new views

It is of note that I am learning a new internal narrative. I am changing my story.

Now I speak of my past with compassion for myself and I speak of my vulnerability. You could not have told me that 30 or even 20 years ago that my activism work was from the position of victim but it was. It did take a kind of strength to do what I did and I was following my father's life .. make life better for others, do work that benefits more than just yourself .. so ERA or Sexual Victims rights or women's rights and then queer rights and lesbian visibility. My external world saw me as strong so I could believe I was. But it takes a different kind of strength and bravery to do what I am doing now. The previous work of my life was external and yes it did help me and inform me and even heal me. But the work I have done for the last ten years has been internal for myself. The work with Susie (emdr therapist), the group work at Gilda's club after the mastectomy, workshops on my compulsive eating, my meditation class, working out at the gym not being sedentary but getting in motion and even my current job have brought me a new story...and my relationship with Maggie is only possible because of all that work.

When I told Maggie about the ptsd and the causes I did not feel like a victim, I felt like that vessel with cracks from trauma, and the cracks have been aggrandized with gold and I am more beautiful because of those traumas. Not less. I had seen myself as damaged, no good, not ever going to be good enough. Grieving for what could have been, had the abuse not happened to me. I believed I would never change..I would also suffer from depression always have to deal with triggers. That my thoughts would always be wired via ptsd...

Previous relationships whether men or women were dominated by sex. That is what felt good ...and no doubt I was. I have a closet full of compliments from every lover. Sex is powerful, because one must be present to enjoy it and to pleasure others...and it is very grounding. So the fringe benefits were good for me.

This new relationship started with integrity and it was a friendship built on trust and honesty. That gives a strong foundation to our future..whatever it may be. At the start it was very empowering for me to delay the sex, and focus on getting to know Maggie, to learn more about her, well us with other, as she was doing the same. We were vulnerable with one another emotionally through our stories before we got naked and had sex. That was a very good experience for me. And with confidence I know there are more good experiences between us to come...

My job is to stay grounded. As my dad once told me....your head can be in the clouds but keep your feet on the ground. Such a wise man. I am thinking I am a tree and the clouds that I reach for are her. I will continue to be vulnerable. There I will find love, compassion and understanding. This is my story, my new view and the source of my strength.

recommit

I have been going to the gym. I am again building up that momentum. Swimming and weight training. I really missed both which I hope means that I have made physical activity a permanent habit in my life. I have been working my way through my weight training routine and I am doing about 35-40 minutes. Swimming is at about 25 minutes, hoping today I can do 30 mins. I keep following diana nyad's blog who is getting back in the water to attempt her cuba swim again, and is 61 now. She inspires me. Saw the doc last week and I have lost 4 pounds. less fuel more movement is the key for me. sugar levels are good. I have been eating much less meat and have pretty much cut out gluten. so now no dairy and no gluten. this keeps my choices nearer to fruits and veggies. feels great. also I have been staying away from pot which feels very good. also turned of cable just doing the Netflix hulu and listening to more npr. this keeps me more active and less sedentary at home. also a good thing...

also being with Maggie feels very good. we continue to get to know one another. we have begun an intimate physical relationship. this relationship is diff on many levels. we are equals. we are both available. open hearts. I was nervous about her seeing my mastectomy but in the end it did not matter. she is a gentle and intuitive lover....tender....much laughter too.

and so I go forward with my life.

surprise and delight

Last night was my 4th date with Maggie and it was an amazing experience. First in the hearth of her home-the kitchen-we sat across from one another at her kitchen table and talked.  We played with the dogs who seemed to encourage our dialogue and urge us to keep on doing what we were doing. We were able to be present for each other and communicate easily about fears and desires and dreams. I at times felt like I was a teenager back at Grier talking to a best friend after lights out and I was vulnerable and charged and at times I felt old and wise and calm and grounded. I was able to speak of all the "gold" in my cracks and what I have now as beauty and what I can give her because of those experiences. We continue to peel off our layers slowly, giving each other permission with every exposure to allow the look and accept the compassion and understanding. At dark, we moved outside to enjoy the cooler air, not cool because the heat here is still great but the temp had dropped considerably and a storm was moving in. We seemed drawn to the excitement of the storm which was matching the excitement between us and we simply stayed present with it and let it swirl around us. The dialogue continued as we watched the sky light up with lightning. I was solid and I was present. I explained my PTSD and its origins..but not as a victim explaining her pain but rather as a frank discussion about my response to it and how I manage it now. Her first question was "what can I do to help?"-- maybe the best response anyone could give someone. She is a good person. She told me that I make her happy, she is attracted to me,  and is not nervous but excited about what she will learn as we move forward into this vulnerable exchange of what can only be said is love.  Took the storm about an hour and half to move in and let loose with water. I left just as it was starting to pour. I was delighted with the entire evening and am excited ... and now less afraid.

myth and mirth

she was the idea of beauty in my household. if an Elizabeth Taylor movie was on TV we all watched it together. we couldn't get through dinner without a fight but we agreed on liz. she was adored by my father and mother. especially my father and he spoke of her as if he knew her personally as he had met her one night by chance at madison square garden. one of the big boxing fight nights. Ms. Taylor came down the aisle with her mother looking for their seats. Liz looked lost. So my dad popped up and went to her aide and rescue. dad got her and her mom safely to their seats.

she was the ideal of beauty that I aspired to. I had the dark curly hair. and the its. she was an aggressive sexy. she was an unbelievably beautiful woman who was empowered by it.....and importantly she was never a victim. as she aged she showed herself for who she was in the present without looking back.  she was known in my household for her friendship with Montgomery Cliff. my dad often told the story of the night of the famous tragic car accident. How liz was the one to find him right after the accident, get him to the hospital and she stood by him through it all. best friends to each. and later I realized fag and fag hag. copy that. I loved liz as much as any drag queen ever did.

I even had her children's book Nibbles and me.  i followed her from that book through all of her life, a loyal fan. during the aids crisis she showed courage and gave leadership early on when others failed us and let us down.. she rallied folks to the cause with understanding and compassion. i loved her even more.
insanely i wanted nothing more than to be as beautiful as she was.
i failed...for a while i felt bad that i failed at it. now it is something that makes me smile. it was an ideal impossible to achieve, i should have been aspiring to my own beauty as myself whatever that looked like it... better to aspire to be  myself...i get it now.

Then today i found this. "An arrangement made with God, my mother, and Louis B. Mayer made me this person, this product, you know as Elizabeth Taylor. I showed up. I took light and directions and lots and lots of notes. I'm proud of the work. But what I most care about--always cared about--was being a good friend, a helpful person--and I'm happiest when someone tells me that I did that, that I became that person. The rest is fate, beshert, dumb luck. But the good person? I worked hard at that." -- Elizabeth Taylor/Interview with James Grissom/From "The Complete Divinity."

me too liz. me too. happiest when a friend tells me i was helpful.  i learned it from my father. he was a good friend to many people. he treated folks with respect and took care of his friends, would do anything for a friend. I can still hear him say, "I got it .."  because he always picked up the check. always. i heard from many people over the years what a great friend he was. at grier i perfected the art of friendship i was so lonely when i arrived as a freshman. having finally escaped my ever increasing hostile environment at home....i was suddenly free to be myself and it was liberating... i soon learned the importance and meaning of friendship ..i am 12 years old and away from home for the first time..i know no one. i don't recognize any thing or any one in my surroundings. and i am so scared i consider running home to my mother. but i stay for four years because of the friendships i made there, i learned that i could feel safe in a new environment by making friends.. may i be remembered as a good friend..my friends to keep me going...wonderful friends and many memories that make me laugh and cry...it makes me happy to think of my friendships with trish..sarah, chuck, murphy, Beverly, Robbie, Cynthia, ron, tee, leslie.....

and i agree liz the rest is fate, luck, dumb luck. but the good person? the good friend? I too worked hard at that. I too work hard at that and my prayer is i always find the strength to continue to work at being a good person.

self care

 So today I am struggling. ptsd in full force today.  I am trying to remain calm. Complicating things was a trip to the dentist, always very nerve wracking for me. This I found when on line today. I love this author and enjoy her blog. And although I know that this is good practice esp today..I still just want to smoke pot, or get a cocktail with Jared, not work out and sabotage all my hard and good work these last two weeks. Dammit.

the dozen daily delights, a post from nicola griffith's blog

After my posts yesterday about wine and chocolate plus pondering the end of the world, I've decided to list the twelve daily deeds of delight for health and happiness. Each must be performed every single day. Each must be done without hurry, without thinking about what comes next.

• drink tea (I like hot Irish breakfast with a spash of 2% aka semi-skimmed milk, but some strange people prefer it cold, with ice in it, and I'm okay with that, as long as the tea is freshly brewed and not some vile packet thing)
• eat chocolate (I mean chocolate not brown 'candy', and I most definitely do not, notnotnot, mean Hershey's; may be combined with drinking tea)
• drink wine (may substitute beer)
• eat a piece of fruit (I mean fruit, a whole something you could pick from a tree or vine: an apple, a nectarine, a pear; not juice; not sorbet; not a disgusting frozen pie; a plump ripe luscious piece of mouth-watering fruit grown without herbicides or pesticides)
• eat fresh vegetables (I mean a brightly coloured, vitamin-stuffed vegetable, not starch, not french fries or creamed corn or frozen peas, but some still-glistening with the dew courgette, lightly sauted in olive oil; roasted butternut squash; steamed cabbage tossed in Danish butter and freshly-ground white pepper. Vegetables.)
• have a conversation (I don't mean an information exchange about who's cooking dinner tonight; I don't mean a shouting match or politely modulated torment about politics; I don't mean an angsty confession about childhoold trauma, or a monologue about javascript; I mean a relaxed, lively, back-and-forth exploration of what gives each of you joy; maybe combined with eating vegetables and drinking wine)
• have sex (why would you do Kegel's exercises when orgasm is the best way to exercise your pelvic floor? why would you do step-exercises when you can use all major muscle groups and get a good cardiovascular exercise with thrills? why do couples therapy when you can bond the old-fashioned way?)
• get out in the fresh air (walking from the office to the car doesn't count; I'm talking about the park, the beach, the city at one o'clock in the morning: breathe deep of cool, living air)
• do nothing, think nothing, say nothing for at least 5 minutes (it gets easier with practise; beginners should start in the bath)
• look at something with attention--a bird or a beetle, the back of your hand or a glass of water, a shoe or a pencil--until you see something new (newness is all around us; trust me, this one puts a sparkle around your day for hours, and it's a must for beginning artists)
• read a novel (may substitute a good poem or two, or a play or script, but not non-fiction)
• enjoy a glass of cool water and feel very, very lucky

A bad day is when I do fewer than seven things on this list. A good day is nine or more. A brilliant day--which I'm planning for tomorrow--is every single thing on the list (some more than once) plus a few extra.

how I respond

My thoughts control my feelings. My thoughts create my feelings. I was nervous. I was uncomfortable. It was difficult to relax. I kept interrupting my interior negative thoughts with positive ones, and I kept interrupting escape with presence. It was difficult. Old patterns wanted to take over. And in the end I am not sure I pulled it off. And now ..awaking on the next day I am not sure how to control my response. I feel defeated. I don't know what to think. I am not sure how to read the situation. My thoughts this morning are more negative. This is not going anywhere, I spoke too soon, I spoke too much. I didn't ask enough about her, there were too many pregnant pauses, I am not attractive, I am too old, and I do not deserve this good happiness, I am not worthy so push it away now and get a grip, go back to solitude....she is disinterested. I keep talking to myself about no matter what stay on your track..find your happiness with yourself, stop worrying about other, you can keep these good feelings..and so it goes.

Vulnerability

 The vulnerability paradox: It's the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I want you to see in me. Trying to remember to show up and be seen today! Brene Brown

 I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Maybe because I am exploring the idea of an intimate relationship with someone for the first time in many years. Or maybe because of my work with Alison including the meditation I am more aware of my own vulnerability. Yesterday when talking to Trish I said something about my "sexual history" and then corrected myself  with "I mean.. my dating history" I may have been correct the first time. They were sexual relationships first that then moved to intimate relationships and for good reason. I have also noticed that three dates in with Maggie and I have not shred my PTSD history with her, and usually the stories that created the PTSD are shared early..but I haven't shared them. Maybe because I no longer identify as that person anymore, or at least not as my primary identity. Susie (past therapist) used to tell me that our work would be about rewiring my brain. Maybe I have accomplished that .. 

Today what I know is I want my 60's to be my best decade yet! And whatever I have to do in the way of change and vulnerability to do that ..I am willing to do it. And I am committed to me. Must be feeling brave today to make such big statements...

Oliver Sacks is 80

Excerpt from the Sunday Times.....My father, who lived to 94, often said that the 80s had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’, too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities, too. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty. At 80, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60. I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.

I am looking forward to being 80.

    
Oliver Sacks is a professor of neurology at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine and the author, most recently, of “Hallucinations.”

 

feel the music again

I started flirting with her two years ago. We got along immediately. At first I didn't know she had a partner.  I took a lot of people to her restaurant and she and I became friends. I gave her support during a recent crisis, and she accepted it. She has moved on from her break up. Now. She is an adult and she is available, and making her self open to me.

Mutual interest and curiosity all along which led us to already knowing a lot about each other.  We know each other's kids. We've all met. First date was Weds, second date was Fri. next one will be soon enough and  I am sure of that. Café Habana that Sarah and I went to in Royal Oak. It was a favorite place to go to for a long time and so most likely our paths have crossed before there at Café Habana that was her restaurant....her menu ..

All of a sudden music turns me on...that feel good feeling from music had left my body for a while. And when I did experience it, music felt duller. Earlier today I was listening to Aaron Neville sing Tell It Like It Is and I got excited and wanted to see Maggie. I was surprised at how powerful the feelings were.

I did see Maggie, saw her earlier tonight for quite a while. It was wonderfully fun. I was a little nervous. But I told no lies and I was present. It felt somewhat unfamiliar but it was good despite some discomfort. There are many parallels in our separately lived lives. And differences. She can do woodwork, minor plumbing, electrical etc. I do not do any of that. She is a neat freak. We both like a clean house. She has two dogs and I have two cats.

Same name. Honest we have the same name. Independent at an early age.  We both learned getting it done. And then the next getting it done. We just kept pluggin away. Married and Divorced from men. We both have daughters, and each of us  has a gay daughter. Hard Worker. Working class. Funny. Smart. Workaholics both but right now she wants to cut back at work, and get back her life. Sounded like in about two weeks she was going to take some time off from work. I am in a similar frame of mind or life space right now. Less is more.

I am attracted to her, we are attracted to each other. Our daughters all know we are dating. I can easily picture her with my friends in Buffalo.

Sat at a chef's table tonight with Maggie, so very nice, exactly like Kate would have .. it is not lost on me that I am dating someone who is a chef.

I would like to see her again and I hope that happens soon. I am already dedicating brain space to think about her throughout the day.

So after two years of going to see her at dawn and every time bring her her hot coffee from Zingerman's her favorite, which I started out doing weekly, then recently my morning visits dwindled down to once a month. I think that got her attention. My absence. If she wanted to see me she was going to have to ask, and she did.

This feels different than other relationships I have had.

Dropped my age on her...she didn't blink .

turning sixty

had a very good discussion with Alison yesterday. i was present during my session, a plus in value as these sessions go. let me see if i can reconstruct it here. we talked about K and her desire to throw me a party and why she is so invested in being in charge of that. Instead of saying to me okay mom I want to throw u a party what do you want? she tells me -being a lil bit of a bully- that she is throwing me a party-and she has it all worked out. I am resistant and i just figured out why-she wants to revisit the past and that is too painful for me. but i haven't told her that-i just tell her no because i haven't decided what i want-but i am definitely against the idea of her being in charge of it.

as age 59 comes to an end and 60 looms closer- it feels like many doors and windows are closing. as i look back over my life i see that i spent many years working on the collective - activism for others which was also for me but was about the collective group benefits-women's rights victim rights gay rights etc...i was busy ignoring my own future needs for security .. then at 50 i started a healing journey of self when i left bflo. and my bohemian life style. a job with benefits that could help me address my health issues-and then the cancer battle for so many years-and then reversing the obesity and diabetes.

i fear K wants to go back and recreate what was the best part of my life with her party for me-and it would be too painful-there is a real loss there for me and it would be too painful to go back-because one cannot go back-

and i am missing the value here by not letting go of all that- by constantly looking back and remembering that which is gone-and because the value in my current life does not resemble what i am familiar with i don't see it. in fact -worse- i don't see any value now in my life -i don't recognize my own worth in my life as it exists now.

in the past my search for others illuminating myself back to me and actually getting that made me believe that was the only way i could see my value my soul or illumination-was from the larger group and literally their  applause and admiration. now alone here in my life the illumination is not reflected back-i have to see and fell what is there on my own...