greenstorm | Morning Sunlight

Well, here it is: a morning where I've woken up and the air is clear and sunny (on first wake-up it was grey, but that's fine) and my head feels clear. I've been waiting for this since before solstice; there's enough sunlight for me to function now, more or less.

I might even be able to write a coherent paragraph if you leave me enough time. I want to form a coherent paragraph. I want to write, because I've been travelling lately in places I haven't been.

Take retail. Here's a job where you're a super-multi-purpose human being: you're a cleaner and an accountant in the evening, you're an actor and a foodhandler and an adding machine during the day, in the bits of time you have in between you're some of the above plus an artist, an errandboy, a weight lifter, an encyclopedia, an organiser, and an item locator. You do a lot of monotonous stuff faster than your body should be able to move, but you should still be alive enough to smile like you mean it, to be clever with the clever folk, and to be friendly with the confused. I dunno, it uses an awful lot of skills in drips and drabs.

Take monogamy. I'm not far into it, but I'm far enough that the full set of blinkers to the rest of the world is beginning to edge away, and I'm still in a good place with it. It requires a whole different set of skills than I'm used to. If I'm not getting something I need from a relationship, I don't find someone else to supply it; I let Angus know, and sometimes wait a little bit. There's been precious little of that so far but it certainly takes being on the ball to catch the fear that I won't get what I need and tell it to wait, oh, twenty-four hours before it takes wings. It's heartbreaking to realise how much of my life I've spent in relationships where I don't get everything I need. In some ways it makes me pretty self-sufficient; in others it makes me standoffish and clingy and clumsy. I'm a newbie in this arena, and it shows sometimes. It's not the ego blow I would expect to take, going from relationship guru (poly) to newbie (mono) but it does make me pretty determined.

I haven't written too much about Angus and how that's all going. For one, I don't want to rub sore noses in it. For another, it's become ambient happy and also very private in some ways (Paul says monogamy is like this naturally, that it feels like a shared secret. Sure, I'll bite). I'm going to write some of that now if I can get it to come out. If it will hurt you to read what comes next, please don't.

He's sleeping behind me right now. It was a rough night and a short one: we stayed up too late, I was in a rough mood, and I gave it to him in my sleep. I'm working too little for the expenses I've got this month, and it's stressing me out. Right now I can reach back and touch his hair (I love the way the little curls kick out from behind his ears when it's this length) and he rolls over after a minute and, still asleep, murmurs, "i'sunny ou'".

Angus likes snow. He knows I like sun.

I could see the tattoos on his back earlier, the two plates that represent earth and the celestial realm, more or less; now that he's on his back the new tattoo, the grape leaves that look like they've been drawn in ballpoint pen until they get filled, is showing. I love the ballpoint pen effect. I can't bite the area because there's both new shading and space where there will be more tattooing done, and I can't hurt the new stuff or bruise the skin that's going to be coloured.

I could look at him for hours. Sometimes I do. I've seen this feeling in other people's eyes when they look at me but I've never, quite, been this far in. I didn't used to understand how my presence made Jan so peaceful, how it didn't matter to his desire to be with me what my mood was or anything, how he was just happy to be by me. I understand now. Back then I couldn't meet Jan even halfway. Now I'm the one going more than halfway.

Normally I pick a quality that I love about someone and that's where my mind normally is when I'm thinking about them: gentle, eccentric, steadfast, charming, passionate, clever, loving. When I write about people I tend to write about that thing. I don't have anything to write in that regard because right now I'm ringed in a clean unbroken circle of what I want in someone with no gaps. Where do you look? His body is right: he has a height and bulk that makes me feel surrounded and protected when his arms are around me, he smells right, his skin is addictive to touch with a variety of furry and soft bits, his hands are huge and rough and I can probably corset down so they can fit around my waist middle-fingertips-together thumbtips-together, his voice is gentle, his casual touch can set my body on fire like nothing I've ever experienced, I've thought he was beautiful since I first saw him years ago (and one smile, one night, on the twenty bus years ago, is burned into my memory like the first time I noticed Kynnin walking down the hallway in high school). He has the habits of someone who lives with others well: he doesn't raise his voice, he thinks before he speaks, he is gentle, he is caring, he notices things and gives freely when something he can give is desired. He does things he loves, and is committed to them. He has been faithful, he is honest, and he can open himself to others. He has the guts to send me home at 3am if I'm neglecting a personal responsibility, but he is happy spending enormous amounts of time together. We share taste in movies and music. We love to cook together. He has an intuitive grasp of spicing that's nothing short of amazing, and he likes to eat the things I make. He makes me want to sculpt again. We have fantastic sex. He is perceptive and clever, and says the most penetrating or witty things when I'm not expecting it. No matter how hard I try he can always pin me when we're wrestling, but he likes it when I hurt him.

That could go on longer, but there's not much point right now. I think we all see where I'm at with this, and that's in deep and happy with it. To quote Agatha Christie, the thought of relationships with other people beside this with Angus is like the moon when the sun is out - or maybe the stars. Monogamy feels natural. I definitely wouldn't want to jeapordise this for anyone, nor do I want anyone else. I can still feel my old habits. I comforted people with sex, and people are hurting around me. I feel helpless with nothing to give them and no way to distract. I feel like I'm a thin and useless friend in such times. Still, I know - I do know - that there have to be other things to do for people. Pain draws me like a magnet, as always, with simple happy moments a lesser draw. I still am not happy with that pattern, and now that I'm getting out again I need to keep countering it mindfully.

And really, in my life I have never wanted anyone physically with this sort of intensity, except perhaps one night in Kynnin's mom's guest room when Jan put his hand on my belly and we talked all night under the streetlight that came in the window, and perhaps a couple of days with Kynnin here and there, maybe one or two moments with one particular person otherwise. Sex was a thing to do, it was enjoyable (very!), intimate, joyful, bonding, relaxing, but it wasn't like this, and never consistently when it was. It feels like an awakening of sorts, like letting yourself look at girls with desire for the first time when all your life you've been trying to pretend you liked boys, or something. I don't know. I have no metaphors for this. It's just what it is.

I don't want this writing to be a negation of my other relationships. I was close with people, I loved them, we were intertwined and there were good solid together-things that I could jump up and down on and never crack. They were precious. They're not what I'm doing now, though, and I don't think I'll do the same thing again..

So, it goes well, and intensely. When I was dating CrazyChris and I met Angus for the first time, I essentially turned to him afterwards and said: About Angus-- we're poly, right? and he said not that one, he's too intense. At the time it would never have worked, but now I find myself matched in that department.

We've covered work, relationship, now homelife-- not too much more to go. Cooking puts a big stupid grin on my face and I think I'll start doing something else artsy again. I've been writing for an hour now and that feels really good. Just to be clear-enough minded to write is amazing. My bike is almost functional (sigh), I haven't got enough money to pay off my obligations, and I've lost ten pounds with the amount of walking I've been doing. My legs have gone hard and skinny, with my calves disappearing till they don't fill out my capris anymore. My hips are doing much the same thing. Huh, exercise, whod'a thunk?

My house is a bit dirty (floor needs washing), but hey. I decided I'd take a day sometime in the future where I did zero housecleaning and zero working-for-a-living on the same day. I'm looking forward to it.

I want to take a sleeping bag and a tarp and roll myself up in the endowment lands at UBC for a night. I want to go to Chinese New Year, to the parade in Chinatown.

I'm waking up. Soon the tiny red hazel flowers will be out and it will be spring.