|
06.09.04 - 6:08 p.m.
the equilibrium between need and want this entire week so far (and it's only wednesday) has been about rediscovery, or more specifically, not just about the need for me to 'move back to the middle' as india.arie once said, but to realize that hot damn i'm already there!!! some enormous impasse broke inside of me, when i drove those 477 miles this past weekend back to my home of origin, drove all alone despite my mother's neuroses in the sportiest flashiest car i've ever driven: a 2-door silver mitsubishi eclipse... the most nirvanic point was driving at 80 mph on the high way, with blu catrell's "breathe" playing at full blast, drinking from my water bottle and realizing "yes circling, THIS, is living the adult life" damnit to hell, at last at last perhaps 10 years over due, but friggin ' at LAST i've shifted the rite of passage into adulthood - yes, my father tells me that my mother was trembling with prayerful angst and trepidation that i wouldn't drive home safely by myself. (i do not hyperbolize - the only force more powerful than a mac truck is my mother devout christian faith). instead, by the second day, she relaxed enough to sit in the damn passanger seat for once, and let me drive the two hours to the wedding we attended. skip hooplah over wedding. it happened. i'm glad. brought up lots of feelings (many hysterical) to sit admidst the caribbean clan on the bride's side, and the german clan on the groom's side - but despite the eyebrow raising, and furtive looks, everyone behaved themselves... and the most touching moment was when the bride, while reciting her vows, just busted out crying in tears. (inside i said to myself, if ever i reach that side of an altar in a wedding ceremony, if ever i at age 35 or however old joan is - if ever i actually find a person willing to spend the rest of their life with me, and with whom i could see not just spending my life with but trusting, confiding, and at last depending fully and leaning whole-heartedly, without fear that my lover's arms would give way and dissolve in weakness, or abandon me and break away in repulsion, or proclaim their arms already full with propping their ownselves up to lend an arm to support my hand, if ever.. [just fill in the blank....] if EVER after all these years of desire, i do find that special someone with whom i recite those 'forever do us part' vows, i'll say right here and now, that i KNOW i will cry to...surely, i will bawl and at once expose and clamp down on the deepest sadness of disbelief i carry within me that that impossible desire could ever be close to fulfillment for me.) and the lowest point: well, just reverse the ms. independence car image, and replace that with me being outrightly dangerous and reckless, and daring myself to purge the distasteful KFC meal i'd choked down, purged while driving 85 miles an hour - purging self-loathing, anger, uncertainty, vulnerability - and maybe to relive that bulimia mindset that i'd railed against 4 years earlier - when my close buddy m___ra purged while deep-sea scuba diving - just like i was so upset with m__ra for risking purging, choking, and drowning while howmany feet underwater - i felt numbly upset that i'd let myself purge, swerve, and potentially crash my rented car while driving as fast as i dared. the days since i returned from my trip have been filled with just one important realization, or warm time spent, or incredible leaps in my dissertation writing, or feeling like a brave new me that i FINALLY got the courage to schedule a meeting with "the referral" lady at our campus health center, and set the wheels in motion for starting with a new therapist. last night i had not just a super fun sleepover at my buddy j__e's place, but her friends, an awesome committed lesbian couple dropped by, and no J_and I aren't a couple (and, i don't need to go into the recent feelings stirred up by her confiding in me her decision to break things off with her current lover s___n), i just owe, it was just such a perfect night... j_ and i finally talked about stuff other than our friggin advisors, and grad life, and rehashed relationship stuff, and when e___n and s___a came over (and s___a is not only a history ph.d., but a fierce labor organizer for central american immigrants) -- and to hear her reminisce about l.a. the way i go mushy over nyc memories just makes me feel so good - e__ and j__ wanted to watch the lakers-pistons game, and while those two were all caught up with that, s__a and i had this so necessary urgent important heart to heart talk about strong women of color and why they find themselves where they are - not just alone, but seemingly unapproachable by those around them. so for now, i'll just post here the words that s__a told me to think about, from of all places, audre lorde's autobiography z_: in audre lorde's preface, almost like a love note never sent (that first lover i think committed suicide, so lorde never got to tell these words), lorde writes: "To the first woman I ever courted and left. She taught me that women who want without needing are expensive and sometimes wasteful, but women who need without wanting are dangerous -- they suck you in and pretend not to notice" ... the entire spectrum from wanting to needing (and the mature sites of "would like to, but prefer not to" that have only become visible to me in the last 5 years of my life or so)... yes, that entire spectrum, i believe is one big game of pretend - not just between the strong woman and her potential lovers, but that strong woman and herself. i need to absorb this incredibly appropriate quotation, which applies to my life (the situation lorde writes from does NOT match my current one exactly - by no means - the p.o.v.s, and who did what to whom - or rather who needed whom or wanted whom or ( even more particularly, pretended not to need whom or want whom) first... i'm not at all using this quote to respond to a recent exchange with someone about a relationship that battered and tangled and strangled and to be fair, i admit at times, even nourished and clarified, all these moments of wanting and needing through which a strong woman of color revolves as she makes her way through _loving in her war years __ (yes, i must read cherrie moraga too, as soon as i'm done with conde) . s__a just happened to give to me this enigmatic pearl of audre lordes, which i need to ruminate on and answer some hard questions to myself about in my journal... i really think i'm ready to face those questions head on in myself. and who knows, maybe good fortune lies ahead later this summer -- (for the record, just want to list the other awesome news that came my way in the last 24 hrs that just made this quote feel propitious about the future - - my advisor mpb asked me to mentor a student of hers, and after laughing at the friggin' irony of it all - neglect on her part towards me, while soliciting 'mentorship' on my part for "her summer mentee"- anyway, i asserted myself and asked if we couldn't not have lunch sometimes soon... she said yes... i look forward to my advisor's return from germany and china next week... my buddy at irvine just emailed me news of an apartment, and i gleefully informed her that i've got a place to stay, and am making up a let's go l.a. list my summer stipend is FINALLY coming via direct deposit tomorrow. t__o invited me to see the new hairy potter movie - i had to say no, but i look forward to her good company minus ugly vibes from unrequited infatuation this spring. j__e and i watched the l word for the first time last night, and i'm hooked... i actually saw myself visible on the screen - not in the jennifer beals character, but in this subplot thread they have going of a black bisexual educated woman interested in flirting with jennifer's character and stealing her away from tina. i repeat - i saw a popular club of urban ppl of color, both gay and straight, and not just one or two token women of color interested in each other [plus a cameo appearance by snoop dogg, saying that "okay, i respect that"]. the tailor said he could fix my two favorite messenger bags in the world. my friend s___ h isn't upset with me at all for not going to her graduation, and in fact, just wrote me the sweetest friendster testimonial today... uhm, another personal "i'm 30 yrs old gift to myself" (ur, a dainty discreet little vibrator) finally arrived - i'm still on the rag, and not sure if i should just stick a condom on the dildo and friggin use it, or wait til my stupid period stops...but it's nice to fantasize about the possibilities. oh, there's so much more...i'll stop here and get back to writing my dissertation - oh I WROTE 750 WORDS TODAY - now dang nabbit - if i continue on that pace (about 1.5pp) by the end of the summer, i'll have a chapter. okay enough enough enough - tomorrow's another day - i don't need nor want to write anymore - i'm feeling satisfied...on an equilibrium between needful and wanting... i don't know why i'm here at this precise moment in my life, in this summer, in time of the year, but it feels so good... and i just can't wait for the insights in store...
MUSIC: jamaraquoi: "synchronized"
READING: m. conde's memoirs: "tales frm the heart"
FEELING:refreshingly balanced
�
|
