Remembering Miss Corky
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Flirting With Hypothermia, Part 2 - Riding the Edge of Pain and Pleasure
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To swim in skins is to ride the edge between pleasure and pain. At least it is when the water remains above 50°.
The water is excruciating when we first step in, my swim buddy and I. We wade in to our hips and waist, and wait through the pain until the numbness sets in. It doesn’t help that the day is blowing.
I don’t know what’s worse, the freeze of the water permeating my legs and belly or the wind cutting into the flesh of my chest and back.
At last I’m numb enough to thrust my hands in, and the pain resurrects.
I don’t resist the urge to scream and cuss all over again. I swear a lot, hollering at the top of my lungs, during those first moments in the water.
It seems an eternity before my hands get numb enough to step in deeper to my shoulders. The armpits are another area of agony until I acclimate to the cold of the river.
Finally, it’s time for the brain freeze. I dunk and swim on my back for the final torture. With the water in the 50’s, I can still bear to swim with no bathing cap.
Those minutes with my head immersed in the river seem like hours because it hurts like a motherfucker. I feel like my brain is turning to ice from the back of my skull and through my ears.
Again, it seems like forever until my body and brain adjusts to the cold.
But once I am, bring on the maniac bliss.
That moment when pleasure comes to reconcile with pain is like no other.
Once that switch is flipped, I remember why I do this.
In that moment, I understand why people are into BDSM. The presence of agony makes ecstasy that much sharper and sweeter.
Coincidentally, my swim buddy is really into kink.
How do I know that?
It’s remarkable the subjects that come up during that hour of rewarming on the beach after the swim. Besides, most people I know in the BDSM community are open about their sexuality, and more comfortable with the subject than we vanilla folks.
I found her when the water was still in the 60’s.
When the river was still in the 60’s, after adjusting to the temp, the water felt nothing but good and refreshing, and I could easily swim for an hour, 1 mile+.
But even when the water was in the 60’s and it was still safe for me to swim solo, I could feel the temperature dropping, and knew I needed to make some new friends.
I joined some wild swimming groups on Facebook. Wild swimming is having a moment due to the pandemic since the public pools in Portland have been shut down for months.
Truly nice folks too, but most of them were straight.
I got it in my head that it would be pretty awesome to find that sweet spot, the intersection between gay lady swimmers (I saw plenty at the pools when they were open) and those who want to get frigid and explore their edges.
So in October, I posted in a couple of lesbian Facebook groups an open invitation to freeze their asses off with me as we acclimated to winter swimming in the Columbia.
As far as the comments were concerned, there was lots of enthusiasm.
“Water is Life! I love swimming, but I need to recover from dental surgery.”
“I’m DEFINITELY interested. But my work schedule is crazy right now!”
“I love this idea! But I can’t join you until the end of the month!”
For all the chatter, the only queer who showed up was the kinky one.
My swim buddy thinks I’m in denial about being vanilla.
“You must like pain some if you’re into this,” she quips. “Because this hurts like hell.”
Not anymore it doesn’t.
I’m giddy riding that edge of pleasure and pain, and the rush is exquisite.
Photo by Engin Akyurt from Pexels
The endorphins pouring from my brain flood my body, the high runs amok like a hyperactive rugrat on the last day of school, drunk with dreams of summer freedom and the pure euphoria of possibility.
On that particular day, the boats go past and the planes fly right over our heads as they always do. It so happens that the beach where we access the river is close to the airport. The sonic roar of the planes add yet another lunatic edge to winter swimming. Even with my head immersed, the muffled growl of aviation sounds through vibration in water.
But the wind is what makes this day stand out, to make a memory forever etched inside my soul. The river is raucous and makes waves to crash over us. It’s hardly with the force of the ocean, but it’s enough to convince me I’m invincible.
I’m not, of course. But I savor that illusion and leap into the yummy, frolicking with the waves like a clumsy dolphin tripping on magic mushrooms.
“Look at us! We are such bad asses! Oh Hell Fucking YEAH!”
My swim buddy looks as blissed out as I am, but she is a little more measured in her delight. She’s also not as strong a swimmer as I am.
I’ve been swimming since infancy. She didn’t learn until adulthood.
We thrash around and swim for roughly 30-40 minutes. I swim about a ½ mile, but I don’t get too far from my swim buddy. We are there for each other’s safety after all.
At last, it’s time to get out. I’m so numb I can’t feel my body. It’s the closest to an out-of-body experience I’ve ever come as we stagger to our shelter.
We have a grace period of about 10 minutes to get dressed before the chilled blood in our extremities hits our core and our body temperature is officially dropped.
It’s a wrestling match to get dressed in multiple layers when my hands and fingers don’t work as they usually do. Somehow I manage, and start sipping my HOT tea in an attempt to stave off the shivers.
Nothing compares to being cold from the inside out.
There are not enough layers to give relief, nor enough blankets. I could be prepared for an arctic expedition and I’d still feel like I was freezing as the shivers start.
The wind makes things even more obnoxious on this day. As much of a struggle to put it up before we got in the river, my swim buddy and I find that the shelter is hopelessly inadequate on this day for rewarming.
What we need is a 3-season tent to give some respite from the elements. Instead, the flaps slap around us, while slivers of sharp wind pierce through us.
It is possible we stayed in the water a little too long.
My shivers quake me to the core. So violent I shake I can barely sip from my thermos.
“Goddammit!!!”
There’s also lots of swearing as we make our way back to normal body temperature. That takes much longer than it does to get cold.
My swim buddy fares no better as she hunches over, desperate to warm her core.
“I don’t think I want to be friends with you anymore. You make me too cold!”
Of course, she’s only kidding.
Between the cold of my innards, the incessant trembling, and the merciless wind whipping through the shelter, this scene is so unreal I can’t stop laughing. Nor can my swim buddy.
The discomfort is savage. And amazing.
We feel alive.
I savor the wretchedness.
It reminds me of those years I lived in Alaska, and how humbling it is to face the force of nature. It’s a grand awareness to know I’m tiny, insignificant when confronted with something so much greater and stronger than I.
As we always do, my swim buddy and I talk about embarrassing and personal subjects, while shivering and laughing and drinking hot tea.
Today was the most difficult and challenging swim we’ve had thus far as we acclimate to winter swimming.
We snuggle to give each other warmth, yet it still takes 1½ hours before our core body temp is warm enough for us to leave.
As my swim buddy and I go our separate ways, I’m beside myself with elation.
When the temperature of the water is in the 50’s, cold-water swimming is hella fun.
I can’t wait to do that again.
To read Flirting With Hypothermia, Part 1, click HERE.
Flirting With Hypothermia, Part 1
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So my latest hobby is wild winter swimming. The Rona pandemic has a lot to do with that. But I think Wim Hof may also be partly to blame.
Then there is the endorphin rush. That definitely keeps me hooked. Fortunately, the high of happy hormones hits while swimming, and that matters a lot.
Right now, the water hurts bad. So bad.
Because all the pools are shut down in Oregon, as well as most of the dance events that have kept me sane, I started swimming in the lakes and rivers in the middle of summer.
That got interrupted with the fires that gave Portland the distinction of the worst air quality in the country. After the air was breathable again, I went back to swimming at the end of September with the intention to see how far I could go into winter swimming.
So far, so good.
I go swimming in the Columbia River that cuts the border between Washington and Oregon. The water was just under 41° the last time I went swimming. With water that cold, the best I can hope for is numbness that makes the brief swim tolerable.
The water is supposed to be between 40-41° today and just over 41° tomorrow.
As I write this, it’s New Year’s Eve and I have yet to do my dip.
I’ll probably go right after writing this draft because I’ll be too f*cking cold when I’m done, and will need a couple of hours to rewarm.
I’ll also go again on New Year’s Day to start out 2021 with a fresh freezing baptism to christen and cleanse myself.
I like to approach certain occasions with rituals. Rituals add richness and depth to the mundane; I would even say they add meaning.
But back to winter swimming because this is not a blog about New Year’s resolutions.
By wild winter swimming, I refer to swimming in “the skins” as people say in the wild swimming world. I wear a bathing suit, bathing cap, goggles, and water shoes.
Thus far, I have not utilized neoprene to protect me from the cold.
Although I must admit I’m tempted to get gloves because the water really hurts my hands. Dunking my hands is the worst part. It’s harder than walking in the water to my waist, and it’s harder than fully dunking and swimming.
Unfortunately, the hands are a vital source of information. Through the hands and fingers, I can determine how cold it is. The basic test is tapping thumb to each of the fingers for dexterity.
Once the cold is too much, one can’t do that – and it’s definitely time to get out of the water ASAP. I don’t go that far. I get out once my hands start feeling stiff. I don’t think it’s wise to push it beyond being able to touch my fingers at all.
It’s too easy to stay in too long.
My sense of time – which is excellent in normal conditions – goes awry in the cold water. 10 minutes often feels like half that much.
And believe it or not, once the endorphins hit, I want to stay in that freezing water.
One day, I stayed in a little too long and my lips were blue for about 15 minutes while rewarming.
I only need to go once a week to keep my body acclimated to the cold. And sometimes, once a week is all I can manage. I have to go today (December 31st) if I want to stay acclimated because it’s been a week since the last time I went.
It’s an incredible way to cleanse off the chaos of this past year.
But why am I doing this?
1) I actually enjoy feeling a little uncomfortable. My life is soft, so filled with comfort and convenience – even now, with the pandemic. There is something about subjecting myself to the elements and the brutality of nature that puts the edge back in.
2) And there’s the pandemic. This is what the Rona has brought me to after the entire world has been shut down. Most of my favorite things to do – like Ecstatic Dance, Contact Improv, and travel – are off the table until Covid-19 is under control. So I started swimming in the middle of summer, and got a wild hair to see how far I could take it into the winter
3) That endorphin rush I mentioned earlier. The mental health benefits can’t be beat because they are immediate. It is absolutely impossible to feel mad, sad, or scared once I step into that water. I’m too busy screaming and cussing as the cold cuts right through me as I make my way in to feel anything else. Everything disappears but the present moment. There’s no room for depression, anxiety, rage, or sorrow.
4) It’s pretty damn good for the physical health too. First, cold water builds up brown fat. The cold transforms white fat to brown fat. Brown fat can be used for heat, energy, and our metabolism. Wim Hof has an exceptionally high amount of brown fat in his system. Second, cold water helps build up the immune system – again pandemic! – which protects us from all the usual viruses including the Rona.
5) I love me a good challenge! I question my sanity every time I go into that water, because it’s so harsh. It makes me feel invincible and I feel like a bad ass every time I do it. Isn’t building confidence and a sense of self good for psychological well-being?
6) Because there’s not much else to do. All the pools are closed in Multnomah County. All the swimmers hit the rivers and lakes this summer. Many have continued into winter with their wetsuits and neoprene.
But bad asses swim in our skins. Again refer to #5 above.
These are the ways the Rona has forced me to grow.
When the Rhinos F*ck the Cows
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An acquaintance of mine from Portland shared an article on Facebook which her husband had written about finding one’s voice as a writer.
Since he’s published and I’m not, and he is a very nice man, I read it.
A line in there reminded me of the most extremely short-lived job I ever held in my illustrious career of job-collecting.
I had just moved to Seattle. This was late in the fall the year I had graduated from college. I made the move on a fluke after a friend from college jokingly suggested I move out there and we tackle that unknown city together.
I took her up on it, and she signed a lease on an unfurnished 2 bedroom.
And our apartment remained unfurnished for quite some time.
There were few, if any, jobs. I don’t remember if Kristy was working or not. But I came across a job that promised lots of $$$ for the motivated, no experience was necessary, and the time and date when drop-in applicants were welcome.
The job was 100% commission-based.
And I made no money at this. It was obvious that I wouldn’t make any money at this from the first day.
Promotions in Motion was the worst of the worst sales jobs. We went door to door at various businesses, ignoring “no soliciting” signs to interrupt people at their work to sell them something they don’t need.
The vast majority of the time, we were told no anyway. Fortunately, most people were pleasant about it but it was still embarrassing.
I don’t even remember what we were selling, but I vaguely recall a promotion for an obscure comedy club.
I trained for two days and decided to bail. My first trainer had been a stripper before this job. She was pretty cool and I had fun while I trained with her.
The next trainer was nice enough, but he had a lot to say about our POC supervisor who was making it “in a white man’s world.”
He also spent the entire drive back to the office trying to convince me to stick it out with a psychological head-trip of “It’s not easy being a leader.”
But I’d already figured out that such a job would have been a daily exercise of humiliation where my dignity would be chipped away to nothing, and no way was I signing up for that.
Later, I met somebody who worked for them for about a year. He said he “made money,” but he also said he worked well beyond the 9-5 time slot, and often went to homes and businesses until 9 at night to make about $1500 a month. (This was in the 90’s btw.)
They didn’t tell me that when they were selling this job to me.
So how does this have anything to do with the title of the blog or the article my friend’s husband, Johnny Shaw, wrote about finding your writer’s voice? Patience, please, because I’m getting there.
On my first day of training, the former stripper told us about their morning meetings where they get pumped up with a Rhinos vs. Cows cheer. We were the “Rhinos,” of course, and everybody else working a regular job with guaranteed pay and some benefits were the “Cows.”
“Rhinos fuck shit up,” she said. “Cows just graze.”
On my second day of training, I got to experience this for myself. All the door-to-door sales associates were there and the POC supervisor who was making it “in a white man’s world” started the cheer.
“WHO ARE WE?” he roared.
Everybody made the “hang loose” sign - aka “shaka” in Hawaii - with one hand. Then they defiled this expression of mellowness and peace by putting thumb to nose so their fist and pinky finger made a facsimile of a rhino horn.
“WE’RE THE RHINOS!!” they called back.
“WHAT DO WE DO?”
“FUCK THE COWS!!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”
“FUCK THE COWS!!”
“SAY IT AGAIN!!”
“FUCK THE COWS!!!”
“GREAT! NOW GET OUT THERE AND MAKE SOME MONEY!!”
Yeah.
It would have been the wiser choice to bail right then and there, but I’m a firm believer in stepping outside of one’s comfort zone to find inspiration.
This was one of those moments. Experiencing the sheer lunacy of these people was priceless.
Johnny Shaw’s article made a reference to fucking a cow too, but that was for the sake of artistic merit. If you would like to know how his article triggered this memory when I was young and clueless, check it out here.
I don’t know if this experience helped me find my writer’s voice, but perhaps Johnny’s professor would have been gratified to know that such a story was out there.
How Loneliness Became Blessed Solitude
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Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
In my former home of Juneau, Alaska, more than one person has said that there’s no lonely like Juneau lonely.
And it’s true.
It was there that I developed a problem with being alone for the first time in my life. And it was in Juneau that I learned to contribute to community and to fill up my inner space.
But if you don’t have everything you need there, the loneliness is excruciating and only gets worse with time.
So much that I left Juneau and moved to Portland, Oregon.
But I brought that writhing anguish of loneliness with me, and it continued to consume me for several more years.
Of course, there were a few short-lived dating disasters during this time. But the long gaps of dateless years continued.
I prayed, meditated, begged, bargained, and even threatened God, Goddess, and the Universe to fall in love and have the relationship of my dreams. There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t have done to meet somebody special.
During this time, I didn’t just sit around and mope in my self-pity.
I filled up my life with all kinds of wonderful things. Fortunately, Portland, Oregon is a creative city that makes it very easy to be single.
There are so many things to do while flying solo here where one can find connection, and sometimes even touch — like Ecstatic Dance, Silent Disco, Contact Improv, Dinner Salons, and Cuddle Parties to name a few.
Image by Michael Pajewski from Pixabay
That’s not to mention all the meetup groups and 1–3 day workshops around anything and everything you could want in creativity, meditation, breathwork, energy work, sexuality, Tantra, kundalini, and expanding consciousness.
And hot springs. Lots and lots of hot springs.
The possibilities were endless.
Yes, my tastes run to the hippie/New Agey end of the spectrum. But fuck it, those things work.
It was incredibly healing to bring my lonesome self to natural highs. Those moments of self-created bliss and ecstasy gave me relief, and the afterglow was pretty gosh-darned lovely as well.
Image by cocoparisienne from Pixabay
Those moments gave me relief from that incessant gnawing ache of reluctant solitude.
In spite of all this loneliness and personal strife, by some miracle, I have at my core a reserve of self-respect and self-esteem. I’ve never been one to settle for less than what I want.
Ironically enough, those desolate years built up my self-worth. I knew from the depths of my being that I was not so wretched to deserve the isolation I endured.
I also built up an eclectic network of beautiful humans as friends.
That did not come easy either.
Even though loneliness has become an American epidemic - to the point that it’s considered even more deadly than smoking or obesity - there’s little support for the isolated.
To admit that you’re lonely is to beg for ostracism.
Loneliness is a repellent.
Isolation makes you vulnerable, and thus makes it challenging to attract healthy people who have integrity and would make quality friends.
Friendships that are false or weak, riddled with judgment, and bereft of understanding will make one feel lonelier than ever.
I suffered numerous fall-outs, and many times I walked away from various individuals and groups who didn’t support me or treat me well.
In the short term that made the loneliness worse, but in the long run I built up a marvelous community, which I am so grateful for.
With each authentic friendship I forged, a chunk of loneliness fell off me.
Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay
I had a ridiculous amount of freedom. And I would later regret not appreciating that freedom while I had it.
An energy worker told me she could feel the anguish of my loneliness in my third chakra. She also paused and said:
“Mana, you really need to get comfortable with being alone before you can have the relationship you want. If you don’t, the kind of person you call in will be a reflection of your loneliness. And it will not go well.”
I knew she was right, and I wanted to be able to heed what she said. But I had been so lonely for so long, that pain was unbearable. I simply couldn’t.
Falling in love was all I could think about. And I didn’t know how much longer I could stand being alone.
The energy worker was right.
I finally met somebody about 6 months after that session. I was on a dating marathon through OkCupid, and she was date #8.
Our hungers drew us together. Both of us were desperate for different reasons.
The first three months were incredible. To be gratified in love after being long-denied was one of the purest ecstasies I’ve ever known.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
We only got to enjoy that for a few months. Then the stress of her excessive load of baggage burst our bubble, and in I fell into the pressure cooker of her mistakes.
But I was already hooked. I took on her baggage as my own, and did everything I could to make that relationship work.
We lasted for nearly 4 years.
In that time, we got engaged and lived together for the last year we were together. The miseries of our relationship got worse every year.
I made serious attempts to end it before the first year was up, and at the 2nd year, and several attempts while we lived together. But each time, I caved under pressure to stay.
My friends asked me why. One friend even came straight out and suggested I stayed because I was afraid of being alone. She was stunned when I went back after the 2nd breakup attempt. I was with her and she witnessed the relief on my face.
I really wanted this relationship to work. But as time passed, fear of loneliness kept me there far more than love.
Yet I found myself missing the freedom I once had with the loneliness. I didn’t do the things I loved that brought me to euphoria as much any more. My ex-fiancee did not enjoy those things.
So when I did them, I went alone.
I didn’t reach those bliss peaks as often. The insidious realization that I was in the worst kind of lonely — the loneliness of being in an unhappy relationship that drained me — made that difficult.
As time passed, I realized that I had everything I never wanted in a relationship and nothing that I did.
Living together had been a catastrophe from the start.
On the suggestion of another friend, I came up with an exit plan. That was necessary because when the last straw was loaded, my tolerance broke and I left.
My exit plan was immaculate and left no room for persuasion. The relief was immediate and rather intoxicating.
I left my own home for 5 weeks to give my ex-fiancée and my ex-stepdaughter time to move out.
It’s very strange to be transient without traveling, especially because I had 4 cats with me.
Although I was alone, I had so much support. My friends supported me, as well as the beautiful people I met along that peculiar journey. The cats helped too.
I definitely went through periods of despondency and loneliness. But the even greater sensation is relief. Because even when I’m lonesome and depressed, I’m still happier and much lighter than I was in a relationship that made me miserable.
I left my fiancée three months ago, and solitude has a different flavor now.
I’m alone, but I’m not lonely. I savor every minute of freedom, every time I can change my mind and my plans at the last minute and not have somebody to answer to.
Spontaneity is almost orgasmic it feels so good.
A couple of days ago, I even savored the pleasure of excitement.
It had been so long since I was excited about something.
Hobo Punks Remembered - On the Road #22
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
In my last On the Road blog here, I mentioned at the end that I had interviewed a few hobo punks who I had met while traveling in Alaska with the potential to freelance an article to the Anchorage Press.
It is one of my most painful regrets of that road trip that I didn’t follow through on that. Because I did interview these people. Their stories were incredible, and they deserved to be known for that.
I probably had a gnarly case of road fatigue.
For all the excitement and adventure of the unknown and this odyssey, it was exhausting to pack up the Beast and move from town to town, where I didn’t have any roots or emotional investment.
I had it in me to interview them. Then that was it.
The main people I interviewed, Derrick and Kylie Greene (names changed for privacy) had settled down in Anchorage. At the time that I had met them, they had a young son, and Kiley was pregnant with their second child.
This was in the autumn of 2005. In the 90’s, there was an exodus of teenagers out of the homes into the streets. The core of the homeless teens were – and still are - those who left dangerous family environments and those who had gotten kicked out of their homes, usually for coming out as gay.
But then there were those who came from safe homes and were simply restless and probably didn’t fit in with the mainsteam conventional culture from which they came.
If I remember correctly, Kylie had been a hobo punk longer than Derrick. I think he had hit the road around 16 or 17, whereas she had been on the road from the time she was 13 or 14.
Originally from Louisiana, she said her mother and sister worried sick about her, and often begged her to come home, which she would never do no matter how dangerous life on the streets was.
“I remember one time me and a couple friends found a squat (an abandoned, empty building) as a place to crash. One night, these older homeless bums came in and saw us. We overheard them talking about how they were going to kill us to claim the space.”
Kylie shuddered as she remembered, and shook her head.
“We were so scared.”
Kylie and Derrick met through the network of hobo punks that hit the road. Both had a lot to say about the network of homeless youth on the road, how they managed with no money and very few resources beyond each other.
Safety happens in numbers. Hobo punks know this.
They talked about connecting with the Rainbow family, the nomadic tribe that travels from National Park to National Forest year round, when they needed more resources or the security that comes with a group.
They talked about hitchhiking and hopping trains, as the hobos of the Great Depression did to get around. They talked about living in squats, sleeping in encampments, panhandling, and receiving money and food from kind-hearted strangers.
“It gets harder as you get older,” Derrick said.
They also talked about the excessive alcohol and drug use that goes hand-in-glove with that lifestyle.
They talked about Punksgiving, celebrated at the same time as conventional Thanksgiving, and that people traveled from all over to come to it. In fact, I’m pretty sure, it was at a Punksgiving that Kylie and Derrick met.
Image by Ryan McGuire From Pixabay
They showed me a group photo of an early Punksgiving before they married. Everybody in the picture hammed it up. Kylie had her ginger hair in a Mohawk and wore brown overalls, Derrick had his hair slicked back, and I recognized the guy I found in Seward who told me where to find them.
Once they settled down in Anchorage, they’ve been the hosts for Punksgiving. And it was no easy feat for those hobo punks to get to Anchorage from the lower 48 (the rest of the United States, except Hawaii).
That was becoming problematic for them.
Although it was part of their tribal values to open their homes to their hobo punk family, then they’d have far too many people in their house expecting to be able to stay. They’d drink all day, not help with the bills, housework, look for a job, or anything.
And they were in Anchorage in late November, where winter was always well under way.
This honest, humble working class family were especially conscious of the difficulty of this. They were torn between the past and the present and the needs for their future, especially because they had a four-year-old son and Kylie was pregnant again.
“It’s gotten harder as we’ve gotten older,” Derrick said. “It just doesn’t work to keep partying like that and not doing anything.”
“Derrick became a journeyman at his job this year,” Kylie continued. “And things have just changed for us. We don’t know how much longer we can continue to host Punksgiving because it causes a lot of problems.”
I asked them if they missed their former way of life. They both nodded.
“Yeah,” Kylie said. “But it was just getting too hard. People don’t want to help you out so much when you’re not so young and cute anymore. It’s harder to get rides and money and food and stuff that you just need.”
Both of them were only 24-25 years of age at the time of my interview.
In the long run, Derrick and Kylie were the fortunate ones.
Life on the road is hard, especially the way they lived it. It’s a way of life that the young and restless still engage in. Several years ago, I met a young woman who had lost her leg in an injury where she was hopping a train.
Image by lannyboy89 From Pixabay
Derrick and Kylie stopped before life on the road ate them alive.
It’s a real shame that I didn’t buckle down and write that article right after I interviewed them. I recorded the conversation but lost that tape – yes, tape as in cassette tape – years ago.
If I could recall this much 14 years later, how vivid would that article have been if I had written fresh and inspired?
I wonder if Derrick and Kylie still miss the freedom of those rough and ready days as hobo punks.
I imagine that they take road trips whenever they can, and I bet they are usually willing to give a hitchhiker a ride.
If you’d like to read the On the Road blog which preceded this one, click here.
The Unexpected Freedom Drunk
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Can you feel the healing vibes of this wonderful place? Catalonia in the right window. She spent a lot of time there.
So not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about Adventure or Stability in the Writer’s Life. For those who’d like to read about that, there will be a link to that post at the end of this one.
Suffice to say, that’s all changed now and that’s given me something to write about.
I broke off my engagement and that puts me back in the freedom-junkie phase of life. But this time I’m on the road in a very peculiar adventure. I’m vagabonding on the outskirts of Portland until my ex and her daughter move out of my house. And I have 4 cats with me.
Aengus and Rimsky Korsakitty
As break-ups go, this may have seemed sudden to my ex. But we’ve been hanging on by a thread for almost a year, and we’ve had many break-up talks in that time. We even negotiated everything from money to who keeps how many cats to me leaving my own house until my ex and her daughter move out, etc. All the logistics discussed beforehand, when it was time to pull the band-aid off cancer it was time. So how “sudden” can this really be?
Maybe I’m in pain and I’m too numb to know it. Perhaps I’ll feel it when I’m back home in my house that will be empty of their presence and their things. Maybe then I’ll be overcome with a tidal wave of grief and loss. But I suspect we stayed together far past our natural expiration date.
I felt heavy in my heart on waking up every morning for the first week or so, but nothing that I couldn’t shake off within an hour. Other than that, the most notable sensation of each day is relief.
I’m more than 3 weeks past that day when I tore off the band-aid holding our relationship together, and the crushing pain of loss has yet to overcome me. If anything, I feel freedom drunk.
Zephyr and Aengus
I thought that ridiculous sensation of the post-break-up-freedom-drunk ended with my 20’s. This is different. I don’t feel the euphoric giddiness I savored after extricating myself from a toxic relationship when I was young. But I do feel alive. Many people have told me that I seem lighter since I left. Why wouldn’t I? I finally ended a relationship that lasted too long for all the wrong reasons – on my end as well as my ex-partner’s end.
Of course, the first place I stayed helped a lot. It was an absolute jewel, filled with color and light and spaciousness, and oozing with healing vibes I desperately needed. When I got there at Estancia Serenova, I was still in shock. My hostess, Lisa, was so warm and supportive and encouraging that I did the right thing. She also accepted all my cats. That was no easy feat, finding places that were ok with them.
Zephyr
I felt held in that beautiful space, and I stayed there for two weeks.
Where I am now is pleasant enough. I’m on a ranch north of Portland. I’ve enjoyed seeing the freaked out fascination of the cats over the sight and sound of horses, far more massive than dogs.
But it’s the opposite of the light and spaciousness of where I was before. It’s dark and constricted. I have far less space and the cats are starting to drive me a little nuts with their restlessness. But I can appreciate the yin and yang balance of this change – going from the light and expansive to the dark and constrictive. Healing of hope and renewal and then the reality that growing pains hurt for a reason. That’s where I’m at now. And part of me wants to run back to the space and color and light of Estancia Serenova.
And maybe I will. The cats liked it too. They had far more space to run and jump, and they loved going up and down that ladder to the loft.
Rimsky Korsakitty
This is not the most fun I’ve ever had on a road trip. But this post break-up freedom drunk is an odyssey of sorts, this bizarre limbo that is really starting to get to me. As a whole, I feel really blessed. I’m lucky that I’m able to distance myself instead of getting mired in the twisty, gnarly web of push and pull that characterizes the last gasps of a dying relationship.
Okay, time to stop now. I’m getting maudlin and gloomy. But this is the first thing I’ve written in weeks. Maybe I’ll return to my novel soon.
Link to previous post, click here.
By the way, aren’t my cats pretty?
Catalonia and Aengus