TMI

It's always interesting how passing thoughts relate.  I had been thinking about the Umb family ever since my google-stroll through F-burg.  I was wondering how they all were.

I think it is wonderful that you solved the mystery of the pain in your hips and legs.  I am sorry that you suffered on your way to the answer.  It makes perfect sense.  I always think the first step is to name the monster and then, once it has a name, we can battle with it, and eventually overcome.  But, you know, I don't like the word battle.  I am trying to remove violence from my words and thought patterns.  We can struggle and negotiate and analyze and ultimately disempower.  All of my tension is in my jaw.  I clench all the time.  In fact I clench my teeth so hard, that I broke one.  So I am learning to release, since I am not willing to have that happen again.  Whenever I clench I (think I) immediately notice and relax.  I think healing happens in more than one way.  If I overcome my demons and feel safe, I would probably stop clenching my jaw.  But maybe this conscious decision not to clench is allowing healing to slip in unnoticed.

And I think damage is done to our body on a spiritual plane.  Your hips may have looked okay on an x-ray, but on a different level, they were damaged and never allowed to heal.  What do you think would happen if you relaxed your hips.  Sometimes I think that if I unclenched my jaws I would start howling and not be able to stop.  Those words must be true, because the thought is making me cry.

Mom decided to explain menstruation to me when I was too young to care.  She drew a picture of the uterus and Fallopian tubes, which looked like a Martian to me.  She let me go after that comment.  I was interested a few years later, but she didn't want to talk about it any more.  I think at least portions of our society are screwed up about sex, but the dysfunction goes deep into our family.  There is something almost predatory, stalking family members, fearing anything sexual. Those of us lacking predator mentality, we become prey.  And if you aren't safe with your family, you simply are not safe.   I remember B#1 loudly berating nieces who were pretending to be cheerleaders in the yard during a family gathering at the cabin.  They were not sexy, but he perceived sexuality and it scared him enough to try to silence their childish exuberance.  I remember thinking,  "Afraid you're going to attack them, too?" 

Sex and sexuality are such a gift.  The connection and union it affords with another person makes life a higher experience.  And our gift has been shredded through the generations.  The abuse destroys our pleasure and the joy we could possibly find with another.  It makes pleasure the source of pain and shame.  That is the function of rape.  It rips sex and love apart, and teaches us that our feelings are inconsequential.  We are just here to serve another.  Our feelings simply don't exist.  We are not that important.  We are lesser, worth-less, than the predator's needs to vent their pain.

So I think it's very appropriate to become riled when we talk about sex.  I think it's important to become riled.  It is the source family torture.  So rant and mourn and be furious.

The interesting night meditations continue.  When I was young, I could see fairies.  That's the kind of child I was.  I loved getting up really early on summer mornings and being outside, alone in the silence.  Magical.  And the fairies were about.  I told Mom, and she told the neighbor, and they thought I was so cute, snicker, snicker - roll of the eyes.  So I grew up, conformed, and shut my eyes to the magic of this Earth.

The part of Faduly that used to called Ugly spread wings last night...like a giant beautiful moth, maybe.  Perhaps a hummingbird moth.  I'm wondering if there was a caterpillar to moth metamorphosis.  Maybe I will start to change, outwardly, too.  And then the little girl from the box came back.  She is a fairy child.  Long legged and elven, although all night I was corrected - not an elf, a fairy!  And she is dancing.  I can't tell exactly who she is or why she was in the box.  I think she may be part me, and part the story of our family, so part of all of us.  But she's dancing, and enjoying her freedom.

I never heard Mom say she would rather die than lose a breast.  What I remember is that when she chose mastectomy over lumpectomy, she said she would rather lose a breast than fear having cancer in her body.  We all think we know what we'll do, but when faced with reality, it's different than we imagined.  Life is more precious than anything else.  Why do we cling so tightly to this life?

One last thought about sex.  Only our generation has sex.  I tried to talk to my youngest about something sexual once, and he put his fingers in his ears and sang,  "I don't want to hear this from my mother..."  I told him what I needed to say, speaking over his song, then left him alone.  Our children don't have sex.  Our parents and grandparents don't have sex...it's just our generation!  The rest of the humans spontaneously generated!  So Dad and his Viagra...TMI!  Although I hope to be sexual when I am 80!

Smile, Love!!