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INDIA - the experience of a lifetime

Posted on Feb 4th, 2010 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
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WELL, I'm home from two months in India and Bhutan.   

I haven't been able to write before now, because I'm been so busy shouting "Hallelujah" and dancing the fandango.

When I arrived in 'Incredible India' (my first port of call was Kerala, in the south), I was amazed and shocked and amused and horrified.   It's just such an amazing mix of experiences.   One minute my mouth would be gaping open at some incredible sight and the next minute I would be laughing out loud at something on the other end of the scale of experiences.

I saw families of five on a tiny little motor scooter - toddler standing at the front, dad next, another youngster behind him, and mum on the back, holding a baby.   You would often see three men on a bike, or two - one driving and the other holding a television, or a door, or two chairs or whatever had to be moved.   A poor donkey would be laden down with more than what you could squeeze into a pick up truck.   Or a camel would amble past, towing a huge wooden cart.   One day I literally dropped my bag on the ground and ran to snap a photo of an elephant rumbling by.   But then felt sick when I saw the shackles on its feet.

There were two things that I could not accept or get used to in India - the filth everywhere and the way they neglected their stray dogs.  

It made me angry to see this incredible country, disrespected.   I was shocked when a couple I did the backwaters tour with in Kerala admired the view, then threw their drink bottles into the water.   "How could you do that?!" I exclaimed.   "How can you admire how beautiful it is, then pollute it with your rubbish?"   "Oh, sorry," they apologised, "it's just habit, it's something we don't even think about."

I couldn't think of why a whole nation is content to throw their rubbish out the door, leaving the wind to blow it away.   They have made their whole country a rubbish dump.   Even at the Taj Mahal, the most beautiful building in the world I think, people still dropped their rubbish on the ground rather than putting it in the bins provided (a rarity in India - the bins, that is, not the rubbish).

Stray dogs are left to fend for themselves, so they fight for territory and food and are in such poor condition.   Flea-ridden, mange, skinny, gooey-eyes, sad, sad faces.   It broke my heart.   As much as possible I tried to feed as many as I could.   Whenever I went into town by auto-rickshaw, I would buy a bag of dry dog food and throw it out along the way home, to the dogs on the side of the road.   I also saved my foodscraps from meals and cadged whatever I could from restaurants whenever I saw a dog in need.

At night, when I heard dog fights or a dog being attacked, I would cringe in my bed, my heart breaking at the poor defenceless little creature being mauled.   I found several dead dogs on the beach while I was there.

On my morning walk, I gave dry food (I never saw cans of dog food), to a couple of families who had taken a dog in.   One of them had a puppy, so full of love and vitality, but they had it tied to a tree on a bit of rope about three or four foot long.   It had no water that I could see, even though I explained over and over again in pantomime - one bowl for the dry food and one bowl for water.

The children gave me a christmas card, and on the envelope they had written, "Open with a smile in your heart".  

Before I relate the rest of this story, I should tell you that Indians are terrified of dogs.   They used to have a really bad problem with rabies at one stage and I think it's become part of their genetic makeup to think that any dog is going to kill them.   So, in a way, it was very brave of these people to take on a puppy.

I decided that I would show by example how they could get a lot of enjoyment out of their delightful little puppy and so I asked if they minded if I took it for a walk.   They didn't, but the first time the father let it off the rope, it ran straight up to the children and jumped up on them in sheer delight, and they all SCREAMED and ran, terrified, into the house.   The poor pup got a whack from the father, and I tried to explain to the children that the dog wasn't attacking them, it was wanting to play with them, but they couldn't be convinced.

When I walked down the road ... I am not kidding you ... people ran and hid in their houses.   A couple of old ladies screamed.   Mothers clasped their children to them.   This was a PUPPY I was walking, not a rottweiler or a wild tiger.   I thought it was funny, and became such an oddity that in the end, people were bringing their children OUT of the house just to see this mad woman going by.   

No doubt people questioned why I was bothering with the dogs, when there were so many humans in need, but I figured humans had the wherewithal to fend for themselves.   The hardest thing for me was seeing how the dogs responded when I approached them ... 98% of the time they cringed away, so unused to human kindness.  

In Australia, our local councils take stray dogs into the pound, and if the dogs are not claimed within a certain time period or are deemed 'dangerous' or not likely to be rehoused, they are 'humanely' put to sleep.   I kept wondering at the morality of our two, completely different, systems.

Kerala is a very unusual place.   I think it has the first democratically-elected communist government in the world.   Very unusual in such a religious country, given that most of its citizens are Christian, Muslim or Hindu.   The state alternates between the communist party and the congress party - given each one five years in turn to show what they can do for the people.   It has been this way for decades apparently.

One person pointed out to me, "We thought the communist party was a communalistic party."     

I had no plans at all as to what I wanted to do in India, but when I mentioned to the resort owner where I was staying, that I was interested in ayurvedic treatments, he organised a visit to a local clinic.   They signed me up for a three week treatment regimen - two hours a day for 21 days.   I had to agree to follow a vegetarian diet, which is something I wanted to do anyway and have continued.   I was surprised that there wasn't any particular 'assessment' of my health, but I figured maybe the doctor (a fourth generation ayurvedic clinician), knew from looking at me what I needed.

The masseuses who worked on me - Anada and Ayuna - assured me that I would look ten years younger and "get shape" by the end of my treatment, although they did stress, sometimes the full effects may not be seen until three months afterwards.   (I'll let you know).

So each day, I was given a head massage for about 15 minutes and then a full body massage for an hour.   This 'massage' was not the deep tissue work I've always been used to, but long-limb rubs - no manipulation at all.   My body was literally slathered in oil and the two women worked on me simultaneously.   I was completely naked, except for this tiny little strip of calico which was tied between my legs from a string around my waist.

To amuse them while I worked, I would sing so now there will be generations of Indians who will pass on to their children, "Sugar in the mornin', sugar in the evenin', sugar at supper time ... be my little sugar and love me all the time."  

In the second week of treatment, I still had the head massage, but instead of a long-limb massage, I had warmed oil drizzled over me.   THE most sensually, relaxing experience I've ever had.   (I thought warm buttermilk over my forehead was relaxing, but this was tongue-hanging-out-the-side-of-my-mouth kind of relaxing).   (Think Homer Simpson kind of relaxed).

The final week of treatment was head massage and then warm oil being drizzled over my forehead only.   This treatment is meant to relax / stimulate the brain and I can't say that I found it an altogether pleasant experience (although I loved it the first time I had it, several years ago).

By the time my round of ayurvedic massage treatments had finished, I had been in Kerala for almost a month and I was itching to get moving and explore more of India.   I had grown very close to Annie, the owner of the resort and she and her husband Roshan, had invited me to spend Christmas with them, but when I checked airline tickets to head up towards the north of India, I was horrified how expensive they were.   Then I saw that the fares were much-reduced if I left the next day, which I rushed to do.

I literally ran out the door of the resort, with Annie in tears saying she didn't want me to go.   She'd just broken her foot a couple of days before and I did feel like a deserter, leaving in such a hurry, but I had come to explore India and I wasn't seeing all that much in Puthenthorpe and Trivandum.   I just wanted to go.   It was time.   But I cried all the way to the airport.   On the way though, the taxi driver stopped off at an Aircell office so I could buy an Indian sim card since my brand new Telstra phone was totally useless.   I'd organised international roaming before I left, but in the whole month, I think I'd only got reception once in a little isolated spot in Trivandum.

When you go to India, everyone tells you, "Be careful of your money!   Watch out for thieves!   Don't trust anyone!   They'll rob you blind."   So when I flew into Calcutta, I braced myself for the worst.   I'd once read that Calcutta had been described as "the arsehole of the world", so I was ready for seeing dead babies in rubbish bins, bodies in the streets, beggars at every turn.   

My darling on-line friend, Girish, had worded me up about making sure that I organised pre-paid taxis whenever I arrived anywhere, and not to venture out of any airport or bus station until I'd been to the Pre-Paid Taxi counter.   So, after I had collected my luggage at Calcutta Airport, I went straight to the pre paid taxi counter and joined the queue.   I'd been there for about ten minutes or so, and noticed that we hadn't progressed at all in that time - in fact, I was even further back in the line that I'd been when I joined it!   I looked up ahead and saw that latecomers were just bypassing the queue and going straight to the window, pushing in and they were being served!

I made all sorts of "that's not fair" noises in the queue, but I seemed to be the only one who felt that there had been any injustice.   "They must be in a bigger hurry than we are," one fellow queue person offered up as a possible explanation for what I saw as rudeness.   Eventually (when all those extremely eager-to-get-home people had been served), I made it to the front of the queue (by this time they were ready to turn the lights out at the airport terminal) and I was given a taxi number to find in the melee of taxi drivers out front.   (HANDY HINT TO POTENTIAL INDIA TRAVELLERS:   Take a torch/flashlight with you so you can find taxi numbers in the dark).   

When I arrived at my accommodation, there was a doorman (a good sign) but when I went inside, there were people sleeping on the floor of the reception area (not a good sign) and I was told that even though I had a reservation, they had run out of room and I would be staying at the hotel across the lane.   Mmmmmmm ....      Over to the other hotel (which didn't have a doorman) and down a dark hall (tripped over some rolled up carpet or something that had been left in the way) and out the back ....   Mmmmmmmm .....    (I seem to be away from everybody else .... Mmmmmmmmm .....     Is that a good thing or a bad thing?)      Into my room ....       Ooooooooookay .... seems fine so far

In India, rather than having a pair of sheets on the bed, they have a bottom sheet only and then a blanket.   I'm thinking, "I wonder how often they wash the blankets?"   But I'm tired ... the place looks okay ... there's a bathroom attached to the bedroom ... Okay, I'll stay.   As I'm settling in, I can hear all sorts of noises coming through the bathroom louvre window ...    Is someone trying to break in?   I can hear voices.   Is someone living out there?   I wonder how strong my door lock is?   Does this phone work?   Eventually though, weariness overwhelms me and I slip beneath that lurid blanket and put all thoughts of who slept here last out of my head.   

In the morning, keen to see where I am, I throw open the barred window of my room, and this is what I see - a demolition site.

WOW!   I've never seen anything like this in my life.   I feel like I've landed somewhere just after the apocalypse.   And yet birds are singing.   Where am I?   I head out into the street to find out.

"Keep your head down!   Don't make eye contact.   Just ignore them, if any beggars come near you.   And don't go with anyone you don't know".   All this advice sounded in my head, but it was still early and the crowd wasn't out in full yet, so I was able to amble along and take in the early morning sights and sounds of Calcutta waking up.   

On the way into the city, the night before, I had seen a lot of rickshaw drivers, asleep under their rickshaws and so full of pity was I for them, that I had determined I would give the first one I came across 200 rupees NOT to have a ride.

The first one I saw, leapt to attention when he saw me approaching, but I waved him off and said (not knowing whether he understood or not), "No, I don't want a ride ... but here, here is something just to make life a bit easier for you today."   He smiled broadly and gave me that beautiful 'Namaste' gesture I love.   Palms clasped together and held towards your chest or mouth.   Head bowed a little.

From a purely selfish point of view, it's easy to feel like a saint in India.   A small kindness that you feel will make a big difference in someone else's life.   But the ocean of need is vast there.   You could spend all day, every day, handing out ten dollar bills, or even hundred dollar bills and still not make a dent in the void.

I got 'taken' very early in my first day in Calcutta.   A woman approached me, distressed about her sick baby.   "Please help me aunty, my baby she is sick.   I no ask for money, just milk, my baby she sick."   Her husband stood beside her, balefully waving his stump of an arm at me, "No can work," he lamented.   She tugged at my arm, desperate.   

"Oh for god's sake, how can anyone refuse?" I thought to myself.   They whipped me around the corner and straight to a shanty type grocery shop.   I don't even recall asking the shop keeper for what I wanted before he thrust two big containers of milk powder at the couple and they disappeared out of sight.   

"A thousand rupees," he told me.   Inside my head I went, "A THOUSAND RUPEES!!!!!!!    FOR TWO CONTAINERS OF MILK POWDER?????"     (A thousand rupees is approximately $30 AUS)   And in those few seconds, I'm also doing the calculation for how many Australian dollars it is, and thinking, "Well, I didn't ask him for it, they did, what am I doing paying for?" and I'm also thinking, "I bet as soon as I disappear around the corner, they'll bring that back and split the profits with the shopkeeper" but my innate sense of politeness got the better of me and I thought, "Well, I did tell them I would buy the milk for them, so I guess I'd better pay for it."

So I paid the thousand rupees, thought to myself, "You bloody fool" and reckoned that as far as being 'taken' goes, it could have been a lot worse I guess.   (I saw that same couple a few days later and she made another plea (maybe we westerners all look alike or she thought I was such a soft touch, I'd go for it again!)   I gave her a withering look and said, "You got to be kidding - you've got all you're going to get out of me!"

But there were plenty more where she came from.   One, was a charming little girl, probably about eight years old.   She had that primitive gypsy way about her - very clued up on how the world works.

There was something very endearing about her, as well as something very wild.   I asked her once if she had ever thought about living anywhere else and she very matter of factly said, "Oh lots of people ask me if I want to go and live with them - in America, England, Italy, Brazil, Germany ... lots of people.   But I stay here."

She followed me a few times into the market, where I was having some clothes made, and the other shop keepers tried to chase her off, but she was adamant, "I'm not a beggar, I'm working like you" and she would bring her little tray up so they could see it - her tray of hair clips and combs.   She followed me back to the hotel a couple of times (under the guise of 'protecting' me she said) ... lol       And she really was attentive.   Any time a rickshaw came close, she would pull me towards her, warning, "Look out aunty!"   (She was probably testing my pockets each time for all I know!)

Other 'guardians' would approach me on the street, if I ever stopped for a moment to check a road name or look for a certain shop.   They would offer help to show you the way, and then ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS ... suggest a side trip to their cousin's shop, or their friend's shop, or their shop.   In the end, I got chased out of Calcutta with all this 'help'.   I just couldn't stand people constantly trying to talk me into something I didn't want to do.

But before I left, I visited the Park Hotel ... an oasis of calm and beauty and serenity ... for probably THE most exclusive type massage I've ever had.   A pair of little slippers (so you didn't bring the dirt of Calcutta into their inner sanctum), a luxurious robe and your own huge shower to wash away your troubles.

When I was doing business with the tailor in the market, I had noticed the stallholder opposite him, had several puppies under the floor of his stall.   "Will you find homes for the pups?" I asked him.   He seemed to find this a very strange concept.   "No," he responded, "when they are ready, they will find their own way in the world."

Such is the strong sense of fatalism in India ... where even little puppies have to find their way in the world.   

Next time:    Darjeeling

(Photos above:

1.   The beautiful Palm Leaves Resort in Putenthorpe, where Annie provides the most delectable food (that's my room up the top).

2.   The beach in front of the resort where I would watch the sunset over the Arabian Sea each night.

3.   Fishermen would come each morning to try their luck in the sea.   Village custom is that any man who helps with the catch, even if he pulls for only a minute or two, is still given a share.

4.   Even though I tried to make friends with these dogs, they would not warm to me, preferring to keep their distance.

5.   When I opened my window the first morning in Calcutta, this was the sight that greeted me ... like something from the apocalypse I thought, but in reality, a demolition site.

6.   Despite dire warnings of murder, mayhem, beggars and thievery, I couldn't wait to get out amongst it in Calcutta.   You could have a video camera running on top of your head there and never run out of fascinating sights.

7.   If you ever want to gasp and laugh at the same time, just get out on to the road in India.   Note:   Traffic in India is on the LEFT HAND SIDE of the road (note where this little fellow and his father (and my taxi) are - on the right hand side of the road!   

The hierarchy of the road is basically - pedestrian, bicycles, rickshaws, auto rickshaws, cars, buses and trucks ... and I mean this is how they are stretched out across the road ...  on both sides of the road!   Everyone drives towards one another with great intent and then at the last possible instant, they veer to their side of the road.   It's hilarious and hair rising at the same time.

BUT I have to say ... I never, in all the months I was there, saw an accident AND I didn't even notice scratches on the sides of cars where they had had near misses.   It all just seems to work.






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On Retreat

Posted on Nov 14th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
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FOR THE NEXT TWO MONTHS ... until 5th February ... I will be away on a spiritual retreat so there won't be anything new from me for awhile.

Since discovering Second Life over two years ago, I have had quite a severe addiction to it and my absence from any technology is, I hope, an opportunity to bring some kind of balance back into my life.

In the meantime, I leave you with some images of my time there.   I know I will return to it, but this time, it will be with me exerting some kind of control over my exposure to it, rather than this insatiable drive I have now.

What I want for myself, what I have discovered there and who I am and want to be all seem to intersect in Second Life.   I have a lot to digest and sort out - fantasy from fact, desire from delusion.

But then ... look at these beautiful images and see why I spend so much time in this wonderful 'fantasy' world.




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David, My Wonderful

Posted on Oct 18th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
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EVERY MAN YOU LET INTO YOUR HEART, brings something unique with him.   Some new hope of acceptance or inspiration or desire.   In the broad brush strokes of life, we now come to David - "My Wonderful".   This is the love affair closest to my heart.   Not only because it was my most recent, but because it was the step which brought me to where I am now.

Being loved by David brought a contentment into my life that was such a calming influence.   Even now, months after I acknowledged that our 'romantic' relationship had come to an end, he still brings a calm to my soul that I miss when it's not there.

Each wound to the heart brings about some change in a person I believe.   We either become more defensive or allow ourselves to remain vulnerable.   With David, I think I am learning to be more realistic about what I can hope to experience via the love of another person.   Certainly, having him in my life, is steering me in the direction of learning to love myself, which is THE most important love affair you can have.

My feelings toward David are still very poignant.   I still miss him.   We chat every now and then; each occasion a bright spot in my life.   

David and I met in Second Life and were both swept away by a mutual feeling of openess, wonder and delight.   We quite literally fell in love in our first conversation.   And it's a conversation I will treasure for the rest of my life because it was so open and trusting.  

Several weeks earlier, my first love affair in SL had come to an end, and I went to one of my favourite places, "Midnight Reflections", looking for some kind of solace.   I'd decided that I would ask the first person I came across to give me a hug and that person was HarpoonDodger Freenote, who I found sitting on a mushroom.   I approached and said, "Excuse me, but I'm in desperate need of a hug, would you mind?"   He obliged and asked, "Why so sad?" and I was immediately warmed by his caring.

This is the conversation which followed:

"ME: Oh, just someone I care for is no longer as much a part of my life and I miss them. That's why I needed to be held ... to get a little bit of comfort ... even from a stranger.
HIM: That's why I'm here. You picked the right guy.
At this point he offered me 'Friendship', which is a way of establishing contact with others in Second Life so you know when they are online.
ME: Thank you for throwing me a life preserver.
HIM: Would you like to walk and chat?
We walked a bit and then found a poseball labelled "Fate". (A poseball animates your avatar so that you can sit, caress, dance, play tennis etc).
HIM: Want to find out our fate?
We sat and found that 'Fate' was a pose that had us lying side by side, gently stroking one another's faces and bodies - very sweet and caring. He asked me about the relationship (or the ending of it) that had caused me so much pain and we talked about that for awhile.
HIM: I'm trying to learn to just take what comes. To not be demanding ... to create an abundance of love, where everywhere there seems a scarcity.
ME: That's what I set out to do in SL - just to see what it offered and to enjoy that.
HIM: Mmm ... me too ... guess I'm lucky so far. But I find the women here more mature and loving than most of the men.
ME: I had several people I was seeing, but when this man came into my life and asked me to be his partner, I just couldn't be with the others.
HIM: I couldn't give up any of those I've come to love, for just one ... No matter how special.
ME: Well, I didn't throw them away ... I just stopped being intimate with them. I thought I could continue having the mutliple relationships, but it appears as though I'm faithful no matter where I'm having the relationship - First Life or Second!
HIM: There must have been a reason you wanted to be intimate with them though. All my relationships here are intimate - just in different ways.
ME: Well, I suppose we all need something in our relationships with others.
HIM: Possessiveness and jealousy are the enemies of love. It can be so much more.
ME: I just want to surrender to what the fates offer me here.
HIM: Good for you ... to have the courage to let go of fear and insecurity. The mores of RL (Real Life).
ME: So, what is a man who has several intimate relationships, doing sitting all alone in a forest?
HIM: The women I love are all busy tonight. I don't demand anything of them ... I want them to be free to be with me when they want, on their own terms. So your request of a hug from me was a sign ... my reward for generosity.   I'm learning so much from the women I meet here.
ME: Oh good .... at least there will be ONE MAN in the world who understands a little. I must say, I liked the attitudes you expressed in your profile. I'm interested to hear about the women you love.
HIM: The qualities they have in common are:
1. Emotionally strong
2. Emotionally sensitive
3. Intelligent
4. Imaginative
5. Good at communicating in writing.
ME: I don't know that I can define the kind of person who appeals to me.
HIM: I couldn't either, until I started to see a pattern. My instincts tell me you have them all.
ME: But I've always thought that I would like someone who is manly, without being macho; sensitive, without being soppy; someone with honour and integrity and showing gallantry.
HIM: Mmmm ... high standard. lol
ME: Someone who enjoys expressing themselves. With a loving heart and I must have honesty.
HIM: Absolutely! I forgot that on my list.
ME: I can't imagine what it would be like to walk into your home and find your partner fucking somebody else in your bed.    Apart from the betrayal, it's absolutely such bad manners!
HIM: Unless of course it's by consent and equal ... a foursome instead of a threesome.
In Second Life, you create your 'look' by choosing particular kinds of shapes and skins to reflect the look which best appeals to us. At this point in our exchange, I realised that I was in an 'alternative' avatar, which is different to my usual 'look'.
ME: This is the face I love, she is my beautiful jewel.
HIM: Very expressive ... haunting ... vulnerable looking.
ME: I love how we express ourselves here. What we create reflects our souls ... our essence.
HIM: The tenderness of this pose brings tears to my eyes.
ME: It's funny that you should be a writer, cos I am too. I write memoirs, but I used to be a journalist.
HIM: Telling rich stories is the key to changing the world.
ME: I thought I would try and make a living here in SL through my writing and for the first six months in SL I wrote for one of the newspapers here, but now I want to explore other avenues of expression and just continue to earn a living in First Life. 
(I regard Second Life as my Real Life, the life I would like to lead).
HIM: I'm glad you're exploring with me.
ME: So am I. I'm glad you were sitting on that mushroom as I came by.
HIM: Our meeting was intended before you arrived ... we just played it out. Our lives are stories that we each star in. And we can either direct ourselves, or let others do it for us.
ME: Tell me something wonderful!
(This, I now realise, is the point at which I was beginning to fall in love).
HIM: I am happier than I have ever been in my life.
(And this, is the point I thought he was talking about me!   lol   That this happiness stemmed from meeting me.)
ME: That's a wonderful experience to have.
HIM: I've learned that love can let us do anything. I can't think of anything more wonderful than that. lol
ME: Yes, love is the answer.
HIM: Have you ever heard of polyamorous communities?
ME: I've only heard the expression. I don't know what it entails, apart from sharing love.
HIM: They are stable groups of equal numbers of men and women who all love each other. And who share trust and love completely and honesty. So there is never a need for jealousy or possessiveness.
ME: Where do I sign up?  lol
(Indeed, this was the relationship model that I did sign up for, but which never eventuated.   When David did eventually establish another loving relationship, he didn't even tell me about it until it was a fait accompli.   His other woman had no interest in getting to know me and we never met, spoke or communicated in any way in the almost 12 months that we both shared David's attention.   So there was no "sharing of trust and love and honesty").
HIM: The women I love think it is idealistic and impossible.
(David himself later acknowledged that this was far too idealistic - that finding such a community was just not possible).
ME: I love idealism.
HIM: But I am not so sure ... I believe it is natural.
ME: It's a worthy ideal I think. I'm not so sure of human nature though. One thing I do know about myself is that if I am WITH someone, I want their full attention.
HIM: Absolutely, yes. But then later you can be with someone else.
(I think it was my need for attention which eventually led to my disillusionment with our relationship.   He explained that he had come to realise in himself a tendency to fall madly in love with someone at first and then to slowly lose enthusiasm for that person and yearn for the experience of falling in love with someone else).   He still retained a fondness for the first love, but that that love mellowed into something less passionate and desirous).      
ME: Yes.
HIM: I'm coming to like you a lot.
ME: Cos I'm telling you what you want to hear? lol
HIM: lol Boy, you are smart!
ME: How many of the criteria have I met?
HIM: I've re-read the script of our conversation because I wondered about that ... It's not a test ... just a pattern I've noticed. I could love you in any case. You would be easy to fall in love with.
ME: It is a sweet surrender.
HIM: You ARE a writer.
ME: I'm watching our avatars.
HIM: Me too ... can't take my eyes off them/us. I long for gentleness, tenderness. So little of it in RL.
ME: Do you know, when we first met and you gave me that hug ... I just didn't want to move away from you. I wanted to stay close.
HIM: Me too. And I love the fact that you were strong enough to ask.
ME: I was thinking you would be thinking, "Oh here we go! Some guy in a dress hitting on me!"
HIM: I just found it charming. Can I tell you something I'm hesitant to say?
ME: I love to hear everything!
HIM: To me, this conversation is more erotic than SL sex. We are 'making love'. I just want to hold you close all night and learn more and more about you.
We then chatted about our lives - our dogs, where we lived, domestic stuff.
ME: I'd be interested to see one of these polyamorous communities.
HIM: I want to set up such a community here in Second Life to experiment and learn first and then hopefully co-create on in Real Life. We'd have to start it.
ME: We?
HIM: You and me ... you'd pick the men and I'd pick the women. We'd each meet each other's choices, and if we agreed, two by two, we'd invite them to join us.
(Presented like that, the idea of a polyamorous community certainly did appeal to me).
ME: Like Noah's Ark? I never thought, when I started out on my walk, that I'd end up organising a Polyamorous Community. lol
HIM: It's just a dream of mine .... it's new. Yes, like Noah's Ark ... exactly!
ME: I like the sound of that.
HIM: Wow! That's wonderful. Want to get to know you better first though. It's funny, but I can feel your heart beating.
ME: What else can you feel?
HIM: lol Your breath on mine. Your gentle touch. The strength of the muscles in your body. You must be in good shape.
ME: I wish!
HIM: I feel our souls touching.
ME: I have some delicious sensations moving through my body.
HIM: Me too. We're going to have a relationship that lasts ... so there's no hurry.
ME: Patience is not one of my virtues. I think you should know that.
We then went on to play "Twenty Questions" which was a great way of getting to know one another better. Here are just some of the questions and responses.
ME: What do you like about me best?
HIM: Toss-up so far between intelligence (so sexy!) and communication skill (so rare!)
ME: Favourite fantasy?
HIM: You'll think I'm kidding, but it's meeting a stranger in the forest (behind my house) and falling in love and making love for hours and hours.
ME: Do you really think we have something going on here?
HIM: I think so ... I keep reading the thread and I think it's real.
ME: Such a wonderful treasure to find.
HIM: Mmmmm ..... I'm just bursting with happiness. Okay, my question. Favourite novelist, short story writer and poet.
ME: Oooooh .... Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, Jack London, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Kahlil Gibran ...
"Come close beloved of my soul, for I fear loneliness ..."
I'm not so hot on poets. Okay, my turn.
ME: Will you be my man?
HIM: Yes ...
ME: lol I expected there to be some provisos in there. (smiles)
HIM: I'm taking this all as it comes ... trusting my instincts ... and trusting you.
ME: As I trust you.
HIM: Here's a tough one for you ... How/where do you draw the line between SL and RL?
ME: First Life is where I live; and Second Life is where I'd like to be.
Or are you asking if I want something more from you than what we can have here?
HIM: Yes ... or at least if you think you will want something from me in RL too.
ME: I think it's safer to keep it in SL.
HIM: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
I knew my instincts about you were right.
ME: Don't get me wrong though ... I do have a tendency to be clingey ... especially if I'm feeling needy. I need a lot of attention.
(I've come to realise that I don't really see any distinction between the two in some ways - there is a crossover because you can't differentiate between second life emotions and first life emotions).
HIM: I can handle that in SL. You're worth it.
ME: I hope so.
HIM: No need to hope ... I know.
ME: Next question. What's the lousiest thing you've ever done to a woman?
HIM: When I was younger, I ran away from love because I was afraid. I would never do that again ... hard lesson.
ME: What gave you the courage to explore love again then?
HIM: Just learned ... and learned ... and learned ... so I would never make such a terrible mistake again.
ME: It's funny how all this is scarey and thrilling at the same time.
HIM: Not scary to me ... I trust you and I just KNOW this is right.
ME: It's important that I feel safe with you. God I hope you're not just some guy who has read a manual and knows all the right things to say! lol
HIM: lol No, I don't think there is one for that. It's taken me a long time to get here. You've just arrived in my life at the right time. Just think ... if you hadn't asked me for a hug ...
ME: I know. But as soon as I saw you, I was glad I'd found you.
HIM: I am so so so so so happy and bursting with love.
ME: I want so much to give myself to you.
HIM: We'll give ourselves to each other.
ME: I'm looking forward to loving you. Sharing love with you.
HIM: Just when I thought I couldn't be happier, I meet you! Life is too wonderful.
ME: It certainly has turned around for me! This morning I was in tears, and now here I am, lost in love with a man I just met. But I am a big believer in fate.
HIM: You had me at "I'm a writer too".
ME: You had me when I read your profile.
HIM: Oh ... I love you so much already and we've only just begun! James Taylor once said, "The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time" and I'm going to enjoy enjoying it with you.
ME: Okay, here's another question for you. Would you describe yourself as more dominant or submissive?
HIM: Neither. I like to take turns.
ME: Good answer! Exactly right! Okay, it's a done deal. It's love!
I've got to tell you though, that I have a tendency towards bossiness, so I need a strong man to keep me in check.
HIM: That will be an interesting test for us. I'm emotionally strong, but I won't tell anyone I love, what to do.
ME: No, I don't like being told what to do ...
HIM: I over-compensate for most men who keep women too much in check.
ME: I just need you to pull me into line, if I need pulling into line. I value my freedom too much. Not that I want to give you a job to do ... I'm just letting you know that if I start to get a bit over-bearing, I am open to you letting me know that I'm out of line.
Hopefully, we will both feel comfortable letting the other know what we need etc.
HIM: We'll work it out. This will be something for us to explore. It may be a challenge for me to learn though ...
ME: Last question. What would be a deal breaker for you?
HIM: Any dishonesty. 
ME: Yes. Likewise for me. But it's time for me to go. I have to take my dog for a walk.
Thank you for turning my day around. For being kind enough to hug a stranger. You are going to be very good for me.
HIM: Just love me and life will be wonderful for both of us."

And it was.   It was wonderful!   For almost two wondrous years.   And then a great sadness descended on me when I realised that his attention had wandered and I no longer felt as important to him as I had.   My 'wonderful had moved on.

The pain and anguish of 'losing' the love that we'd had was terrible.   Truly terrible.   I lost more than just his attention, I lost almost my will to continue with life.   The sense of loss was so immense.

The coup de grace was a bitter email I sent to him, detailing all the times he had wounded me.   

When our relationship ended, I had asked him how he felt.   "A little sad," he replied.   "A LITTLE sad!!!!!!"    I was absolutely shattered, heartbroken!   I wanted him to understand my grief, to feel my pain.   I didn't want to hurt him, I just wanted him to FEEL my pain.   Hence the bitter email.   He in turn felt hurt and angry and miserable, beaten up for mistakes that he'd made and had apologised for.

It was several months before each of us felt safe again with any contact I think.   He wanted to give me the space to adjust to the new relationship we were forging and I needed time to re-assess my emotions.

When I originally wrote this, a month or so ago, I had said:   "When I stop crying, maybe I'll finish this story.   Maybe not.   Maybe this was a life lesson that is learnt by experiencing the loss."   But I have written the second instalment.   It's just that now, I don't know that I have a need to share it.   Maybe it's enough just to share the best of what we had - our beautiful beginning.   The whys and wherefores of what we had are just for us ... the story of wonder and love and hopeful beginnings is what typifies our love.   

We are still sharing the creation of our intentional community in second life, though nowhere near as close as I imagined it would be.   The story of our love continues to be written today and it's a story that will be written for years to come I hope.   As he said on our first day:  "We're going to have a relationship that lasts ... so there's no hurry."
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Gentleman Jim in The Land of the Lotus Eaters

Posted on Sep 8th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless


JAMES was the perfect antidote to Dick's laissez affaire attitude toward love and aversion to 'relationships'.   James was devoted, dedicated, a total gentleman and, it felt to me, completely besotted!

I first met Jim when he came to visit the town where I lived, as part of his work as a geologist.   He was a business partner of one of Dick's friends, and I joined the group as they explored gold leases in the valley.   As we walked through the bush, it was James who held tree branches back so that I could pass, or who helped me up embankment, offering me his hand and his protection, throughout the day.

A girlfriend and I were invited to join them at dinner and I found myself sitting in between a gallant Frenchman and the very well-mannered James.   I was in heaven!   For a woman, living in a small country town, it was such a delight to be treated 'like a lady'.   I liked James immediately - his conversation, his attention and the way he made me feel.   Some time later, he came back to town on a visit and looked me up.   We chatted without any sort of reserve between us and when he said that he had to go down to Melbourne for a few days, and asked if I would like to join him, I immediately accepted.

On the day though, I thought, "Oh my god, what have I done?   I hardly know this guy!   What if he's boring?   We've got a four hour trip down to Melbourne and three days down there!   What if he wants to have sex?   (I wasn't immediately physically attracted to him).   But I needn't have worried.   He was a thorough gentleman.   He'd rented a two-bedroom apartment and I never felt uncomfortable or uneasy about being around him.   It soon became obvious that he WAS physically attracted to me, but for the time being, intimacy wasn't something that I wanted to explore.

At this time, Dick was away and before he had left, he had told me that our relationship was over .... again!   I was very much in mourning, but still, very gratified to have the attention of such a lovely man as James.

Soon after the Melbourne trip, I got a telephone call from James.   "How'd you like to fly up to Sydney to see 'Phantom of the Opera'?" he asked.   "I've got to do some business there and I'd love to see you."

Now ... the thing was ... James was married.   I had wrestled with my conscience when I first realised that I was growing attached to him.   "Why would god bring such a lovely man into my life?" I asked myself.   "Especially since I've had such a lousy experience with Dick."   "It's like being presented with this beautiful gift after you've gone through some trauma, and being told to give it back."   Anyway ... I was able to rationalise the relationship with James under the guise of, "Well, I don't want to take him away from his wife ... I just want to experience what it's like to be in a relationship where the other person actually WANTS to be with me."

James and I agreed that whatever it was that we had between us, no one was to get hurt.   There would be no, "I want you to leave your wife" ultimatums.   And I was fine with that.   I needed what he had to give, and he, I think, wanted to experience desire and passion again.   Simple.

Whenever he came to town, James always referred to my life there as "living in the land of the lotus eaters" ...   He had such a high opinion of me and my lifestyle and my abilities.   He gave me nothing but adoration and attention and made me feel like the most wonderful woman in all the world.   If my phone rang, he just assumed if was one of hundreds of people clamouring to be in my company.   He would open car doors for me; buy me little gifts as mementos of our time together; take me out to dinner and pull out my chair for me ... he was SUCH a contrast to what I'd had with Dick.

Dick was all wild man and adventure.   Fun.   Fear.   Desire and Desperation.

After the trip to Sydney with James, my feelings for him deepened and I realised that I did want to be intimate with him.   I wanted to be as close as I could be.   Here was a man who made me feel safe and wanted and desired.   And totally accepted.

So the next time he phoned to say he was coming to visit, I told him, "I'm ready ... I want us to be together intimately."   I can remember the night he arrived - a bunch of flowers and a bottle of Glenfiddich whisky in hand.   A girlfriend had called in and she lingered awhile to chat with James ... eventually though, she finally twigged to the emotional tap, tap, tap of our feet as we waited impatiently for her to leave.

As soon as the door closed behind her, we were at one another!   Desperate.   Longing.     Desirous.     Hot!   Sexual union with James was as fulfilling and rewarding as I had hoped.   In front of the fire (of course), as we made love, he kept repeating, "Oh my beautiful one, my beautiful one."   It was everything a woman could want ... a man with a beautiful soul, loving you!

James had been born in Kenya (or Zimbabwe or somewhere like that).   When his mother went into labour, they were rushing her to the local hospital by car, when a huge bull elephant blocked the road in front of them.   She had to be carted into a nearby tent where she gave birth to James.   He used to laugh when he told the story saying, "If I ever don't close a door and someone says to me, "Close the door!   Were you born in a tent?", I can say, "Yes, I was actually!"

When he was only two or three years old, there was some kind of native uprising (was it the Mau Maus?) and he was sent away by his parents to where he would be safe.   He was given to the charge of one of their servants, who was supposed to take him to a nearby town.   On the way, the servant was kidnapped by one of the rival factions to go and fight, and poor James ended up in a tribal village somewhere with the natives scratching their heads as to where this white kid had suddenly appeared from.   It was several days before his frantic parents managed to track him down and retrieve him.

My beautiful love affair with James lasted about ten years I think.   These years were interspersed with time spent back in Dick's arms.   It seemed that any time Dick heard that James was in town, his bointerest would suddenly inflame again.   I've always been a faithful partner, but somehow I managed to rationalise this dual-relationship with both James and Dick.   They were like two sides of the same coin.   Both gentleman and both upper-class English types ... but one a wild man and the other, a bon vivant.

Where it was sleeping rough in the bush under the stars with Dick ... it was five star hotels and luxurious bath towels with James.

I loved it!   And in between I was still open to the idea of finding a love who would be just for me.   Someone who would want a life with me that we could share all the time, rather than occasional visits, which is pretty much what I had with both James and Dick.

I'd found an internet matchmaking site and was quite blown away by all the male attention that could be had.   One of the likely lads was Jim, a chef in Brisbane.   We were both convinced that we were 99.9% perfectly matched with one another.   His voice was deep and rich, a real man's voice and he said that I sounded like sunshine.   We'd arranged to meet in Sydney to see if this cyber electricity translated to real life.   It was at this time that James contacted me with the news that his wife had fallen in love with someone else and had left him.

Talk about timing.   I loved James, yet the thought of a life together hadn't really been an option for me to consider before.   He loved his wife.   What he and I shared was something that he didn't have with her.   That was enough for me.   I had thought the only way that James and I could ever have a life together, would be if his wife died.   Divorce was something that I'd never thought would happen.   But here he was, telling me that his wife had left him.   He was devastated.   Completely in shock.   Traumatised, and I think he also felt that he was being punished for having been unfaithful himself.

I let James down at this point because I was far too interested in what I'd started to develop with Jim (the other guy).   I was selfish.   Preoccupied.   And to be perfectly brutal about myself, rather unsympathetic I think.   This new situation, where James needed something from me - some comfort, attention, time, caring ... I just wasn't there for him.   I can't explain why.   It's one of the situations I look back on and know that I could have handled it better.

This was a time when James was focused on his own survival, and I was focused on mine.   Of course, Jim (the internet one), turned out to be a dud in the relationship arena ... 99.9% just wasn't enough.   He was moody, distant, unco-operative, stubborn, withdrawn, not at all affectionate.   We'd been speaking for months on the phone and via email and when we arranged to meet, I spend over a thousand dollars buying new lingerie and clothes, having my hair done, legs waxed etc., for the big meeting.   When he arrived in Sydney, he was wearing just an old pair of jeans and teeshirt and a grubby ol' baseball cap.   My immediate response was, "God, he hasn't gone to any trouble at all, and I've spent a fortune on wanting to look good for him!"

I'm an affectionate person and when we met, I held his hand and as we sat in the taxi going to our separate hotels, I rubbed his back and was sitting close, all very happy and smoochy.   He later told me that he was put off by me "pawing at him".   I can laugh now, but at the time I was crushed by his lack of response to me.   I knew things weren't going to work out when he spent all his time photographing the scenery, never once asking me to step into shot.   We ended up as friends for several years, but later lost touch when I bought a new computer and didn't swap his email address over and he moved to Japan to teach English.

Eventually James faded from my life as he struggled to make a new life for himself.   He had to get his mind around his new marital status ... divorced.   I know it was a very dark time for him.   I have no answer for why I left him to go through this on his own.   What cruelty do I have inside me, that I wasn't there to give him a loving place of warmth and security?   

Still ... that was many years ago now.   Our friendship survived.   He has his new life and a new partner.   Not so long ago we caught up for lunch and it was as though those intervening years had never been.   He's still very much the gentleman.   The kind of gentleman who, when making love, "takes his weight on his elbows" as he used to say.    The kind of gentleman, who when he is dreaming about making love to you, takes his watch off so he doesn't scratch you.

I love James ... still.   There is always a sense of warmth in my heart when I think about hi.   I don't know how he feels, other than he is determined not to jeopardise the relationship he has now.   After we'd lunched, he took me to see his yacht and the thought did cross my mind .... "Mmmmm, all alone ... I wonder what he's thinking?"   But whatever he was thinking, he thought it and never acted on it.   I still don't know how I would have responded.

Everyone should have a James in their life ... a true gentleman.
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Dick, The Mad Adventurer

Posted on Aug 15th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless



DICK.   My mad adventurer.   The man who has probably had the most dramatic impact on my life, and not entirely for the right reasons.   

I met Dick at a friend's birthday party.   He was the rowdy one, holding court with a circle of people around him, hanging on his every word of derring do and wild adventures.   He travelled to Western Australia or Far North Queensland for six months of the year, avoiding Victoria's high country heavy winter cold.   My interest was piqued when someone said that he was a Lord, or he would have been if he had gone back to England to take his seat in the House of Lords.   That made him immediately interesting to me.   A lord, and a lord who preferred roughing it in the wilds of Australia than sitting in the stuffy English houses of parliament, wearing an ermine cloak ... now that appealed!

Before I knew it, I was sitting on his knee being regaled, with the others, about his adventures.   What a man!   After the ordinary men I'd been spending time in the interim (since Mark), here was the romantic hero I'd been waiting for.

At that time, I lived in the main street of a small country town and of course, it didn't go unnoticed that his Toyota had been parked in front of my house all night.   He was due to leave on his annual trek to the wild mining country of Western Australia in a few days, so we spent as much time as possible together.   I was completely captivated by his charisma - he was just so confident and manly.   Everyone loved him and wanted to be in his company.   He was forever fobbing off invitations from people for dinner or a visit.   One night, when we were 'busy, getting busy' up at his camp by a river in the valley, someone defied his much vaunted, "Do Not Visit After Dark" rule and ventured up the track to deliver some important news.   Dick stormed out to meet him and gave him a tongue lashing for intruding on his privacy.   The poor guy (who only had the best of intentions, wanting to tell Dick something that was to his advantage), went away, tail between his legs.

After less than a week together, Dick left for Western Australia but was soon back in town, saying that he'd left his cement mixer behind.   I was mightily gratified sometime later when one of his friends observed to me, "I reckon the cement mixer was an excuse, I reckon he came back specially to see you" (which of course had me beaming like a Cheshire cat).

BUT after he got back on the road, I just never heard from him.   He was usually away for about six months at a time and as each month passed, my disillusionment and disappointment grew.   Finally, I resorted to the comfort of the desperate - a clairvoyant.   She told me, "What you have now with this man, is all you will ever have."   And that proved to be very true.

FINALLY, who should arrive back on my doorstep?   Yes, Dick.   All full of bravado and bluster about what a fantastic time he'd had on the road.   Nothing else mattered (to me) than he was back!   And he was back at my door.   What else did I want?   

He looked like a wild man.   Normally he wore an English military-type moustache, but he had a full, black beard and a full head of raven black hair.   "How about a shave?" he asked me, so I lathered him up and he twirled his moustache, up, out of the way, just as Salvador Dali would have and suddenly, the clairvoyant's words came rushing back at me.   "You will have an interesting affair with a man, who, while he isn't an artist, will twirl his moustache like Salvador Dali."   Wow!   How would she know that?

For the next ten years, Dick tormented me, thrilled me, indulged me, ripped my heart out, ignored me, alternatively clutching me to his heart and then throwing me away.   I craved closeness and intimacy, but he was fond of saying, "Why buy a book, when you can join the library?"   A comment that would enrage me!   The truth was that he really did think that about women, and yet, when it came down to books, he wouldn't let anyone else fondle one of his!

I completely set everything aside to be available to Dick.   Friends, work, my own time ... nothing else mattered but being there, IF he should ever want to spend time with me.   Friends were very indulgent and understanding, although they would get pissed off at having to console me when he would break my heart; and then be ignored by me when he was in town.

Once a year I would get a telephone call from him in Western Australia.   "Do you want to fly over here in September and drive back over east with me?"   Did I?   You bet I did!   He was very generous, always paying for my flight.   We did so many wonderful trips around Western Australia and one epic one through the centre of Australia from Wiluna to Alice Springs, along the Gunbarrel Highway.   That was a special trip for both of us.   Bone rattling and tedious in parts, but incredibly powerful in that we saw the absolute majesty of Australia's centre.   Unending plains of gibber rock; budgerigars surviving on tiny little pockets of waterholes; following wild camels off the track so far we lost the road - a disaster in that hot expanse of nothingness.   Breaking down and Dick suggesting that he would leave me in the bush with the vehicle, while he hitched a lift several hundred kilometres back to the nearest town to get a part.   (He was going to show me how to shoot a rifle as a security precaution).

I had been looking forward to this adventure.   Can you imagine?   Being left in the absolute middle of nowhere ... completely alone except for a dog and a rifle.   Fending for myself for several days.   It was thrilling and terrifying at the same time.   In the end though, Dick flagged down a passing vehicle and asked if he minded towing us and the Toyota back into town.

Everything was an adventure for Dick.   A puncture.   A failed expedition.   A foray into the city.   On one of our outback trips, an aborigine poked his head in the car window as he sat parked outside a supermarket, and offered Dick "two cartoons of beer if you let me have your missus!"   Knowing Dick's ear for a good story, I'm sure he ticked it over in his mind a second or two for the story value of handing me over.

All of life was an adventure with him.   That's what I loved about being with him.   Which was pretty infrequently.   I often said to him that I felt like some object up on a shelf that he came along every so often and took down to play with.   And when he was finished, back up on to the shelf I would go until the next time.   If we ever went anywhere or did something together, he always made sure it finished at 3pm so he could bring me home before dark.   Come 5 o'clock and he bunkered down for the night.

Everything was a ritual to him.   Starting his fire.   Baking his bread.   Fishing.   Leatherwork.   Shining his shoes.   Doing his washing.   He was the epitome of that old Imperial British Army tradition.   Spit and polish.   A favourite memory of mine is being at some camp in central Australia, a warm and balmy evening in front of the fire, with Dick bathing me as I stood in a bit ol' bathing pan.   Firelight glistening on my skin, with beautiful ABC classic movie in the background.   Sublime.   We did delicious things together, making love on picnic tables; me riding on the bonnet of the Toyota flashing my pantie-less derriere at Dick through the windscreen; us shaving one another's pubic hair; so many lovely memories.

There were special times too when he took me to a couple of mountain cattlemens' huts that he'd discovered or had  custodianship of.   I felt very priviliged to have such a special place in his life.   When I occasionally visited the small town he lived in for the six months of the year he spent in Victoria, I liked that sense of being acknowledged as "Dick's woman" when he was in town.

Dic had been sent away to boarding school when he was six years old, and even when he came home, a nanny took care of him.   Even as an adult of 50+ years, nanny's annual visits were probably the closest he ever came to being 'smooshy'.   And of course there was his stint in the army, serving (and being shot) in Vietnam.

I remember when he told me that his mother had died when he was younger.   "Hit by a truck!" he burst out laughing.   I don't think they ever had anything resembling an affectionate relationship, so it's understandable that emotions and "falling in love" were alien concepts to him.   From all accounts, his mother was really rather 'upper class' and her misfit son would have always been a thorn in her side one would think.   Just one childhood story was enough to convince me of that.   His mother was in attendance at a school assembly one day when proceedings were brought to a halt by a grim request from the headmaster, "Would the boy in Row 3 with the snake in his pocket, please come to the podium."    Red faces in Dick's family as he strolled casually up towards the headmaster.  

What else can I tell you about Dick?   I loved his wildness.   He was untamed, even though he had a very strict moral code and way of doing things.   Very army, but also very ethical and moral too.   He was very popular with women.   When he drove past one day, one of the local shopkeepers said to me, "There goes the sexiest man in town."   She was really hot for him.   Lots of women were I think and even now, in his early 60's he was very cocky to tell me that his girlfriend was in her 30's.   Welllllll, not exactly cocky, but certainly very pleased with himself.

I always felt safe with Dick.   I would have happily ridden into the jaws of hell with him as I knew he would always get us out of trouble.   When we went camping, he would always find a really good camping spot and have it all set up within minutes.   Then he would wander off to the nearest river to catch dinner.   Or if there was no river, out he'd go with his ferrets or rifle.   He would drive through flooded rivers, ford a raging stream, wading waist high to get to an old bloke on the opposite bank.   He loved cooking and was enthusiastic about everything he did.

There was something of the pirate about Dick.   He was like an Errol Flynn character - wild and passionate, freedom-loving and unpredictable.   You could equally imagine him down in the mud, wrestling with a pig as well as all done up in a dinner jacket.

At various times, Dick ripped my heart apart but I always went back for more.   I was always available, whenever he called.   Even dropping arrangements with friends in a preference to be with him, over anybody else.   I rode that relationship right into the ground.   Every little morsel of attention and time I could get, I would take.   He once said to me, "Geez Cheryl, give you an inch and you want a mile."   It has only been recently that a newer acquaintance coined the phrase, "An Emotional Glutton" when telling me what I was behaving like.   And that's an apt description - an emotional glutton.   So who better to fall in love with than someone who was afraid of intimacy.   I would do this again, many years later - still an emotional glutton, falling for a man who was also afraid of intimacy.

During the ten years of on-again / off-again love with Dick, I met the wonderful James, my true gentleman.   When I die, the love letters from both these men will be buried with me.   Or they would have been before I decided to donate my body to medical science.   Now ... well, that is something to ponder isn't it?   What will I do with this beautiful treasure?   Words of love ... 

Next week:   Gentleman Jim

 





   







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What Love Looks Like For Me - Mark, The Love Of My Life

Posted on Jul 17th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
Arabianme

THE NIGHT I MET MARK, I was on a 'one night only' pass from my relationship with Rod, the gentle gardener I'd been living with for several years.   I don't know why I thought a one-night fling would remedy a relationship that had grown stale, but there it is, I'm good at rationalising!   In any case, Rod had agreed to go away for the weekend so I could have my fling.  

Not long before, I'd met this guy named Andrew on my way home from work at a local community house.   I was heading home on my bicycle when I came across Andrew hitchhiking.   I rode past, and then thought, "Hey, there's no reason I can't give this guy a lift on my handle bars."   So I turned back around and offered him a 'lift'.   Having someone bigger than me on the handlebars didn't really work, so Andrew decided that instead of giving up the lift, he would run alongside me!   I still laugh now at the incongruity of it ... a hitchhiker being picked up by a cyclist and then ending up running alongside to keep up.

So when the Alice In Wonderland party came up, I was hoping that because it was in the same town where Andrew lived, he might be there.   As I said in my previous post, I was most put out that this guy Mark kept engaging me in conversation, especially since it was Andrew I was hoping to get to know better (if he came that is).

The party was held at this quirky little house in the hills with one of those rambling, overgrown gardens.   One of its more unusual features were floors that undulated like an ocean.

Eventually I came to accept that Andrew was not going to come and that since this guy Mark, seemed rather keen, I would take him home instead.   It probably seems a bit cold-blooded to take a strange man to the bed you share with someone else, but I wasn't being deceptive - Rod knew of my plans and had acquiesed, so again, I guess I rationalised.   'Our' bed (the one I shared with Rod), would be the scene of 'my' need that night.

The sheets were crisp and white; the candles pink and warm.   The ambience of freshness and cleanliness - a new beginning.   I had a hunger to really 'feel' - to feel alive.   I truly thought it would be a one night thing and that would be it.   

The next morning Mark and I decided that it would be fun to go down to the beach with his dog and mine.   At one point, we were exploring along a narrow path on a steep slope and I slipped, but before I could slide too far down the embankment, Mark's hand reached out and grabbed me.   "My hero", I thought and the beginnings of my romantic attachment sprang to life.   Here was a man to be rescued by.

The beach expedition (and me feeling so safe with him), led to an afternoon in his bed, again with me still thinking this was a one-off thing.   Rod would be home later on, and our life together would just resume I thought.   

So ... a couple of days later on a wild and wintry day, when I unexpectedly bumped into Mark again up the street in the town where we both lived, it seemed a natural thing to invite him back home so he could meet Rod.   How very avante-garde of me huh?

I never learnt what Rod thought of meeting my new 'friend' - he stuck his nose in the newspaper and didn't really participate much in the conversation at all.   It only served to show me how much more I had in common with Mark, than I did with Rod.   I enjoyed Mark's company and he enjoyed mine.   

We started spending time together and when Rod made a request that I not see him anymore, I knew that that wasn't an option for me.   So I moved out of the home I shared with Rod, and in with friends, and before long (after an expedition in the snow on acid), Mark asked me to move in with him.

So began the most important relationship of my life.   I felt loved and secure.   He understood me and accepted me, warts and all.   It was a meeting of minds and a pairing of equals.   We spent a very happy hot summer, wrapped in one another's arms in a cosy little bungalow.

He had won my heart when he said, "I know you will want to make a nest, so please do whatever you want to turn my place into somewhere you want to be."   I felt important to him and that has always been something that I've always looked for in a relationship.

Mark could do anything he turned his mind to ... carpentry, art, music, jewellery-making, friendships.   He had a very strong sense of self-worth and would indignantly dismiss someone from his life if they proved to be a less than honourable friend.

It's hard to describe the intracies and depth of a good relationship - you are just living a life that makes you both happy.   We were on the same wavelength and regarded one another as each other's best friend.   We complemented one another's personality. He was so into his music and I tried hard to at least have a rudimentary understanding of what it all meant.   I really strained to listen when he would say, "Listen to this riff here ...", but I wasn't very good at it, and in the early days, I would worry so much that he'd ask questions and then he'd know I was a complete nincompoop when it came to music!

I'm not sure what kind of partner I was though.   He once said that I kept wanting him to jump through hoops to PROVE I was worth loving, and he's probably right.   If we are lucky in life, we find just the right person for what we need at that time.

There were so many lessons he taught me.   Like my propensity for what he called, "looking over other people's back fences and telling them to clean up their mess, when I had the mother of all messes in my own!"

Mark pointed out that I was like some dirty old pervert, who liked to open his raincoat and show off his genitalia - in that when I met anyone, I had a propensity for revealing all my deepest, darkest secrets.   (Which I saw as just part of the, "This is who I am, I'm telling you everything now so that there won't be any nasty surprises down the track.")

Mark KNEW me and he still loved me - that was the greatest thing anyone can have.

One thing I do know - our sexual appetites were not evenly matched.   I've never been highly sexed and the continual desire for sexual intimacy, was a constant thorn in my side.   Spurning Mark's advances was not a good experience for either of us - and in the end, he felt like a dirty old man himself, always having to 'ask' for favours.   My withdrawal from him sexually, usually resulted in him wanting the attention of others and while I was happy for him to do that, I also had a fear that he might find a better relationship in one of these 'dalliances'.   My words ring in my ears, "For god's sake, leave me alone, go and find someone else!"   But then, when he did, I'd worry that he might prefer their company to mine.   I just wanted to leave me alone for a particular time, not always!

There was Anne, a good friend who admitted to me one night that after she and Mark had been to a concert together, (while I was away at school camp), that she "almost didn't want to go home" and I remarked, "It sounds as though you didn't", to which she replied, "Well, we did lay down on the bed together, but you might as well have been lying there between us, your presence was so strong."

Next was Jan, another friend ... beautiful and outgoing and flamboyant ...   I came home from work one day and she followed Mark, in her underwear, out of our bedroom, saying with so much gaeity, "Oh, I've just been trying on some of your clothes, I hope you don't mind!"    Mmmmmmmm ......

And then there was Robyn, a friend of ours whose husband had drowned.   Mark started visiting her to see if she was right for firewood, but we all knew a stronger desire was at play here.   One of my darkest experiences was the night Mark invited Robyn for dinner with the sole purpose of reassuring her that I was okay about their developing relationship.

I resented him using me to pacify her.   How dare he do that to me?   But then, who hasn't temporarily lost an otherwise good sense of judgement to get what they want?

Ironically, I learned about trust from Mark.   There was a time I expressed concern about the importance of our relationship to him and he said to me, "You just have to trust that I won't ever start a relationship that will be a threat to the one I have with you."   I weighed up his words and thought, "Well, I can believe him and be taken for a ride, or I can believe him and be vindicated in my trust.

So I took that leap of faith and I'm glad I did because I firmly believe that it taught me how to love with an open heart.   

There were other 'relationships' which fulfilled his need to be desired and wanted and which threatened my sense of security, but it wasn't another woman which ended our relationship it was just that it ran it course, and that was that.

We had set off on our grand "Around Australia" trip.   Car packed up.   Trailer on behind with his motorbike, the dogs, a homemade kitchen set up and a purse, not overflowing with money. 

Consequently there were petty squabbles about how the money was being spent - trivial annoyances, not quite constant bickering but life on the road really tested us and our desire to be together.   Eventually we reached Cairns and for a time we settled there.   We both got jobs on a local newspaper - me as a reporter and Mark as a photographer.

I can't remember what the straw was that broke the camel's back, but we reached a point where we both acknowledged that we had come to the end of the road together and we decided to part.   For me, I think it was just a case of me having taught Mark all that it was that I had to teach him, and he had done the same for me.

Mark found a job on a newly set up magazine and was commissioned to do the inaugural front cover portrait of Diane Cilento (who had at one time, been married to Sean Connery).   (Just as an amusing little aside, apparently Diane accused Sean of beating her, a charge Connery vehemently denied; although in an interview with Barbara Walters, he stated that it would be acceptable for a man to hit a woman with an open hand, if she continues to provoke him after he concedes an argument to her).   

Nothing having Mark in my life anymore was a traumatic time for me.   I was bereft.   

At this time I was still working for the newspaper and I'd gone to interview a prostitute and left behind my briefcase (containing my wallet with $5,000 in it that I'd just withdrawn from the bank to buy a car with).   Mark had been with me as photographer, and when we went back to her house, she was gone and so was the money.   I later learnt that she had quite a heroin habit, so no prizes for guessing where my $5,000 went!

In the course of trying to bring some pressure on her to return the briefcase at least, I'd been in touch with a couple of her family members.   I was chilled to the bone, when the prostitute phoned and threatened me with, "You keep my family out of this!   You bring them into it, and I can bring some pretty nasty people into it for you!"   By this time, Mark had moved out and I was all alone.   I was, quite frankly, terrified.   The thought that I had brought the underworld into my life, really scared me.

Not long after this, I decided to head back to Melbourne.   Back to the life I had put into storage when Mark and I left on our big adventure.   Reviewing your life after it has been in storage is another unique experience.   Seeing stuff that you now regard as 'crap' and wondering, "Why the hell did I want to keep this for?" or seeing little gems that years later are STILL gems to you.

It was very cathartic, separating my stuff from Mark's stuff and sharing 'our' stuff between us.   

I have never experienced the deep sense of sadness and grief I felt at the ending of our relationship.   I think I cried for a full year.   I certainly didn't have any joy of life.   It was almost eighteen months I think, before I had any enthusiasm for anything.

Every morning when I woke up, my first thought was, "He doesn't love me anymore" or, "He's really gone from my life".   

Mark had gone on to fall madly in love with a woman I didn't like at all.   I couldn't even take any joy in him being happy as I didn't feel the relationship was any good for him.

(Years later when he did fall in love again with someone else, I at least had a sense of it being right and that they did belong together).

One particularly bad night I thought, "I might as well be floating out in outer space, I feel so alone.   No one can reach me in my depths of despair."   Perhaps I had idealised what we had together, but it didn't last ten years because we pretended that everything was okay.   It was a good relationship because we had always been honest with one another and expressed what we needed from the other.

I'm not sure what the point of this "What Love Has Looked Like To Me" retrospective is, other than I have been looking at the relationship I have with David and been doing some soul-searching.

Next time ... Dick, The Mad Adventurer.

(Photo:   There was a very exotic European/Middle Eastern restaurant we loved going to in Cairns - this is one of the nights we decided to dress up for it).
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What Love Looks Like For Me

Posted on Jul 9th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
Cutie

THIS MORNING, as I lay in bed, contemplating life and love, I thought it might be a worthwhile exercise to reflect on what love has looked like in my life.

My most shocking realisation is that I don't think I've ever had a loving relationship with my parents.   When people say, "Oh, we're a really close family", I just can't identity with that.   Close?   My family?   Mmmmm ...   I don't think that's possible when the main focus of the family is just one person - my father. 

I've been fond of my parents.   Every financial advantage I've had in life has come from them, but I can't think of a loving legacy that I would have wanted to pass on to any children of mine.   Maybe that's why my brother, sister and I have not had children.

My mother was a lovely woman - kind, patient, loving and caring.   My sister and I came to the conclusion some time ago that she never really got to love her children the way she would have wanted to, because my father demanded that all attention in the family was on him.   No one else mattered.   Only him.

I know I'm being harsh, because of course there must have been, times when I did feel their love; it's just that nothing stands out as, "I remember the day my father loved me so much he ..."   Maybe my mother sacrificed what might have been an otherwise happy life, to give her children a good provider.   I don't know. 

I hope I'm not the sort of person who doesn't feel they are loved unless the other person gives them a kidney.   Maybe I am - maybe I'm the sort of person who doesn't know what love is.   All I know is that the love I experienced with others, later, is much stronger and meaningful to me.

I know when I hear people say, "My father gave me a deep love of the outdoors",  or "My mother shared her love of literature with me" that I feel a pang.   A pang of what, I'm not sure.   Just a pang of, "Oh, I never had that." 

My legacy has been one of self-doubt and an inability to see my value.   We were all decimated because of my father's over-arching ego.   How to get past that kind of damage?   I'm embarrassed to be 56 years old and still wondering how I get over it.

I just didn't have anything in common with my parents.   I came home one night to find my mother and brother watching, "The Slim Dusty Story" and I still remember thinking, "Oh my god, can I be related to these people?!"

My interests were make believe, literature, writing, being an archeologist.   I lived in a Hollywood fantasy world of glamorous movie stars and gorgeous satin gowns.

I'm sure love was there in our family home, in some form, but there is still no particular occasion which I can warmly look back on and think with satisfaction, "Oh, they loved me so much."   There was just no joyous celebration of love or connection or 'family'.

I've always said, "I had a good technical upbringing - I was fed, housed, clothed and educated - but I can't remember a single circumstance where I felt LOVED and valued.

Having decided to give birth to myself at my last birthday in April, I want to put 'all that' (my childhood and their influence on me), behind me, never to be mentioned again.   Not because it was so particularly devastating, but because I'm sick of weeping and wailing at the wall of, "I'm like this because my parents did that."

I like the idea of giving birth to myself and creating the kind of nurturing I would have liked to have had.   My companions on this journey are my beloved David, Paul, and trusted members of our Second Life community.

It was easy to put my 'old' childhood behind me recently when I asked my father to think back and tell me what memories he had of me as a child.   "I don't know!" he answered testily.   "You were a kid!   You went to school.   You played with the other kids.   There were three of you."   I just burst out laughing.   That's the sum total of your memories of me as a child?   That I went to school and played with other kids and had a brother and a sister!   What an absolute lack of involvement or interest from the man who gave me life. 

So it's not surprising that when I think of love, I don't automatically think 'family'.

Several months ago, at a family function, when my father was boasting about how much money he had, my uncle (who has never had much, lived in a housing commission house and brought up five daughters on a chauffeur's wage), pointed to the wall of family photographs and said, "There's my treasure over there Jack.   That's all that's ever been important to me."

Again, the pang of, "I've never had that."

First Love:

Oh my beautiful first love - Tim.   We met at a local fete dance when I was about 15 or 16 and were both immediately smitten.   I was such an innocent!   As we snuggled up to one another dancing, I remember saying to him, "Ooooh, can you please take your cigarettes out of your pocket, they're poking into me."   I had no idea boys got erections!   I didn't even know what an erection was!   A product of a Catholic school education, I was absolutely terrified of getting pregnant and there was just no way I was going to tempt the fires of hell by exploring sexuality.

We were both so lovelorn though.   Those loooooooooooong telephone calls where you stay on the phone line, content just to hear the other person breathe on the other end of the line.   And the reluctance of either one to hang up first.   "You hang up", "No, you hang up", "No, you."   The sweet desire of youth.   The laying together in parks, in friend's cars, when no one else was home - but still, no sex!   The lusty kisses, the lovebites, the hands down pants and up tops.   "Everything but".   

When he got a job away from where we lived, I thought I would die of heartache.   He wrote of course and those love letters were my most cherished possessions.   Under my pillow.   Kissed each night.   We wanted to run away together and get married, but we were so young.   I don't remember why we broke up, but most likely it had something to do with him wanting sex and me being terrified of getting pregnant.   In those days, 16 year old girls didn't go to the doctor and get the pill (even if it existed then).  

I was broken-hearted and cried for months.   Losing love is the most devastating experience of a young life.   All is lost.   I would stand at the window where I worked in the city and look yearningly outwards, searching for just a glimpse of him if he walked by.   In my desperation, I thought that if I relented and did have sex with him, he would come back to me (vain hope of course), so we arranged to meet at my place when my parents were out and I was quite determined to 'give him' my virginity.

We went to bed and fumbled and tried - two totally inexperienced and clueless virgins - and then when his mates pulled up the front and beeped the horn for him, he gave up in frustration and drove off with them.   I felt completely destroyed.   I had failed to 'seduce' him and felt 'thrown away' because he would rather be with his friends than in my hot little loving embrace.   As he left, I fell down, wailing, at the door.   I honestly thought I would die of heartbreak.

Marriage:

When Graham came into my life, I'd had crushes and boyfriends and frustrated relationships of various shades.   It was obvious that Graham was head over heels in love with me and I felt safe with him.   Eventually I came to the conclusion that he was someone I felt safe enough to lose my virginity to.   A friend of his shared a grand old mansion with several others in Kew, a leafy suburb of Melbourne and so it was, that on a mattress on the floor of a beautiful old mansion, I 'gave' my virginity to the man I would eventually marry.

It's funny because of all the relationships I've had, the one with Graham is perhaps the fuzziest - the least memorable.   My first experience of sex, left me with the memory of me responding with, "What?   Is that it?"   No fireworks.   No violins.   Just a grunting and heaving and a very satisfied Graham at the end, and a less than impressed me.

It's terrible to say, but life with Graham hasn't left me with any memories of love.   Domestic frustrations, yes.   I was 21 and my interpretation of love was that when I served him dinner, I gave him the biggest sausage or best looking potato.

I had no idea of what love was all about.   And I certainly didn't know about married life, so I just copied what my parents did.   Graham was 'head of the household', even though I was the one who did all the work in it.  

We were married for all of 11 months and frustratingly so for me.   We both had office jobs, with his being closer to home than mine, so he would get home sooner.   Yet, he would sit and read the newspaper or watch television and wait for me to get home to cook the dinner, clean, wash, iron, make the bed - every single domestic duty fell to me.   His only responsibility was putting the rubbish out each week, and even that I had to remind him endlessly.

So I definitely don't equate the 'marriage' chapter of my life with love.   Graham and I shouldn't have married.   I now know that I used getting married as an excuse - a 'legitimate' way of leaving home.   I didn't love Graham.   In fact, I told him that I'd changed my mind and didn't want to get married, but he cried and 'begged' and so I thought, "Well, how can I hurt his feelings?" and so I went through with it.

In the end, he met a 16 year old at a party and ran off with her and I travelled overseas.   We returned wedding gifts to those who'd given them and there was no harm done.

Miscellaneous:

When my marriage ended, I travelled overseas for a year or two and then settled in Noosa Heads as a hippy, living on the beach.   It was the days of "make love, not war" and I was an enthusiastic peacenik.   Men and boys came and went - plenty of sex, but not much love.   It's so true, that adage - "Men give love to get sex and women give sex to get love."   I gave a lot of sex!   Didn't find much love though.

At one stage I was quite promiscuous.   Don't know why, because I've never really been satisifed by sex.   It has always been my desire to experience love which has motivated me to be physical with a man.   A 'need' to be close and intimate.   Eventually though you realise, you could lie down on the footpath at a city's main train station and have sex with every man who walked past and never find love.

There is one man who stood out though in all these years - Bern.   Bern is one of two men I've ever wanted to have a child with.   He had long blonde hair and gorgeous blue eyes and a lovely heart.   I think we were all in love with Bern.   All us hippy chicks, with our long, flowing hair and bouncing breasts (hippies didn't wear a bra).   For a glorious few months, Bern and I were an item and I was in seventh heaven.   

I don't know how much love was expressed in those days ... perhaps more a lovingness, than actual love.   Nothing was too serious.   It was easy to get stoned and just snuggle up to a convenient body.   We experimented and explored and had open hearts.   With someone one day, and someone else, the next.   No hard feelings.   Just a desire to spread 'love', when really I think it was more a case of wandering attention.

Friends became lovers and lovers became friends.

The Love Of My Life:

I met Mark at an "Alice In Wonderland" party.   I'd never even read the story and went dressed as a wood nymph.   I'd gone there specifically to meet someone else, but they hadn't arrived.   Mark and I had chatted for awhile and I drifted off to get a drink.   But I kept finding him in front of me, obviously keen on more conversation.   "I wish this guy would get out of the way, so I could see if Andrew has arrived," I remember thinking.   Ironically, it was Mark who was 'the one'.

I was in a relationship at the time, with Rod, a very steady and safe partner.   He was reliable and faithful, but ultimately, I was bored.   I'd convinced Rod that I just needed 'a fling' to blow away the cobwebs on our relationship.   Instead, what I found was Mark, who turned out to be 'the love of my life'.

... Next post ... What is was all about and other expressions of that great desiring ... love.
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Nothing To Say ... Or Maybe It's More That I Don't Have An Answer

Posted on Jun 10th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
Miraprofileshot Onelook Mia Gracepic Anotherme Soulful
I'M SORRY it has been so long since I've written anything here.   I just don't have anything to say.

I'm living very much in my own head at the moment.   Cogitating.   Mulling things over.   Being fearful.   Loving.   Experiencing joy.   Being curious.   Trying hard.   Making excuses.   Wondering.   I seem to be waiting ... for I know not what.

For a long time now I've been feeling like I'm waiting ... waiting to be somewhere, or at some point in my life's development.   But I don't know what it is.

There are so many thoughts swirling about up there (in my brain), as opposed to the feverish activity down here (the keyboard).   

I've only ever found peace in solitude and even this life in Esperance, where I hardly know anybody - ten people at most - is still too busy (what with Second Life and all), that I never seem to have the time to be absolutely quiet and peaceful.

There seems to be a lot of turmoil somewhere inside me.   I'm not sure if it's the ageing process kicking in; my own insecurities; something (not yet defined), percolating away.

This is not a good time for me to write.   I am all discombobulated.  

At my last birthday, back in April, the first since my mother died, I thought I would try something novel and give birth to myself.   It was more a case of making a fresh start.   (I'm fond of fresh starts!)   Creating a life for myself that was mine alone, without the influence of those other people who'd been there the first time around.   

Making I'm an artist of lives.   Creating new ones, when I feel I've mucked up the other one, or had it impacted on by others.   A fresh new canvas is always available.

What would YOUR life be if you were to create it, EXACTLY the way you wanted it, without the influence of other people?

If I had a fairy godmother to wave a wand over me, I would like to be a lounge singer.   Tootling off to a piano bar once or twice a week, singing 'torch songs' - evoking great feeling in my audience.   Taking them on a romantic journey of love and love lost; inspiring men to send roses to my dressing room and sports cars to my house.   For witty humourists and famous artists to vie for my attention, and offering me world trips on their yachts.   And I would be having an enduring love affair with a committed naturalist, whose life work was saving animals.   

See?   This is why I haven't written here for awhile.   I don't have anything to say.   lol     Just silly musings.   I'm reminded of when I was a kid, and people would ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"   I never knew.   I just did not know what I wanted to BE.   And now, while I ponder the saying, "Be Here Now" - I do wonder - what exactly is it, that I want to be?

I'll be in touch later, when I have something more profound to say.

PHOTOS:   These are the lives (personas) I have created in Second Life.   I contemplated (and even tried) to put up my real life photo, but the message came back from Gaia, "Sorry, there has been an unexpected error" ... LOL   Indeed there has.

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About To Make A Move

Posted on Mar 27th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
Peekstreet Sweethome 12thlagoon
IT JUST OCCURRED TO ME that I haven't shown you a photo of where I'm living at the moment in Esperance.

I really love it here.   A lovely couple, Margaret and Bob, have given me the hospitality of their property for the past four months or so and now that I've decided to stay here in Esperance and put down some roots, I thought it was about time I moved on.   I put an advertisement in the local paper the other day as a "Housesitter" and got a call straight away about a place about three kms from my favourite beach!    Wonderful!

So I shall be taking up residence on a new property next Friday.   The people will be away for a month, so for the next four weeks (while David is visiting), we will have a house and a pregnant cow; two horses (one who is over 30 years old!); two dogs (one deaf and nearly blind); three ducks; two chooks and a pond full of goldfish to look after.

They are going away again in Aug/Sept, and have asked me to look after their place again then too, which is good.    Nothing like having your life fall into place.

This new couple are old hippies and were among the first hippies to settle at Denmark (the community other people have been recommending to me).   I travelled there a couple of weekends ago (about a 500 km drive away) and while it IS a lovely looking community, the town doesn't embrace the ocean, the way Esperance does and I realised that I really had become emotionally attached to Esperance.   So it was no contest - good community or not, Esperance is the place I want to be.

I've started looking into the Transition Towns movement, and shall write more about this before too long.   As unrealistic (or conceited) as it may be, I've decided to work towards making Esperance the kind of town I would like to live in.

Coincidentally, there have been a number of people who have been coming in to the store where I work, saying they are involved in the environmental movement in one way or another.   

Soooooooo .... a bit of a catch up on what's been happening with me lately.

Spoke to my father yesterday and he expressed a little concern about his failing memory, saying that he's considering having a tag made for himself with his name and address on it, because he's worried that he really will forget where he lives one day!   We joked about this and when he mentioned something about me coming back to the eastern states to look after him in his dotage, I was VERY tempted to say, "Well, that would be okay ... as long as you don't hang around for too long!"

I'm working at two shops now - a dress shop and a giftware shop (both owned by the same people).   Whenever they go away on holidays or a buying trip, they've asked me to mind their house too and that's been a marvellous change.   It's a great little place, on a hill, overlooking the town and beach.   They have two VERY peppy little poodles - Coco and Paris - and they are great fun to have around (although Marlo continues to be lowkey around them).

Being around so many mirrors and fashion-conscious people really made me focus on my body and my wardrobe!   I've been madly trying on clothes and buying up big (with 20% staff discount) and am enjoying this new focus.   There is a range of clothes I'm especially fond of - Kita Ku.   Great lines!    And very flattering.

After having lived here with Bob and Margaret for so many months, I've really started to feel that perhaps I might be wearing out my welcome.   They haven't said anything and we have been very open about my plans and their needs, but I just felt that the time had come for me to move on.    I will miss this lovely rainforest garden, but am looking forward so much to making one of my own eventually.

People keep telling me it's unrealistic to think I have enough money to buy a property with an ocean view, but that's never stopped me before.   I once lived in a lovely old authentic miner's cottage in the main street of Bright and paid only $52 a week rent.   When I had to leave there (it had been sold and demolished to make way for a new chemist shop), I was told, "Welcome to the real world, you'll never find a place like that again ... you're going to have to pay around $200-$300 a week rent now!"   But blow me down, I found another gorgeous little shack in the bush for $25 a week!   LOL

The beauty of the shack was that it backed on to a national park and I could walk out my back door, straight up the hill and into the park without seeing a soul.     So I used to do it naked!     Straight from my bed into the forest.     Idyllic.

Speaking of naked.   Did you hear me on ABC Radio National the other week?   I'd written to "Life Matters" to see if they would be interested in interviewing David about his book, "Finding The Sweet Spot" when he comes to Australia in April and just by way of explanation of how I knew him, I wrote at the bottom of my email that we had met in Second Life.

Within hours I got an email back from one of the programme's producers saying, "Yes, we might do a programme on your friend, but what we're REALLY interested in, is in interviewing you about Second Life."     Wow!    That was a surprise.

In talking to the producer, I told her about various things I'd done and said that I regarded my life as 'chapters in a book" and that was the theme they presented it as.   My time as a hippy, living on a nude beach in Noosa (Queensland); my editorship of a local newspaper in Bright; and my involvement with Second Life and meeting David.

If you have ten minutes without anything to do, here is the link so you can listen to the interview:

My ten minutes of fame (which still leaves me five minutes!)

It was lovely to get telephone calls and emails from friends who heard it.   I was kicking myself though because I thought the show would focus on Second Life and I had intended to talk about the community David and I have established there, but it was only a ten minute interview and Richard Aedy, the presenter, left SL until the last bit.   I think I was trying to appeal to the masses when I focused on Second Life's attractions of mansions and aeroplanes - things that don't interest me at all, when I really wanted to sing the praises of online communities.

Oh well.

The producer later told me that they often do follow up segments on interesting interviewees and she was kind enough to say I was one of those!    lol

So what else has been happening in this little life of mine?   Not much.   I'm still endeavouring to not spend as much time on SL as I usually do and to make time for other things.   Working has helped with that.   And it's great to get a few dollars every fortnight.

Still haven't met anyone who is likely to be a romantic focus.   Although, now that I'm working down at the dress shop, I'm getting to know one of the other ladies there a bit.   She's an incredibly outgoing and confident Greek woman - Jenny.   She came to visit me last week - my first visitor!     And has invited me to dinner at her place in the next week or so.

Oh!    And Louise, the woman I work for, has been asked to do a "Trinny and Susannah" at some local club and I'm going to be her 'model' - i.e. the one who will illustrate what not to wear and how to put together a fashionable 'look'.   Since fashion has never really been my thing, I'm looking forward to some tips.

I think that's about it.   Drumming still continues to be a joy (djembe drums).   I bought a $2 didgeridoo at a garage sale the other week and that will go into our 'suite' of musical instruments.   Another local music group closed down recently and gave us their bank account (with $1,000 in it), so we will use that to expand the group's drum stock.   A few new members have joined and once we get organised, we will invite whatever members are still left from the other music group, to join us.

Here are some photos of my favourite places, or where I have been and where I'm going ...

Photo 1 - my dream place to live!  

Photo 2 - this is where I've been living for the past four months - in my lovely caravan, on the edge of a wonderful little rainforest heaven.

Photo 3 - this is the beach that I'm living three kilometres from for the next month.   It has gorgeous little lagoons along a safe stretch of aqua surf, AND it's only a relatively short walk to the nude beach.

















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Making Me

Posted on Feb 26th, 2009 by Fearless : Grace Serene Fearless
Myhouse_
One of the things that I'm learning, through loving David, is that I have to make myself.   I can't rely on anyone else to complete me.   That's something I have to do for myself.

This might seem self-evident, but for whatever reason, it seems to be something that I have assiduously avoided for a long time.   A long time?   Try all my life!   I've always looked outside my self to feel complete.   As though me, on my own, just isn't enough.   

And that might be true - I am not enough because there are so many things I don't 'do'.   I'm not a very good friend.   I don't think of others very much.   I don't have a joy of cooking - especially for others!   In fact, the thought of cooking for a dinner party is sure to put me into a state of nervous anxiety!   I live in my own little world, without much thought for what other people might need or want of me.

I know a lot of the people who read this blog will feel that polyamoury is just an excuse for David to continue looking for 'the one'.   That he can't really love me because he's still looking for someone who suits him better than I do.   More than one person has said to me, "I hear David has fallen in love with someone else" ... and so he has.   But I'm fortunate that he still loves me.   In what way, I'm not sure and it is this uncertainty about my 'value' as a person, that I think forms the basic insecurity I have about being loved.   My fear of losing what I have has sometimes been stronger than the certainty I have that I am loved.

It's easier for me to believe that I am not lovable.   Easier because that IS my reality.   I have been on my own for many years now and it's very rare for me to find someone who interests me, much less find someone who finds me interesting!  

I'm fortunate though that I've found friendship - both with Mark and Dick - two men who were in my life for ten years apiece.   What I have found with David makes me content - IF I don't start fantasising about what I would like it to be.   He's always been honest and up front with me and since I passed on that wonderful wisdom of, "Let the people IN your heart, know your heart", I feel more assured of not having any surprises jump out at me.   That's not to say that I don't brace myself a little every time he mentions someone he finds interesting.   

I'm feeling rather sentimental these days.   I'm not sure if it's hormonal or I am indeed going through 'a change of life'.   I used to be able to look in the mirror and think, "Not bad".   Those occasions are now much rarer.   It's a stand out moment these days to look at my face and see prettiness or loveliness.   Just lately though, there's been a glow there that comes from 'looking after myself' - from eating well (or at least better) and for taking the time to care about how I am and what I am.

There's a kernel of hope there, that I'm not lost.   At least, not lost forever.

From time to time I do acknowledge that I can't rely on David to nourish me.   I have to fill my own life.   To write my own story.   To nurture my own self.   Each time he reminds me that I am only a small part of his life (not in so many words, but that's what he's telling me), my stomach churns and tears spring to my eyes - a welling up of emotion at not feeling 'enough' love.   Dick once said to me, "Give you an inch Cheryl and you want a mile" and that is true - I always want more.   Life isn't happy enough, or rich enough, or stimulating enough, or easy enough ... I always want more.   Even when I put dishwashing liquid into the sink, I always think, "That won't be enough, I'd better give it another little squirt."   And of course, I always have plenty of suds.   But that doesn't stop me next time thinking that it needs that extra little squirt.

And so ... fate has brought a wonderful man into my life.   A man I love very much.   A man who brings me joy and who DOES make me feel loved.   

It's me who is jeopardising what we have, because in my eyes, no matter what he gives to me in the way of attention or time, I continue yearning for what he has told me he can't give me - his whole self.   Like the heroine of "Eat, Pray, Love" - I want to eat his soul.   I want to absorb him into me, to fill the gaps.   To obliterate the lack within me.

Occasionally I have wondered how I would have turned out, if I had had a different upbringing.   Different parents.   That, of course, is a pointless exercise because that is anybody's guess!

My god I am a late bloomer!   I keep reciting the mantra in my head, "I'm 55 years old and I still haven't ... (fill in the gaps) ... found a joy of loving / of cooking / of being a good friend / of doing fulfilling/satisfying work / achieved anything worthwhile / had an overwhelming orgasm ..."

Just lately, I have been feeling like I'm a failure.   Because of all that I haven't managed to do.   Sometimes it takes me forever to FINALLY have the revelation which starts me on the journey I need to take.   I always seem to have to hit rock bottom, before I can find my way back up.

I titled this blog "Being Fearless" and all I've seemed to do since I set out is to be fearFULL.   But then the fear is spurring me on.   I don't want to be so scared, so afraid.   I don't want this fear in my life.

I want to be joyous that I AM loved, to be grateful for what I do have, rather than focused on what I don't.

It's time for me to make myself.   To create ME!   To do the things I need to do - to cook, to clean, to make a life, to buy a house or a property, plant a veggie garden, make new friends, invite more love into my life, to WRITE!   To express who I am, to be more creative.   Just how long do I think I have?   I can't be waiting around for someone else to do this for me.   I have no allusions about wanting to achieve any great fame - to lead a revolution, or make a great impact - I just want to be satisfied and fulfilled and challenged (and to meet that challenge).

Many years ago, when Mark and I were going through a bad patch and were living apart temporarily, he sat me down and said, "Cheryl, you just have to be responsible for yourself" and I honest to god, cried out in pain, "I can't bear it, I really can't - I'd rather die!"   And then of course, I laughed.   I'd rather be dead, than responsible for myself?    I'm sure you're laughing out loud now too.   That was probably 20 years ago and I've still been trying to avoid it!

Mum made it easy for me.   She would totter over to the cabin, for those couple of years that I lived at Montrose, and give me the odd $50 or so and like the weasel I was, I took it and bought chocolate bars and hummous and comforted myself because I was living such a miserable life.   As long as she kept bringing fifties, I keep on giving myself comfort.   I used to have the image in my mind of a giant baby bird, still in the nest when its parents were in their dotage - squawking, "Bring me food, bring me food!"

That all changed on 4th August last year when my mother died.   I finally had to grow up.   I'm so ashamed of that person - that me.   Why have I avoided making myself a better person?   It's humilating to be sitting here now, typing this, admitting that I've just wasted so much of my life.   Sitting on my arse, fooling myself!   I am a great disappointment to myself.

I can't remember whether it was Freud or Jung who said, "Change only comes after a short, sharp shock" (or words to that effect), and so it is that uncertainty and fear that I've experienced in the past several months have FINALLY focused my attention on what it is that I have not achieved in my life.   Hallelujah for that!   About time!

So ...

I am about to embark on a small journey of exploration.   If you believe that your house is symbolic of your life ... I am going off for several days tomorrow to find my wreck of a house so I can bring it back to life and let it sing again.   And through that nurturing of the house, I hope to find a better version of myself.





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