New Days to Put Old Selves Away
Standard Disclaimer: Nothing I say in this post or any other post is meant to be prescriptive in any way. My comments and opinions are based on my own lived experience, and thus, cannot be generalized to the very different lived experience of others. ‘Nuff said.
Sometime last year I wrote a “Track Suits” post about how I check in daily with myself to see if any aspects of what I know about myself (often interpreted as identities) need to be re-evaluated or are no longer true in my current context. As I said then, some of the common questions revolve around sexuality, gender, relationships, marriage, children, career goals, spirituality, or just about the whole gamut of the “big” ideas. To some, this constant state of flux could seem like the epitome of flakey-ness, a sure sign that I don’t know myself or what I want.
As a dear one, the Feminist Librarian, said in a recent post over at her blog, “By limiting ‘legitimate’ or ‘authentic’ sexuality [or really any other self-conception] to that which is fixed, innate, and ostensibly knowable from birth, we demand certainty on an issue which — for some if not most — is far from certain, or perhaps serially certain — we know ourselves, and then we know ourselves again in a new light. Both equally true.” (Bracket addition mine) I would only add (in an allusion to my favorite quantum-mechanical principle) that we come to know one self just as it has moved beyond that knowledge and into another form or another self which we work to know again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Why am I waxing metaphysical about selves and such on a random Saturday afternoon? Well, because I can. At last tally, I’ve got only about 20 regular readers, and there’s a freedom to knowing that I’m not all that popular. Also, most of the dear ones in my life read this collection of nonsense, and it’s a great way for them to know what’s going on and not to think, “Goodness, what the hell is up with M.?” And lastly, as the subtitle of this journal says, writing is a way of working towards that self-knowledge I mentioned above, and I’m in need of some clarity right now. This is probably going to be an epic navel-gaze, so feel free to stop reading at any point.
This past week I had the dubious honor of undergoing a nerve-wracking, diagnostic medical procedure. I was feeling pretty ok with everything until I reached the waiting room, which undoubtedly shares a zip code with one of the hamlets of hell. I’d had a lengthy discussion of all the physical ins and outs of the procedure and what side effects to expect the week before, but nowhere did anything read “WARNING: will likely cause significant existential crisis. It’s probably best to have a buddy on speed-dial.” Sitting there in those ridiculously uncomfortable chairs, I felt the abyss stare back in the form of a puke-pink painted wall. Maybe I was making a bit much of the whole thing, I thought. A quick look around at the rest of the stricken faces in the room, and I realized that nope, I wasn’t especially susceptible to a moment of crazy.
Like any period of self-deconstruction, my brain was having a field day with obsessing over the tiniest of possibilities. Objectively I knew there is less than 1% chance that the test will be positive and everything will go all pear-shaped. Did that stop me from placing myself mentally in the position of up shit creek prematurely and asking ALL the questions? Not a chance. It’s the classic game of “if you had 6 months to live…” However, the game gets a bit more real in that waiting room scenario. Would you say you had a good life? What would the life you’ve lived up until now say about you? Have you spent your days in fulfilling ways, or do you spend your time waiting for the next thing? What is most important for your happiness? How would you spend the time you have left? What have you not done because of fear?
I was struck pretty much dumb by most of my instinctual answers to these, and other, questions. Despite my daily check-ins, I’d become a relative stranger to myself. Somewhere along the way a new self formed that is pretty damn unconcerned and contented. Most of the facets of life I would have counted among the most important in previous years (months, even) just don’t seem to carry that much weight anymore. Intellectual recognition – I could take it or leave it. Just let me continue to learn about things that interest me, and I’m cool. I don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. Career success – I just want a sense of feasible purpose. Can I make a small difference in the life of another person in a way that brings us both joy or comfort? If so, I’ll be set. Money – Let me pay off undergrad and grad school. Spirituality – I’m done with grasping after some self-made concept of something more. If there is anything sacred, it’s embedded in the quotidian details of life. I’ll just relax into it.
And then some things took on newfound importance. Gender – Just don’t. I’m not terribly comfortable with either a masculine or feminine gender. Both feel like wearing that too-small pair of pants you only pull out on laundry day. Relationships (friendship) – the part of my life from which I derive the most joy. Take everything else away, and I’ll be fine as long as I am allowed to continue to be a part of the lives of my amazing dear ones. Relationships (romantic) – Yes, lets. Bit of a surprise, this. It seems that all I had to do was dismantle my earlier relationship notions and then I could actually begin to see how I could be in one. Fascinating. Marriage – That would be really nifty. Maybe at some point I’ll want to set up a shared life with someone, but I’m not ruling it out entirely as before. Children – I’m still not anywhere near interested in birthing a child myself. No! However, I’m not as categorically against them. If some future partner is really jazzed about children, then we’ll have to talk about it. But, my answer won’t be an immediate ‘no.’
So that was one hell of a waiting room experience, and now I’m hoping that everything is ok in the end with the tests. I’m spending the weekend putting old clothes out to charity, old DVDs and books out to the library, and old selves away for safe keeping in the scrapbook of my memory like school photos.
I wonder what I’ll come up with next?
In Lieu of Hugs
This is for a dear one who is going through something decidedly unpleasant currently, because hugs don’t transmit through the internet very well.
Message In A Bottle
Dearest,
let me pick
the glass from your eye.
Broken bottles left on the shores
of irises are bound
to cause damage,
to slit delicate skin.
Let me catch
in outstretched nets
of lace-linked fingers
the salty prayers of your sunless depths,
the mournful roar of sea
choking through your lips.
Let me gather
from the aftermath of morning
the sundried paper pleadings
let loose by shattering craigs
and marooned with you, in flesh.
Dearest,
if all the answers of my heart
and the rescues of my love
can come pouring from my face,
why not lift your eyes and swallow?
For L., Wherever She May Be.
I’ve been listening to “Fade Into You” this morning, along with the rest of the blissful and lush album So Tonight That I Might See. I haven’t heard this song in several years and today it comes bearing memory, an unusually joyful one from the painful catalogue of high school.
When I was in my junior year, I became friends with a vivacious, spit-fire of a woman whom I will call L. Everything about her was quick and bright: her hair, her eyes, her heart, her mind. She had this incongruous laugh, throaty and knowing, like Anne Bancroft, and I remember thinking that if I didn’t become closer to a woman with such a laugh, I would likely regret it for some time.
One November evening she and I decided to travel to see American Beauty in the theater, despite the fact that it was snowing badly, and the only theater showing the film was a twenty minute car ride away. Like many younger people who saw that film, we were both struck dumb with what we felt was its profundity.
On the ride home, she put Mazzy Star on the radio and we sat silently listening “Fade Into You” for a bit before she began to speak at length about what the movie had made her feel. In the pitch dark of midnight, on a deserted highway, in an overheated compact car weaving on the slick snow slowly obscuring the road and the windshield, I listened to her hushed, excited overflow of fear and longing and delight. She laughed frequently at herself in her exuberance, but I did nothing but sit silently, resolved to act as a catalyst, to hold the space into which she felt she could speak.
I remember thinking on that ride that “this must be what contentment feels like.” Not the superficial knowing that the moment is not as bad as it could be otherwise, but the full, bone-deep knowing that everything, including the movement of the slight perspiration on the top of my lip in the humid car, was the most perfect manifestation of that moment out of all the possible. ”This wouldn’t be a bad time to go,” I thought as we continued to swerve on the road. ”I’m sat next to a brilliant, earnest, laughing creature who couldn’t be more alive if she tried right now. This is exactly what we are all meant to be, and at least I’ve seen it now.”
We did get home safely, and she went on to a college in Boston and I went to Smith. We never did have another moment like that night. Afterwards, the intimacy of it disconcerted her. We have not kept in touch, but she and that night have shaped the warp and weft of my understanding of joy.
So, this is for you , L. I hope that no matter where you are, there is someone there to listen in the night, in the cold of November, in the snow, in the shining space by your side, to your quietly delighted musings. I hope they sit silently and hold the space for you, knowing that what they receive is a pure and unadulterated gift.
Unexamined Epidemiology [Clapping For Credit]
[Warning: Discussion of suicide]
It’s that time of year again, which means that I’m back in graduate school studying for my public health degree. As part of the lineup for this semester, I have an epidemiology class. About halfway through a lecture on descriptive vs. analytic epidemiology, my professor puts this graph up.
Suicide By Time of the Year - Residents of Sacramento County, CA (1925-1983)*
“Epidemiology is about asking questions,” the professor then said, ”so what do you think is behind the surprisingly low number of suicides during December?” Their answer: Suicides are less likely to occur during December because people are not alone (which is a depressing state of affairs) and are in the company of loving family members who make them feel like life is once again worth living.
Thus, what I learned today (i.e. dismally unexamined assumptions):
1.) Being alone leads to suicidal depression.
2.) Families are composed of loving people.
3.) People have families to which to go home during holidays.
4.) People follow Judeo-Christian traditions and therefore have family occasions during December.
So much for asking questions. ::Headdesk::
* Maldonado G et al., Suicide Life Threat Behav 1991 Summer;21(2):174-87.
Merry Month of Mycroft – Kink Meme Triplet
Image courtesy of Strizrey on DeviantArt
We’ve come to the last day of the Merry Month of Mycroft, and I’ve decided to say goodbye with three fluffy fictions which are recent fills of kink meme prompts. All three are hurt/comfort in some fashion, where the line of who is the comforter and who is comforted is ambiguous (as is so often the case with Mycroft.) I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride and happy reading!
To Be Needed, by Itsxaxmystery
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: None
Warning: non-graphic depiction of torture (sensory deprivation/overload)
For the prompt: I want the kind of desperate hugs, long and painful, bone-crushing, those I-can’t-breathe-but-it-doesn’t-matter-because-I-need-to-hold-you hugs. (if that makes any sense) Maybe someone almost got killed, maybe someone is leaving… (would love if it was Mycroft receiving that kind of hug preferably from Sherlock or Lestrade, but go wherever the inspiration takes you).
Best Bits: This has become my favorite depiction of the true extent and depth of Mycroft’s love for Sherlock, and how that plays out in his almost obsessive need to protect him. My favorite part is actually the inclusion of a Van Morrison lyric, “Would you find me? Would you kiss my eyes and lay me down to be born again?”
Untitled, by Anonymous
Rating: G
Pairing: Sherlock/John implied
Warning: character death
For the prompt: Mycroft dies and he reincarnates into a tree in the garden of Sherlock’s retirement cottage in Sussex.
Best Bits: This feels very much like a cross between Sherlock and The Giving Tree, but without nearly as many problematic moments. So quietly sad and joyful and beautiful, this fiction feels like the equivalent of an afternoon in October.
Puppy Love, by Anonymous
Rating: PG
Pairing: Sherlock/John, Mycroft/John unrequited
For the prompt: Were!dog John gets kicked out of 221B, mistaken for a stray dog by Sherlock. And secret!doglover!Mycroft takes him in. While staying at Mycroft’s lonely mansion, John learns how affectionate and sweet Mycroft really is. Mycroft cuddles with him at night, combs his hair every day, huggs, kisses him all the time. John’s never been loved like this, even when he was a dog! He’s oddly happy. Even after he turn back to a human, John still misses affectionate!Mycroft terribly.
Best Bits: Cue the dental appointments, because this lovely is long and shmoopy all the damn way through. And the slippers, oh the slippers! My heart kind of imploded when John started gnawing on the slippers. And the tennis ball, and the spooning, and the belly rubs, and I’m done. Despite the schmoop, this gem has a slight edge to it. It’s not a happily ever after. Realistically, everyone involved is in a slightly less than ideal scenario brought on by personal decisions and compromise. So good!
P.S. Just in case you don’t want to go searching through the Merry Month of Mycroft archives to get all the fic recs, check out my delicious account for these and many more. Hopefully by the end of September, I’ll have a comprehensive list of all the Mystrade!
Merry Month of Mycroft – “Small Interruption”
Image courtesy of Firstwordlearned.tumblr.com
Small Interruption, by Elfbert
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mycroft/Lestrade
Summary: Written for the Sherlock BBC Kink Meme prompt - Lestrade’s little kid comes into the bedroom and sees Mycroft/Lestrade happening (hopefully under some sheets). Now Daddy has to embarassedly explain what his child just walked in on. He’ll probably make something up.
Best Bits: This is hot, funny, and sweet by turns. As usual, my favorite bit is at the end when Mycroft agrees to take wee Scott Lestrade to the park.
Merry Month of Mycroft – “Distinction”
Wallpaper image courtesy of Fragilidad
Distinction, by Lizzledpink
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Mycroft/Anthea (Anthony)
Summary: You really don’t know what the fuss is about. It’s just biology. (A companion piece to Introductory’s Equivalence.)
Best Bits: I adored the Anthea POV fic “Equivalence,” so I was completely over the moon when this bookend Mycroft POV answer to that fic was written. I LOVE that Mycroft’s whole take on gender-based attraction is, “I don’t get it. The person just has to be interesting, irrespective of gender.” That resonated very much with me. I’m having difficulty finding more words to describe how much I enjoy this piece, because vocabulary fails me. Here, have my favorite lines instead:
She shifts in place, smiling at you in a slightly strained way – and you surprise her, and are immensely proud of yourself for surprising her, because you have a pair of trousers in his size, just in case. You don’t have a binder for her chest, but nevertheless, the look on her face is more than enough to make you smile for the rest of the day. He swaps clothes and changes his posture, and kisses your cheek. Now, he knows you understand. And if you’re not mistaken, he can’t stop smiling either.
The Future Will Be Binary [Trek Re-Watch]
Hello again! M. here with a foray into the cold of space during this sultry last week of August.
Recently, I had the pleasure of a visit from Lovely Lola, which was outstanding fun. Unfortunately, I also had an unpleasant run-in with the couch of doom, which has left my back in such a state that I cannot stand for more than an hour without wanting to scream. What’s a nerd to do when faced with lots of uninterrupted hours of immobility in bed? Watch Star Trek!
Image courtesy of Treknews.com
This past July, Netflix sealed a deal with CBS allowing for the availability of every Star Trek series – except The Animated Series and, oddly, Deep Space Nine – on instant viewing. In the last two months, I’ve been making my way through some themed playlists as an approach to the 700+ episodes on hand: time-travel, alternate universes, heavy-handed moralism, etc. So, about 30 minutes into cataloguing the imperfections of my ceiling, I queued up one of my favorite Next Generation episodes from my childhood, “The Outcast.” Not a good idea!
/
It is really too true what they say about not stepping into the same river twice. After a once-through of “The Outcast,” I wanted to go back and raise an incredulous eyebrow at my ten-year-old self. Really? This is your favorite?
Image courtesy of Startrek.com
A quick synopsis of the episode goes something like this: The Enterprise is out in space doing what is normally does (charting star-clusters and such) when it gets a request to aid the J’naii, an agender race, in locating and rescuing a lost survey ship. Cut to Soren, a J’naii scientist assigned to the rescue mission, and Riker, acting as Enterprise commander of the mission, and sparks fly. Soren is romantically (maybe sexually?) interested in Riker, and he is very interested both romantically and sexually in Soren. The problem? The J’naii believe they have evolved past biological sex and gender and police the expression of/desire for either with sanitizing force. Soren reveals to Riker that she secretly identifies as female and seeks out relationships with male-identified J’naii, or in Riker’s case, male-identified humans.
Soren’s superiors soon catch on to the “oddness” of Soren’s behavior towards Riker and step in to “rehabilitate” her. Riker has fallen pretty hard by this point and stages an unofficial rescue of Soren so that she may seek asylum aboard the Enterprise. Unfortunately, he is too late, as the J’naii authorities have moved up the timing of Soren’s “treatment” and a heartbreaking scene of “but I’m not sick anymore” ensues. Soren is left behind, and Riker sails off depressingly into the vastness of space eventually to marry Counselor Troi in the 10th movie.
Merry Month of Mycroft – “Ripple Effect”
Image Courtesy of Askmycroftholmes.tumblr.com (Do follow, it's cracking fun!)
Ripple Effect, by Blooms84
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Mycroft/Lestrade
Summary: Written for Summer of Sherlock. Prompt: Mycroft/Lestrade: skipping stones
Best Bits: Ok, I’ll admit, I’m a HUGE Blooms84 fan. Everything she writes, I love. GO read her archives! It’s hard to choose bits when everything is so good, but I’d have to say that Mycroft’s quip about his mole men and restrictive labor laws is fantastically funny. Also, the childlike glee of Mycroft when he sees Lestrade skip rocks and then manages to skip one properly for the first time. Lestrade’s almost zen and thoroughly seductive monologue on how to let the rock skip itself is woah! And the awkward, frantic, dirty (as in actual mud) sexy times are a gem. There’s a big bonus for S/J shippers in this: the setting is their wedding!
Merry Month of Mycroft – “Triptych”
"Mycroft Relax" Image courtesy of LadyDospeh on DeviantArt
Triptych, by Undrscoredom2nd
Rating: G
Pairing: None (implied Mycroft/Anthea)
Summary: Mycroft is protective of his wallet for three important reasons.
Best Bits: Umbrella!Knife and Mycroft being a BAMF at the end! I quite enjoy the use of the photographic triptych as a window into Mycroft’s past as well as present life and character. Mycroft’s bittersweet and guilty musings about Mummy’s first marriage to his father are just so right for his character, explaining well his seeming over-protectiveness of herin addition to Sherlock. The middle vignette on Not!Anthea (in this case Jane) is smile-inducing in all the best ways. The fact that Mycroft has to resort to CCTV for a candid photograph is a fantastic addition. And the bit on the photograph of Sherlock in his teens, when he and Mycroft were still close, is simultaneously joyful and heartbreaking. So, so lovely.
