Loud music. Deafening loud music in a hot room with dazzling lights. The air is stuffy but not with that musty, moldy stuffiness of old age: it’s stuffy from youthful life, exceeding life and sexual energy. It smells of sweat. Loud music and dazzling lights in the darkness, heat and sweat. It’s crowded, one canContinue reading “Sensory immersion: memories from a year & a half ago”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Horror
I’m in shock, in disbelief still. That’s probably just because I’m naïvely optimistic, to a fault. The brief moments when reality sinks in, I feel devastated. Fear and fury. That’s what I — and many of us — are feeling now. Which is not a healthy or “normal” way to feel in a democracy. IfContinue reading “Horror”
Feeling the end
[Trigger warning: end of life.] The other persistent feeling that I’ve been having for a little over a year now (I can remember telling my swimmer/artist friend in California about it in September 2023) is of having reached my end, i.e. of having nothing left to do here, in this life, and it being timeContinue reading “Feeling the end”
Papa’ e’ morto
[Trigger warnings: death of parent; losses; grief.] The other persistent feeling of the past few weeks has been a stronger wave of grief due to a new, deeper realization of my father’s death. He died over a year ago and yet I don’t think I ever really grieved him. Apart from the first couple daysContinue reading “Papa’ e’ morto”
My gender is a rainbow
In the past several weeks I’ve been feeling three sensations persistently. One of them — the bright, or light, one — is a liberating and profound sense of my gender being a rainbow, or maybe a kaleidoscope. I wouldn’t call it “fluid”, as in genderfluid, because to me it doesn’t feel like it’s shifting orContinue reading “My gender is a rainbow”
Precious weekend
I can use many words to describe this weekend retreat with the gay men’s chorus: fun, playful, interesting, tiring, long, intense, healing, liberating, powerful, wonderful. And they’d all be appropriate. But if I had to pick just one word to describe it, I would choose precious. This weekend retreat with the gay men’s chorus to meContinue reading “Precious weekend”
Grief and that unrelenting yearning
[Trigger warnings: loss, death of parent, grief.] Ten days ago, the weekend I was staying with my closest climbing buddy and his partner, after my solo hike on Sunday I could feel this lump in my throat, this knot in my chest as I relaxed. Grief. Grief that needed to be honored and released. IContinue reading “Grief and that unrelenting yearning”
When the body says “No”
It’s Monday night, past 10 o’clock. I’m very tired from an exhausting weekend and the stress accumulation over weeks. I’ve done all “my homework”, i.e. all the things I know will help me to relax and eventually get a good night’s sleep: meditation before dinner; warm bath and enjoyable book after dinner; guided relaxation/meditation inContinue reading “When the body says “No””
“Shake it off”
“ Regrets collect like old friends Here to relive your darkest moments I can see no way, I can see no way And all of the ghouls come out to play And every demon wants his pound of flesh But I like to keep some things to myself I like to keep my issues drawnContinue reading ““Shake it off””
My obsessive brain and the pull of climbers
My brain (or mind?) has the tendency to obsess. I think it always has. This tendency has often served me well as it has allowed me to achieve many of my important, most desired, and often vital goals. These (obsessive) goals have been academic, professional, athletic, or connected to major personal changes/milestones/needs. A few timesContinue reading “My obsessive brain and the pull of climbers”
The Little Prince and the Fox 