Safe Space

I use theater terms a lot - terms which have come to apply to all aspects of my life. "Safe space" is a favorite. A physical, mental, and emotional space free of judgement, filled with support and understanding and trust, where honestly is valued about all else. I think of this very much as my safe space.

Sacred space - a place to connect, to breathe, to become a part of something or someone bigger and you leave your personal crap at the door. You come in as a blank slate, ready to learn, to be open, to explore.

I have a sacred space that I enjoy visiting, a short hop, skip and jump from my front door where the sounds of running water and birds whistling take away everything I was ever worried about. It's here that I can curl my fists in the sand or dip my toes in the water and feel as if the earth is surging inside of me. It is here where I become grounded.

I haven't visited in over a month, since my two jobs became exhausting and I wasn't sleeping at all, so I was shocked to come upon my sacred space and find it violated.

Because I place such importance in this place, the attack felt awkwardly personal. Horrifyingly meant for me. On top of that, the ducks who usually swim to me and beg for bread at my fingertips swam upstream immediately at the tall, dark figure I presented on the bank. They were terrified of me.

I was upset. I was angry. I seriously wanted to yell at someone or stand as a watchdog with pepper spray and a slingshot. I understand that kids tag urban areas and I've seen some really cool, beautiful street art, but this is in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of nature. This was an ugly word for an ugly reason and I hated it with every fiber of my being.

But I'll go back. I'll get used to it. I'll take it back for myself and find a way to make it part of my place. If there's ever a kid with a can of spray paint down there, however, I may just slap him/her.

Crushing

I've never run across this problem before. This problem where I'm talking to someone who knows I blog, who reads my blog, who understands what and who I'm writing about.

Does this take away from my "safe space?" Will this cause me to censor myself? I'm not sure. I've always tried to keep this as a space where I can take off the filter about everything I want or need to write about. I'm still sort of feeling this out and how it's going to work for my blog and the things I write on here. Usually it's all personal, personal, sex, personal and now I need to be considerate. And that's okay :) I'd like to be considerate.

I'm crushing and I'm crushing hard, and I don't think it's something you guys have actively seen me go through. You see the beginnings, perhaps, the flirtations and the putting myself out there, and then of course you've been privy to the aftermath. But this, here, this in-between, this something new but something familiar coiling inside of me is not something you've borne witness to.

I can't sleep. I can't stop smiling. I can't stop checking my phone or hovering my finger over the "call" button even though I know I'll eventually tap the lock button and put it away. There's a nervous feeling fluttering inside me and I feel like an idiot but I also really enjoy it. I am now I'm exactly like all those girls I make fun of. The irony is not lost on me.

Is it always like this?

Two Sided Coins

The phrase "both sides of the coin" seems to come up a lot with me. It came up in Updates/Desires, in my first Lesbian/Bisexual post years ago, in my very first post here.

I am two sides to the story, I am two points of view - so much so, that sometimes it feels like I'm two people. I'm butch and femme, gentle and fierce, hardworking and lazy, kind and mean, ugly and beautiful, educated and gullible, elegant and clumsy. I am pro-troops and anti-war, pro-charity and yet I don't give, pro-women's rights yet still uncomfortable with high abortion rates, a lover of art with no talent or background, a musician too scared to play, a writer - published - who now can't undertake anything more than a blog.

I am an amalgamation of people. So many paradoxical ideas - all living and breathing and trying to coexist inside one body. Over the course of this blog, some of you who have been with me since the beginning have seen me search for who I am and what my box is. I don't fit in a box.

But maybe I went searching for my box the wrong way. I went searching for everything I wanted to be, so confused, so naive and drowning in a world of terms and relationships that I didn't understand. Not once did I ask myself what I wanted. Not once did I ask myself what I needed. So caught up in figuring out what was wrong with me, I just assumed that anyone I fell in love with would be perfect, would be right.

And to some extent, every girl is perfect. Every girl fits some piece of me, some part that longs to blossom into life and is nurtured along by her and I can be happy with her. But not every girl can understand that I see through a fractured crystal of a lens, and all the fragments blink back eighteen different images rather than the solitary one an average person sees.

Maybe if I'd asked myself what I need in a relationship, the compassion, the giving heart, the fiery spirit, the conviction, and maybe the ability to see or understand how I see the world, I would have found myself sooner. Would have realized that instead of trying to fit into the butch/femme dynamic, I live both inside and above it - like an umbrella, understanding what lies beneath but ultimately too much and too widely spread to say I belong.

Both sides of a coin.

Here's your Christmas Present: The erotic tales of Caci and Natalie beginning and conclusion on Rainbow Sprinkles ;) You're Welcome! 


This just seems to fit all the themes going on my head this week, and when I wrote this post it ended up getting stuck in my head.

Intelligence

I've never associated higher education with intelligence. I think that with the internet, libraries, public and mass access to information, this is more true than ever.

My family never placed much importance on education. My siblings and I were told to do well, but if we didn't, there was no punishment. During junior high I had 32 missing homework assignments for one class but an A+ on every test. I skipped school and didn't do my work (it was boring and I had better things to do) but I still tested better and engaged in classroom discussion more than most of my classmates. Perspective - when I was 3 my favorite word was Alstroemeria, granted, it was my favorite flower.

Alstroemeria varies in color, but all have a spotted pattern

My siblings and their spouses all went to some college/junior college/trade school/etc, and the same with my parents, but none have a bachelors. My grandmother left college to marry my grandfather, who dropped out of high school to join the military at 16. Some of my extended family have 4 year degrees or beyond - one of my relatives has an MA is a mumblemumble in MO. (political relatives - who willingly admits that?) But I don't think of them as any more intelligent than my little familial hub.

I've always thought that learning is more about what you soak in from the world around you. How much attention you pay to your environment, to the people around you, to the news. When I took psychology I felt like they were trying to teach me things I'd already learned just from observing life around me. I feel like after the fundamental lessons, classes don't make people smarter, open minds make people smarter.

If you don't know what type of rock that is, look it up. If you don't understand what the central nervous system does, you can search the internet. If you are confused about the Russian Revolution and the mystery surrounding Anastasia (which is now not all that mysterious), there are encyclopedias and history books which can help you out with that.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna

 

 

 I look at her and want to cry because it's not like the Don Bluth movie.

She was so young and beautiful and innocent. Coincidentally, she looks like my grandma.

A curious mind can learn infinitely, beyond the textbooks and classroom doors, the college years and professors. But an ignorant mind can go to school for ages and not learn anything. 

Or maybe I just think that to make myself feel better because I never went back to finish my four year. School and I have never mixed well and probably never will. The joy and love I experience writing for myself is equal to how much I hate writing papers/assignments.

Rainbow Sprinkles

So, this whole 30 Day Challenge thing has kind of been a drag. There are fun moments too, but being introverted is not really my thing, which means that I've been doing a lot of writing on the side to keep me sane. I love to write short stories or scenes that could really fit in anywhere, just snippets of daily life in the LGBT culture, and I wanted to share them.

Rainbow Sprinkles to the rescue! It's a light dash of LGBT life when you want a fictional story that will make you laugh, steam you up, fall in love, make you realize that you fight with your girlfriend like that every day, or just want to take some time out of your own life and live in another world for a few minutes.

Enjoy!

Tabby

Terms/Respect

There are certain terms that I love, that make me feel special, sexy, sweet, adored, etc. I have such an attachment to these words that when they are used, they feel like endearments, even when they are not addressed to me.

M:girl has a habit of calling me Miss. Not Miss Tabby or whatever, just Miss. I used to love it when I would wake up in the morning and the first thing I would hear is "Good morning, Miss." Therefore I've taken up that term and started passing it on.

I love being called Miss, Lady, Girl (as in "Hey, Girl, how are you?"), etc. I love the phrases "my Lady Friend" and "My Lady" (as in "my lady is coming over tonight"). I like the feeling of possession. Tegan Quin writes a lot about "you're not mine" and "you were all mine, I was yours right?" which really strikes a chord with me. She also tends to write from a more traditional pants side of the relationship when possession is involved, which I strongly identify with.

First:girl used to greet me with a teasing version of Tila Tequila's "Hey, Girl, hey!" which always made my day in such a strange way. I also have this odd love for when derogatory terms are thrown into ordinary conversation (such as a "Whatever, bitch, you know you love me," kind of retort). Of course, that was part of my relationship with first:girl and I would never use it in my relationship with m:girl because that's not how we work. She calls me miss, and I call her miss and my lady so bitch doesn't really fit in there.

I don't like the whole "baby, shorty, mami, honey bear," side of things. The poo-bear and pumpkin saccharine-sweet terms tend to get on my nerves very fast.

I think part of the reason that I love the terms I do, is that no matter how masculine I end up looking or acting, the constant reminders of my femininity are gratifying. I like that I can walk around dressed like a boy and M:girl will still call me miss. Like I can be female without having to act like it because it's an integral part of who I am. Like I don't have to put on a show of being femme to be female. I can be feminine by just being me. The terms I love are more old fashioned, and many years ago were terms of respect. I think hidden within them is the trace of respect and honor that they used to be endowed with. When I am called Lady, it's like the person who is using the term has a respect for me, has a love for me, and is giving me power in the knowledge that I have that old fashioned respect.

I also enjoy such words as bird, doll, doll face, darling, foxy lady, chica, etc.

Missus was just mentioned to me, which calls to me with the same feeling of love and respect that I was speaking of. I have a feeling this will become a new favorite of mine as well.

What are your favorite terms and why?