No name

Blue eyes, caramel blond hair, heart shaped face. Bored expression of a seven year old playing reluctant witness to adult conversation she doesn't understand. Unwilling to stay, unable to leave. Too old to play in the kids' corner of the quiet cafe, too young to be allowed to wander off on her own. Harassed mother on one side, sleeping baby brother on the other, pile of papers on the table, and across it a pair of strangers talking about boring things like mortgage and inspection. This isn't how she pictured a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Sunlight filters through the window and she shifts on the padded bench, watching as the sparkly sequins on her jeans catch the light and wink at her. The strangers across the table ignore her, intent on the papers and her mother's droning voice. She's not used to being ignored, although with Billy's birth it's been happening more often. She sighs and twirls the tiny silver heart charm on her bracelet. She reaches for a pen lying forgotten on the table, but her mothers snatches it back, glaring at her and simultaneously smiling at the other couple.

She shifts again, trying to get comfortable and bumps the table, earning another glare. Now the other woman looks at her and gives her a bright fake smile.

"Are you bored, honey?"

She scowls back and mumbles, "No." The mother sighs, a familiar sound of frustration.

"Why don't you go play in the kids' corner? We'll be done here soon."

She looks at her mother, incredulous. The kids' corner is for little kids. She doesn't want to play there. Tears of frustration and anger well up and she's about to protest when she realizes that the door is right next to the toybox. Sliding out from behind the table, she wanders over to the toys and glances back. Her mother is pulling Billy's carrier closer, obliterating the space where she sat just a moment ago and is already back deep in conversation.

She pauses then slowly pushes open the door and steps outside. Through the glass door she can see her mother and the other couple. Her mother is talking and smiling, not looking at her, unaware she's no longer there.

She sits down on the steps outside, warmth of early spring sun making up for the chill of the breeze. Shivering, she hugs her knees and watches as the cars pass by. Some pull into the supermarket lot next door, others just head past. Across the street, on the soccer field an impromptu game is in full swing. She watches, twirling a strand of caramel blond hair.

A car pulls to a stop and the passenger side window slowly rolls down. A little pug pokes its head out, sneezing and she laughs, delighted.

"Hey, you look bored." The driver leans across the passenger seat and smiles at her. "I'm going to the park," he gestures up the hill toward the park with her favorite playground. "Wanna come along? You can play with Lucy here. She loves kids."

She hesitates for a moment and the little dog gives an encouraging bark, wagging its tail. She looks back at the cafe. Her mother is gesticulating with her hands, her face animated and as the girl watches, the mother throws back her head and laughs.

"Ok," she's already pulling open the car door even as the word falls from her lips. The door slams, the window rolls back up and the car pulls away.

The mother looks up, "Becky?"

Birthday wishes

Birthdays come with obligatory good wishes...

Putting aside the truly memorable birthday card from J which had me in tears, the rest were of the more expected variety. Among the most often repeated ones were wishes of everything I would wish for myself, wishes of happiness and health, long life, peace of mind, etc.

I tend not to dwell on these things; people wish others what they wish for themselves, but the many wishes of happiness got me thinking of what happiness for me would be. I used to think of happiness as a goal - something to strive for and, no pun intended, be happy once you've attained it.

I look at myself in the mirror and I'm not the person I used to be but I'm also not the person I want to be. I don't think I'll ever get there. No, I'm not being a pessimist or even a perfectionist. Perhaps a better way of putting it is that I don't ever want to get to the point of where I am exactly who I want to be.

I've gotten what I thought would make me happy before and those of you who know me will remember just how badly that went. I'm just not someone who can be happy without constantly being challenged and striving for something more. Stability and a "settled" life just aren't going to happen. My definition of happiness may be unconventional, but conforming to other people's definitions hasn't gone so well for me.

So to all the well-wishers out there... In this new life I'm crafting now, my fondest wish for myself is that I never run out of walls to scale and dragons to slay.

And now for something totally different...

"But what is to become of me now that you've had your sport and grown tired?"

"Your fate is of your concern and yours alone."

"And the child?" She stops, her hand resting of its own accord on the burgeoning belly, entreating him to stay.

"You must do as you see fit. A child was never meant to result." He turns to the door, his hand on the heavy door knob.

"Your heir..." She begins again.

He interrupts, fury shading the words, blackening his face as he speaks. "I have my heir! Just as I have a wedded wife or have you forgotten? I care naught for the babe you carry, for all your pretty words and honeyed promises the seed that begot it could have come from many but me."

She shrinks back, her face a mask of humility while her mind races. She had been so certain that she had only to fall with child and he would stay. And should she bear a boy, find a way to acknowledge him, and her, in time.

He is fastening his coat as she follows him into the yard. The snow that began to drift from the menacing clouds earlier in the day when he arrived had grown into a heavy lace curtain covering the ground, burying all traces of his footsteps.

She looks up at the slate grey sky and at the bare branches extending their cold forlorn limbs in shaking supplication for a comforting blanket of snow. He is pulling on the thick leather gloves and reaching for the reigns. She notes that he did not ride Blackwell, his favorite, today. This horse is grey with a flowing white mane and a plain nondescript saddle. Less noticeable, less likely to be remembered, a nameless creature from his vast stables.

Already he's distancing himself from me, she thinks and suddenly knows that he will not return. He came to make clear that all between them is over, to remind her of her place and, she thinks, of his.

Her hand drifts again to her belly, to the straining apron and caresses the outlines of the heavy dressmaker's shears. The shears she dropped in its folds in haste hours ago when she sprang up from her sewing upon hearing the horse's hooves on the cobblestones. Her fingers close and tighten on the ornate handles as her hand reenters the snowy gloom, scarcely visible in the rapidly descending twilight.

He turns to the horse, hand on the saddle, one foot already in stirrup. He would leave without a farewell. The warm glow spilling from the house illuminates the bulky calfskin pouch on his waist and without hesitation she steps forward, arms raised as if for a hug before the shears sink into the doughy softness of his neck.

The child will be his heir after all.

What if...?

What if ... ?

What if I had never met J?

What if I had never had Katie?

What if I had not terminated my first pregnancy?

What if I had not cared so much about getting married?

What if I had asked questions about what I want earlier?

What if I had gone on to Law School?

What if I had not gained all that weight as a teenager?

What if I had not lost every shred of self-confidence?

So many possible turning points but impossible to predict which would have led to a different life. Perhaps all. Perhaps none. Perhaps no matter what choices I made I would have ended up in the same place I am now.

But if that were true, then why make choices at all? Because it can't be true? Because not making a choice is also making a choice?

Why ask 'what ifs' about the past? So as not to repeat it? But we never repeat the past anyway. Even if we make the same mistakes we've made time and time again, each mistake results in a different set of consequences so are the mistakes the same? What if the next time you make the same mistake it turns into the best thing you've ever done? Is it still a mistake?

Why ask 'what ifs' about the future? Is there a finite number of 'what ifs'? Can you imagine all of them? Is it a bit like imagining every possible catastrophe that can befall your loved ones and grasp the irrational belief that if you imagine it all in your mind it won't happen in real life?

If you could ask every possible 'what if' and imagine every possible set of consequences for each, would you be any better equipped to make a decision? Would you know what to do or would you discover that you've spent hours and days and years asking questions without any hope of finding answers instead of taking the plunge?

Everything happens... not for a reason, not by design, not even through any predetermined actions on our parts. Everything happens and if you can accept that, then you can move on and face each day as what it is - a brand new day that can bring everything.

You can't force a square peg into a round hole...

I've always wondered about that, actually.

I remember hearing that phrase as a child and of course, taking it literally. I spent hours, or at least what felt like hours, puzzling over it. I didn't really have handy holes for experiments but I did have building blocks and I remember sitting on the floor of the room I shared with my younger brother, holding one of those square blocks, turning it over and over in my hands and trying to figure out why it wouldn't fit into a round hole. My thought being, if the hole was big enough to fit around the four corners, why can't it be done?

I don't think I ever resolved the conundrum then and I was too embarrassed by my inability to understand it to ask someone for an explanation. Years have passed and I haven't thought about that phrase until it suddenly popped into my head tonight.

I'm having trouble falling asleep and anyone who knows me will know just how unlike me that is. I lied in bed until I just couldn't take it anymore and then I got up, curled up on the couch and just as I was turning on the TV to whatever inanity happens to be on around midnight on a Friday night, it was as if someone whispered in my ear, "You can't force a square peg into a round hole".

If I were inclined to flights of fancy (which I often am), I would say that it was my subconscious offering an explanation for my frustration and stress. But at what point does having expectations and have them go unfulfilled morphs into trying to force something into a place it was never meant to go?

I never found the answer to the original puzzle and now I find myself in exactly the same situation... twirling the pieces in my hands and with no one to ask for answers.

Music

Music frequently helps me concentrate. I have playlists for reading and for writing and even for work. When I'm really engrossed in a task, the music becomes part of the background, gently sliding in and out of my conscience; a trusted friend keeping me company.

But occasionally the synthesis just doesn't happen. The rhythm is all wrong or the songs come up in an unexpected order, jarring me in all the wrong places. Then I find myself becoming more and more irritated and the more attention I pay to the discords the worse it gets. I'll tut and drum my fingers and try to force my thoughts to cooperate, but the effort is wasted. The words don't come, reading won't jell, mistakes will hide in the half-completed e-mails.

Usually at this point I'll give up with a final snort of anger and frustration. I've never been very good at persevering. When everything comes easily or at least feels like it does, you don't learn to push through the resistance. It's too easy to just give up and flounce off in a fit of pique, blaming someone or something else for things not going right.

But not today... no, today I was determined to write something, even if it's just a couple of paragraphs on why I'm not writing and here it is. You've just read it. The thoughts are still not jelling and the music is still all wrong and there's someone with a hyena laugh a table away and yet, I'm going to harness my stubbornness and keep writing.

Maybe it will be another blog post, maybe a story, maybe a sketch that no one will ever see, but I will keep writing until I'm sure that I'm stopping because I've found something better to do and not because I'm just being lazy or unmotivated.

Evening of unladylike pursuits

As I'm writing this, I'm drunk. Not "falling down the stairs, wake up puking next to a strange guy the next day" kind of drunk, but drunk for my standards. My fingers feel unwieldy and unpleasantly uncooperative and my smile is involuntary, spreading across my face whether I want to be grinning or not. I've spent the last couple of hours at John Harvard's and as the evening's goal was to get drunk, I can testify to having achieved it quite admirably.

I downed the first G&T as quickly as I could manage and on a fairly empty stomach, thereby ensuring that I'll get the mellow buzz as soon as possible. Still, it didn't come fast enough and so after some consideration I ordered a second one, all the while knowing that while one might not be enough, the second will almost certainly put me over the edge of comfortably buzzed and smack into the "don't walk without assistance" territory.

Still, I needed to disconnect my brain and this was the only certain way I know to do that. That or hypnosis and I'm crap at hypnosis. Even worse than I am at being a responsible drunk. Isn't a "responsible drunk" an oxymoron?

So, two glasses of G&T, made with the wonderfully smooth Hendrick's Gin, later and an ice cream sundae with all the trimmings, I was mellow to the point of no return. It would have been a good time to leave and let someone else occupy my seat at the bar except that I was quite literally unable to stand up. Staggering is one thing, not being able to tell the difference between the floor and the ceiling is a bit more of a problem, especially out in public.

Remaining at the bar appeared to be the only option and so I stayed put, perched somewhat precariously on the all too tall stool, rereading portion of the Story of O. Perhaps not a book to read in public at a bar as one "concerned" citizen remarked, a scant moment before asking whether it would be too presumptuous to ask me to read aloud. I demurred, explaining that slurring such beautiful language would be a sacrilege. For a moment, it seemed like he would press his luck but the steadying influence of his more reserved and clearly more sober friend won over and he left me and my book in peace.

After another half an hour I felt brave enough to attempt standing up and stumbling over to the door. Thankfully I was wearing my usual high heels rather than sneakers. No way I would have been able to keep my balance otherwise. As far as sneakers, or any other type of flat shoes for that matter, are concerned, I'm definitely still in training. Five inch heels are another matter though and so I made my way safely out into the cool evening air.

Out the door and into the nearby Michael's arts and crafts store. Isle after isle of craft supplies and not a thimble in sight. Yes, I was looking for thimbles. Finally, with the assistance of a surly girl whose goals in life clearly did not include helping inebriated customers, I did locate two varieties of thimbles. Armed with my purchase, I slowly and carefully made my way to the other side of the shopping center to the safe haven of the Barnes & Noble bookstore. Whereupon, armed with much needed caffeine, I settled down to my laptop and the writing of these random ramblings.

Evening's goals accomplished; gently pickled brain and all.

Tension

I hate the feeling of undefined tension. It's the sensation of a spring being wound tighter and tighter except that you can't identify the force that's slowly closing the spirals. Whenever I feel this tension I jump to try and identify it.

I know it's pointless, but still I try. And then it turns into a game of "pin the tail on the donkey".

Is it work? No, not quite. Is it my child? No, well, maybe. Is it J? Could be. Is it stress over money? Maybe, but maybe not.

There's no clear source and there's no obvious cure and that just drives me up the wall.

I can't stand the vagueness of this threat to my peace of mind and the more I stress over it, the tighter the spring coils. At times I wish it would just snap and spill the stress evenly over all the little messes of my life. At least that way I could concentrate on cleaning things up and maintain the illusion that I'm in control rather than having my insides tugged by forces that are beyond my grasp.

Being a control freak has its price.

An alphabet story

It all started when Carmen's cup fell to the kitchen floor and instead of shattering into a million jagged pieces, rolled under the beat-up leather couch. Just my luck, she thought. Kneeling down, she reached under the couch, shuddering as her fingers brushed by old bits of cobweb. Lemony scent of the floor washing liquid assaulted her nostrils as she bent her face down to the floor, trying to see into the gloomy darkness. Marmalade, her ginger tabby, walked by, swishing his tail and feigning indifference to her frantic grappling.

"Nearly there," she muttered, as her fingers seized the rounded edge of the cup's lip.

"Ouch!" Panting, she withdrew her hand, staring at it in disbelief. Queue of tiny ruby droplets issued forth from a puncture that looked suspiciously like a bite.

"Rats," she moaned, not in the least bit amused by the unwitting pun. Stifling the urge to strangle Marmalade, who was after all a cat and should have taken care of a critter problem before it manifested itself in her kitchen, she rushed over to the sink. Tepid stream of lukewarm water managed to stop the bleeding though it did nothing for her irritation.

"Uggh," she growled, rooting in the medicine cupboard for a band-aid and throwing Marmalade a baleful look. "Very nice, Marmalade. What a fine hunter you are. X-ray vision when it comes to ferreting out the shopping bag with sausages in it, but not rats? You think hunting is beneath you? Zealous protector of your owner's house, you are..."

As tirades go, Marmalade was apparently not terribly impressed with this one. Bending his head, he leisurely lifted one leg and lovingly licked the silky fur.

Carmen seethed. Dark mutterings about punishment and lack of dinner brought Marmalade's ablutions to a halt. Ears cocked, he glanced at Carmen, then jumped up on the counter, trotting over to where she was still nursing the bitten finger. Fluffing his tail, Marmalade rubbed against Carmen's bare arm, purring until tension left her and she sighed, knowing she'll never be able to keep a grudge. Grinning, she tickled him under the chin, eliciting further contented purrs.

Household peace was once again restored; rats and errant cups notwithstanding.

-----------------------------
Hint: the title refers to the pattern made by the first letter of each sentence.

A snippet

The light is green and cars stream past, jostling for space, angrily posturing at each other to get out of the way. Just one step and it's all over. A single step. Off the sidewalk and into the rushing stream of traffic. Before the brain can register the solid impact and rending of flesh, it's finished.
Just one step.

How many steps does one take in a lifetime? Unimportant, meaningless steps; measuring distance, measuring time. Just one step. Half a foot down off the sidewalk and another foot or so into the street.

The light changes and the cars slow down. They are a restless pack of wolves; biding their time, barely restrained, straining at the invisible barrier. They emit soft, menacing growls, breathless in the frustration of halting in their quest. Seconds tick by and suddenly the light is green again and they're off. The flow resumes, rushing past, extending an invitation to join in the maniacal dance, if only for a moment before the soothing swish of tires stops in a horrifying screech of rubber against the road.

Pictures and words

I like pictures... You might have drawn that conclusion all by yourself if you noticed that every single post has an image accompanying it. Occasionally I'll find an image and then write a post to fit it, but more often than not, I'll write something and leave looking for a suitable image as a final, sweet task. Sometimes this will take longer than writing the actual blog entry. I will sift through dozens and dozens of images, opening the ones I like in individual tabs in my browser, going back and forth until I find one I like. And yet... I almost never feel satisfied with the one I chose.

Just as I'm never completely satisfied with the words I choose when I write. If I don't stop myself, I will edit and polish and edit again everything I've ever written. Sometimes, a phrase or a sentence will pour out of my fingers, perfectly shaped and impeccably complete. I will stare at it, trying to discern flaws, trying to find something to grab on to, something to change. Eventually, I'll tire and grudgingly allow it to remain.

But more often than not, the sentence is not perfect. And then it becomes an endless puzzle, with pieces that can be rearranged and changed and made to fit together. I spend so much more time editing than writing. I'll swap words, change the tense, change the focus of the sentence, play with verbs, tease the adjectives. I'm doing it now as I'm writing this entry. There's a reason why the Space and the Backspace on my keyboard have shiny, bald spots on them. I just can't let it go. How does one settle on a single word when there are so many to choose from?

I don't do well with having choices. Too many choices and I get lost and stressed. Too many images, too many words, too much freedom. I need walls and boundaries and confining circumstances. I need constraints and then I can channel all my energy at breaking them down. Give me all the freedom in the world and I fall apart, mired in confusion.

Tell me to write on the most boring and limiting topic and I'll jump at the challenge, infusing even the dullest concept with humor or passion or caustic sarcasm. But tell me to write whatever I want on any subject and I'll end as I often begin, with a blank page.

Books...

Books, books, books... Almost always fiction, but even in that narrowly segregated world there is so much variety. Historical fiction, contemporary, chick lit, drama, 'Oprah book club' drivel, mystery, horror, cloyingly sweet romance, and everything in-between. Humorous, heart-wrenchingly sad, breathtakingly engaging, inane, boring, clumsy, exquisitely crafted.

Every time I walk into a book store I have to suppress the quickening breath of excitement. It never dulls, that feeling of stumbling into a cave of treasures. And yet, a truer comparison would be that of walking through a flea market - stalls filled with garishly worthless objects that you have to sieve through in order to maybe, maybe stumble across one real treasure.

Is there any worse disappointment than investing your hopes and time into reading a book that never quite lives up to the potential you thought you saw in it? It happens to me more often than I like to admit, but I never get used to it. When I have time, I'll browse and collect five, six, seven books at a time. I never read the first page. Instead, I'll read the description and ignore other people's comments. Then, I'll open a page at random, usually near the middle and start reading. One paragraph, two. I'll do it with all the books in the stack, slowly dividing them into "yes", "no", and "maybe" piles. When I buy the book and read it, I'll come to the already familiar passage in the middle of the book, and always I'll experience a vertiginous sense of deja vu even though in the back of my mind I know I should expect it.

It's rare that I leave the book store without at least one new find. I'll go through multiple piles of books, but if I have time, I'll keep sifting until I find at least one to walk out of the store with me. But even more disappointing than not finding anything are the times when having been seduced by a sentence or a word or a thread of a story, I'll choose the book and, upon reading it, discover that the seduction was fleeting and the rest of the book is as mundane as the lives many of us are escaping when we read.

It is rare that I'll give up on a book I chose myself. I'll buy a book for the language even if the topic doesn't interest me, but so often I've regretted buying books for the topic when I knew, deep inside, that the language was awkward. I'll admit it, I like a pretty turn of phrase and sentences that have a rhythm to them, be it gentle or striding. I like language that flows and carries the story but so often I've found a good story spoiled as it fights its way through jumbled up words and broken snippets.

I've read books that have made me cry on and off for hours as I've turned the pages and books that made my heart melt with love and joy. I've read books that made me want to scream with frustration and books that left me feeling as if I need to wash my hands after finishing them. I've read books I couldn't wait to finish and fling away and books I couldn't wait to pick up again and read over and over.

I love words and stories and books... and in that deep, abiding love lies the secret to why I've never seriously tried writing and getting published. I know what it's like to pick up a book, fight through dozens and maybe hundreds of pages to like it and ultimately close the last page and be disappointed. I know what it's like to open a book and get lost in its world to the point where when the real world intrudes, your impulse is to push it away and retreat back into the crisp white pages. I know the feeling of the unread pages melting away as the book speeds to its end and wanting to know how the story concludes and yet yearning for it to never end.

And so to anyone who has the temerity to ask, I say... I will not write for a wider audience because I love words and stories and books.

Inertia

I enjoy writing. I wouldn't do it if I didn't.

I enjoy knowing that someone somewhere may be looking at and reading what I write. And in principle, that would seem to be enough to guarantee that I'll write with some regularity. And yet...

I just can't seem to get motivated to do it. Every evening when I finally have time to myself, time to think and write in peace, I balk at it. The excuses begin forming in my head even before the thought of writing has surfaced.

"I'm too tired..."
"I'm not in the mood to write..."
"I don't know what to write about..."
"I am just not feeling motivated..."
And the ultimate excuse, "I'll write tomorrow."

And then before I know it, a great weariness and inertia set in and I'm watching TV or reading or grudgingly working... Anything but writing.

And the irony of it is, most of the time, if I force myself to do it, I can manage to come up with something worth reading. An essay, a rant, a story, even a lone, beautifully crafted sentence. When I try, I can usually break through the barrier, but I don't try. Instead, I indulge in a sniff of self-pity and fob it off with whatever excuse happens to be handy.

Except for nights like tonight... Nights when I force myself and kick at the barrier and write. Write something. Write anything worth reading.

Changes... oh, so many changes.

Every day when I open my favorite websites, this blog is among them. I open it as a reminder to start writing again and every day I guiltily scoot past it, glancing at its browser tab and shifting my gaze to the next tab to avoid thinking about just how far behind I've fallen in updating it.

So much has changed in my life since my last post and so many changes are ahead in the near future. It's hard to fathom restarting the blog and trying to explain the sequence of events that led to where I am today. Of course, there's always the option of starting a new blog, and I will start a new one, but one to run in parallel with this one, not to replace it.

In trying to figure out how to restart my blog I have come up with a 'middle of the road' solution. I'm not going to go into a lengthy treatise about how and why I got to where I am today and I'm not going to just skip to today and pretend I've been here all along. Instead, I'll do a quick rundown of where I was when the last entry was written and where I am today. As for where I'll be in the future, that's a matter for future posts.

My last entry is from May 15th, 2008. At the time I was married and living the generally acknowledged yuppie paradise - husband, child, house, car, beloved cat, job, and money. My present and future by all accounts was something most people would kill for and probably had. And yet, I was unhappy and grasping at straws to find a reason to get up most mornings.

Today's entry is six months later, almost to the day... I'm in the middle of an exceptionally amicable divorce from my husband who is still my friend. I have moved out of the house and into a lovely condo, taking my books, my clothes and my cat. I still have my job (which I love) and my car (which I have a healthy respect for) and most mornings I wake up so deliriously happy that it feels as if I'm waking up into a dream.

I'm restarting my blog for a couple of reasons... One, because I expect and hope for a lot more changes in the months and years to come and this is one way for me to parse my thoughts. And two, because I'm starting another blog alongside this one and this is one way of introducing it. To see my new blog, look for the link on the right hand side in the section entitled "My other life".

Like I said, the two blogs will run somewhat in parallel which seems only fitting since my two lives run in parallel as well. Happy reading!

Bad habit

I have a bad habit...

Well, more than one, actually, but in this case, I'm talking about reading multiple books in parallel. Now, I know that there are plenty of other people who do the same thing but to my orderly, disciplined and somewhat masochistically obsessive compulsive mind this smacks of irreverent gluttony. I should be able to devote my full attention to just one book at a time, from start to finish, shouldn't I?

For some two years I had retreated almost entirely into the online world and have cut down my time with an actual book in hand. Don't misunderstand, I didn't stop reading, never that... It's just that my tastes took a detour and my reading became a lot more erratic, done in little snippets and bursts without any sort of a connecting thread.

I continued rereading my favorites but although I do get something out of every book I reread, most of the books I've been reading and rereading over the last couple of years (with few notable exceptions) have been what I would call "comfort food" books. Easy to swallow, easy to digest, gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling for a few hours or days and then just as easily forgotten.

In that restless time I've gone back to reading just one book at a time which could sometimes stretch into weeks. When I'm engaged, I swallow pages as quickly as I spit out words. To have a three hundred page book stretch into a couple of weeks seemed such a bloody waste of time but without motivation, reading became a passive and sluggish exercise.

I'm not sure what served as a turning point. Perhaps it was a couple of books I read recently that didn't fall into that "comfort food" category. Perhaps the fact that when I get home these days I don't immediately rush to plug in my laptop. Or it could be that a few recent discussions I've participated in and people I've met pointed out, ever so subtly, that my mind has been stagnating.

Whatever the impetus, I'm reading again. And just as a reluctant dieter will cram in a triple chocolate brownie on the sly, awash in guilt and promising to do better the next day, so am I cramming in books and buying more, all the while promising myself that I'll read them slowly, that I'll savor them and really and truly read every word. Ok, who am I kidding?

And now I'm reading...

Story of O by Pauline Reage, because even reading it for the fifth time, I cannot get over the beauty of the language and the savagery of the descriptions. And because I keep hoping that this time I'll find, hidden deep in the flowing torrent of words, the key I've been looking for.

Tara Road by Maeve Binchy, because I have a long standing love hate relationship with this book. It's no darker than her other books but it has a poignant sadness to it than I don't feel when I read most of her other works and I will only reread Tara Road when I need to reassure myself that life isn't supposed to be fair.

The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox - this is a new book and I've just started reading it. I'm literally on the first page and already I can tell that whatever the content, the language and the setting will keep me going.

Warlock by Oakley Hall - this is another new book and also one I've just started reading. It is a book I was told to read and I've started it before but after a few pages, life interfered and I never picked it up again. I'm restarting it now and this time I will finish it.

What an odd collection it is! And for anyone who wonders how I don't confuse time periods and characters and story lines... if you're like me and you've indulged in this sort of gluttony, then you know that going from book to book is like walking in and out of separate, sumptuously appointed rooms in the same house; each distinct and complete in its furnishings but unmistakably unique. You can't combine or mistake one for the other, it just isn't possible.

And if you've never done it, take my word for it or pick up two books at once and try it for yourself. Happy reading...

Books and tears (cont.)

I finished the book...

I was wrong, I wasn't sorry it was over. I wasn't sorry it was time to put it down.

But most importantly, I am not sorry I picked it up.

And after a few months, I'll pick it up again.

Books and tears

I'm reading a book right now...

I've put it down to write this and when I'm finished with this blog entry, I'll pick it up again.

I'm reading a book right now and I hate it.

I hate it for making fear and sadness and grief and guilt well up inside me and overwhelm everything I would otherwise be feeling.

I hate it for casting a dark shadow on a day that should have been one of rest and recalibration and has now instead become a jangling and restless counting of minutes and pages.

I hate it for the tears that have been streaming unchecked and uncontrollable down my face for the last hour as I've been reading it.

And I hate myself for picking it up. For lying when I told myself that I'll just read a few pages and then put it back on the shelf. For swallowing each bitter chapter, choking on the words and emotions and still greedily reaching for more. For knowing all the while what it will do to me and being unable to put it down.

It's sitting right next to me, waiting to be picked up, mocking me by the innocuousness of its almost cozy cover. Of course I'll pick it up... and I'll hate putting it down when it's over.

Bad days

Every few weeks I wake up in the morning and I know, without any doubt, that this will be a bad day.

There are no precursors, nothing to foreshadow its imminent appearance or help me find ways of warding it off. It comes and I'm just as powerless to stop it as I am to make it walk off faster than it chooses.

The helplessness of it infuriates me and each time it leaves me I resolve that next time I won't let it take hold. I swear to myself that I'll fight it. That I'll push it away before it can settle in and gnaw at my insides with its restless fury.

And then the next time comes and the sinking feeling in my chest when I wake up and take the first breath of the day tells me that it's too late. It's already here. Already settled and waiting for me. Whether I acknowledge it or not is irrelevant. I can lie to myself, close my eyes and pretend I don't see it, but sooner or later, I'll feel it and taste it and smell it. It has all the time in the world and it'll wait there, mocking me with its patience until I admit its presence and then all pretense is lost.

Think back to the last time you've stubbed your toe against the wooden leg of that old sofa you've sworn so many times before to move. That first quarter of an instant when the toe has already made the connection with the hard wood but before the sickening vertigo of pain has come. The tiny, blissful moment when your brain crazily wonders, "will it really hurt? but maybe it won't? could it be...?" and then the moment is gone, the pain sinks its fangs in and you double over, feeling at once betrayed and justified. And angry... so very, very angry to have been disappointed yet again.

And then, if you're anything like me, there's also fury at yourself - for not moving the sofa as you planned, for not being more careful as you walked, for not doing a myriad of things that in the aftermath occur to you as possible ways of having prevented what you're now experiencing.

And so it is with me and the bad days. Overtime the fury has lessened and now it varies from almost dispassionate musings to plaintive whimpers - all centered around the pointless quest for a solution to prevent the next bout while at the same time struggling to get through the current one.

And it gets worse. Of course it does, why shouldn't it? Unlike with stubbing your toe where the pain is as bad in the first moment as it'll get and then it starts getting better and better until you can unclench your teeth, breathe again, maybe release the curses you've swallowed and maybe resolve once again to move that sofa... Unlike that, my bad days spiral out of control slowly, taunting me with promises of worse to come.

The peak usually doesn't come until hours later when I'm all wound up and tense and least capable of handling it. Sometimes, it's a series of smaller peaks, each one soothing me with false promises of being the last one. Having been fooled too many times, I now greet each peak with wary suspicion, always peering after it, trying to see what isn't there.

And then, without any warning, it's over. There's a surge of my usual energy, a bright burst of optimism, a resolution that I won't let it happen again, a desire to lie to myself and tell myself that it's over for good this time. And life goes on.

For those of you who are still wondering... Yes, today is one of those days.

Losing control v. giving it to another...

Perhaps fate or some higher power is telling me to stop testing my luck...

This winter, so far, I've had at least three absolutely horrific drives home - snow, ice, fog - take your pick. And each time that I've come through it and breathed a sigh of relief I couldn't help but wonder why (and sometimes how) I got through it.

The most recent one was last night - roads coated with sheets of black ice, on top of it a fresh powder of snow, a dark night, anti-lock brakes useless, hilly road, followed by a highway, and a lot of people on the road who seem to have turned off their brain the moment they turned on the ignition.

After a few minutes behind the wheel and the first time I had to brake, I realized that I lost all control over my car. There was a car in front of me which I was rapidly approaching and there was absolutely nothing I could do except try to swerve out of the way and maneuver between it (a van) and the sidewalk to my right. Of course, swerving sharply is just a recipe for disaster all in itself. But I did turn the wheel and I could feel the car sliding, wheels locking and the car trying to desperately kick in the anti-lock brakes and failing.

We slid through the space between the sidewalk and the van (and don't ask me how, I have no idea), and kept on going, continuing to turn right even though the light was red. Thankfully there were no cars coming from the left, but even if there had been, there was nothing I could do to stop at that point. The wheels regained traction once we got onto the cross street and the nightmare continued for another hour until I finally got home.

During the entire ride, I remember talking out loud, trying to convince myself that I'm all right, that everything will be fine, that I'll make it home and all will be well. I'm all for self-delusion and I'm fairly good with words, but it wasn't working. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest, my breath failing and my eyes filling with tears each time I pressed on the brake and the car shuddered, unable to obey the commands it's used to. We were in each other's hands and both entirely helpless. Not a good feeling...

Which brings me back to the topic of the post.

As I was going to bed, I was thinking about the distinction between losing control and giving it to someone else. For someone like me who's used to either having control or fighting to get it, to suddenly find myself in a situation where I'm powerless is frightening enough. But although the end result is the same - you have no control over your body, your actions, sometimes even your speech - the way you get there does make a big difference.

Losing control when you didn't want to is demoralizing. It makes you feel helpless and scared and depressed. It can feel hopeless. And without an immediate way of regaining it, it's tempting to just give up and stop trying. Unintended loss of control is holding a delicate porcelain teacup in your hand and then watching in horror as it slips out of your fingers and shatters on the marble slabs beneath your feet.

And then there is handing control over to someone else. It's holding that same porcelain teacup and placing it in the open hands of someone you trust to cherish and protect it as you do. It's knowing that the person you're giving it to will hold it for you and will return it to you when it's time.

Giving up control is not a loss at all. Giving it to the right person can be an experience of immense freedom, release, and joy. It can feel like taking off layers and layers of heavy clothes, feeling the lightening with each removal. It's the first breath of fresh air you take when you step outside on a beautiful spring day. It's opening a fist that's been clenched for so long you've forgotten it can be opened and finding that letting go doesn't mean you'll fall.

Not if the right person is holding the porcelain teacup.

On service v. submission

Recently I listened to a discussion about whether service and submission are the same thing. To those of you reading who are not familiar with what I'm talking about, the context here is the Dominance/submission aspect of bdsm.

It was interesting to hear how other submissives viewed the role of service in their submission. Some have said that yes, for them submission is service and vice versa, while others felt as I do that service and submission are different although they can go hand in hand.

I didn't participate in the discussion, preferring to just listen to what the others were saying. At the same time my own thoughts were scurrying about although I think the realization of what was bothering me hit me almost as soon as the question was asked. Subconsciously (for myself) I had been equating service and submission but the moment I had to actually verbalize it, I knew right away that for me service and submission are completely different.

Not only that but when I think about serving, I think of it as almost entirely self-serving. I love it. I get a whoosh of pleasure from performing a service, however large or small and the question then is, if it's a self-serving, not to say selfish, act at the core, regardless of whom else it ends up benefiting, is it really submission?

I had thought that I was a submissive, but if service alone is not submitting and if all I've been doing is giving service, then am I really a submissive? What is submission worth when it's something you give willingly rather than something you have to struggle with giving?

And I suppose one could ask, why does everything have to be a struggle? Why can't you be happy that something comes easily to you? Why does it have to be difficult? Well, the truth is, it doesn't, but then it isn't worth quite as much, is it?

It's certainly not worth as much to me if it's something I do easily. Thinking back to when I was a student... It's something like taking a very easy class and getting an A in it or taking an advanced class and working your heart out to do well and getting the same A. Which is more valuable? They are both As but you know that what you did to earn the former is not nearly as much as you did to earn the latter. And yes, both may add the same to your GPA but they are not the same.

So, if service and submission are not the same, and if serving is not submitting, then what is submission? I think I know the answer but I'm not sure I can reconcile with it. Perhaps something to think about for the next post.