Emotional Stability and Suspension Piercing
Things have calmed down a bit. It's not that my housing situation is any more stable, it's just that I'm more okay with it. This guy Ari has been amazing to me, letting me leave all my stuff in his room, giving me his bed while he sleeps on his patio, and giving me his spare key. So it's a nice set-up, except it's hard to find my things because they're in a huge pile and, you know, he might want his bed back at some point. The girl whose room I stayed in before is going out of town again, and I'll bounce over to her room for a couple of days. Eventually I'll probably move to the shack for the summer, as planned, and the fall is still up in the air.
Today was a very strange solstice. Marz and I were in charge of cooking dinner, and that made me feel good because so far the only thing I've contributed to the co-op was meltdowns. So we cooked this kick-ass dinner (roasted root vegetables, garlic peanut butter stir-fry, salad with basil, avocado, oranges, and raisins, and leftover split pea soup if you're curious) while listening to Iggy Pop and the Pixies, and we were eating someone suggested we check out next door, the other half of this co-op that we had applied to first. I knew they were having a barbecue, and had built some sort of wooden structure with ropes hanging off of it, and they were doing things to each other with knives, but I hadn't paid much attention, just noticed it out of the corned of my eye when I went to do my laundry.
Well, it turned out three guys had put two huge hooks each through their backs, and were planning on suspending themselves from them. So a bunch of us watched as these three men, one with an eleborate and huge new cut on his arm that look quite a bit like the cuts the Bringers did to Spike in the 7th season (yes, geek) hooked themselves to each other, and breathed deeply, and dramatic music was playing this whole time (including at one point the sountrack to Amelie, which was weird) and it was so strange that this was my backyard, not some circus I had traveled to, and it was like, watch two guys suspend another guy, all by hooks on their backs, go check on my laundry, fold my laundry, head on back, now the guys are walking forward to suspend the other guy more and I'm called on to hold one of their hands and help him lean forward, as they focus inward and breathe deeply, and I swear I felt like I did in my labor assistant training as I tried to focus my energy and support on this person. These are the things men do because they can't give birth - some of them need an intense, painful, meaningful experience I guess (it was obviously very meaningful to them, say what you will). And we watched them hang for quite awhile, which felt uncomfortable like we were at some gallows at times, and the sun set, and one of them (who had been the nicest guy at that house to us and had given us a big tour) hugged people and thanked them for coming and being part of this experience with him, and I decided I want to live here. Yes, it's dysfunctional. Yes it's lacking the strong feminine power and love of the Fork. Yes I don't yet have a room. But I'm not going to have an experience like this living anywhere else. I see now what Marz meant when she says it's like living at Burning Man. There's no guarantee that there's going to be room for us come fall, but I'm going to try. And try to get over my second thoughts about living in a shack for the summer. I just need to buck up and be strong.
In other news I'm feeling much better - I'd been really tired since I started working and was afraid what they might mean, but then I took a long nap yesterday and it made a world of difference. Hey, getting enough sleep, apparently that helps. Speaking of which, why am I still awake?
Today was a very strange solstice. Marz and I were in charge of cooking dinner, and that made me feel good because so far the only thing I've contributed to the co-op was meltdowns. So we cooked this kick-ass dinner (roasted root vegetables, garlic peanut butter stir-fry, salad with basil, avocado, oranges, and raisins, and leftover split pea soup if you're curious) while listening to Iggy Pop and the Pixies, and we were eating someone suggested we check out next door, the other half of this co-op that we had applied to first. I knew they were having a barbecue, and had built some sort of wooden structure with ropes hanging off of it, and they were doing things to each other with knives, but I hadn't paid much attention, just noticed it out of the corned of my eye when I went to do my laundry.
Well, it turned out three guys had put two huge hooks each through their backs, and were planning on suspending themselves from them. So a bunch of us watched as these three men, one with an eleborate and huge new cut on his arm that look quite a bit like the cuts the Bringers did to Spike in the 7th season (yes, geek) hooked themselves to each other, and breathed deeply, and dramatic music was playing this whole time (including at one point the sountrack to Amelie, which was weird) and it was so strange that this was my backyard, not some circus I had traveled to, and it was like, watch two guys suspend another guy, all by hooks on their backs, go check on my laundry, fold my laundry, head on back, now the guys are walking forward to suspend the other guy more and I'm called on to hold one of their hands and help him lean forward, as they focus inward and breathe deeply, and I swear I felt like I did in my labor assistant training as I tried to focus my energy and support on this person. These are the things men do because they can't give birth - some of them need an intense, painful, meaningful experience I guess (it was obviously very meaningful to them, say what you will). And we watched them hang for quite awhile, which felt uncomfortable like we were at some gallows at times, and the sun set, and one of them (who had been the nicest guy at that house to us and had given us a big tour) hugged people and thanked them for coming and being part of this experience with him, and I decided I want to live here. Yes, it's dysfunctional. Yes it's lacking the strong feminine power and love of the Fork. Yes I don't yet have a room. But I'm not going to have an experience like this living anywhere else. I see now what Marz meant when she says it's like living at Burning Man. There's no guarantee that there's going to be room for us come fall, but I'm going to try. And try to get over my second thoughts about living in a shack for the summer. I just need to buck up and be strong.
In other news I'm feeling much better - I'd been really tired since I started working and was afraid what they might mean, but then I took a long nap yesterday and it made a world of difference. Hey, getting enough sleep, apparently that helps. Speaking of which, why am I still awake?