Maybe that's what being middle-aged is about. Moving toward the middle of things.
Of course, in this "40 is the new 30" era (goddamn self-absorbed Baby-Boomers), a 34-year-old is no longer considered middle-aged. But if I were 34 years old in the actual Middle Ages, I'd probably be a dried-up old granny by now. So there you go.
All this rambling speculation can be nicely tied up in this one entirely non-scientific anecdote: Army Guy very rarely says "I love you." I mean, verbally.
Of course, it could just be that, as he puts it, he's more of a demonstrative than a verbal sort of affection-expresser-person-type-thing. And I have plenty of male friends who say "I love you" to me on a regular basis. And then, of course, there are my own deep-seated (like, deeper than dandelion roots) issues around relationships and security and abandonment.
But I did tell him I would like him to say it more often. And he sighed. And looked pained. Like I'd just asked him to pick up the back end of my Acura while I changed the tire.
He did, however, also say "I love you and I find you very attractive."
So I don't have too much to complain about it. I'd have to work at it a lot harder, and complaining just doesn't make me as happy as it makes Technogoddesss. Wherever she is.
The end.
- Location:Home office, recently decluttered
- Mood:
drained - Music:the orb - spanish castles in space (lunar orbit five)
"Yes, I would like to hear your reaction," I replied.
It was very hot, sweltering hot, and the power was off in my apartment. I shucked off my pants and lay on the bed. He made coming-home noises, unidentified clunks and knocks.
"There's a dragonfly motif," he said.
"Yes, there is." I realized I was holding my breath. I took a deep one in, let it out.
He read it.
"I don't know what to say."
I held still. Somewhere far away my heart was beating. My face felt hot, my body very still.
"I think I'm... almost there," he said.
I took another breath. "I don't want you to say it until you're ready to say it. Until you're sure. I was waiting until I knew you felt the same way. But... well, the other night, you said that you were afraid about it being reciprocated, and I wanted to let you know... It just felt like we were playing a big game of chicken. I didn't want to say it until... I just figured I would tell you."
"How does your stomach feel right now?"
I paused, took stock. My body felt very still. I could feel my heartbeat in my hands, and my feet. "I can't really feel my stomach. It's more in my extremities... oh. There's my stomach. Yes. It feels kind of flip-floppy."
"Well..."
Another pause. My face still felt hot.
"I remember telling you that it would happen. I knew that it was going to happen, I knew a long while ago. And... it happened."
"It sounds like you're talking about a car crash or something. But really. It's just the opposite."
"Yes. It's something good."
Another pause.
"You don't have to--" I stopped myself. "There's no hurry. I just wanted to let you know." I looked at the spider plant on its stand next to the window. The air was hot and close, and I could feel the beating of my heart. "You'll notice that I'm avoiding saying the words myself."
"I'd rather tell you to your face. But... I do love you."
And then it was my heart itself filling up.
"And I love you." I thought I would cry. I wished he were there so I could put my arms around him. But he was on the other side of town.
"So we should figure out which movie we're going to see," I said.
I walked through the heat to the T with a silly smile on my face, bouyant. I played a very girly song about four times in a row and walked to its beat. An hour later, when I saw him in person, the initial swelling had subsided. But I was still happy. He was standing at the entry to the movie theater reading Time. I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.
"Tell me to my face," I said.
"Let go of me," he said. I took my arms from around his neck.
He looked at me from that high-up place where he goes sometimes. "I love you," he said.
"I love you," I replied. I felt shy.
We kissed. And walked in to the cool, cool theater and watched Kung Fu Panda.
- Mood:
all mixed up
Later, he said, "I like what we have. And maybe it will develop into something stronger. Or maybe it won't."
He also said, "It seems that we have different long-term goals."
I hate this, even though it's probably true.
Maybe there's a way to reconcile that, or maybe there isn't. But even if we had exactly the same long-term goals, I'd still be scared. Skeared.
Because even if he'd said, "I love you madly and want to take care of you for the rest of your life," I wouldn't really have been happy.
I just don't like not knowing what's going to happen next. Especially with this stuff. The more of them I have, the more the painful ends of relationships haunt me. And it's trust, trust. It's stepping out onto ice and hoping it doesn't break. What happens when I stop noticing it's ice I'm walking on?
- Mood:
anxious
Grasping Fire
The Buddha's teaching is all about understanding suffering--its
origin, its cessation, and the path to its cessation. When we
contemplate suffering, we find we are contemplating desire, because
suffering and desire are the same thing.
Desire can be compared to fire. If we grasp fire, what happens? Does
it lead to happiness? If we say: "Oh, look at that beautiful fire!
Look at the beautiful colors! I love red and orange; they're my
favorite colors," and then grasp it, we would find a certain amount of
suffering entering the body. And then if we were to contemplate the
cause of that suffering we would discover it was the result of having
grasped that fire. On that information, we would hopefully then let
the fire go. Once we let fire go then we know that it is not something
to be attached to. This does not mean we have to hate it, or put it
out. We can enjoy fire, can't we? It is nice having a fire, it keeps
the room warm, but we do not have to burn ourselves in it.
--Ajahn Sumedho, Teachings of a Buddhist Monk
From Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
On a related note, I was hanging out with some friends of friends on Saturday morning, and I mentioned my experience in this meditation "cave" in the basement of the SYDA Yoga Ashram in South Fallsburg, NY, years ago. There was a guy wearing black workboots and jeans and a plaid shirt, with a Patriots cap and a shaved head and a goatee. He looked at me and said, "I think I was in that same cave." Turns out we've had a lot of the same meditation teachers over the years, and both in that very I-don't-want-to-join-a-cult kind of way. Which just goes to know you can't judge a book by its cover. He reminded me of a boyfriend I had in college, actually. Ralph also shaved his head and wore combat boots, but like this guy was a sweet and gentle soul, not a skinhead.
- Location:Cubicle 2016J
- Mood:
happy
For M. – again
Most days I wake up thinking of you afraid to tell the truth doubtful of its validity—- the foolish heart mistaken before: one vista spread before it, pulled back, a cyclorama, cycling back into the back beyond back story Weeping, inappropriate, I turned into the circle of your arms, bare chest (where before there was heat, now weeping) -Do you want me to go? -No, I want you to stay. -It’s not you. It’s old stuff (you called me beautiful) -We all have old stuff, you say and stay the tears dry—-pleasure takes its place. Doubt the truth’s validity: heart open, hands clasped, rain on the face, the glasses—-won’t let you shield me from the spray of trucks I might get used to it, I might forget how to tolerate the wet Turn from the vista to this I know: your nipples, always two points beneath my fingers, soft or gentle or pinched or bitten or loved with the hands, loved up-—the sides the smooth side of your belly, the taste of its curve, legs turned, released, soothe you to trust the weight of your limbs to my hands-—strong stronger A gentle day a love blooming from the center of our beds Don’t trust the love till it creeps into other rooms or outdoors or onto pages or elsewhere creeping to the rooms revealed when you pull back the backdrop—-beyond proscenium and arch and black-painted bricks, the complicated flies with their rigging and the costume rooms and shelves of props—- beyond those rooms there must be other rooms other rooms I want to see you in. Frances Donovan March 10, 2008 April 7, 2008
- Mood: awake
- XKCD continues to surprise and impress me with its depth and breadth of subject matter, and the ability to express so very much with such simple lines. You can't make everything better for other people no matter how much you want to.
- I woke up yesterday morning feeling more like a human being and less like a stoned alien life form trapped in a 34-year-old woman's body. This cold-abatement period is actually the most dangerous of times for me. When I was younger, I would tend to think that I was immortal and unbreakable. Now that my breasts are sagging a bit and the wrinkle between my brows is never entirely gone, I'm a bit more careful with myself.
- Increased sense of my own mortality did not prevent me from going on a date with an ex-Army-Seargent-come-nursing-student last night. Best opening line ever (via email): "Is Strangers in Paradise still good?" He's like me with the hidden layers and surprising facts. Like the tattoo of a Griffin rampant between his shoulderblades. I can't remember if I told Ace about this new acquaintance, but we've got a pretty good sense of expectations around the sort of relationship we have with one another. My cultural programming around compulsory monogamy goes pretty deep. I constantly feel like I have to apologize for wanting to date other people and generally be a free little uncaged bird. But the guys (and the girls) get it. "I think I'm just so crazy and demanding that I need more than one lover to satisfy me," I said to Army Guy last night. "There's nothing crazy about asking for what you want," he replied. Sensibility is almost as sexy as good wrestling skills.
- The Pixies' Come on Pilgrim is perhaps the most perfect album ever made. Punk in Spanish ROXXX. Your Daddy's rich, your Momma's a pretty thing! (rhythmic screaming) Vamos a jugar por la playa!
- I'm planning to read at Gender Crash this Thursday. I am nervous -- not unreasonably so. The Boston poetry scene is about as friendly as Bostonians are in general. It's Valentine's Day. I've begun a series of Valentine poems--not just Valentines in honor of erotic love, but also in honor of platonic and agape love. This will be the first cohesive collection of poems I've put together in about four years. I've made up my mind to stop farting around on the Intarwebs and start my own micropress. Stay posted. And if you really want my undying devotion, send in your pre-orders once I've got my tits together and put my nefarious printing plans into motion.
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood:
productive - Music:Paul Simon - Late in the Evening
couched and alone
you gathered me up
pulled out of me the luscious I thought I'd hid
sweet brother, all innocent
and carnal
love without the arrowroot of sex let's talk
about other men's cocks
reclining on your balcony
in the fading light
Frances Donovan
February 7, 2008
- Mood:cough cough
Long Island, Quincy, MA
Winter Solstice 2003
He said it was a wind
that blew in the glass of office-boxes.
He said it was a wind
he must make space for.
For me, it is an ocean:
a landscape you can never predict,
not by the day or the season or the hour—-
don't turn your back on it.
Beyond the oceans are dunes
and beyond the dunes, the green forest,
the New England forest, with its glaciated boulders,
laid there by some giant hand.
When he spoke of the wind,
he reminded me of a journey I took once by boat,
and the golden pear I couldn't choose
the golden pears I couldn't pick.
I wonder whether he is one of the pears
or the wind that shook it from the tree.
— Frances Donovan
2003, 2004, 2008
- Mood: awake
2. Despite what the last poem might imply, I am in fact very happy with the way things have worked out with the new boy. I'm not in love. We have a very friendly rapport. Sex and sushi, a nice hug, and then a see you later. And frankly, I'm more likely to go mad from loving a woman than a man. This whole business with bisexual identity and the personal and the political has been with me since I first came out. What's new this year? I've come to accept that I'm into guys right now. Oh, and still attracted to women. I'm not ashamed about it. It's part of who I am, and it doesn't define me.
3. Had a good session with my specialist on Monday. He's been tracking my chronic illness since the turn of the century. After 17 years of having it, I know a good doctor from a bad doctor, and this doctor is amazing. I see him in person about once a month, and he's more than happy to do phone consults for minor medication adjustments. I'm incredibly lucky to have him as a doctor, especially since he's not taking any new patients. Among other things, he's on the faculty of the Harvard School of Medicine, but that's not what makes him a good clinician. It's his warmth and his belief that I ultimately know what's best for my body; he offers his expertise in one particular aspect of caring for it, but he sees me as a complete human being and not a disease to be treated. He reminded me that while I may very well need to be on medication for the rest of my life, it doesn't mean that I can't move to China if I want. He has clients who live all over the world. I love that man like a father -- well, no. He's a hell of a lot more consistent than my father ever was.
- Mood:
busy
Cut, clangor, kill, release
Bloom.
Smooth it. Jagged edges
won't be smoothed.
Catch the jagged edges
Catch the sharp
of my nails across your skin—
so short
you think they wouldn't hurt
but they do. Short, strong,
wicked. I will bite you.
Harsh intake of breath. Pain.
Lovely.
Bite you
bring you, bright wine
to the surface of your skin
mark you mine.
You're never mine.
Men love.
How do men love?
A mystery.
Why do I care?
I who have swum in the sea of a woman
Why do I care about men's love?
But I do.
Men love
Do they? How does a woman
love a man
without going mad?
Not worth my time
Bodhisattva, cheekbones like knives.
A dark center boiled in rage
unfixable.
Not all men, She reminds me.
I who have swum in the sea
of a woman's love
I understand the undertow
Look, there's my own, O, run from it
you barely get free, stumble up the beach
back to the dry sand
back to the beech pines
back to the dunes
where men have been kissing each other in the dark
since men first learned how to kiss
hard flesh collides,
comes apart
hard flesh with a dark center
chewy
hollow
hidden
Not all of them damaged.
Move.
At the office,
no one cares what kind of sex you have,
in the ocean or on dry land
No one cares unless the sex bears fruit,
to circumscribe and section
and serve upon a plate:
register it
license it
record it and consume it.
I am a tree, cut, jagged
in bloom. No fruit.
I am an ocean
I will eat you whole.
Frances Donovan
January, February 2008
NOTE: Revised again February 22. Changes not reflected here.
- Mood: awake
Elsa
Smell of goat hair, horse piss.
Rough hands clenched in my hair,
moving above me. Unexpected softness
at the hips, the breasts,
the smooth of the waist beneath the armor.
Sliding into you like oil,
sword beside the furs.
My people in ruins and chains.
Daniel
Footsore and merry
a lute and a knapsack on my back.
Rushes on the floor,
bread and milk from the cook.
Bright fabrics in the court:
brocade and cloth of gold.
Your throne solid and carved from oak,
same beard, same heaviness. Same caress.
The parting, the return, the parting:
We'll meet again, we said
and we did. It was not the throne
that took you from me this time.
Robin
Hot sun in the field,
a pail of dinner. Remove the jacket
and fold it carefully,
sun-wrinkles at the eyes when I see you,
picking your way across the furrows.
My wife, my helpmate,
my killer of Indians
my cooker of meals.
Under the maples of this New World we sit,
not touching, and balance the heat between us.
You bear me sons.
Frances Donovan
May 12, 2007
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood: late for church
- Music:Airjet plane and traffix
november cold in june
influx of hope
green lawns to precious woods
moss on the side of the path
intense, fairylike
all about your cock
control freak with a mean streak
I no longer miss you
- Location:Cubicle 2016J
- Mood: optimistic
stifling
floating
sweat mellow and sour,
softer than the bite
rising from the boy in the mornings
(you inhale like wine)
arms thrown wide
alone at last
day fading around you.
- Frances Donovan
May 2007
- Location:La Officina de Casa
- Mood:
organized - Music:Prem Joshua - Dakini (Monsoon Remix)
(After Algiers)
Tom, what I miss most about you is the way
you pressed the flat of your palm against my chest,
curling it open from underneath,
heel of the hand between the swell of my breasts,
fingertips grazing the collarbone.
When we kissed each other it looked as though you were in pain—-
but I knew the clench of your brows for what it was: rapture.
I took my pleasure from you by the evening's end,
and did not offer the release that women have been trained to.
I thought that there would be a next time,
when I would see your face at that moment
as you saw mine.
Was it good for you? I asked,
half-joking, resting against your upraised leg.
But your reply was not a joke:
not the word you spoke or the way you spoke it,
jaws, lips clenched around it,
unable to contain, forceful, economical, always.
Did I scare you off or were you scared to begin with?
It doesn’t matter. The ache
for you has lessened with the weeks.
Your face is fading, the feel of your hands,
the transformation of your face without your glasses,
your mushy kisses,
my laughter in the restaurant with its octagon of light,
the curve of your pectorals
beneath your black polo shirt,
the way you sat on the steps of Algiers
in the Square as I approached,
your hand on the check—-all of it is fading and will fade,
all but the viscous moment
when you pushed my heart away with your palm
and made me ache for more.
Frances Donovan
May 2007
- Location:5:16 AM
- Mood: awake
- Music:birdsong
For A.
Sink full of dishes,
cast iron on the stove, scrubbed with hot water,
dried with a cloth, burning out the water used to clean it,
filling the house with the smell of last night's dinner:
lamb, an animal killed too young,
half-eaten and abandoned on the table
to the grappling that followed.
I asked you to show me. But I know more than you already,
or so I thought. You want to keep someone in a dominant position close to you,
you told me, on your back,
with the weight of my hips pinning you to the floor.
In the end you could not escape my grasp.
Tonight, to a stuttering rhythm,
to a song about a woman as the sea,
I dance through the empty room
with the feel of your hands still on my skin.
I will smell you on my sheets tonight.
I do not know who needs to keep whom close.
Frances Donovan
May 2007
- Location:5:00 AM
- Mood: awake
- Music:birdsong
So here is the recipe not for Dave's Daal as given to me by Dan-the-Ex-Boyfriend, but instead, Lumpy Lentils. I name them in honor of
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technogoddesss's cat, whom I apparently resemble, and because I prefer my lentils and rice to have more substance than drippy Daal.Ingredients:
~ 2 cups lentils
~ 1 can whole plum tomatoes, peeled. Preferably organic.
~ 2 onions, diced
~ cumin
~ turmeric
~ salt
~ pepper
~ 2 bay leaves
~ olive oil
~ rice
Stuff to do:
In a large pot, heat the olive oil and then sautee the onions for a while. Shake in some of the salt and pepper. Don't be an idiot about it, you know. Just enough, not too little, not too much. Open the can of tomatoes. Pour about half to 3/4 of them into a bowl and loosely cut them up with a knife. Add them to the pot, along with a couple of bay leaves. Stir. Add some cumin and turmeric. Turn down to medium heat.
While that's cooking, sift through your two cups of lentils. Throw away the sticky little things that aren't round and lentil-looking. Rinse them to get off the powdery goodness (unless you can tell me where those lentils have been every step of the way!). Add them to the pot. Stir some more. Add some more cumin and turmeric and probably some more salt, too.
Take the bowl that held the tomatoes and fill it with water. Bring the tomato-water over to the pot and slowly pour it on the lentils. You want approximately a 2-1 ratio of water to lentils, but remember that the veggies factor in additional moisture. I usually go for the sight test: the water should cover the lentils completely, with perhaps about 1/8 of an inch of liquid above.
Stir the mixture. Taste it to see whether it needs more cumin, turmeric, salt, or pepper. If you're feeling adventurous, drop in a couple of cardamom pods. Bring to a boil for a couple of minutes, then bring the heat to low and cook for about 30-45 minutes, until the lentils are soft.
While the lentils are cooking, cook the rice. Oh, c'mon. Don't make me tell you how to cook rice. There's even machines that can help you now! Don't forget the olive oil and salt! I recommend short-grain brown rice with this dish.
- Mood: optimistic
- Music:Matthew Good Band - Strange Days
I went there looking for stuff I could use to write up Waltham. And Moody street.
Which made me think about Badger.
Watching the Odyssey last night on the SciFi channel also made me think of that... of that/this whole period of my life. All those witches and Goddesses tempting Odysseus into their beds, begging him to forget his wife, while she waits faithfully for him for 16 years. He refuses, of course, and shrugs off the lovely women who care for him like so much chattel. Never mind that he lingers in their beds. He's the victim of their magic.
My story is not identical. I went out there trying to forget about Quick, not the other way around. But I find myself back in her difficult embrace.
And homesick for San Jose, a home I haven't known since I was a toddler.
- Mood:homesick
- Music:Pink Moon, Nick Drake
