Femme Ruthless

i shall take the heart

2/26/2014

http://www.creativeadawards.com/tin-man-tattoo/

It was a good afternoon to meet. August had hushed away but a bit of the summer heat lingered. At the end of it I’d swung round to drop him off to his motorcycle. He collected his gear from the car, was busy putting all of it on when I saw him frown slightly. I had been pleasant, conversational and smiling. In fact, genuinely interested. But I also knew I'd come off a year of not feeling much, if I was politely distant it was only because I'd gotten used to being cold as my own life required it.

I motioned for him to say goodbye again, reached out to shake his hand but at the last minute hooked my fingertips on to his and pulled him in. I kissed him on the cheek when he didn’t expect it, but he had leaned easily forward for the peck, his own fingertips hooking back. The Tin Man feels.

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the tin man

2/26/2014

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The Doodle Book

I’d met the Tin Man in early September, coincident with the advent of yoga. He liked to tell the Frugens that my face was unfathomable the entire time, that I didn’t know what to make of him. Perhaps, he'd conjuncture, even whether or not I were to stay or go. He comes across a bit differently in writing than in person.

In the written word, he's a touch colder. Or maybe logical's the right word. Robotic - his words, not mine. Apt to spurts of sprightly humor that can cycle really fast. He’s analytical, and prone to break things down into neat little packages that have naught to do with each other. He compartmentalizes. Life is a series of systems he knows and intends to master. What makes him good at his work as an analyst also happens to be what can sometimes confound him in relationships.

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kintsukoroi, the golden broken

2/26/2014

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Kintsukoroi. I was fascinated by this word when I first ran across it, defined as “the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken.”   Several pieces fused together to be whole again.

It reminds me of the night of the Frugens’ intervention. Yes, that’s right. An Intervention.

It happened shortly after I’d blithely shared stories of childhood discipline meted out by my then menopausal Latin Piscean mother and rather Aqua Maddie brother, an unfortunate convergence of tempers that resulted in incommensurate punishments for my crimes.

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LE VAGUE

2/25/2014

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So here I was at yoga again, after a week of illness. The teacher’s voice drones gently over, and you hear nothing but the padding of her feet, soft thuds and the stickiness of the mat responding. It’s so quiet yet so full in the room, because we’re all here to zone out on a piece of rubber.

There’s an anonymous yet reassuring companionship in knowing I’m here working through my limits, and just a few feet away is someone else doing exactly the same thing.   There is no competition, nor argument. Just the simple fact that I can only deal with what’s on my mat.

As we go through the poses, I notice the instructor looking at me. I’ve dropped so deeply into the bliss of the practice that I feel profoundly still. I open my eyes to see her staring, she nods gently as if to say, yes you’re there. There are no epiphanies or plans. No sadness. Just a quiet acceptance of everything the way it is.

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Got wood? Do Yoga

2/25/2014

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Lululemon

I’m late to yoga class, but I run in anyway. I’d been away for a week struggling with a relentless cough that kept me up at night and broke my voice into a rasp. The room is dim, everyone already prone on their mats. I skip in lightly, quickly unrolling mine in the front of the room.

Just the night before I was at the track, running surreally through a fog that settled over the soccer field. It was cold and misty that by the time I’d stopped, my hair laid limp from sweat and the damp wind, my muscles heavy from both the run and its attempts to generate more heat as my breath came out in puffs of air.

But now, in the heightened temperatures of this large wooden room, my body slows to a hum that finally stills itself. Everything tight from the cold would unfurl itself in all this welcoming warmth. All I would have to do is let it. No pounding, no pushing.

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the expert's guide to crying without tears

12/18/2013

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Four years ago in the course of talking about her relationship, a close friend of mine concluded that "this was it" for her. She lived clear across the planet from me, but women and men, regardless of creed, age or color, all understand the buoyancy we derive from when love is right and equally, how it petrifies us when it goes badly. I nodded forgetting I was on the phone, "you mean he's the one?"

25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lidbzkKwU41qzdo32o1_500.jpg

"No", she clarified, "I mean, if this doesn't work, this is it for me." I was confused. "I don't get it, what do you mean, like there's an expiration date to this thing or what??" I could immediately feel a knot forming in my chest, I didn't like where this was heading.

"I mean", she explained, "well, sort of. But more on me. If this doesn't work out, I'm never having another relationship again."

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fukujin-zuke, the seven gods of happiness

9/1/2013

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Kunichika Toyohara - Seven Lucky Gods Making Rice Cake

This small and simple Japanese restaurant has been here for ages. I know it from when I was married, and frustrating late night talks would end with the only hot, non-fast-food meal you could get at 1am in the morning. Food was a default pleasure, the sort of shared yet neutral there-there in a public space because being in the same four walls with the same irresolvable problems became too much. Now many years later, on a whim I decided to grab dinner here. The owner is a Japanese version of Woody from Toy Story, without the costume. He flits around, just as high strung but efficient, throwing deferential Hais to every request and question from patrons.

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that which shall not be named

1/29/2013

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In the spaciousness of everything, in all the time and all the things I've yet to know about the Cappo Comedy Writer, to say I didn't expect this was an understatement. I'd deliberately employed a careful cocktail of nonchalance, terribly low expectations and detachment to this endeavor. In fact, I'd even hesitate to call it that as if naming it would bring the Furies upon me. Is it ironic it gets the same treatment as Voldemort? Oh yeah, this whole thing is That Which Shall Not Be Named.

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i'm not going anywhere.

1/28/2013

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"Oh, boy, are you still mad at me?," he wrote again one day. I ignored it.

"Hi, really, are you ok?," he asked again the next day. I ignored it.

"Ok, so I really wasn't just saying hi back then," he admitted the day after that. I ignored it.

"I'm really sorry. Please stop being mad, please. I think about you all the time and I didn't know what I was doing. I don't think of you that way at all. Don't be mad anymore. Please?," he pleaded again. "And yeah, I get you're into someone else now," he finally added.

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the tyranny of hope

1/20/2013

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"I'm sorry," I practically choked in disbelief, "But are you actually ANGRY that I'm free? This, this is what you're mad about now?"

"Kind of, yeah. I won't be able to stop myself from pestering you," he sounded seriously miffed at this revelation while I gawped at how the conversation had turned.

I'd lied this far, I might as well stay consistent. "This really doesn't change anything. I'm IN LOVE with someone else, you are too, things could change with her, it could be a ploy you know that. Besides, it's been years. You've ignored me for YEARS."

"I kept all your messages," he said quietly. "Every one of them since 2009. Should I delete them?" I hated him instantly for telling me that, then realized this was precisely how he felt. "No," I sighed tiredly,"it's your history, I've no right to tell you what to do with it. Besides, I kept yours too. And I wrote you stupid messages I never sent." This was misery. I stared at my phone willing it to burst into flames.

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i shall take the heart

the tin man

kintsukoroi, the golden broken

LE VAGUE

Got wood? Do Yoga

the expert's guide to crying without tears

fukujin-zuke, the seven gods of happiness

that which shall not be named

i'm not going anywhere.

the tyranny of hope

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