Everybody Heals with Love

we have fallen down again tonight
in this world it's hard to get it right
trying to make your heart fit like a glove
what it needs is love, love, love

everybody, everybody wants to love
everybody, everybody wants to be loved

happy is the heart that still feels pain
darkness drains and light will come again
swing open up your chest and let it in
just let the love, love, love begin

everybody knows the love
everybody holds the love
everybody folds for love
everybody feels the love
everybody steals the love
everybody heals with love

-- Everybody - written by Ingrid Michaelson

(stripped down from the song lyrics)

youtube video

-----

"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is.”
- Gary Zukav

-----

“She's got a smile that heals me
I don't know why it is
But I have to laugh when she reveals me.”
- Billy Joel

-----

“Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.”
- Novalis

-----

Sometimes relationships hurt.  Relationships where there are more than two people involved are no different in that they can hurt, they can leave scars, they can be really, really difficult to manage.

Sometimes in a polyamorous configuration one relationship ends, and the fallout, the pain, the scars and the aftermath of that breaking apart process can hurt more than just that one relationship.  Sometimes wounds go deep, and translate into pain and insecurity that continues to spread out beyond the original source.

I have always written honestly on this blog, because this is my journey, and writing the truth helps me find the road, and make sense of the map.  I have been silent though, about many things, out of respect.  Things that were too painful to write about.  Things that came out of hurts caused by others in my love-life and my extended-love-life.  The past year has been so very messy for me.  Truth be told, messy is nothing new, but this messy has been a painful, frightening, overwhelming kind of messy that has caused everyone involved - at one time or another - to consider what it would be like to either lose everything or walk away.  

I don't know if I've been completely clear here about my family structure, though there are bits and pieces.  I won't draw the whole 'white-board' diagram, and I certainly won't include all the pieces, but for the sake of this post, there are three central players and one secondary one who I might never mention again after this post.  When I met Shepherd, he was the primary partner of Sheperdess. A year after he and I met and began a secondary relationship, he began a secondary relationship with Dragonfly Girl.  Today, Sheperdess is no longer part of our lives.  In the midst of all this turmoil, we've fought for each other, and battled our own scars and insecurities.  

For me, one of the hardest things about it all has been feeling disconnected. I am a whole state away from everyone else in this family.  Much of the communication on my end is brief -- text messages, emails, second-hand conversations.  This is just a product of the distance, and the limits when it comes to time and nearness, or the lack thereof.  It also comes from the fact that we are all still learning.  We have weaknesses, personal challenges, we are scarred and wounded, in our own ways.  Making space for others to fail and be human, to need forgiveness and patience... this is something I want so badly for us, and something I find sometimes very hard to do. I get hurt.  I get emotional.  I cry and feel insecure, and too intense, like I'm asking for too much, or expressing too much raw feeling.  Shepherd calls it my poet heart.  To me it's a blessing and a curse.

Over the past several weeks, and especially the week that led to our most recent weekend together, that communication issue led to some words and tears and frustration.  -- It turns out that that weekend became a shared one between the three of us.  Once the misunderstanding was cleared up, and we let our guard down, it was a great opportunity to hang out and enjoy family, to get to know each other better, and plan for the future. We met at a local bed and breakfast in my hometown -- a lovely turn of the century home, with a spacious room that had two beds.  We talked, and planned and laughed and cried. We filled that room with love, and healing.

I know that my own jealousy is rooted in insecurity.  I am a poly girl.  I have loved many.  I do love many, I will love many.  It's how my heart is made.  But my insecurity is.  It just is.  I am growing, learning, becoming less insecure... and yet, I still feel it sometimes.  There has never been a time when I saw Shepherd being affectionate with another woman -- particularly those with whom he shares or has shared a committed relationship -- when I did not feel a twinge in my core, a feeling of anxiety and discomfort.  I have always chosen my response.  I've reminded myself that I love Shepherd, and that I particularly love his capacity to love others.  I have chosen to be happy that others are there, in his life, committed to love him in a way or time or place that I cannot.  I have chosen to celebrate his loves, to support them, to encourage them, and to  work to foster a feeling of trust and safety, of family and respect among his loves.  I think it's very common that poly people feel this twinge, and choose how to handle it. Perhaps compersion is just a happy feeling that some people feel naturally... but for me, compersion is a choice.

I stated moments ago that I have never not felt that twinge when seeing Shepherd share affection with another.  It is true.  It was true.  Until our most recent weekend.  Surrounded by such intense love, acceptance and affection, I kissed Dragonfly girl.  It was unexpected.  It wasn't spur of the moment.  I chose, after thinking through what it might mean and what it might lead to.  I felt safe, comfortable, eager to express affection and yes, curiosity.  I kissed her, and she kissed me.  And it was amazing.  We did fill that room with love and healing.  We shared a love that didn't belong to any one, or two of us.  We shared something that up to this point had been separate parts of a whole.  The lines blurred, and love flooded me, flooded us.

Some of the most amazing moments came when tangled up in the same bed I could lean in and kiss Dragonfly girl tenderly, and then gaze into her eyes with wonder and just over her shoulder see Shepherd's smile, the same wonder and joy in his eyes.  When he would reach for me, and touch me tenderly, then lean in and kiss her softly I felt it every time.  The kiss, the touch, the love.  There was no sense of someone else receiving affection and me being left out... I don't think anyone felt left out, except maybe Shepherd once in a while.  Writing that sentence makes me smile, because though Dragonfly girl and I both worried about him feeling a little disconnected from our exploration and discovery of each other, every time I looked at him he was grinning like a Cheshire.  Every time I looked at her, her smile lit up the room like a beacon.  I felt like I was fairly glowing with love and wonder.  It was something so amazing, so wonderful and so very unexpected that I am not sure I'll ever find the right words to describe what it was like.

I do know this...

I want to do it again, and again, and again.  Everybody heals with love.  Shepherd, Dragonfly Girl, me.  What we shared in that beautiful room this weekend was life-changing, and the healing still flows as we email, telephone and text each other in the days since.  There are no labels for it, no expectations, only love.Pure and simple, and incredible... for everybody.

(And I can't stop humming Katy Perry)
         

Follow your feet, and your hearts, travelers...

Into the Dark and Darker Woods

This post is a response to Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

-Robert Frost


Into your darkest corner, you are safe in my love, you are protected.
I am the openess you seek, I am your doorway.
Come sit in the circular temple of my heart, & let yourself be calm.
-Agapi Stassinopoulos


There is pleasure in the pathless woods...

-George Byron

Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities.-Dean Koontz, Midnight


“I trust only you and the dark always to look at me so honestly.”
-Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You

----------

Who am I?

I am a poet-girl with a raven spirit, who flew headlong into the sky, to find my freedom, and meet myself. I am a grateful dreamer, a child-of-the-wild-blue-yonder, with a big, roomy heart, and a hunger to know and love. I am both strong and weak, young and mature, confident and insecure, graceful and awkward, woman and child. I am a girl who at nineteen, found myself in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy, and spent the next two decades serving my family as mother, educator, wife and friend.

I loved that life, and chose it on purpose. I love my husband, children, grandchildren, and the life we've made. Yet, when my babies were grown and my life became my own again, I needed to stretch my wings and find the path that had always been mine alone. I have been trying to mind my steps and be thoughtful about where they lead me ever since.



I think I have always been a poly girl, though I did not always know it was possible to be so, nor did I have the words to describe or label what it meant. My heart craves people. I am fascinated with their stories, their lives, their emotions and their reasonings. I ache to know and be known. Being invited into someone's heart and their inner world feeds my heart in ways this word-girl can't even begin yet to describe. This journey to find others who crave what I do, has been rocky thus far. The path has been rough. I've been wounded and bruised and have had to learn to heal and be tough.

Enter the Wolf.

One day I decided it was time to go hunting. I felt alone, and alien, and my experiences with loving more than one had been so very painful. I knew I needed more, and so I went into the woods to find like minded beings who understood my need to know and be known. I found Him, and perhaps He was also hunting for me, and my life is forever changed.

He is not what you might expect. He's a Wolf and a Shepherd, fierce and gentle, dark and light, sadistic and loving, simple and complex. He works harder than any man I've ever met at loving those who are His pack. He makes mistakes, and makes amends, and He gets it right.  He fights for me. He is the man I trust with every part of who I am, and He celebrates me fully. He loves my darkness. He is my Wolf and my haven. He lives by the promise to hurt but do no harm. He includes me in his pack.

He includes me.

        I am welcome.
               I am wanted.
                          I belong.
I am at home in His woods, they are mine.



When the civilized world -- where darkness is a diversion locked away in boxes -- becomes too loud, too demanding too much to bear, I know I can come home to His woods and find that I have a place. There is a space in His heart and world only I can fill. I can escape to Him, and find my peace, my center, myself.

And so, I look to the future - into a new year - into a long life in His heart and at His side, and I know I belong to Him. He owns me, has earned my trust, and I am His ink-smudged poet-girl with the heart of a raven.  At his invitation, I will keep exploring. I will fly, I will hunt and play. I will grow and live and inspire words and wonder and the flight of others.

At the same time, I will forever be bound to His heart and life. Soon I will wear his collar, I will be tethered to Him as a bird to her Falconer, trusting Him to train me, care for me, protect me and love me. I hope to always make Him proud and happy He invited me in.

As he said, you are welcome in our forest. I know there are other girls out there like me, who long to find themselves in the dark and darker woods. I hope if you are that sort of girl, and you are reading here, you will be encouraged by my journey. There is a great big, off-the-beaten-path place for me, and for you. I hope you won't stop searching until you find it.

And mind your feathers and feet,

Letter to Self - Two

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
-Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, Alice in Wonderland.


"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
-John Lennon, Imagine


"I have a dream."
Martin Luther King, Jr.


"Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.""But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness."
"Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should."
-Max Ehrmann


"I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls."
-Anaïs Nin

----------

There are those in my life who encourage this "letters-to-self" idea. They remind me to be who I am, and to be gentle with myself as I keep growing. They don't let me get away with childishness, but they acknowledge my child-likeness. They are good people, good friends. I write this letter in response to their encouragement.

----------

Dear Self,

So, you’ve started, just a little, to believe in yourself again, haven’t you? I can tell, because you look different in the mirror -- more at peace with who you are. I know there are still unresolved issues and things you wrestle with and worry over. I know you still feel not quite normal, and a little ‘too much’. I see that too, when you look in the mirror. It hides around your eyes.

I want to remind you that the best way to find yourself loved and accepted is to be that awkward, romantic, creative and child-like person that you are. You cannot assume, or try to fit the imagined expectations of others. If you do not embrace being your true self, others will find you fake and insincere.

And, baby girl, you should never hide who you really are.

Others may find you naive, an idealistic dreamer, passionate, intense and child-like. I know that makes you want to focus on the negatives, because you remember being labeled a handful, and too much, and you know what it’s like to be left behind because being in a relationship with you took too much energy.

I want you to think about it from another angle though. I want you to imagine that the things others have said -- others who love you very, very much -- are all quite true. You are unique, amazing, growing, changing, passionate, loving, intense, creative, gifted, intelligent, beautiful, child-like, poetic, and loved for being all these things and more.

Your creativity has inspired those you love to be loving to others in little sentimental ways, and so they have been given a part of who you are by someone who loves you very much. You have been influential, and you have marked the hearts and lives of others in ways both memorable and good.

Yes, you are messy.
You are rough around the edges.
You don’t have it all together.

Remember, I told you I refuse to let you polish away everything until you are all perfect and boring? I meant that. You are not ‘normal’. You never have been. Since you were a very small child, you have been who you are. You are growing, changing, blooming, learning. But you have always been who you are on the inside.

That little girl desperately needs you to be true to her.
The men you love - and who love you - want you to be that girl.

So you keep growing, you keep learning. You deal with your insecurities, and you figure out new ways to belong to a family, and to make your relationships stronger. And when you fall, when you are scraped up and bruised because you were awkward and clumsy, you trust that those who have accepted you did so, knowing just who that little girl in you is. They accepted you, all of you, when you opened your heart to them.

Look again, into that mirror.

Keep your naive sense of wonder, and hold to your ideals - imagine, as Alice, five impossible things before breakfast!

Dream - as John Lennon dreamed, as Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed - and make those dreams a vibrant part of your reality.

Feed your passion and intensity - as Anais Nin was passionate and intense, so that others who share your world can do so joyfully.

Face each new day, each challenge and celebration like a child. “You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars -- you have a right to be here.” Dance, sing, laugh and love with the freedom of a child.

See that girl, staring back at you?

She loves you.
I love you.

-Me.

A Love Letter

He has been a sounding board.  He has listened as I cried, offered reassurance, told me I am not alone.  He has the heart of a knight, and somehow I have found in him, a dear friend.  He asked me yesterday to do him a favor, to write a love letter to myself.  I laughed.  Then I sobered.  I was not sure I wanted this task.  But I agreed.  I figured I could at least tell myself to hang in there, and I’d get through the stress and pain on my own,  Positive speak.  I sat looking at the blank page for a while last night, and then just began by asking myself what I wanted to hear.  By the time I got to the fourth paragraph, I knew I could not write everything I needed to.  I was emotionally drained, and could not see past my own tears.  I will be visiting this assignment again.  I don’t know how he knew what I needed.  But as I read the letter aloud to him last night, I finally cried out some of that emotion that’s been threatening to drown me.  It is a deep river in me, and I know I’ve only skimmed the surface, but it is a beginning.  Thank you, to my knight friend, for caring enough to walk this road with me a while.  Your gift yesterday was priceless.


 

Dear Me,

I know sometimes you feel two steps behind, like you can’t get your footing, no matter how hard you work.  I’ve heard you complain about feeling too deeply, too intensely, being too complicated. I have heard you, and I want you to know, I disagree.  I love you, and there are many reasons why.

You are emotional, it’s true.  You feel things deeply, and logic does not always win out with you.  This is something to celebrate, not suppress.  This emotion is what defines you.  It is your strength.  It is the passion that fuels your love, and your poetry.  I love your emotion.

You love deeply, and sometimes it hurts.  Love anyway. "Never regret love. No matter how blind, it improves your world view. No matter how foolish, it makes you wiser. And no matter how generous, it makes you more." If you can say you loved to your fullest extent, no matter if that lover leaves you, the love does not fail.  It hurts, but you are truly you when you love this way.  I love the way you love so deeply.  
You are generous, and sometimes people take that for granted.  Give anyway.  There is in you a gift, a skill of giving, of making others feel safe to be vulnerable.  You are generous with your weaknesses, your struggles, as well as your revelations and your joys.  You give.  Keep giving, and do not worry how people take or do not take.  You make room for good to come to you by giving,  I love your generosity.

I want you to know that I see you.  When you are hurt and wounded, when you wish you had everything solved and did not feel weak, I see you.  I see the beauty in your brokenness, in your weakness, I love you as you are, especially your flaws.  I will not sit by and watch you kill them off one by one until you are boring and plain.  


Love,

Yourself

It's a Messy Business!

"Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything."
~Willie Dixon
----------

"There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish."

~John Keats
----------

"We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful."
~Mary Antin
----------

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, of fix us in the present. We are made of layers, cells, constellations."
-The Diary of Anaïs Nin Vol. 4 (1971)

----------

He said to me, “Baby, imagine being invited to witness the birth of a most incredible, beautiful creature you can imagine. That’s what it’s like to have you in my life.”

I wrote a post back in April about rebirth that began with the above line.

I've given birth four times.  I've been a witness to births that were not my own children at least four times. 

You'd think I'd understand that though it's an amazing process, it's messy.  I've spent the past several months crying, yelling and pouting.  I've negotiated, I've whined, I've been an emotional wreck.  Granted, I've had upsets in my career, my family life, and have faced physical issues.  But my emotional outbursts have involved my relationships with The Husband, The Shepherd and The Poet.  

Here's the thing.  Things have been changing.  With every relationship I'm in, there's been the addition of another relationship - meaning each man has another woman in his life besides me.  I'm working really hard to be happy for them. I am honestly glad.  But, more people means less time.  It's just the reality of poly relationships.  Of course, there are also other factors, life gets busy.  But I have been really struggling. not with feeling threatened, but with coming to terms with the fact that each of the men in my life have someone local who gets to spend a great deal of time with them.  For the two that are not my husband, these women get to spend more time, only have to drive across town, and that is hard for me, because I am envious.  

I've not been very good about handling my emotions, expressing them, or adjusting to the changes, even the minor ones, in schedules.  And still, these men are patient with me.  The do stand up to me and say, "You need to figure out what's going on with you.  You need to communicate like an adult."  But they also remind me that I need to give myself a break.

Rebirth can be messy.  Growing can be complicated.  Insecurities can be tough.

But I am loved, and pushed to grow, and wanted by three amazing men who want a ringside seat.  I am very lucky.

So, let's get messy.  I have some change to go through.

  

 

Information, Please!?

dive for dreams
or a slogan may topple you
(trees are their roots
and wind is wind)
trust your heart
if the seas catch fire
(and live by love
though the stars walk backward)
honour the past
but welcome the future
(and dance your death
away at the wedding)
never mind a world
with its villains or heroes
(for good likes girls
and tomorrow and the earth)
in spite of everything
which breathes and moves, since Doom
(with white longest hands
neating each crease)
will smooth entirely our minds
-before leaving my room
i turn, and (stooping
through the morning) kiss
this pillow, dear
where our heads lived and were.

~E.E. Cummings

----------

"Love is everything it's cracked up to be. 

That's why people are so cynical about it. 

It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. 

And the trouble is, if you don't risk everything, you risk even more."

-Erica Jong

----------

We must develop a deeper interest and greater understanding of the people we meet here or abroad. Like us, they are passengers on board that mysterious ship called life.

-Ella Maillart

----------

“Really important meetings are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.”

- Paulo Coelho

----------

by Mark Fischer on Flickr

Evidently the universe is trying to teach me something. 

Communication between lovers, between paramours, is paramount.  It is sometimes hard work, exhausting, frustrating and complicated.  Communication between metamours, those who are concomitant to paramours... partners of partners... is healthy, important, and sometimes just plain hard.

I spent the past weekend with Shepherd, and his primary, at her home in Houston.  I will call her Shepherdess, and hope that it conveys the deepest respect and appreciation, for that is what I feel.   The purpose of this visit, was to make a connection, forge a friendship.  I do not take lightly being invited, and for the most part I felt very, very welcomed.  This weekend was a new experience for all of us.  Not something we've done before, not something we were even sure how to do.  Shepherd and Shepherdess have a relationship dynamic that is the opposite of ours.  She is his Domme.  He is my Top.  I have never been in a Domme household.  The dynamic is foreign to me.  I tried very hard to bear in mind that I was there by her good graces, that every opportunity to both be alone with Shepherd and to share him with her was a gift.  i wasn't always completely comfortable, but I did feel very welcome, very much at home.

Shepherdess has done many things to make me feel an important and accepted part of Shepherd's life.  I don't know that I could welcome Husband's girl into my home and my bed, (Yes, we slept in a king sized bed... with Shepherd in the middle.) watch her kiss him, and flirt with him, and fall asleep in his arms.  Yet I was able to do all those things this weekend, and to see Shepherd do all those things with Shepherdess, too.  I was grateful, and that helped me to not give jealousy a place.  There was no real reason to feel jealous.  I was included.

There were two small things that happened that made me feel not so good.  I struggled with these two things, because I do not believe they were intentional.  But they did hurt my feelings.  I think they were born out of the fact that this sort of sharing isn't something any of us has done before.  I know it was uncomfortable for all of us.  I think we did a damned good job, in spite of a few rough edges.  I did not want to taint the good with my feelings of insecurity.  I kept them to myself, hating the thought of confrontation, and seeming ungrateful or disrespectful.  I took some time to journal about them late one night, and clear my thoughts so I could let them go for a time and enjoy the company.

I expressed them to Shepherd on the drive home; and that is a challenge for me.  I hate conflict so very much, I was tempted to hold them in.  But I am learning.  Emotions need to be heard, acknowledged, so they can pass.  And now, those things have been expressed to Shepherdess as well, by Shepherd, because she sensed there was something wrong, and he was honest when she asked.

There's more... of course.

On Monday, there was a miscommunication between Poet, myself, and Poet's primary.  I was trying to act with honor and integrity, but did not have all of the information.  It seems neither did Poet's primary.  Feelings were hurt, communication was strained to the point of breaking.  We have been up all hours of the night trying to work out this tangle.  Apologies have been made, and steps are being taken toward resolution, clearer communication.  Feelings have been expressed and heard, so now they can pass through us.

by Ell Brown on Flickr

Damn, this is fucking difficult!

I am sure that things will work out fine... that we will continue to learn and grow, to practice generosity and acceptance.  I wish sometimes it weren't so hard... on all of us.  

We are human. We are insecure. We are risking. 

I believe it is worth it, and am committed to being ethical, respectful, and honorable.  I will fail, but I will keep trying.  This too shall make us, all of us, stronger.  I just have to figure out what to do next, to address the feelings, and express my gratitude and respect.  I wish there were a book of answers for dummies.  Relationships don't work that way.

This road is bumpy.

Don't forget your maps, Travelers.

Phoenix

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.

~Christina Baldwin

by Temari 09 on Flickr

He said to me, “Baby, imagine being invited to witness the birth of a most incredible, beautiful creature you can imagine. That’s what it’s like to have you in my life.” …and he calls me his poet. Shepherd sees me as a being in the midst of rebirth. I suppose I see myself much the same way -- a sort of phoenix being reborn, not from the ashes of my life, but still, reborn. 

In a conversation with my young adult daughter last week, she confided in me that she sees herself as a curious person; eager to learn and to experience all life has to offer. She’s wondering about how that will translate into her most important, romantic relationship. She worries that she will get bored after choosing the one man to marry and raise a family alongside. My baby girl knows that monogamy isn’t her only option. She also knows that monogamy is a perfectly viable choice on her list. What struck me about her revelation is that I know exactly how she feels.

I remember as a young woman being excited about making those soul-connections with others. The majority of my friends were men, and I didn’t date all that much until I was a senior in high school. But there was something different in me, a hunger – a passion that many wouldn’t acknowledge, or at least some tried to discourage. “You’re too intense… too emotional… too idealistic.” I heard all these indictments from so called friends, and well meaning acquaintances.

At the age of nineteen, I was just beginning to explore the world when I found myself pregnant. Immediately the course of my life changed. My flight was grounded. I married, because it was the only choice given me. I began a family three months before my twentieth birthday. Four years later I had three babies, and was single again. Don’t misunderstand me, because I loved raising my kids. I was a damned good mother – the very best I knew how to be. I’m proud of the adults my children became, and of the investment I made to be their full-time mom.

However, a few years ago I worked myself out of that job as one by one, each of my children launched out on their own and began to fly. The grieving process for that separation was something I never anticipated, but in time I learned to accept that this was how life works. Watching them test their wings, I felt those old dreams fluttering to life in my spirit. It was time for me to go back and explore that life that I’d traded in exchange for motherhood and family, twenty years before.

Some would say that I am the woman who grew unhappy in her marriage, and went through a crisis, deciding to abandon all that I’d worked so hard to build for selfish reasons. I was feeling old, and realizing that my life was half over. So I went a little crazy, and decided I wanted more -- more men, more sex, and more life. The truth is that all those things are true, in a very narrow sense. But I didn’t become polyamorous overnight because the label fit the sort of life I’d just come to decide I wanted. I think this broken bird inside of me has always been waiting to spread her wings and chase those dreams that she earlier laid aside.

Now I find myself exploring, working, building the muscles it takes to fly, and it’s intense. It’s hard, and exhausting, and wonderful. I spend a great deal of time worrying and crying, thinking and communicating, writing and examining my heart. This life is complicated. This being reborn process is painful. But every time I break through and find that plateau where I can soar and rest and think about how truly fortunate I am – I realize the true worth of my struggles.

This is the intensity I’ve always craved. This complicated, painful, stretching rebirth is just who I am, and just where I belong. I’m glad others think it’s a privilege to witness. For me, living it is nothing less that truly amazing – and in the end, if someone who loves me is moved to poetry by the life I’m living, I’m truly blessed to be so loved.

Flying

by Dave Hamster on Flickr

Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers.
~Titus Maccius Plautus
----------
When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.
~Leonardo Da Vinci
----------
I pick the prettiest part of the sky and I melt into the wing and then into the air, till I'm just soul on a sunbeam.
~Richard Bach
----------
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I?
~E.Y. Harburg
----------

I have my tickets... or my confirmation number anyway. I have my boarding pass... or I suppose I have my early-bird boarding confirmation, too.  The point is, on Friday morning I'll be flying 251 miles to see my Shepherd.  I am beside myself with eagerness and joy.  

There's something wonderful about the space between here and there, only when I'm in it, of course.  It's like slipping through a portal between worlds, and lingering there a while, butterflies dancing in my stomach.  There's a shift from my world to his, and back again.  

In Shepherd's world, there's a place for me, I fit there, welcomed by him and those who are important in his life.  It's a place where I go alone, leaving behind my motherness, my wifeness, my daughterness, my employeeness.  (I know, creating new words, I can't leave behind my writerness.)  In Shepherd's world I am just me, just his girl, and his poet, wanted and loved for being myself.

Husband's world is no less incredible.  In his world, in my primary world, I get to be wife, mother, daughter, sister, Mimi, lover and friend.  I wouldn't trade Husband's world for anything.  It's just that the two are a universe apart for me.  And that's a good thing.  Distance means I go, escape into Shepherd's world and enjoy. Then I come back  to Husband's world, refreshed, if a bit bruised.  I am welcomed with love and acceptance, and I am cherished for being me.

The truth is this.  In Shepherd's world, I miss Husband.  In Husband's world, I miss Shepherd.  I'm always wishing someone were there, or I were with someone, or that we were all... and that is too much to hope for, at this point.  Though I've wondered what it would be like just to sit down to dinner with both of them, or to celebrate a birthday, or a holiday with the men who carry my heart.

The other truth is this.  In that flying space between Shepherd and Husband, I am alone.  Waiting in the airport after my last trip to see Shepherd, I found myself staring out the window at the purple Dallas sky, as tears fell from my lashes.  I felt alone.  I missed Shepherd.  I missed Husband.  I'd had an amazing weekend, was tired and sore and incredibly happy.  I was looking forward to falling asleep in Husband's arms.  And I cried in my loneliness, then boarded a plane, and rode the wind back home.

It will be much the same this Friday morning, as I fly south to meet Shepherd.  I will be excited, eager to see him, to hold him close and feel his lips on mine.  Yet in part of my heart, I will begin missing husband.  I will feel acutely that sense of being alone, without either of them.    It's not always a bad thing.  Sometimes a few moments alone is exactly what I need to be able to breathe.  But I'm aware, always aware, of the distance between me and the ones I'm without.

At least I know I can fly.

"Only Waiting For This Moment."

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

-The Beatles

----------

by soundlessfall on flickr

----------















The Journey
-by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles,
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried,
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations --
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

----------

by LISgirl on flickr

----------

I happened across this poem in a magazine I have never read. I only picked it up from the stand because it had a poetry focus, and because I love words, I couldn't resist. 

Reading through the magazine offered me several inspirational moments, a couple of epiphanies, and then an extended episode of bird wings fluttering against the bars of my ribcage. This poem reminds me that I have to listen to my own voice. I'm not saying I've decided to stop listening to the voices around me, but I've come to the point --- they've come to the point --- where they can find their bliss themselves. They can be responsible for their own happiness. I love my children. I love my grandchildren. I love my husband, my parents, my siblings. I will do everything within my power to contribute to their success, their happiness.

Everything except deny my own.

I have to open the door to my cage, and fly.  It's up to me to figure out exactly how.

Spread your own wings, travelers.

The Question

“No sooner met but they looked; no sooner looked but they loved; no sooner loved but they sighed; no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason; no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy”
-William Shakespeare quotes (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet, 1564-1616)
----------

"The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but hold hands."
-Alexander Penney
----------


"We know what we are, but know not what we may be."
-William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), Hamlet, 1600
----------

A very important person in my life, one I'll call Poet here -- and introduce more completely, to all my (five) readers at a later date -- recently asked me to write about what I bring to a relationship. It's a valid question; it actually gives me a chance to examine who I want to be, and what things are important to me in my associations. I have developed some valuable qualities when it comes to fostering new relationships and finding new love. Some have been born out of negative experiences in my past, and yet, many of them are based in the positive interactions I've had with others -- paramours, metamours, and even friends. I hope that in all of my relationships, I offer certain healthy attitudes, beneficial skills, and gifts that are appreciated. 

Kahlil Gibran wrote, "Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens." I want my living to be evocative, exhilarating, and exciting, so I am determined to approach relationships with three specific attitudes.

Because I hope my counterparts will be open and respect my views, my values, and those people and things that are important to me, I first offer a sense of openness. I long to know more about a lover: what makes them tick, what are their dreams, their hopes and fears. I open my life to the individuals and ideas that are a part of the person they choose to be and the manner in which they choose to live.

The second attitude I cultivate in relationships is one of adventure. I want to explore new things, to push my boundaries, and challenge myself. I hope that by doing so, I encourage others to challenge themselves as well.  Shepherd encourages me to keep a list of new things I want to try, and asks me often to tell him what he can do to make items from that list a reality. He pushes me, gently and firmly, to keep working. In new relationships I hope I do the same thing. I choose to try and be the person who is eager to explore another’s interest or hobby, to explore something that they enjoy. I do not want to look back on any part of my life with my lovers and wish I'd been bold enough to try. Life is short, and I am determined to live it.

The third attitude I contribute to relationships is curiosity. In my mind and heart, perhaps even in my flesh, there is a thirst to learn, to experience, to crawl inside a person and explore every room, every dark corner, and every closet. I learned to explore this way from Maks.

Early in our relationship he handed me a set of keys, and welcomed me to explore the many rooms inside him. I learned to trust him with a similar set of keys, and the things we discovered together are memories I cherish every day. In each new relationship I find that I crave those opportunities to know a person, to laugh and cry and learn all about who they are.

I also want to grow, to gain knowledge and better myself. Life is a road I’m fortunate enough to travel -- and I want to spend every step exploring myself and others. To that end, I believe I offer a specific skill set in a relationship.

Relationship skills help in times of transition, difference and decision. I am confident that I have at least three skills to offer in any relationship. Firstly, I know, at least to some degree, who I am, and what I want. I've lived half of my life, and had plenty of time to examine what works and what does not work for me. I have always been the type to explore my own feelings and beliefs, and I have a decent grasp on my own identity. I know myself.

There's more to learn, though; so I also cultivate the skill of examining myself. Life and relationships are dynamic and fluid. To live means to change. I have learned to be a student of my own modulation, my own transformations. I acknowledge that all persons are subject to change. Hence, perhaps the most important skill I offer in a relationship is that of communication.

I am learning to communicate effectively in my interactions with Husband.  He and I are transitioning, and we are both working hard at the changes we’ve made.  Communication is paramount, and he has taught me to listen.  I listen well.  That wasn’t always a strength, before Husband showed me how.  I also speak clearly.  I’ve always been very good at putting my thoughts into words, and being communicative.  

I’ve learned from Husband that communication is both speaking and listening. These skills, I trust, will be beneficial in strengthening other relationships, and giving them value and security.

Finally, I bring certain gifts to a relationship. These emotional investments, if given in an unbalanced way, could become weaknesses. However, I make an effort to give them in a way that’s healthy, as I encourage others to be responsible and contribute as well.

Primarily, I am generous where I can be. If it’s in my power to give time and energy, or space, to make a lover happy, or to make room for their other loves to be happy too, I give. It’s easy to do when I am secure in the generosity of a loved one, or even in the graciousness of a metamour. I am learning such graciousness from Shepherd’s primary. I hope to write more about these lessons in the future, but for now I can say that she has been a mentor, a friend, and very generous in allowing me to find a place of honor and value in his life. I want to be that person, in the lives of all those I love.

In addition, I am an empathetic person, identifying with and often feeling the emotions of others. I can understand jealousy, frustration, fear and other negative emotions in others, and so I extend an acceptance of those emotions, and patience with the corresponding actions.  That tolerance does not last forever, but it is something I give, because I know what it is to struggle with the same human emotions. 

Lastly, I fall in love easily. I accept people for who they are, quite readily. Celebrating a lover's joys and accomplishments, seeing their strengths, appreciating their quirks – these are all things I enjoy. I consider each love in my life a valuable gift, unique and worth treasuring, so I try to do so often. Falling easily can be a weakness. I have been rejected and hurt before. Still, I know that the intensity and passion I feel in loving others is well worth the pain I feel when a relationship ends, or for whatever reason, never begins. 

I have learned to be honest with myself about my own feelings, to grieve and heal, and love again. I learned this lesson from Dorian, and because of our relationship, I have chosen to be the one who does fall, without undue hesitation, to recognize the characteristics in others that I can love, and to welcome the experience with open arms. It’s who I am, and I am happy with this gift in myself.

I realize that I have not yet arrived, and that in developing new relationships, I have room for growth. I hope I am always the person who is eager to better myself in the way I connect with and treat others. I endeavor to balance my strength and weaknesses, and believe I have some beneficial attitudes, skills, and gifts to offer in any relationship. I hope to continue learning from friends, lovers and their lovers, how to best build and enjoy the associations I have. After all, I have room in my life for a great deal of love. My journey is not just about finding love, but about giving it, and keeping it. I hope I rise to the task every day.


Minding my own feet,