An environment that nurtures...

The quietness has allowed me to listen to myself.  Not just my soul but my body too.  I’ve been working for a long time to increase communication between my physical body and my mind/emotional body.  Throughout the blog I think I’ve documented some of the crazy diets I’ve put myself through, as I was always chasing the body I had before I became a mother and gained 100 pounds.  Up and down on the weight teeter-totter I went, until my body began to believe it was the apocalypse and just stored everything it could and waited for the end.  Add depression and being an emotional eater to that and suddenly I was 130 pounds overweight.  I noticed my daughter has this mechanism that tells her when she’s had enough and is full.  Did I have this too?  That is when I changed my attitude and instead of trying to lose weight, I would try to increase communication to my body.  I did a spell.  I asked my body to tell me loud and clear what it needed.  Guess what happened?  Every time I would go binge on fast food I would get extremely ill.  Then it would simply be eating late that would trigger morning after vomiting.  Certain foods gave me a hangover worse than if I had gotten sloshed the night before.  My insides just hurt.  My body was screaming and crying and super pissed off.  I felt sick all the time.  What had I done?

Since I’ve been here (March 1^st), I’ve lost about 15 pounds.  More important, I feel better than I have in a couple years.  I am certainly not dieting in any way; I’m actually eating anything I want.  If I crave a cheeseburger and fries, I have it.  I drink more alcohol than I did in LA.  Even beer which I gave up when I realized my sensitivity to gluten.  There are some things that I’ve added to my diet, which are kefir or kale smoothies with flax seed.  Increase fruits and vegetables and water.  Take vitamins.  These were things I had already been doing before I moved, though.  So why now?

Well part of it is certainly the increase in physical activity.  Having to chop and fetch wood for example is a new daily activity.  I also make a point not to drive in town.  Not just for health reasons but also to save gas and lessen my pollution.   So I’m walking to the post office, the store, the bar.  And then there is the vast wilderness to explore.  My feet are taking me to places that are bewitching with beauty.  And I go out sometimes to the bars which are actually fun here and listen to good live music and dance.  I don’t watch tv anymore.  I mean I have one and I have a dvd player, a wii and Netflix; but I never got cable.  Instead of cable, I bought a trampoline and have learned how to hoola-hoop for the first time in my entire life.    I guess the main reason I feel healthier is because I’m happier.  I’m having fun.  I’m inspired by my surroundings.  That fullness that I mentioned in my last post, it’s enough.  I have confidence now that my body will naturally revert to a healthier version of itself – whatever that looks like—if I just continue to strive for wholeness and happiness. 

I can't believe some things about myself

I saw my x-husband on Skype today and boy, did I act absurd.    He lives in Iowa and luckily I only see him once every couple of years.  But now there is technology and our daughter wants to use it to talk to her dad.

So there he is looking exactly the same...no better.  And there I am looking tore-up as usual and he insists I get on and talk to him.  I say no but then he is able to talk me into it. 

There is something about him that takes my brain away.  Blood rushes to my skin and I start biting my lip or twirling my hair—a dead giveaway.  I can’t even hide my uber-embarrassing feelings about the creep.  He knows exactly what’s going on too and says things like, “Why you being so shy to the camera?  You and I both know you ain’t shy.”  And then I’m just staring at his handsome face, all rugged with a beard starting to grow and my thighs get damp.  Fuck.  Why is this happening?  We divorced in 2004.   All of those years and years that have gone by and all of those horrible things he did, some of which I am still paying the consequences for after all of this time.  I consider my relationship with him the darkest time of my life.  I fucking hate him.  So why would I get all goofy and wet at the mere sight of him?

He has remarried and is totally getting on with his life.  Me…well, I have barely dated anyone since we split much less marriage.   I’ve raised our child by myself with my mother as a co-parent.  I spend all my time trying to heal my emotional wounds.  I've done all this evolving and my heart feels okay.  I thought that there would be no way I would feel any attraction to this man any more.  I mean, I would have to be a masochistic idiot to do so.
Still... I watch so many of my friends break up with their partners and move on to a next one so effortlessly and naturally.  I never really thought about why I wasn't as well.

…I don’t want to even type the words…but am I, you know,…still stuck on my x?  Because that would be lame.  What the fuck is wrong with me?
Do we have any control over who we are attracted to?

The whole thing makes me want to (figuratively of course)…JUST DIE!

Settling in

It seems like the world is spinning much faster up here.  I’m still thawing out from the coldest Spring I’ve ever encountered (what will I do when winter comes?), but She has finally gotten up out of Her Winter slumber and is busying herself with decorating the mountainside with wild flowers, daisies, daffodils, hyacinth, tulips and many others that I can’t begin to name.  Yesterday I went on a walk with my daughter and her friend  through the woods (actually they took their bikes so we called it a bikike,) and found myself in bright, colorful meadows amidst pines and cottonwoods.  The cottonwoods smell so very sweet.  My daughter’s friend said smiling that they smelled just like her grand-pops tobacco pipe before he died.

I can really understand now the difference of an environment that is nurturing, and an environment that is depleting.  I couldn’t hear myself amidst the noise and energy of 5 million people and the industry it takes to sustain them.  I had to check out a lot, because to be so present in that place hurt.  In Roslyn, WA there are only 900 people.  When I hike up on the ridge, and I see the little town like a tiny mole in the midst of so many trees and mountains – and I can see how slight and insignificant we humans really are- and it makes me feel really good for some reason, comforted actually; I am able to hear Her voice resounding as loud as any civilization.

When people stress me out, which they inevitably do no matter where you go, I go into my backyard and simply listen to the wind in the trees, or marvel at the sky which has no flatness to it up here, but more like a fishbowl quality.  Sometimes the clouds drop down to touch the still snow-peaked mountains.  When I come back I feel fed.  I am full.

Scorpio moon exposes shit smell of people; Mother Nature blazes heights of beauty

            The moon is beginning to wan now after blazing in cold fullness in Scorpio.  Scorpio, frigid, cunning hag who digs through the dumps of our souls and spreads all the stinky garbage around.  Then we have to run out, chase her away, and clean all the shit up.

            Things that I knew weren’t really working but I was trying to pretend they were working are REALLY NOT WORKING in a way that is impossible to ignore.

            I have these friends up here that I love like family, but they are super moochy and entitled and kind of expect their friends to pick up the slack where they refuse to tug.  And I was navigating that really well.  Trying to help but also assert my boundaries.  And then he insulted me in my own backyard the other day.  Now I feel like I want nothing to do with them but I know I have to somehow work it out.  And then someone else I thought was a friend was rude to my daughter.  She was walking home and said hi to this woman I thought was my friend and the woman said, “Sorry, I just really don’t want to hear children right now.”  When my daughter told me this I think my heart caught on fire.  I wanted to call her and tell her that maybe my daughter didn’t want to see her sad, alcoholic ass standing in front of the bar smoking every day but at least she has the manners to not say that.  And then I would like to punch her in her mouth.  But I don’t.  I know that she was probably drunk when she said it, not that it’s an excuse.  But don’t come fucking eat dinner at my house and then be rude to my daughter. 

            Oh and someone hung a noose from their big tree on the main road.  Which was really embarrassing when my sister came to visit from LA.  I might make a sign that says, “This noose is ignorant and disrespectful to the tens of thousands of women, children and men that were unjustly tortured due to the tradition of  lynching.” Out of cardboard and red paint and stick it on their fence one night.  People are starting to suck.

            But the forest and sky and rivers – all walking distance is vibrating extreme shades of green.  Flowers and trees are radiating blooms, hummingbirds flit about the new feeder I put out.  It is breathtakingly beautiful.  Her voice is so present everywhere I look.  I saw a Bald Eagle sore silently over me the other day as I walked down to the river.  It is nourishment.  So I will listen to Her voice, as it is strong enough to drive out the shitty smell of people that lingers in my chest.

Intro to Taco Chop

taco chop: When one woman approaches another woman and delivers a swift, hard, upper-cut, “karate chop” between the other woman’s legs.  Also known as the, “pussy punch.”

    The rolling sky had darkened to that mysterious cyan  that is found in the coldest part of colossal ice. It was too dark to see the brightly painted corrugated tin roofs that populated the tops of houses that are nestled up against the mountain.  Yellow, pink, blue, green, their cheerful demeanor faded into dark shadows with the thousands of pines looming behind them.  It is a horizon that I’m not used to.  So different from the sky in Los Angeles with it’s flatness.  The sound of waves crashing on broad, golden beaches replaced with the roaring of wind through ponderosa.  Was it nighttime? I checked out the color of the sky, not quite dark.  Dusk here must last for over an hour. 

    Dusk.  One of those ‘tween areas. Hanging in between the reality of day and night, like a doorway to another place.

     Sidestreet Reny began to do their thing and I noticed that for a very small town, (not more than 900 people), there were sure a lot of lesbians running amuck.  Moving to the music while also observing those moving around me, I noticed a very sturdy looking woman in a hoodie and a ponytail walk up to another woman wearing overalls and deliver a blow straight to her crotch.  The recipient of the seemingly sudden pubic  violence doubled over in pain, only to rise again with a face contorted with giggles.  A new friend of mine saw the expression of surprise and dismay on my face and  quickly grabbed me by the arm. “You’ve never seen a taco chop, have you?”
    “A what?” The whole idea of this type of thing was foreign to me.
    “The taco chop.  Pussy Punch,” she laughed as I still couldn’t comprehend.
    “It’s a game the women up here play.  Only women are allowed to play and you can only do it to women who have agreed first that they are playing.  Can I give you one?”
    I raised my eyebrows.  My new friend, T, assured me that she would be gentle.  “Okay,” I relented and braced for impact.  There was a gentle pat on my pubic bone.  I opened my eyes and thanked her for so kindly initiating me.  And then we danced.
   
    And we drank much more.

    Young, cute butch eyeing me.  Short hair, streaked with blue.  Couldn’t be over 25. We flirt, intelligently at first, the way women do even when totally wasted.  I end up moving with her on the dance floor.  My Venus rises as does my blood alcohol level.  Everything seems like it’s bubbling up out of the uneven wooden floor of the tavern.

     I think my brain caught up as I began realizing myself back into cognitive realization and found myself with hands all over this little one’s breasts, flicking my tongue all over the back of her neck, scraping my teeth against her soft skin.  She turns her head to the side and we touch tongues and lips together.  A feeling of overwhelming intoxication is replaced with a concern for the spectacle I might be making of myself.  It’s my first night out in my new town.  There goes the low profile I was meaning to cultivate.

Restarting snapshots

YES, it's been awhile and I left you all hangin' with the Mono Hot Springs post. I'm sorry I suck. However, I just moved from the carnival that is Venice to the Cascade Mountains of Western Washington and I have SO MUCH to write about! Just preparing to get my ass in gear. Stay tuned to hear about the famous Roslyn TACO CHOP and the little girl ghosts I heard (I moved to a haunted town). Plus I'll tell you what happened that night with Mono Mike last summer and some of the political bullshit that is currently enraging me. And of course, all that witchy shit I do will be updated here. Yesterday for Beltane I had a little party and turned my street lamp into a May pole. Much more debauchery to come!