"you and your dom-ish intentions"

Laying here on my bed wondering if I actually do want to pull the plug and realizing that in the act of pulling it I will be spending more time with you, which maybe is the whole reason for thinking it, for wanting it, in the first place.  Does it always have to be this emotionally complex?

It feels like it does, like there's no escaping.

All this thinking and suddenly I find myself back in the car, years ago now, dropping another you off at your apartment complex and how easy that had been and how utterly unhindered it had felt, laughing along with you about your dom-ish intentions.  You were fun.  Easy to laugh with.

The new you isn't so easy to laugh with, but the laughs come often enough, and some sort of playfulness is there though it doesn't feel as easy as I remember it once being.

I worked hard to sabotage that, too.

Maybe it won't ever feel that easy and that's the point, isn't it?  The point about new experiences and enjoying things for what they are, when they are it.

Libretto

I know what a libretto is now. And, consequently, also a librettist.

I did not know these things a year and half ago. Last February was cold and I knew nothing about opera or singing or anything voice related, really.

Let's start at the beginning. The January before that last February, I broke up with my therapist. For the second time. I should be clear. This was not the second time I broke up with Collette, my wonderful New York therapist, but the second time I found myself breaking off a therapeutic relationship. 

When you say it like that, "therapeutic relationship", it makes the whole thing seem a bit less daunting. Warm and friendly, almost. That was Collette. Warm and friendly, almost.  I had started seeing her about 7 months earlier. Several months and boxes of tissue later, I was leaving her. For much the same reasons that I had left my first - I didn't know why I was doing it anymore.

Instead, I had decided, I was going to spend my time energy and efforts on voice lessons. Something almost most definitely not therapeutic.

What are goals, you know? They seem so situational and relative. What does it mean to have goals for your life? With a years worth of months between my current self and the past one that did therapy, it's easy to see this as the problem.  I didn't know what the goal was. Or how to get a goal. I showed up (usually late). I talked (about?). I invariably got choked up. My time would come to an end. There was no story to it, no driving narrative. Just empty words put in someone else's ears.

Singing is different. The goal is clear, objective. The way forward may not be, but the desired end product is identifiable.

And on the way to the goal, I learn things about myself. About my voice and how to be present. There are bigger, deeper lessons too, broader narratives: that things are often easier than you think they are. That it's the thinking, of a certain kind, that gets in the way. That relaxing is hard. That you never will see your own impact on the world - but that no one can. That some days are better than others.

I learned that it gets easier. That All Of It Gets Easier.

Oh yeah, and

I learned how to siiiiiiiiiing.

Feet

We all have to stand on them. All two of them.

All Other things being what they are: irrelevant, mostly.

Thoughts on Swedish

The words are really short

So many accents!!?

What did you just... can you spell that? Thanks that's... sadly thats not helpful either.

Oh shit Instagram I have no idea where this was. It was on an island. Near that bridge. Close to a church.

God damn Instagram search sucks.

Is that English?? Are you speaking English? ... No. OK, what about you, over there? Now? Now you are, but that's new. Before. What did you say before?

I don't understand.

withdrawal

it seems nigh impossible for me to stay happy with the status quo for long.

i've been drinking coffee, religiously, for a few weeks now and the inevitable of happening always happens: the withdrawal begins without my bidding.  maybe it's just that i had half a cup that morning instead of a whole one.  or that the coffee was ingested earlier in the day that i was accustomed to.

dry eyes, no appetite, a taut jaw, a head ache that is less a head ache than a vise applied right behind your eyes.  inexplicable fatigue.  early morning wakings, my subconscious body's response to some unhearable call -- the black lady herald of a steamy cup.

i can see the slope that is detox.  it's long and steep, covered with rocks, pain, anger and lots of sleep.  the way down from this coffee mountain, so to speak, is long and arduous and singular.

you would think that i could stay here, but i cannot. my body made the decision to leave.  it's already started down the path way, and it will every day without fail unless i reaffirm my commitment to staying: a second cup in the afternoon.  i'm not willing to dig in, to entrench myself further.  for how long until that second cup becomes a third or a fourth?  i can only imagine how much harder yet more violently you become compelled to escape then.

mm but my that does smell good.  maybe i'll go off slowly. try sliding down the mountain on a steamy wave of short bursts?  i can postpone; i'll start down, for real, on monday.

just a taste, i just need a taste.