Deep Links

Doubling Down

A few weeks ago I had a pretty bad first date. Of course things seemed promising online, great conversation, coordination was smooth. But all that human stuff is really stripped away from the online experience. That human stuff that happens instantly in person and you know if it's right or wrong.

It took me a couple days to be honest with the guy. (He was a good guy but we were not a match.) And in those days I had all those horrible feelings about online dating. How pointless and worthless it was. (And I have only done it twice in my life!) But then I thought, rather than be passive and negative, I would double down. I took action. 

I spent an evening looking at profiles. Searching for keywords. Looking at pictures, at the spaces between the images, at the words, at what they said and what they didn't say. I wrote light, thoughtful messages. I asked questions, I shared information about myself. And I did it with no expectations. 

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That's the way I feel about the world now. I was shattered after the election. Since then, I've been ungrounded, processing, trying to make sense of the trauma. I woke up this morning for the first time in a week not feeling a sense of dystopian dread. I'm ready to double down. 

Love is the strongest thing I know, so I'm doubling down on love.

Rough

Today has been rough. The stress of the past week, me behind on my work, being a perfectionist and having high expectations of myself and really really really needing to be taken care of has put me over the edge tonight. My inconsiderate upstairs neighbor clomps her fucking stompy walk waking me up before 7am - every fucking day this week. My dog is needy, never satisfied. Damn it, I'm needy too! But I don't have someone taking care of me. I'm lucky to eat breakfast before noon. (Today it was 1:30.) Or shower before 3. All week I've been reaching out to friends, checking in on them, helping them with money issues, being positive, all while juggling my very stressful things like my truck, unsuccessfully not staying focused on work, freaking out about the future of non-existent work because of this misogynistic fucking world. Trying not to get derailed by the news. Finding out this whitepaper based on research that CONFIRMS the sexism in banking might not be published. W.T.fucking.F? Oh, so we have research results that CONFIRMS what we all know based on 20+ years of being a woman in a man's fucking world, but we might not publish it because we already know it exists anyway. I am so fucking tired. I want to crawl in my bed, or curl up on my couch and lose myself in Roger Waters guitar solos forever. 

I don't need to be taken care of all the time, but I'm not the fucking superwoman that you might think I am from my external person. I am just another human with their own limitations and mine are all snapped right now.

Falling apart

I woke up this morning, similar to yesterday. Undeniably consciousness pulls me from the bliss of sleep. I feel my dog sleeping next to my leg. I'm physically comfortable in my bed, covers snuggled, darkness of my light blocking curtains. But slowly, the reality of my world dawns on me. It is terrifying.

I get up. Put on my fur lined moccasins. Go to the bathroom. Go into my living room. I see my purple couch, my rug, my things, and I'm reminded of a year of crying on that couch. A year of breathing. Of hitting bottom. And it feels like that today. That place is right here. 

My deadlines have been blown to shit. I think, how can I motivate myself to do my work - a project I worked so hard for and that I love doing. I have to re-think everything. Yes this changes the future - but for how much of a variable? That I have no idea.

To see me from the outside, I look not much different from any other day. But internally, I am desperately exploring paths and possibilities of the future. The world is dark around me. There are glimmers of light. I use the skills I learned grieving years ago. I sit here pinned in place, floating in a world I no longer know. 

I thought love was going to destroy the stability I had found in myself. I was totally wrong. My heart, and the love I have for others, new and longstanding, is the most grounded thing I have.

Updated: Casual Dating

A few weeks ago I was lamenting to my bffs in the the backyard over a few bottles of Prosecco. The topic: dating, love, and the various men I was entertaining. Something in the back of my mind kept prodding me to restart my online dating profile, but I kept balking. I am burnt out. Or rather, I'm frankly scared, gun shy, and guarding my heart. 

But I miss things about a relationship. The coziness, the person you share all kinds of things with, going out, being taken out, learning new things, stories, the companionship. 

But I am very happy with my single solomente life. I have a stability in/with myself I have never had. And I am loathe to upset this internal balance.

After the last two relationships, I have given 3 of my friends veto power. This means, in a real and tangible way, that any of them can veto a potential relationship or person to date. These three friends know me best, have been there for me in my darkest times, and have listened to me trying to make sense of my past failed relationships. They know the dirtiest dirt. I trust their opinion. This is a power I have never bestowed upon anyone, and they know to use it wisely and for my best interest.

Anyway, back to the dating profile. I had so many questions. Is it fair to be on a dating site if I am so ... ambiguous? Is it fair to this guy I am half dating? Is it fair if I have no idea what I want or am looking for?

My bffs convinced me that these questions were perfect for someone who is casually dating. In the past, I have always been a person with a relationship agenda. I was looking for a partner. Sure, I made those lists, I even did a lot more powerful things as well. I am not new to, nor ineffective in manifesting my life. And my last relationship manifesting was epic. And it failed in a more epic proportion than any previous. Yay sine wave!

Now, I don't know what the fuck I want. And I finally understand the whole casual dating thing is about. So here we go Heather, a whole new world to discover with none of the commitments. 

Update:

My friend Miko made a comment on my FB page where I posted this. (Yes, this post was a signaling, which is why I publicly posted it.). It caused me to reflect a lot on what I had written. Not all of it felt true. Specifically the non-committal comment. If there is anything, I am committed. 

It's just that I'm scared. Those two guys I dated after my last long LTR, caused a lot of growth to occur for me. AKA, these relationships were hard and I got hurt. I want a partner, oh god do I want that. Just read this blog back a few years to understand the depth of that yearning. But there is a lot of pain. I've about given up (oh I say I have, but if I am honest, I have to say there is a tiny pandora's box pedaco of hope I am wrong) on the possibility of having the kind of relationship/partnership I've been looking for.

I blamed it on culture. I blamed it on men. I blamed it on me. In myself, I have created someone who is incomparable. Why should I be surprise I have evolved myself out of possible partners? This is the place I've been in most of this year. It's not coming from an ego perspective, but more pragmatic. To stop "dreaming the impossible" because I have dreamed it for so long and it remains impossible.

To give up these past dreams, and, well, see what happens. To be conscious of my previous script in interacting with men. To release the pressure - on myself to make my dreams come true. And to maybe, just live a little, with as few expectations as possible. 

Hexagram 57

The penetrating quality of the wind depends on its ceaselessness. This is what makes it so powerful; time is its instrument. - Tao Te Ching, hexagram 57

An alternate reality

I've had an unsettling feeling all week. It's as if some shimmery of reality gossimered too much to and subtly, I've slipped into a similar, yet completely different reality. Have I been dosed as in Stanislav Lem's Futurological Congress, but I am living through the Presentologist Election? Is there something in the water? Or has someone nanotechnologied the air - like a friend wrote in her scifi novel? Or is just the lyric from a favorite ballad, "all my songs are coming true."

There is nothing to ground me in this reality. On the dog walk, the leaves shimmered in the cool evening air. The rough skittering of one across the pavement. I inhale the air. The dog sniffs. I want to walk. I need to move my body. I feel my feel pressing on the ground beneath my sandals. 

Back home, the sweat of the day is sticky. I shower. I watch the purple swirling in the water at my toes. I turn on the AC. My LED lights. I return to my computer. To think, to write. To double check my todo list. I shockingly dream of a boring job. Something 9 to 5, where I sit at a phone and fill out paper work. 

What the hell is going on? I'm starting to think something is really wrong, but I can't put my finger on the subtle dramatic shift. I can only watch, be aware and hope that I am not lost in some other world, or between the cracks.

I don't want to fall in love

I don't want your love letters. I don't want your words of adoration from afar. I don't want you to peer into my life through the distorted lens of social media or my fb posts. I don't want my emotions swept around like papers in a tornado. I don't want the pining, the delight, the soul crushing insecurity or the fresh delight of falling in love. Fresh winter snow - all possibilities, not the inevitable black slush of New York streets.

I don't want the crush. The drug of limerance, goblin fruit so sweet. I don't want the delights of exploring a new body, a new body exploring mine. I don't want the sweet anticipation. The surrender. The exhaustion.

I don't want to create deep connections over emails sent late at night. Or to share my favorite youtube videos on my couch, or lyrics or our favorite bands from high school - or to tell you which bands you should check out because you were in high school in another place/time. I don't want the (false) script of relationship to run in my mind. I don't want to kiss you on the beach in South America, a business class hotel, under a tree in my favorite place in Los Angeles or at my front door when you say goodbye after a night or three. 

I'm not afraid of love. I love love. My capacity for love is bigger than ever and the ways in which I love have increased. I just don't have time for the emotional rollercoaster. The high, the plateau and the inevitable slide into despair. No jauntes for me, please. I've had enough. Love tears me apart. And I've just put myself back together, thank you very much.

Goodbye to the Things

Moving back into Los Angeles proper has caused me to downsize. Over the past few years, family deaths have increased my amount of inherited heirloom items. From depression era dishes, pre-war china sets, crystal wedding goblets (of two varieties), silver teapots; and not to mention the furniture - all wood, all ornate, all handcrafted.

Up till now, it's been hard to release these items. They had, not just a sentimentality, but, they were kept to be handed down. But I have no children. I will hand none of these things down. Furthermore, many of these things, these knick knacks, were not disposed of by their owners - my ancestors. The disposing of these items is something left to me.

A few weeks ago, there were fires in the hills. I woke to smoke and thought the fires had spread to my mountainside. For a brief moment, I considered the idea of losing all my belongings, minus what I could carry in my car. Losing all these inherited items to a fire. There was a feeling of freedom in this. I instantly knew which pieces of sentimentality I would grab. They were not the large pieces of furniture. It was the tiny buddha, the picture, my laptop. 

Realizing this, empowered me to release the items I've held. Even as the movers arrived, and moved my items, I thought, I'm going to sell that piece, and that one too. As I sifted through items, I thought, do I want this, and if not, placed it into the not-want pile. Which I then sifted further into items I thought I could sell and items for swap/donate.

Even as I unpack, I notice things I could live without. I don't need to be surrounded by the past, by these objects, I can select a few memories to cherish and love.

Mixed wine

I've had such strange mixed feelings over the past few days. I get caught up - swept up - in these emotions, like a paper caught up in my Tornado. Then something happens, and I find myself, calm, detached, unaffected back in the center. And then there's the moment when I feel both caught up in the emotion and detached from it at the same time. 

There's my feelings of mortality. Death speaking to me through the beating of my heart. And my laughing at death. The feelings that I've not accomplished much, and yet, seeing what I have created - these things, these writings, this "content" and more than that - creating exactly the life I wanted - and living it. There's the feelings of getting older, am I still attractive? was I ever? Maybe I should have done breast reduction surgery when I was in my 20s... or take better care of my skin. I should know better than to watch myself on camera after 3 days of shooting and melted makeup. I guess I still want to both be seen as an attractive woman, and yet not defined by it. I'm irritated by friends and potential lovers. Radio silence. A love letter out of the Princess Bride. And passive aggressive MIA despite him telling me he would never act that way to me. WTF? Of all people, I never expect you to act that way to me. 

Even my books can't keep my attention. Favorite books, new provocations, current favorite topics: anarchism and the commons. I alternately think my brain is sharper than ever, and then, I think of myself a decade ago. How much I knew, and didn't know. And how much I know now, and still do not know.

One thing is certain, I have internalized surrender. No more do I feel the hot anticipation. Even the anger I feel at the radio silence of one of my best friends is cold. Icy. I have learned to surrender. To wait. I will take action - but nothing asks it. Today, I feel the world through strange wine. The rocking of a ship, ebbing to feel something and flowing to detach. Ebbing into the emotion, flowing to infinity.

My room is in shadows. The slitted blinds show the outside world. Slices of greenery. These trees. Leaves barely flutter in the stillness. I hear the soft sounds of dog snores from under my desk, like a low bass line under the dance music I'm playing for inspiration. 

I mix the wine with water, I speak my adapted words from Xenophon. It's time to get to get back to work. 

 

My first duty is to sacrifice to the gods and pray them to grant me the thoughts, words, and deeds likely to render my command most pleasing to the gods and to bring myself, my friends, and my city the fullest measure of affection and glory and advantage. 

 - Heathervescent, adapted from Xenophon

Coyote in the Night

I'm no stranger to coyote calls - howls and yips in the night. Often starting as a single voice, joined by other in a cacophony of sound. But last night's coyote's voice was something straight out a joker's mouth. How do I describe the almost, but not quite human laughter? A chuckle call twisting into a scream-howl, joined by the more traditional howls of the pack. King Coyote was in the backyard in some back bushes and I knew they were on the prowl. 

I was awoken later in the night by the same cackling laughter howls. They were on the other side of the house and I knew something was up. The dog was antsy to go out, but I was hesitated. I wasn't convinced the fenced in yard was secure and Mr. D, while a fighter in his younger years, is older. Still, Mr D persisted. He does like his 3am bathroom time, so I let him go out. His strange, inconsistent barks concerned me. He is normally a silent, but deadly type. So I knew something was out there. I put the outside light on, pulled him in and sealed the dog door.

He immediately started going crazy. Trying to scratch through the dog door. I knew some shit was going to go down and I didn't want to take him to the emergency vet at 3am. So we waited.... and watched. Less than a minute later, King Coyote, solid build, well fed, beautiful coat and bushy tail trotted outside the door - inside the fenced yard. Spying us in the door, he scamped off, only to return more cautiously to watch us. 

How the hell did trickster Coyote get inside the fence? And what would have happened if Mr D was out there?