Illusionary walls

[greenstorm]

Monogamy is obsessed with sex; it elevates sex above other forms of human connection. It reads a sexual connection like tea leaves, expecting that type of interaction to predict and fulfill the whole of relating to someone. Sex can be emotional, connecting, or transcendent sure, but that's a lot of power to give one type of interaction. There are so many ways of relating that can also be emotional, connecting, or transcendent. It's weird to me to have compatibility in one stand in for compatibility in the others; likewise it's weird to rule huge swaths of connection out because they're notionally connected to one type.

Plus the rules always seem to arbitrary to me. Monogamous people themselves generally don't know them; if you ask two people in a monogamous couple where their lines are, what counts as allowable outside intimacy vs what doesn't, they will rarely agree even within the couple. What's more, they'll often universalize their expectations and assume all other monogamous folks share their own particular set of restrictions around physical/emotional/energetic contact.

For these reasons I struggle to interact with mono folks on a meaningful level. Keep it distant, keep it polite, because they can't be trusted to state their own boundaries up front and I can't know what they are from my outside perspective. Even something like texting daily, sharing a favourite song, hugging, hanging out late at night-- I can never tell what's not going to be ok, and I hate that. There are some folks I can trust to state and hold their boundaries but most of those people have been poly at some point.

That said, I had a lovely evening at J's last night. I still feel relatively comfortable inhabiting my body around him, which is something I'd worried about losing. I also like cooking for folks I care about, and who are appreciative.

On the other hand this is another connection that's going to inhabit the ok-right-now, likely-disappearing-soon space that my connection with Tucker does, I think? And that's destabilizing.

And this morning I'm super stressed about work; the way that's going down between management, and trying to figure out if I should pull the union in, around support for my autism/health stuff, is probably stressful enough that it entirely counteracts the shorter work-weeks I'm supposed to be doing to reduce stress and increase my capacity to work through this stuff. The command-and-control way work is approaching the situation is also super triggering my PDA, which in turn is making everything else in my life more difficult.

Ugh.

Comments

[yarrowkat]

yeah, there was a stretch where my only relationship was with A and he was in California and i felt very, very single. that was my last stretch of OKCupid dating, actually, but then i met Miriam (through mutual friends), and well, a lot of things followed.

it is a reminder to myself of the many benefits of living in a city, even if the traffic noise drives me absolutely bats sometimes and i want to flee back to Cazadero - that most of my relationships can be in-person is a city effect.

i do not entirely follow the wedge metaphor?

[greenstorm]

If you think of a blade cutting a new path, the blade is made up of a couple parts: the very thin edge that makes first cut and gets dulled and blunted and dinged up; the mass of metal behind the edge that stabilizes and reinforces the edge and in the case of an axe or a heavy knife provides some momentum; and the handle which creates leverage and ease-of-use. I think of any social change as being a cut into society with a blade like this: someone starts on the bleeding edge, they've never really seen it done before but it needs to be, and they start forging those first changes. Behind them comes a support crew, the part behind the edge, folks who catch the ideas and starts and build on them and expand them and try to keep the front folks functional and running. Then comes the handle group, the folks who make the way easier for general folks to join through normalization and lots of writing an structural change or whatever so that everyone can follow the new path.

Does that make sense? I think almost entirely in metaphor so I'm never sure how much translates.

To live "in" a city and have access to secure land seems like an amazing thing.

[yarrowkat]

yes, thank you! that's a lovely metaphor.

maybe it is an amazing thing. it's so *loud* here. traffic, sirens, what sounds like a million dogs, airplanes, air force base traffic (they're only a few miles away across the river). it feels hot and dry as a tinderbox and noisy and cramped, on our little 4 acre slice surrounded by an increasing number of residences on all sides (since the neighbor with the 75 acres split it in half and then split the other half into 1-acre lots and sold them all to people who are now building homes). there is still Robert's 45 next to us on the north but we're getting hemmed in here.

idk. i'm depressed today, flattened by the household covid situation and the need to cancel my best plans for it, so i'm not in a good headspace around this whole close-packed community living thing i'm doing. plus having another option is really deeply on my mind. i need to write its own entry about that.

[greenstorm]

Under seige.

I have a bit of that feeling here this summer, the retired couple across the way moved out and what seems like a dozen fifteen-to-twenty-year-olds with dirt bikes and loud trucks and lots of friends and guns moved in, the vacant lot next door is now occupied most of the time by the new neighbour, and my back field now extends far enough back that it's visible not just to my neighbours but also to the next house over in both directions. Feels crowded. And that's without seventy five (!!!!) new neighbours.

I hear you. Maybe a bit of an NRE ride in there too? The other option is Terra's?

[yarrowkat]

an accurate description.

probably 25-27 new neighbors - he kept 45 in alfalfa; they split up the other 30, then put a road down the middle of it, and now building is happening - so far 4 new houses but there's preparations going on for more.

probably the NRE ride, too, yes. Leslie is being sensible and thoughtful and kind (and present!) via text, so, more green flags there.

the other option is Tara's, with Terra - Mohrhardt Ranch, in Cazadero. i had a long zoom call with Tara yesterday and this is real, this is on the table; she genuinely wants us there if we decide to do it. it would be in a few years, not now. i just posted a long thing about it. i'm conflicted in many ways and yearning hard for it also. i do not envy you having to do everypart of every farm chore by yourself - i admire it, but don't envy it. but i do envy you getting to make your own decisions at every turn and not be countermanded by others, or constantly having to negotiate and shift around others' needs in your personal living space and in how you get through your day. i miss living alone. Cazadero wouldn't be that, but it would be a lot closer.

[greenstorm]

Would the plan be to bring on more people than you, Tara, and Terra over time? I mean, I know you posted about it, and something about a tiny house community, would that be more command-and-control? Because that land can definitely support more people than SR can, not sure how much the space will absorb differences in planning and strategy (I don't see it cut up into a patchwork for everyone to make their own decisions on, but also there's more room for someone's project to spread out, I guess?)

[yarrowkat]

Amy, Lori. all Body Trust folks. i don't know if Tara wants more people than that - an awful lot depends on what Tara wants and how she wants to achieve it. the land is very large. and mostly wild, and mostly going to stay that way. she is also going to deed her whole section of the ranch (her aunt/cousins own another section, also about 2000 acres) to the Kayasha Pomo, the local Native tribe, upon her death. we'll be looking at creating some language that says that if either of us outlive her (and i am the youngest of us, tho of course that's not a certain predictor), we'd get to stay put (with what specific rights? need to figure out a lot of details) until our deaths, and then this trnasfer would be complete, but meanwhile they would manage the extensive wild areas. or something like that. how does that change if there is a wider community there? open questions.