Reclaiming the present

Be present. It is a mantra for many, and it is a good foundation upon which to live ones life. Being fully present is both a wonder and a challenge, and those of us who take on this particular facet (of which it is often part of a larger set of ideas that comprise an entire practice) do so with a willingness and openness that belies the underlying complexity of the simple statement: be present.

What is meant by this? And what are the complexities that make it up?

When we say "be present" we are referring to the idea that one's own mind is often the source of an endless spring of distractions. We sit, and are overwhelmed by the flood of our own imaginations. we thirst, we desire, we despair - it's all part of the process of both being with who we are and of being able to accept it, being gentle with our own selves and of being willing to stand within it but let it go. "thinking!" is often how some teach this.

the mind is a peculiar part of being human (though I will note parenthetically here that I am not at all persuaded that the other creatures, at least many orders of them, are not also victimized by thought, but that's another story). we think, therefore we are. And so it does flow. But when we stop and wonder what it is that is emanating from our minds, it becomes easier to understand not just the process and challenge of sitting, but also of being present and what that truly means.

Much of our lived experience is mae up of things that happen to us. we eat, we drink, we love, we travel, we listen, we hurt - all of these are part of our life experience. It is a sectrum of things that range from the sublime to the evil, the pained, and all of it together comprise what we feel and who we are. and all - all - these things that happen to us happenED to us, they are none of them future events. They all DID happen, it is the past, it is what we do to evaluate much of our experience.

It is also, in a great many respects, essential. But it is not and should not be the means by which we live our present. Lets examine this for a moment. When a child learns to walk, one of the things its parents try to do is to help the child learn about danger. That child, when approaching a busy street where cars or other larger objects may be whizzing past, must learn to stop and look and listen. Without it, there would be no direct experience to draw from to be able to inform future encounters with busy thoroughfares, or at least such informing would be burdened by deep pain. Thus the parents do what they must to instill in the child some sense of how to not be in the world, a way to avoid that potentially heartbreaking mistake. Such is not the case, however, in many other of life's experiences. We may fal ill and need serious medical attention. We may fall in love and, after some time, fall out of that love, leaving one or more of the participants in a state of deep sadness. these and many, most, other of our experiences in life are ways that we ourselves come to build a set of past experiences that inform the present. We FELL in love once, it hurt, and now, if faced with the possibility again, we may choose to remember that experience and perhaps be able to sidestep some of the things that might again lead to pain. this is the past informing our present.

And indeed, all - all - of our experience, our lived life, is made up precisely of these events. Each one becomes oart of who we are, part of our own "dictionary" of how we navigate further, how we live in the present, and, indeed, part of what our mind works with, in wake or in sleep, as we go through a day. It is here that the tumble of thoughts try and pull us out of the reverie of sitting meditation, and it is here that our minds try and bring us when we try and be present.

There are, over the course of a small section of each and every one of our lives, literally millions upon millions of these events. Some are so small and inconsequential so as to be meaningless. some are so routine that their service in our lives is simply part of a larger routinization, a needed process, that helps make life more comfortable. But the large majority of these events are far more than inconsequential. Some of us are comprised of an innumerable number of deep hurts - abuses, pains, neglect of all types - and these have become over time our map of experience. some of us are so deeply affected that we cannot escape the bonds of this past - the hurt is so continuous that it informs all events going forward: the ast becomes the future. Most of us, thankfully, do not suffer this way, but rather manage to manage those events, sorting out the ones of deep pain and setting them far away, or perhaps, if we're lucky, approaching them and with help or great skill, letting them simply be part of our lives. It's all a matter of balance, it's all a matter of how each one of us chooses to make sense of that past, to let it or not let it overwhelm and control us, to dictate the future.

And herein is, I think, the really difficult challenge of really, truly, being present. That flood of thought is our past, it emerges, deftly fooling us into thinking it is our imagination, or fooling us into believing that these are simply thoughts and feelings, too often not connected to some specific part of that past. This is quite normal and understandable, and something that we cannot and should not try to escape or avoid. But herein lies the challenge: when we seek to be "fully present" we are, in essence, asking ourselves to forget our past, to set aside deeply those very events that make us who we are, that sometimes protect us, that make our lives comfortable. We are expecting to be released from ourselves, to be allowed to wander freely in a setting that has no past. This is impossible of course. what, then, is the resolution?

Part of the process, I think, is to be able to take time to examine the self in the context of that jumble of lived experiences, with an eye toward singling out those moments, those events, that have deeply shaped and shaken us. To be able to stand up and tell ourselves that what happened happened, that it is part of that we must accept and embrace, but that it is PAST, not present. Being fully present must, in essence, become an event unto itself, informed by the past but not controlled by it. IT is often a matter of "stepping past" that past event or idea, of letting it go, knowing that it might well happen again. It is risk. It places us in a position of great vulnerability, a place that, often due to that same painful past set of experiences, can lead us to hide, to in effect, avoid being present in a manner that is tempered, and often ruled, by that past. Being fully present is about the now, but must have with it a willingness to open ones heart and mind to the realities, often painful realities, of a lived past, a very real past, that leaves us weak, subject to more pain, more difficulty.

Loneliness

I got a note back today from someone I've had a mild interest in. It's odd, cuz that interest really has been somewhat muted - yes, I notice an energy we sometimes get, but it's not as though I'm hot for this person, and we've not dated (I hate that word). So for me it is sort of "well, if something more happens ok, otherwise..."

but the reply that was sent leads me to something unexpected.

I'm well aware of how I've changed myself in the past few years. I'm moving closer and closer to a change in me that is core: I'm a trans person, but not in the usual sense. I self identify as co-gendered, a term that leaves most pople shaking their heads - "wtf?"

The reply examined the assumptions that this person knew of themselves, but led then into a kind of "I don't know how I feel about your gender expression" and "I'm not sure if I have the kind of interest in exploring this further due to that gender thing". I wasn't hurt so much by the reply per se - I don't have any stake, so.... does it matter that much?

but I was deeply affected when I reflected on how this kind of reply left me as a person. totally, utterly alone. And this, I think, is the future reality I have to face. It's as though I have finally come face to face with my own change, my own self, my new self, and now I have to either accept it or abort the whole thing.

I've travelled down this unknown road for a while, not knowing anything about the end. I've encountered the kinds of sentiments that let me know that, in the view of some, I am not "trans enough". And I've certainly encountered the views of those that think I am "too weird". I'm both. I don't want, I never wanted, to be this way. But here I am. I have no community, no ties that let me associate with others. I define myself in a way that is utterly singular (am I a singularity??). I need to acept that I will never have partners, never have a relationship. I won't be approached by others who think I am hot, or who want to spend time with me based on who I am as this person.

It's funny. I don't hold any of my own feelings about this against the respondent, but I am now more aware of how the path I've chosen or the path that has chosen me, is, in some ways, a social death sentence. I'm doomed to not be connected. I don't fit in either world. I don't really fit anywhere. And it leaves me sad, despondent, wondering if I should even bother with this whole identity blossom?

The Complicatedness of "Yes"

I've just (almost, really, only a page or two left) finished reading a chapter in 'Best Sex Writing 200' by Thomas Macaulay Millar - 'Toward a Performance Model of Sex'. It's awe inspiring to me, and raises deep questions about the nature of consent.

That aside, it also leads me to think more clearly about my own foibles around yes and no and "getting any". I've been troubled by this for a long time, maybe most of my life. It's not that I was somehow "raised a feminist" (hardly). Nor was it that I had some epiphany or early gf encounter that led me to the well. Rather, it seems to be a somehow acquired (gradually) process wherein I cannot accept the idea that I can "ask" without playing in to the awfulness of getting a "yes" through a subtle form of coercion, that the women I ask are somehow accommodating my interest. That repulses me. It repulses me primarily b/c I don't think *anyone* should be in the position of having to yield if they are not fully cogent of, fully accepting in themselves of, and fully in touch with, their *own* inner desires. Since I have realized how difficult it is for anyone - myself included - to be deeply in touch with those things, it more or less becomes an intractable problem: how can I possibly *expect* "yes" from another within whom the nascent seeds of any desire are still unfurling? Is it even possible to partake of something as intimate as the dance of sex with another person without risking that loss in one side or the other that capitulates need and desire to that of the other person? I dont yet have the answers to these questions. I just know that right now they are deeply disturbing to me. It feels as though I am somehow "taking away" from the other when I ask and get "yes".

"No", at the same time, is a different facet, harsh, painful, unyielding. True, I've heard "no" described as a way of being positive, of being good somehow and letting the other person know they have a certain freedom. All well and good, but it belies the deeper problem.

Enter Millar's commodity model of sex. We are steeped in a commodity culture. Everything we see, hear, touch, do, sleep, breath, feel, eat, say or do is built on this commodity model. Millar paints a picture of sex as performance using music as the central idea: a musician may elect to *collaborate* with other musicians, and in so requesting ("Would you like to collaborate on this piece?") moves far away from the commodity model. Looking at it in reverse, I imagine what it might be like if one musician asks another "So, how much to get you to play this piece with me?". Sad. If all musical rendering by more than a soloist were constructed this way, we'd all be the poorer. I doubt Lennon asked McCartney this on the threshold of "I am the Walrus". It seems unlikely that deeply felt music emerges from a simple cash transaction: "Will that be Visa or Mastercard?".

What emerges for me here is a different way of approaching my own terror around this. Instead of "would you like to fuck?" (seriously, I've never once actually asked that question but it serves the point here), I could instead ask "I would love the chance to collaborate with you in a sharing of the senses", leaving open ALL the possibilities that such enjoinments might allow. It leaves open all the choices, including "no" (which, interestingly now seems to be come something like "That kind of collaboration isn't possible for me now. I may get back to you if that changes. Thank you for asking me"). "Yes" now becomes an invitation to possibility, and no longer is rooted in "what's it worth to ya?".

Of course, this leaves wide open the larger problem of informing others - potential partners included - of this rather dramatic shift in perspective. After all, since 99% of the western industrialized world (and a distressingly high percentage, growing daily, of the lesser-industrialized world) is steeped in commodity exchange, how are we to cope with a shift in linguistic sensibility that draws not from an actual change in the language used, but rather the subtle shades of the same words which now must be taken on a totally different level? It's easy to take a step toward changing our *own* approach from "Fuck me now" to "Would you care to dance", but that presumes that, along with the conveyance of an inner desire to do *something*, the "other" to whom we are addressing our interest can both pick up (npi), reinterpret, and respond in kind to our beseechments. That's asking and expecting a lot. I would fully expect a lot of weird looks if I simply did this, sans warnings.

One place to begin is education. Certainly, there's a way to this in a shared group setting. That will help, but it's a small step.

I suppose the other obvious place to begin is in direct contact with existing partners with whom I enjoy this kind of sharing. Trying out this model shift, asking to collaborate instead of begging to fuck is an interesting variation on the usual paths to getting together. Certainly the element of surprise here won't, at least I don't think it will, suffer any risk to the existing bonds. The strength of what I have is not predicated on a secure channel of unvarying communication between us.

A side note might be in order here (though this is a book length possibility). Communications among H. sapiens is abysmally bad. For a species that somehow prides ourselves on the model of verbal communication, we are piss poor at it: warring, fighting, bitching, complaining, never getting the message through of what is really wanted or needed. It's appalling, really, when you think about. It's also miraculous, when you think about that, that we have survived as long as we have, despite the instruments fashioned to ensure the efficacy of our mutual destruction. Anyway....

Finally, the last place to test the waters, as it were, might be in ordinary, everyday life. A shift of our habitus. I think of work: what would changes there look like? How often is what I am called upon to do - and the number of face to face transactions (see? there it is - commodity) I actually do these days - something that can be quantified or boiled down to "what's it worth to ya?" or similar linguistic tropes? I imagine what it might be like to effect a transaction in the supermarket, blithely ignoring the non-transactional part (that's the part where I take the food and give them money) of the exchange with the cashier and try and supplant the usual "I'm here to buy shit" with something more along the lines of "how can I collaborate with you [the cashier] to fulfill this process?". Complicated.

So, yes, "yes" is devilishly complicated. Getting there, at any level, anywhere, is a complex and bedeviled series of (mis)steps. It's pre-damaged by an almost innate INability to communicate. "No" is easy. It's very harshness can be a measure of strength. I recall - albeit vaguely - that book of maybe a decade ago, "Getting to Yes", something all about business and how to get to an agreement that both parties like. I haven't seen it in a while. IT leads me to wonder how we got where we are now, and why asking another to share a deeper part of who we are is sadly relegated to "Fuck me for a dollar" and not "share with me some part of you that you love, and I will give it back".

Nexus of Desire

Since my father's death, I've noticed a subtle shift in the way I intersect with desire.

Prior to his passing, I can say with good assurance that my desire was very clear, strong, directed. I had (still have) good partners, and we enjoyed many an hour or three having good sex of all flavors. There was kink, vanilla and a lot in between. I was rarely one to pass on the chance to partake, and I loved it in a huge variety of places. I never really questioned that. Part of it was my celebration of my body, my willingness and desire to give of myself, to see others experience pleasure.

The shift since perhaps last October has been odd. I still have desire, and while I can't say it is quenched much, the "direction" (vector?) has changed. I still feel a passion for my partners, I still enjoy the sharing, but it has waned a lot in the intervening months. I'm not at all sure why, just that the vector is somehow a mixture of self-reflection brought on, I guess, by the whole process of death and dying and especially when you are left an orphan, and by the inner turmoil brought on by my former spouse (who has taken a decidedly greedy turn).

One other side effect here is that a lot of the issues around jealousy, especially around one partner in particular, have somehow gently wafted away. At times, I almost feel ambivalent towards her, although when we reconnect, which is increasingly rare, I melt back into that wonderful place of a deep love for her. But at other times, knowing she has chosen to spend most of her time with someone else, I am now largely "meh" about that, at times genuinely encouraging her (compersion? me?) to enjoy it, trying, when needed or asked, to be supportive of the foibles and challenges she faces with her other relationships. This is good, but not planned.

I'm left at this point often wondering if I even want to share my desire with others at all. Heading to WF, I wonder about this a lot. So much of push there is about "getting it" and for me, now, I simply don't seem to want it.

Alone time

Since my dad died, I've changed a lot. One thing that shifted was the time I felt I needed to spend by myself. Seems that's grown a lot. Now, I wonder.

Am I spending too much time alone?

It's not that I've cut off my two main partners, but I clearly am taking a lot of time to be with my own self. Part of that is good. I get to reflect more, think more, be more of who I am. But the downside is that I feel a bit more.... eccentric, like there's something wrong and I am not quite sure what that is.

It's funny, cuz I think now more than ever I have a need to have someone to reflect off of, to pull me up short when I am really in left field and to reinforce things when I'm not.

Challenge here is that the dark side creeps in and I have to work harder to stay that.

Changes

Bowie said it first.

But it's true. For me, those changes have been little short of monumental since Sept 27th.

I was literally in the car driving back from summer camp when I got the call that something was significantly changed with my father. My sister said she was arriving the next morning. I stopped in and saw him on my way home. There'd been so many situations like this that I really did not expect to find much amiss. He was clearly not in a good way.

He died 10 days later.

I've reflected a lot on the experience since then. Going through death is a unique experience. There's nothing else I've ever experienced that afforded such clarity of mind.

But while that side of it was deep and has left lasting marks, the other part of it was a surprise and, in the end, is my real inheritance from him.

All my fear went away. Okay, maybe not all of it - I suppose there are still moments of anxiety about some things. But the reality of who I am, the real me, that one that had to get of this prison cell - that's the fear that's gone.

There's a new set of fears - reluctances might be a better word if it were one. But now the real me is here. I'm not afraid of that person. I am concerned? nervous? anxious? about who that person might become, might want to become. Do I do that? It feels so far past that in my life - how can I possibly make a change so fundamental to me as the person I've lived inside of for all these decades?

I've talked with several vital players in my life about this. I suspect one of them wonders why I don't take the plunge, change, metamorphose into that other. I'm not entirely sure. Part of me seeks to do just that, but the other aspects of me that I cherish - the drive, the dick, the body I have now - is reluctant to harbor that degree of change, of loss. I've considered cosmetic alternatives - that's a possibility,but I'd need to really consider the consequences. Could I live out that way? Do I want to live out that way?

The journey I'm on now is destined to take me to a forboding place. I know I must do that first.

Then. We shall see.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

"Turn and face the strange".

Since my father's death last month, something has changed, deeply, inside me. It's not about that relationship - that was always hard, and of late, very distant.

It's more to do with the growing self-realization, the part of me that now, finally, is starting to know who I am, no longer the definition of someone else.

And with that has come an odd shift in my sex and sexuality and my desire.

Whereas before it often felt (at least it was very vague and undefined) that when, for example, I wore thigh high nylons and walked about with them, it was as though part of me was trying to broadcast a message - "get laid". Was I? I don't know. (And I mean "get laid" in the broadest, most 'meta-' way possible, not just a BDT literal meaning). So when I was noticed, it was a lot about trying to see if what I imagined their conception of the meaning behind it could be something I understood in a way that opened the door to further connecting. That was me, compromising my self, in order to get the connection, whether sexual or something else.

But now, wearing thigh high nylons is more a marker of who I know I am, deep inside. And now it is not a matter of when someone sees me they say "Hotcha hotcha" and "Let's screw" but rather, I wonder, do they see the real me, and do they really know what this means as part of who I am? Do they truly understand that part of who I am, and do they grasp that the symbols are no longer a request for something like sex, but rather now are intrinsic representations or manifestations of the true self?

It is as though the symbolic language I've incorporated into the "me" of the past 15 years has suddenly jelled, morphed, into something at once deeply intimate and strangely unfamiliar. Who IS this odd person? [I KNOW this odd person well]

And with that comes the recognition, I think, that the inner person, though highly desiring of good sex contact and such, is no longer driven to that particular edge based on how I appear, no longer reaching for that fulfillment because of someone's "definition" of "me", but instead stems from a more fundamental place, and an interest in connecting that is totally free and clear of those older, familiar identities.

The person I am, really, now, finds solace, and, I hope, true self-confidence because I AM able to simply express that inner me as I feel it, and not because I am trying so so hard to "fit" into the mold of what others have tried to make me, whether real or imagined on my part.

There is one more sub-barrier, but even that, somehow, feels a lot different. I suspect I will manage to overcome that one with considerably more ease, esp since that relationship as it was is over.

It's both scary and exhilarating.