scriobh

as coupled with the season, this heavy-heavened grey on grey, finding comfort in those plants that come from lighter climes, yet finding it warp and wrap this even consciousness, the soothing isnt worth it. having removed refined sugar and excessively sweet things from my diet as regular characters for more than a year, i find the return to frequent sugar intake to be thus:

-at first: surprising and unattractive. too much brown sugar spills onto my morning oats (tired of honey, i favoured the cassonade). a shrug of oh well, yet it is overwhelmingly sweet. offered a pop with my fast food meal (the season has found my dietary health floundering in its wet wet puddles), i sort of automatically accept, but the taste and feel of it in my body is wholly unattractive, have perhaps 5 sips, chuck the rest out.

-but then: someone has recommended to shone an eggnog latte (and o do i ever love eggnog), and we indulge ourselves. once becomes often. often becomes a longing (though we keep it decaf). at home, black tea emerges, first at mornings, then in evenings. i order the bad fast food, accept a small soda, drink it all. wonder that i didnt even really bat an eye. buy juice at the store. drink juice. crave juice. notice the nog lattes immediately sap all moisture from my lips...it's not the caffeine, as there still is none (or barely any), but it is the sugar.

-and now: black teas often enough, pulled across the street to buy some sweet warm brew in the rainy rainy evenings, today accepted a caffeinated beverage, as well as last week. daily sugar on oats. cookies. waking up feels like a hangover every day, the eyes glued shut, i cannot manage the weather and moods seem more challenging. feel the gloom more. unregulated body chemistry. NEED food more often, VERY cranky if i can't get any, CRAVE high-carb (see: starch only) foods, LAMENT this fact. find my bank account to be unsupportive of eating otherwise.

conclusion: time to eliminate sugars once more. as of payday, the time will arrive for cleansing and re-regulating, cos goddamn this is ridiculous.



this is why vancouver has so many coffee shops. because the heavy heavy grey drives us all to desperate addiction to seratonin-producing or mimicking substance...on the spectrum from sugar to crack (though the difference is very subtle, along that continuum, i do swear).

feels good to have cleansing intention, though. mhm. heading towards regularity, oh oui.
feel inspired by people around me, new faces on creative bodies, making shows, clown school extensions to which friends are invited (ie: m sekiya if you do come visit you may join us), being curmudgeon quacks with ye olde lover (o, and HOW we will heal you!), and time to settle into this winter because it certainly won't GO AWAY, though this is a skill i have ever been lacking in, and it'll take some real intent focus to succeed in it, but o, i shall indeed try.

the rest is just rambling.

i've been reading the purple bible, title quoted in this post's title...
part of me wants to ramble on about my thoughts so far, part of me wants to just express so much anger at how we've all been brought up (men and women alike...this whole society, and so much of the global society and the obsession with the medical system, ritual denial of our instinct and holistic healing and the bodymind and heart and AGGGHHHH!!!). my higher thinking knows the duality of how ok my anger is, and yet how fruitless it is. im reading in the early chapters of the book (confirming things im already aware of, but so so so so well/eloquently), and frequently have to put it down because my emotions (anger, resentment, sadness...directed at people close to me, our families who gave us our patterns, society at large) are rising too high and i'm becoming overwhelmed. today i just kept going until i needed a good cry, and just let it out, verbal freedom frankness out loud to just myself and perhaps whoever i needed to imagine was listening. so much blame and fear and upset, all with direction, yet all with an equal hedging that all of this may be my own shit, and why it is such. the final admission: i am hurt by x, y, and z. the final response: that is okay. it is okay to be hurt. be hurt. let it be itself. the final result: forgiveness, understanding, acknowledging that we each and every one are doing our very best, and there is no lack of love at all. a huge sigh and release of muscle tension.

i feel that it is my duty to all women and men out there to recommend this book, if you havent yet heard of it or read it. read it-NOW. "women's bodies, women's wisdom" by christiane northrup MD. there is so much we have in us in terms of healing ability...and so much that we carry in ourselves that prevents that...so much in our physical responses that are trying to tell us something that we just ignore or don't connect to our greater emotional lives. you must read this because it reminds us that we are POWERFUL, that we are INTUITIVE, and what im finding most healing at the moment: that our instincts are correct. there are numerous super educated humans out there who are DOCTORS, echoing what our hearts tell us every day about ourselves, but what the medical world more often than not denies to our faces. and while this book is directed at women and deals with almost entirely female issues, there is almost nothing i have read that i dont think a man would benefit from. our HUMAN instincts and intuitions deserve validation. i feel validated, and im only in the first chapter.

women: read it and let your power flow.
men: do the same.

both: turn to each other and say "i honour you, you magical beast, you".

i feel heartened to be whatever kind of opera singer i want to be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-93TkAuf2A

man o

man


FULL

OF

LOVE

and like not in the fiendish way
but SOLIDLY

as in
i am solid
and i love from this place
and the ground can shift and change and depart and reform beneath me
and im still constant bright star

yeah orrite

also wanted to repost a link my friend christ posted:

http://sexisnottheenemy.tumblr.com/
she said something along the lines of "genderfuckery, nudity, sex, loveliness"
super fantastic, especially once you get over the shock of OH SHIT I JUST GOT SENT A PORN LINK, and realise, once you scroll through a few pages, that there's some real honest and beautiful and provocative stuff in there. yes get turned on. this is where the good stuff lies. we can see our real selves in this.
the obligatory: NOT WORK/SCHOOL SAFE

shit man, life's okay.

like seriously and actually.

and sometimes, when my brain starts to try to do its thing...that "emotional reactions to a perceived reality" thing, which is IN ESSENCE, me getting in my own way (really just sprawling all about in the way in general, in the end), i can see it. i can see it, and i can go HEY. i mean, so far. good things have come since last writing. good habits. good clarity. good relaxing times. still on the settling path, still letting this tornado swirl down, and down it goes, girl girl girl, good girl.

step one: stop searching for handholds out there. they arent there.
step two: here's your handhold: meditate. YOU DONT HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THIS. because? because it's a non issue. a good holy most of the time, it is a non issue.

so today i felt a bit sensitive, and got feeling a bit more personal and prickly about a thing.
and it belaboured my breaths in this day.

so i reminded myself.
and o, and o, things are real swell.

nights spent in arms, lie and sleep, bonnie dearies.
gosh.
yeah. that reminder. the "look at the good things" reminder.
mm.

gratitude.

have just, after a long day, shaken off a bad dream that started it. one of those ones that's real enough and close enough to home and your heart that you keep that emotion with you (unwanted thought it may be), it FEELS like you're mad/sad/betrayed/x negative emotion for reals, even worse when it's directed at a person you care about, spend the whole day going THIS DIDNT HAPPEN, and I DONT WANT TO FEEL THIS (fake) WAY ABOUT THIS PERSON (i love). finally accepted the notion that the brain chemicals are taking a bit of extra time reestablishing themselves into normal behaviour, accepting also that im being proactive in my approach to this, for instance: having a medicinal swing dance date in the park with a friend and breast-pocket music amplified on tiny yet powerful speakers, bringing back smiles to my face; picking up some st. john's wort for thrice daily herbal aid; and listening to all those people that say EXERCISE, to which i say I DO, but maybe i'll do more.

thus:

rode my bike once more past my house down to the port, sat watching the ripples and wakes of boats reflect and refract off the rocks before me, having a 90 minute long jam with a friend (after a jam with myself, where i ride through the city crying out "I AM OKAY" and various things about not being scared to yell out loud, really just a manifestation finally of a) accepting that i have been scared to just be myself, rolling over belly up in my timid voice so much, when i just feel like it's time to call it (to myself as much as others) like it is (with strength, not fear), and b) my desire to be honest with myself and see and SAY what is...jam with friend...on the subjects of...willingness to look stuff in the face and the bravery of that; the tendency (of my own) to take that maybe 5 steps further (and push people away as a result); patterns in our lives/from our parents that come up in relationships...in addition, patterns in relationships that i recall strongly acknowledging at the offset can come up, and at that time knowing and saying that really the ONLY way to combat these things which i truly believe are inevitable, is to REMAIN PRESENT, and SAY WHAT IS, and not react out of fear (like saying angry things, or running away)...this relating to blocks that just come up when people are confronted with whatever issue they may not want to look at right now, so we close off all avenues that lead to that one, but maybe in doing that close off our heart, which at one point may have been so goddamned open it may as well have been inside out...and the travesty of that; about breaking points coinciding with softening points; about standing on our own two feet anyways; about acknowledging that PLACE OF LOVE, man, and if that is constantly acknowledged (a brief recollecting of a previous state of constantly referring to things/feeling that things were/acknowledging that they were a "boon" (and yes they were/are) then you pass through fire alive and stronger; about the mid-twenties man's emotional development (whatever that is or isnt depending); about cycling thought patterns and how useless they are, bringing me to the end of this paragraph...

coming to a point where, despite this lengthy conversation, i feel like i'm getting pretty done with talking about things like this, ready to give this plumbing and jamming a bit of a rest and let it all settle. THIS is a very good feeling to have.

all the while just looking at the stars and hearing the clanging of the port and its humming machines. content to hang out with myself and feeling grounded in all these thoughts (that despite the seeming storminess of the recollection, really came to a point of "everything's alright!"), starting to bike home, but as the music in my headphones changed, letting a brief turn of the wheel take me to my favourite tunnel, wherein i recorded some ear-splicing wails that should prove good, and then continuing on to the abandoned fairgrounds of the as-yet-unopened PNE, winding amongst half-assembled rides and tarped-up hotdog stands, reflecting at the impermanence of the carnival life and how i once wanted to run away with it, and the impermanence and constant evolution of EVERYTHING. loving this being by myself and hoping/willing it to balance with my desire to be with another person (physically/present moment style).

feeling myself within myself again, that indomitable force that is willing to see and willing to accept and willing to just fucking glow at things, because man, we gotta manifest it in ourselves if we want to manifest it outside of ourselves. ain't no point in waiting for it to come find you, because it won't, it just won't. i've been swimming in some deep deep heaviness lately, and the comforting reminder that my heart is still strong inside and underneath all of this, it brings me home.

so i sit here, realising i've just clicked "post", fully feeling called to do so, balking slightly at the empty text box. it's ready to receive my writings. it is blank. i shuffle in my creaky seat (childhood rocking chair), and uncurl my spine a bit.

i suppose, though, that by next month, i'll be filling this ol' thing up again, for a while. another jaunt in europe, and we all know that trips make me terribly verbose and prone to SHARING, which is excellent of course.

certainly i mean to be writing more, to clear the head and expulse some thought, let it all become the calmer tornado and the like, inside. also, it is satisfying, in a way, to update succinctly to an indeterminate number of readers the goings on of recent times. kicks are gotten!

where have the months taken and left me? far-flung lover coming to change my life is the overarching theme, and sitting under this umbrella are clown school shaking my perceptions and projections, forcing me to commit in the moment and removing my fear of it; buddhist thought doing the same; a reckoning with the fear and self-doubt that comes up when one is so deeply in love that they are forced to face their shit...that underlying silt at the bottom of this steady and strong river...this being an excellent and scary exercise, though very fruitful in the end; coming into my own, bit by bit, as a performer, in the sort that i wanted and hoped to be just over a year ago when i quit school and said, "fuck it, im doing what i want in the performance world"; a coming into self--stepping further in and then pulling back a bit, and forging deeper, and dancing around. today, riding my bike home, i felt that welcome feeling of "i've finally had enough of this nervousness". that moment when you are finally fed up with and lose patience with a certain negative recording that has been running around in your head--one that will so often just need to run its course. the thought process concluded by saying, "i commit myself to loving myself, and commit to dismissing my unreasonable fear." one layer, and then the next awaits. wondering when we get to the bottom, if we get to the bottom, of those issues that impede our free living. this isnt to say i feel im living bound in some thing, unable to move. i admit, simply, that the immobilizing effect of such strong fits of emotional thought can become fatiguing, and is right now. i do, however, feel myself moving out of this headspace. perhaps even saying so makes it more concrete. there. lovely. hahhh.

i am reading pride and prejudice.
i have just sung a most excellent opera performance.
i am travelling for all of july.
i have the most excellent kittencat in the entire world, ever.
i am surrounded by humans who amaze me, constantly.
i eat oats for breakfast every morning.
more fresh vegetables, please.
the summer blows ocean breeze through my chimes, constantly.
strawberries are starting to grow in our garden.
my hair is growing longer.
i am constantly astounded by the person who has chosen to share his life with me, lifted up and confounded and inspired and challenged and awed and comforted...all of the things a close bond ought to be. i am thankful for this growth. i am thankful for this presence.


oh, it feels so good to write.

EMBROILED

Dear Winter,

In point form:

-fruit salad (tropical fruit)
-open air patios
-sandals (possibly with socks, but sandals nonetheless)
-hammocks
-living with lovers
-mediterranean cooking
-ticking clocks
-stilts
-dust (kicked up)
-interactions with young humans on the bus and elsewhere
-radio plays
-staying up as late as I want
-the city still looks swell at night
-traffic noises


So there. I hate you. I insult your mother.
And I feel fine.

Sincerely,
Meris Lynn Goodman

TODAY!
Today is one of the days when Vancouver (yet again/as always) is under fiftythousand layers of clouds, we are IN a cloud, clouds are shitting ALL OVER US, and everything, from dawn to dusk, is muted and darkling, and saps you of every bit of motivation and warmth.

I thought: Perhaps I will go through my drawers and closet to get rid of clutter and make space. It made me surly and feel like either weeping or punching things (alll thissss stuffff!!!!)

I thought: Perhaps I will go out for sushi and a dance class. Then my sniffles got WORSE and my body went ACHE.

I thought: Alright, to combat this, I will paint a sunshiney landscape on my wall. Then I just walked around and grumbled.

I am very aware that this is almost solely a product of the weather. If anyone would like to team up and do the weather in with me, I'd be much obliged.

complaincomplaincomplain
okay.

This internet finds me here with access to a laptop and a desire for late-night, pre-sleep ramblings, with no particular flavour of posting in mind, but a feeling of late that writing before sleeping (in one form or another) is healthy and good, and sometimes concludes with me falling asleep with my journal half-finished beside me...but is a fair and worthy outlet nonetheless. This particular night, I have imbibed several hot mugs of black tea with friends visiting from afar (from lands where the French reign), and it has got my heart pumping irregularly and my eyes somewhat unwilling (though very desirous) to close. So I shall speak to the empty yet pregnant void of the SERIES OF TUBES that is the internet.

I had a reckoning tonight with my longing for Paris, with the visit of my good friends Amy (who was the au pair the year after me...she, too, has this longing), and Francine (who currently is living there, going to an acting school that I am considering attending more and more often). Sitting about the table, talking about the sounds and smells that we are all very familiar with; about the dangerous roundabouts that we've risked our lives biking in; about the proper ways to discourage misogynistic men who invariably propose marriage to us on the streets (or at least ask us to "discuss further"); and a long list of things that are so commonplace there, yet completely absent here, all over a giant pot of amazing tea that was bought very recently on the Champs Elysees (I recalled attending a riot there while dodging wayward firecrackers): the two of us who had left the city wailed and pounded out our missing of it and desire to move back, while Francine complained about the air and how it made her sick (something that I, too, did while there). I dont feel a longing for it that hurts, like the oft felt longings for a lover that is somewhat like having the elastic strings of your heart in your chest pulled taut and making movement difficult (though this time 'round the feeling is not one of pain, but of a comfortable mix between tension and slack on these elastic bands, knowing that the plugs are plugged in, but I can move freely this time, with thanks)...but I feel that it's calling to me still, and I'll have to drag my bones over there for some extended period of time once more, maybe even for a last jaunt. The more I hear of the Lecoq acting school, the more it seems that I'm meant to do some training there if I really mean to perform the way I mean to. Also, my voice teacher of my heart is there, and that is the other side of how I want to perform...combining classical singing and mime movement and circus arts to produce something otherworldly and somewhat inhuman, while still connecting with a very human part of my audience through CLOWN CONNECTION and REMOVAL OF THE FOURTH WALL.

Ah, all these are surmisings and nonplans...the extrapolation machine going strong, the wishes and longings fuelling it, and who knows, maybe it'll happen, but not until I pay several things off and head to Bali in the meantime. Perhaps in a year or so, if at all.

I am not meant for caffeine! This heart, it is moving strangely.

My house has had no heat for approximately a week. There was another snowfall last night. It is no shocking change of temperature to go from In to Out, although perhaps a bit of a breeze makes a difference in the Outside.

Perhaps I deigned to reflect slightly on this past year, and slightly also on this year to come...reluctantly, since it is the done thing and I'm rather full of abhorrence for done things (even if theyre actually good for me to do, thus this is sometimes a crutch). In one year, I have gone from being cracked open (as they say Ari was there to do for me), to being blown inside out and back again in some new form, quite unlike the girl-lady of last year. I've reflected on my journals of even the recent past, and nearer past, and the far past, too, but even in the near past I see a very different person than this one who is writing now, and it's remarkable to me the scope of innershapeshiftandgrowth that's occurred from then to now. I believe I committed myself to some path of remarkable inner searching and growth early on in this recently passed year, and it feels like something true and huge really did happen. And I feel like this unfolding year will hold EVEN MORE of that sort of occurrance for me. Something huge is happening. Something huge is always happening. Shows and shows and shows and HEARTS. I'm going to fucking bathe in a pool of hearts. The cut up child drawing kind, not the bloody pumping kind. And in reality, the invisible metaphorical sort that just mean love all over the place, and good things in general. Very good flavours.

These eyes, they are closing, and these fingers and mind keep rambling. This stomach, it gurgles with too much drugged tea, and my toesies are cold. My hair has re-reddened, my skin is once again clown-white free, and if I take off my hat, I will look like a bedraggled witch of my childhood imagination. Thank the sweater that fits like a dress, thank the heart that loves like it should, I'm going to bed. Perhaps sleep will quiet the inconstant beat of my caffeine-riddled heart.

And thank you for indulging me my midnight ramblings. Hum hum hum.

The darkest day of the year was nary a week ago, is it foolhardy and false to say that I feel the light coming back already? Perhaps pre-emptive, as there are months before the warmth comes back...although I've sunbathed in March before. I feel a warmth coming, regardless. I've just spent a week with my family over Christmas, and have NEVER in my LIFE been so happy to be back in my own home with my cats and roommates, laughter and fullness in the kitchen and living areas, my room and space a joy to rearrange and re-re-redecorate; thinking of the coming months of change and work, welcoming a great and anticipated shift in my lifestyle (ever moving towards love, and more love!) and living space; more shows to be in, and reconnecting with my good friends in the Downtown Eastside who make me feel so much myself! I went with my mother to a nursing home to visit an old family friend, and the minute I was in an environment where I could connect with people who REALLY NEEDED some valid communication, as well as interacting with people in various states of physical and mental wellness, I immediately shifted from familyresentmentpattern to Meris, myself, helper of people and open heart to those who need it. It felt ENLIVENING! And it made me very excited that I'll be able to return to work in a few weeks. I will take these last days to meditate and prepare for what is shaping up to be a very eventful and portentous year. I, for one, am ecstatic and electric, waiting for all that is to come.

I sit in my living room as I write this, facing a booknook which holds many a good read and my childhood rockingchair (child-sized, but I still fit in it). My lap has had one cat ousted by and for the other one, and I have been able to write this while conversing with my good Jennifer Aird (human) as she held little jennifer aird (cat). There are paintings on the wall, fabrics on the ceiling, and instruments all about. Jazz music is playing right in my face. There are some clothes that need to be put in the dressup trunk, but it's currently supporting a small pile of art supplies (including paisley ribbon) which I'm a bit loathe to move at the moment. I'm going to toddle back up to my castle-room, and rummage a bit more through some things, feeling finally and very much at home in this home that holds so many. I look forward to the times of sun that are inevitably approaching, with their steps now coming back this way, after the halfway point between darkness and light on the other side of the world; times when I will pick the wild strawberries in my garden, and bring them to my lover as I wake him with the news of another beautiful day.

Yes indeed, I have been daydreaming...

there is a site i've been shown that creates word collages. you can either type in a random assortment of words, or link to a website, and it will create this collage. the more a word appears on a website, the larger it will appear in the collage. here is the one for this here b-log:


http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/408457/nostalgie

it's my tune for you's!

things i have never done before that i have done this week:
-pierced my nose
-ate space cheese
-talked about heart things that scared me so much, and still be heard and accepted
-painted a mediumlarge canvas
-successfully
-felt -30c temperatures
-and had my scarf accumulate frost
-reread my journals from europe
-decided to accept that self, too
-improv'd many a character with my lover
-intentionally put a trace on a moment for TIME TRAVEL PURPOSES
-made sugar cookies about africa


things i have done before, but are important, and i like to do, that i did this week:
-been scared and then fearless and then scared and then fearless
-clowned on purpose
-holotropic breathing
-biokinetic release breathing
-loved til i cried and then loved til i laughed and then loved til i turned all the colours at once
-realised that ive grown


this all said, i am driving home from calgary through the rockies into the heart of a giant snowstorm (again, snowstorm! oy vey!)...that is, if my rideshare person isn't dead due to driving conditions and is still willing to drive back to BC. if we go, i think i may pray for my life while concurrently playing the jaw harp and cackling. if we go, we may fall into a chasm. i love the word chasm.

what is difficult, right now:
-having bid lover farewell for what may be 6-8 weeks, yet still spending one more daynight in his house, knowing im scheduled to leave mere hours before he returns. my peace says "wonderful!". my insidelittelgirl says "wahhhhhhhhhhhh". it has manifested in me in vigorous pacings and changings of direction in the kitchen, seeming as though i'm not able to make a decision which direction to head in, and then swinging my arms and exclaiming "gah!", and then breathing some. "at least we know to miss our water before the well has gone dry."

may the well never run dry!

i went to shawn's house
what did we do?
we made a paisley cake
it took a day, or two.

other activities were also included in this visit.

ive been having an ongoing conversation, held in installments, with a close personal friendlover of mine, spurred by recent events in our lives and recent evolutions in our relationship. it SEEMS like these are specific to us, and to our story...ah, but they always do. we've been thinking, and some thinking has helped us both come to a realisation that i honestly think will help us be able to see better in the future...see ourselves, and see each other, and as i thanked him for (since he "led" the epiphany, so to speak), bring a greater clarity to all those times stuff DIDNT work in past relationships, and help me (at the very least) to see better in future ones. and i have to write it and share it, or i'll forget about it, and it will all be lost to the wind and worthless.

first, my personal story with the battle of need:
there was a time in my past...maybe some of the longest of you livejournal friends remember it (woe!)(no, it's me, dammit, love!), when i was so overcome with a need for that one person in my life and the things they provided/actions they did, blinded by it, and completely unable to realise when those things i needed were, in fact, being fulfilled, so stuck was i on the notion of them being eternally unfulfilled. i can, of course, see now that they had much more to do with my father and things that he'll never fulfill and those needs being transferred onto a lover, but at the time i was completely unable to realise that. the ultimate impact from those frozen needs being repeatedly "unfulfilled" was the loss of that lover in my life...not just the loss of his love, but of any willing contact and good standing in his eyes.

of course, we all know this story well.

this has left me with a hurt and a fear from this time, and i think it's one that many of us may struggle with. it's a quiet one (though far from silent), and insidious, and, well, mean. any time i feel a need, rational or irrational, it tells me that it's not a worthwhile need. it's the voice that tells you not to go ask someone for help when you're sick, because you dont want to "bug" them. or even something as simple as asking for the time...the point being that it doesnt want to "bug" anyone. because at whatever point in our formative stages, us needing something "bugged" someone else, and we keep with us the message that having needs inconveniences other people, and that there would be a negative impact on ourselves. it is hard when we get into cycles where our needs are irrational, and i touch on that later.

as per my last post (i realise im writing in an academic fashion right now...i cant do otherwise. wait--i cannot do otherwise), im sick right now. the hardest part of being sick for me is needing your mom...or, like, a caretaker. someone to make you soup while youre still asleep, wake you up, make you eat it even if you dont feel like it, draw your bath for you, take you to the doctor, and give you a forehead or back rub, without having to ask for it. that's a part i love about mothering so much (friends or children, whatever), because i know how good it feels to have people there for me to do it. i realise that not everyone feels the same way...although i finally FINALLY gave in and realised that many people are happy to help, you just have to ask. so i finally asked, feeling wretched for doing it, feeling deeply in my inner bits that i was doing something WRONG, inherently wrong (!), and asked a friend for a ride to the doctor and back. she was happy to help! i wept, honestly. and lying in bed trying to fall asleep, wracked once more with "need", i came to a peace with it. these needs were for all the people i love who werent there (best friends, lovers, mom) that i knew i could call (although knew it wouldnt help in the end since they couldnt be there in real life) to be present and helping me...and then the voice that was like "no, youre being needy, youre being irrational, remember what happened the last time, remember how you ruined the relationship with brendan because you needed needed needed all the time, youre worthless, etc etc etc", this horrible strong voice that comes in, full of fear and judgement...and then this WONDERFUL, STRONGER voice stood up and said, "you're sick, sick people need care. there is nothing wrong with you needing care, and wanting it. let yourself need, once youre better, you will be whole again". it approved of my state, and asked me to come to peace with it. so i did. ah! and the fever dreams (the fever breaking dreams) were filled with people who loved me (and i couldnt tell who they were, but one was holding a staff adorned with a single paisley pickle on top which she would shake with joy, every time i roused), and they were just there, watching, supporting, and waiting for me to get better. i awoke feeling much improved (though far from well....but still).

and then the conversation:
the question has been: what is it that allows us to see each other better at the start of a relationship than further into it, when things become clouded, and when expectations pop up? granted, perhaps a large number of people dont know each other at all when they first start being together, but please, bear with me and the model that ive experienced more often than not, which is the ability to truly see the essence of a person far better when we're first becoming very close, and then have that become more difficult to see as time goes on. i think a lot of people may say that we "get to know the true colours of someone as time goes on", or something to the effect that we learn peoples' bad habits and things about them that actually bug us that we didnt see at the start because we were so utterly blinded by the sparkles of love in our eyes. i think this is partially true some of the time. also, people change. yes, i agree, and i think our own values evolve too. i think it's wonderful and natural, though certainly not painless, to evolve away from someone if we're meant to, if our core values become so dissonant over time. i also think that we as people, as our essence, perhaps change less than our own lense through which we see these people we love. i think that we are inherently flexible and adaptable to circumstances and change of our close personal environment. we keep friends for decades, and both parties change drastically. i have loved my best friends to the same degree that i have loved lovers, and truly the only thing that was differing the two relationships were the expectations we had from the people we were close to.

and so this continuing conversation with my businesspartnerfriendlover has touched on expectation, and the notion of request and demand. it has considered earlier stages of a relationship compared to later ones. his epiphany was that when we first are becoming close to someone we love, a large part of why we are so attracted to them and want them in our lives is because they naturally, of their own joyous volition, do certain things and are certain ways that satisfy some deep place within ourselves. we, in turn, must be doing the same for them. we dont ask, we dont even consider questioning these parts of them, they are just there, they are them, they are the things that make them sacred to us...or just damn awesome to be around. at some point, these things become identified as a "need", and certainly become expected. if they dont spontaneously occur again, one party may request or demand them (honey, you used to always do this for me, now you never do), and resent the fact that they dont occur anymore. the other party will resent the fact that theyre being requested, and resentment is the least healthy soil to grow spontaneous and heartfelt action from. there could be multitudinous reasons that said actions or traits have diminished or disappeared: fatigue, personal matters, change in schedule, work, health, whatever. the fact that spontaneous and freely-given parts of one's personality become taken for granted or even expected, i think, is one of the worst ways we can dishonour someone's existence in our lives. taking their very existence for granted, even.

i wish to, and strive to be able to honour everyone's state and self in whatever incarnation it's in, and to be constantly conscious of the fact that they could stop existing any moment. nobody is mine to control, or to ask to be other than what they are in this moment. nothing will ever go backwards. there is no "back to the way it was", and holy moly me, i do believe i am just now rejecting the notion of nostalgia. my dear livejournal, you have outlived yourself.

hurrah!
i love!

im trying to burn this fever outta me. the body cooperates well with artificially induced fever. fever!

my kitten moans in her sleep when i touch her the same way i do when touched in sleep. oh love. i want her to sleep with me, but alas, she has fleas.

i kinda like how fevers render one semi delerious. my breath is hot on my upper lip.

i still find myself inclined to write in a paper log than spill my guts on the internet. learned behaviour from past trauma of doing that very thing? verily, indeed!

-listening to schumann's piano quartet in Eb, andante movement...fucking rad.
-want to paint my floor paisley. after we rip up the carpet.
-covered my cats in flea spray. i feel awful.
-just awful (for having to hold them down and spray poison)
-the fleas abandonned ship, hid themselves better than osama binladen, or died in the process
-just arrived home from a whirlwind, impulse-driven, heartfuelled trip to calgary
-best damn idea i ever did have
-worth being poor as shit for
-meepa is licking poison
-eggs and toast, please
-i have rarely, if ever, felt this confident in a thing that involved more than just myself
-funny how our societal conditioning makes us worry about...well...fuckin everything, when it's not worth it, or even...relevant!
-what ifs=not worth one's time
-vancouver is warm
-calligraphy, please

i want to record everything that did appear before mine eyne, but in a paper format. this journal has become too frivolous, methinks. at least for this.

-ach

lovelvoelvoekavldjfasd



love

She was starved. Her food had disappeared in the mid-afternoon grey, and by bedtime the look she gave me was strikingly hungry, and very confused. Why, all of a sudden, wasn't there food? But look, it's just in there, in the cupboard, you know very well where it is, why can't I have it? she plainly communicated. My children are hungry, too, and I can only feed them so long at my breast without sustenance for myself. I looked at her with words that said no, and a face that said I'm so sorry. This mother, this skilled mother who let me raise eight of her children with her, was to be made sterile the next day, and this too she did not know, nor why. She is by nature and by nurture a wild woman, never have the cold hands of a doctor pried open her mouth or looked in her eyes. No needle nor stamp has ever touched her skin. She is herself, she knows her name, and she belongs to no one...but she chooses to be with me. She has shown me her capacity to mother, and her capacity for humanity...which is to say for caring for other beings beyond pure animal instinct.

She is my cat, Meepa, and I once saved her from inhospitable confines to give her a safe and healthy home in which to raise her children, and now I have stolen her ability to ever have them again. Not only that, but in the same day, while her belly was being cut open to remove her womb, her second child of three left the house, to a good home. The last is staying with us, to everyone's joy.

She came to me fearful and trusting no one, and I have earned her trust, finally. We have communicated as best as two animals who have no common language can, and she has let me care for her babies, and her. I can't help but feel that I have betrayed her, all at once, like a landslide. If she were some ordinary cat, comfortable in their felinity and completely indifferent to us or our actions, it would have been a simple spaying. But in Meepa, I have seen her capacity to learn and adapt, and it is unlike any other pet I have seen. Pet even seems like the wrong label for her. She knows her name, and responds to it. Sure, dogs do it too. She learned to use her hands. This is where I first started to realise that she was an above-ordinary cat. A bowl full of sauce I put down for her to lick, and she did for a while...but the last bits, at the deepest part of the bowl, she reached in with her paw, and licked it clean, over and over. She then walked to her water bowl, dipped her front feet in to wash them, and shook them dry. She uses these hands effectively. She guided her kittens with them, when they were smaller and less independent, the same way I will put my arm around a child as we walk. "Stay close, don't walk on the edge of the sidewalk". She gathers things to her with these hands. She will hit me with them if she doesnt like what I'm doing. Not scratch or bat, mind you. No claws, and not cat-like. She will hit me the same way I would hit you, if I were to do so.

And so, when I put her in a small carrying case to take her to be spayed, I apologised. When they put her in a cage to wait, when she looked at me with so much confusion, I apologised. When I brought her disoriented self home, she demanded first food, and then where her other baby was. Gone, Meepa. Not here. I apologised. She spent the whole night and all of today calling for him, looking in his favourite hiding spots, under and around every corner and piece of furniture.

It seems absurd, to one part of me, to personify a cat so much. She is not aware, necessarily, that her ability to have children has been taken from her, and doubtful she will ever want to have them again. Those are my morals that I am projecting on her. Were it not for her obvious above-average intelligence and awareness, I wouldn't consider doing so, even. But this darling creature, living once in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, had come to trust me in the home of peace I have provided her. And in twenty-four hours, I stole her food, her child, and her ability to procreate. Perhaps she can't feel the more complicated emotions of blame or bitterness. Doubtful she associates me with more than the confusing and temporary lack of food, and putting her in the strange box to take her to the strange place, where she later woke up dazed and in pain. But I see a mother's pain, and I know my own part in it, and as much as it is for a higher good, it kept me up all night, as she miauled around the house, crying for her baby.

Perhaps, then, I will feel these higher emotions for her. If only for now. When her pain stops, I will let it stop, too.