synara

I lost my virginity bareback on a horse. It was my first love. It was the relationship I had dreamt of since early childhood. I had fantasized all of the subtleties of how it would feel, of how it would look, of what the surroundings would be. This love became my obsession before it ever existed materially.

And when we finally met, with my father's blessing, it was electric. Everything else in the world was second to this passion.

She. Became. My. World.

And my world was never the same.

Dozens of loves have come and gone since that first one, and she has remained through them all. The most passionate affairs and the longest of the sweet loves do not elicit as deep an emotional pull from within when I think of them as she does.

The scent of her after exertion, the softness of her gaze, the aloof manner she greeted with, the sound of her lapping and the peace of late evenings alone together have imprinted on me in a place beyond the reach of time and reason.

I wondered a couple weeks ago...."what happens to me when a being holding such symbolic and spiritual importance to me is gone?"

And last weekend, like this moment fades into the past, she disappeared.

I can still find myself fully in the moment when, as a teenager, I grasped mane in my left hand and jumped myself onto her back. I can feel the warmth of her skin and the solidness of her muscles beneath me, touching me in the most sensitive point of my body, the point of greatest receptivity. I can feel the balance of her and I being in the same place, I can feel my body know how to move with her without thought, without effort. I can feel the airborne moment when she lifted us over a log or the power with which she scrambled us up a hill or through deep mud.

I can also remember the deep sorrow of separation from her, of knowing my own immaturity and desire for exotic places had driven a wedge I was never able to lever out.

And now, here, in a moment of my life when I am exerting my greatest effort to turn the wheel of my life and fate, she fades into non-existence. She. She was a turning of that wheel herself.

I promised her things, I buried things in her. Those things are kept.

Tonight, the kisses are all for her. The love is all surrounding her. Oh, my sweetest darling love of my whole life, the sun shall never set on this love. I take you with me into my present, again and again for all the moments I might have.

Japan. Tragedy. Suffering. And disconnect for me. I should stop and be silent and honor their pain. Or I should weep and wretch my insides to honor their pain. Or I should live more brilliantly to honor their pain. Or, It is pain and I should dishonor it with a rising fear of Armageddon. Or I should dishonor their pain with anger at overpopulation and nuclear power.
Or, I should do nothing. Nothing it is.
I think to the moment of the birth I witnessed. The preceeding suffering was immense and consuming. The child exiting the womb was a song of piercing intensity and beauty. I, the watcher, the beholder, the support....I held the new child all sweet and quiet and present in my arms and we gazed at each other in silence. His mother, the suffering woman was writhing while a man stitched up the deep cut the child had created. She was all pain and love and I, the undeserving bystander was the recipient of grace.
And, I think to the moment when I first killed. I held the soft rabbit I had fed and cuddled in my lap with a woman next to me helping to steady it's body. I raked a sharp knife across it's throat once, then again to be sure and held it as it's life left. I was exhilerated. I was living, I was the powerful death-giver. I identified with ChaSka and her delight in killing. I wanted to do it again.
And to those moments I was conduit. I could be deliciously unattached to the pain. I was affected deeply but I was not the crying mother and I was not the frightened rabbit. I loved them. I held them. I respected them.
I was embodied Earth who says "this one stay" "this one go" loving each position the same. I exercised this goddess power when I murdered the embryo inside my own womb. "this one go" And also when I rescued a tiny drowning honeybee from a pool "this one stay"
It seems as though this ability comes from awareness of what is self and what is not self. But maybe not. I cannot say.

goodbye yellow brick road

Last day on the south island. For now. I hope to return eventually. As for last days, this is one of the best ever. I awoke in kaikoura in a hostel with mountain views and headed straight into town to wander. Found a used book shop where I found a cheap copy of "water for elephants" which I've been wanting to read for a while, AND a copy of "Feminism, The Essential Historical Writings" Yay.

Then, I drove an easy 2 hours along such gorgeous coast that I had to keep stopping and imagining myself catching waves. At lunch, I found a sweet cafe which served up a cheap and very very tasty burger complete with homemade aioli and beet relish!!!! Amazing. Did a little wine tasting, then found a great little home turned hostel in Picton near the ferry. This place is great. The room is large and smells of wood, the bed is perfect, sheets are soft, shower is hot and the kitchen is warm. This evening, along with my meal I was happily surrounded by people from Sweden, Britain, France, Germany (of course) and South Korea. It all turned into a relaxed sort of dinner party that ended up on the back porch where I made myself comfortable in a hammock hovering over a lavender garden. As the moon sank, the fire dancing began. I found myself floating with pleasure watching a young Swedish body trip the light fantastic.

Add to this that I found togs in town today for half price that actually fit. Every so often I remember that and it feels good to have found such a treasure.

Tomorrow I board the ferry back to the north island, which feels more like home than anything else.

It'll be the last couple days with Chris. That feels like something I have not fully grokked yet and cannot comment on, except to say I expect to have unexpected emotions about it all.

Sweet kisses and big smiles.

I kayaked in a place as beautiful as any on earth. It was guided. We were picked up before dawn in a DOC (dept. of conservation) long term parking. We were driven in a van on a highway that only goes to milford sound and back, nowhere else. It's a 2 hour drive and the view is so spectacular that people forget their manners and stop in the middle of the road awed by the beauty. No kidding. I can't impress upon you the reality of this, it has to be seen. I have been tempered by months of beauty here in paradise, so that I could take it in without squealing and upsetting fellow passengers.

Once we arrived at our destination, we were given our 5 layers of clothing (the water is cold) and given a fisherman's backroom complete with large windows to dress in. I showed the mountains my nipples, and whoever else happened to be around.

Our group's guide was sophie "soph". She's an adorable blond, dreadlocked child of the south island. She showed us fur seals (actually sea lions) and dolphins and a waterfall to beat all waterfalls and tree slides. She was as relaxed as post pedicured feet in slippers. And I tried to make friends with the french couple in the yellow kayak. The british couple in the blue kayak kept bumping into us and I wanted to say "you gave us the revolutionary war, they gave us the statue of liberty, of course I prefer them"

Later, while undressing again, the french woman is asking me about my adoration of her country and I tell her I am in love, she says something about english and switzerland. Whatever. "Can I fuck your husband?"

Just outside of christchurch this morning, I happened upon three men of working class status discussing the quake and it's relation to politics and government. The vehemency in their voices reminded me of all discussions of american politics I've had with citizens of the republic. And I am left to wonder..."are we in a state of perpetual emergency and disaster?" These men were speaking out of pain and confusion and frustration. They were living in a campground because their homes were unlivable. There is chaos surrounding such a thing, inevitably. Power is never restored as soon as it is desired, buildings cannot be built fast enough, insurance companies are of course more difficult than need be, and those without resources are generally hurt the most.

After apologizing for their language to me, I am asked of my origins. Then, the best of the three men says that they must seem ridiculous moaning about such a small thing when disasters like this claim lives in the U.S. all the time. And we just get over it. Aha!

We don't.

And it is no small thing to have the second largest city in your country in ruins. There is an exodus apparently from Christchurch. People are expecting another quake bigger than the first two.

I have learned that kiwis like to tell tales to american girls, so I believe only half. But, there may be another expected in Wellington, this month.

And on to the present.

There is a dam in me. Or surrounding me.

Driving through the plains of the south, it really felt like mid september in Michigan, when the last of the corn is being eaten and the gardens are finishing their last big generosity. The light is just a bit different, reminding us that summer is over. The days are warm, but the nights can be cool, and we feel autumn entreating.

It was then, if I didn't look at the mountains' shadow in the distance, that I felt Michigan in my presence. There was a dam keeping many tons of water out of my emotional reach, and with that sense, the dam came flooding in on my head. For a moment I felt like drowning. I felt the warm neck of my dogs, and their wet noses, I saw my parents' faces and heard brother's voice. I was eating corn on the cob with butter and sea salt at a party with friends. Only for a moment. Then it was gone.

The truth is, such pleasures are sweet and appealing, but if I know from experience that were I to actually have them, I'd be more than satiated in days.

So, the water stops coming in and I am driving on the left side of the road in paradise again.

I am enjoying New Zealand wine and sending New Zealand resumes out in search of New Zealand jobs. I am taking the ferry back across to the warm north island in two days. I am looking to deepen this experience I have jumped into.

With my last sip of New Zealand Viognier, I send you love.

Love not from need or familiarity, but from the deep, held-back waters of a dam that provide electricity to an entire city.

Kisses to the places in you that are adventurous, that demand independence, that cannot be shed. My unsheddables press against your unsheddables. And we are eternity.

desert

I once took a road trip with a friend and a lover. Although both of them are to me both things, they are formally known as one and the other, so that is what I will say they are here. Many memorable things happened on that trip, but one that I think of now is the old plantation we visited. I remember the salves quarters, the weight of the cookware they had to use, the "hospital" they were treated in and the barbaric tools that were used. Then there was the house. I stood just inside the doors of this beautiful old place and we were all being told of the value of the antiques surrounding us. They were delicate and breakable and irreplaceable. And I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed with the desire to touch, to lift, to drop onto the wooden floors these precious lamps and bassinets and dishes. I saw myself doing this in my imagination. But I shushed that evil demon child inside me and went on through the tour as though I were a well adjusted adult.

It's the same irresistible force that had me giggling uncontrollably during communion or jumping from the alter after finishing a performance of some gospel song for the church audience.

I wonder now if it's a need to destroy the seriousness of things. Like there is this thing existing in the world that weeps at the sense of importance humans impose onto objects and ideas and rituals and that it's frustration gets so built up that it heaps itself onto some helpless infant. And that infant grows wild or crazy or suicidal depending on her circumstances. And maybe all three. Or maybe just two.

I find myself in a destructive mood. I find myself just bored enough, just exasperated enough to create some havoc.

Maybe we are all born with this instinct and we have strict parents or teachers who show us the potential for pain in our ways and we get the message.

Perhaps my parents had been too impressed with this message as children and they wanted secretly to see what would result if they let their child be as wild as they could tolerate.

In any case, I am struggling with this part of me. People may love to read bumper stickers telling the world that well-behaved women rarely make history, but keeping company with such a woman is another matter.

This morning while smelling a young british boy awaken, my throat scratching from whatever scent he was wearing to cover up the delicious scent of cock that lingered underneath, I imagined myself in my old house with three bedrooms, a large kitchen and a living room ALL TO MYSELF. I could wake up naked and make breakfast that way and there would be no one to avert their eyes.

So, the romance of the wander is coming to dusk. I would like to remember how to cook. I can barely remember. I think I once owned beautifully matching sets of things to cook with and in and to eat those things I cooked upon. I believe there was a time when I could open a cupboard and find spices and mugs. I had a refrigerator all to myself. I think.

I will soon be bending my body into positions she hasn't seen in a while, or maybe ever. I will be back in the warm north. This moment is gorgeous. I am in the desert again. I escaped to a place I thought desert could not be, but it is here and I am in it. I stopped to take pictures for proof. Desert surrounded by rainforest is tolerable I suppose.

I have not been so desperate for you and so not desperate since I left you.

If that's confusing to think of, then imagine what it must be to live it.

Anyway, kisses and hugs and love love love, above all.

gentle annie

What's not beautiful about this moment? The late afternoon light filtered through tropical plants and seashell driftwood mobiles, the view of grassy english garden which nestles my tent, or the sound of ocean pounding the beach? Is it my truest friend sitting next to me with headphones on? I will take a long beach walk at my leisure late as the sun sets, then maybe swing on the porch under the stars. Is it not enough? I am saving my own life and breaking it all the while. There is no untangling. What I didn't realize is there never was any simplicity, only ignorance.

There is a web in my hometown of debt and connection and broken promises that I cannot seem to master. If I would have waited until all was right to leave it, I'd be there still, and forever. So, I'll think about the unsettled debt and responsibilities and just smile anyway.

I'm happy for the big white dog who played with me on the beach and let me hug her with a paw on my shoulder the way my own dog did back home. A kiss from a brand new love is sweet as from an deep old one. Not really, but it sounds good.

The now.....alison krauss is playing on the stereo, the fish in the indoor pond are jumping, the black dog just introduced himself. My feet are sore from barefoot sprinting last night in a rugby field. About 300 feet from my comfy seat there is a bloated muddy river pouring itself into the sea amid much fuss and noise. I'm about ready to go see it up close.

If you think I'll be going alone, you are mistaken. Whoever else may accompany me, whoever else I may meet there at the mouth, I'll be squeezing your hand. I'll be smiling into your eyes.

Oh, love love love and kiss kiss kiss