fae food

Hello, reader–how are you doing?  What have you been thinking about lately?  I’ve been thinking about relationships, how touch functions in my life, and fae food.

Do you have the relationships you need to feel strong and do your life’s work?  I am doing quite well on relationships.  I have Ming, who is almost always with me.  Close friends elsewhere, a bestie, temporary chosen family, zinesters I’ve been penpals and friends with for 17 years, housemates who I adore, a brilliant girlfriend, and more friends than I can be responsible to.

I have so much love in my life, and more people I feel curious and affectionate for than I have time in a day.  Amazing queers and artists who like me back, who I could be building something significant with.  Almost all of them are far away.

But I’m trying to do too many things.  So I pick up and drop threads over and over, sorting out my priorities, and I’m sorry.

abuse

On the other side of the question of whether I have the relationships I need to feel strong to do my life’s work is another question. Am I free of abusive relationships that are kicking me down and sapping the energy I need to do my life’s work?  Hmm, good question, Laura-Marie.  At many times in my life, I was being abused for years, which is so exhausting.

Right now, I’m being abused by ableism, the medical industrial complex, poverty, and living in a dysfunctional culture where emotional skills are almost nonexistent, and few people are trying to learn them.  But I’m fortunate that no specific person is abusing me.

That’s through lots of effort.  Saying no, setting boundaries, being honest with myself and others, self-awareness, perseverance, and getting back up after I fell down are all so much work.  I hope your life is without abuse also.

touch

Touch signals to my entire being that I’m safe.  It’s powerful medicine.

I don’t need to get married to everyone I touch.  But I bond more quickly and easily than other people.  Wow, that’s an understatement.  Touch is a way that I immediately let my guard down and get authentic in just a few seconds.

Anyone who gives me tender touch can have a lot of power over me.  I show up for love in a big way.  Then afterward, if the other person had very different intentions from mine, I can be knocked on my ass.

I wish it had not happened many times.  This is not a rare thing, unfortunately.  Someone touches me in a way that feels like I matter to them, but what does that even mean?  Maybe I mattered for those few seconds.  Maybe I didn’t matter at all.

It’s confusing, when my body is ready to love, and my mind and spirit show up too.  But actually the other person moved on immediately.  I think I have a place to feel safe and accepted.  But I made all that up.

fae food

It reminds me of fae food.  First is the pomegranate seed you shouldn’t eat in hell, if you want to keep having a life in the world of the living.  That’s a Persephone myth.  Kinda like when people go to Mexico, and someone says, “Don’t drink the water.”  Don’t eat the pomegranate seed.  Then you will get stuck, or half-stuck.

Fae have all kinds of weird stuff with food.  If you’re there in fae world, you are not supposed to eat the food.  If fae are in your world, you might get in trouble for eating their food.  Or you might get in trouble for refusing it.  The safest bet is–take the food, maybe pretend to eat it, and then feed it to your pigs when the fae are not looking?

I’m thinking about fae food because touch without love feels like fae food.  Yes, this is all a metaphor.  The food looks beautiful, but once the spell wears off, you can see it’s horse poop, cork, or earthy refuse.  There’s no there there.  It’s just the look of the enchantment.

I’m sorry I can’t get any nutrition when someone touches me and it means nothing to them.  Yuck.  I’m not showing up for lack of reciprocity anymore.

conversation with my mom

Then I was talking about it with my mom, who is on the other side.  I was freaked out after that wretched dentist appointment.  Being freaked out so bad, I’m a little loose with reality.  It felt easy to reach out to my mom, as I cried in bed after all the dental fuckery and upset.

me: It’s very painful to me, Mama.  I’m hurting a lot, about love and relationship.  When people are doing touch, with nothing behind it–feels like fae food.  Feels like shit.  I need touch, but only with love.

Mama: There’s all kinds of love in this world, baby.  You know, we could do the good love.  But it’s not just people like me and you.  Some people love in different ways.

me: Yes, you always told me that my dad loved me, and I thought that love was worthless.  But there’s more logistical love, tender love, quiet love, touchy love, reserved love.  I know you’re right.

Mama: If it’s not good for you, let it go.  Walk away.  Say “not my kink” and do something different.  You don’t need to dwell in another person’s pain, and you don’t need to hate.  Just make a different choice.

fear

Later I was talking to Ming about this possibly fanciful trans-veil conversation.  Yes, Mama has changed, in death.  She never said, “not my kink” before–maybe she learned that from me, since I say something like that almost daily these past few years since her death.

Now that Mama is on the other side, there’s nothing for her to be afraid of.  She’s all-powerful.  She’s shakti energy itself, vibrating red in the red star cloud.  What could possibly hurt her?  Sexuality is good–all the desires are ok.  We got here somehow.

I become less fearful also, encouraged by Mama’s example.  What do I have to be afraid of either?  Now I understand what people mean when they say that the ancestors can heal also.  We heal each other, both directions.