7/12/20

Just thought of something that sounds really simple/simplistic, but…I feel like is really important:

What if…babies and very young kids look perfect BECAUSE inside, their soul is perfect. That’s like their gift from God. All their perfect chubby skin and cuteness and sparkle and flawless sparkling everything. The sweet baby head smell. And then, what if the REASON we start to look uglier as we grow older– what if the ugliness is a result of NOT FIGHTING BACK against the hate, inequality, injustice, racism, everyday bad crimes or things that need to be fixed both within you and outside of you—which includes rejecting wrong things that you were taught when innocent—because now with an adult mind, you are no longer innocent—what if THE TASK OF LIFE is to correct/address/combat these things. Like THE MAIN WORK of a good life is the now fully (sometimes painfully) conscious, step-by-step reclamation of innocence. Like it’s not your fault you’ve been taught evil things, but it’s your responsibility to now locate and shake off any evil that currently clings to you. And the tangible result is if you do not do this work on a personal level – on such a personal level that it affects the world around you—reaches INTO the world around you –then THIS is the reason for aging badly, and nothing else. Nothing else. Just a thought. But weirdly, as soon as I had this thought, I believed it with all my being.

7/15/20

“The best allies are willing to make mistakes and keep trying.”

– https://www.themuse.com/advice/what-is-an-ally-7-examples

7/16/20

I’ve been watching Unorthodox on Netflix. I almost cry at some parts –

**spoiler warning**

The parts usually have to do with sex. Like before Esty gets married and she doesn’t even know she has two holes in her private part area (seems like she just thought she had one?) and a woman  had to tell her, and then tell her to go to the bathroom and check for herself right then. And then after Esty’s married, because both she and Yanky have been cut off from any sexual education, they don’t know how to do anything (Yanky doesn’t know how to touch her, and she doesn’t know how to relax and gets more and more scared with every failed and painful attempt). I was thinking…I didn’t realize…how much of a freedom it is, sex. Like, to have knowledge of it. Yes, physical did-it-yourself knowledge. But…not just that- maybe that’s not the most important part? The most important part might be: to grow up in a culture and a community where…open discussion and sexual experimentation are ALLOWED and encouraged. Like…I think I always took this for granted, living in America (and in a community where I was never as badly restricted as Esty). I was thinking, it’s a really nice blessing and freedom to have had experience before I got married. Like…I feel like BECAUSE of my pre-marital experiences, I could choose who I really wanted based on a kind of evidence. I could pull up different files in my head and compare them and base some of my decision on real-life events. So that I wouldn’t be wondering or wishing anything was different while inside the marriage, when it’s time to focus on one person. So I think pre-marital sex really helps in this way. Like I don’t regret my choice of spouse because I had other experiences to compare him to. I could decide with a certainty and a confidence that I don’t think I could have decided with had I never had sex before married. I do have ghosts and things that sometimes haunt me from pre-marital partners. But…I think ghosts, which you can work on banishing, are ultimately a small price to pay for the confidence that comes with knowledge.

7/6/20

“I believe that our identity is at risk. That when we actually don’t care about these difficult things, the positive and wonderful things are nonetheless implicated.

We love innovation.

We love technology.

We love creativity.

We love entertainment.

But ultimately, those realities are shadowed by suffering, abuse, degradation, marginalization. And for me, it becomes necessary to integrate the two.

… I’ve come to TED because I believe that many of you understand that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

That we cannot be full, evolved human beings until we care about human rights and basic dignity. That all of our survival is tied to the survival of everyone.

That our visions of technology and design and entertainment and creativity –

have to be married

with visions of humanity, compassion, and justice.”

– Bryan Stevenson 2012 Ted Talk

7/8/20

I love and I thanked God today that I am able to be home when I get my period. Because I had to use the bathroom like 3 times in 2 hours when I first got it today, and I felt better I could do this without having to walk in front of everyone on my way to bathroom as at the office. I also got bad cramps and chills and sudden exhaustion like sometimes happens, and my eyes were involuntarily closing and I felt so bad and had to lie down and I COULD lie down while I was working (still working from home). It just gave me so much comfort, to be in my own bed taking as much care of myself as I could while the bad feeling passed. I’m really grateful that I can get sick here for the two hours I need to feel sick, instead of trying to fight to appear normal at work, when this happens. When I have period sickness at work, it just compounds the bad feeling because on top of the physical discomfort, there is also the mental burden of trying to look like I’m fine when I’m not. I just feel so much better and cared for when I’m at home.

6/29/20

started thinking this while driving home (alone back from parents’ house yesterday): that for all the energy and effort and scheming that “bad” people do (racist angry ppl, white power ppl, selfish heads of big corporations like Turbo Tax, POTUS, etc.)…I don’t – put forth equal or greater effort to counteract them in any way. Like to AT LEAST match their anger with my patience, to match their scheming with my own, to match their hate with love. I was realizing that I’m kind of passive. Like, they can’t and shouldn’t be the only ones trying really hard here. In the world, in society. I have to contribute something- my best, ideally. There has to be AT LEAST a balance in the world, if not more good. Not to say that I am Good and they are Bad. Just that- if there are going to be this many angry hateful ppl like I’ve been seeing in the news – that I must at least match this negative energy with an equal amount of calm and patience and kindness and understanding. Like we can’t all go off the anger cliff. I think it’s ok for some people, who really want to, to go off the anger cliff. But I think we all can’t go, because it’s a cliff with a fatally-high fall. I think just as much as anger and power-hoarding is an everyday constant practice that seems like it will never be extinguished, that active love, active kindness, active honesty with oneself and others- all this good shit—is too in itself a PRACTICE, meaning that you have to do it constantly, constantly, every day and all the time to become seasoned and good at it, so it becomes natural to you. Your natural reaction to everything. You have to consciously definitely choose it- or else you are just being passive to the whims and moods of society and you’ll be swept away by whatever they’re feeling at the moment.

7/1/20

I felt something weird the other day. me and R were sitting together on the couch, I forget what we were doing. Probably just like stream of consciousness talking at the end of the day like we usually do. But I got this feeling. It was like: like I could see the end of our lives, that we HAD already lived a beautiful life together – we lived it until the end and now- like right then on that day…we were on some kind of path BACK to where we had already been- the end, which was light, heavenly. Idk. it was just this feeling that definitely passed over me. and hard to explain, but it felt really nice. Like the whole reason for moving forward in life, in my particular life now, is to…get to know someone who I already know. Already knew. Like that was my whole journey – discovering him and our life together, even though some version of me had already discovered it.  Physically, my body is not there yet—has not yet come to the end—but somewhere else, I know him, I have lived in bliss with him for a lifetime. So weird.

7/2/20

thought I just had (about 3:10 pm): you don’t have to be fearless or devoid of fear. You just have to be a little less afraid than everyone else. That’s all—just a little less.

7/3/20

What must it be like for all your waking life, to always feel that when walking in public, people are saying no to your body- your very body- silently, when they look at you. To never have a feeling being in the American public that anyone is saying “yes“ to your body, your very existence. how might that affect you psychologically, mentally, physically?

how must it feel – to feel all eyes on you when walking through suburbs/city, or waiting at the station, or shopping in a grocery store, and all the time, the stares are saying “no”? Like no, you don’t exist or shouldn’t exist or don’t have worth here. What kind of impact must that have on you, over a lifetime, over generations? I never thought about all this until the BLM Movement.

A bit of encouragement I just overheard:

“…solidarity is not necessarily a science or a math equation, but it’s a commitment to a practice. it’s knowing that in some ways you’re going to get it right, and in some ways there’s going to be room to continue to grow and evolve, and I think it’s the commitment and the willingness to be in that balance…This is not the first time, nor the last time, that we will try to come back to this question and answer it.”*

I really like the idea of…even though unable to fully answer a question the first time I ask it- even though I can’t answer Everything Now (though I want to)…being able to answer it more correctly, more articulately, more perceptively, more intuitively and creatively the more I choose to return to it. The more i ask myself, “How can I better serve black people with this decision/that action/these words/etc.?” the better I will become at it.

Happy and Blessed Juneteenth, Everyone 🙂
*quote from Nikita Mitchell from the Rising Majority- starts around 45:50 here –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Im_XqBedPs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1obMlZLo9dLla9W_PnZ1Z5zl-ExwWnyrhwzy_4o8w27_Os3tmoTaaoATI

5/27/20

marriage as a mirror, as a test of your true freshness: the same person sees you all the time. are you keeping it so fresh that you’re even fresh to this person? it’s harder, more challenging. cause it’s easy to look fresh to someone you don’t see a lot/see only once a week or so. But harder when it’s tested every day. by the same person. in the same living space. day after day, year after year. Like marriage is how you really know you are a fresh bitch.

5/5/20

today, was feeling bad from just getting period and R came to my room while i was remote working and he was in the middle of cooking us lunch (tuna & asparagus). He asked what I wanted to drink, and I said lemonade (bc that’s what I wanted), even tho I knew we didn’t have it in the house. I also think he maybe knew that I knew we didn’t have it (because we grocery shop together), and also maybe sensed I was a little grumpy/down.

But he made it for me, from scratch out of lemons and coconut sugar (I’m trying to never buy white sugar, so all we had was brown sugar, coconut sugar, maple syrup, honey). When lunch was ready he called me to come out and when we had both our full plates on the table in front of the TV he said, “oh, i almost forgot–one more thing…” and went to the fridge and pulled out the cup of it he’d made for me. “…lemonade” he said as he handed it over and i sipped with wide eyes.

It was brown and delicious and kind of changed my whole mood for the rest of the day. My husband. 🙂

4/7/20

over the past week or so, this phrase “closeness is the risk” has been recurring to me, but this is the first chance I got to sit down and write about it (it seems the days are passing even FASTER since I started working from home, with work mingled into everything else I want to do, and now R staying home this week, it’s like everything all at once – love, personal pursuits, work- all mingled/no separation or order, which is what I think is making the time pass so fast).

In journal the other week, I asked, “How do I relate to R with more…risk and distance…?” Interpreting my dreams on this date, I’d uncovered some anxiety I had that the mystery or risk of first dating someone was now over with me and R since we’re married. And now I realize that yes, maybe that first-meeting-someone gleeful mysterious feeling is over. But that’s just one phase. Like, there’s a new risk, I realized. Closeness is the risk.

I’ve never dedicated my life to someone and meant with every conscious intention in my heart and body and soul to stay with them and love them and work WITH them as a team for the rest of my life (and while doing all this, not letting myself melt into whoever they are- still keeping all the healthy boundaries and habits that make me myself. Through all this, seeking the right balance). I’ve never, in this way (of commitment, of dedication), been so close to someone, and THIS, I realize, is the new risk, is the new mystery, the new awe: this slow day-by-day unfolding of what it’s like to let someone know who you are, really, daily, as a woman, as a sexual being, as a now 37-year-old adult, as the child I once was and hope to not forget, as the person/persona I’m still developing/aim to be, my family, my thoughts–everything—I have to (and want to) let him in where no one else has been, I have to at least try, without fear/anxiety/resentment taking over as I do this—THIS is an even bigger fucking risk (bc requires more effort and higher stakes) than the risk of when we first met and were just euphorically blindsided by each other’s otherness.

This risk is bigger and has never been done before (in my life)- it’s different. The challenge is to stand before him emotionally stripped naked, and with grace, to not flinch or retract or put up walls or hide ashamed. And it’s a challenge: it’s intentional, requiring focus and practice. It’s progress, I feel. It’s hard, too. It’s hard because I’m not used to it. But when I get this feeling (like I have now) that I’m some blind insect just putting feelers out into the dark and undiscovered, I feel like it’s the right way, for me. I don’t want to go back.

3/21/20

I was thinking today how a 30 y/o man and a 37 y/o woman can be like, pretty much in the same place on their sexual journey. Like: Even though I’ve had sex with boyfriends or whatever in the past, I was thinking, I’ve never had this kind of sex where I’m viewing the man as my partner for life. So maybe in the kind of sex I had before…it was exciting because of the apparent/relative newness of the relationship and the fact that we were just physically both usually in hot, young, kind of peak shape, but perhaps lacked depth. The kind of depth that…is not easily won/easily gained by…non-committed/non-long-term relationships. Like I never dealt with someone before with the mindset that I would be pleasing them and pleasuring them and sexually discovering with them forever. I never thought about someone that way, until now. And then, I think…this perspective… it…changes things. It’s not like it was before–just in it for the moment, just reaching for some vague societal-directed or porn-directed goals. It’s something slower, but..that feels more powerful in that…there is like this foundation being built, that isn’t going anywhere. Like every time- every new and next sex w/my husband, it builds upon everything already there—we’re like…taking inventory of…things, and…we’re somehow transmuting them/these details/this unsaid body language, and storing up this delicately-specific wisdom about each other, and USING it to make every time better, to also use to journey towards discovering/cracking the code of how to best please each other. It’s so…different than the like years of sex I was used to, I think. So different. That sex was “Now.” And now it’s…it’s still “Now,” but also, it’s…”What can I learn now to give you an even bigger high later? What can I learn?” It’s really nice…really…personal. I like it. But it’s also scary, I think. Scary cause you’re learning the super-specific ways to please this unique person, so like you are programming yourself in a way to FIT THEM exactly—their sexual needs—like a specialized key—like every day you are training for them—for the marathon of them and ONLY them, in a way—and through any act of God or circumstances, one day, what if one day there are just taken away from you? That’s the scary part, for me. Then you have this highly-specialized skill set with no one to use it on. But I guess this fact is also part of the risk that makes this whole exchange, this whole marriage thing, precious.

2/10/20:

I get this feeling that marriage is making me more lovable. Just like…kind of at times, for a second, for some moments, getting glimpses—just glimpses—of how he sees me, how my husband sees me. How he sees me as cute when I don’t feel like I am, how he sees me as pretty when I don’t feel pretty. It like…it just like…his perspective, it gets inside of you, kind of. From being so close, from close interaction living together. So that…maybe it makes it easier for me to love myself, watching someone else fall in love with me. Mirroring, maybe like mirroring, or like blending perspectives- becoming one for a second in your mind, and also for a series of unexpected random seconds. Like for just these random seconds, I see myself as he sees me, because he tells me every day, always unexpectedly: “So cute”, “So pretty” and I believe him; I have to believe him; what else can I do but believe every good thing he says? Slowly and deeply, as a marriage goes, as someone falls in love with you, you fall in love with yourself, slowly and deeply. So crazy. So crazy, I never thought this would happen. I almost thought…idk where I got this notion—maybe from just not knowing any better—but before I was married, I thought maybe marriage was more like something to endure and get through/muscle through, like a prison sentence or a marathon, but a generally-fun one that included love. But this…this slow unfolding and deepening of love and perspective—both of myself and of another person…I never imagined this when I thought about marriage as a younger lady.

Almost like…there’s a place that exists that you can’t get to without time and commitment. Like even if you have mind-blowing lust and highs and fucking and adventures, still. Still, this place…it’s somewhere else, and those are not the keys to it. They can supplement it, I think, they can make it more exciting. But foremost…you can’t get there without…first dedicating yourself. Like if you don’t dedicate time, energy, focus and will to this place, this place that is both mysterious wilderness and what seems like profound peace…you won’t find it. But it’s crazy cause like, you are dedicating yourself to a place you don’t know where it is, or even what it is, or what it’s called, or even really how to get there – the how just unfolds a little more every day, but there is no one map to it. All you know is that…that it exists.

2/3/20 a weird thought I just had: what if…when Mir raped me, starting then, sexually, I went inside of myself, I hid. And even ALL through the next like 15 years of sexual activity, though every boyfriend, every encounter, everyone I’ve ever been with, still, even then, still…sexually, I was still…I was still…hiding. I still hadn’t come out yet. And I was thinking…I was thinking….now, recently, about 5 months married now to R…I was wondering…if it’s the first time I’ve ever…like me, the real me, has ever…peeked her head around the corner, and started to move towards the doorway to come out. Bc I was thinking of the good sex with R last night, but not just that. I was thinking of how…how now I WANT to come out. Like…that maybe it is safe now for me to come out.

I was thinking how I never noticed until now how I’d been disassociating my mind from my body during sex, but now…now I realize it, and maybe had been doing it unconsciously with every single partner all along but didn’t know, and how now I really want to…stop doing that, and be…there in the moment, with him. I want to be present, with him. I don’t want to have any sexual or mental dysfunction. If I have them, I want to find them and correct them, so that…so that….our bed is blessed, and I can make him the happiest man in the world. That’s what I want.

I’ve never before, during sex…been so magnetically pulled to look at the other’s face- this compulsion to know what he’s feeling at different stages, with every change. I’ve never before searched someone’s eyes so long when they were over me, under me- for things I can’t explain. I mean some things I can name: his desire, his enjoyment. But also…strange things I can’t begin to name, I’m looking for in his face. I’ve never before held my mouth open just in awe at mere lines of a face, its profile, its contours, the tiny hairs, the shade of his skin, everything, like my senses are exponentially multiplied. I’ve never wanted the best for someone else’s body, morning and night, no matter what, even over my own body. Never. Never, until now.

Maybe being raped as a virgin…it was a curse that kind of…turned into a blessing in that…it saved me (the complete total real me) for him. Like I’d only been observing the technical aspects of sex like some scientist, until now. Like my heart was never in it, until now. Like: “From now on girl, for the next years, you will only fuck. But after you marry, for the first time, you will make love. You’ll create it with just your two blessed bodies, out of thin air.”