Connection

So maybe I am a very old fashioned soul, but I don’t understand what is happening to our world. I know that I have previously written about this topic, but I need to do it again.

Social media. What a crock, really. It is basically advertising, but with the added illusion that it is in fact truth.

As a single parent at the beginning of the new millennium, I find that the longer I am on my own, the more disconnected I feel from the rest of the world. People rarely post when they are feeling low, or worried, or sad, unless someone has died. Day to day sadness is never shared, only the funny or the poignant, or the happy. Because it makes people feel good.  And I fall for that trap too, because when you post something more serious or sad, or something that makes people uncomfortable, then people don’t “like” it, and you assume that people find you whiney, or self indulgent, or just simply don’t care about your pain, or your problems. Because, let’s face it, the majority of people on facebook don’t. That is the truth.

I doubt many people will read this, and those who do are the people that I will see in the next couple of weeks most likely, in real life; with real facial expressions, and attitude, and opinions that occur in real life and that they can’t censor before speaking them, nor edit them for correct spelling!!!

A few of you may know that I have been doing internet dating on and off for years. Because, this is the new way of meeting people, isn’t it? In the old days, you used to meet people at work, or at Uni, or at the pub. These days, no one is actually out there at the pub, and if  they are, they are too busy checking their facebook or their Tinder hits. I am disappointed, and I am sick of looking. Because when you write a profile or even chat to people online, they invariably put their best foot forward, and it takes time to get to know people. In reality, when the make up comes off, the nice clothes, and even, cough….the actual clothes, we are denuded, we are simply people who are looking for connection, love, romance, in a world that moves so fast that people walk into you at the shops, but not because they are charmingly awkward, but because they are staring at their phone!

What’s even more interesting, is that social media promotes certain standards for men and women. Be strong, don’t rely on others, always be beautiful, because, hey, who posts their daggiest selfie? Always be busy doing something and have it ready to upload, because you have a much more interesting life if you do, even though posting something semi interesting takes 2 minutes and the rest of the day you do mundane things like eating, and sleeping, crapping and dishes, washing, etc.

Maybe there is something wrong with me. I want real, I want faults, I want the smell of sweat on a hot day, and a nervous telephone call when a text message is easier. I am reminded of the movie Crash. People crave connection so much that they end up crashing into each other, or having thoughtless sex to feel liberated, to block out feeling. God forbid you might have feelings for others.

Why have we become so afraid of connection, of commitment, of touch? Why are we so afraid of so called “negative” feelings? Why is it desperate or sad to feel lonely? I like my own company, it’s true. But hell, I get sick of my own company, I get sick of always planning things on my own; I wish I could just pick up the phone like in the old days and say, ‘Hey, I’m off to the museum, wanna come?’

There are literally thousands of people sitting behind their computer right now craving exactly the same connection, and yet we seem to have lost the ability to go to a dance, or to socialize with others like people used to. We chat on the computer instead, fabricated threads of connection, imagining people that sometimes turn out to be completely different from what we imagined. And are then left again with the dissatisfaction. And when we do meet people in real life, we expect them to be perfect, to not snort when they laugh, to have a flat belly (even though they have given birth numerous times, and shit, everyone in their 40s and over has a stretched belly!!!), to make interesting conversation 100% of the time. I crave flaws, people. Bad breath (maybe not bad breath), but awkwardness, nerves, clumsy hand holding, and love that emerges from relating to people. All I can say is thank goodness for the friends I have made over the years through knowing them, talking to them day to day. I will keep the hope alive that one day I will meet someone in real life, and get to know them, and fall in love.

In the meantime, I will go along with this new wave of relating, I will log into that website, time and again, hoping….

My fingers type but answers faster than my thoughts can keep up with the sounds in my ears that are rebounding and bouncing and calling out loudly and I am trying to drown it and the bottle isn’t deep enough and yet I still try despite the yawning scar that keeps growing and yawning and depriving. And I can’t sleep and I can’t quieten it and it just grows larger and it extends through the years and it seems never-ending and forever will repeat in the hours of every day and it doesn’t want to let me go and I wish I could exorcise it out of my body just like those stretched lengths of skin that deepen every day and mar my days and will never go away as I try so hard to run away from them but they will never end and I know that I am constantly trying but I act like a grown up and yet I am a child that cries in the dark and music just soothes the whole thing in an interminable nightmare of everlasting flames of searing pain. The books on my shelf just mock me, finish me they cry out and they just yell that I can’t and they know that I am an impotent fool that cries out in the night and a child that tries harder and harder each day and interprets the birds that fly in the day time and remind us of the long gone days that will never return. Try to immortalize it by tattooing it onto your feet that have caused as much suffering as living has tried to do. Push it aside and tell it to leave you alone as there has been enough already and they can never make you feel it no matter how much they push. And Shakespeare knew that the infinity of suffering needed to be put down or it would never end, so I try to place the never-ending circle onto a page so that I may be able to leave it behind and move forward. Why repeat the mistakes of centuries of thought and idiocy and satirical bullshit that love is. My face is tight and I know that I will never be here again and that I shall have to treasure the things and the words that pour out of me right now as they are unique and never-ending in their power and yet the prowess is not there, the prowess is lost in the earthen tomb of her. Staring from the cupboard and marring it all, staring at me when I fuck. Staring at me when I try to erase the hurt and the pelvic thrum that emanates from me when I feel him on me.

Rotten as my thoughts are, she is more so. And yet more alive than my throat can ever be, more present than the lioness that cowers ready to pounce on my destiny, covered by purple flowers, that cover the tomb of this past existence.

Building a Fire

Building a fire

When I was young, we had a pot belly stove. I loved being responsible for building a fire in it. Usually we used newspaper and pinecones to build a big pile of flammable material and then light the whole thing up. The fire would burn for a few minutes and quickly extinguish all the fuel. And then I would spend ages blowing at it, re-building it, and eventually small embers would form and a fire would slowly start. The best thing about these fires was that I learnt that the really hot coals at the bottom were excellent for cooking my creations. I made horses out of clay that we collected from the hills nearby and baked them in the stove. The slower they baked, the less likely they were to break.

So let’s talk about love.

Love in the past has been a brazen fire, an assault on the senses, a passionate affair that dealt me a blow, and a fire would burn in a big roar of fuel and intense heat. And more often than not, the fuel would burn out. Or the things that were put in that fire would break, because it was too hot.

When I first met my newborn babies, I didn’t love them like that. I remember thinking that loving Phoebe might diminish my love for my then partner. And when Amy was born, that loving her would in turn diminish my love for Phoebe. And yet, I was so wrong. My love for my children was a slow love that grew daily. It was like a fire that you add small amounts of fuel to every day, and it slowly builds to a large blaze that has interminable amounts of fuel and replenishes from a place of abundance that I cannot explain.

I am much older now, I have experienced love of all kinds.

Love for my animals, love for my friends, love for my fellow humans.  And, ye gods, romantic  love has happened to me again. This time, it has been a slow burn between equals. A fire that started with a small spark that has steadily grown. A small fire that allows individual growth and allows things to be placed in it to mature without breaking. A fire that I hope will burn with greater intensity every day. A fire that requires tending to, adding to, some oxygen sometimes to allow breathing space; and wood added to it to build embers.

A fire like this has millions of possibilities, it is not limited by the size of the container it is placed in, nor the amount of fuel you have, because it is independent of all of that. I want to learn how to care for this fire. I want to learn how to build it. It is a good fire.

So, because I trust it, I am placing a lump of clay in this fire, an investment. I am risking that it may break. But I hope it will not, as this fire is a slow, patient fire. A fire that will hopefully endure. It has taken a long time for this lesson to sink in, but I am glad it has.