Longings

I have been sitting with this topic for a little over a week now and really contemplating what I long for.

Last Friday, not this weekend, but the one prior, I had a pretty revelatory session with my own therapist.

Who clearly stated something that I have never been able to articulate.

That I am afraid of my longings.

As soon as he said it, it threw light on so much of my life.

He asked me, “what happened to you when you were younger when you longed for something?”

“I was shamed, humiliated, made fun of,” I answered immediately, there was no pause to think.

My therapist went further, “you were striped naked, you were beaten,” he introjected. “If you longed for something you were going to get hurt.”

Tears filled my eyes.

Fuck.

Of course I am afraid of my longings.

I was also taught a lot of other not so great things.

I’m not enough, I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’ll be alone forever, I’m not lovable was basically the message I got.

I had to earn love, achieve love, work for love.

And so often, I still did not receive it in a way that was healthful for me.

I was eviscerated for my achievements as well.

Mortified by achieving, yet also pushed to achieve.

I have to do everything myself, take care of myself, and defend myself.

Things I learned to do well.

I also have to take care of everyone around me.

I am not allowed desires, dreams, hopes, longings, and if I should voice them I’ll just be ridiculed for those longings.

One of my longings is for romantic intimacy.

Partnership.

Shit.

I just teared up.

That old story, here, right now, I’m not even allowed to talk about that.

Or write about it.

Dare I even post this blog about it?

I think so.

Because.

I am trying something different.

First, that re-engaging with a former ex this past September, a few weeks after Burning Man, was me falling back into the pattern of not letting myself long.

It didn’t work and I extricated myself.

With a lot of help from my people, sitting quietly, listening in to my body–all the reflux flair up that I hadn’t had for years came right back with a fucking vengeance.

And of course, my therapist, “the question is, why do you want to be with someone who is not honest?”

Ouch.

And why?

So I stopped and it ended as it was going to anyway, I knew it wasn’t good for me.

Moving on.

Doing work.

Doing the therapy.

Writing a lot.

Letting go.

Surrendering.

And when I said no to making myself small, all these kinetic, beautiful little miracles started happening.

I got my diploma in the mail the next morning.

I got unstuck with my book project and started a process journal.

I reached out to a photographer and asked to collaborate and got a “I’m very interested!” response and a “let’s meet for coffee.”

I saw a friend I haven’t seen in nearly two years and took her out on her birthday to breakfast.

I started writing the epilogue to my book.

I started blogging again.

I started, trying, I’m not always great at it, but trying, to lean into my longings.

I shifted my schedule a bit to open up my Friday nights so I can socialize more.

I’m digging into really old, deep, entrenched stuff with my therapist.

He said some very interesting things, he usually does, thank god for him, he’s the best therapist I have ever worked with, receently.

Like in my session this Friday.

He reflected that people are drawn to me, but that I project an image and instead of that, what would it look like if I was a magnet instead?

I knew what he meant.

I can have a big personality, I have presence.

For instance.

Dating.

I usually do the asking out, I think I have to, that no one is going to be drawn to me and that my longings will go unseen and that I have to ask, so I do.

A friend told me about this recently, “you come across as boss lady, soften it a bit, no body is going to ask boss lady out.”

Ok then.

Soften.

Draw to me rather than push away.

No more asking out guys.

Wait.

Let myself be asked out.

Actually, I have always, always, longed for this.

I have so infrequently had it happen, it seems a dream to have someone ask me out.

But, I think that it’s because I come across as unapproachable.

And I pine for that which is unavailable–not so much anymore, I am leaning, thank you–which is to say that my action is to focus on what is not really there so not to be hurt if I long for something.

Remember, I was shamed for having desire.

And I’m not talking erotic desire, I’m talking desire for affection, love, conviviality, joy, awe, wonder, laughter, closeness, honesty, play.

And.

I won’t sneeze at erotic desire either.

I am a sensuous being.

I long for touch.

The pandemic was rough yo.

Plus, the surgeries I had last year made it tough too, hard to feel sexy when you’re in pain.

Anyway.

Dating.

It’s back on my plate.

But this time no apps, no asking people out, no projecting out to the world.

Just a softening into the longing, articulating vulnerability, being ok with being messy, messy hair, no make up, well, not all the time, I do love me some lipstick, letting go of the crazy hair (hell my hair is crazy enough on its own) and going back to my natural color and yes, letting it go gray. I am of a certain age, it’s ok.

Just leaning in.

Soft, warm, sweet, longing, Coleman Hawkins on a rainy November night, with misty fog encapsulating street lamps, the heat turned on, the cats cozy curled up next to me, hot, homemade soup in a bowl, and looking out the windows at the darkening sky with longing that soon, yes please, there will be someone sitting next to me, who will put his arm around me and listen to the music with me, kiss the top of my head, and be absolutely ok with just me.

No striving to prove myself or be different, bigger, brighter, shinier, faster, more fabulous.

Just me.

That’s it.

And that is all that I need to be.

Warm, vulnerable me.

Book Project

So.

Here I am again.

Thinking about publishing a book.

But this time it is different.

This time I am ready.

Ten years ago I moved to Paris.

I moved to Paris to “become a writer.”

The truth was.

I already was a writer.

I had been a writer for decades.

I was on the cusp of turning 40 when I moved to Paris.

I am on the cusp of turning 50 now.

If you had told me that I wouldn’t really be looking at being published for a decade after moving to Paris.

Well.

Fuck.

I would burst into tears and likely thrown myself off the cutest nearest bridge.

Good thing I didn’t know.

Hell.

I had no idea ten years ago that instead of becoming a published writer, which, by the way, I am published–my dissertation was published on ProQuest on August 8th–I was to become a therapist.

I had no idea what Paris was going to hold for me.

It was terrifying, cold, heart breaking, wet–it rained a lot, and it snowed!

I got lost all the time–sometimes literally, often figuratively.

I spent a lot of time in churches–they are heated to a nice toasty warm that I would often find myself seeking reprieve from the weather in.

I wrote.

All the fucking time.

I wrote three, sometimes four, times a day.

I edited and re-hashed and re-organized a memoir.

I wrote short stories, poemss, blogs.

I wrote in my journal (s).

There ended up being many, many, many journals–all of which I still have.

I wrote in the morning.

I wrote in the afternoon–in cafes, my favorite being Odette & Aime.

Which was just around the corner on 46 Rue Maubege, I lived at 18 Rue Bellefond.

I would sit for hours in the cafe and sip at tap water and a cafe Allonge–which is basically a black coffee.

I was so poor.

Tit mouse poor.

Starving artist poor.

Hemingway in A Moveable Feast poor.

But like, Hemingway made it sexy.

I was not sexy.

I couldn’t often afford a cafe creme–thus the Allonge–I would eat lunch from the Monoprix–basically a Walgreens with a bit of a supermarket in it.

Lunch would be a single serving piece of cheese and a packet of peanuts.

Often accompanied by an apple I would buy from the Friday market around Square D’Anvers.

Once I treated myself to sausages, heaven, at the Friday market but only once–they were rabbit and to die for.

Breakfast was apple in oatmeal and milk.

Dinners were often from the roti chicken place down the street by the Metro entrance for the Cadet stop.

Not the fancy place up the road that was Monsieur Dufrense.

But the Halal place, the owner was sweet, the chicken was cheap.

I could make one of those last a good four days, sometimes five.

I worked under the table, nanny, dog walker, baby sitter, English tutor.

I took French classes that a friend in Chicago wired me money to go and do.

I walked everywhere, when I wasn’t on the Metro, which I used frequently as I had a Navigo monthly pass.

There were times, especially when I was doing baby sitting outside the periphery, that I realized, no one, not a single person, not a soul, knew where I was.

I was baby sitting in the ghetto, the low income housing, taking three trains to do an under table gig that basically paid 8 Euro an hour.

I walked past drug deals, prostitution, gambling places.

I walked briskly like I knew where I was going.

Irony.

The place was located on Rue Victor Hugo.

Sounds hella romantic.

Was hella sketchy.

I remember once taking a picture of the street lights reflecting in the rain, once, on a very early morning commute from my place in the 9th arrondisement to outside the periphery, at like 7a.m.

It was a gorgeous shot, the light, the reflection on the sidewalk, the darkness, the sheen.

I got so many comments on social media after I posted it….so pretty, so Paris, so exciting, lucky you, living the dream!

Sure.

The dream.

Which was actually a nightmare.

Scary, cold, intense, broke as fuck.

Taking an elevator up 9 floors in a tenement in the ghetto outside of Paris.

The kids were sweet, but they didn’t have books, they like to watch the Mickey Mouse Club.

The tv was their babysitter, except when I was there, I insisted on taking them outside.

The park in the middle of the low income houses.

I would watch them race around on their cheap plastic little scooters and stare at the clouds in the sky.

What the hell was I doing with my life?

Query another agent, send off another book proposal, watch my thin stash of Euros in my wallet slowly get a tiny bit bigger, after baby sitting, or tutoring, or house sitting, quietly buying my apples and peanuts and Halal chicken, and then have to pay a week’s rent where I was staying–in a one bedroom lofted apartment where I slept in the living room on a fold out futon that must have been 25 years old, it was so hard.

I didn’t usually have the month’s rent.

But I would pay week to week to week.

Living on peanuts and apples.

Like I said.

Hemingway made it much sexier.

So.

Ten years later.

Many adventures since.

So many adventures.

I am sitting in my very cozy, very pretty, one bedroom apartment in Hayes Valley in San Francisco.

I have a successful private practice therapy business.

I own a car.

A new one.

I have traveled back to Paris, and will do so again in December to celebrate my 50th birthday with a new tattoo from my favorite tattoo shop–Abraxas on Rue Beauborg in the Marais, where I will also be staying a beautiful and hip Air BnB, also in the Marais.

I will buy myself dresses this time instead of packets of peanuts.

I will buy notebooks from Claire Fontaine.

I will go to many museums.

And not on the free days.

I will have a lot of cafe cremes, and not a single Allonge.

I will eat a chicken from Monsieur Dufrense and an actual meal at Odette & Aime.

Also.

I will eat my birthday dinner at my favorite restaurant La Cantine du Troquet on Rue de Grenelle.

I will celebrate a dear friend’s wedding anniversary the day before–having become amazing friends in my Master’s in Psychology program, I have stayed at her family home in the Marais and as she will be celebrating, I will be at my Air BnB just a five minute walk from her home.

I will go to my favorite cafe, Cafe Charlot, which is open on Christmas.

I will be there for Christmas as well as my birthday.

I will take photographs and write, like I always do.

Although.

Hopefully I will not be writing agents to query them about a memoir, just writing in general, after scoring a few of my favorite notebooks, a small stack, at least five, maybe more.

I will instead be querying agents now about my book proposal.

Not exactly a memoir, but in a sense very much so, but with a different scope, seen through the lens of my dissertation, with beautiful photographs not take by me on my phone, but by the professional photographer I am meeting with next week for coffee in Petaluma–Sarah Deragon with Portraits to the People.

She did my headshots for my website and I adore her work.

I queried her if she would be interested in collaborating with me and I got a yes.

I’ve got some work to do before I see her.

Sketch out the book better, mock something up.

Cut and paste and write.

See.

I keep coming back to the writing.

Which is what I am doing, here, now.

Practicing.

I’m not exactly out of practice, I still journal every day, did it today, I’ll do it tomorrow.

But.

I haven’t been blogging in a while.

Time to polish the chops and sit at the keyboard and see where my meandering brain takes me.

I had not thought that it would be a time travel back to Paris ten years ago, I don’t often know where this page is going to take me, but take me it does.

I figured that the best way to put together my book proposal and manuscript was to open my blog and write my intentions and start from here.

I don’t know how exactly to get an agent.

But there’s Google for that.

I do know my dissertation is a mighty fine academic piece, but it’s not a book ready piece.

No one, well, my dissertation committee did, wants to read my Method and very few people are going to be interested in my Lit review, but there’s some juicy stuff in there.

Dramatic.

Traumatic.

Sexy.

Sad.

Transformative.

Pain.

Story.

There’s story and it’s good story and it’s got scandal.

And who doesn’t like scandal?

I’m going to risk it all and put it all out there with transparency and honesty and integrity.

And hopefully, someone will bite.

I want to do a kind of coffee table art house photography book with my poems, essays, blogs, memoir excerpts, and pictures of my transformation alongside the story of what I discovered with my research in my dissertation.

I also will write an epilogue with new insights.

The transformative tattoo; Walking towards joy.

Coming to you soon.

Fingers crossed.