For months, weeks, I felt nothing, no processing was done, this journal is what follows.
I never write in my journal anymore. It's a stranger to me. I want to save the pristine pages for something important, like pure poetry, and for travel.
It seems now that neither is on the agenda these days. Muchas tristes, I am very sad afar reading the social equivalent of 8000 kid poems for my residency, there is not much left of me. I am wrung out.
We struggle to find ways to either continue, or to part. Either way, the bases are loaded. Or the reasons for, and against, are equally weighted. We teach each other something of our habits and motives. And get nowhere.
He said, Oh God, you were right. Here I am acting differently when my daughter is is around.
I don't feel so crazy now, my intuition tells me what to say, but there's no reassurance that what I'm saying is right. I see so many sides at once, the dialogue gets crossed coming and going.
I hate that dark spinning place, I go into when we really fight. Last Saturday night we broke up three times and made up four times. (Sounds like a bad country song.) How angry I am.
Out of the blue, John decided we break up, so we held our vacation plans in abeyance. He decided that going off into the desert with his daughter and Jan was more important. He's already committed. I'm enraged, but that won't be of much use. Jilted is more like it. Thanks for telling me.
John gives me an assignment. Every writing assignment he suggests, I find reasons not to write about it, but tonight my heart wants to burst, to weep all this sorrow into a saline river. I refrain from screaming on the long solitary drive home from Fort Mason, but the sorrow keeps bubbling up. So I distract myself with Spanish-language tapes. It reminds me of being in Cabo with John. We would've been there yesterday, Ayer, entonces.
Last night I went to him, crawled into his bed, and we were as close as skin. Somehow we both came through it. And it was so easily shattered this afternoon. He couldn't take the tension between his daughter and I. I'm not so sure there was ever any tangible problem between his daughter and I, but his incessant obsession has had certain deleterious effects on both of us.
Last Saturday John told me she didn't like me because I was rude to a waitress. His daughter was rude to John. John was rude to her. But she doesn't remember any of that, she is an angst-ridden teenager. And I'm yet another unwanted "mother" figure in the wings. I can't tell her that I don't want that role. Her judgement of me became a weapon in his hands. Something to be used against me. And excuse for an out.
He came up to Forestville the other day expecting to break it off, then it wouldn't matter that he was going to the desert with his daughter. But we stayed together. He goes to the desert knowing a price is to be paid between us. I keep score. I keep score.
I become a statistician as well. I think, well, 15 misses is a very bad batting average. I don't want to become #16. He will probably fall in love with #17, the next woman, at the drop of her pants, given his past track record, this instills such confidence.
We fight over the real issues in archaic couched terms... Ambiguity. Are we willing to commit to each other, no matter what? I think not. And therein lies the rub. The intangible thoughts of the neocortex had to go and ruin our mammalian bonding.
The issue of child, or no child aside, this is the real agenda. But, I think of the future 30 years down the road, no family, no one to be there for me when I am old, frightens me. I tell him I want to be taken care of in my old-age. I don't want to be a bag lady.
John is saying if she and I can't bridge the breach, he can't deal with it. I get that. I say, it won't last, it will resolve itself. She;s a teenager. Give her space. He doesn't believe me. She's looking for an excuse to dislike me, so she doesn't have to relate to me. Typical teenage angst. Like I said, I get it. So many girlfriends in the revolving door of John's relationships. She's amazingly strong, considering. I would've been in a permanent rage if I were her.
\
I could go on with this obsessing, John says he's written pages and pages, obsessing over our relationship. He is a sea cucumber, that he is.
Tonight when I returned home there was no call on my answering machine from him. I was crushed. He leaves early tomorrow, that is, today because it's 2 AM. Some solace. In the mail, with thanks to Voltaire, a poem from John, calligraphed with a spring of pressed sage to keep the ghosts in line.
And another thing, I'm still waiting for my kitchen cabinets to be installed. I'm living out of cardboard boxes and it is driving me nuts. The thought of moving; of major changes, frightens me.
Crablike, or should I say ghost shrimplike, I want to burrow in, safely away from all of these threats. I noticed I've been drawing up a likely list of candidates should John and I break up. But it's only a halfhearted interest, it seems to confirm my desire to stay with John, when I tell him why we fight, because I want to make sure. I have a lot to lose. He says maybe it's not worth it. Regretfully, no. But, thanks.
The dual nature of love makes me mistrustful. Duel nature? Perhaps he'll call in the morning. Besides, I stole his favorite pen. Touché!
4/13, next morning Monday
Oh, this crack in the world. John does not call to say goodbye and I am heavy inside this grief. I reread my February 18 journal entry, when this all began, and so much as happened since then. I thought that was an emotional upheaval. We've gone much farther into it. So many other issues have arisen.
I am profoundly tired and I understand the middle body of depression. The endlessness. The waves of grief. And my morning, the end before it's even begun?
In February, when I went on about the past, my animal self rising, there was hope. Now, so many issues have come up and clouded those observations. Or is it all connected and I'm in the middle of it? John says, in hindsight, we shouldn't have seen each other so much during January to May when his daughter was with him. Somehow a lot revolves around her.
I begin to resent the way he's so generous with her, thinking that I won't have a child. I resent the timing. I keep waiting for the right man to have babies with and they're all willing to help raise another man's child, but not one of them wants to have his own.
In John's case—he said kids are used to having exclusive attention. He doesn't want to do that again. He's already done it. When he said to his daughter that I wanted a baby, she was alerted, so the negativity must've started then. Is this an issue of his daughter's, or is it just my generic urge of wanting another child that's triggered these responses?
I want to stop this obsessing. I keep thinking of the issue of child, is it masking or is it triggering these events? Do I really want a child or is it my biological clock ticking?
I feel guilty when I trace back the origin of my frustration and anger to something John did. It's good for me to say you did this, and I reacted this way. What amazes me is that my observations deeply tucked inside this emotional morass, seem to be so accurate. Certain patterns of his trigger responses in me. And at least he owns up to them. And I begin to understand something of myself in this process, but it's too stormy. What I feel guilty about is that I can say, you did this and I reacted like this.
I'm feeling I feel I'm putting all the responsibilities of blame on him. I can zero in and understand something of my own behavior if I can specifically point out something he did. Do we just react and overreact to each other's reactions? During nuclear meltdown there are no winners.
He acts differently toward me when his daughter is around. I feel a little bit foolish, a little superfluous. He's often affectionate, but only in two-minute intervals. I feel like I'm a fix, and sometimes I feel rejected by this. Open the door, let me in, shove me out again. Like the cat.
I have a fondness for semi semicolons; I like Philip Whalen's lists. He said he was mean to Gary Snyder when they were young; but now Gary's become a teacher. And Phil became a monk because of Gary.
I don't want to be a hermit. I like sex too much. There are too many variables in our sex life. I don't come very often. There's too much sameness. One leg akimbo, John at my left breast, me underneath, tweaking his left nipple, my right thumb hurts from all of this. He isn't always there for me. He removes himself from intimacy.
We rarely kiss I mean deep kiss, while making love. Where are the fat slugs spinning clear ropes of saliva? He wants to be taken, I want to be taken, neither of us is completely satisfied with the other's quirks and idiosyncrasies. And yet when we are mindful, and paying attention, it's very good.
I keep telling myself, there are sacrifices in every relationship. Sexuality is part of the sacrifice; it's not all or nothing. We speak two different languages, sexually speaking. Sometimes, something gets lost in the translation. It took me a long time to adjust to him and to accept his kinks because of his needs to be held down, or tied up, and taken. I want said he wasn't making use of my sexuality. He said, likewise.
Statistically, we feel it averages out and we're both content most of the time, and we can work with it. I've never had to work at sex before. It's like memorizing and conjugating endless rows of verbs in Spanish; work. Just when I give up hope, everything changes and we work in tune with each other once again. It can work after all. The surprises.
A friend wisely said sex can change for the better with time. If she judged her husband's performance when they first met, she would've left him. We are adaptable and can change.
So many things on my list for an acceptable mate. Like minds. Intelligence. Not just high IQ, but how it's processed. Intuitiveness, I get irate if someone is pedantic. Physical attraction, corporeal body. Over time I find John more and more attractive.
I remember looking, once at a CPITS meeting in 1979, at Mary Norbert Körte's place, Sanctuary Station on the Noyo River, saying to myself, No way, he's just not right for me. His eyes are too odd, that white green color they become as if he were only looking inward, or looking outward with a blind man's clabberd eyes. Reasonably attractive, yes, but not my type. I'm not attracted to him.
Not with the same moth-like intensity I had with Lee, whom I was seeing at the time, or Jim Byrd. How easily I become burned, attracted to the light. That light which burned so brightly. Sex and mind, all parts of it. I find few men who have this burning quality that I seek.
Sex with Jim wasn't all that great either. It had something more to do with the mind I think. But I am fire too. I've seen men go up in smoke when they touch me.
Sex with Lee was always good. But there was also pain. I wonder how much the continual pain of a non-relationship and sexuality had to do with the intense eroticism that we shared. But I came out of that relationship tougher.
A lesson too long in the learning. The years of anguish. Why did I choose to suffer so? Why was my faith in love so unshakable? White knights with real armor. Armor and
amor, oh for the loss of an R, goes my heart.
Lee says we fall in love nine times during our lives. John must be going for double, or nothing. Bases are loaded and we're switchhitting for the season of glove.
Imagine my surprise when John and I did finally connect. I had dismissed him so many years ago. Once, as he was leaving the statewide position at CPITS, we did a skit. Apparently I played Alta, his first wife. Little did I know I'd become part of his bizarre harem. An unkind hand of fate dealt to me that day.
Alta was rude to me for the first year of our relationship, a part of her always wanted John back. Well it's fitting, somehow that her daughter now dislikes me. Like mother, like daughter. Yet her older daughter and I get along famously. And the irony is Alta and John's daughter are not speaking to each other. It's a complicated business.
And then there's a wife number two, Jan whom I didn't know, but whom I very much like as we're both Sagittariuses. John says I'm like a very much younger version of her. She got her tubes tied, and his daughter became her daughter. John said in February that he wanted to get his tubes tied. That's when we started fighting. I said, if you get a vasectomy, a door closes. Who else would I trust John to go off into the desert with. His ex-wife. I trust them implicitly.
Lee once said that John needed the stable wife, Jan, and the outrageous woman, Alta. Shameless hussy. I believed him, I thought he was wrong, but there's something to it. I'm a little of both, so is he. But it's more complicated than that. Domesticity and Bohemian outrageousness.
I feel like we're reenacting the Diego Rivera / Frida Kahlo love story. I like John better when he's in Mexico. He's more humble; willing to please. I get so irritated sometimes by his obsession with Spanish. I had no real interest, but that was a hidden surprise. Now, this obsession is a part of my world too, my eye too. I understand quite a bit of step Spanish, though I still can't speak.
We test each other… as it turned out one of John's tests for me was could I even learn Spanish, could we travel well together, spend part of our lives in Mexico, could I survive his Mexico world. Could I accept his need to travel alone in Mexico? And to the desert? Ironic, he surrounded by three women going to Hanaupah Canyon. He won't take me there, but it's okay for his daughter to take a friend there.
.
Then there was Oliva, his love in Mexico. He asked me to accept his relationship with her when we first met. But she was in Mexico. And they haven't slept together in ages. It wasn't easy sharing him via the post office, but she wasn't a real threat being that far away. I sensed it was long over between them even before he did.
And I'm grateful to her. She taught him faithfulness and steadfastness. Though he wasn't faithful to her, he is amazed by his faithfulness to me. We've both been very faithful. I secretly want a fling but I am afraid of what might happen.
He blames the open relationship he had with Jan for its failure. He was mostly unfaithful. Faith is important to him. It comes to me a bit more easily, I think. this low-level urge to have a fling surprises me a bit because it's so natural for me to be monogamous. I suspect it's part of my backdoor escape plan.
Could I accept his extended family? Not a problem unless you count the friction with his daughter. Oddly his stepdaughter and I get along just fine. I can't stand how everything is so open. There are no secrets. John's the biggest sea cucumber alive. When they are frightened, they spill their guts, literally.
Our affairs of the heart are communal property. We might as well sick sell tickets to the world. I share John with two ex-wives, a daughter, a stepdaughter, and his mother, whom I dearly love. This man is surrounded by women. Like some flawed God. Well, I like Jan, Lorelei, and Frances. One blood relation, and two by proxy. Alta is in the proxy category, but I don't have to like her.
Could I get along with his daughter? A biggie on his list. Well, I've covered enough journal time over her. He said that initially she liked me. As if he needed official sanction from his daughter. Maybe that's why we're fighting, because I resent that. I think I'm fairly well accepted and even liked by most of its family. It's like a big ex-lovers club.
At first I felt so estranged. But if I am to be his mate, he has to be willing to place me first, not last, in the pecking order. There are times when family comes first, but he can only place family in front of me, pushing me to the end of the line, then there is something wrong. I don't foresee this as a major problem. I think it will work out in time.
I'm sure there's more to be said, but I am fatigued by all this list making. I've been so preoccupied with all this this morning that I poured half of the milk into my tea. And made a note to buy more milk, and then proceeded to pour a bowl of cereal with only a thimbleful of milk.
The other night after leaving the reading in Sebastopol with Leonard Cirino, I drove the wrong way down Main Street to the local saloon. Automatic pilot. So many years doing the same thing after readings. I slipped back into automatic pilot when the road was still a two way street. Luckily I turned the car around and park the right direction before the cop came by.
Yesterday I sloppily tapped the car while parking, luckily it was just a bumper. I wasn't paying attention. I'm distracted by all of this. And I'm tired of writing about it. I keep counting the pages, this page makes page 10 and I'm still haven't written a poem. My head cold has me worn out. Time for a relapse.
4/14 Yesterday, I called my therapist. She's on vacation for a week. The receptionist said, unless it's a crisis, wait. How did you define crisis? I sobbed after I hung up. No escaping this one. It takes everything I have just to go see her, I am no fan of therapy. So the mere fact of my calling her is crisis.
Walking to get the mail, Richard Salzman sees it in my face, and pulls me in. My lame excuse of a cold melts before the words escape my mouth and I am sobbing again. The well of grief. I am uncomfortable in sharing this grief and I'm soon distancing myself.
Alastair Ingram asks questions about John, and feels like he's put his foot in his mouth but it's okay we're all old friends, having helped each other through this before.
Richard's friends, his amigos Mexicanos arrive fashionably late. We barbecue in the new fire pit and we drink. They get mas boracho on tequila. I abstain, and I go home. Richard follows me also drunk, he holds me, and I stay distant for a long time, old memories, things we shared, we laughed over, and he doesn't let me go. He doesn't let me escape. Not sure of wanting to escape, I begin to soften.
All those forgotten things lovers do, come back, and we never really forget. It's been a couple of years. I figure we have an annual affair each July, and we missed last July. He tells me it's been five months since he slept with anyone, and though we never worked as a couple, the deep friendship remained intact.
There is a safety factor making love with ex-lovers. Not like starting a new affair or a fling with all its complications. I wanted to sleep with someone else for quite sometime now, and I felt guilty, but I knew I'd have to do it as part of my testing of John because our sex is merely adequate but not a dance.
How lovely it is when a man can dance the slow pleasures of the bed. Richard is an especially sensuous lover and takes his time getting there.
If John and I work this thing out, I'll have to put him into training. How easily he slips into the functionality of sex. No wonder I don't always come. But he can't help the physicalness. I like a lot of heavy meat grinding, hard fucking, which he only does before he comes, I need that grind to turn me on, otherwise he's too passive. I quickly bail out, and lose interest. But when we're on, it's silken, even the touch of skin has that wavering electrical charge to it. When the skin too, is in love, that's magic.
Richard, technically better, and my equal in bed, doesn't have that quality. That's the intangible part of true lovers. I cried as Richard and I made love, the grief bubbled up. And then I laughed at my tears. He said, It's okay, let it come up. He made it so easy for me. No future, no expectations, no complications. Just the present moment. We laughed, and babbled in Spanish, that was comforting.
I talked a lot about John too. I got the feeling Richard thought we'd come around, the bond is so strong. He should know, his relationship with his ex, another woman named Jan, 10 years back-and-forth, never quite committed.
And Richard understands that ambiguity too. He and John are somewhat alike, never able to fully commit themselves to a relationship. I suspect John's asking to marry me is his desire to submit, to surrender. It's been a rough three months since January, that fight in Mexico, funny as it was, was at least something concrete. Yes John and I are well matched in most ways. The question is, can we work through this current crisis?
Richard says there's so many choices, it's too easy to say goodbye if it isn't working out. It's so true. These problems are all part of the cycle. Is it necessary to change the face of one's lover each time a crisis arises? A long commitment is still more appealing and more realistic. I'm tired of wandering the earth in search of the new mate.
Shishkabob
Finding herself well skewered
on the end of a long Jewish cock
the goy girl, afraid of injury,
calls herself a shiksa-bob.
As far as John's being faithful to me, and me breaking that bond, being faithful to someone isn't an issue with me. I know I can do it. It's easy enough because I'm monogamously inclined. John has never had the experience. I don't think I can tell him about this interlude. It would encourage him to break his faith with himself. He marvels at how long he's been monogamous. I feel that's a major part of our commitment to each other, not just the fear of AIDS. We don't need the classic complications.
If the relationship doesn't work, there won't be others between us to be used as weapons. I admire his ability to see and act upon this. I feel sad and that I had to go to my limits, like I was testing, or attempting to break those delicate ties, but I always knew I would have to test the bonds for myself.
I also feel he drove me to it, not deliberately, but because of the problems we are facing. I am entirely responsible for my actions. I made deliberate choices, but they're based on what's been happening with John. Is it right, is it wrong? It's not an issue. It's done, now.
We do things for different reasons. For me, it was a major step. I took the first safe opportunity and went for it. I knew I would. Should I have waited? Held that faith longer? No, our relationship should not be dependent upon that. If it's to survive, it's because of its strengths, not weaknesses.
I am glad John has finally learned monogamy. I am 180 degrees opposite. If it's appropriate, I might do it again. So much depends upon how it is when we see each other again. If we see each other again. I'm also suspecting that in the desert, John will decide that it's over, first one out of the out of the chute saves face?
He said last night, under the pre-numbral eclipse of the full moon, he came to a decision; the moment I had broken the bonds of faithfulness. Faith, of another sort, will arise. We are still faithful in the sense that neither of us has taken on new partners. Yes, something has ended. A chapter. But a new one is about to begin. The question is, will it include a new chapter for us as a couple, or do we bail because that's the tried-and-true method of the 1980s?
I think I've always been terrified of John's going off to Hanaupah Canyon because it represents a cyclic change for him. With his ex-wife and his daughter, his older roots will call out. There's a safety factor involved. He has a choice to make. Several paths will lead him to the same place, but only one of those paths is with me.
He goes off to the desert to decide to break up. What do I do? How do I decide? What if each of us decides the opposite thing? If he decides no, do I go along with it, letting fate take its course, do I say no, we have more business, even if the answer is still the same a year, or six months from now?
Are we done with each other? Can we make the choice to stay together longer? What is the end shaped like, how will we know? Are there many choices, none of them incorrect? All appropriate? Has our time together ended, are we prolonging the inevitable? Or are there other possibilities we have not explored. Should we decide to continue? The paths yield no clues. It's either yes or no, and seems appropriate, a crack in the world.
=========
Finally, I am able to take the time to begin
processing my relationship with John. It took a last
misunderstanding, and his leaving on an uncertain note, by not calling to
say goodbye, to loosen the bonds sufficiently for me to explore my own
conflicting emotions.
It is an odd thing that to be willing to break up, is what keeps our relationship strong. We are here by choice, not by necessity. Are we testing the adage: If you truly love someone you must be able to let them go?
When John lost the blue lapis heart that I gave him, I was crushed. He took it as an evil omen. He couldn't find the heart anywhere. He bought me a huge See's heart candy box filled with truffles for Valentine's Day. We began to fight that evening. We were with the girls, no privacy, no time to be lovers.
The next few weeks brought more of the same. He quit wearing the woven wristband that I gave him, he discarded the symbol of our being a couple. The first act was an accident, the second act was deliberate. How quickly he cuts himself from me, how much practice he's already had in ending relationships. He is a consummate master.
He came up last Saturday night planning to end it all with me, and made plans to go to the desert with his daughter since we weren't going to Cabo after all.
I was feeling better, wanting to continue and go to Cabo thinking that week together would be the best thing for us, a week together we sorely needed.
So we fought a lot and cried, broke up a lot, made up a lot, broke up again, and again,. Achieved some tranquility, some peace. We broke up again. We made up. Made up again and made love, and made more tentative promises. Broke up again. Made up again....
I dreamed we were on our way to a meeting in the city. We were going with several others. I was late and John was in a group ahead of us. The directions weren't clear. I got off at the wrong BART station. It was getting late, and when I tried to board the train, it went the wrong direction. And I had no money. I was crying, frantically trying to explain my predicament to strangers, in the hopes they they would help me out. No way to call John enroute. I was left to my own wits and devices.
Before this dream, I also dreamed were together side-by-side planting, working in the garden, it went on for hours, turning the rich loam to make a satisfying garden.
When I gave John the blue lapis heart, he took it as a deeper symbol than what was offered. It was a spontaneous gesture on my part. A blue heart given to me by the Meier family ten years ago. I never used it, but kept it anyway. It seemed appropriate. I glued in a clasp knowing it would loosen someday.
And I gave it to John who wore it over his own heart for more than a year. Blue being his color, somehow. It went through the wash unscathed. The glue held. Sometimes he wore it pinned inside the shirt pocket so as not to lose it. And I kept thinking the glue wouldn't hold, it wouldn't hold. Then one day it disappeared.
He looked everywhere, not even the pin or clasp was to be found. I think the glue held, but the pins that anchored it didn't, or in his carelessness, he placed it in jeopardy, lost it, and doesn't have a clue as to how it happened.
About the same time poet Veronica Cunningham gave me a red heart on a pin. The spirit in which it was given was similar, she liked me. It was an impromptu and appropriate gift, though I have no urge to love women. I like and care for her. This circle of hearts given in friendship.
The first button was missing on my shirt. And I use the heart to hold it closed. One day I accidentally tugged on the heart, and it came away from the pin, and I couldn't get the clasp to go back in. A tiny plastic heart loosened from its moorings. I lost the clasp but not the heart. Effectively broken, just the same.
I transferred the symbol of that heart from Veronica to John. And thought how strangely synchronistic the world is, if we let it be. At the same time he sent me a poem about the loss of his blue heart. Everything moves in cycles. Especially hearts.
The loss of the wristband was a deliberate symbol. I gave it to him at Christmas. One day it came off. He took it as a symbol. I tied it back onto his wrist. Later, as we fought, it became a reminder that he took it off. That act hurt me. He said he put it on the little gourd cup and then he broke the cup that María Engracia gave me. How sad he was when he stepped on it that night.
We fought throwing dirty laundry at each other, being careful not to hit each other. Brutal anger. We didn't make up that night. I was going to break up with him then. And I wanted my air ticket back and my passport.
We envisioned taking separate taxis to the airport but negotiating the flight home was beyond my travel capabilities and I knew it. I was so scared. I was relieved when we made up, as we were truly shaken by this fight, our first real raging knock down fight.
And it was all so silly, we were overtired and cross, and utterly exhausted. I accused him of throwing away the ropes we needed to finish packing our luggage. I saw that as a symbol of his callousness. We had a bit of falling off at Los Arricifes, nothing major. A profound talk about our sexuality, how I felt used and how it seemed so mechanical vs. passionate.
When these crises come up, I assume there is no way to fix them. The issue of sex seemed insurmountable, but we did talk about it, and it made a real difference. He was there for me. Something I didn't think he had any control over. It was a welcome surprise. And when we made love it was special.
We were uneasy, Rebecca being pregnant and seeking a second abortion in two years, and John saying why don't they just go for it. They both want kids. I suspect a lot started coming home for us too. It was after Tulúm, in February. John told me of his decision to go ahead with the vasectomy, and the quibbling began. I knew that Rebbe's predicament would stir up a hornet's nest.
The chain of events that triggered off this catastrophe began in Mexico. The Yucatán. Tulúm unfolded us. We became sensitize and reactive in a predictable manner. But all events aside, we chose to read the symbols, and act upon them as if they were truth. In fact, they were just yarn and rock. We needed to something to point the way in any direction.
The rest is logical when you think about it. So, we were being tested, testing ourselves and testing each other. We call each other to task. Be here now. Live fully in the present. Don't withhold yourself.
I told John last Saturday if we're destined to break up, then let's live what time we have together fully. We should live it a hundred percent. No withholding. I think he withholds more than I do. He's more prone to black-and-white decisions. And I'm more ambiguous, knowing these things have their own rhythm and cannot be forced. Like Whalen, I'm more of a Taoist in these matters, I think.
Last April John tried to break up with me too, only, he forgot to tell me about it. So I challenged his reasoning. We made it through. I remember I came down because it was his birthday. And he was withdrawn. I said the reason why I am here is because it's your birthday, not because I'm clinging to you, or am afraid to break up. He opened like a flower. His insecurities backed him into a corner and he couldn't get out.
A few times when he was in Forestville, these moments struck and he was awful. I said, if you want to leave so badly, just go. Get out of here. I won't be party to this. And he always stayed. I think he was expecting me to cry or cling to him, If I had, he said he would have left. But because I clearly wasn't going to do that, telling him he was a free agent, his fears of being smothered, claustrophobia vanished, and then he realized he wanted to be with me. Each time it's come up, I've said the same thing.
He's afraid of being stuck in the trap:
if I love you am I trapped forever? I don't let him use this ploy. I'm probably the first woman who refused to be sucked into this no-win game of his. It's a cyclical pattern, the opposite of his urge to marry me. I've always mistrusted his reasons for asking me, and have refused on those grounds. Also, the issue of sex and the child, ironically linked, would have to be resolved.
He said he would get a vasectomy if we got married. A little insurance to keep me from saying yes, I suspect. There were times when he wanted me to say yes. There were times when I wanted to say yes, but how could I, knowing it was a set up, though the question was genuine. He is a past master of setting up the double-blind. Ambiguity, of course, is the predictable result.
This all started when he dared me to have an affair with him, mind you, a casual affair. And I took him on. Having refused his offers in the past, the challenge was on. I don't know who was more surprised.
We were at the Calistoga spa. And he was so unsure, standing there looking uncertain, I made the first move, saying to myself, okay Simon you want to score with me so bad, I'll give you something to remember! Calling his bluff, so I think that's a strong component of our relationship. We don't let each other pull too much wool.
He took up the challenge saying, it's a short-term affair. There is Olivia in Mexico, whom I'm still seeing. He thought he'd see me every so often, a long distance affair to remember. I had already broken up with Duane BigEagle, not that we were ever exclusive, that same weekend, and half out of spite I went with John, but also, because it was time to end it with Duane after two years of casual sex. I never once looked back. I wanted a lot more out of the relationship and Duane was always in it for himself. When he snubbed me at the CPITS conference that was the end if it for me.
John envisioned a similar casual relationship I think, but after the first night together, he began revising his plans. First it was once in a while, then every other week when we were supposed to see each other. But it was a rare week that passed that we didn't see each other. One of our first dates was backpacking at Sonora Pass in October. That was the first test. What was I like in the wilderness? My poem,
Falling to Sea Level, comes from that experience. I passed with flying colors.
Then irony made itself felt. This was a temporary relationship because even then, those first nights, he was very clear about not wanting kids. Suddenly I was being challenged too. Incredible depression, mood swings, break up. Finally I made peace by saying no more obsessing until the next September.
Remember that song
We'll sing in the Sunshine? And when our year has ended, I'll be on my way… Unbelievably that work. He was able to relax. There were times when he softened, saying, Yes well perhaps it's possible. We'll have kids. A couple of times, making love, he said if a baby comes of this then it will be okay. A thin ray of hope crept in. There was a chance I could have it all. But it volleyed back-and-forth, all, or nothing.
Somewhere, along the way, he became clear about his relationship with Olivia. She was his backdoor, his way out of the relationship. His addiction. It was both a source of grief and relief for me. When he broke up with her, I felt only mildly elated, it came as no surprise. It was so obvious as I was taking up all his available time.
Sure, it had it hurt when the letters arrive from Mexico. Ironically, he chose to break it off just as she was coming around. She, having pushed him aside. When he went to Mexico last February, I was so jealous, thinking he changed his mind, but he didn't.
We, meanwhile, having only been separated Christmas and February, when he was in Mexico, we were getting into it much deeper. Some casual affair it was. The first time we went to Baja was in November. Hung over, after Sean and Nancy's wedding, on my birthday, he gave me a gorgeous massive turquoise necklace.
We crossed into Mexico in a downpour. In La Páz, I distanced myself from him. He was too open for me. I was afraid, I had recoiled from him. Part of it was because of our sexual differences. I'm pretty straightforward sexually. It's hard for me to be comprehend his need to be held down, and to be tied up. Or the connection between cock and nipple. Tweaking his nipple for an erection, for him to come. We eventually worked out a system where we were both comfortable.
4/15/1987
Taxes are due today. I spent the morning painting and obsessing about John instead of doing my taxes.
I'm in the it's over mode, rather than the positive mode. I'm so certain he's given me up. The irony is we will each decide the opposite, whether it's to stay together, or to break up. We seem to be diametrically opposed. And I keep telling myself he'll be coming up to see me in two weeks. A lot can happen in two weeks. I'm thinking no, partially because I suspect he is going to say yes, and if I focus on the negative things, I get so mad, I want to break up.
Richard came over to help me put the doors on my new kitchen cabinets. I spent the rest of yesterday putting together the cabinet. By the time I got to the hinges, my dyslexia went into overdrive and I couldn't make out how they worked. It turns out there right and left hinges, not easy to fathom. I wound up calling Richard.
John and I must both be easily addicted to ambivalence, because I wanted to sleep with Richard again, but felt it would be a dangerous thing to do. That it would open up yet another can of worms, I think. Besides having been rejected enough times in the past, it's mostly lust. That's how I got into this predicament to begin with.
I must admit a small part of me wants to go back to those free and easy days when I was always obsessing about sex and relationships and doing nothing about it. But I've been there. And I've fully explored its possibilities and there's nothing there for me new there for me. It's safe. Nonthreatening.
It's hard being with John, but I feel like I'm making progress, that is what I'm supposed to be doing right now, not hiding out. In my development as a human being I need to do certain things. A relationship has been deeply satisfying. The need to send roots deep into the soil. That part feels right.
I always keep thinking that if I want to have a few flings before I decide to settle down with the relationship, now is the time. But I keep thinking that it will only confuse me further.
Donna says I should not sleep with any men during this time. Shit, out on a date? I suppose if I cast my net about there'd be a few stragglers in the net.
I'm ready for the dailiness of a relationship, but I also don't want to give up my cabin, even if I move away. It's so lovely being here, outside in spring. I've been spending my days outside writing, snoozing, reading, painting. I've been busy every minute. I've been doing what I want, when I want to. A break from the real world. No kids, no phone, no one to invade my space. A time to be creative.
The cats are very loving. The highway is far too noisy. It's so rare that I have the time to stay here, uninterrupted by schedule. I want someone to roll in the grass with, and make love in the afternoon. Afternoon delight. Time to be sensuous in the spring. Working on a suntan.
Slept until 10 this morning. Noticed how I'm not quite so driven to write about John. I suspect this is a good sign, but the bad news is that I'm about as horny as the cats.
My head cold went right into my lungs. And I haven't an excuse at least to keep quiet. I'm tempted to go to the beach, call up Dwayne and roll in the sand. It's okay to fantasize. I feel a little unfaithful, pulling up the cocks of all my ex-lover is like this.
I need to go into the darkroom tonight, pack up for the next six days. I'll be on the road. Poetry week and the California Arts Council. Bring Ken all those photos. Darkroom tonight.
4/16
The chemicals from the darkroom have hyped me up unbelievably. I couldn't sleep at first and and then I was the guide and sleepy. I always feel hung over after a long night in the darkroom. I don't know how much of it is being up late at night and the intense activity, or if it's the chemicals. It takes me least an hour to come down afterwards. I left the darkroom at 12:30 AM and it was 1:30 AM before I was calm enough to think about sleep. Funny photos of Gary Snyder and Philip Whalen. One of Robert Bly as an old hag. Very appropriate. His fans won't like it as it captures a side of him that the majority of the world does not see.
=========
4/27 (I took some of this out of Politicking Arts Day, NPW journal as it was not appropriate)
John called me many times when he got back from the
desert. It was all he expected it would be, father and daughter, and
Jan, the ex-wife, and I'm glad it was a good experience for him. It was
hell for me. I came home Tuesday night from Arts Day feeling quite
agitated. My gut said, come home!
I had convinced
myself that it was truly over. While I was working it was okay, but when
I had a chance to reflect upon it, the depression cloud descended. All
his calls, his birthday, etc. I finally called him back on Wednesday
evening, but I barely wanted to talk with him.
He was
feeling positive albeit tentative, and I was feeling quite the opposite.
We've been doing this dance for a while. Anyway, after two long
marathon talks, even when I said: if you don't think it will work, let's
end it now, we manage to agree to see each other on Saturday. I was
still not convinced.
When he called Thursday morning
sobbing crying, saying he was willing to give it his all, and not
withhold from me, My immediate reaction was loving. Something I hadn't
felt in weeks. He came up on Saturday afternoon and we were tentative
and shy. A bit awkward like young colts in the field.
And
when I'm evasive, I get sleepy. Also, I was hung over from my neighbor
George's birthday party. So, I wasn't in the best of shape physically.
We
went to dinner at Chez Jano's. I couldn't eat, was I still hung over?
But we didn't make a birthday fuss, and I did feel better. When we were
lying on the bed reading, I didn't want his weight on me, his arm in the
middle of my back, etc. The hugging was fine. The other was the other
had something more to do with shared space. I'm much less giving this
time around.
Being held by him is wonderful but the
lovemaking become somewhat sterile or was it because of the great
distance we have traveled away from each other? It was better in the
morning. I keep thinking how he withholds sexually, or is it because
he's never been properly taught?
