When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.” The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”
There was something I read recently that had the opinion that men look at relationships differently than women. That men look at them as transactional, as that’s how society as a whole has trained them. That their partners exist more as meant to serve and give their bodies and constantly give of their time and energy in exchange for a home and protection. That any person could fill that role, in the end. If a woman got fed up and left then the man would simply replace her with someone else to continue that transaction.
I’m not saying it’s true of all men of course, I’ve met a handful that aren’t that way, that buck the set tropes society has instilled in them. But the thought has never left me.
In my own experience it was quite quick that I was replaced in my eleven year marriage. And this relationship was nothing if it wasn’t transactional. He provided the home, and if I wanted it clean then I was the one to clean it. We both worked full time in the beginning, but I soon was swamped with traveling to and from my workplace (as he did), then when I got home I was expected to prepare and cook a meal, as he wouldn’t. I wanted a clean home, and he didn’t care, so I was the one to (after a full day of work) continue to work when I got home. I’d rise before he did, pick up his clothes he tossed ON THE FLOOR AT THE FOOT OF THE HAMPER (seriously, how hard was it to get it in there?! The thing didn’t even have a lid), clean up his hair shavings off the sink, put away the dishes left out the night before because goodness forbid I clean up after working then coming home to work immediately after. Come home, clean, prep, cook, clean, go to bed, wash rinse, repeat. He of course would come home from the day, sit on the couch, and leave water rings on the furniture. That was the summation of his contribution to the housekeeping. So as it was already transactional I made it further so. It got to a point where I refused to work full time just to come home and work full time while he sat on the couch. He would work full time and I’d be his full time maid/wife/mother, and work part time to help with finances. Only one of those roles was one I’d signed up for in the beginning.
Honestly I don’t even blame him for it anymore. I blame society and I blame the religion I was raised in since birth. Even though I was brought up by a mother who read Women Who Run With Wolves and was a former flower child, who took me on women’s only camping trips, and told me empowering women-can-be-independent-and-run-their-own-lives things, my religion taught very much the opposite. And I bought into it. I was raised to believe it. I was brainwashed. There were periods I just wanted to run off to the woods and be my own person, yes, but just as much I did fantasize about white picket fences and 2.5 children and a husband and all the other things we women are told to want as children. And he had the conditioning as well on his end, how could one escape it? Not in the eighties, when we were growing up. We were children when we married, barely nineteen, playing the games of grown-ups without even forming ourselves whole as humans. We hadn’t had the college experience, as a Jehovah’s Witness born and bred I knew that was not an option. I did have a few courses at a small university in middle Tennessee but I didn’t take it seriously really, I was too indoctrinated into believing that we didn’t need an education because this “system of things” wasn’t going to last long anyway. Why waste our time?
So there we were, forming our adult selves while surviving on minimum wage jobs, and being pressured on all sides to be what was expected of us. Me the dutiful wife, keeping house, and he the breadwinner, keeping me safe. I’d exchange my body, my time, my will and my dreams, and he’d exchange his work outside the home. It was transactional from the start and I made it even more so, purposefully, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.
And when our marriage laid broken on the floor between us I went my way, still forcing transactional relationships out of those I fancied, and he replaced me quickly with my best friend. They married less than a year after our divorce was final. I sought out the same things in partners, thinking This Is The Way Things Are, and didn’t question it for over a decade. Men traded us security, a home, their work and time, and women gave of their bodies, their labor, their devotion, their homemaking.
This Is The Way Things Are
Until they simply aren’t.
It took me another decade to get to where I didn’t feel like I had to seek out a relationship. Where I didn’t care if I shared every beautiful wild thing I found with someone I loved. Although I do still share through my stories and photographs, it doesn’t feel empty to enjoy them on my own. I find it never really did, I just felt the pressure from society to pair up, that the enjoyable moments were cheaper if I didn’t have someone else there to experience them with me.
Now I shrink at the thought of entering into transactions again with anyone. After my Last Love I’m done with feeling incomplete or alone with my adventures. I don’t want to transact with anyone, preferring instead to focus on providing for myself in every way possible. It’s been a long time realizing that I came out of childhood codependent (abusive childhoods often result in this), lost, and completely unaware of who I truly am. Relationships always ended up transactional by default, and some very toxic. Every one of us is capable of toxicity in the right environments, and I very much am. Becoming aware of this has been one of the most important realizations of my adult life. So instead of looking to become “whole” by finding my “missing piece” I’m making myself sit in my solitude, which has proven invaluable for the development into a complete human.
I’m not there yet, not sure if I ever shall truly be, but I’m trying.
It’s still difficult to remember that relational connections, truly rewarding bonds with people are possible. That they can be rooted, reciprocal, and rewarding to everyone involved. To me, relationships have forever been transactional, self-serving, temporary, and exhausting to my mind, body and spirit. Perhaps that’s part of why I tend to keep away from anything resembling a romantic relationship these days, or at least that’s what I suspect. Romantic love has always been conditional, a trade of time and services, you use me so I’ll use you. Give me the equal to what I hand you. And it never should have been. Finding my way out of that sort of thinking will take time, and so I remain solitary. I like it here. I truly do. I don’t miss that empty sort of love that left me knowing something just wasn’t settling right. And realizing a lot of that was my own doing is humbling.
Last weekend was the second time our woodshop has vended at a big event, and absolutely exactly what was needed. Not for the money made, which was less than I anticipated, but for being surrounded by people I call home. Being a solo person by choice makes every human interaction quite interesting, and with an attendance of over five hundred people I was swamped and overwhelmed at times. I couldn’t take shelter in the arms of a lover, nor would I have wanted to. And yet this standing alone I’ve been doing isn’t truly standing alone after all. Being surrounded by those I call family, those I call pack, makes all the difference in the world. This weekend was truly a family reunion of sorts, as SPLF always is.
It’s interesting to have familial or familiar interactions with people and not have to worry about what they may expect from me later, or what they expect of me in the moment. Before I chose to remain solo for a few years I was generally always taking the expectations of society for granted, and just doing what I assumed was the norm. Just as when growing up, I knew that people got older, partnered up, had kids, grew older, and followed the “normal” relationship escalator. I didn’t know there could be any different way of living. And those I did know of who were alone or solo weren’t in that position by choice. All they wanted was to find someone to partner up with. It was expected. Finding their other half was hoped for and wished, and being alone was one of the worst states to be in. At least to my cis-normative very religious background and the people around me who supported that.
Even in the community I’m a part of now, finding a partner (or more than one) seems to be quite the focus for most of the people. Which is completely understandable, and I respect that. Humans are humans, no matter where or when they are. But one thing that struck me this weekend was that I can exist with those I consider family/pack without having other expectations from them. I’m me, and all I need to be, and no one is pawing at me with their energies for more. It’s unbelievably refreshing. Instead of using alcohol like I used to within the community to make my social anxieties ease, I’m just fully me, with lots of walls and boundaries, I’m Stone and immovable, and yet I’m loved and accepted exactly as I am.
It’s emotional to realize. I sit here choking on my decaf tea with tears steaming on my flaming cheeks, seeing through blurry eyes. Quite revelatory.
My entire adult life I’ve felt all of my interactions had to be somewhat transactional. I give, they take. I bend, I break, I serve, my body and what I could do with it was all that they cared about. Be it sexually, or from providing an income, or cooking dinner, waxing poetic, telling stories, running errands, doing chores, giving them my body and mind in exchange for the security of being accepted and loved and wanted. There was always something I had to give in exchange for something I needed from them.
But this existing for the sake of just being me, this realizing that I don’t want to give more than that and don’t have to, and still I’m loved and included…it’s something I’m still trying to wrap my mind around. For the first time in my life _I_ set the boundaries and hold them and don’t have to down drinks to allow someone to push past those walls. If I don’t want to open my doors and arms and legs I don’t have to. If I want to simply exist I can.
And I always could have…I just didn’t know it yet.
Speaking up for myself, sharing my opinion for the sake of it being valuable, those are the harder parts. Still getting used to those. Thing is though, I know deep inside that what I need and want isn’t unreasonable…and if anyone can’t handle my boundaries or opinions then they aren’t my people anyway. It’s OKAY to have boundaries. It’s necessary to honor them. For myself. Yet my natural people-pleasing, codependent, completely-too-empathetic-spirit still tries to temper each word I say and every thing that I do.
Which is why being alone has become so very precious to me. And also why the community I am a part of is invaluable. Consent is the most important, highly valued thing in this community and no longer do I have to push my sensitive spirit to belong.
For I DO belong. To myself. And that is the most important thing. No longer is it compulsory to be anything more than I am or do anything more than I truly want.
In the middle of this all…I’ve found my pack. My family. Those who love me just for being the smartass, lone leopard, neurodivergent person that I am. Those who will open their arms for me should I need it, but also give me the space to be the person I fully want to be. No pressure to mask, no pressure to give more than I’m willing, or to bend my Stone self to their desires.
Finally I’m coming to realize that they always were there, waiting…waiting for me to accept the person I truly am, for they already have.
I love you, my family. I love you, my pack. And most of all, I love me.
Mortality is so difficult. Even at my age. For someone who was raised to believe that “Millions Now Living Will Never Die”, my fondest hope was that I’d be one of those people. And yes, I was raised to believe that, truly. It feels like I was robbed of my immortality, to accept that I never actually had it is conceivable to my brain but hard to wrap my heart around.
I was raised to believe I’d never have to lose my parents or sister to death either, that as long as we remained faithful to Jehovah God that we all would have a chance to “live forever on paradise earth”. My fondest plans were that someday, when the work of cleaning up the earth and returning her to paradise form, I’d be able to walk the entire planet and sail all the seas. To explore and take my time, to settle down in a little perfect spot should I find one, and when I was ready a few decades later, to keep walking.
Perhaps that’s why I still long so dearly to leave the cities behind and get on the road. And I will. Even if it’s for limited stretches of time. Because as much as I hate it, I am mortal, and some day will be worm food.
For years I’ve struggled with being mortal. Life is too precious and full of possibilities for it to be so short. But perhaps the fact it ends is what makes it even more precious. And none of us really just go away, either. Energy never dies. In ways, I am the life of every one of my ancestors and millions of nameless people and animals and trees and other living things. We all are.
And then we go back to our nine-to-fives and the daily drudge of working to put food on the table and a roof over our heads and forget how interconnected EVERYTHING is. And will always be.
So if I can make a difference in some lives, if I can help someone see the brilliant illumination they are when they shine under the stars, then my days can be innumerable. If someone smiles at the full moon and thinks of me I still live.
So I hold my wildness close to my chest and try to bury an ember of me in the hearts of everyone I love, and have a glimpse of immortality.
Just was watching an episode of 1883 and reached a part (no spoilers) of a character dying when they shouldn’t. In grief, their partner sat beside their grave with a gun in their hand, wishing to join them. Then came the captain of the wagon train and he said something I likely will never forget:
“When you love someone you trade a piece of your soul with them, and they with you. That’s why losing them hurts so much.”
I still can cry at the drop of a hat when I think of her. The hurt and missing my best friend is worse now than missing the rest of it. She knew me better than anyone, or so I thought.
But she didn’t know how much I loved her. She didn’t care that I risked my life traveling across the country to be with her. That I gave up being close to my child so we could pursue our dreams. That I sobbed every day for leaving him. It didn’t matter, how much I showed her I loved her, and insecurities won. Her fear of my past won.
And now I wonder if when I live my days going forward if the part of her inside me still breathes. If she will see the absolute glory of my happiness when I take to the wild alone, without her.
The tug of the piece of me I placed inside her still pulls from half a country away. But it is the little slip of a wave after the ocean crashes a tidal gush upon the shore. Just an echo that slips a few bits of sand, nothing more.
I’ve a hurricane building within me and it’s all of my own making. Soon I won’t even notice the bit of her water trying to drown me, for I’m the entire ocean.
So many times in every day I think of you and thank your guidance in becoming the person I am. For every part of me that was encouraged to love nature as myself, to embrace my wild. I just wanted you to know, even though you don’t really know me well these days, I’m a pretty awesome, independent, flame of a person with many who admire the woman I have become, and so very much of it is because of you.
I heard this song and it reminded me so very much of you and I ❤️I love you,
This weekend I had the honor of helping vend at the Texas Viking Festival with my shop partners. Today I’m nursing sore muscles and recovering from social hangover, but it was the most incredible experience. I want to go back NOW, despite my aches and being chilly outdoors all weekend.
We had cups, goblets, mugs, bowls, jewelry, and wee Viking gnomes scattered all around our tables, and would heckle the passers by with “come in and touch our wood!”. Most giggled and came in with a chuckle, and I so very enjoyed watching J and G interact with the customers. I of course was thankful to have a job of putting leather grips on some of our unfinished work and happily toiled away while smiling at the conversations I overheard. It’s always far more comfortable for me to be able to do something productive with my hands in social situations, rather than being in the midst of it all.
Taken by the owner of 2v1 Woodworks
The grounds the festival is held on are massive and sprawling, with two small lakes and clumps of dense wood. There are exotic and domestic deer wandering about the place, a horse barn with pretties to pet, taverns, a music stage, and fields to get lost in away from the crowds. It was a much needed respite to get away from the constant road noises of the city and out where I could see the stars again.
Our neighbor across us sews the most amazing magical stuffed felt creatures…I went to see her wares at the end of the day last night and noticed this dragon who fell over when I entered the empty booth. I set her back on her feet and marveled at her gorgeous embroidered wings and eyes and wished I could take her home. The dragon was falling over trying to get my attention when I walked in and I felt sad to leave her behind. I figured if she was there next weekend I’d see about taking her home.
When we were all worn out and packing up to leave the lovely owner of the shop walked up and told me she couldn’t stand to put the dragon back in the bag with the rest of the stuffies to take back home. Said she needed me. And put her in my arms. I about cried. I don’t ever have stuffies or anything like that, just don’t get attached. But this little girl spent the night with me.
I will always and forever be astounded at the humanity and generosity of Faire people.
At the end of the night when we were weary and sore all over and the skies were dark and crisp, we loaded up our last boxes to take back to store for the week and my shop partner’s kiddo realized she’d lost a ring. Vendors passing by noticed us out in the dark with our phone lights sweeping the grass and popped their own out to help us look. A passerby with bright lights mounted on their truck flooded the scene with daylight. There were a half dozen volunteers who didn’t have to be asked and just started looking with us, for the ring of a girl who was as exhausted as we were. I had tears in my eyes thanking them as we gave up and drove away, with their promises they’d look for it when the sun came up today.
The vending was fun, we put so many beautiful pieces in people’s hands, and sent them away smiling. But the best part of this weekend was the people. The open energy and hearts of those who camped near us. The magic of the music from the stage playing with moon shadows cast across the forest. The stars sparkling like the frost we woke to the next morning.
As much of an introvert as my heart and soul are I am overflowing with love for the capacity of beauty in humankind. As much as it hurts to be around people sometimes (and I truly hate that part of my personality) I was reminded this weekend of tribe and solidarity and a sense of belonging I haven’t felt around strangers in a very long time.
And then the gentleness of my shopmates with their children. Take the stress of camping with five kiddos and multiply that by not having running water or electricity at the camp site. By a thunderstorm Friday night that blew booths over and flooded the tents with icy water. By having to balance making sure the children’s needs were met more than just food and water, but spending time with them, looking them in their eyes, and tuning into their individual needs in a sea of over 3,200 people. Of taking time to walk with them and treat them with kindness when nerves were thin and bodies were tight from standing for 12 hours at the booth.
J and G, you two are absolute rock stars and you melted my heart a million times this weekend. I watched you be the best parents you could be under the mountainous undertaking of vending at a Faire with all your little ones with you. and you were more successful than you realize. Be gentle with yourselves and trust that you are doing far better than you think.
So many doors were opened this weekend, and each one of us were fundamental to making that happen. I look forward to the next season, when we can build an approved permanent structure to vend from and camp in while there. This is the beginning of something I didn’t dare to dream of as a teenager who had just discovered the magic of faires. It’s dirty and gritty work vending. Busy and overwhelming and exhausting. But we get to do it surrounded by the best people, and I can’t wait to see where this takes us.
I’ve been neglecting my blog quite a bit lately. Since getting started working in the woodshop and working 50 hours at my 9-5 I’ve had so much less time to do what I love. Even when I’m doing what I love.
Honestly, I don’t know if it’s the anxiety medication that I’ve been on for almost a year now, or the business, but I haven’t been able to write very much lately. It makes me feel not quite myself, even though most days I feel fully me. Or the me I am now.
I’m still figuring out who she is.
But it’s just ME making those decisions, choosing what is right for me as a whole person, and not part of some other group arrangement, or family. I suppose that’s what the term is these days. Even though the biggest decision in my life right now is where I remain, and that definitely is because of family. I stay here because of my son, but ache to get away from the city. Every day all I hear is road noise, even though I live in a nicer quieter neighborhood. It’s constant coming and going on the main roads close by, and the sounds of humanity choke out the wind and falling leaves and cries of birds. I choose to stay here physically but a very large part of me is just waiting, in the wild places, for me to come home.
It’s interesting to realize that so many decisions I’ve made over the course of my life were either altered or catered by my relationships with others. And alcohol. So very many choices I would never have made, if I wasn’t trying to smother my feelings and overwhelming sensory issues with booze. So many I wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t been brainwashed from infancy to believe in a fairy tale.
So finally I get to choose my life and where it will go in a few years, when my child is 18 and an adult and making his own way in the world. Right now I’m learning all the self-realization I never was allowed before, because I was either stuck in a controlling cult or stuck in a relationship I thought I was supposed to have. So now I try to sink into my inner knowing and choose what I want, rather than what I’m supposed to, or what someone else thinks I should.
It’s not easy, and I still slip up, but every moment I’m trying to remind myself that my choice matters most, that my knowing is wiser than all the “shoulds” in the world.
This weekend I get to escape the city and retreat to the woods for a few days…surrounded by chosen family with a tent by myself to retreat to alone when it gets overwhelming. When I attended the inaugural Texas Viking Festival in 2019 I never imagined that I’d end up vending there. Nor did I imagine that I’d learn how to make beautiful things from trees. This wood turning has become something more than I’d anticipated, and I’m excited to keep learning more. It feels right, to caress and care for something once living, to help it be more than just firewood.
I suppose in a lot of ways I’m doing the same with myself. Learning to care for myself, shape my edges, sand down the rough spots, seal and protect what is important. Being alone helps with that. Even if being in love makes me a poet. Even if I miss that burn. There are different kinds of love that don’t obliterate an entire forest with its heat. I feel safer here. Not letting anyone so close that I forget myself again. As expansive and delicious that feeling is I find I shrink from it now…even though I can feel my heart, just waiting for the moment to burst forth again.
I’d rather it burst from love of who I am and who I am becoming.
A Burd in Flight 