Apparently the word of the day yesterday was “pussy”. The word was uttered at some point during the impeachment trial, and the interwebz are buzzing. Not sure anybody remembers why the word came up, or whether it had anything to do with the substantive business of the proceedings, but…don’t say “pussy” over the airwaves. Unless you’re the President, or a candidate for President. Or unless the intentional broadcast delay misses it. Because we’ve had a President with no sense of decorum and somewhat of a potty mouth, the dark overlords of the online communities have suddenly become a bit overzealous in cleaning up everyone’s language and hate speech. Hate speech has been a part of the online experience since the first day we had internet communications, way back to IRC and bulletin board services. Americans have a penchant for cussin’, and I am a proud example of that. There are just some emotions, feelings, sentiments that cannot be adequately expressed without using certain expletives. If I say “I really hated the weather forecast this morning”, it’s fine…it’s understood that I didn’t like the forecast. If I say “I fucking hated the weather forecast this mornning”, I’ve now quantified AND qualified the emotion of how much I didn’t like the forecast. It’s now apparent that I REALLY didn’t like it, but there’s more emotion built in. I am totally invested in full body communication, so while I’m way over here emoting, I wanna get the biggest bang for my buck. So. I am fucking all in.
I was penning some necessary drivel last night, attempting to capture and gain insight from my feelings of discontent, and irritability, and general “what the fuck am i doing here” feelings. (See? That expletive made that sentence come alive, didn’t it?) Anyhow, I suppose I do feel a little more grounded today, although still a little untethered. Maybe untethered is a good thing, although it’s a little more risky…you never know where you might bounce, what you might hit while bouncing. It’s pretty much random, which appeals to me intellectually, or maybe spiritually, but which is very scary. Riskiness…vulnerability…weighty concepts, scary territory. Vulnerability implies risk, I suppose, but risk can be overwhelmed by the process of intentional vulnerability. E.g. when I am intentionally putting myself out there for all to see, when I am intentionally trying something new and don’t know what the fuck I am doing. Risk, in general, says I know this might not work, I know I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m doing it anyway. I suppose vulnerability says all of that, but also says that I know I might get hurt, but I’m doing it anyway. Risk also says I know I might fail, but seems to me it’s more concerned with matters of the brain, such as making financial investments, or betting on a sports contest. I know I can lose a significant amount of money, but I do it anyway. Vulnerability says I’m opening my innermost self when I play this song, or make this presentation of what I think about. I know I might get hurt, but the hurt will likely be at a much deeper and more tender place than my finances. When dealing with my finances, any risk that I assume is pretty well detached from my spirit, from my heart. When dealing with playing my song, or presenting something from that deeper creative part of me, that feels like vulnerability, like my heart is out there with no defense.
I just got done with my bi-weekly therapy session, and talked more with her about all of this bouncing off walls feeling. We talked about love, or the absence thereof, and i connected on feeling as though I may not even have the wiring for that. Maybe it’s the wiring for receiving it, but I’m thinking such wiring is full-duplex, going both ways. Feeling as though I may not have the wiring for it seems to be my bizarro way of saying that I am not capable of it, either the giving or receiving of it. That I don’t know what the fuck it is, actually. We talked for a bit about this, and returned to issues of attachment. I connected with the realization that I have been confused about this love stuff from nearly the beginning…when I found the little index card from the hospital where I was born, the kind the baby formula companies give new mothers, it said I was breast fed. It was somewhat a shock to find that out, because I was so afraid to be in physical contact with my mother, since I was an adolescent, at least. I suppose it wasn’t safe to be in physical contact with her, but that’s another story. So, having the information that I was breast fed was a huge disconnect for me, and sad; it must have been safe at one time, but that went away. Hmm.
The other part of the breast-feeding issue that is confusing is that not long after I was born, my mother had to have surgery, not once but twice. She had to have her gall bladder removed, which in those days was a major incision, and she had to have a hysterectomy. She got hepatitus from the gall bladder surgery, I believe, so her recuperation time was pretty lengthy. During that time, she was mostly in bed, in my grandmother’s house, and my grandmother was responsible for my very early development I believe. I thought she WAS my mother, so when I was ripped away from her a few years later as we relocated to New Orleans, that was a big deal. I have believed that my father’s leaving the family when I was 11 or so was the source of my abandonment issue, but maybe it was this forcible separation from my grandmother that started it. Maybe that’s also why when I see my heterosxual female friends making ridiculous choices to please their male partners, I lose so much respect for them, and can’t even listen to all the drama of that. It just appals me that a woman gives up her power to please a man (or a woman, for that matter). It’s very irrational for me, but…that’s also another story entirely. Irrationality may be my middle name, but I own that. It’s the lifeblood of creativity, dammit.
I should now attend to my dog, who is not-so-patiently waiting to go outside, although she took herself outside inside earlier. Shithead, she is. Literally. So, on we go, she and I, moments of great brilliance followed by periods of abject and ordinary monotony. Life is good, or something like that.
The Sound Hole 