a day of not quite knowing

hello my favorites

tessa thank you for that post. i wanted to respond right away but have not had the moment to sit with it and really take the time. and now it feels like i have responded to it in person in some ways, but i will say that the structure of this blog feels really good- and it would feel really good to have a conversation happening, so i am going to be putting some energy into trying to make that happen, so its not just updates of individuals, (which is also really great) but a conversation between folks when that is possible. so, obviously we are all going to use this in a way that feels good to each of us and that will look different. for me right now, i want to be responding to people.

so. tessa, you talk about the idea of scarcity. on another occasion you and i talked about how we respond to it in different ways but that we are both directly responding to that belief that we will not have enough.

i respond by always making myself available to others because if i am not ready and waiting for the moment to dive in, then i am worried that i will not get the kind of attention that i need and desire.

im trying so hard right now to shift that.

and i feel like i am in the awkward place of trying to break the pattern, but the belief is still there so its super vulnerable and super raw.

its like i have this box around me, and one wall of the box is always drawn down, always open, ready to see something and then to spring into action. and i think that this is partly why i have a challenge to create sacred space for myself - because i cant fully close off to the rest of the world. because i am worried then i will be forgotten and left alone.

leah called the other day and i was available - it was a great time to talk and i wanted to talk. what would have happened if i had not. i did not want to be stubborn and say "NO i wont pick up just because i dont always want to be available, but at the same time i dont want to always be available...hmmmm"

anyway we had a great conversation, an illuminating one in terms of her expressing affection and love and also how much a part of her world i am even when she is bad at being in touch.

and for me illuminating because i am starting to figure out what i want to have with her and with other people as well in my life. i want her (and nate) floating around in my brain, as something that i am putting energy into, even when i am not really actively talking or writing, or thinking about them.

sara it feels like you opened this in me somehow when we were talking about how to be in touch when you were gone.

there is a way that its easy, in our transient community, in our non traditional day structures, in our attempts at radical friendships and relationships, that we could just say, "ok you are over there. i am over here and we will see each other next time and we just trust that no one is going anywhere." which of course i do trust. but the shift that i am feeling has to do with saying "you are there, i am here. and i want you in my brain space, and i want you as a part of my community even though we dont talk all the time, even though i don see you. it has to do with something very practical, that im not even sure of yet. tessa you touched on it the other day when you said maybe i am looking for leah to show evidence that she is putting energy into me when she is not directly in front of me... like maybe the difference between humans and dogs..dogs are responding so presently. humans think about things that are not in front of them. maybe i want to live more in her human realm. maybe i do and i dont know it..im not sure

does this make sense?

im trying to pick up on clues that make me feel this thing that i am looking for .

for example, showing up in ohio it was so clear to me that nate just talks about me as if i am there, he just includes me in his life and experience as a person in his life so that everyone there just welcomed me back into the rhythm of things.

hearing from leah that notes and gifts that i have given her are framing her desk that she is thinking about me in these certain times that she can isolate - allows me to realize that i am there in spirit. there is something about spirit.

artistically this is all very interesting for me too because i think about performing (i took a workshop today with dan rothenberg which I loved and it reminded me why and how much i love theater and also what the fuck am i going to do with my life )but that is besides the point ;)

i think about being a performer who is allowing her attention to be present and yet to also have a sense of command about her energy and her action, and an awareness in the space.

how to be a human in a city inside your body when everything around you is pushing and pulling and desperation is a quality of a capitalist structure.

i see desperation in my classes in so many forms. fear, self hatred.. etc.

this is all over the place, but its what i am thinking about right now and about how today as a performer, there was this tendency or interest in disassociating from my experience when someone entered the space. scarcity - like if i dont give that person all of my attention, then i wont know what to do, i wont know how to respond to them.

instead, maybe i could keep my breath in my body and just allow them and their actions to come to me sometimes and then step out of myself for a moment to go to them, but this is more of a dance - a back and forth as opposed to ....something else. whatever it is that i am doing.

words are only half working right now

im going to go eat some food

and i love you all

fevers cause it all to pour out

beloveds,

sick in bed today. fever and aches and i'm not able to to anything but read a few pages and wipe my eyes, drift into sleep with strange dreams and wake again to sit something luke warm.

in all this sickness i am thinking non-stop about andy. how much has changed in how i feel about it, but also how little has changed. i saw his truck two nights in a row outside caroline's. i realized how there had been this growing hope that he had heard me and was choosing to live his life in a less charge ahead, less violent, less territorial way. and i also realized that my work is learning to let go of expectations, hopes, desires, and connection to anything he and they do. which, of course, is a super-human feat and i have no skills with which to pursue that intention.

not talking to him, not having him in my life isn't working. i miss him too much. want him to be the face i open my door to. and when i did see him all that love was so present between us. its just it all becomes dangerous when i step back to him, when he isn't in front of me, or when he runs from himself and uses my open heart as a kick-stand. i think that i'm falling a little bit in not knowing how or what to know.

all the time lately, when i can get past the chocking feeling of it all, i think about scarcity. how this world, this economy we exist inside of has made us all, to some extent, believe in the lack of resources, the lack of space, the shortage of available energy. its why i admire the push towards polyamory, and also why i think it so often fails. we have come to believe at the marrow level that there isn't enough for all of us. and to come extent there isn't. what with how the world throws us around and how the earth is being destroyed. but between us and for us again and again i come to recognize that i fall into believing that there won't be enough space or love for me. it comes from my family, sure, but it is so real in the everyday, and has become so weakened with andy. sigh. how do we unlearn the things we did not choose to take in?

in my weakened state i sent him an email. a flurry of texts later, and i think a mediated conversation might actually be best. it is awful this disappearance, and awful the ways i don't get any farther towards feeling free of the entanglement. thank you, sarah, for the push.

after that doosy, i won't write too much more. expect to say that i've decided on a chapbook project to finish by the end of spring. about letters and voice and witnessing. wanting you all to know so that i am help to my own dreams.

sara - hard days there. where are the places for ease? did you get the mission spot?chenda is playing music, and sarah downstairs cooking. i am so grateful for you three.

-t

its wednesday, a full moon in cancer among other things

i woke up with a cold today, a bit groggy and the sun is confusing although i welcome it.  i've been sitting in the same cafe for hours trying to feel like i am setting things in motion, or trying to be part of that.  there is soulful music playing and i kinda want to lie down on the cafe floor in the sun and tap the side of my foot against the cement floor, or slow dance with a stuffed animal.

lowry is sick in bed, tessa just sent an important letter, and chenda... i imagine you are up in the attic?
and so i started this today- hope we can all get down with it.
love you love you love you.