Goddess Bless Inga

Today, I felt:

Peace.

Absolute

Embracing

Fulfilling

...Peace.

Ironically, this stemmed from reading Cunt, an otherwise incendiary book that gets my heart pumping faster rather than slower. But today, she nailed it, that feeling of being nurtured. That feeling I would like to provide to anyone who approaches me. If we would but nurture one another, and forgive each other for whatever it is we're holding against ourselves, all of these fabricated complications would dissipate.



"Ammachi seized me gently--if you can imagine that--and pulled me into her lap. She cradled me, murmuring sweet chanting sounds into my ear. Her body engulfed mine and I relaxed--almost melted--into her. My face buried in her shoulder and neck, I breathed in her smell.

This is when I really, truly started to freak on the wonder of Ammachi. After holding hundreds of people in this manner, you would think she'd start to kinda stink. I was nowhere near the begining of the line. The sun set and went down, down, down to Australia while I stood in that line. A lot of people were in her arms before me, but the woman smelled like flowers. Not perfumey at all. Like if you covered every inch of your bedroom floor with freshly cut bouquets of jasmine, gardenia, roses, hyacinth, carnations, sweet peas and freesia is what she smelled like. And this smell wasn't coming from the flowers around her, it exuded from her skin, the fabrics of her sari and veils. It filled my whole body, permeated my pores. Her smell made me so giddy the attendant had to help me stand back up again. She stared deeply into my eyes and pressed flower petals and chocolate kisses into my hand.

I stumbled away like a drunk.

Like I just had one 'dem orgasms to raise the dead.

Lordisa.

For a whole week afterwards, my entire apartment smelled like Ammachi. Everywhere I went, I smelled her smell. Walking down the street with one of my friends, the smell of Ammachi would assail me. I'd go, "Damn, do you smell that?" And my friend'd go, "Car exhaust? What?"

As Ammachi's smell faded from my life, I started thinking about what happened when she blessed me.

It was the first time in my life I felt /loved/. Physically, emotionally, psychically, spiritually, /deeply loved/ from the epidermis of my skin that featured a couple of ugly zits, to the core of my heart that is still traumatized by the death of my brother, abortions, meanspirited lovergirls and other nasty hurts. It is a consciousness-broadening freak-out to feel love in this way."

--from the chapter "Whores"

Mirrors...

I don't own a mirror.

As such, I have no idea what my body looks like.

When I see a mirror, I'm fully clothed and only see myself from the waist up.

Today, I discovered that I have a mirror in my room here. And I stood in front of it. Naked.

Duly, I screamed.

We're made out of blood and rust...

I know that I cannot believe them.

Any of them.

But can I trust them? Can I trust them with me, even when I know not to believe them about each other?



We're made out of blood and rust,
Looking for someone to trust
Without a fight.

--Joseph Arthur, "Honey and the Moon"

We generate our own light...

night falls like people into love,
and we generate our own light to compensate
for the lack of light from above.
every time we fight, a cold wind blows our way,
but we can learn, like the trees, how to bend,
how to sway.



Tonight, Ben and I talked for two hours and forty five minutes. We exchanged book suggestions (he has read quite a few Feminist theorists), and talked about our relationships with Mom and with Dad. We discussed theories on life and swapped mutually counter-cultural stories on the pretentious people we meet--I go to a private university and he works in a ritzy restaurant, so one can imagine the types of encounters we explore. And we kept telling each other how excited we were to talk with each other, which we both cited as our first real conversation in over five years. And he repeatedly mentioned how proud he is of me.

First, I was born into a family. And then they left, and I left, and we all shattered to each other. And then I made my own family, constructed of close friends and mentors. And now, I have that constructed family, but I also have this faint and terrifying hope that maybe there can be something with that original set, with Dad and Ben. Maybe there's something there.

Can I slip into this love for them so easily? It frightens me, but I am so excited to be talking with Dad and Ben. It brings to mind Heraclitus: "You cannot step twice into the same river." This love we have, I once felt it surrounding me, holding me afloat in its motion, and at some point we jumped out of that. Now I'm testing the water again, after five years of parched anger, stepping in a bit eagerly, and I know that this water is different, that this current has shifted, and that we, especially, have changed, but it feels similar and welcoming and vaguely consistent, and my feet have been so long dry.



i, i think i understand
what all this fighting is for-
and i just want you to understand:
i'm not angry anymore.
no, i'm not angry anymore.

--Ani DiFranco, "Angry Anymore"

Everyone's got to face down the demons...

Everyone's got to face down the demons-
Maybe today we can put the past away.

--Third Eye Blind



For the past twelve days, I have spent countless hours with friends trying to put away the past. It hasn't quite worked, since I've been using them as more of a distraction than anything else, but I will say that through the desperation, through these terrible days, I have felt the love of my friends, and it has cushioned me against the many-cornered emptiness that threatens us.

So thank you.

Thank you, Sarahschwarz. Thank you, Kristine. Thank you, Danny. Thank you, Mallory. Thank you, James.

And thank you, Seth, for being stronger than I am. I'm sorry that I cannot help you through this; I hope that you know how much I love you.



And when I chose to live,
There was no joy, it's just a line I crossed.
I wasn't worth the pain my death would cost,
So I was not lost or found.

And if I was to sleep...
I knew my family had more truth to tell,
And so I travelled down a whispering well
To know myself through them.

...

When you live in a world,
Well, it gets into who you thought you'd be,
And now I laugh at how the world changed me:
I think life chose me after all.

--Dar Williams, "After All"