Getting Oriented to the South

It's a good thing that I don't have a problem with being "Oriental" anymore.  If I was in my twenties I would take offense at the label.  So archaic.  So cliche.  So not PC or haven't you read Edward Said?  I'm not a carpet. I'm not a thing, I'm not something for you to own or claim as your territory.  But, I'm nearly forty (OMG!) and can separate my own identity politics now from you or from the rest of the country.  Anyway, do identity politics even matter anymore?  It's rare that I meet people in their twenties who think about issues of identity or who are continuing an active, intrepid dialogue.  I can think of a hanfdul of some young people I've come to know, but they seem like a rare breed nowadays.

Here, in the South I'm still Oriental.  Now, rather than being offended, I'm charmed--by their ignorance, by their backwardness, by the rewinding of a cultural clock that tells me, "You're in a different world," and I'm not talking the 80s Cosby show spin-off (though, that would be frickin cool as shit.  Hm?  Maybe a visit to Morehouse or Tuskegee is in the future?).  I don't take offense or feel the need to be defensive when I've been called "Oriental."  I don't take it personally.  "Oriental" is just a word.  In fact, it's kind of a cool word.  It's so exotic. 

Although, I am sensitized to being an "Oriental" lady in the South, and a single one at that.  I wonder what I conjure in the minds of Southern people.  Something like this

or this

It's different being Asian in Los Angeles or New York or any other large metropolitan city.  There, I blend in and have many like-minded people to relate to or talk openly about differences with.  Race is still shrouded in mystery here in the South.  The legacy of slavery is a ring of guilt and pain that everyone wears on a finger, but no one talks about it much.  People are just simply polite about issues of race now.  I have found it difficult to speak with people about it, especially White people.  I have often wondered which bathroom I would have used if I had visited during segregation.

I am not one to shy away from controversy or, more importantly, necessity.  One of the first things I did when I moved to Savannah was get in touch with my Oriental roots.  I went on a quest to find all the Asian restaurants and markets.  Food is always my touchstone for where I am in the world.  My friend, Fitz, warned me that there were no good Japanese restaurants to be found in Savannah and I took heed, but I was also baffled.  Really? There has to be a good Japanese restaurant!  I mean, we've been around forever.  I tried a handful of Japanese restaurants, but Fitz was right: there are no good Japanese restaurants in town.  They're all owned or operated by Chinese or Malaysian people.  I thought at the very least they must be able to make decent sushi; there's so much seafood here!  Spicy tuna roll is my barometer: chopped maguro and the fatty part of the tuna mixed with a bland, semi-sweet mayo and Japanese chili powder, then combined with green onions or  layered with julienned cucumbers onto well-seasoned, not too sweet, perky rice and crisp seaweed.  While in Savannah, I've been served sashimi chunks, literal slabs of fish on rice,  "spicy tuna roll" with tabasco, drenched with a questionable "spicy sauce," or, if they're somewhat inventive and know their Asian condiments, Sriracha.

When I was sweltering in the 95 degree Savannah heat, I had a hankering for neng myun--chewy, thin buckwheat noodles and delicately cut cucumbers, carrots, and radishes served in an ice cold beef broth that you flavor with a mixture of vinegar and mustard or in a sweet spicy Korean chili sauce.  I found Kim Chee on Montgomery--mind you, the only Korean restaurant in Savannah, but so good.  The fact that even have neng myun is an indication of a decent Korean population here and the fact that it's good is a revelation.

The Asian markets have been a fun mission to seek out.  There is a small store located next to Kim Chee that has a decent selection of a variety of Asian goods, aptly named "Asia Market" (Asian stores and markets in Savannah tend to be very literal or easily identifiable by the most popular food, hence Kim Chee.  I suppose, so as to avoid confusion).  Chinatown Market (with nary a "Chinatown" in sight, mind you) is a study in blind sightings.  You could easily pass the facade of the store because its sign can be overlooked--located off a "busy," one-way street and difficult to navigate into the compact parking lot.  Though you enter "Chinatown Market," you would not know that there is anything "Chinatown" about it by the merchandise that you first see (except for the Oriental man or woman at the counter).  As I ambled through the rows of canned and dry American goods, a Black man came from behind the meat section and asked me kindly, "Are you finding everything you need?"  I nodded, but asked, "Is this all there is?"  He knew what I meant and led me into a backroom--the stockroom.  I ventured cautiously as he led me into the backroom--a strange place to lead a customer.  I followed him and was happily surprised by rows and rows of Asian products:  Pocky and jelly candies, dried Thai rice noodles, wakame and konbu seaweed, fish sauce, Vietnamese profiteroles, pungent roots and stinky dried goods, frozen baos and har gow, and a refrigerated room full of Chinese longbeans, bok choy and daikon.  There is also a very good Korean market store right around the corner from my house--Han Le Oriental (of course) Grocery.

I don't mind being Oriental here and I like that the spicy tuna is to be desired.  Anyway, the shrimp here is marvelous.

Dark Chocolate and Roses in Savannah

I am a romantic. I watch for rainbows and moonshine, summer nights and stars, signs, gestures, moments of revelation. I like boys who know how to play fairly, guys who smell good and men who mean what they say.  To dance with him, to spend nights in his arms, to be admired and adored and to have heart-to-heart pillowtalks... I live for that shit. I can't help it. It's the way I'm made.

I also love getting presents. Thoughtful gifts, something made by hand, the presents that when received make you say, "Oh my god. You knew! How did you know?"--the ones that show you they were present all along... he watched and listened during carefree moments or when you had your glassy eyes on while shopping and talked crazily because you wanted this and that and oh god he's bored and you try to entertain him while still making mental notes about all the stuff you need. Later, he gives you a gift that says, "Here. I heard you. I know what you like."  Most of the time I get the best presents from my best girlfriends who just know what it is good, what is quality, what is fun and what we dream about most in our heart of hearts.  From guys, it's mostly chocolate and roses.

These days I'm having to give presents to myself. I take long hot salt baths and I continue to try to stay open everyday... not to danger or intrigue, but to comfort, softness and revelation. Savannah has eased me into Southern time--going with the flow, not being so hasty or reactive, listening, dawdling, enjoying my walks, receiving and giving back in a gentle, kind way.

It's been difficult at times. I'm an L.A. girl. I'm used to moving quickly and making things move faster if I need to get somewhere or have something in by a certain time. I've had to adjust. It's all in sync, though, with everything else I'm trying to do in my life: be present, stay mindful, love myself, be kind to myself and others, do the hard work, accept reality and strive toward my future.

Dark chocolate and roses are my recent revelation. I admit, both are kind of cheesy. When I've been the recipient of such gifts I've always gladly accepted them, except there's always a small part in me that asks, "Really? Is this the best you can do? How cliche." Yet, secretly, pushing my inner jaded snob aside, I'll get tickled and think prom! first dates! awkward boys! cute... awwwwwwww.... Dark chocolate and roses are heartfelt gestures from sweet boys. I heart them.

Mostly because I love dark chocolate and roses. He knew! The bittersweet chocolate--dark, rich, swimming quickly along your tongue, settling in hidden recesses of your mouth--when roses coat the sharpness of the chocolate and lessen its bitterness. Petals wafting into your throat and softening, soothing, mingling the scent and taste of roses and dark chocolate, I inhale and taste.

While in Savannah I've been experimenting with dark chocolate. I'm open to all kinds of dark chocolate, but what I seek is that savory sweet bitterness and almonds! It's hard to find good dark chocolate with just the right amount of almond crunch, flavor and texture.  Almonds are woody and hard to the bite--they have texture and flavor, crispness.  I like dark chocolate with other nuts, too, but hazelnuts and macadamia can be too soft and buttery. I like bite and flavor with my dark chocolate. I buy different brands of chocolate bars at Parker's, a 24-hour gourmet gas station, or Fresh Market, Savannah's mediocre attempt at Whole Foods, and then store them in my freezer when I have a hankering for something sweet. Tonight was a revelation! Valrhona's Caraibe Noisette! The elegant packaging, with its delicate gold foil that makes you feel like you're unwrapping a winning Wonka bar, is just a slight indication of the treat you are about to indulge in.  Sharp dark chocolate, slightly bitter and barely sweet (frozen is the best: you bite off only what you can chew--crisp!--and then let it savor in your mouth as it melts), minced almonds... then let the goodness mix with Tazo's Wellbeing, Tazo Rest: "a lulling blend of rose petals, valerian root & citrusy herbs" and luxuriate in the blend. Let the flavors soothe you.

Dark chocolate and roses are the presents to myself now.

Lost and Found

Somewhere I veered off course.  When I started this blog, I thought it would be a mere documentation of my travels through The South.  I started off with a bang after I left LA and traversed Hwy 40, jotting down the kind of food I ate, the songs I listened to, the sunsets I saw.  Traveling opens up your world again and alights the senses--everything is anew and fresh; driving on an open highway is like automotive yoga--it clears blocked energy and attunes you to a greater body at work.  Using my iPhone as a compass and Ragmar's Kingdom as my destination, I thought that was where I was headed and where I would find Liberty.

My friend lives in Liberty, Tennessee, after all, hence the name of the blog.  I think I simply hoped that it would be my final destination and where I would realize a triumphant release.  I did jump off a 20-foot cliff into a river and I walked a mile on a winding forest road in the pitch black of night.  I became friendly with insects, the sultry heat of a Southern summer, and experienced the exact solitude of being human--vital and vulnerable--in a wooded world stirring with life all around.  I wrote about some of my adventures and discoveries, although I censored myself from writing about the wonderful world of faeries I had stumbled upon because I did not feel knowledgeable enough or qualified to write about them.  Instead, I wrote about or to distract me from what I was consumed by: these temporal fixations and hang-ups that came in the name of a boy, but were plagued and fueled by a demon much greater than him.

You may think I have lost my mind.  Writing about faeries and demons and such.  Crazy.  No, I actually encountered them in the woods of Tennessee.  I found a delightful group of faeries who nurtured and tended to me during my two months there and I also began seeing the demon growing inside me as I was left to my own devices deep in the backwoods, 2,000 miles from my loved ones in Los Angeles.  I became bosom buddies with a regenerating bottle of Bullit--a fantastic bourbon whiskey from Kentucky--and drank myself silly.  I dealt with some issues around my father, this boy, and mostly myself and my own inequities during my time in Tennessee and in order to cope with the pain of going deeper and deeper, I drank.

Somehow, I stumbled into my car (not drunk, just hungover) and made my way to Atlanta to visit my dear friend, Charles.  Then, I got back into my car and made my way to Savannah to visit my good friend, Fitz.  Fitz said I could stay at his mother's house, who was away for the summer, and I arrived at a lovely row house in the Historic District and parked my car.  I stayed there for three weeks, slowly losing my mind to Bullit, but the gentle arm of Savannah cradled me and helped me to regain my senses. I stopped drinking and decided to stay.

That is all I will write for now.  It's been two months since I've had a drink.  I've gotten an apartment.  I've made some wonderful friends.  I feel at home here, at peace, and I am happy.  The Boy and I are still talking, but he becomes more and more distant as he continues with his shenanigans and I continue to tread a more honest path.

I will write more about faeries and demons, but I will also write more about The South because that was my intention to do so when I came out here.  I was derailed for awhile, but I am back on track.  I still don't know what this blog is really about or why I even bother to write it, but I do know that on each step of this journey I am coming closer and closer to finding liberty.  Also, I promise to include more photos.

What I Love About Men

I've been grappling with a lot recently--about what I get from men, why I stay hooked, what it is about men as opposed to women that I love and cherish and stay for.  I become infused and intertwined--with their journey, with their grapplings about life, with what they are seeking and wish to fulfill within themselves.  We are all imperfect creatures, but men don't have the same kind of emotional support network that women do.

I love sensitive men.  I love men who are grappling.  I love men who are willing to share their innermost fears and desires.  I love men who show me through our exchanges and soft, quiet moments what they need or what they might be struggling with.  When we break on through to the other side and there is a moment or accelerated journey through true identification of what we need or what we are really seeking in life then I am released.  I feel like my job has been done... for the time being.  Women do that naturally, willingly, I think amongst ourselves and with the ones we hold dear.  Men, however, especially if they didn't get that from their families or ones who are closest to them will hang on to whoever they can get that from--friends, lovers, family members, or true loves.  There is just not the same emotional support network for men as there is for women.  Men have to show and share amongst themselves true care and love--what they did not get from the men in their lives while they were growing up and move beyond the bounds and limitations of what "macho" love is and just share and engage in true understanding as friends--as men who "get it" and are there for each other as guys struggling on this journey of life and love.

I put a lot onto my men.  I expect a lot out of them.  I test and I challenge and I make them work for me--for this love, this deep, deep reservoir of love that I have and hold for them, maybe, if only, because women have always just been the reservoir of love and understanding that men cannot get otherwise.  If I see or know that they love me as deeply as I love them, my love will know no bounds.  I will go the distance, the extra mile, the absolute limits of what I believe love can be.  Love is unconditional.  Love is family.  Love is an endless journey of giving and taking and knowing and breaking your limits--and then, taking it all back and opening yourself up back to what you thought love could not deliver.

I've loved so many men in my life.  But I have never quite been willing to deliver myself completely to them, even though it may seemed like I did.  My Love is Great.  My love is too powerful.  And most have been overtaken or overwhelmed by the power of my love.

And then I have my own inequities and insecurities and inability to voice or show my true fear or discomfort about where my true fears or disquiet lies.  I want to, but I am scared.  I still haven't met the man that I can do that with.  Most of my fears rest in my body--as temporary as this physical place may be.  It is what is.  Most men have been drawn to me because of it, but then have never wanted to stay or love me despite it.  This physical body is a novel telling--a journey of what we have all gone through in life.  The problem is that most men (and women nowadays) are full of porn and/or the "perfect" girl/body/woman/man/guy and can't tell the difference between desire and real love.  Do we just want the "body" that is going to give them what we want at that time--that particular moment... or can we go the distance?  Because goddam, our bodies change!  Women's bodies make babies!  We expand and contort and scar and release and never stay the same.  We change. Can you deal with that change?  Can you still love us and hold us despite your own needs and desires, even though we may not embody what you really want physically, psychologically?

My talk about power does not rest in ego, though.  It does not rest in the chaos of love.  My love rests in the quiet and sweetness of being and sharing--as most women's love do.  The difficulty, usually, is that egos come into play, someone is more busy or caught up than the other, both are too scared to reveal what is truly going on in their minds and hearts, both want what they cannot have, but may have found it in the other completely and are too afraid to accept that love is what it is: plain and simple.  It's just love.

The love that I have for women is different--it's easy and fun, yet also layered and complicated by another deeper expectation of deliverance of who you really are and what you really are doing or embodying in your life.  With a man, they expect less, and they give you the softness that you might not get from the women in your life.  Men have given me a respite from the challenge and pressure I have felt from women to be or do certain things by a certain point--and that is, to say, simply by nature of where we are as women on a certain timeline, not necessarily because they are being bitches and making me feel bad about where I'm at or where they're at.  I have very supportive, amazing women in my life.  Truly remarkable, intelligent, beautiful women.  And, they, always, give me the unconditional love and support that I need when I am struggling and grappling or hurt.  A woman's love--no matter in what form: as friend, foe, lover, family or random link--is powerful and good.  A woman's love nurtures and forgives, reminds and fills, tests, challenges, pricks and then soothes and protects.  But a woman will always call you on your shit and do so point-blank; a man may not.

A man's love is different.  It challenges, surely, but it fills holes and gaps and finds its way into fissures and cracks in a way that a woman's love does not.  It soothes an open wound, it bathes tired skin, it lingers and gives where a woman will not.  If a man is truly a lover, he will linger and love and see and bathe in your open wounds, take them in and cherish still and then take the time to try to help heal what he can, as discomforting or painful as it may be for him, if only because he loves you.  Even when a man is trying to test you or his love for you, if he really is in love with you, he will be gentle.  All of that other madness or bullshit or anger or whatever is simply his own shit that he needs to work out despite you will eventually dissipate and become something else (if he finds his proper expression and release).  He will find another way to expend that frustration or anger, but then, you, as his love, will need to stay attentive and available in order to hold onto his love and you must not buckle.  You must stay there in order to love him truly... and it's difficult when they continue to hurt you.  But love between men and women is difficult: plain and simple.

That is why I stay hooked.  I've experienced that from men.  A few of them, not all of them.  But when I have it's sucked me in and made me give more and more.  Maybe I've known a few good men.  I don't know.  They've had their shortcomings, too, but where I appreciate them over the women in my life is that women want results.  Women want to know and see and believe that what they are doing and why we are doing this now is eventually going to see results.  The men in my life have been more forgiving.  I am probably over-generalizing, as I am prone to do, but this is just my take on things and gender roles and how I've perceived or experienced life and love to be between men and women thus far.  Men, actually, seem to be more forgiving and loving in the sweetest, most gentle of ways; women are more hardcore.  Women want results NOW,  men will be willing to see results later.  If you are a passive woman and don't know yourself yet then you will be willing to wait, but the older you get the less patient you will be to wait for the men to catch up with you.  Yet, love is this: initially intoxicating and inherent and then felt and longed for and met 

But, I don't know the first fucking thing about love or relationships.  Love is what it is and relationships are always in the making.  Love is what it is--and it's a goddam beautiful thing.  The rest of it is just life and living and figuring it all out...

All I do know is this: Love is beautiful.  Love is to be cherished and honored.  Love is rare.  Love is a good thing.  Love is something to tuck under your belt, hold close to your heart and then keep there forever and ever.  Love is good.  Love is forever.  Love is so goddam complicated, but gaddam, makes me so happy and full.  Love is worth it.

The Drunk Geisha

I can't seem to get my head together enough to write the blog entries I want to write, but I am starting to piece through old snippets of writing to try and put this huge jigsaw puzzle of a novel that I have together.  In the meantime, I came across this old "poem" I wrote years and years ago that I thought I'd post just for the hell of it.  I would never call myself a poet--just having fun and playing with words and form.  Enjoy!

The Drunk Geisha


Sitting with knees bent
and archless feet
tucked under a heavy bottom,
draped from the shoulders
with layers of onerous silk.
Her hand cups a wrist to pour
placations, inebriations
for men
wrestling with temptations.
They watch the stillness of her movement
listen to the slumber of her speech.
They wonder what the smile hides
what her mind may know
and what her beauty
will not tell them.
Onyx strands fall
against niveous skin
and guarded lids
cover lashes that slash her heart.
She administers alcohol or tea
to soothe their spirits
laughs at their jokes
and makes smalltalk
to fill the silence.
She is doing a job
that was assigned to her
by a male God
and taught to her by women.

When the evening is complete
and she has purged the men from her hold
she will consume the last drops of liquor
that made her so bold.
Tranquil bitters coat her tongue
Her head hung
Sitting, now bent
and hunched with repent
full of the woes
of being in the throes
of men, those damn men,
who tell her,
"You are simply a rose."

Her sister, the Dragon Lady, scoffs at her kin
says, "Girl, what's your problem?
Why you trippin?"
The Lady flicks her red nails and slugs from her drink,
tosses her black tress and gives her a wink,
"It's business, my friend.
You're not selling your soul.
Get off it, move on...
it's taking it's toll."

2/6/99

A Place Called Home

I've just landed in Savannah, Georgia--leaving behind certain travails and tribulations in Tennessee, having encountered a few glorious faery souls, encountering the dark and the quiet and the lushushness of the woods--and pulling into the park-like neighborhoods, trees draped with Spanish Moss, and the breathtaking Colonial, Federal and Victorian architecture of buildings and homes that have been here for centuries.  I walk past wrought iron gates and find my footing on sidewalks of uneven bricks, concrete and broken shells.

I'm mesmerized by this place, I'm mesmerized by the South.  I've been indoctrinated and seduced by each place I've encountered.  Whether it's the winding roads that by night look like a dopppelganger of another road I had already driven by day or the animals I've come to know and love, the insects I've been forced to accept, admire or endure, the different personalities or ways of living, the familiarity of loved friends who have welcomed me into their homes and given me a respite or place for me to gather and absorb and partake in their world and livelihoods... I have been mesmerized and truly grateful and yet still wondering.

When strangers ask me, "So, where are you from? What are you doing out here?"  I reply in a fashion that is now becoming staid: "I'm from LA.  I'm a writer.  I've never experienced the South."  Sure, my response, at the moment of discussion, may not be that bland and there are moments of more interesting conversations where I'm able to insert other anecdotes or supplementary information about why I am here or what I have experienced thus far, but the longer I am out here, just simply traveling (as much as I LOVE traveling and going from place to place), there are times when I have to ask myself, too: "So, where are you from?  What are you doing out here?"  Why am I here, where am I from, and what am I doing out here, anyway?"

It dawned on me tonight that I have been a hobo for way too long.  I've been basically couch-hopping (or rather beautifully bed- or home-hopping), HOPING that maybe I might find my home or my place if I went... to that next place.

Part of my problem is that I convolute or intertwine my feeling of security or home with a man.  Which, actually, I find curious when I'm one of the last women standing!  I'm a single woman here now--almost 40--by choice.  I did not or never wanted to be "that," I never thought I would turn "that age"... it just happened, and then being single at my age also happened by choice.  Mostly because I never found the man who I wanted to be with and I think I held out for that for most of my twenties and thirties, despite my personal beliefs.  

It was like this: if I had my druthers, I would be the single, accomplished woman who didn't have to rely on a man for my happiness or well-being, but if the beautiful man came along I would go there and love him completely, which I did for most of my life.  I've always been boy-crazy: I was that kindergartner who got benched during recess because I was always playing chase with the boys and who wrote about my "boyfriends" in my first diary in first grade: one, a red-haired mop-headed Jewish boy from the San Fernando Valley and the other, a dark-skinned, gentle immigrant from Tanzania.  I just always loved the boys.  

I tried.  I held out for that ideal of being the single, accomplished woman, but I always buckled because I love the boys just too damn much.  I came up in the 90s with collegiate-feminism and inaccessible, pretentious theory and no utilitarian practice.  That was my big gripe whenever I had to read these texts in college and then had to translate their ideas into what I had experienced or how I saw the world.  Academia is all theory and fuckin bullshit brain power---there's no practice or immediate use for all the great good that the privileged few can do anything with.  And if there is anything good, it takes eons and years for it to trickle down to the masses.  There was always that struggle between reading, learning and processing and then applying it to my life or experience and what I have known or observed.  

Then, I saw too many intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed "men." Ugh.  I looked at them, observing these intelligent, beautiful, accomplished women settling for unrealized, unformed men, which is easy to do from afar and also desire as an observer or lover-of-being-in-love, but the problem for me was that I could never get my own shit together enough to even  be that.  I was still just grappling with my own demons and then meeting these random guys who wanted me and then who I got involved with in these two-year long relationships that went nowhere because, honestly, I didn't want to be with any of those guys from the get-go, but they were just, maybe, the next best thing to make me feel more whole or sure about who I was and... well, then, they usually disappointed and I did, too.  Me and them.  I didn't have my own shit together or was unformed and unrealized myself and these two broken parts would always come together--never enough wholeness to make a whole functioning unit.

There are two kinds of men: either they want their cake and it eat it, too, and can never settle down fully to commit and not wrestle with those other "I'm -scared-of-committing-demons" (and they'll always "dabble" even if they say they are done with that part of their lives) or they are the staid, regimented, boring types that freak the fuck out whenever you suggest or insert something new or different into their lives.  I don't care if you try to be loving or understanding or work with their insecurities or whatever, whether they are the terrified single dude or the terrified regimented boy they just freak out and either begrudgingly partake in your suggestion or they just won't do it and will stay set in their ways.  Either one is mind-boggling and frustrating and makes me claw at the walls.  I'm probably not picking the right men to be involved with, yes, but I also just get to a point where I get sick of the bullshit and would rather be alone and single than constantly having to put up with someone who needs so much work and isn't willing to do it on his own.  I want someone who has worked on their shit apart from anyone else, someone who has gone through the ups and downs and difficulties of life, but who has taken quiet time out for themselves to learn about why they do the things they do and how these patterns erupt in their lives or who may have figured into that picture and what they can do to change it now. I want to feel their substance and worth--wrap my fingers around their grace and beauty and linger there, dawdle and slip and slide between knowing and unknowing.  I want permanent press with the romance of silk, the durability and contention of hemp, the familiarity and sweetness of cotton, the sexiness of satin, and the modernity of bamboo.  I want to recognize that hodgepodge of fabrics that creates the one I love, but then feel the substance and delight that we are made of the same material.

I want adventure and fun and anticipation of the unknown in my life, but I also want security and deep-felt love and the comfort of knowing and understanding with a man.  Unfortunately, I am not a lesbian and sometimes I wish I was... if only because the alternative to loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by men is loving and wanting and being sexually turned on by women.  I think women--especially beautiful women--are HOT and even though I've gone there it's never dawned on me to get involved with a woman or to be in a relationship with one like a man.  It's simply not appealing to me.  The roles and gender things are just too confusing.  I want to be involved with a man--my best friend, my alter ego, my lover, that person who has different parts than me and is just the one who I find gorgeous, wonderful and endearing... and also the one who will travel the ends of the earth to be with me no matter how difficult the circumstances or obstacles.  He will climb through the tundra or battle windstorms, hijack a 747 or become a stowaway in cargo on a ship, fight a duel to the death, scale tall buildings with a single bound.  But, hell, I know Superman doesn't exist.  Maybe the problem is that there are too many women out there trying to be Superwomen and there just aren't enough Supermen.

PJ Harvey's "A Place Called Home" is ringing in my ears.  She has always been my bitch, my kick-ass chick who fuckin calls it as it is and still makes beautiful, intelligent music.  I always have to have a muse, especially when I write, and Ms. Harvey is my muse right now.  The music lingers in my ears from way back when and then I remember a random title here or there: A Place Called Home.  It is what I am seeking.  I want a place called home.  I want to find my home within myself, maybe with a good man, definitely somewhere--whether it be within myself or with another loved one--that is beautiful and functional and secure.  A place full of romance and love and continuity and belonging.  A place that I, myself, can call Home.  I will be there.  I will get there.  I will find my home soon.  I know it.  It's just around the corner.  I just have to keep having faith, keep loving and keep walking on these broken shells and uneven bricks...

The Mountain

Since I've been here on the Mountain, in the country, in the backwoods of Tennessee, it's been an experiment and "test" for me to go with the flow, to allow things to unfurl and happen as they may.  In the city or even in small towns, life is contrived: planned, anticipated, already pre-determined by schedules and agendas.  And then there is just the general discontent for the want of more--material goods, acknowledgment, status, peace of mind, direction, discussion, connection.

I'm not saying that those things don't occur in the country.  People can certainly be unsettled here, too.  Drugs--mostly meth production and consumption--are a rampant problem for some.  I've seen the made-up ladies with their aerosalled hair driving BMWs down country highways or the dulled, pot-bellied men buying cigarettes and beer at the local gas station or a fat man and woman traipsing around their garbage-strewn front yard and plopping down on a dirty couch as though that might be the only thing to do in their world.

Maybe it's the particular place I am in the country--the Mountain: a covenant of hills blanketed by thickets of trees; winding roads that all look the same, especially after dark when even your brights can't help to discern a bend in the road or one God-fearing sign from the next; a pasture of grazing animals--goats on one farm, horses on the next, a couple of ostriches, or maybe it was ostriches there and horses next, and goats somewhere else; a well-kempt cottage, a trailer, an impressive log cabin, a dump, or random trails that actually lead to another part of the Mountain that you might pass by if you didn't know that they led to where you wanted to go.

Most people just live here, some have lived here for generations, inheriting land from their parents and grandparents and trying to carve out a life for themselves from the generous land that requires so much tending and work.  Others have moved here because they remember passing through the lushushness of Tennessee: resplendent with the green of the foliage and the woods and the tumultuous pink-clouded, electric blue, gray firmament of revelation and glory; the clap of thunder that echoes through the canyons of trees and the lightning that darts through slate skies; creatures that scamper and sprint across the road, insects--microscopic or as big as your hand--that bite, sting, sing, and just fly and buzz around constantly; the quiet, the dark, the humidity, and the absolute grace and beauty of Mother Nature all convene here in mid-Tennessee.

It is also the place where I find myself here on the Mountain, though, just miles from The Retreat--this place that so many of the friends I've come to know in the last two months have all gathered around.

I've heard many stories now about The Retreat and how it came to be.  It was a hippie commune, it was a communist sanctuary, it was a place where people could come to escape the confines of the city or capitalist society and live with Mother Nature, give and take with the land and learn how to live with each other.  Then, it became a haven for gay men to come away from the city and appropriated roles and live life freely, leanly, fully together without harm, without judgment to nurture each other and Mother Nature as one.  A beautiful life.

People came.  Since the 70s.  People came and lived here at The Retreat--a pocket in the hills of The Mountain--and settled there.  I don't know what it was like in the 70s, 80s or 90s, but now, as an outsider, as a straight Japanese American woman from Los Angeles in 2010, I have come to know The Retreat as this: a true haven.  It is a slice of Heaven, a slice of Life, a sliver of what could be in this World, a redemption for all the evils and misconstrued expectations and acceptances of what a Good Life is all about.  This is the Good Life: living freely, without expectation or want, having a community of people to find the balm for your insecurities or uncertainties, experiencing your sexuality openly without fear, coming to an understanding about true reciprocity, taking from the land and giving back equally, finding peace even in your own disquiet, staying still and just listening to the world around you, which, in this world, is all bugs and darkness.

I say this from afar, still, because I have not or am not, maybe, of this world that I have landed in.  I have not experienced my sexuality freely (though I have certainly toyed with the idea), I have not lived truly freely without expectation or want, but I am learning about reciprocity, taking from the land and giving back equally, finding peace in my own disquiet, staying still and listening to the world around me, in the bugs and darkness or light of day, and finding a community of people who have given me the balm for my insecurities and uncertainties.  Since I have been here, whether its the woods or the people who have lived here longer than me and have a deeper understanding of what Life and reciprocity is all about, I have said to others around me that these woods, this land, the people who inhabit this place, have given me exactly what I needed, whether good or bad.  Maybe it's the quiet that's allowed me to receive it--good or bad--but, regardless, there is something about This Place that has given me exactly what I need.

And I am forever grateful....

Entomophile

I am the kind of City Girl who will call a friend on the phone or the guy from across the hall to come and deal with anything creepy crawly.  Or I'll let my mom do it.  Her OCD is allayed for just a few moments as she scrambles across tabletops or counters on the kitchen to swat a pesky fly.  I can't kill flies and I definitely will not kill spiders.  I will find a Tupperware and piece of paper and scoot the insect into the trap and let it go outside.  My inner Zen monk comes out around insects.

It's not that I am horrified at the idea of killing living things.  I will step on ants.  I used to get great joy out of it as a child, stomping on lines creeping around the sidewalk and watching them scatter in confused loops.  I also enjoy killing fleas.  I remember a particularly bad summer as a child when my cat was host to their party and I would walk around with knee-length white socks waiting for them to jump on me.  Then, I would get great satisfaction out of picking them off my socks and filling the toilet with their scrambling bodies.

Ants and fleas are the general exception to my killing of insects, but I don't kill insects, mostly, because I've been terrified of them.  I spaz out when a bee flies within a foot of me.  I'll marvel at a grasshopper or cricket, but jump faster than they do if they move.

Needless to say, my first few weeks in the country were a challenge.  No, actually,  I was entomo-challenged for at least the first month: constantly swatting, flicking, scooting and scratching.  I was a goddam buffet for the mosquitoes, the chiggers, noseeums and any of the other many, many biting insects.  After complaining to Judd's boyfriend, Argent--a quiet-spoken, observant gentleman who's lived in the country most of his life, he commented to me that tolerating insects is simply a way of learning how to deal with the irritations of life.  I am easily annoyed and irritated.  I thought about our conversation for some time and realized that maybe that's one of my lessons right now: to learn how to deal with the irritations of life, and not be bothered by them--not to scratch or pick at them, to not get flustered and reactive when they occur.

I am also learning how to appreciate all of them for their inherent, individual beauty and function.  I've seen some of the most incredible insects since I've been here: an array of butterflies, dragonflies the size of my hand, fireflies that put on a nightly show in the trees, the most curious creature with a burgundy body, short black wings and a beak-like tendril that dipped into the stigma of the flowers it fed off of one-by-one like a hummingbird.  The most amazing insect I've seen is the lunar moth.  It's as large as my hand and looks like a creature from faery tales.  It looks like it could glow-in-the-dark.

The longer I stay here, the more I like bugs and think they're pretty cool.

Gothic Appalachia

I arrived at Sassafras, the artist's collective located about twenty minutes from Ragmar, several days ago after trying to pack up the last of my stuff.  As I trekked to and from from my car, it began to thunder and rain, and out-of-nowhere I received this barrage of text messages from the Scottish Whore.  I last texted her two weeks ago.  She proceeded to "show me" how she and Indigo Boy had "something" as I carted stuff back and forth from my car in the rain.  I thought I was done hearing from her or about the whole mess.  She's just a dumb-ass bitch in my book.  Stupid whore making my blood boil again.  I told her to fuck him or someone else and just to fuck off.  Things aren't working out between them and now she's getting psycho on me.  Just stirring up shit because she can't leave well enough alone.  Doing everything now to screw the both of us.  And still I try to find peace in the woods of Tennessee 2000 miles away from L.A.  I'm glad I'm not there because she's the type of woman who would go to extreme measures to get back at us because she finally got dissed by him.  And I am glad to be here because I have peace; they don't.

I have found my peace here at Sassafras.  My cellphone has no reception, so phone calls and text messages are few and far between.  What relief.  What silence.  What a breath of fresh air.  I have Internet connection, my computer, great company, a gorgeous structure of windows and carefully-hewn wood to call home and 300 acres of verdant woods to roam and find reason.

I also have the company of two gorgeous L.A. artists: Judd is all tatts and overalls, Appalachian beard and an easy, lovely laugh; Anouk is all limbs and a cascade of red hair--the Lady Godiva of Hippie Hill.  They've brought a little rock'n'roll and a fine eye to the mountains of Tennessee.  They are sophisticated modern Gothic aesthetes.  A mid-century modern Danish couch and table line one side of the Great Room--an awesome 60 foot high room that's all windows.  A hand-crafted wooden trapeze swing dangles from the ceiling above a massive Chinese carpet.  A taxidermied deer head, a Victrola with a disco ball plugging its mouth, an impressive book and record collection, happy plants and an electric piano line the walls.  I've found my little niche in the Great Room and write there as the sun pours through the windows, the ceiling fans overhead creating a rhythmic lull, or as the rain drums on the deck wrapping around the house or as night falls and I switch on the Noguchi-esque lamp.

Anouk and I have become fast friends.  She reminds me of my friend, Remy--this stunning model-sized woman who is all heart and fierce style.  We've taken refuge in one another, I think, because we are cut from the same cloth: both L.A. girls, both grappling with how to make money as artists, both loving and disappointed by men, both fun, flirty women who can talk for hours over wine and cigarettes.  Judd is impressive for his kind personality and strong work ethic.  He can build or fix anything.  Recently, he began a construction project in the woods: a sturdy structure with a metal roof that will be encased completely by walls of antique windows.  He wants to put a pot belly stove in there for the winter when the people who live here or a visiting artist can go and make art as the snow falls around them.

Over the weekend Judd had help from two friends visiting from Los Angeles as they made their way to New York.  The four guys--"two drunk retards and two queer mountain men," à la Judd--raised the roof on the structure.  Naturally, I thought the two drunk retards, Xavier and Paul, were also queer as everyone else is around these parts or who visit.  I've been the lone straggling straight person.  Despite the fact that they--absolutely charming, lovely men--dressed up in drag, all chains and pink dress and tacky red Liza Minnelli 80s Dynasty dress and polka dot bow, to go to this queer music festival with Anouk, I learned later that, no, in fact they weren't gay at all.  Just really fucking fun straight guys with a firm grasp on good cheer!

I had a rockstar weekend with the lot of them, drinking whiskey on the porch and nursing bad hangovers the next morning.  The day before Xavier and Paul left, the three of us hiked for two hours up the dense wooded mountainside, through a depressing decimated clearcut where we got lost, and back down through the trees and foliage to the Refuge.  We hiked and walked for hours in our tall rainboots that we wore to protect us from chiggers and ticks.  Eventually, we made it to Ragmar's (after walking another 45 minutes or so from the Refuge to his property) and collapsed onto the hammock.  Anouk had to come pick us pathetic city slickers up, but we showered, had a lovely dinner of shrimp scampi and salad and slept like babies.

Indigo Boy

I've been hesitant to write about this for awhile, but this blog is an exercise in release for me: in finding "liberty"... and also to exorcise the demons that reared their ugly heads these last few weeks. Censorship simply does not have a place here. Warning: this post should not be read by the faint-hearted, the blind, or sexually prude.

For anyone keeping up with my blog, you might be wondering why I haven't written as much as I did in the beginning. Well, a few repairs were being made: my computer, my camera, and then my heart. About a week after I arrived in Liberty, Indigo Boy told me that he had slept with someone else. I knew something was up because he had been spending quite a bit of time with this girl from work the week that I left... I'll call her Scottish Whore. I call her that because I knew she was sketchy from my own experience, but then later I learned she had slept with more than a handful of people from work. That he fucked her came as a shock because Indigo Boy and I had just spent the last week talking on the phone every night, texting throughout the day and exchanging sweet nothings throughout my trip out here.

We agreed to have an open relationship after I left. There was no other alternative to our age difference or the literal distance we would be apart. I asked two things from him, however, before I left: use protection and don't sleep with anyone from work. I had already broken my cardinal rule of not sleeping with anyone from work by getting involved with him and I knew that if he did things would get very, very messy. There is something sacred about the workplace that needs to be honored. Sex just simply doesn't belong in the equation. Lesson learned for me: NEVER sleep with anyone from work!!!!!

Even though we had an open relationship, we were still very much together. We texted and talked everyday. We had spent the last three months practically inseparable. He had been so involved in my life; I wondered how his 24-year old attention span would deal with my absence once I was gone. I knew he was sad. The last picture I saw of him on Facebook taken by a friend of his after I left made my heart break. He looked so dejected. I knew he was lonely. I didn't think anything, at first, of him spending time with Scottish Whore because she claimed to be a lesbian and Indigo Boy insisted that he wasn't attracted to her "in that way." He said they were just hanging out because I was gone and he just wanted to play Wii. I told him that I thought she was seducing him with Wii. He is twenty-four, after all. He laughed and said, "I don't think so!" and I believed what he said to me. How could I not? He sent me a text pic of him kissing me while he was at her house. I told him to tell her "hello" for me while he was hanging out with her and he said "Scottish Whore says 'hello,' too!" Smiley face included or something insidious like that.

So I believed him... and then one night we talked on the phone before he was running out the door to her house again at 11pm. My antennae went on high alert. He said he would text me in the morning. Nothing. He had never done that to me before. He was always so good about checking in with me, doing what he said he would do, coming through for me in a pinch. I called him, left him a few frantic text messages the next day. Nothing again. I was 2000 miles away and I knew he had fucked her.

And then all hell broke loose. I knew this girl from work. I had hung out with her once before about a year ago and then stayed far, far away from her because I got such sketchy vibes. The night I hung out with her, she told me that she had left Scotland because her best friend's boyfriend had killed someone or something crazy like that and then she and her best friend got caught up in it and needed to get out of Scotland. Then she came onto me. And then I said my goodbyes and never looked back. I had a civil working relationship with her after that, but I kept my distance. I thought she was sketchy, needy and unstable. Whenever I saw her at work she was always complaining about this person and that person or how she had been wronged in some way. She looked like a strung-out junkie, too, with her pasty skin and sack of bones that she called a body. She was wretched. And then Indigo Boy slept with her... and I lost my shit.

I know it takes two to tango and I certainly don't hold Scottish Whore solely accountable for the whole thing, but I have very little sympathy for her. She is a lying bitch. She swore she would never have done anything to hurt me and then said she didn't want anything more to do with him after she found out we were together. I told her I wouldn't put it past her to keep sleeping with him. Had I been her, even if she was misled by him, if I found out that the guy I had just slept with was already involved with someone else (especially with someone I knew!), I wouldn't have slept with him again. After one stupid fling? And all the drama that is sure to come after? She's thirty-two years old. Come on woman!

I'm sure he told her he didn't want to be me with me anymore... that he wanted to be with her. Whatever he needed to tell her to keep sleeping with her. And then he just felt guilty for the whole mess and then he was trapped. There were four things at play here: he was lonely and vulnerable, she sank her claws into him, Indigo Boy and I had shit to work out that we never got a chance to and he has a terrible pattern of overlapping his relationships. I think he did the same thing to me after his "best friend" K freaked out on me one night after Indigo Boy and I had been together for a month or so. I thought her reaction was strange because he swore nothing was up between them and that, really, they were just friends. I told him that any girl who reacts that strongly to her "best friend's" new woman clearly has feelings for him and that he better sort that out, but I chalked it up to a 24-something crush. I didn't think he was lying to me. Now that I look back on it, he was probably sleeping with her the whole time, too.

So, I feel duped. Yes, like a "foolish woman" as my mother called me once she found out I was dating a 24-year old guy. I "shouldn't have"... shouldn't have gone there, shouldn't have done it, shouldn't have even bothered. But I couldn't resist. He was so disarmingly sweet. His energy so pure and fresh. How could I resist falling for him: this gorgeous boy with caramel skin, puppy-dog eyes, pillow lips and a body that makes women ravenous; this adoration, this soulful yearning, this love? We spent a full three months doting on each other everyday. We spent my birthday weekend dancing and rolling among the bedsheets, went to Santa Barbara for Valentine's Day, San Francisco for a four-day roadtrip, and did almost everything together. We are both die-hard romantics. Music was one of our connections and, though, we shared many songs, Esthero became our muse. He called me "That Girl." He was my "Indigo Boy." Yes, the sex was hot, but it was our kiss that sealed the deal for me. It was a kiss that I hadn't shared with someone since I was his age. It was the kiss of being twenty-four: a kiss full of belief and hope, rapture, longing, comfort, and desire. We kissed in elevators, among the pillows for hours, whenever we saw each other we kissed and, then, everything was made right in the world. It feels like we spent most of our time kissing. Just kissing. But he's twenty-four. He doesn't want to just kiss! He wants to fuck and experience sex in all forms! I get it... I was twenty-four once.

I guess, these last three weeks have just been a painful wake-up call for me. I knew that things weren't right the last few weeks when I was still in L.A. I was in the midst of transition--quitting the job I had been at for 2-1/2 years, packing up all my things to go, trying to settle my heart as I tried absorbing this separation from Indigo Boy. He, too, was in the midst of transition. He knew I was leaving. He helped me move things around in my parents' basement. We spent as many nights as we could together going out or hanging out at his place. We talked or texted on the phone every day as he went carousing around with his boys or went to practice (he's an amazing dancer, btw... exceptionally talented), but I knew I was cramping his style. I knew he was flirting with girls and we would joke and tease about it. He was so much younger than me. I didn't want to get in the way of his having a good time or doing what 24-year olds do. His flirtations didn't really matter to me, anyway. What mattered was that I knew I was his #1 Girl and that we still communicated everyday or made the time to spend with each other when we could. But the last few weeks before I left were fraught with uncertainty--what would happen to "us" once I was gone? Would we, could we still remain true to each other in our hearts? Would we be able to withstand the pain and difficulty of what would come?

Apparently not. I don't know. I broke up with him last week because he handled things so poorly. I just don't know anymore where the lines of truth and loyalty exist for him anymore. He betrayed me. He strung me along with half-assed attempts at saying sorry, asking me what he could do to possible make it right again between us because he didn't want to throw what we had away and then kept fucking her and telling her only god knows what. Now she's probably hooked on him and embarrassed about the whole thing and acting needy and confused and he's too much of a softy to tell her goodbye. He couldn't say goodbye to me. I asked him after it all happened if he wanted to break up with me--that he should have just done so. He didn't have to kick me in the stomach, too. He insisted, No! No, I don't want to break up with you! I don't want to throw all of this away! But he transferred the feelings he had for me to her because she's there; I'm not. I don't want to be involved in that kind of bullshit. And I got pulled into it for a hot second. And, man, I went there. All my ugly junior high school vitriol came spewing out. My anger, all the hurts that I've already experienced with other men, all the many, many disappointments and betrayals.

I scared him off with the intensity of my anger and pain and probably drove the two of them closer together. But I don't regret doing so. I am learning that my emotions are my emotions and to own them fully and, also, to express them when they need to be released. Anger and pain are especially ugly emotions, but if you don't release them they sit in you and fester and morph into something much uglier and destructive. I've done that for too long--held my emotions in or taken them out on myself. And I don't want to hide my emotions anymore. Or to manipulate my emotions to hold onto something or someone because I am alone. I have learned how to be alone. My challenge is to learn and trust to be with another. I do believe, though that I will recognize my love when a Man can deal with the uncertainty of my pain and discomfort.

I told Indigo Boy once that though our bodies may age, our emotions do not. Each person's emotional world is full of every heartache, betrayal or loss that one may have suffered since childhood. Each person learns to deal with the pain or express it in different ways, but those seeds of pain still exist. I thought, at my age, that I would be able to handle it better once the inevitable came to pass, but I did not. My pain still exists. I am still a little girl lost, a jr. high school bitch, a woman who loves and distrusts men, a mother that has not found her child. I knew he would sleep with someone else or many, many other women. I knew that one would create heartache for the other. One of us would have found someone else at some point. We have different needs at the ages that we are: I want security; he wants to have fun. I just didn't think it would come so soon. I just believed that what we had created together would endure. I thought that what we has shared was sacred and that he would have honored it in some way.

I went there: into the magic and romance of being twenty-four again and I reveled in it. I swam in our love. We learned to swim together--to open ourselves to the uncertainty of the depth we may find, but then to release ourselves into the joy of finding equal amounts of recognition and nourishment. We introduced each other to different worlds. Our friends celebrated our love. We talked about the future--the near future seemed too uncertain, but the faraway future seemed like a distinct possibility. But I was more ready for it than he was. He hasn't been through enough bad relationships yet to know how to recognize something really good when he has it and then what to do to preserve it.

I don't regret "going there" with him. He gave me so much. I know he's a good guy with a beautiful heart. I can give him a reprieve for being twenty-four, but I just hope he knows that if he keeps going for older women, he better be prepared for the Pandora's Box of emotions that comes with it. I can forgive him for his indiscretions, another woman may not be so kind. For me, it took more than a decade to experience the purity and sanctity of the kind of love we shared. For him, he may find it sooner or more often than me. Maybe Indigo Boy will; maybe he won't. I hope he does. I hope he beds many women. I hope he gets his heart broken. I hope he learns all the ups and downs and ins and outs of love. I hope he learns from his mistakes and learns to be a better man.

For me, I would rather have loved and lost than not loved him at all. That Girl will always remember and hold Indigo Boy close to her heart, even as she says goodbye...

Animal Farm

I am a professed animal lover. I've grown up with dogs and cats all my life, a couple of hamsters, a lizard, and I vaguely recall my sister keeping a green garden snake at one point. Not to mention that my mother is a complete dog nut. We've always had a dog: BonBon--her first love, a present from her sister on her 16th birthday--my mother's white toy poodle that was ten or eleven by the time I came along and spent the remaining years of her life snarling or growling at me; briefly, Sadie--a black puff of a Lhasa Apso--that we had to give away sadly after a mudslide destroyed our home when I was nine; then came Chewie, another Lhasa Apso, this time smelly, but ever so sweet. She could sneeze on command. Chewie gave me one of my first heartbreaks when I took her for a walk one night and a truck of boys racing on our street hit and killed her. For years after that and still when I think of it now, I could not erase the look in her eye as the headlights from the car lit her irises and then forever dimmed her light.

For a long time, we were blessed with Huey and Phoebe, a duo of Jack Russell terriers that brought much joy and love into our lives. Phoebe lived the life of a princess, being my mother's favorite, and we had her from the time she was a wee runt until she became a blind, spindly-legged geriatric. Huey, a dopey sweet boy, taught me the painful ecstasy of sudden death when he died in my arms, literally taking his last breath and in that exhale a sweep of his energy rushed through our house.

Then there was Guinness. We called him a Muttweiler--he was half-Rott, a quarter Lab maybe, an eight German Shepherd, and a sixteenth and sixteenth of God know's what. I found him poking through the garbage at a school I worked at; the kids throwing crackers and trash at him. I scooped him up and brought him home. He must have been all of two months at the time. My stepdad adopted him and we raised him on duck and lamb, non-gluten dog food--my parents spent hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars on that dog, trying to cure his perpetual skin ailments and unmistakable pungent odor. He was a great dog as most dogs are--loyal, well-behaved, sweet and calm. He would swim laps in the pool barking and biting at the water. He died a sad, premature death at eight or nine after going blind, his hips failing and his hair falling out in pieces.

Now my parents have Ruby and Juno--an unlikely pair. Ruby is a rehomed Jack--all full of sprite and good cheer. She is the sweetest dog we've had: she'll paw at you like a cat to rub her chest and, literally, one day after I hadn't visited my parents in awhile, jumped into my arms and covered my face in licks and kisses. Juno is another rehomed dog--a Bernese Mountain Dog or something thereabouts, who is still a puppy but twice the size of Ruby and can't help but pee everytime you come home. They play for hours in the yard together, tumbling and chasing each other about.

My parents, especially my mother, instilled a strong love of animals in me and my sister that I carry now with me to Liberty. Though I have befriended many dogs since I've been here, there is a veritable zoo of other creatures that I've come to discover, learn about and love.

There is a llama that looks like an ostrich from afar, but it's not. Although, come to think of it, I've seen an ostrich around here, too. The llama hangs out with the goats and they chew grass all day and then lie together under a tin shed. The goats have udders that swing from their abdomens and kids that romp and butt heads all day. The goats baa like sheep. Horses abound--munching grass under trees, trotting down the lane as their owners wave at me, galloping across pastures with their manes and tails flowing in the wind. Cows abound, too, but they are on other farms and, strangely, I don't see as many of them as I thought I would. There are chickens that forage in the woods and drink from the pond. Since being here, I've learned that chickens don't just cluck, they whine, too, and they will eat anything, including their own eggshells! There are also sheep on Ragmar's farm, but they won't let you get near them and hide in the tall grass.

That is, except for one sheep--one lil lamb named Daphne. She came to the house a few days ago, rejected by her mother after being born (a normal occurrence I've learned if the mama sheep has too many lambs to care for or is sick, etc.). This black, wooly-haired lil girl came to us all spindly-legged, her eyes still cloudy from birth. Needless to say, I adopted her. She needed someone to take care of her and I needed to take care of someone or something. I pulled myself out of bed at 3am to bottle feed her, spent the morning scrubbing the porch that's adjacent to my bedroom of the shit and pee she left everywhere, and just held her close. Now she cries when I'm gone too long or if she's hungry. Today, I found her waiting for me at the gate after I left for an hour to go to the market. Her tail wags and dances when she smells me or hears my voice. She's a dear little lamb.

There are also dogs and cats here, too. Deuce is a skittish black and white tomcat who won't let anyone get near. He's been traumatized by his mother, Stack, a gray and black striped kitty who hisses at him, but adores people. She was a lovebug when I first arrived, but I've noticed that she's kept her distance from me since I adopted Daphne. Myrna, a great, big lug of a white dog, lives down the lane and leaps out at cars from the side of the road when you approach. I worry about her getting hit, but she's almost as big as my car, so I hope that should that ever happen, she'll be okay. Sade, was just a floppy, paunch-bellied pup when I first got here, but she's grown twice her size in only two or three weeks.

There is a cycle of life here that I am coming to grasp and understand. Random shots sometime ring out , exploding through the hills, and I then know that a feral dog may have been killed or a horse who couldn't stand. The butterflies eat the chicken poop and the chickens eat their own eggshells and the frogs eat the dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes that eat us. And then we eat everything else. Although, I keep telling Daphne that no one will eat her.

Rock Island (Part II)

I followed my blue-haired faery as he swam across the river. The current from the waterfall was strong, but I tried to relax and find my rhythm in the water. I kept my eyes on my blue-haired faery--this boy who kept looking out for me--and swam the breaststroke through the current. The rocks on the other side didn't seem so far away. I kept swimming. I caught up to my friend as he reached for a log bobbing in the water.


"I'm going to wait here," he said a little breathless.
"Okay," I answered, also a little breathless, and kept swimming to the other side.

The edge of the river didn't seem so far away. I found a ledge and pulled myself up. My friend left the log, swam up and climbed up to the rocky shelf above us. I sat for a moment on the ledge to catch my breath and marveling in the swim and how good and open and alive I suddenly felt. I heard him oohing and aahing about something, but I couldn't hear him over the din of the rush of water.

"What is it?" I called.
He said something again, but it was muffled, so I pulled myself up over the ledge and went to him.
"What is it" I asked again, dripping wet.
"It's a rainbow!" And he pulled me over to see a small arc of color in the waterfall flowing before us. I smiled. I had seen more rainbows this year than I have since I was a child--two with Indigo Boy and now with my blue-haired faery.

It's been a good year so far, I thought.

The swim across the channel was just the first indication, though, that I could overcome obstacles and meet my fears face-to-face. My friend and I joined some of the other boys sitting in the sun on a slab of rock 20-feet above the water. One by one the boys jumped in. My blue-haired faery chimed in that he was also going to jump. I looked at the water below, churning around the ledges and tried looking for a spot that didn't have a pile of rocks waiting for me to crack my head open.

"It's not that far," I kept telling myself. "I'll be fine. I won't hurt myself." My blue-haired faery jumped in and suddenly I was alone on the rock. All the other boys gathered on the opposite side of the river waved to me. So I leapt. Feet first, preparing my stomach for a freefall, and then I was in--the cool water embraced my body and I swam up easily from its depths. I emerged into the air and then realized I still had to swim across the river again. The current was stronger, but as I swam I could see and hear Ragmar and the other boys erupt into cheers and clapping. I laughed and smiled broadly, swimming against the current and finding my rhythm again. I swam the breaststroke across the middle of the river and then relaxed as I got closer to shore. I flipped over, looking at the skyline above me--the silhouette of the rocky, wooded mountainside, the sky and sun shining through the trees. Then I felt the water change and move faster around me as I got closer to shore. I broke into a freestyle and pulled myself through the current toward the edge of the river. I found my footing among the rocks and joined the others feeling strong, sun-drenched and relaxed.

Rock Island (Part I)

I am trying to stay focused. Trying to endure the uncertainty of my life right now by continuing to write as I said I would everyday. It's difficult, but, really, it's all I can do right now to get my mind off of things...

I'm still trying to catch up with the last week or so. Not having my computer proved to be a real doozy, but I have it back and I'm ever so happy and I want to remain true to myself and write about my experiences here.

About a week or so ago I pulled myself out of my heartsickness and went with the boys for an outing. "We're going to a river tomorrow. You should come. There are waterfalls that you can jump off of." Ragmar, my kind friend, gently invited me. I did not leap to the occasion, though I would have if I was in a better frame of mind, but I pulled myself out of bed the next day and gathered my things for a daytrip to a river.

We drove for about an hour through the winding roads of Tennessee. The boys hated my music. My computer had crashed at that point and all I had were soulful R&B lamentations, a mix that Indigo Boy made me and a playlist I made him--all dreadful heartsick longings and protestations, nothing upbeat, nothing for a roadtrip among friends. "No wonder you're depressed!" they said. "We're gay boys. You need to change your playlist."

They put another mix into the stereo and it was good to hear other music as we wound through the green pastures and blue skies. My blue-haired faery guide sat next to me in the backseat and asked whether I had boots. I thought he would say, "You know... boots. These boots are made for walking"... thinking of the Nancy Sinatra song, but he was being practical. "You should find some boots. To walk through the woods." We talked about this for awhile, my feet being so small and not having a real sturdy pair of shoes to go traipsing through the woods, but I knew I could manage otherwise and told him that I had jeans and comfortable shoes. My metallic gold Clarks have proven to go a long way here.

I am not going to prolong my every recollection of what happened that day. My heart is heavy still and I just need to write about what I experienced that day and how great and liberating it was. So I am going to write from my journal that day:

7 May 2010

I came with Ragmar to Rock Island and spent the afternoon with the boys, hiking down to the falls and trekking through and across this great plateau of trees and rock and water. As we got closer to the water, Ragmar commented, "I've never seen the water this high." The water rushed through chiseled slabs of stone and filled the ravine with the sound of gushing force.

For awhile, we were the only ones here, then I noticed a beautiful young couple across the river. They were both in their twenties--the girl wore a black swimsuit, demure because it looked like a one-piece from the front, sexy because it looked like a bikini from the back. They were both long-legged and White. Stylish, beautiful even from 200 feet away.

The water is so strong--it's the only thing you can hear in the ravine. I became afraid when I saw another group of young people--teenagers maybe--studying the water to see where they should jump in. One girl, a little heavyset but strong, finally jumped in and laughed and smiled as she was gently carried off by the current. She was having a great time, but I had to divert my eyes because I was afraid she'd be swept away. She was fine.

[Later...]

I had the most amazing adventure today! After I wrote that little entry (as I wrote in the shade of a little ledge--just big enough and flat enough for me to lie down, did yoga and stretched in the sun and took a shower in a drizzle of water cascading from a rock above), the boys decided to pack up and head upstream. We climbed up and around great big boulders for at least 150-200 yards, then rockclimbed single file across a slippery ledge half-submerged in the water. I had to take off my shoes and reach for grooves in the mossy rock to help pull me along. Finally, we made it to a little clearing where the water pooled and the current seemed weaker. Waterfalls gushed across a ridge of rock and boulders, making it difficult to hear anyone speak. Most of the boys had already climbed up and around the waterfalls to the other side of the river. Ragmar waved at me. He had led the pack to the clearing and left me straggling behind. I wondered whether he was quietly challenging me to test myself or to stay open to the possibilities--he does that sometimes. Now I had to figure out how I was going to get to the other side.

I could either swim or try to navigate the slippery rocks again and go above the waterfalls. One of the boys jumped in and swam across. I watched as the boys dropped like flies into the water and navigated the current. I started feeling a little panicky. My blue-haired faery swam across and then stood in the water in front of me shivering as I slowly took off my sarong and undershirt and carefully draped them on a rock. I lowered myself slowly into the cool water, trying to find solid flat rock to stand on and keep my balance.

"It's too cold over here," my blue-haired faery said.

It was around 3:00--the sun was beginning to descend from the sky and the side we were on was cast in the shade of the great stone mountain we hiked down. Ragmar and the rest of the boys on the other side of the river stood in the sunshine. My blue-haried faery jumped in. I faltered a moment, backtracked a bit and then dove.

Asheville, North Carolina

Ahhhhhh.... I feel like life is beginning to return back to some sense of normalcy. My beloved MacBook has returned to my hands (completely refurbished... thank you Apple! I will forever be a life-long customer...) and other more delicate matters are returning to completion as well.

As I've said before, I have so much to write about... I don't really know where to start, but I'm going to do it piecemeal. Now that I have my computer back I am hellbent on writing everyday.

I'll start tonight with my most recent experience--traveling to Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville has always held a distant fascination for me. I read Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel when I was but a young, culturally famished, ADD-suffering teenager. My eleventh-grade high school teacher shared this book with us (thank you, L.D.) and I probably wouldn't have paid attention had it not been for his passionate orchestrations, climbing onto his desk and acting out O Lost! A Stone, a leaf, an unturned door... or maybe it was W.O.'s rantings and ravings. Whether it was my beloved high school teacher's dramatic attempts at reaching our nullified teenaged brains or Thomas Wolfe's elegiac prose, the book stuck with me.

I've always wanted to visit Asheville, North Carolina.

So, I went. I drove the four hours from Liberty, my heart heavy with the recent drama spent with Indigo Boy. I went despite him, too. Or in spite of him. Before the drama, I came across an event calendar that said one of our favorite bands was going to play there on the 12th. I didn't want to be reminded of him, but then I wondered: who in Asheville, North Carolina would go see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings? Maybe I might meet someone cool there...

So I went. Despite him; in spite of him. I went mostly for myself. It almost didn't work out. I didn't buy tickets ahead of time and I had to wait outside the entrance for an hour trying to find someone selling tickets. An older, tall White man dressed expensively, but slovenly tried making smalltalk with me, encouraging our "connection" because we were both waiting for scalpers. I didn't give him the time of day. He paid me back by elbowing his way into the first person who came our way selling tickets, pulling out two crisp twenty-dollar bills and, smiling at me the whole time, said, "Here. Take this. Don't listen to her." I hated him instantly. What an ass. What a fuckin bastard. I paid him back, or karma paid him back, by randomly finding a kind man at the eleventh hour, ten minutes before the show was about to start, who came to sell his tickets because his wife was sick and they couldn't go. He sold me a ticket at face value: $21. Thank you kind man; take that, rich prick.

I spent the evening wandering at first, not really enjoying the opening band (save for the kick-ass Black back-up singer who stole the show with her rich voice and stealthy moves). I befriended a trio of cousins from Connecticut who were there, reunioned after many years apart, and then another trio of guys, who admittedly I befriended because I thought one of them was hot. I hung out with them for most of the night, talking, dancing, and working some Indigo Boy/That Girl shit out to Sharon Jones' wealthy voice. Moving to her songs of recognition, renunciation, grief and reclamation. I werked it out.

I ended up going to a local bar with one of the guys from the group. I was ambivalent at first to go traipsing around with him, but he proved to be a first-class gentleman and a wonderful guide for my one evening in Asheville. We walked through the streets of downtown Asheville--brick buildings from the turn-of-the-century, everything closely knit. He ran into people he knew along our walk and then carefully steered me toward a bar a few doors down from the hostel I decided to stay at. I have to make a note here because I haven't stayed at a hostel since I was a teenager, but this particular hostel was lovely--clean (ever so clean!), comfortable, quiet, and modern. They just opened this past January. I highly recommend staying at Sweet Peas Hostel for anyone traveling budget luxe in Asheville....

Anyway, The Vault, the bar we ended up at was great! Sophisticated but neighborhood-ey. R, the guy who took me there, knew most everyone and we proceeded to have a quiet, intellectual evening talking with folks in their 30s, drinking slowly on the patio lining the street and just enjoying the conversation and company. I met a very interesting man--a dapper, bespectacled writer working on a non-fiction book about an integrated summer camp during the Civil Rights Movement. We talked for most of the evening...

I stumbled home at some point, feeling thoroughly comforted and fulfilled from my evening with R and his friends. I woke up with a terrible hangover, but managed to still make the most of my day in Asheville. I had a great, gourmet greasy Southern breakfast (two eggs over medium with grits and fresh white cheddar cheese, homemade cheddar and green onion biscuits, soft, fluffy bacon gravy) at a place called Over Easy. Then I made my way a few blocks down to Thomas Wolfe's boyhood home--filled with the giddiness of my youth of meeting someone famous for the first time and also of reverence for meeting someone who I admired so.

The Thomas Wolfe Memorial is, as I imagine most other historical places in Asheville are, a well-kempt, modernized building suited for tourists and a pleasant educational experience. The exhibition about Thomas Wolfe's life and work was scrupulously clean and thought-out; scientific and artistic in its display--a professional museum-piece. There was a twenty-minute documentary that played every hour or half-hour or so and charming wooden phones that played different recorded voices of people in Wolfe's family recounting their memories of him and the Old Kentucky Home.

I paid the $1.00 entry fee to take a tour of the boarding house he grew up in and save for the dour tour guide who led me and a pair of two older women--one White, fat and full of questions, the other Black, thin and thoughtful--we, I think, had a wonderful experience. I was half-expecting a ghost to pop in at any point or to show himself or herself to me in the reflection of a 19th-century mirror or in the corner of my eye through one of the half-skewed doorframes that Eliza Gant or Julia Wolfe made to cut costs. Things were uneven in that house and I was sure I would run into a ghost because it was so old and creaky. But the historical committee in Asheville has made sure that their famous, prodigal son would have a home to be proud of--to celebrate the sanctity of his house and what he recorded in such depth and detail so many years ago.

I bought the unedited, original manuscript of Look Homeward, Angel at the clean, well-lit gift shop and spent the evening pouring over the pages, reading nearly one hundred that same night. Hardly anyone remembers Thomas Wolfe nowadays. They confuse him with the 80s writer, Tom Wolfe--of the "Bonfire of the Vanities" fame, et al. They both are guilty of long-winded, erudite sentences, but Thomas Wolfe was in a league of his own: Joycean in his prose, Keats-like in his elegy, Wolfe-ian in his gusto and grasp of humanity. This man hungered and wrote... and wrote and wrote and wrote. I thirst and hunger for that kind of writerly drive. Fill me, Oh Wolfe! Lost, sundered, hungry for words... fill me with words, please. Oh Lost!

I walked the streets of downtown Asheville that day, still full of images of what it might have looked like when Wolfe was alive, but seduced, instead, by the drawls of modern life: cute signage, interesting clothes, a stationary shop!, a shoe store!, vintage clothing like you wouldn't believe, a hippie, kind of spiritual store that sold gorgeous windchimes, incense, deities, and t-shirts just for the hell of it!

Finally, I tried making my way out of Asheville, but on a lark and at the suggestion of a woman I befriended there, decided to take the scenic route and stopped in Hot Springs--because they had natural hot springs there and I am a sucker for anything bath-worthy or sulphuric that might cure my skin.

I drove my little Toyota Corolla through the mountains of North Carolina and found myself in the middle of nowhere. Literally, deep in the mountains of North Carolina, close to the Appalachian Trail, I found myself with no Internet reception or ability to contact anyone through my iPhone. It was discomforting at first and then a relief. I don't have to contact anyone or hear from anyone or know that what's who's or silly-what-it-is if I don't want to to. Goodbye. I'm here now and I soaked naked in a tub filled with natural hot springs, a creek making its trickle water sound and the woods and birds and insects just flying by and doing their natural thing. So lovely. Just soaking. Just feeling and breathing and letting it all soak in.

I fell in love with Asheville for its charm and historical grace. Then, I fell in love with Hot Springs for its absolute quiet and generous spirit. I thought for a moment that I might settle in Hot Springs. I could write there. I would be undisturbed... and if I needed my city fix, I could go to Asheville--it's only a half-hour away. These thoughts still roam in my mind...

In regards to the South, or at least where I have been thus far, this is one little observation I have made: the fireflies in Hot Springs make the trees sparkle; the fireflies in Liberty are ghostlike in the brush....