…inside the dark of yourself from the sorcery of yourself you will call me with your emerald firevoice it will ring through corridors twisted before our births our secrets burning inside inside it comes and my mouth will let forth the smoke of your charred heart a sooty thick cloud I will make of that fire my breath a sounding blackness to wrap around the root of your voice and when the shroud is woven complete knotted secure around your useless language I will steal it cackling and make of it a shield that will set me free and oh how I will sing to you then and hold your memories and your shame in my fists while you sway inside my sweetest of tunes my many singing spells how your soul will change inside my headful of magic a changeling caught in my cuntful of teeth my cunt come to claim its full feast of skin reshaped you will tear away from yourself and become more than the one I dare call upon a keening man a kenning thing aching to devour a night spun of my making you will be of my breath attached to my scent and mine alone and nothing but my filthy fingers will hang you cockspent tie you like a screaming prayer on the living tree the sprouted cross dug deep into where you can no longer call your home all its pearl eyes plucked out and the blind bones all of them cracking inside the vice of my bite that madness of instinct that drives us to fall prey fall in rapture as prey to the needwitch who will feed us still smoldering back to the root of life burnt inside the dark of yourself from the sorcery of yourself you will call me…
A few months ago, I had begun a separate blog for some devotional writings I was doing. But recently, I’ve been realizing some (yet again) new levels of integration in myself, so I decided to bring that writing over here to Vespertine, where it now belongs.
Because these writings are somewhat different than most of the things I post here, I’ve chosen to put them all together on a page rather than include them in the regular blog post chronology here.
Behind the Veil will be updated occasionally and not on any specific schedule, so you’ll have to actually check that page (found in the top navigation bar) once and a while if you’d like to see what’s new there.
I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.
If I were a blackbird tonight, I’d be three hideously big ones who could sing the Runes, in perfect harmony, until your head blew up. If I were a knife blade in the hand of a hunter, I’d be flat black in the night, the thing you never saw coming. If I were a witch… oh, wait, I am a witch. If I were the Moon in Scorpio, I’d melt all over the earth tonight, just like in that Calvino story. But only after I’d gorged on the Sun. If I were a tree, in which there were three blackbirds, I’d be Ygdrassil, forever fucking the Earth up the ass with my big root. If I were a Wallace Stevens, I’d be drinking cheap beer in heaven right now and jacking off into the mouth of an angel. If I were a Scorpion I’d be telling you a story about how I could carry you across the river on my back without stinging you. I promise. If I were an Elizavetta Mora, I’d write this fucking post with my three minds. And then I’d post it.
Image: A terrible Goddess you don’t want to know the name of. Or, whatever it was that created the universe, which may or may not have been Wallace Stevens. Actually, it’s from Morguefile.
Did you paint your smile on, well I said I knew
That my reason for living was for loving you*
.
He rose from the bed like a man going to war, or to a life of unending peace – resigned, afraid. He intended to walk away, from her, from that town and all those people who needed him to be… something.
But he had just filled her with more love than he thought he possessed. He had just surrendered to her the promise of everything he was. The only thing she ever asked of him, he had given.
A sigh later, he found himself hunched in the chair next to the bed, turned away from the sight of her, of the holy thing he had made of her. With his face in his hands, he waited for the courage to leave. But instead, a cool breeze from the river disturbed the curtains; a bird outside the window called.
He rubbed his eyes and blinked and there, suspended before him within the frame of the mirror above the dresser, was her sleeping form, like a painting, arranged within an artful drape of linen and silk and chestnut hair; a vision, a floating world.
All thoughts of leaving gone, he couldn’t help but linger in a kind of detached amazement to watch her breathing there, safely curled inside his scent, in that bed, that room that had become his confessional, his sanctuary.
But, when he looked to the reflection of her face, searching for the smile of contentment he longed to see there, he saw only a blur of sunwashed light in the glass. Her lashes, the curve of her ear, the generousness of her mouth, all obscured, but brightly.
And in that terrible light, he suddenly understood that there would never come a moment in which to tell her that he could not be of use to her in this life. Not in this life. She had asked too much. And he had missed his chance to refuse the giving of it.
There was nothing else to do but walk away. But there came a great paralyzing beauty into that room just then, a beauty that struck at his heart and tore at his dream of her. The light on her face had come to its zenith, making her into something else; something ascendant, something already gone.
It was too late for him not to see the truth of what had passed between them, so he did what all receivers of visions do - he closed his eyes.
And, in that temporary reprieve of darkness, he indulged himself, comforted himself, by imagining her lying there alone in the cold mirror, a sleeping beauty, dreaming of his voice singing to her, “don’t leave me here… don’t leave me here all alone… tangled in the vines… lost in the light…”
From the far away country of her sleep, behind the light in the mirror, she smiled. But, in the way of dreams, in a glance it was gone.
With a sigh of resignation, a renewal of purpose, he finished the song in his mind and opened his eyes. He rose to dress silently to the rhythm of her soft breathing. His own clothes felt unfamiliar and, from somewhere far inside his mind, he suspected the ghosts were already gathering in the hollow of his chest. But still, he fastened the buttons slowly and carefully.
Then, without daring to glance her way lest he be lost again, he crossed the room and closed the door quietly behind him, leaving her there to dream forever of the left-over light of him; the memory of his voice.
Only later, after all his songs had been written for her, did he remember that he never bent to gently kiss her warm naked shoulder before he left that day, though he had meant to. He had truly meant to.
.
.
* This quote is from a song called, I Need You To Turn To , written by Bernie Taupin, sung by Elton John. Ok, yes, I was a teenager in the 70’s and I listened to (and totally loved ) Elton John back in the day. Wanna make something of it?
Anyway, I Need You To Turn To is a waltz, played in this version on a Clavichord no less! And the lyrics are delightfully Gothic-like. Right up my ally. (There’s also this version , recorded years later, with a full orchestra. Just pay no attention to the wig… I mean, you know, it’s Elton John). The 70’s produced some surprisingly odd and wonderful music. Really, the decade wasn’t all Farrah Faucet hair and disco and The Brady Bunch, you know. Wait a minute, yes it was.
But never mind that. This little lullaby-ish song has always haunted me, not because of the sappy story it seems to tell, but because of the kind of frightening story I think it hides. So, in an attempt to exorcise the haunting, I created a little riddle-y snippet of a story that may or may not live inside this song. It’s too early to tell if the exorcism worked, but I’ll keep you posted.
In the meantime, if any of you would like to share if you feel something Gothic-ly delicious lurking inside this song, I’d be very interested in hearing your take on it. This song haunts me… haunts me, I tell ya!
Recently I’ve talked about struggling with issues concerning disclosure . As I’ve said, the reason for my struggle has not so much to do with secrecy but with wanting to write about things that would make no sense without a back story - a story which contains elements of truth about my relationship with my husband.
My husband and I are very intentional about maintaining a layer of enclosure around the inner territories of our relationship - again, not for reasons of secrecy in order to hide something, but for reasons of care and love, in order to protect what is sacred to us.
On the other hand, he and I believe very strongly that the most personal story is often the most valuable - for the tellers in their process of telling it as well as for those who encounter it and thereby might gain some learning or recognition relevant to their own lives.
Our experience with co-writing Tea and Oranges taught us that there are ways to write selectively about deeply intimate experiences while maintaining respect for and protection of the landscape of our inner marriage.
We learned that it was not the factual details of our "real" lives that were of value. Instead, the value - for both us and others - existed in being able to write about our relationship in ways that allowed its radically truthful but often convoluted process to be illuminated, even if only in flashes and for a brief time.
I’ve realized that part of my current struggle with writing this blog (and there are several parts) has to do with the fact that I am writing solo, not as part of a couple anymore, and yet I’m still writing about things that are profoundly informed by my relationship with my husband, someone whose right to privacy I greatly respect even within the shared space of our marriage.
So, over the past several days, he and I have discussed many things about this whole blogging business, the part it plays in our relationship, and where his boundaries are when it comes to me writing about him and our relationship.
Two very important things came out of those conversations: he encouraged me to write about whatever I feel I need to write about and he reminded me of his trust in my judgment, specifically concerning his belief in my ability to write in such a way that would not damage the inner core of our relationship.
Trust is an amazing thing - to give and to receive. In this case, receiving my husband’s trust is helping me make decisions that will allow me to express myself in a less censored way on this blog. This is not because I need his permission to express myself, but that I can express myself with more honesty and confidence because he trusts me to do so… because, as Rilka described, he is the guardian of my solitude.*
Amid all the explicit words and process-oriented posts my husband and I wrote on Tea and Oranges, there exists a simple little snapshot-in-words (re-posted below) of an evening walk we took together; a brief piece of writing that I’ve always felt summed up the whole universe of our relationship. But, re-reading it after all this time, I realized that it also sums up the way I feel about the concept of "telling the truth."
I feel that truth is a meandering thing which exists in its own realm within each of us. It is governed by its own laws of flow; principles which do not force a choice between mind or body, emotions or logic, and least of all, fact or fiction. The truth within us is simply that which is .
Our task as truth seekers then is not to choose whether or not we should or can believe that which is, but only to take note of it, to trust its existence. And perhaps if we are keen with words, to attempt to tell the parts of its story we can capture in glancing glimpses.
It is this way of "telling the truth" that I want to always aim for here on Vespertine Erotica. That truth within me which is, like a river, always and only true to its constant but everchanging self.
A few evenings ago, Naranja and I took a walk to the river, which included making our way along trails through fields and woods.
We walked first along a mowed trail which cut through the tall grasses of a fallow field. Little blue and white flowers like stars wavered and winked, wild oats swayed thin and tall with the rhythm of an invisible wind, and the occasional morning glory spiraled its way, in love, clinging, wrapping around a sturdy stalk of weed.
The field gave way to a stand of birch, light in color and years, but heavy with early evening birdsong. A deeper green came next, and faint rustlings of hungry things in the underbrush. Under a canopy of old oaks and towering elms we could begin to smell the river, to hear it clearly, as the leaf cover shut out the noise of the already fading sun. At last we came to the river. It spoke to us in low tones as it meandered its sure way around the bend.
On the sandy edge we stood, shifting our feet, looking into the deepest part of the current where the flow moves fast and unforgiving. We watched for something but saw only the river, that way it has of leaving but staying behind. We held our tongues - in respect of the river’s speech. And then in silent agreement, the intuitive knowing of long years together, we turned to begin our way back, but not by the same way we had come.
As we picked up another loop of trail and settled into a mutual pace, we often switched places. Sometimes he would lead, set a new pace, and I would follow close behind, matching my steps to his rhythm. Then very naturally and without words, he would end up walking behind me and I would be the one with the open trail before me; his strong presence at my back. At one point, the trail widened. And we walked side by side for a time.
And as the light fell and night began to introduce herself, our conversation wove its way through the spaces between us, around us; our voices first soft then a little louder with laughter, then hushed again. And then we heard only the cadence of our footfalls and the fading sound of the river behind us until his voice, or mine again, rose to the work of spinning a new thread of conversation, asking a new question. Or re-mystifying an old one.
We returned home with a few yellow flowers, bright blooms that were sure to wither in a day. Still, I placed them carefully, artfully, in a milk bottle vase filled with cold, clear water. .
The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.
A few days ago, in this post , I asked readers to respond to the question: what do you think this site is about?
You responded with wonderfully articulate and thought-provoking comments and I’ve taken a few days to ponder the feedback you’ve given me. Because many of your comments ran along similar lines, I decided to write a post that addressed them by topic.
Why I asked for feedback in the first place
I think some of you may have assumed, whether you actually mentioned it or not, that I asked for feedback because I’m worried that I am not writing what my audience wants to read; that I am somehow worried about writing "for" my audience. Tom spoke most directly (as he is wont to do!) about this in his comment, and while he was at it, also gave some excellent advice to the audience-phobic among us:
I get the impression that you’re wondering if the effort that you’re putting into this journal is paying off in the coin of having an appreciative audience - but you’re wondering if what we’re appreciating is what you’re trying to achieve. Screw us! I mean, who the hell are we? We’re shadows whispering on the edge, Eliz. You’ll attract readers or you won’t. We’ll comment or we won’t.
Please don’t act as if you’re paying us to read, or as if we’re paying to be here. Just open your heart and mind and let it out.
First, let me say that I do a LOT of different types of writing besides what I do on this site. And as any writer knows, writing is a very solitary and interior kind of work. So occasionally it happens that I can get to wondering if I’m about to float off into the rarefied air of my own little writerly world. At these times, I think it’s a good idea to do some quality control checks.
I may be a little woo-woo now and then, but I’m essentially a practical, quality-conscious person, particularly in my writing. [Elizavetta's husband's translation: pain-in-the ass perfectionist]
Hence, my request for feedback.
It’s true that my question was motivated by wondering if my readers are appreciating what I’m writing. But perhaps not quite in the way that Tom seems to be assuming in his comment.
While I’m always sensitive to and considerate of the concept of audience while writing here, my request for feedback was not aimed at getting ideas for how to better shape my writing to suit my perceived audience. I’ll be the first to admit that I have encountered problems with "audience approval" in myself in other writing (usually of the paid variety), but never on this site.
As far as the question of my effort here being "worth it" - I feel my effort has always been worth it, even when I could count this site’s traffic per day on one hand (and the comments at exactly zero). And that’s because I have always considered this site first and foremost to be an offering.
An offering infers the non-expectation of payment, whether that be payment in money (the reason you’ll never see ads on this site) or as Tom puts it, the coin of an appreciative audience (which is why you’ll never see me writing anything here that is not truly and freely given from my heart and soul). The "return" for me is in the offering itself… if that makes sense.
To be honest, I’m actually somewhat surprised at the readership that is developing here. I truly never expected it. But surprised as I may be, I also accept that the readership is here. And so, the reason I asked for feedback was not because I’m worried about pleasing an audience, but precisely because I’m not worried about that.
It’s become obvious to me that this site has a wonderful audience -respectful, intelligent, and highly responsive! In short, I asked for feedback because I knew I could.
So, what is this blog about?
I actually have a very clear idea what this site is about for me [more about this in a minute]. I also have a deliberate and intentional plan for what and how I write here, something that Rosa correctly guessed at in her comment:
There have been some other comments here about blogging styles and all…those have also made me think about your presentation here which seems to be very deliberate and thoughtful. Interesting…
However, when I say deliberate and intentional, I don’t mean that I have a schedule all filled out with a list of post topics just waiting to be written and posted at 10:05 am each day. It’s more that my primary objective in writing this blog is to follow the "Tao of me."
This means that I have promised myself that I must write what I need to write when I need to write it - something that sounds very easy to do but actually requires great amounts of discipline to do well. This is also one of the reasons that the idea of censoring myself here (even if it is in order to protect or honor the privacy of others) has become such a bug-a-boo. [more on that in another post soon]
When I asked what this site was about for you , what I specifically wanted to know was if my own vision and intention for this site was actually coming through to you, the readers. [A note to Greenwoman : this is why I was intentionally general or, as you felt, vague, with my question. I wanted those who felt like responding to be free to do so as they liked, without a lot of specifics or limitations attached to the question.]
When I redesigned this site in January, which included a decision to transition from publishing only fiction and poetry to actually blogging, I wrote down a few words that described the core around which this site’s content needed to revolve in order for it to be true for me and therefore, worth my effort:
Beauty, conversation, process, sensuality, seduction, intimacy, integrity, truth (in no particular order).
I was delighted to see that all your comments revealed that, to you as readers, these concepts are very evident here. In fact, many of you mentioned these very words in your comments.
However, I think it’s even more interesting to note that nowhere on my list do the words "sex" or "spirituality" appear… or even "erotic." And yet, those words do probably best describe the actual content here - again, something that was very evident in your comments.
While it’s true that this site is focused on sex and spirituality, and particularly an exploration of the erotic aspects of both, it is not because those are topics I’ve chosen to write about. It’s because those things describe the foundation of who I am and everything I do, so all of my writing here must come from that source in me - something elise (someone who also does her own share of "a lot" of writing) understands and articulated quite well:
It is you, this blog, an extension of you. Just as mine is an extension of me. i never sit down to write a post and think, “Well. How can i tackle the topic of *insert topic here* today?”
You write because you love to write. Which is far different from writing about something.
…what do I think your blog is about? I think it is about the spiritual, especially but not exclusively as experienced through the medium of eroticism. That being so, I think that yes, your writing is true to itself; indeed, you are so consistent in this area that I wonder if you could not be.
Greenwoman also articulated this idea in yet a different way:
… you are sharing your sensual journey with life… its not all about sex all the time here it seems and that’s good, because the erotic is not always sexual. Sometimes the erotic springs from the purely innocent experience of life.
And I get the impression that this is usually a spiritual process for you, not only a mental or physical one…that you’ll be bringing that deeper perspective and sharing your musings and conclusions here.
For me, that is both a very specific purpose for this writing, but it leaves an immensity of topics to discuss…
And, orchidea , whose comment I took especially to heart because she has known me longer and probably more personally than any other reader in cyberia, said simply this:
What I see here is you. Sharing what you want to share, when you want to share it. That’s all and that’s everything. Your essence.
Process
About the concept of being able to read about a blogger’s process, something that is one of the primary reasons I decided to add blogging to this site, Greenwoman said:
I think too that there is this fallacy that you have to stick to one topic on a blog or not blog at all. Personally, I think that blogs which do that faithfully are dull. I think its just plain boring to be relentlessly focused on one topic all the time. It leaves the writing flat and it makes the writer feel flat to me. I need a little side bar conversation and to know that there [is] really a person back there, not an automaton generating fodder for my mind…It is also better for me to watch a learning curve. That teaches me as much as if I read the conclusions. Conclusions are good, but it doesn’t teach me a damn thing about how to get past a problem, nor what it feels like to face hurdles and over come them.
About the idea of transition-as-process, Rosa said:
I see a goddess woman sharing her walk (I never get the idea you are running) through a transition on all levels-spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and physically.
It’s very true that I never run or hurry through things! Interesting that Rosa picked that up from my writing. I’m a tall, rather stately woman who prefers grace to speed - a trait that I’m finding is much more suited to me at this age than it ever could have been when I was young and always in a tizzy to "get things done."
…it’s obvious that you’re sharing your personal journey… maybe “meanderings” might be a better term. It’s sensual and some of us enjoy watching you work into it, almost as if you’re awakening and stretching out.
Meanderings, indeed. Again… no running here!
Regardless of my blogging speedometer reading, I’m really glad to know that the idea of watching a "learning curve" comes across here. I feel process is important, and with all the pressure to do things fasterbiggerbetter these days, I’d like to think mine is a voice for allowing things to proceed in their own time rather than according to the vip-busy-lifestyle schedule we’re all suppose to aspire to.
Intimacy
A few of you perceive intimacy here, and I’m really grateful to know that because intimacy is something I see as a dying art in this day and age (probably an offshoot of the fasterbiggerbetter phenomenon), and so it’s one of the things that I try to invoke not only through my writing but with the site’s design as well - a little pocket of intimacy in a disconnected world - for both me and my readers.
… the main thrum I sense throughout your blog is an exercise in finding, creating or reflecting on intimacy in all its forms and guises.
Intimacy whether noun, verb, adjective or adverb is far more than just a rumination on either sensuality or sexuality which have as their source the awareness and full merging of body and mind. The primary source of intimacy… is the brain…
…it’s so odd that I come away from your blog like I do a cherished lover. Satisfied with the intimacy. And slightly breathless at the potential of what the next walk holds.
Beauty
The beauty that can be expressed in writing always depends on the reader - beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all of that. So, to say that I "strive" for beauty here is not quite correct. Basically, I just write what I feel has beauty in it and assume that those who recognize beauty in that same way will be drawn here.
One of the things that I often notice - not just on this blog, but in commentary on any art - is how people will respond to beauty with beauty. And specific to this site, when that happens, I feel it’s the most telling sign that I’ve written something that has evoked beauty for that person.
…you express a sense of the numinous in whatever else you may be writing of. In every post the spiritual seems close at hand, and it’s this sense that gives your writing such a lovely, deep tone. It’s easy to imagine, while reading your posts, that I am walking through a lovely garden in the early evening, with dryads and nymphs at play, making their presence felt even if not entirely visible.
But there is something deeper. Something else reaching forth. A slight tension in the mystery of the unsaid. A complexity… And that is what I find so sensual about your blog.
Each of these comments contain their own beauty. Each is a poetic statement in itself and therefore, to me, also a statement of response to the beauty that Arkhilokhus and Rosa find here.
Not-a-sex-blog
I am very thankful to see that not one of you described this site as a "sex blog"! Not that I don’t love me a good juicy seXXX blog with pitchers! It’s just that I never saw this site as one of them.
A riddle for Elizavetta
The comment that intrigued me the most had to be this from Liras :
Seems to me that you are attempting to tear through the veils of illusion and penetrate the abyss of insincerity.
If that isn’t a koan from one mystic to another, I don’t know what is! Truly, Liras, you are a word conjurer after my own heart!
Distillation
And finally, there’s Beth’s comment which included a statement which I consider to be perhaps the best distillation of all the comments here; a statement that tells me in brief that yes, my intention for this site is being received in the spirit in which I am creating it; that my writerly seclusion hasn’t done me in just yet:
Your blog is sensual, emotional, provocative, lyrical. I like it, and so I read it.
Call and response
Your comments validated many things for me, and I was delighted by your articulate responses. However, though I probably shouldn’t say this for what it could invite, I almost wish I had received at least one comment saying that this ain’t nuthin’ but a Godless seXXX blog written by an uppity whoore!
Kidding! Really, I’m kidding. A hex upon hate mail! Garlic and crosses and all that. Oh, right, that’s for vampires. Never mind…
But seriously, while many of you did offer compliments and even praise for what I write here (and don’t get me wrong - I do like them warm fuzzies!), the thing I am actually more deeply satisfied by is the evidence of connection - the beautiful workings of call and response between people.
Warm fuzzies are great, and I’ll always accept what’s offered of them, but to be part of a lively and honest exchange of ideas and feelings will always be infinitely more satisfying - and nourishing - to me. And that’s exactly what I feel transpired here.
So, thank you for your eloquent responses to my call. And most of all, thank you for this absolutely divine conversation.
This is something I had previously posted on Tea and Oranges and then later removed. Why, I don’t know… But here it is again. Because this is how I’m feeling… again.
We wait for breasts to bloom and hips to soften.
We wait for the the first day of summer, the first kiss, the first date.
We wait for the first pain of the first time.
We wait for the pleasure, eternally.
We wait for our first blood, and the next, and the next.
We wait for the Moon inside us to rise… and set… and rise.
We wait for the heartbeat, the quickening, the miracle.
We wait to schedule the appointment, to summon the courage.
We wait to begin nesting… or to come to terms with relief.
We wait for fate, the thing we feared most.
We wait for the diagnosis, the bitter medicine, some sympathy.
We wait for the sun.
We wait for the pain to stop.
We wait for the lover’s letter, the midnight call, our mother’s death.
We wait for the water to boil, the cake to bake, the roses to grow.
We wait for our men to come… to us, to themselves, to reason.
We wait for them to escape… the lure of another woman, the horrors of war, their father’s shadow.
We wait for them to return from the places we can’t go.
We wait for our sons to find kindness, our daughters to find forgiveness.
We wait for love, we wait for the light.
We wait for good-bye.
We wait for the first gray hair, the next generation, the last of the blood.
We wait for wisdom, we wait for someday, we wait for death.
But for tonight, I wait right here…
In this moment, this sanctuary, this breathing center of my whole life.
Tonight, I wait for the taking, for the filling, for communion.
Tonight, I wait for the end of waiting.
I absolutely loved my visit to this site - part blog, part erotic poetry and stories. Elizavetta Mora writes beautifully, whether it’s a haunting story of a path not taken (Rioja) or a steamy pain/pleasure interlude during the most boring of household tasks (Ironing Sutra). The poems and stories are indexed along one column, then there is an ongoing blog as well. Again with the blog, I appreciate the introspection when it comes to power exchange - it’s always refreshing to see someone write honestly about bdsm, instead of yet another caricature. Well done.
~ Jane
Thank you, Jane!
Whether you’re brand new to the world of adult sites or a veteran who thinks you’ve seen it all, pay a visit to Jane’s Guide… THE traveler’s guide to the Naughty Net.
This post was inspired by Z, Orchidea, Gillette, elise, Magdelena (wherever she may be), and Kochanie, and is dedicated to all of us who, despite having our hands slapped one too many times, our voices silenced in a million ways, our wildness molded and manicured without our consent, still want… everything.
Today, I’m housebound in the middle of a snowstorm with a full pantry of food, plenty of fuel for heat, my good family all around me, and my trusty soaking tub always at the ready, waiting for me to spend the whole day in its safe steamy confines if I choose.
I’m also, at this moment, acutely aware of all the bittersweet loss in my life, all the stupid things I’ve done and said, all the pain I’ve given and received, the people and moments and love I’ve wasted and squandered and lost.
So, I’m sitting here at my computer thinking of going downstairs to make coffee, to get moving, to try to get ahead of the downward spiral I know this line of thought is leading to, but as I’m getting up from my chair, a song comes on the radio.
And I am immediately in tears… dumbstruck-ed-ly reminded of the delicate, complicated, clumsy process by which we each strive to become human… achingly, beautifully human.
So, of course, I sit back down and listen. And cry. I write this post. And the downward-threatening spiral changes direction.
So, in the name of imperfection and forgiveness, of grief and gratefulness… in the name of us all, I offer you one of the best songs of all time:
Howard Jones‘ No One is to Blame - and it’s even live, bless his heart.
May your day be one of kindness - to yourself most of all.
You can look at the menu but you just can’t eat
You can feel the cushions but you can’t have a seat
You can dip your foot in the pool but you can’t have a swim
You can feel the punishment but you can’t commit the sin
And you want her and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
You can build a mansion but you just can’t live in it
Youre the fastest runner but you’re not allowed to win
Some break the rules and live to count the cost
The insecurity is the thing that won’t get lost
And you want her and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
You can see the summit but you can’t reach it
It’s the last piece of the puzzle but you just can’t make it fit
Doctor says you’re cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain
And you want her and she wants you
We want everyone
And you want her and she wants you
No one, no one, no one ever is to blame
No one ever is to blame
No one ever is to blame
