Hard week

This is a hard week.  On the one hand, there’s the realistic, almost chemical, fact of coming down after 2-3 weeks of almost steady high, nonstop go-go-go — hence the ensuing physical tiredness and also a sense of emptiness.  But what makes this particular “low after the high” so hard is that it’s Thanksgiving week. Continue reading “Hard week”

Trust: the most fundamental form of love

We were swinging freely almost twenty meters above the ground. The 9-mm climbing rope went through the two rappel rings at the top, 100 feet up from the ground, a “free-hanging rappel”, i.e. a lowering technique where there are no walls around or adjacent to you: you’re lowering from what is basically a hole inContinue reading “Trust: the most fundamental form of love”

Desperate urgency & holding the line

I’ve been trying to understand my unwillingness to keep up a friendship with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I had hooked up unless he also takes concrete steps to initiate our meetings/plans. Why am I drawing such a hard line with him that I don’t necessarily draw with other friends? After all, isn’t friendshipContinue reading “Desperate urgency & holding the line”

“The people I love the best”

Yesterday evening I started my first poetry class and the instructor shared a poem by Marge Piercy, To be of use.  To me this felt like a concrete image of love, of friendship, as I imagine it, as I experience it. This is the way I hope to give and receive love and friendship —Continue reading ““The people I love the best””

Choosing my personal safety: an act of self-care

I’m feeling frustrated. Even sad and somewhat angry. Yet what I did yesterday evening was a practical, firm act of self-care and a concrete instance of putting one of my New Year’s resolutions into practice, i.e. “not pursuing unavailable relationships/situations”.  The plans for yesterday evening were that I was going to meet one of myContinue reading “Choosing my personal safety: an act of self-care”

The gift of friendship

A few days ago, one of my closets friends here in Colorado said to me that I “have a gift for friendship”.  That’s one of the highest compliments I could be given, one of the loveliest things I could be told. And I’m not sure I deserve such a compliment.  More simply, I would sayContinue reading “The gift of friendship”