On Being a Poet

“To be a poet is to place pleasure, beauty and sensual delights front and centre, it means having a predilection for debauchery.”
― Nicole Brossard

“I have a dark and dreadful secret. I write poetry.”
― Stephen Fry

“...who shall measure the heat and violence of a poet's heart when caught and tangled in a woman's body?”
― Virginia Woolf

“They say that I am a poet. I wonder what they would say if they saw me from the inside. I bottle emotions and place them into the sea for others to un-bottle on distant shores. I am unsure as to whether they ever reach and for that matter as to whether I ever get my point across or my love.”
― Saul Williams

“...poets, and people with mental health disorders, can make people nervous.”
― Ian Sansom

“You see, I am a poet, and not quite right in the head, darling. It’s only that.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
― W.H. Auden

Dear Reader,

If you’re really there, especially you, the girl who often feels as I do, who struggles and falls, and feels oh-so-foolish... who dreams and hopes and works really hard... if you’re really there, you are the one who keeps me honest and raw.  You remind me that I can’t sugar coat my struggles, because that wouldn’t be fair.  You give me hope that my vulnerability will encourage someone, somewhere, if you’re reading here.  I began this post weeks ago, wanting to share what it's like to love a girl like me. And tonight, it's going a different direction than I originally planned. It will be emotional and messy.  I hope it makes sense enough to be worth reading.  Because tonight, I really, really need to write it, for my own heart.  

On Being a Poet

He calls me his Poet; I think it started because Ephemera was an unfamiliar word, and difficult to spell.  I didn’t mind at first, and now, it makes me feel cherished.  He praises my “poet heart” and expresses his love for my passion and emotion, and I am in awe.

Being a poet is probably no more difficult, or simple, than anything else, but I don’t really know.  I’ve only ever been who I am, and from a very young age, I loved language, and my love-language was language.  I have always been passionate, emotional and deep feeling, I have longed to be known deeply and understood deeply.  I did spend many years in my teens and twenties... and lets face it, in my thirties and forties... trying to tone down the passion and emotion, feeling I was too much, difficult to love, and overwhelming if I let down my guard and shared what I was really feeling deep down.  I still carry the scars of those messages that made me withdraw, and close off my full emotions.  I’m learning slowly, how to heal them, how to trust.  For the first time in decades I have felt safe - to not hold back with him.  My “too much” was celebrated instead of disdained.

He has always reminded me that he loves me just as I am... and needs a poet... this poet... in his life.  This year, she has done the same - writing to me, and verbally reminding me that though the parts of me that are mother, grandmother, friend, partner and even little girl are treasured and admired, what captured her heart was my passion and my poet-heart.  I am loved, wanted, needed, desired, cherished and celebrated.  This I know - deep down.

I am also messy, I struggle with emotion and depression, and am challenged by conflicts and insecurities when it comes to the practical stuff.  I battle with hopes and disappointments, with fears and flaws.  I know I’m not the only one.  I want to be clear that I’ve not been made to feel that I am the only one.  Still, lately I’ve been feeling my own struggles acutely.  I can acknowledge and celebrate that in the past year, much has changed, and I am abundantly blessed.  I have worked very hard, and have grown, we all three have.  I’ve also had occasion...several occasions... to have my flaws and insecurities uncovered.  I have been selfish, and unthinking, and I have had my share of failures.  I am not as good at this complex, poly, triad, long-distance, juggling, communicating, handling disappointment and staying positive thing as I would like to be.

Right now, we three are battle weary.

And I feel guilty.

It is very hard, resisting the urge to backspace over those four words and hide behind the rest of them... because tonight those four words are my difficult truth.  It is how I feel. I have more hard questions than easy answers, and though I am trying to make repairs, I don’t yet see how. I see the cost to the ones I love, and my heart is breaking.  

And that part about not seeing how  is not entirely true, because I have been listening, and I know that “next time” I will do some things differently.  I have learned some things from the words and tears we’ve shared.  I don’t have all the answers, but I do have some, and I am trying, oh how I am trying. I am not the only one who is learning as we go.  We each are fallible, and battling insecurities.  We each struggle with communication, and conflicts.  We are in this together, and our love for each other makes us strong, and motivates us to do this better.  We are all trying.

But we are so weary, and sore.

I feel so very much like I can only cling to this half-built raft, and rest while a storm of life keeps blowing. I can only keep repeating that I trust the love we share, and I am sorry for the hurt I’m causing in my struggle.  I can only keep reaching out to pull closer to those I love, those who love me, and keep believing in us.  I can only remind myself, every day, several times a day, to be grateful, and say thank you, again and again and again.

Soon, I will feel stronger, and so will he and she.  Soon we will sort out how to improve our building process, and I will learn to not tear down as we go.  This I believe.  And so, I will listen, and I will give, and I will be grateful.  I will try to communicate, and to trust.  I will not close part of my my poet-heart, even a little, out of fear.  And I will learn to be stronger, and find resources to help me grow and change.  Because though I feel guilty and weary, I have been so very happy, and am learning that happy is my own responsibility.  I will reach out for help, and choose gratitude, and practice the things I’m learning until I get it right.

And this makes me feel a little better than I did when I sat down to write.  

Being a poet is a messy business.  I am not sure I do it well.  But I am willing to work for as long as it takes, to admit my failures and apologize, to change my habits, and try new solutions.  I am willing to seek wisdom outside of my circle, outside of my family.  I am willing to do the hard work, because I love my partners more than this poet can find words to express.

Thank you, Reader, for listening, and sharing my road for a while.

She Loves Me with Coffee

          Maybe kissing is sort of like nature's coffee.

                                    Scott Westerfeld, Midnighters: Blue Noon, 2005


                                  “I'd rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
                                    ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
-- T. S. Eliot 

“Hydrogenated and androgynous milky white love is all I have to offer you. Would you like me to pour it in your coffee, or directly into your soul?
” 
― Jarod Kintz, The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They're Over.

“Coffee and love taste best when hot” 

― African Proverb

“Life is a beautiful and endless journey in search of the perfect cup.”
― Barbara A. Daniels


--------------------

Dragonfly Girl drinks tea. I love tea, I drink it when I’m writing, or when I’m at work and it’s cold, and the coffee in the pot is old enough to become bitter... but in the morning, I love a slightly sweet, very creamy cup of coffee. There’s something about sunrise that tea just can’t handle, for me. Coffee is my morning friend.

But this post isn’t about coffee...it’s about love.

I am in love with a beautiful woman -- and she loves me.

I confess, I just spent a few minutes staring at that sentence. I never expected to find myself writing those words. Although I’m attracted to curves and softness and... yeah... I am...I didn’t set out with some agenda to dabble in the fairer sex or to find a relationship with a woman. I definitely didn’t plan to seduce or be seduced by the woman who loves my Sir... I didn’t plan at all outside of planning to know and support her relationship with him as if it were my own. I know neither of us planned beyond that. We simply trusted --- and love happened.

I’ve been quiet for a few months when it comes to blogging, unable to write. Work has been busy; family life has been crazy; my cup of love has been spilling over -- down my blouse, onto the sofa and the carpet --- staining my life with rich, deep color.

Perhaps I should take a few minutes to explain the details:

In short, Husband and I are well, happy and healthy. We celebrate 18 years of marriage this month. Shepherd and I are happy and healthy too. We celebrated two years last June. Dragonfly Girl and I have been happily exploring our relationship slowly, letting it unfold on its own, since last February. Also, she, Shepherd and I are discovering the joys of an “equilateral polyamorous triad” relationship.

Wow, those are loaded words. Let me offer a definition: “[A]n equilateral polyamorous triad means a total relationship -- social, emotional and sexual -- between all three partners in that triad relationship.” (source) I’m not gonna linger long on this subject, because that’s not the point of this post, but since I haven’t written in a while, I think it’s important to clarify. I am a poly girl in four different “primary” relationships with three people:

1. Ephemera and Husband (committed, forever partnership)
2. Ephemera and Shepherd (committed, forever partnership)
3. Ephemera and Dragonfly Girl (committed, forever partnership)
4. Ephemera / Shepherd / Dragonfly Girl (committed, forever, triad partnership)

In my life, each of these partners and each of our relationships is vital. No other relationships come before them. I love deeply, fully, and daily -- and my full energy goes into each, and in those terms, there are no secondary relationships in my heart or life. Yes, I am the crazy girl who fell in love with two people who live a whole state away. But we work really hard to make it work, and it’s worth it.

Detailed explanation addressed.

Now back to the coffee.

I first met Dragonfly Girl in a coffee shop. I believe she had tea. Shepherd introduced me to her shortly after they started dating, saying she might be someone really important in his life, and since we are openly poly, of course, he would like us to meet. I was nervous. It wasn’t easy. To be honest, I was afraid that since Sir had finally found a girl who lived nearby, he wouldn’t need one who lived 251 miles away. I could tell by his smile when he spoke of her that he was so very in love, and I was really feeling the distance. All my insecurities were running rampant. I will tell you this, as I sat down to breakfast with the two of them that morning, I was struck by two things. She has the most amazing smile, it lights up a room! She was gracious and genuine and sweet. and the only word that I could think of, both watching her with him, and each time she included me in the conversation, was that love spilled out of this woman in such great quantities there was no way the world around her couldn’t see it.

Several months later, at the height of a very difficult transition in our lives, Dragonfly Girl came to my home town to visit family. She took time out during that weekend to meet me for coffee and we talked for hours. She was incredible, beautiful and accepting. She shared with me about how important family was in her life, and how she needed me to be a part of her family forever. She had been defending me and lovingly standing up for me for weeks, against someone who wanted me to be ejected and excluded from Shepherd’s life. She insisted, on my behalf, that people are not interchangeable parts. Sitting there in that coffee shop, I was reminded again of what I’d seen months before in spite of my fear and insecurity. This beautiful woman was the real deal --- she lived love.

And she loves me.

Last month, I spent a weekend with my Dragonfly Girl, just the two of us. She met me at the airport looking so incredibly beautiful I couldn’t breathe. She’d dressed up just for me. I don’t know why but that thought makes me teary-eyed. She took me to dinner, a real Friday night-date, and we talked non-stop, holding hands across that table, sharing our hearts and our lives with each other. Sometimes I close my eyes and I’m right there again. The conversation continued, in the car on the way home... back in the cottage where we curled up in her bed and whispered into the night, kissing shyly. Both of us were sharing our hearts, speaking words of love and reassurance the other needed to hear. We talked until she fell asleep, and I laid there watching her smile in her dreams. It was amazing.

The next morning, she made me coffee.

She made a delicious breakfast, and we talked and talked and talked. We’d planned to go to the spa, and the balloon festival, and we didn’t even get out of our pajamas. We just poured our hearts into each other, and then later we ordered pizza, and laughed and cried and talked, and held hands, and kissed and talked... until we fell asleep again.

The next morning, she made me coffee.

Since it was Sunday, we did get dressed. We met Shepherd for church, and then brunch, and then dragged him back to the cottage to cuddle and talk some more... and before the day was done, they both made love to me. It was a perfect day. Shepherd left us alone that evening, and went back to his condo so she and I could have some time. After some more heart-sharing and cuddles, I fell asleep in Dragonfly Girl’s arms, with happy tears on my cheeks. For a poet girl, that’s pretty close to heaven. My flight was too-awful-early on Monday morning, and she didn’t mind driving me to the airport.

--- after she made me coffee.

Leaving was as hard as it’s ever been. But I made the most of every moment, and didn’t cry too much until I was alone at the gate. I flew home, drove straight to work, and headed in to my desk. On the way in I passed by the kitchen, as I always do, and I could smell the coffee in the pot. The aroma made me smile --- because she loves me with coffee.

Follow your hearts, and keep your feet, Travelers!

Looking Glass

A year passed away, and the King took another wife. She was very beautiful, but so proud and haughty that she could not bear to be surpassed in beauty by anyone. She possessed a wonderful mirror which could answer her when she stood before it and said - "Mirror, mirror upon the wall, Who is the fairest of all?"

- Snow White, Grimm’s Fairy Tales

“Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through--” She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass WAS beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. - Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll (Chapter 1)

Mirror, mirror upon the wall...

Oh, wait. Wrong fairy tale.

For some reason I identify more readily with the girl in Lewis Carroll’s tales.

“I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully confusing!"
"That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly: "it always makes one a little giddy at first." - Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, (Chapter 5)

You may know her best from her adventures in Wonderland, where she was curiouser and curiouser, quite imaginative, overly polite, a bit mischievous, often brave and far too gullible. In the Looking Glass story, her imagination opens the mirror over the mantle and she slips through into a backwards, opposite, nonsensical world.

I’ve been fascinated with that opposite side of a mirror for quite some time, perhaps since I was a very small girl. In the past few years, I’ve been that girl chasing the rabbit, falling down the rabbit hole, wandering in a world that was magical and unbelievable, frightening and fantastic. And in the recent months, I’ve had several magical encounters with mirrors that weeks later still hold my attention, fast.

Shepherd has been consistently good about being my mirror, he reminds me who I am and what I want, he celebrates me. Husband is beginning to be a sort of mirror for me too, he is seeing me differently, and I catch an occasional glimpse in his eyes, even the Dragonfly Girl is beginning to be a mirror for me of what it’s like for someone else to love Shepherd as I do. She loves me too, and that’s too magical for words yet. Recently we spent another weekend together, She, Shepherd and I, and at one point in the hotel room, the three of us met in crossing before the mirror, and embraced one another. The love I saw in the reflection filled me with wonder, and so many of the fears and insecurities built up over the past months melted away. In that mirror that keeps reflecting me, I see a woman who is valued, loved and wanted. I am surrounded by love, and I truly believe that feeling that love, seeing that love, trusting that love on the inside, makes me more beautiful on the outside.

There’s more though; isn’t there always?

I’m growing, changing. It’s not just about the emotional growth, though for me that’s a huge part of it lately. I am also changing as a person, in terms of what I like, what I enjoy. I recently stood before a mirror for a scene with Sir. I was restrained, I was beribboned, and I my eyes were wide with a mixture of adrenaline and wonder while he traced my flesh with the blade of a knife. I watched the light glint off of the blade in that glass reflection. I watched my breathing quicken, then stop, then spill out in a rush. I watched his hands, steady and slow, a matching glint in his eyes, and the smile that tugged at the corners of his mouth. I watched that same smile draw gently at my lips. It was a strange and wonderful thing to both feel our energy, and watch it reflected in the mirror, as though through an outsider’s eyes. I saw many thing that night in Sir, that did not really surprise me. I saw in him love and desire, and the hunger of the Wolf I know. I saw in me something fairly new. I’m not sure it’s a surprise, but it is a change. It’s the evidence that I’ve grown and am learning myself better. I saw a woman more comfortable in my ‘wild’ skin than I’ve ever been, more sure of what she wants, what her appetites are, and what she might want to explore in the future.

Mirror, Mirror upon the wall...

I used to avoid mirrors. I didn’t like the reflection I saw there. It confused me, it disappointed me, it didn’t fit with who or what I thought I wanted to be, needed to be, to find my happiness. But I’ve learned from the me I see reflected in the eyes of those who really see and celebrate me. I am lovely. I am alluring, attractive, and appealing. I am sexy, and good and real. Sometimes I gaze for long moments into the eyes of that pretty, awkward, giddy girl staring back at me. We share a secret, she and I. It’s there, twinkling in her eyes and tugging at the corner of her smile. Sometimes she simply nods back at me, “I know... soon.” Other times, she smirks mischievously, and crooks her finger, inviting me to escape into the magical world on her side of the glass.

There really is a wonderland, on the other side of that mirror, where this Poet is loved and celebrated for being emotional, creative, passionate and polyamorous. There is a place filled with twisted and kinky fun and incredibly spiritual and moving power-exchange. There is a family there waiting, my family who loves me, wants me, and can’t wait to see me again. And when I do escape to their world, they will play and cuddle and tease and love me. They will honor me, include me, and celebrate me. They will bundle me up in love and send me back to this world when it’s time, filled with all the memories and knowledge of their love. And they honor every part of who I am in this world, mother, wife, daughter, sister...they love the girl on both sides of the mirror.

And you know what? So do I.