  Still, springtime arrives, exactly as promised, and we run out of days together -- work that is well done, and work that remains unfinished or barely begun; it matters not.  The school year ends, and the children pack their bags, and troop off amidst ringing goodbyes and tearful hugs and promises to meet again in the fall...  And I am left, always on this day, with soft memories, and a deep and aching tiredness -- standing in the middle of my suddenly too quiet and far too empty classroom. 

It is a blur.  When it is all over; when everything is packed away, or draped in dust covers; when the last paper has been handed out and the report cards are distributed; when all the work is done -- then, I am left feeling jubilant but empty, without energy, muddled and befuddled, at a loss for what to do next. 

Mixed up in this time of the year however, is the anniversary date of my move to be here with Master and with T.  Eight years ago, on June 6th, I pulled our pickup truck into the parking lot at the apartment complex where we would live for the first few months of our time in Cincinnati.  It was the culmination of a 21 hour, straight-through without stopping drive across the breadth of the continent -- and it came immediately on the heels of another school year ending in another school far from here.

I never seem to remember the date -- was it the 6th or was it the 8th?  Master and T keep track of it, and I come fuzzily and in a physical/mental/emotional fog to the celebrative moments surrounding that mile marker on our path.  I do rejoice in the fact of that long ago journey, and I do absolutely love the fact of our lives together, but I can't muster much enthusiasm or excitement.  I've use all of that up cheering up and cheering on the young ones given into my care.  As of today, they are launched and it is my sincere hope that the universe is good to them through these warm months of summer.  I know that in a very little bit of time, I'll be back in that same empty classroom working to create the buzz and anticipation that will bring me a brand new group in the fall...

For now, I have a cold Harp Lager and a quiet house.  There are a gazillion things for me to do around this house we share, but there will be time for all of that.  Tonight I have no papers to grade and no lessons to plan and not a single email from a student or a parent wondering about whatever it is that we are doing. 

So my year ends.  So the new year begins.  Right here where eight years ago, I took my first steps into this life I chose.

swan

What an Interesting Place

This is a "real" place. It exists. You can Google Passage Thru Time Museum, and you will find that it is operated by the Potosi Township Historical Society in Linn, Kansas. Here's what they say about the place: Experience the rich heritage of the Potosi Township area, with emphasis on mining, farming, the historic Potosi Brewery and the Mississippi River. Other displays include arrowheads, World War II memorabilia, former businesses and John Deere toy tractors. The museum also houses an extensive collection of photos and historic records.



We've been together, now, some eight years. Just over six of those years, we've lived together, sharing all the ups and downs that come with day-to-day being in the same place. I've been thinking that there is something very powerful about the passage of time within a relationship, and even more powerful, there is something about what happens when people dedicate long stretches of time to living within relationship with each other. Things accumulate in our "museums" with the passage of time, and that accumulation documents the living, organic nature of how love grows.



I look back to the beginnings of our relationship, and we would surely have said we were very much in love -- we DID say that. We believed it. It was true. That love was fiery, and breathless, and awesome. It was also, for the very large part, untried and untested. We came together with energy and passion and boundless desire. We were full of hope and great hubris. We knew that ours was a love destined to be forever and always.



Of course, even we couldn't stop or change the passage of time. We're older now. I am nearing the middle of my 50's, and He will be 60 in the spring of next year. We've traveled through the last eight years, and we've experienced all manner of experiences -- some joyful, and others quite difficult. We've held on to one another through all kinds of adventures. We've begun to acquire quite the collection of memories and artifacts of the time we've spent doing this together.



That blazingly bright love that brought us together endures and the fires burn with an intensity that is somehow deeper and more compelling than even that which drove the first part of our connection. Which is not to say that there have not been changes. There have. The purely sexual energy that was so much a factor in the beginning, is quieter. Neither of us has the same libido we once did. That is a simple (if regrettable) fact. We've lived through enough years to learn, what we always (sort of) knew, that love really does not equal sex. We have come to the point of knowing that we can enjoy our sexuality as it fits into our lives and our rhythms, and not be obsessive about what and how often and when.



We've learned that it is simply good to be together -- really a great joy to be able to touch, stroke, snuggle. We've come to enjoy those times when we find ourselves all wrapped up in one another, murmuring away about this or that -- without any agenda or "destination" in mind.



We've learned to value the life we've made. We've learned to count those good friends that we've made as the treasure that they are. We've learned to understand the value of the work we each do -- to be gratified by what is good about that, without the sense of striving to make a career. We've launched the children we reared. For good or bad, they are the people that they will be. There isn't a one of them that we're not crazy in love with. We've learned not to hold the past too tightly, or to squint too intently into the unknowable future.

There are times when, being human, we are disappointed in the realities of our NOW. We can fall into wishing that we had more time, more physical vitality, more money, more "friends," more energy, more options -- more years ahead. Still, wandering through our own "Passage of Time Museum," I think it has become a rather remarkable, and joy-filled, place that has been built out of the fabric of our days, and weeks, and years together. I hope that, for the others of you that have shared the journey to this point with us, the same might be true for each of you.

swan

Things are Changing -- Have Changed

"Things are changing -- Have changed."

That's what He told me late last night as we sat, together, on the patio enjoying a lovely, late summer evening. He's right of course. It is a verdict that I have pushed away; a judgement that I've tried to avoid hearing for a really long time. But, after yet another in-session meltdown yesterday morning, and the awful, difficult, painfully distant, and scary hours that inevitably ensue, the truth was simply inescapable. Fifty-three is not forty-six. When it comes to SM, I am not able to do what I could do a few years ago. I still have the cravings, and I still have the desire to please Him, but I don't end up feeling "fulfilled" (His word), or turned on, or sexy, or powerful, or even successful most of the time. I feel hurt. I feel exhausted. I feel sad.

I have battled and struggled to try and get that old feeling back, but it isn't there. Just as Yoda advised Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, " Do or do not. There is no try." All that trying gets me basically nowhere. I might as well not have bothered. I remember when He used to beat the living daylights out of me, and I'd roar with the energy, and float on the endorphin mix. No more. Hardly ever happens anymore. I hang on, and I grit my teeth, and I try to remember to breathe, and I work really hard to stay put and be good. Then, usually, we make love, and, if I'm really good at it, He achieves release. Not me. Not more than now and then -- every few months maybe. I can't ever avoid, for very long, the sense that there is no real payback, or at least not enough of a payback, and that tends to bring up feelings of anger, sadness, and resentment. Not a recipe for a good scene, and not something that I am able to hide from Him for very long. And He loves me, so setting off that chain of emotions isn't something that He chooses to do most of the time.


Harder still -- He hasn't changed. All of His drives, desires, and fantasies are still exactly what they were "back then."

So. There is love. There is our undeniable, unshakable, unbreakable connection. I will, of course, continue to care for Him, and serve Him, in all the ways I have for years. I will cook His meals, and take care of His laundry, and manage His pills. I will handle the household finances, and make sure that the C-Pap is cleaned and set up every single night. I'll keep Him apprised of where I am and when I'll be home (or gone), just as I always have. I'll obey and I'll defer and I'll listen and speak with the same kind of respect. I'll be His, when and as He chooses to have that be the reality, but it isn't ever going to be what it was.

All of that seems just about like what any wife would say -- except, of course, I'm not "a wife." It surely doesn't seem that there is much there that would entitle me to claim the title of "slave" as I have for the last number of years. That label feels dishonest to me. So, I don't know what anyone will call me from here on out -- assuming anyone feels the need to "call" me anything at all. There's just no easy label for the place that my life has come to.

I imagine, there will still be words to write here, but it is time to acknowledge the truth. There may still be some BDSM in our world, but I don't know what that is going to look like, and I don't have any idea what I'll have to say about it all, and I can't imagine that it will be of any interest to anyone who is really "into" the lifestyle. We'll go forward, as family. Whatever else there is, will be seen in time.

swan/sue

Words, words, and more words

I spent some time over the weekend capturing the writings from The Swan's Heart along with those here at The Heron Clan, and storing them all in a word file. We do worry that Blogger could suddenly do something evil, and all those years of blogging could be lost. So... a bit of work, and everything is archived on my personal computer. I haven't done anything at all to edit any of it, or cull out the bits that may not be especially "valuable," but as it stands, it comes to 1055 pages -- 427,360 words. Goodness! That doesn't include the comments. It is strictly the words produced by us.

There is so much there. Many, many, many words -- a good portion of what's there, I've forgotten. When I go back and look at some of it, I feel as if I am reading thoughts and feelings recorded by someone else. Perhaps that isn't that far off. I've changed. We all have.

I think there was a more open voice in some of the earlier entries. I've come to edit and filter much more than I once did. I protect myself more now. I am less trusting, less willing to expose myself, or any of us, to outside judgements. I miss that open, free-wheeling sound. But, it feels like there's a lot more to consider now when I put words together. I wonder about who is reading. I wonder about how He will feel about what I write. I'm sure I frequently sound too negative or too whiney or too angry or too unhappy. I wonder if whatever I have to say will make the statistics go up or down. I worry that I'll hurt feelings or make people angry. I am afraid that I'll be misunderstood. I'm afraid that I might scare or intimidate some unknown, unseen someone.

By the time I navigate all of that, the words sometimes won't come at all. What does come often feels cramped and lifeless. Often, I suspect I am too careful to spill out words that have any real impact anymore. So, this place has changed. It has changed me. Much as I'd like to claim that I write for me, for Him, for us (and I do try to do that) -- it simply isn't possible to keep writing publicly and not get moved by that same public.

I once compared this business of blogging to a whole lot of us, all singing in empty concert halls. If that were true, we might get some clearer words. Closer to the reality, I now believe, is that we are all performing as we simultaneously wander through one another's "shows." It is much more like a giant Busker's fair than any sort of concert-style performance. I keep right on doing my bit as the sword swallowers and jugglers and acrobats swirl around the edges. And, of course, like any fair, there are the unpredictable, uncontrollable vagaries of life and the world to contend with as well.

What becomes truly amazing, once you sort of think about it, is that any of us manage to make any sense of any of it. Ahhh well, here's to the words that bind us and cheer us and help us find our way.

swan

Seasons of Slavery

Just a few days ago Kaya wrote about the issues and struggles that are associated with the transition from being a "full-time, stay-at-home slave" to a slave who works outside the home for some portion of the week. I've never had the luxury of that particular lifestyle option, but I can imagine that it is a complicated path to negotiate. Here's a severely edited version of some of what kaya wrote about it all:

I’ve ... recently returned to work after living as a full-time slave...it’s mostly a power thing...earning an income definitely puts me up there on an equal pedestal...getting my work clothes ready and organizing my stuff on Sunday evening ... flipped my slave switch to off ...working, there’s always a conflict between work and it’s associated activities...there just ain’t enough room for Master to receive priority... this job interferes in our lifestyle

That discussion has tipped me into the contemplation of the impending annual transition from working professional to "stay-at-home" summer slave. I understand that my cycling through the year, moving in and out of the workplace/home settings as the school year rounds, is not nearly the same thing as being at home knowing that "at home" is where you will be for as far into the future as anyone can see. I am and I will continue to be a slave who also has a career for as long as He finds that path to be a positive benefit to the household. I will continue to make the daily transition in and out of my collar as I leave and return from my teaching, and I will continue to make the transition from "worker" to "stay-at-home" slave as well.



We struggle through every school year. The imposed limits in terms of time and flexibility are always difficult and challenging for us. For each and all of the nine + months of the academic year, my energy and focus must be, to a very large degree, on the demands of my teaching work. Our M/s does not go away through those months, but it does get adjusted and shifted. That is a choice and a decision that we make, as adults, in full cognizance of the realities and practicalities of our life. The simple fact is that the salary (and benefits) that I bring into our household are important to our continued ability to live in the fashion that we prefer. There is the possibility of making other choices, and changing the way we live, but at present, this is the path we follow.



The other part of the story, for me, and for us, is that the summer break from school means that I drop back into the home-bound mode. It is a good and joyous thing for us because it gives us more time and more flexibility and more leeway to relate in ways that are very difficult during the school year. Still, I almost always go through a period of adjustment. My home days are slower. They are less "mine" and way more "His." I spend more time either alone or with Him, and I have very little contact with others outside the house. My focus narrows.



That is neither good nor bad. It just is. I know, from experience, that the change isn't usually something that is automatic or entirely smooth for me. It requires some energy and attention for me to get my mind and heart settled into the different routines of the summer months. If I'm paying attention, and working at it with awareness and intention, I am usually "there" within a very few days, and then we cruise along through the warm, summer days -- trying not to look ahead at the point on the calendar where I'll need to shift back into the other mode as September bears down on us.



So. OK. Not the fantasy, idyllic situation that I or we might be able to envision if this were a perfect world. I can muster up plenty of wishes that things be different, and a strong desire to just shuck all that "working for a living" nonsense and stay home to help Him get ready to go work each day, to cook good meals, and keep the house tidy, and make sure the laundry is handled, and maintain the flower beds, etc. Wishes are fine, but life is what it is. This might not be the most perfect manifestation of slavery imaginable. It is the life we have, and it is pretty darn wonderful. So, I'll continue to shift and accommodate to the ebb and flow of my days and weeks and months. I'll work to remember who and what I am and to make that true in my life. Whether I am padding around the house, or managing my classroom, it is what He wants from me, and I will keep doing it as best I can; mindful always, that what I do serves and honors Him.



swan

Counting Get Ups

Many, many years ago, while I was still teaching in Colorado, it was the practice for the teaching staff to rotate through "morning duty." Morning duty consisted of watching over the children as they gathered outside of the school before the bell rang and the day officially began. Mostly it amounted to making sure that no one got hurt or kidnapped.

I am not a morning person. I never have been. So, for me, morning duty was challenging as I would try to wake up and simply cope with a whole lot of random, bouncy kid energy.

One morning, in May, I was standing out, doing my duty, when a bright-eyed, energetic little first-grade girl came bounding up to me to declare, "Mrs. D, there are only 16 more get ups!" I knew this little one. She had two older sisters, and had been around the school since she was an infant. She had the sort of confident air that children get when they are extremely comfortable in a particular setting.

Hearing her exuberant joy about 16 get-ups, I peered down at her, and said, "Really? And what are get-ups, Katie?"

She proceeded to explain to me that she hated to get up in the morning. She was quite sure that getting up and getting dressed was the worst part of the day. In her view, once she was up and dressed, the worst of it was over with, and the rest of the day was no problem. Therefore, as the school year came to a close, Katie was counting "get-ups."

Well. Out of the mouth of babes. I am with Katie. Like her, I believe that getting up is the worst of it all. Once I'm up and dressed, the rest of the day feels way more manageable.

So, as the school year draws, once again, toward its end. I am remembering Katie, who by now must be in high school, and am counting get-ups. So, in case you are wondering, there are 13.

swan

His Time

Have we discussed "TIME" here ever? I don't remember, and I can't find anything that I've ever written on the subject. That's sort of interesting to me, because if there is one major part of my life that has changed because I am His, it is the way I deal with, and react to the issue of "punctuality."



My father, whom I adored, was a man that had a "thing" for being on time. Our family never arrived late for anything. We always left home plenty early to get wherever we were going with time to spare. Even when we vacationed, we left in the early morning, and kept to a rigid schedule. Being on time was a virtue when I was growing up.



Master deals with time from a rather different perspective. He is inclined to believe that being driven by the clock, and obsessing about needing to be "on time" is the mark of a "peon." Since He does not see Himself as falling into that category, He is, as a general rule, entirely unconcerned about the business of being punctual. In fact, the surest way to slow down preparations for departing in a timely fashion for anywhere, is to give Him the sense that I am fussing about the time.

We seldom arrive anywhere on time. In the beginning, it made me absolutely insane. I'd get nervous and fidgety and irritable and eventually enraged -- all of which just made Him move more and more slowly --find more and different ways to procrastinate and dawdle.


He's worked His "Master" magic on me, though. I've come to understand that, when I am going someplace with Him, we go on His time. I do what I can to facilitate our departure and I am always aware of what would constitute a timely arrival (in my estimation), but I've given up the need to make us be "on time."

I've learned that I don't control our time -- don't need to control it. That we will go as we do, and arrive as we will and that will be alright.

So, nowadays, rather than obsessing about how late we are -- or how late we are likely to be, I focus on making sure that we have "enough" time to get ready. I work to make sure that He has what He needs where and when He needs it. I stand ready to hold a shirt, or fetch the appropriate tie, or fix His hair. I gather and organize all the various parts and pieces that He needs and wants -- knives, sun glasses, beverages, computer, planner, coat, etc. I load the car, and pack the lunch, and stand nearby in case I am needed. I work really hard at not seeming nervous or fussy. I may nudge just the tiniest little bit, and very, very subtley -- but I do not push (never a good idea to PUSH a Dominant) and I do not fume and I do not do anything that looks imperious or demanding.

We leave, when we leave, because He has come to be ready -- and then we go wherever we go on His time.

swan

Back from Vacation

We've been away.
Just for a few days, but it was great to take a break from all that drives our daily routines.
We rented a cabin in The Hocking Hills -- a scenic area that is north and east of here about a two hour drive. It was really a lovely setting, away from phones and computers (a bit of a challenge in the beginning as Himself did not expect that and went through some serious withdrawal). Our hosts were friendly and helpful as we needed them. We spent plenty of time soaking and chatting in the hot tub on that front porch. We grilled out for dinner each night. We slept late. We drove through the countryside taking in the scenery. He and I managed to work in a session one afternoon. We made love in the quiet mornings. In short, we relaxed for a change.

It has been two years since we took any kind of time off. We'd forgotten how rejuvenating it can be. This morning, we all bounced up, ready to take life back on again. Packed it all up and headed home.

Good to go. Good to come home.

swan

Feral Swan

I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who is "like this," although I might be the most difficult and/or challenging of all the women I am familiar with. I can see it as I watch Him ponder the path to take with me. I know that He questions exactly how far to push things; exactly what would be "good," and what would begin to seem "abusive," or "harmful." I can, in my reasonable and sensible moments, empathize with the challenge and complexity of attempting to manage and ride herd on a volatile and emotionally labile creature such as I have become in the last couple of years. I honestly don't know how the Man does it, and there is a part of me that fully understands why so many so-called "Dominants" stick to the relatively hormonally-stable twenty-somethings when they go shopping for potential submissive candidates of the female persuasion.

The dilemma is this: I am still driven, at some essential place by the part of me that remains masochistic and that needs to know I belong to Him. That is the elemental core of my selfhood. It was who and what I was when He and I first connected, and it remains. I am mature enough and self-disciplined enough to not require continual reinforcement, or any sort of formalized ritual, or signal from Him to maintain that awareness within my thinking. It simply is the reality of who I am and who we are together. With that said, however, if it is left unexercised in any concrete way for a significant period of time, I can begin to feel tense, wobbly, stressed, attenuated. It is as if there is a depletion of my spirit that cannot be answered if those bits of me are not acknowledged and "touched" somehow on a fairly regular basis. On the other hand, as I have lost a good part of the more overtly "pleasure" parts of my sexual responsiveness (and entered a state that is sort of like permanent PMS), I have struggled much more to accommodate the masochistic side. The "bargain" is not as balanced, and I can get to feeling that it is pretty unfair that there should be so much of it on the pain side and so little on the pleasure side. I go to the well pretty frequently and come up "dry." That can get frustrating after awhile. I've sort of quit grieving, and mostly, I don't think about what I don't have too much. Still, there are times when I get moody and fussy, and downright pissed off about it all.

It is, I suspect, a hell of a lot easier (if you are a sadist) to hurt someone who is going to get off on it than it is to hurt someone who is going to wail and mourn and curse the unfairness of the whole business -- especially if you really love and care for that person. When you are dealing with that "mourning" thing for lengthy stretches, it can be pretty daunting; nevermind that the one who is doing the mourning is simultaneously speculating that they might just need you to hurt them in exactly the ways that they are railing against. It must be terribly challenging to charge ahead, as a Dominant, with whippings, and paddlings, and switchings, and all manner of evil whatnot, secure in the judgement that it is good for a partner who dissolves into a puddle of hysterical "goo" at the mere mention of such torments. The whole notion of "consent" becomes strained at that point.

Both He and I know, intellectually, how this works between us. I've described the process and the struggle as clearly as I know how, and He is an accomplished pratctitioner, and a very keen observer of my responses and reactions. Knowing what is probably true and understanding how it probably works is one thing. Actually confronting it and pushing on through all of that, day after day, is an entirely different proposition.

It really is like having a wild, untamed, entirely unpredictable creature in your household. He must feel like every encounter is a complete gamble -- no telling what might happen. Even if He asks me how I am, I often cannot give Him much in the way of concrete information. I may have a sense of feeling somewhat stressed or "wobbly," but I am generally totally unsure as to whether the wobbles will be lessened or increased by us playing. I have become a flighty and unpredictable, wild and feral, skittish creature.

We've made so many adjustments for this aging business -- for the shifts and changes that we are both encountering with our years. Still I want to stay lively and sexy and hopeful and open for Him. I need this interraction. It hasn't gone away, simply become more difficult. I growl more than I used to. Somehow I have to find a way to make that growling be a good thing.

swan

Do You Believe In What You Can't See?

When you teach, there comes a point where you want students to understand not just what it is that they know, but how it is that they know it. We want learners to move from "knowing" something because they are told it is so, or because they read about it in a book somewhere, to having some more active and personally authentic knowledge of the reality. Ideally, active, questing, engaged learners will question and explore and hypothesize and test the reality of what they know until they assure themselves of the reality of their understandings.



In just about two weeks, we will notice the passage of the date when we first did the cutting five years ago. The marks themselves have faded some but their significance has deepened as the time has gone by. However we viewed what it was that we were doing that night, it was surely the "formal" beginning of our relationship to one another as Master and slave. To take the mark of another person permanently into your flesh is to accept their hold on you in a very stark and immediate fashion. I am sure I did not entirely understand that consciously that night. I do now.



I look back at the time that has passed, and I am stunned. I am stunned at how quickly it has flown by. I am stunned at all that has happened. I am stunned at the differences (big and small) between what I thought I knew about what I was choosing then, and what I have come to understand about it as it has been lived.



So much that seemed critically important and essential to the doing of this in the beginning, seems less so now. Other things that I never considered in the beginning have come to be a part of the ongoing reality. Change is a fact of being alive, obviously.



I look around, read from place to place, talk with people with whom I have "connections" of one kind or another, and I can sense the changes that have happened inside myself. I shrug a lot these days. I find myself thinking -- "oh yeah, I felt like that once too." Sometimes, that makes me feel old and jaded. Other times it simply makes me feel settled, and not all frantic to run and try or prove or do everything there is out there. I am not as anxious as I once was.



I understand that there are those who would look at how my life is and not be able to SEE the power exchange. Our protocols are not very formal and there is very little about our household that gives away the dynamic to the casual observer. What we do in our regular routines is so ingrained that it is barely perceptible as to who actually "controls" it or drives it. Those who get a chance to talk with the three of us are almost always bemused by the easy, light banter that goes on between us. We laugh and tease and chatter away -- and Master is quite often, and (usually) quite happily the target of shared merriment between T and I (scandalous!) -- entirely lacking in decorum! Oh, there'd be no question if one were privy to a session, but those are rarer than they once were. There are reasons for that as well; and He does decide.



It often can't be seen. Some would insist that what can't be seen does not exist. Of course, there were those who, in their day, questioned the reality of such things as oxygen, and electricity, and gravity.



In the beginning, I "knew" about D/s and M/s mostly by what I read and what I could learn from "talking" with others. Five years ago, I knew what little I'd been told and what I'd managed to read about on my own, but my experience was limited. I had facts but no personal truth. These years have given me time to test and try and live inside my own head and heart and body. What I know about M/s today is my authentic truth. I have lived this relationship around the clock and around the calendar now for more than a few turns. There is much more to learn and I sincerely hope I have the time to learn it, but I know the way it will come to me now.



swan

Summertime

One of the things that happens for us, as the summer moves us along, is that we settle into a rhythm with one another that feels more reasonable and organic. Once the wildness of the school year ends, and the exhaustion fades a bit, He and I tend to find a kind of ease that tends to elude us during the stringently time regulated days of the school year. We sleep later and stay awake into the later hours of the evening. We find a calmer pace to our love making and our play. We are prone to let our bodies drive what we do instead of forcing it into the schedule dictated by the calendar.



I get spanked more in the summer time. But we don't feel frantic about it either. It doesn't have to happen today -- or tomorrow. The tides can rise and fall as they do, and He and I can ride the swells without anxiety or pressure. It feels completely easy, for example, to wake in the early morning, like today, when He went to snuggle with T, and ask Him if He'd have time to spank me later on -- to hear Him assure me that of course He would...



It seems OK to have that spanking, when it came, be exactly whatever it would be -- as easy as difficult without having it need to be loaded with all kinds of weight born of time pressures. We were given the grace of simply having it be an interlude for us without an agenda. What a pure joy that feels to me just now.



I'm still hoping for some "kinds" of sessions. Special "events" that don't happen much in the busy times of the year, like a session on the flogging frame someday, but the summer is far from over. There is still time ahead of us. I feel good about what has been and what is still to come.



swan

Polyamory Observations #3

One of the hardest things to do in talking about "poly" is to get through all the variations in terms of language and perception. We have found, as we've done this, that there are relatively few people who define themselves as "poly" AND mean stable, committed, long-term, multi-partnered loving relatedness. Many people use the term to mean creating intimate (read sexual) relationships with lots of partners, and everybody's fine as long as everybody knows about everybody else. Often those situations are shorter term and multi-directional. I don't have a problem with that, but it isn't what we mean when we talk about poly. We tend to find that our sort of live in, longview, lifestyle arrangement tends to make other poly folk nervous. We're not naive and we're not prudish. We understand that poly implies sexual relatedness TOO (or at least potentially) -- it is just that we tend to insist that there must be more to intimacy than how many people can be added to the "team" roster in that arena. We keep harping on the need to create "connections" as a prerequisite to making sure all that "friction" is really sustainable; and then watching people's eyes glaze over. Talk about feeling "old!"

There is an adage among poly folk. It has become almost cliche' to tell one another that "more love makes more love," and there is some validity to that. It is the clever phrase that we use to refer to the potential for multiple and additional relational dynamics to add to the love within poly interactions rather than "diminishing" in some way. We use it to assure (or perhaps reassure) one another and ourselves that there is no need to be fearful of new loves in the lives of our partners; that those new relationships will add richness and joy and potential to our own relatedness, and will not result in threats to our own love and happiness. That is all true as far as it goes.
What we've discovered is that, unfortunately, more love does not make more time. More love does not make more energy. More love does not make more space. There is only so much time, energy, space. Relating is time consuming. It requires work. Building a stable, committed, enduring relationship that will withstand the vagaries that life can pitch at us, does not happen overnight, or even over the course of a few breathless "dates."

We tend to not think too much about how we do the dance of accommodation for our demanding schedules -- all the various kinds of juggling and holding up of one another that allows us to keep it all together. And we don't keep "score." We simply give as we need to, trusting that over the very long haul that is our life, it will all come out in the wash. But, then, we've been together long enough to have survived the early going. We aren't caught in the heat of the early days of romantic infatuation when being together demands a very great deal of attention to keep it alive and healthy. We know there will be tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. That kind of knowing comes only from miles traveled together.
What that means is that tonight, we'll eat leftovers from the weekend in shifts so that we can shuttle cars to and from the repair shop and get to the nursing home to visit Grandma. It means that T and I buy Christmas, Valentine's day, anniversary, and birthday gifts for each other (and cards) so that "Mr. Romance" is never left in the awkward position of not having the appropriate gift to give one of us. It means that we do each other's laundry. She keeps the social calendar and I pay the bills. We each shop for the household groceries and we pick up everyone's prescriptions at the pharmacy and we all go to each other's medical appointments by times and we cook and clean for each other... mostly I do the weekday meals and she does the weekends, but that shifts depending on scheduling. We haul each other's trash, and we clean and we worry in fluid and shifting patterns. We try to never, ever, ever make life harder for one another, and we gently nudge when we know somebody is feeling tired or strained or tender -- and we interpret for each other (and go to bat for each other) when the need arises.

The truth is that we know each other so well that it is pretty seamless for us to just ebb and flow with whatever comes up. We do it without much effort and without much thought. We understand the economics of it all. We know that while it may not be true that "time is money," it is surely true that it is a currency that we exchange between us, and we work hard (with intent) to keep the balance of trade equitable.
These are hard realities when a brand new and exciting potential relationship comes into the picture and a poly person or a poly family/group (like ours) is confronted with the sometimes touchy business of dealing with what to do about limited energies and limited time. A new love doesn't diminish the love between partners, but it will (inevitably) shift the time/energy/space economy. We've smashed head on into this once or twice, and it can be really tough; especially in the beginning stages. It is tough on a couple different levels.

New folks, who are sincere, do not want to "upset the apple cart." Those who are less than sincere generally claim that they don't want to upset things. AND they can't help but do so anyway. They will change the dynamic. The demands on everyone will be there. It requires open acknowlegement of the benefits as well as the costs in terms of time and energy to incorporate new relational directions in existing flows. The new currents take time to settle in. On the other side of the equation, existing partners have to be able to distinguish between feelings and words that convey the sense of change and reactions that look like jealousy. The two are not the same thing -- although they can look similar.

Brand new, shiny, exciting, hot relationships bring with them an intense kind of energy, often referred to as "New Relationship Energy" or NRE. NRE feels like the most wonderful thing in the whole world, and the tired, old, mundane routines of the tried and true can pale in comparison. It is normal, natural, and entirely human for folks caught up in NRE to want to be where the bright lights and glittery glamour of the new and exciting shines so enticingly from the arms of the newly discovered shores. That's the thing we've dealt with from internally.

Of course, the new partner coming in from the outside is all excited too. They have all sorts of NRE as well, and they want lots of time to get to know their new love -- it is all romance and hot sexy fun... In our experience, the business of keeping demanding schedules, and picking up the car and making it to the doctor appointments, and the late night meetings and the nursing home and on and on and on... are almost never the things that new loves get all hot and squishy about after a couple of iterations. And so things get dicey. Quickly. In the beginning at least, it is usually the new love that gets a lot more of the goody, and the rest of us pick up the slack. That can be sustained for awhile, but sooner or later things have to shift back to something closer to normal. That, we have found is when new ones either prove their mettle or stomp their feet and start making demands. So far, no one has stuck it out through the passage.

Love. Yes.

Time, energy, space. Those too.

swan

A Different Look at SSC

I've been caught with lots of "thoughts" lately -- many of them heavy. I'm not unhappy precisely, but aware that there is a weight to life just now that is keeping me from dancing through the days as I might otherwise.

If I review the year we've come through, the reality is that much that we knew we would face as a family has come and gone, and we've weathered the storms. We are here all together, and for that I am grateful. I am also tired, and a little wistful. I look around, and note that, by and large, we are surrounded in our cyber neighborhood, by people who are significantly younger than we are, and who consequently do not face the same sorts of "issues" that we face (never mind that we have the freedom to come and go without having to find babysitters)... Somedays I really do find myself jealous of all those years I let go in clueless youth, when I knew what I was but did not understand it or embrace it -- so much wasted time now lost forever.

I can and do get scared, when the days go by, as they have lately, and there is no energy or physical well-being sufficient to "play," or really even to make love. Our M/s remains in the pouring of a drink, in the ironing of a few shirts, in the routines of bedtime preparations, and basic moment to moment courtesies rendered. Ownership patterns, by now, run deep. Still, I can see ghosting across our days, a time when we will be wrapped in one another's warmth, and the physical reality of the SM part of our relationship will forever be stripped from our grasp, and I fear that will come long before either of us are ready for it.

I've never liked the BDSM community slogan, "SAFE, SANE, CONSENSUAL (SSC). In play, it never seemed to make any sense to me. It seemed some sort of pablum to try and make the outrageous a bit more acceptable. I didn't come to this to be acceptable. I came to this when I finally accepted that I was outrageously fine just the way I was.

There is NO safety from the depredations of time. NOTHING sane about finding only to lose the race because we were too slow to make the connections. TOTALLY non consensual fading happening here even as we fight to hang on to the moments and the patterns.

This life is about passion. About promises made beyond what is sanctioned. About risks recognized and accepted.

I want to live right now. All the moments. All the feelings. All the promises. Always and all ways. Darkness or light, I will walk this way.

swan