Anna’s Adventures

Its terribly freudian to hark back to one’s childhood to explain their quirks. However, I have this image which haunts me lately. My sister and I are about 3 and 5, sitting on the makeshift lounge in the dusky dawn light. My parents are in the kitchen. Naked. My mother has the chef’s knife, and my father has the fish knife. They crouch, and slowly circle one another. The anger in the room is tangible, and I know that my father will lose because he is weak and my mother is strong. She has a reason to win. He has nothing, he is out of his depth in every way. I put my arm around my sister’s shoulder and we both sit in wait, not sure what event we are hoping for.

Twenty years later, I am kneeling between my two lovers as they engage in ideological warfare over my welfare. There is the irresistably needy black hole versus the stifling nurterer. I feel sucked between them, pulled taut and unable to move. I kneel, still, barely listening to them. I begin to count all the knives in the house. Most prominent, the machete that I gave him when we first became lovers. The swiss army knife he gave me for my birthday. His swiss army knife. His leatherman multitool. A cook’s knife, blunt butterknives, plastic picnic cutlery. The sharpening block I taught him to use reminds me how sharp these knives are, because I made them sharp.

What landed us here was that she didn’t approve of my knives, of my cutting flesh into stripes. She’s here to tell him that. He’s here to tell her he doesn’t care. I’m here to kneel between them, wondering which one will win me in the end. Which one will I declare the victor? Which one will deliver me more of the intensity and damage I am in love with.

I count the knives. He gets angrier. She gets angrier. Will either of them break into a run to the kitchenette? Will I?

From the corner of my eye, I watch the long machete, and I become scared because my body is the battleground. I become excited because my body is the battleground. Annihilation is nigh.

But no. Neither of them could do it. Neither of them would do it. They had to have me wholly and separately. Neither would think to carve me up and scrap and cawl over the carcass. Neither of them would make love with the other over my bloody body. Winning, to them, meant taking all of the spoils rather than fighting well, hard and without quarter. The knives stayed undisturbed. The threat remained unspoken. The arguments remained ideological. I remained kneeling, frozen between them, unable to declare a victor.

I can’t trust someone who says he would never hurt me. I trust someone who could hurt me if he wanted to, who could hurt me if he needed to, if I asked him to. I can’t love someone who asks not to be hurt. I can only choose to act, and intentions mean nothing in relation to the consequences.

I won’t promise you a thing, but I hope you trust me. You haven’t promised me anything and I’ve no reason to be disappointed.

I need a lover who will be with me when I need to be gentled. And who will meet my passions like a train smashing a suicidal virgin on the tracks.

Yeah, something else I forgot to recommend: the rough-sponge depression cure. Kal tought me this one, and it works real good.

When you are down, do the following:

• lie down, taking off as many clothes as you can
• ask your special friend to grab a clean scourer (the silver and gold ones are great)
• ask them to gently (or not so gently) rub all over you with it

The scrubbing stimulates blood flow, and the scratching actually stops your brain from focusing on how wretched you’re feeling.

I know its wrong, but they actually help, aren’t a drug and heal very quickly.

Woohooo

Originally uploaded by Mr.Rocks

Kal has again toyed with my heart. This time, taking a pocket knife to it.

Sadness came out of me yesterday. I had had a long weekend, and a long weekend before.

Not much sleep, lots of arguments and jealousy. Very late nights, and sleeplessness. Lots of accusations and feelings of injustice and inadequacy.

On saturday evening, I went to a friend’s party and Kal gave me a very strong massage, and yesterday, the emotions all started to seep out. Sadness overwhelming me.

The last thing that happened last night was Souvarine sending me an email asking for some items to be returned. I started howling.

Kate ended up putting me into bed at about 8pm last night…and I woke up at about 6, fairly refreshed.

I leave you with a pic of the lovely Roaring Womyn… unleashing her fire and winning a strip comp. Woooooo! There was a wave of wetness when she appeared on stage.

The law needs to catch up with me. it should be ok to commit murder if you have period issues. It just should be fine to talk out onto the street, introduce yourself to a random stranger and then beat them to death with a mouldy tampon. Its only fair. The law should recognise the genuine need for such action.

So I have spent the last 2 days in frustration. Gah.

But there has been a bit of healing love coming my way also. Something I have remembered, though, is that it is possible to live for things other than love. I’ve never had to spend all my time seeking love, but there have been periods where I’ve spent time keeping love. I guess I don’t actually have to do that nowadays. There are other things in life.

That was what the dream was meant to tell Tomas, what Tereza was unable to tell him herself. She had come to him to escape her mother’s world, a world where all bodies were equal. She had come to him to make her body unique, irreplaceable. But he, too, had drawn an equal sign between her and the rest of them: he kissed them all alike, stroked them alike, made no, absolutely no, distinction between Tereza’s body and other bodies. Her had sent her back into the world she tried to escpae, sent her to march naked with the other women.

– Milan Kundera, Unbrearable Lightness of Being

Tereza has this dream that Tomas doesn’t understand. A mere fuck isn’t a betrayal. But that line drawn between her and all the others is. He calls her attention to her sameness, her lack of originality; but in causing her to suffer it, treats her differently to all the rest.

She is not the same, yet suffers as though she is.

So while I am away, Kal emails me, then sms’s me, then calls me. We have a long and emotionless chat about things and moving forward. By the end, I don’t feel great, I don’t feel that things could be repaired, but I feel that one day in the future we could be friends again.

He wants me to come to therapy with him.

The next day, another change of mind. He calls, casually, to tell me not to call him, email him or contact him for 4 months. The therapy? Oh, he doesn’t need it. He isn’t unwell, I just made him sad.

Well, Anna, this is it. The final frontier of self respect and human decency. Kal has manipulated my need to reconcile and maintain cordial relations for the last time. Another smooth and seemingly honest conversation with him in the evening means another cold rejection (of even the suggestion of friendship) in the morning.

Isn’t it enough to want to split? Or enough to wait to split until you’ve found another person who will occupy your thoughts? Or to swing back and forth on a trapeze of indecision: “I love you, but”, “I need you, but”, “forgive me forgive me forgive me, but” when all that means is “I don’t respect you”.

You put our friends between us. When I sya “let’s arrange something” you say you’re not interested. Then you ask my permission to see them without regard for my feelings. Or theirs.

Kal, you’re a clever man, and a complete idiot.

And every time you speak her name
Does she know how
You  told me you’d hold me
Until you died.
Well I’m still alive. 

I desperately want my thoughts and feelings to be special because I am cynical about the world in general. I have a pathological need to separate myself somehow, but a self-destructive knowledge that no separation is possible.

I want to keep it a secret to avoid comparisons, to avoid generality. But all I manage to avoid is taking myself less seriously, and precious lovely friendships.

That’s why I want to keep my heart away from your whizzing razor. I want to make it strong again, so that I can feel the beauty in the ordinary and not keep straining myself toward something as bright and fake as a fluroescent lamp.