waiting for the whoosh - badgergirl's journal page 23

[badgergirl]

Adoption issues. Now, there's the rub. My mother is a good woman, she really is. She's loved and adored by many, indeed she sort of has guru status for a - yes, this is profoundly odd - certain section of the new age community in Germany. However. No one is a saint on their own doorstep, eh?

My mother has embraced it all over the years - crystal healing, reiki, past-life meditation, Sai Baba, Cutting the Ties That Bind, You Can Heal Your Life, co-counselling, divination, tarot...

And she considered me both her mini-me disciple and, well, not exactly someone to practice on, but something like.

Her sense of identity rests on one pillar: I AM MOTHER. She fostered. She adopted. She 'worked on herself' to undo all the damage Catholicism and her own fractured upbringing had wrought. And she succeeded up to a point. Fair play to her.

But.

Her messaging to me was almost as totalitarian as Catholicism can be. She came out with some real humdingers: I know what you're thinking before you do; I can see granny sitting behind you stroking your hair (Granny had died a few years before this statement was made)... She practised her co-counselling on me, not considering the key part of co-counselling is the equal power dynamic, something that definitely wasn't in place for me*. I grew up with the impression that she not only knew everything about me, but that she had spirit guides who could tell her about *my* past lives. And, of course, she was also, if not a mother superior, certainly a superior mother.

Needless to say, I rebelled. And eventually I had to shut her out, almost entirely, to find some privacy. All the things I am good at or value she disparages, to an extent - the logical, factual, scientific. She's full of woo. And, for her own self worth, she preaches the dichotomy: earth mother, spirit, 'natural' mother, woo versus science, intellect, piss-poor mother.

And, actually, she's a good-enough mother, but she's far from perfect. All of us are. But her mythology was so all-encompassing I find it difficult to escape even now.

I shall take some photos for you, Crabcakes.

* From what I remember of being 'co' counselled by mum, it was profoundly cultish. Every involuntary movement was analysed - if I sneezed when mum said something it was a 'tell' of some emotional outburst. Yawning was another one and so forth. When I did, finally, go to therapy the therapist was open mouthed in horror. "That could be profoundly dangerous!" she said. Come to think of it, I never mentioned the past-life stuff to her. Is it any wonder I'm an atheist?

[badgergirl]

B: yoghurt, pnut butter, coffee
L/D: antipasto, sausage, chicken wing, terrine, salmon and caper pizza; 3 glasses of wine (pinot, cab sav)

We went to a winery for a free lunch and to listen to a jazz band. Most civillised.

[Crabbcakes]

We went to a winery for a free lunch and to listen to a jazz band. Most civillised.

It's all perfect in that sentence - free, lunch, winery, and jazz band!

[badgergirl]

B: two eggs, cream, scambled; coffee NO PEANUT BUTTER
L: tuna, sour cream, lettuce, cherry tomatoes
D: grilled lamb, Greek salad, Waldorf salad; half bottle of merlot (Christmas hamper from the printer)

All this digging around in the graveyard makes me seem far madder than I am. I really do seem normal IRL. Honest.

[cori93437]

All this digging around in the graveyard makes me seem far madder than I am. I really do seem normal IRL. Honest.

We're all pretty normal really...


And by that I mean we're not, but who is.
I'm not trying to wear that pair of pants... it chafes.

[badgergirl]

You hurled a big hairy ball of info, it take some time to digest. Not a gram of self pity in it, good.
A story for a story.
I was born and raised in a small country of the eastern block.
My childhood was soft and uneventful. Great parents, lots of love, most of which i had probably returned.
I was a quiet child, living in and for the books.
Adolescence was my postcoming into this world. Alcohol, sex and rest, conduct rather then the goal itself.
While in university i had a proposition to go and live in paris.
I did , it was an elegant and very cowardly way to leave behind a tangled bunch of relationships, loves and one way roads.
21 years old and ahh.. modeling was a strict boredom, being bad at it didn't help.
Photography came around and i knew it will stay.
I meet my ex husband, we traveled for years, hence my knowledge of australian wine..the encounter was close.
Back to Paris, childbirth, carrier going strong and stronger. Bohemian years, separation and beginning of wild life.
After leaving my husband i did had a beautiful and strange affair with much, much older man. I call it the time break of my life.
He called me an extremely civilized animal and for the sake of my life i cant decide if it was a compliment or an insult, still and nonetheless he did listen carefully and answered any serious or random question i had accumulated and no, not a father figure.
Just a man of extreme kindness that come to some of us with the years. It did pour some cement in my convictions and prepare me on a way for the future.
Then i met the man whom i fell in love with. Indecently bright and beautiful. Love like the one i had read in books and heard in songs.
Idem for him.
We were both very successful in what we were doing for living while loving it, ready to live the good life . to the full.together.
And we did. Then the curtain went down.
Excessiveness, extreme jealousy, violence in state of non sobriety. It kept on getting harder till one day i raised my hand and hit back. Sweet violence. It didn't change much except my status of a beaten woman. It did though open the box for me too.
Years went by. The man was sliding down, pills were the news, it helped for a while, then all got mixed and ambulances, police and hospitals were there,everyday. I couldn't leave, not simply the strongly embedded loyalty that came with my family education, but love ,for the windows of sanity were there ,with the remains of his soul.
Then one day it was the last ambulance. I remember writing a letter ,leaving it on his stretcher , saying that i love him. That whatever happen, i will stay.
after i went to pick up his son from school. Same night i was home with
the boy, my ex was having my daughter for a week. The bell rung, i opened the door, there he was , saying it was over. The nightmare .
Over it was for him. It wasn't over for me . I kept on hitting, i started drinking hard and went into pills. Funny, life.. As all mirror dance goes it also went to an end. And we started to rebuild. And as love goes i have a haunch that this will be the only one i will have..
He is not an ordinary man by any criteria you might use, sexuality and rest. I take it. And i kind of give back. Fantasies, bare honesty, love.
Few thoughts on things you have mentioned.
BdSM, creation, lust.. You can make what you want of it. You can flush it down the drain.. and will be a pity.

I *like* you. I want to have this conversation in Paris, next to the fire.

Okay. I promised a comment and I am not one to break a promise. But close friends, even bacon man (boo hiss, and yet, I miss the sizzle), will tell you that my comments are thought over, information is digested before a response can be spat out.

So here I am, slowly drinking the final half of merlot, ready to write in response to your story.

And my thoughts run thus: isn't that always the way. We learn from those we love. We think, hope, that the lessons will only cover the good, but it isn't so. Trees that grow into each other become entwined, warped, twisted. Roots tangle. Branches rub and chafe.

For our part, I have learned husband's reticence and inhibition. Lock the door, shut out the world. Obviously, leaving my life behind has done nothing to hinder this. Gradually the world gets shut out. To be honest, I think the pupils outpace the teacher and so, over time, we become caricatures - extreme versions, roughly drawn - of the loved one. It's safer, more reassuring that way.

I've also learned depression and suicidal impulses - making the loved one complicit in one's own death wish.

On the plus side, I've learned the value of myself and intimacy - sex is not to be squandered for physical gain. And the husband? He has loosened. Considerably.

I think pain can easily be read as caring - caring enough to hurt. The extreme is what passes for passion. God knows I crave it, push for it, but have chosen a man who is always in a profound state of lock down. There is no provoking him, no matter how hard I try.

Push-pull; push-pull. For me that equals safety and love. The warm blanket, wrapped around the flailing arms. The straight-jacket of compassion: keep me upright, keep me sane, stop me from harming myself. It takes a vast amount of self-love to choose what will mend over what will break - and I stumbled recently. Or, rather, I felt so deadened and repressed by circumstance I wanted to take any out available.

Perhaps those from safe and loving homes sometimes crave the reverse?

We learn our lover's language until we speak it like a native. If they change tongue what are we supposed to do?

[badgergirl]

B: handful of nuts, coffee
L: Greek salad and lamb (leftovers)
D: sausages, bacon-cream-mushroom-garlic (husband off piste again), bacon, garden salad; apple

[ezk]

The opposites theory always has hit me as a dangerous
simulation of reasoning on something a way more complex. Dunno..
I also think that beginnings do matter, but as such they are not a " final solution "
in the "mobilis in mobili" stuff of existence.
I dearly love security and hell.. i do deservedly appreciated it as a blessing and most fertile soil for long distance run love.
But also for creativity and this i have discovered lately. Fuck the worry, the nuke in the stomach,
it doesn't need to be that way. The anxiousness that come with it is unnecessary, it isn't part of it,
it parasites.
Excitement leads to other places once you get of the "i feel so great, i gotta to stay like that ,no matter what"
hook. there got to be an acceptance of the impermanence of things.
I like you too.
Ok for drinking a bottle beside the fire or café Flore or else.

As for speaking tongues..
linguistic beats philosophy by far on sexy ideas

[ezk]

00.jpg:d
an accidental shot of very
particular man who incidentally
is my most loved director.

[badgergirl]

the director of my favourite film:

I think we'll just put primal and whooshing on pause for the duration of the festivus festive festivities.
B: p'nut butter, coffee
L: duck confit, broc, green beans, new potatoes, two glasses of shiraz; chocolates - eight, maybe
D: fish and chips

Last night was small boy's kinder concert. We had great seats, that is until a mum in a santa hat with a camcorder sat in front of me and totally obliterated my sight lines. Grr.

And, no, we are not opposites, I don't think. Life and love is more nuanced than that.