Pat Benatar Does the Woods

I went dance running through the woods today.  That's when you put on some big headphones (because your ears are shaped differently than other people's and the earbuds they make for runners never stay in) and shove your iphone (which is your music because you don't have a nifty tiny ipod) in your mother's sport's bra (which you're wearing because you like it better than yours) and jog like you've just scored a touchdown...knees high, arms reaching for the sky, throwing dramatic turns and making a periodic microphone of your fist so that you might join in the epic call from Pat Benatar reminding you that yes, we belong to each other.

I did that.  I ran up the hill through a canopy of yellow leaved, bowing branches.  The wind blew hard as I made pirouettes on mossed rocks and leaned against the damp bark of autumn hemlocks.  I ran to the meadow then stopped.  A gust, carrying a dozen yellow leaves pulled me from my anthem and begged my affection.  I turned the music off, resting the soggy headphones around my neck. 

A leaf landed on my left breast and I watched others sail to the ground.  A broken mushroom cap, showing its creamy gills had been nibbled.  Nearby a field of silver acorns disguised themselves as giant beetles until I moved closer to inspect them.  I decided to walk back.  It was an abrupt transition from my superhero cavort to a quiet autumn dreamscape. 

I warmed into my surroundings, decanting myself.  The forest unfurled its scent with my attention.  Wet wood and fungal umbrellas descended in aromatic layers.  I wondered how my scent mixed with the melange and imagined myself a perfume for the pinewood.  Slow motion walking, I came to a point in the path I had run past minutes before.  Another burst of wind pulled a school of leaves through the air.  I shivered.

Above me, pinned in the canopy, a dead branch the size of my body, quivering in delicate suspension perpendicular to the ground.  The slightest breath of wind might set it free.

I knew the perfect timing of its fall could end a life or paralyze or at least cause a serious head injury.  I thought of other people passing beneath it, unaware of their momentary increased risk of death. 

I had been worrying about other things before this place found me, ways to justify my existence - how to bring the circus to Haiti, should I go to graduate school, if I'll ever finish that book, whether I should build a yurt and live on a farm or move back to the city, what logo to use on my website, etc…  Thoughts like the flailing arms of eager kindergarteners hoping to be called on when they know the answer.  When I saw the tree branch, the brain buzzing hushed. 

I walked underneath it.  I closed my eyes.

It felt like my body was possessed by ants - a crawling sensation, "Get away!  Move!  Don't fucking stand here Stupid!"  Everything in me yelled.  I could only stand there for a few seconds.

This mind in my brain thinks it's saving me.  There are always branches trembling above, ready to fall.  The only difference is I know about this one. 

"Don't wanna leave you really, I've invested too much time
To give you up that easy, to the doubts that complicate your mind

We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder…"

It's hard to feel sexy with a skank rash on my face

It's not really a skank rash - I mean, I did give a few dozen blow jobs and had the pleasure of burying my face in some delectable female delights over the weekend, but really...it's not a skank rash.

Sometimes when the weather changes I get a little crack at the side of my mouth.  My ego, strong as it is, rebels against this mild mar on my visage with a ferocity that would match that of mama bear defending her young.  I attack.

After a day or so of patience I went after it.  I rubbed it with tinctures, applied coconut oil, tea tree oil, jojoba oil, marula oil, vitamin e oil.  I washed it, put vinegar on it.  I even cleaned it with my own urine.  Gross?  Well, yes I am...and (ahem) I would risk anything to keep my poor sweet image safe and beautifully static.  When it wouldn't disappear (and, in fact, worsened - I have no idea why) I caved and used a topical steroid.  If I can just give it a quick fix, I'll be more attractive.  It's hard to feel sexy when there is a blemish at the corner of my lip.  (And I like to feel sexy).

As part of a gross reaction to steroid cream, the rash began to spread.  I didn't have to do anything except go to NYC to visit friends I had not seen in months.  Naturally, I covered the deformation with foundation.

Yes, it worsened.

Soon the little crack at the corner of my mouth had become a clown-lip, crusty yuck face.  Deep breath. 

I had to go to New York anyway.  I wanted to be beautiful.  I didn't feel it though.  It's unreasonable to feel sexy with a skank rash on my face.

Got to the point where I had to drop back into myself.  I could no longer cover it up - there was no use.  It was painful and fed up.  I wanted to crawl inside somewhere and not come out until I had healed and could again present my crust free smile.

I don't live in New York right now.  I stay with friends.  I could not hide away.  So I reached inside myself and turned it around.

I realized at any moment a change like this (or one far more permanent) could land on my reality.  Who knows, after some exciting sexual escapade I may actually contract a rash.  I may fall on my face, tumble into a patch of poison ivy, collide with a confused goose while on a rollercoaster, breaking my perfect nose (I know how you feel Fabio), I might get into a street fight with a pitbull, get hit by a car (again), piss off a leprosy-curse-casting warlock...

Would that mean I could never feel sexy again?  No!  Even with the stigma attached to a rash around the mouth, even though it's unreasonable, I decided to try, just try, and feel sexy anyway.

Perhaps sexy doesn't need reciprocation.  Perhaps sexy does not need to be validated through a whistle or a pick up line.  Maybe sexy is something felt, not seen.  While it's hard to feel sexy with a skank rash on my face, it is far from impossible. 

I walk down the street, I order coffee, I smile at strangers, I admire attractive men and women, I perform for a crowd, I flirt, I see old friends and pretend like I am radiantly beautiful.  I am full of sexy, it spills from every gesture like a honey waterfall.  Ha!

Sexy, beautiful, attractive, has nothing to do with the measly two dimensions reflected in mirrors.  It cannot be fabricated or reasoned with.  It is felt. 

I still pick at it.  I still worry about it.  I still wish it would go the fuck away.  I still daub at it with topical medicines and think twice after peeing.  That voice keeps whispering lies about how sexy and skank rash can't co-exist.  But when I do feel that way (y'know, sexy), no voice can argue with it.  It is not something seen, it's unreasonable. 

It's Velveteen Rabbit sexy.  All shabby and lumpy and worn and real...but that's another blog.

Are Tadpoles Allowed to Love?

Lying on the floor (again), I watch demons meet pleasure growing and expanding
though my pelvis.  What is buried here?  Is this sexual?

Noon is in the air.

I want the way I love to be unrestrained by archaic morality.  But the dilemma has existed since I was young:  How do I reconcile the yearning to break my heart against the beauty of this world with the voice that threatens me with unlovability if I do?  I am wrong.  I am three years old and the way I love is bad.

The sun beats down on my body. My nipples are erect.  Now my identity has been trapped in thinking sex is the only way to love as big as I do, that sexuality has to exist in a certain form.  I must be a young woman - blond - american - beautiful. I must be porn star sexy, smart sexy, post pubescent katrina sexy...to love like this.

Do caterpillars love?  Are tadpoles allowed to love?

The way I love - an omnidirectional hug desirous of merging, putting our bodies in touch, where we can togetherfeel the pleasures and pain of our anatomy.  Stretching physical sensation.  Is this sexual?

What is sexuality? Where does it begin?

As I look at the reflection of my naked body in this computer screen, I feel shackled to its
form.  Strong limbs, smooth skin, cheerful breasts framing my bellybutton.  The buds of fear swell; open.

What will happen to how I love when those breasts sag down, lying pancake flat
against a saggy midsection? How will I love if I do not carry the correct configuration? Three years old and I had to wait for the development of this fleshape so that my love would be worth something - so that it could be expressed, accepted, acceptable.

Of course I'm attached to it.

So now I practice dying.  Lying on the floor, typing at my computer, hugging you - I die into myself.  I go beyond the frontiers of form.  Is this sexual?

It Doesn't Matter

It has been over a month of growth and death.  I feel the sting of stretching myself.  Staying with my parents for this week, a week in the wake of weeks stretched by French wine and romance and a desert explosion.  Wanderlust.  Wonder lost.

Wonder banged.  I feel the real me going to school again, growing and watching for cannonballs.  I keep dropping them on myself.  All this pressure to do something, to count for something, to finish something.

When this anxiety slinks in, I remember a thing that happened (continues to happen), three weeks ago following a dusty birthdeath in Nevada.  It is best described as a dream, but to call it that would be misleading.  I might also call it a vision or a cogent hallucination.

I was sleeping on a friend's couch in Orange County.  I woke early, the soft cushions unfit for my frenzied tossing and turning.  Unable to re-doze, I decided to meditate for a while.  I call it meditation, but that connotes an activity that requires effort. Really, I just lie on my back and feel myself existing.  (Sometimes I fall asleep.)

I did this.  I dropped in.  Immediately I entered a lucid dream state.  Waking into my subconscious (or wherever I happened to be), I quickly noticed another being with me.  Turning to face her head on, I found myself in the company of what I perceived to be a goddess creature.  She appeared like a gelfling from The Dark Crystal - subtle, pixie-like adjustments to the human form.  I was instantly thrilled to be in her presence.  I could tell she was powerful, the incarnation of greatness, the one who might be able to answer some of my questions.  I went for it. 

"What should I do?  What is my purpose?" I asked her.  The volume of my voice surprised me.  It echoed throughout the room and I was sure that my friends sleeping on the couch adjacent mine, would wake and assume I was slumbertalking.

The deity melted backwards, dissolved into the walls, the room, the very space around us.  She surfaced periodically, rearranging random table objects into a face, pressing a form against the patterned wallpaper, unfolding in a multitude of expressions.  Her presence laughed at me.  There was no verbal response, but the air itself was thick with her humor.  Who do you think you are?  It seemed to say.  Why would you ever consider such a question important?  Ha.  How ridiculous! 

I remained still, despite the waves of deep breath humility pumping through me.  After a few moments, she surfaced again in the cluttered floor and spoke aloud.

"It doesn't matter," she chuckled, evanescent. 

"It doesn't matter what you do...as long as you're laughing more than you're not."

I woke up.  I couldn't breathe at first.  I woke up and (for a little while) stopped taking myself so seriously.

A Nerve Ending on God's Clitoris

What is the sex of food?

***

Linked with the very foundation of survival, let us consider the sensation of hunger (of desire) a primary impetus for action.  Our fleshy, vulnerable bodies, built so perfectly for the experience of pain and pleasure, hold within them the great burden and brilliant gift of the brain.  This benevolent organ wants only for us to survive, so to simplify things, it talks about hunger like it is an assassin.  

This reaction is archaic gossip. 

While it may remind us of our mortality, hunger will not kill us. 

Often I believe the rumors.  I stuff my face unconsciously, get drunk, and go on masturbation binges in desperate attempts to turn off the hunger alarm.  Super survivor!  Put it in me!  I'll take cheese and cock and wine and vibrators and anything else that will put to rest the blinking red light that says I am not safe without them.  But what happens when I stop trying to turn hunger off and let it turn me on?

I'm a bit of an extremist, a pleasure seeker.  Not everyone is as bent on filling up as I am, but perhaps some of you can relate.

In moments of real strength, I take a deep breath and disregard the brain's outdated advice.  I explore hunger.  I invite desire to the table, to the bedroom, to this little plaza in a small French town where I write to you at sunset.  Rather than attempting to assuage the sensation, I let it stretch my physical experience.  I turn into a taste bud on God's tongue, a nerve ending on her clitoris.  

Hunger, then, becomes a source of creativity.  I pay attention to it.  I acknowledge the mortality of my body and I come alive. 

I take each bite with a grateful whisper to the hunger that makes the food taste so good.  I make love with an earnest "thank you" to the desire that charges my experience of the present.  Such sensation is not easy.  I must acknowledge the ephemeral nature of this moment and let go of trying to keep it.  

***

We can do this.  Come, do this with me.  Bring your hunger with you.  It's been falsely accused as a dangerous hit man.  Let's forget the brain's panicked warnings and navigate uncharted territory.  Together, we'll brave whatever sensation arises.  

This is the sex of food.  This is the sex of death.  Let's practice it.

Food and Sex

The room has been forbidden.  You have been told only bad people, strange people, naughty people go there.  You don't want to be like that.  You want to be good.  You crave righteousness and the approval of your elders.  You sit down every night and eat your porridge.  It is good, comforting.  The heat warms you and the oaty gelatinous consistency fills your belly gently.  The meal comforts you the way an old man is comforted by the predictable rock of his afternoon chair.  But you are not an old man in your heart.  Your favorite part of the meal is not the substance, but the sprinkle of cinnamon that dusts the lumpy dish.  A hint of the exotic.  Warming and aromatic, adding that splash of color atop the richness of cloud-sky grey.  And you long for more.

Your curiosity grows.  The banquet awaits.  You hear people laughing, crying, the sound of delicate glass repeatedly kissing itself.  You press your cheek against that prohibited door.  The sound is interesting, but it is the smell that calls to you.  Having just finished your meal, you are not physically hungry, but the pull of decadence is strong and the aromas are so attractive.  You know not how to distinguish among them, nor which heady scent belongs to what, but the bouquet seduces you anyway.  It has a depth like the color of blood - or the rich brown of fertile soil.  The perfume moves up your body, evoking images of the evening ocean spreading itself across the beach.  You smell animals - the heady funk of a feral goat and the sweet musk of the hare.  Whiffs reminiscent of spring flowers and cedarwood and the green moss that celebrates after autumn rain arise and fall in the complicated mixture.  You can bear the mystery no more.  You defy the moral code and the piety of tradition.  With a thunderous kick, impelled by carnal desire, you break down the door.  

Your eyes adjust to the candlelight.  Wrapped in that delightful odor, you drink of the spectacle.  A runner of silk, cream in color, spreads across the great, mahogany table.  Festooned and besprinkled with flecks of gold, the beautiful fabric underlies hundreds of ornate platters, each offering a different arrangement of sultry meats, fresh fish, harlequin vegetables, and steaming grains of various colors and shapes.  You see voluptuous fruits with arcs like the crescent moon, sliced and bleeding their juices in playful droplets.  A motly collection of polychromatic sauces, some still bubbling, begs the dip of a rebellious finger.  There is an array of candies, pristine and sparkling in sugary patinas.  Frosted cakes sit plump and inviting - like grandmother's breast, waiting to comfort the weary child with a sweet story.

You do not know what to do.  The spread is overwhelming.  The longer you gaze at it, the more beautiful and seemingly untouchable it becomes.  You want it more now and understand why it is forbidden.  There is a part of you that pulls away.  That urges to turn and run through the heavy door back to the safety of principles and porridge.  Faced with this freedom, you realize you may not want so much choice.  Perhaps it is better to remain with the simplicity of grey.  Yet you know the cinnamon will always taunt you.  But now, here, what to choose?  How should you know what you want?  And if you do not like what you choose?  Where to begin?

It is one thing to break down the door into the secret room.  It requires another kind of courage to taste the food.  With food, however, this is not always such an existential crisis.  With sex, for many, it can be.  With life, for most, it is.  There is so much out there and if we let ourselves see it all at once, recognizing that it is available to us, who wouldn't feel momentarily burdened with the weight of that freedom?  I had a professor who referred to this as ontological insecurity.  When faced with the reality that we can have anything we want, we would rather not take responsibility for our choices and have the institutions (and their respective dogmas), articulate life for us.  

There are parallels between the ways in which we experience food and sex.  Both exist across cultures, both are often riddled with guilt, and both offer powerful experiences of sensuality in our bodies.  

Love Letter #2

New York,

    I love the friend you have become.  Awkward and sweet in moments that betray your facade of cement.  I love realizing you're late too, all the time.  Seeing through the stability into the many cracks of your humanity.  Yes, I know you have streets lined with false fruit blossoms and big movies and Broadway shows and showy museums.   But you also have that magical garden, New York.  The one on 6th and Clinton with overgrown lily patches and tumbled pebbles hidden in the turtle pond.  You have Hope Deli and the orchid exhibition inside the glass castle.  You have bridges with people laughing and yelling at each other to get out of the way.  The gas station with the man who never sleeps, but always smiles and helps me put oil in my car (even though - of course - I don't need help).

    You have my heart New York.  I came to you because of a fantasy - opportunity, high-rise buildings, big names, epic bridges, opportunity, work, inspiration, sweat, opportunity yes yes yes!  What I fell in love with was your circus, your storytellers, your variety in coconut waters.  The gorgeous Polish neighbor who cooks only Korean food.  The endless stream of parking tickets, forever presenting me with opportunities to forgive us both.  The show-stopping summer rainstorms.  Public lightening!  Pokey umbrellas and wet expensive suits.  Foul subway smells that inspire raucous stories among strangers about giraffe pussy.  It's the poker clubs, clicking with the sound of anxious chips.  The restaurant fuck ups, the amazing coffee, the sometimes amazing sweet potato fries, the shitty coffee.  That pub with all the cowboy boots nailed to the ceiling, Roosevelt island, the tiny beach underneath the Brooklyn bridge at low tide that is happy spawning ground for colorful tampon applicators. Omnipotent pigeon feathers.  The giant slug man waiting next to me for an F train at 3am, trying desperately to connect with someone by grumbling loudly about Bloomberg nazism.  You...you know who you are, human avatar of the city...the unrealized romance I know would be almost as beautiful as this pining.  The self sacrifice, learning to speak up.  The psychedelic spiritual ceremony when someone yelled, "I'll fuck your mother!" and it was so uncomfortable, I forgot about the profound and giggled with the fairy next to me.  The ocean!!!!  Tattoos.  Cheese. 

    Oh I could go on.  But you have a healthy collection of songs and poems written for you.  Who knows, if your head grows too big, you might give birth to another freedom tower (and the chance to make fun of you for that would be as delightful as the bar maid who, after a long, quiet night, watched me suck on the end of a brandied cherry and leaned in to my sweetened mouth, a lock of hair stuck to her lips so that it felt perfectly unperfect and I knew it must be really happening...but did it really happen?)

    Anything is possible here.  My favorite anythings are the unplanned in-betweeners.  The events that become stories because they emerge from such a perceivably rock solid background.  Good job New York.  Way to build a set.  Thank you.  I will come back.  I will make more in the shadow of that egalitarian moon, in the light of your paralyzing sunsets.