Wine is my drink

The only time I do this on my own is when I’m travelling through airports: sit in a café drinking wine. But today, I’m not in an airport. I’m almost home. And I’ve just given into responsibility and decided to give myself some time. Oh I feel guilty, even with the knowledge that the grandparents are helping out at home today, I think. I feel like I have to get home when all I want is that there is no time, that everything happens when I want.

Turns out they are out of wine in this café. They have served me a beer that I need to pour myself. How I wish I was back in Europe. It wouldn’t necessarily change my state, but it would make one part of my life feel that it was in the right place. But it looks like I’ve chosen a difficult life. Let’s hope that I find a way to make it feel right before I die.

I’m so down. I don’t see how one finds meaning in life. Actuallly, forget about meaning, I don’t see how one finds a sense of security. I could die right now. I can I give myself the illusion that this is not true, even though it will be true one day.

Good wine is probably the only place that life seems worth it, where I actually accept that I can die now and that’s ok and I feel alive. If it wasn’t for wine, I don’t see what the point of anything is. I wish someone would enlighten me.

Burden

For my whole life, or at least the part that started with the move back to a big city at the age of 12, I have insisted that I am boring. And using the principle of reflection, it may also be true that I find people boring. I noticed that sometimes, but generally its when I’m angry about the world that I will think this. It’s truer to say that I have rarely entertained a regular friendship out of a strong belief that I will bore the other person and thus have to deal with the hurt of rejection. Every time. So I avoid it. And I especially avoid phone calls of a personal nature because there is always a point that I don’t know what else to say and the deadly silence frightens the hell out of me.

I learnt something in my last therapy session – that this feeling of being boring to someone is more deeply rooted in a feeling of being a burden. It might seem a bit theoretical, but something about it rings true. So I’m noting it for future reference. It definitely explains why I don’t want to reach out to someone when I’m going through stuff. And since I’m pretty much “going through stuff” all the time, that rules out any friendship that has a chance to go deeper.

I am in a deep hole of loneliness. I felt depressed most of the weekend with the only respite being after a nice walk in today’s afternoon sun. I have my prescription of anti-depressors sitting in my back, but I’m avoiding going there. I keep on hoping that this phase of panics will just end.

It feels like she hates me. Which may just be because I hate myself. Or maybe I also hate her – this new age stuff that she is so attached to is alien to me, and she’s right, there’s not much point of contact in that. Not that we have much point to find out if there is a future – we have virtually no time for each other.

I definitely hate the way she is so preaching about being a centered person without exaggerated emotions. I am the exact opposite so you’ll forgive me for getting the impression that she hates me. She definitely hasn’t hidden her belief that I’m just wallowing in anxieties and that I should be able to pull myself out of it, just like that. If you ask me, she’s in such denial of her own fear and lack of empathy. But there’s no point throwing that back at her – she’ll just accuse me of having too much of the traditional therapies. She actually got angry at our 5 year old daughter who spent the day crying because she missed her friend who stayed overnight for the first time – first time also that a friend stayed the night we her. I can understand getting a bit frustrated, but she actually gets angry because she’s expecting Z to be more centered and see that everything is ok. There’s nothing worst than new age idealism. It’s like a rejection of our human nature. At least in her case, it looks more and more like she uses it to justify her denial to feel all the “negative” emotions. I hate it when she talks this way, which is becoming more and more since she started with this group a year ago. I’m the opposite – I just want people to talk about the way they feel. I don’t want what she and her sister keep on doing – talking slogans in a language that is not even their own. They are completely infatuated with gurus, which if you ask me, doesn’t show a lot of centeredness.

To conclude, I wanted to jot down another reminder. Which is where she is right – I should grow a center. When anxiety comes, either in the car or in a queue, what I search for is a connection. Generally a connection can pull me back to reality. What I see is just how I’m not enough for me – I have no idea about how to be alone with myself. Self-love. My great short coming.

The holy grail of beliefs

If I had to use one word to describe my situation in life, it is this: lonely.

Don't get me wrong, I created this loneliness. I'm not asking anyone to shed a tear. At least, that's the lie I tell to myself. I probably want all the attention and affection in the world, but it all ends up making me feel the one in the wrong or the one with problems. So I keep the loneliness going just so I won't be reminded of how shitty I believe that I am. Not that I'm succeeding very well because I have a partner and two children and my inability to bring joy into our lives is enough to make me feel bad about myself. And even when I loved alone, I did a good job of being unhappy.

Everyone wants to be happy. But I resist it in ways that I haven't even fathomed. And believe me, I've done a lot of therapy. The anxieties continue, and I'm in a long horrible period of panic attacks.

I say that if I didn't have anxiety and panic attacks, I would be so much better. Which is a lie. I would still be just as undefined and unhappy as I am now. Or is it a lie? I don't know really.

The panics seems to have a root in traumatic ear operations that I had when I was young. At least there was this one when I was ten living in outback Australia and they took me and a bunch of Aboriginal children in an ambulance to a hospital some 250km away. They operated one after the other. I was the last. I remember my eyes rolling in their sockets before I passed out. I threw up all the way home lying on the floor. I entered into this in my last therapy session because the panics that stem from driving through bad traffic and feeling stuck seem to bring me back to this situation. I never had so much fear flood my body in a therapist's room. But the wave of panic came when I tried one of those therapy tricks - go there and be with your child. I couldn't do it. I was flooded with anxiety. My therapist asked me, who do you want there with you. "No-one". That was the answer. And yes, it brought tears, but it didn't bring relief. If I did something in my early childhood, it was to decide that no-one will be permitted to be here for me. I was so frightened and so lonely in that hospital surrounded by such impersonalism that I understood just how lonely I was in that place. In this place. In this world.

Was that the beginning of all this? Who knows. I remember loneliness even earlier. I remember Broome, another outback down on the Australian west coast. Every lunch I used to walk alone in one corner of the school where no-one congregated. There was a fence I used to tight-rope along it. Every lunch. It was a mostly Aboriginal school. I had one white friend Scott but he left town.

But to go from loneiness to anxiety is a step. I live with the belief that there is no protection in this world, that no-one will ever look after me if I am sick and that dying is absolute sheer suffering and fear. And I live with the knowledge that I am the one lying on the floor, I'm the one that is sick, I'm the one that is not strong, not brave. I don't look at the world, I just assume that it's perfect and that I am the one suffering. I don't think it's arogance or narcisism, I think that its the pure anger that I am the one who is not good enough, not brave enough, not strong enough. I am the one on the floor. Not them, only me. I am stuck on that belief and I am already a deadly 41.

Was it that hospital visit and the ambulance ride that planted the seed of anxiety? Is the reason important? Probably not. All I know is that I suffer from so much panic at the moment that I start to believe that I'll never get out of this and live a "normal" life like everyone else.

I get into the car to drive home from work and I'm already trembling inside with anticipation of being stuck on a freeway with traffic. I already have the belief that I will not make it. I have made it a thousand times, sometimes easily, sometimes with immense suffering sitting in the car in an off-road frightened that death is coming. Even then, I make it home. But the belief continues.

Anger sits there ready to pounce on who ever tries to belittle the beliefs. So I swear, I don't ever want to live in these stupid over-populated parts of the world. But I keep on doing it of course, probably because I don't want to end up in the isolated dumps of my childhood, probably because I'm afraid to be bored and most probably because my job is the only way I can make money to stay alive. That's the belief anyway. I found one thing I'm good at and I hold onto it with all the benefits and all the stress that it brings into my life. I actually like my job - or at least I think I do, even though it doesn't seem to bring joy to my life. But it sits on two conflicting beliefs. One that I won't make it - I'm actually not good enough. And the other that no-one is going to look after me, so I have to make this work no matter what, accept whatever conditions that come with the job. And maybe even one more, that I'm going to do this alone, I'm not going to let anyone help me because I don't want a reminder of just how inadequate I feel.

That's a lot of survival shit sitting there in my life. A lot of stressful beliefs. A lot of miserableness. And a huge amount of anger that the rest of world is able and well and doesn't care.

What game is she playing?

When she doesn't want to have sex, which is pretty much most of the time, if indeed there is no time away from the kids, I feel ...

I feel low and moody and want to be on my own. But it doesn't help to say that. I don't even feel there is anything I want to scream out in anger, unless it was to say that she makes no effort. But you can't force someone to be sexual. Probably I don't make enough effort either, just feel my arousal and in most cases, the kids are there or its two late at night and she doesn't respond, she doesn't want to respond, she's resisting. A friend told me that he noticed with his wife that when they don't make love for over a month, there is a kind of resistence in the female that builds up. I don't understand that. I thought that people just liked having sex.

Anyway, I don't want to talk. There's nothing to say. I've held this conclusion from childhood that there is nothing sexually appealing about me. So as much as I hate the new age crap, there is truth that you get what you project. But she doesn't open up to her part, she just ignores and I have no compassion for that kind of behavior. Check-mate. I have no idea how to advance from here except get over the emotional down and continue the usual cycle of this. Just fuck it. I never liked the game that the woman that I knew played.

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Staying home

It's been a long time since the last post.

She came back that night to the tent. I was just finishing the post. There was no anger in me. I was happy there alone on the beach. I expected that it was over after the anger that I threw at her.

We moved my daughter Z to the tent and settled down.

Then she said, "This is where I want to be".

She was stoned. And when she's stoned, I know that she sees things more clearly. And so I believed her. I melted.

It's been a long heavy month or two. I let life continue, ignoring the obvious question of whether I really want to be here. Work was challenging and stressful. I stopped looking at personal email (well, nothing new there). Panic attacks started up. Tough energy in the body. Started taking some old anti-anxiety tablets every two days. I felt really lonely. My heart was closed. It was only in the last two weeks that I started expressing the anger of what I went through. She didn't take it so well and definitely I didn't get any sympathy that might make me melt again. She's not a watery person, like she says. So why did I end up with a hard dried up woman when what I seem to crave is exactly the kind of feeling she seems to have for this other woman? Who knows. Definitely I lost a lot of my own love in this ordeal. By I don't stay out of convenience. Apparently a lot of people do, or at least couples with kids. Not me, or at least, I hope not. There is something that feels that she actually might be my best friend, either because there is some kind of inexplicable connection here or simply because history permitted me to go beyond so many of my limitations with another human being. I don't know, I haven't work this out yet. Even if Heidi stood on my doorstep right now, I don't think I would run away. So something is hold me here.

We saw the woman at the Jewish new year party. I was ok there but afterwards we had a bout of arguments. I guess I felt it, she wants to start again. And somehow I got to the point where I was able to find and express what I felt deep in me: there is not enough love in this relationship right now to permit another relationship. That was my truth. And expressing it opened my heart. I still haven't learnt that when you can express what you are and put your borders without question, you're a happier person. Even if you lose a couple because of it. I was certain that this would be the end by expressing that, knowing how much she is also attracted to the other side. But no, it brought closeness.

So here I am. Exhausted from parenting. Exhausted from badly managed stress at work. Next to zero time for a couple. Panic attacks. Bad energy in the body. Struggling. Suffering. Life isn't worth it. And now I've taken a few days holiday at home. I doubt that I can find me in that time. But its nice to be home.

 

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Beautiful lonely sea

It's been a horrible week. I never know if it's over or not. I never know if I want it over or not. I've come to the place where I've take the step to end it, and it's still not enough, it's still not over. It feels like it's over now, but who know what the morning will bring.

I'm in a tent. On beach. A cool breeze refreshes the moist skin. I'm happy and calm here, even though I am alone and she is extremely angry at me. I don't like the feel of sand on the skin, but what can you do, just enjoy the breeze. My daughter Z hates sand on the skin. We pour bottles of mineral water over her feet before she gets into the tent, only for her to scream at the sand that somehow found it's way into the tent. You can't be on the beach without sand, even in the food. Somehow Z's boundaries (her skin) are extruciatingly sensitive. She feels like an extreme version of me, and I seem to be extreme enough as it is.

That woman that she makes love to is here, on the beach. This is a kindergarden gathering with all the kids, so of course she would be here.

I was in a terrible state arriving here. Partly because I didn't want to see this woman nor her husband, but mainly because I made some insensitive remarks on the drive up. She said that Z wants to sleep with this woman's children in the same tent. So I made the joking remark that she could sleep with her lover. It was actually a joke. Later she said that she bought a new swim suit. I ask if it was sexy. She said yes. I felt my arousal. Then made a stupid remark, you bought it for her? After a few minutes of silence, she said that she doesn't want me to put her down this way. I wasn't putting her down, but she's right, it wasn't respectful to say those things.

I reached the point where in order to deal with the pain of rejection and being left out, I try to accept that I should try to find my satisfaction somewhere else rather than waiting like a victim for things to change. Dating, fuck buddies, whatever they call it. I have never been there, I don't really want to be there, I think that I mix love and sexuality to easily to go there. But it was suggested to me that if I want to preserve the family and everything the couple has fought for, then maybe this is a temporary solution. And so I try to put myself in a different frame of mind: she's in love and making love to another woman, she's rejecting me during this time, showing me now affection, so let's just find what I'm missing somewhere else. Like it falls from trees - yeah, right. I'm not so bad looking, but neither am I full of testosterone confidence. Women don't fall flock around me. But, let's give it a try. And so I try to be light and end up belittling the experience that my woman is having. This experience represents something momentus in her life. She never dared like this before. And here I am portraying it as a bit of light sexuality. I know, it's crass. But I'm hurting, really hurting bad, and these comments are what sneaks through when I'm trying to be ok.

So she put me in my place. And then I felt my pain. That pain of not being taken care of. It's ok for her to have sex with this woman today and it's ok that she has rejected me these last weeks, hell, these last seven years. And that our relationship should continue because she thinks that I'm her soul mate. Her soul mate? I feel like I've given so much and receive so little in return. Maybe I receive on the spiritual level - the evolution level - but my heart needs something too. Doesn't every heart need something? Isn't that what she's doing with this woman? Re-energizing her heart. And me, what about my heart? I want you to love my heart, I don't want another woman. You arrive today at my office with our so beautiful children. And you are the most beautiful of them all. And suddenly I feel inadequate, that I'm not man enough to love you physically, that's why you go else where? I doubt it, but I felt strongly for the first time that I'm not enough for you.

I arrived on the beach with this pain. With the lonely sun setting. I don't want to be here. All these parents here. That woman is here. Her husband here. Me, the over-emotional one, is here. My daughter puts a foot in the sand and she wants to go home. My partner has disappeared down the beach with the bag of clothes. And I'm here with a screaming daugher and my one year old worldly daughter. For a moment I remind myself that I knew this was a bad idea, but then I decide to sit it out and be here with Z.

We brought Z up in our lonely world. We didn't go out much. Z was breast fed for two and a half years. My woman suffered. She's breast feeding our second now at one year and two months. She still suffers. She looks so frustrated. Z and her are still so attached. The only thing that saves her is a spiritual group that she attends each week.

Z was in no good mood this evening. She hates the beach. At some point she wanted to go to bed. We took her to the tent. The sand was a difficult ordeal. At some point my partner exploded, she want's Z to be able to suddenly sleep near the party. I tell her harshly to hold her anger, that if she want's to go and party, she can do that, but accept who our daughter is. Now she's silently livid towards me. I get my daughter to sleep and I tell her to go and have a good time.

So she's gone. I make my angry speech to the sea. You can't sit there all night doing nothing while I hold my one year old daughter and pay attention to Z and suddenly expect that they want to sleep there on the floor with the noise. Just because you are so frustrated and want to have some fun in your life, you can't expect that it will just pop out of thin air. I know how frustrated it is. But don't disappear on me like this. Grow up. You are their mother, whether you like it or not. I know how frustrated you are, believe me, I can see it. But don't get angry at Z. Accept her for who she is, in your image, in our image, and let's make the small changes that will enable her to grow.

I was really angry there and I showed it. I feel she's escaping, disappearing. And at the same time, I don't understand. She has the beautiful love affair with this woman and a spiritual group that fulfills her and yet she's seems even less tolerant of reality. Why? Maybe I can understand.

Anyway, she's off with the adults. And instead of feeling, miserable, I'm happy for her. And I'm happy to be here alone with the sound of the sea. But I would be happy if I was more loved. And maybe I'm accepting more that I can't go through life always being loved. Even if I have a feeling I have gone through 40 years not being loved enough. Maybe she is right after all. Maybe I shouldn't need to be loved, I should be stable enough that me is enough, or at least not shaken, when all there is is me. But I think that's going to far. And besides, that's a whole different topic.

Good night.

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What is love?

Yesterday night, the bubble burst. All the pain of Austin sobbed out of me. She was gentle with it.

Somehow the conversation wound its way back to the same place, something in her that needs the relationship open in some way that still isn't clear.

I closed my heart. I hardly slept. Everything in me was screaming, I don't want this, I don't want an open relationship, I'm not made that way.

I had a horrible day. And on this day, the most unusual thing happened. Three people reached out to me. I read the email of my only long-term pen-friend from a small town in Switzerland and she made me feel cared for in a way I never thought possible through writing. A colleague gave me a beautiful perspective on the situation and ended with the warmest hugs. And the pilot that I have written flight simulator programs for as a hobby came and had lunch with me after months that we have not seen each other and for the first time, it was the most warmest contact that I have had, fatherly. I hold this believe that I am a lonely fool who keeps away from people, and here I am blessed with people with such good hearts who listen to my heart.

Calm came.

I drove back home after work ready to tell Mon Amour that I can't take this any more, that I can't live in any kind of open relationship right now, that I feel disrespected that she continues her experience with this woman when I am not ready, that I have reached the point where I am ready to leave.

I saw her and all I felt was love and in that moment, I let everything else go.

She encouraged me to sleep and I slept next to my baby daughter, the greatest little creature that this world has to offer.

I woke up around 11pm. She was out in the kitchen. I wanted to make love to her. But the timing didn't feel right as I stepped out. We had a simple contact. I could feel how she is working hard to not lose herself. Love needs a lot of patience. I'm so typically impatient and exigent.

I finished the film that I started watching on the plane, Salmon fishing in the Yemen. The end brought me to heart renching tears. "Do you need an assistant Dr Jones? ... an assistant? ... a P A R T N E R? ... a partner? Yes Miss Jepwort Tolbert, more than anything". I sat against the fire place, head resting on the top, eyes closed, chest open, sobbing like a silly romantic with a real pain.

I have a partner. I just don't know where her heart is.

And I love her.

And I don't understand anything about love.

And sitting there on the floor with the film credits rolling and the music filling my body, I felt alive, open with all this pain. And most of all, in the pain, I felt, I am me, even if no-one else is here, I am me.

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Everything has a price

A day before I left for this business trip, I was driving with Mon Amour's father. He made one of his usual comments that I label "pessimistic". He said, referring to the fact that I will be leaving, that he's happy to see my career doing so well but that everything has a price. The comment stuck because I carried it with me. That's what I hate about his comments, there is a good sense of reality in them that I'm not permitting myself to see. Me wanted to say, no, it's not that serious, it's just a trip. But it's a loaded question, everything always has a price and we, or at least I, don't like dealing with the price and asking the obvious question before hand: is it worth the price? I'll avoid the question in general, maybe out of fear that I would do nothing in my life if I was paying any attention to this concept.

The unusual thing about this trip was that I created it. In the past, I've been assigned these trips. This time it was me running with an idea. Meeting the engineering groups in Austin was going to push things along fast and secure a long term relationship for our small group in Israel. I remember the point so clearly where I was aware that I could just let the idea sit and never really go anywhere or make the leap. I took the later because as much as the fear wanted me to stay, I was excited to be driving something on a much bigger scale.

There were two parts to the fear involved in the decision. First there was the fear of standing out on a limb professional, taking a risk when I wasn't 100% sure of what I was doing. And secondly there was the fear of the impact on the family - my five year old daughter's sensitivity to separation, the guilt of leaving Mon Amour alone with our two young children and the fear for the couple at such a sensitive time.

The anixety started before the trip and reached panic on the flight away. Anxiety is always the sign-post for the unspoken, for the intuition that you are ignoring.

I arrived home to my five year old daughter so happy to see me yet full of pain in her eyes and a kind of compulsive need to go to the toilet every half hour with a kind of diarhea. I arrived home to find my partner even more in a bubble than when I left. I arrived home to my guilt for having messed up the lines of communication home. She was happy to see me, but in the end, he quick withdrawl make me wonder how welcome home I am. I was so exhausted that I couldn't even keep myself awake to give her some attention after the children went to sleep.

I paid a really high price on this trip. I might win a rosier professional future out of it, but the way I feel right now, at home, unwanted - the price was too high for the family and for me.

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Drowning in loneliness

Here's my ride home. New York to Tel Aviv. No matter how messed up your destination is, it is always sweet.

My five year old daughter has a fever. She always gets a fever before I arrive. She's so affected by the separation. And who am I to think that I am not. I am completely affected.

As I flew up from Austin, I did some meditation to manage to the anxiety. Suddenly I remembered the shoes that I had bought for her, then I had the image of sitting on my suitcase before opening it, asking her to look me in the eye and telling her how much I missed her and I love her. A few tears fell. She has made my life so tough. She's such a sensitive soul, a lot like me. And since I don't manage my own sensitivity, I definitely don't manage her's.

I went to an amazing sushi restaurant on Thursday. Incredible ambiance. Amazing food. Really nice people. If you are ever in Austin, this is the finest of restaurants:

http://www.uchiaustin.com/

I sat at the bar. Had a few easy conversations with the neighbors, received a few music-bar recommendations. Things were flowing as they would say.

I found myself sitting in a bar, alone. The music wasn't that great - I should have gone with the Jazz recommendation instead of the blues. But there were a few songs to strum the heart's cords. And that's where I felt the tears. There's no woman in this bar giving me any attention. There is no woman in all my life running after me. All the way back to Broome, there's no girl that wanted me.

There is nothing like receiving someone's affection, someone's attention. A boy without loving grows up to be a man longing for attention. I have everything I could ever want, but when I find myself alone in a town, I drown in the loneliness of my child craving for some love.

I move in mysterious ways.

I grew up in the smallest of towns.

Then I was dropped into a huge city. I never really adapted.

I can remember the fear or the shame of walking on the main streets and thinking that everyone was watching me, me with the old-fashioned, home hair-cut, second-hand clothes and the absolute belief of total unhandsomness - pale skin, dark marks under the eyes.

I remember not feeling well every time I went downtown or into a mall. I didn't know it was anxiety. It wasn't until I got frightened of dying of a heart-attack that it became debilitating, a physical nightmare, clostrophobic.

And only after I had my first "official" panic attack, after my only friend - my grandfather - had passed away, did I start making my own huge movements across this globe.

Every movement to a new place brings a resurgence of fear. Every holiday location, every business trip, has been a nightmare, managed only by anti-anxiety pills or anti-depressors. Yet I have always moved, I love moving, but I have suffered and I don't really know why.

My last business trip to San Francisco, half way across the world, was the first trip I did without a pill. I can't say I was well, but I wasn't drowning.

Two months later, and I'm drowning here in beautiful Austin. I always thought that it was the people who frightened me, but my confidence with people has sky-rocketed this last year. I can be anxious in a crowd and not need to run away. I can be anxious and deal with people confidently. The only place that I'm better is at home, in the hotel room, in the office.

Things seemed to have improved these last months. I could walk into a mall in Israel and not feel too uncomfortable. However, it's all very delicate. And so I find myself in Austin, full of fear, disappointed that I can't do this without a pill, panic slowly creeping in as I walk around downtown.

I don't know what it is. I don't know what I'm frightened of or angry at. Maybe I just can't bare the loneliness.

I wish I would find out soon. I want to just feel good for once when I travel.

This is where I am.

 

 

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That frightening tunnel

I am high above the earth.

It's so quiet, if you take out the scream of the air.

It's so smooth.

The cabin is mostly empty.

I could almost be mistaken for thinking that I am in limbo.

I'll be honest, I usually inebriate myself to the point of emotional ecstasy.

But not this time. I almost believe what I feel now, that this is my rarified air home and there is nothing else.

There is the knowledge that I will soon meet a new town and that brings a flash of excitement.

And there is the memory of revealing the truth to Mon Amour. That when she got off me after riding me to the point of orgasm (she can never quite get there, in her whole life) she lay in front of me and the vagina being open, frightened me. Like the fleshy jaws of an octopus that will strangle me. I admitted it for the first time in my life, there is this point in sex where I am disgusted.

Which of course I can't get my head around because of all the sights that one can see on this amazing planet, nothing compares to luscious valleys of the vagina and the taste of a throbbing clit. Nothing, absolutely nothing. And yet, when the tunnel opens, my stomach drops.

I told her this on the day I left. And she gave me a viewing. Then my daughter woke up and it was over.

We were left with such a beautiful feeling. Something simple, lightly sexual. I love her.

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In transit

I am on the other side of the world. I bought a Starbucks double-shot then watched the sun rise over Manhattan. It's quiet and all the voices are hushed. I'm feelingless, hardly aware of where I am really. I want to wake up completely, but the drug is keeping the senses dull.

The departure was tough. My 5-year-old daughter didn't want to let go. Which is good because she used to not express her feelings. She's almost theatrical in her misery, so it's hard not to laugh. I spent the whole afternoon at the swimming pool with her thinking this would make it easier for her. But who was I kidding, though I have heard that good memories go a long way to helping the heart deal with missing. Eventually I asked her to draw me a picture that I would carry with me. She has a talent for drawing and here is her 10 second caricature for my trip:

How does one really say goodbye with completeness, with 100% centeredness. Maybe as my 1 year old daughter does: bye-bye, waving her hand awkwardly. Mon Amour was effected just as much. She said that I have brought so much presence to our lives, presence as a father and presence as a lover. She said she was going to miss me, she of all people. We are going places deeper than before, on all levels. She's the one.

I think that I prefer being the one staying behind. Because being the one leaving carries too much weight. As I went through all the over-security at Ben Gurion, anxiety crept in. Two glasses of wine in the Dan Lounge wasn't enough to bring me back to earth. I'm embarking on the first global project that I'm driving. I'm excited, I'm frightened, and yet I don't yet feel the strength of a worldly man. I'm not a pillar, I still crumble. Eventually I popped a pill sitting on the plane feeling uncomfortable in the belly and uneasy breathing.

And so I slept, and I calmed and now I'm awake, more confident, but feeling a bit lost. I love my family more than anything else in the world and yet I'm still not able to stand strong as a man. I'm lost because in this moment, so far from everyone, I don't think that I'm anything much.

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The dust of my childhood

Once the children have gone to sleep and I feel the sexual energy brewing, I go all sheepish, boyish, awkward, smiley. There's this fear - I'm not allowed to want to have sex.

When I was four or five, I lived in a secluded coastal town in outback Australia. This is true-blue, fair-dinkum aussi land. Catholic. Brim and firestone territory. I grew up believing in hell, burning on a stake for eternity, that kind of shit.

Still, a boy will always be a boy. I took interest in a younger girl across the road. One day, I played you-show-me-yours-if-I-show-you-mine behind the caravan in her parent's drive way. I remember the shame of mine. How does a boy end up with shame at such a young age?

Next I was gaimer. I took her under the sheets in my bed, put a plastic bag on each hand and went exploring. I don't remember anything visually. I just remember the fear, the noise of my brother running around and those plastic bags - what was that all about, was I playing doctor?

The next time I walked over to her place, the mother came out. She shouted at me. She told me that I'm disgusting. She told me that if I ever come close to her daughter again, she'll call the police. I ran across the road, hoping to take refuge at a friend's place, a fat boy from an obese Irish family. The fat mother came out and said that if she ever hears about me touching her daughters, I would get a huge walluping (and believe me, I was witness to the use of the fat father's thick belt hitting pristine flesh).

And so I stood in the middle of the pot-holed, red sanded street and the dust settled around me. Full of fear. The prison was down one end of the street. The Aboriginal shanty town was up the other end. On both sides were angry mothers who made me feel that there was something wrong with me. The idealism and religousness of my parents frightened me even more - hell was a small walk away. I had no where to go.

I have travelled the rest of my life with my child standing in the middle of that street. I still believe there is something perverted about wanting to enjoy a woman's flesh. I still believe that I'm a bad boy, in the Hitler kind of way. It's not true, my life has shown me that, but emotionally I'm still on that street feeling that I did something really wrong.

Arabic bottle opener

For my birthday, we went to camp in a national park at the northern edge of Israel, a beautiful area right on mediterranean located in the ruins of an Arabic town from the 13th century.

I was expecting Sunday to be quiet but instead there was a nice crowd of Christian Arabs who came for a restful day at the beach. I write "nice" because I was pleasantly surprised. I still hold a prejudice of the Arabic culture, believing that the people are a tad on the grotesque side for my more sensitive soul. Not really sure why, nor how much I am influenced by way that culture is protrayed in the Western media. I just sense an easier access to violence, so I conclude that these are not nice people. However the families who sat having picnics around us were quiet and orderly. Even the male group of testosterone-pumped gym-pumped men running after each other on the beech was cute (Greek like) - they even had the curtiousy to ask us if it was ok to put a bit of music on at night. Maybe "Christian" is the key point here, I know that's what people would like to believe. But as a baptised Christian who doesn't believe anymore, I don't want to give that much credit to Jesus. I think that affluence brings better manners and that's what Israel brings to the "friendly" Arabs who ended up on this side of the territories. Reminds me of one day I sat in the train and listened to two business men talking Arabic in the seats across the aisle. It suddenly seemed to me that I was back in Switzerland listening to two business men speaking Swiss german on the train. It just seemed natural, even if there remains a current of ambivalence between the "races". Israel's not quite there - give it one or two hundred years. But based on this Sunday experience in the park, I could have been forgiven for thinking that peace had finally made it to this land.

All that to say that when I discovered that I had left the bottle opener at home, I needed to ask an Arab for help! But I was out of luck - no wine drinkers there. I returned to our table and contemplated the bottle longingly. I love wine. I was trying hard to think of novel ways to get the cork out when the father from the neighboring family came over with his two daughers and handed me a can of beer. I said, no, really, I have beer of my own. He said, with a charming, mischevious smile, that he can open the bottle without anything. I decided to entertain his idea. He wrapped the bottle in a towel and gave it a bang on the table. OK! Now I'm getting the idea, he thinks this is champaigne. I tell him it's wine. He bangs again. And again. You can see that there is a bit of foam bubbling just below the cork and he tries to make me believe that the cork is moving, but I watch it every time the bottle hits the table and I don't see it move even a fraction of a millimeter. I warn him that this is French wine; maybe the trick only works on sunburnt Israeli wine. He bangs the bottle one more time. And suddenly there is a thick pool of red spreading over the table, just like blood seeps out of a hollywoodian human who has fallen from a great height. I felt the taste of wine on my tongue drain to despair. Boy was I looking forward to that. And I'm zen. After two days of sheer hard work camping with a one-year old daughter and an almost five year old daughter who has decided that her name is Michael and that she is three years old and wants to go home every 10 minutes, after all of that, I've found complete quietness. Not even the hint of anger. Just a laugh, a hand-shake, a goodbye and the relief that it wasn't my towel that the bottle had shattered in.

Ten minutes later, his daughters came over with a half-finished bottle of Jack Daniels black-label whiskey. I'm not really a whiskey drinker, but I accept the token of good will. My first brush with a civilized Arabic bottle opener.

 

Just let go!

I woke up to the sound of Hopi hitting the floor in the kitchen. She didn't cry too long so I stayed in bed! I guess I got about 3 hours sleep after my last post. I used to go through major panic attacks over lack of sleep, but now I take it in my stride. Such be the fruits of early morning training with kids. This also makes International business travel to the States comfortable.

The left side of my belly vibrated away with the remnants of last night's fear. I worked a few techniques to make the energies flow better. When I sat up, I knew the second part of a decision that I started to make one week ago. One week ago I realized that she wasn't going to stop this woman experience because of my hurting. She says she has this open question about woman, which of course I interpreted to mean that she would announce any day now that she intends to go to live with a woman. My decision one week ago was to admit that I have no idea what she means by this open question. And I don't think she has much of an idea either. So instead of going around in circles trying to get clarity, I decided to accept that I can't control the future and to let it be. That helped a lot, and a friend gave me the rational: if I was starting to experiment with homosexual behavior, would I know immediately which way I wanted to go? Probably not. This morning's decision was along the same lines: I probably put the words "you're not attracted to me" in her mouth. What is really going on for her? I have no idea and I suspect that it's not so clear for her either. So why beat about the bush trying to understand something that can't be understood clearly? Better off letting it be. Better off not trying to control the situation. Better off living without too much thinking.

I had no love in me this morning. She tried to be close when she saw my state. She asked for me to be open. I told her I'm hurt by her and I can't be open. I don't know how I learnt to be so direct and accepting of my moods. Probably from living with a really moody woman!

I did the shopping and that picked me up. I love being on my own these days. I can talk it out in the car. I can shout in the car. And that transforms everything. That's the great breakthrough in my therapy. The thing that reduced the anxieties to virtually nothing. Evacuate the anger, don't surpress it. For some time I needed the anger to go to the person, but now it looks like I've learnt that it's enough to just get it out for my own auditian.

This afternoon, I was back to normal, feeling close to her. Experimenting with this new awareness of sexual energy in the body. Did it get me anywhere? No, but it felt good and free.

Tomorrow I'm 41. Not that I care about birthdays, such an artificial concept. I always get out of town so the family can't make a fuss over it. Tomorrow we're traveling up north to camp on the beach. It's the worst year of my life. And it's forcing me to learn to let go, to stop trying to control what others are thinking. I don't think she knows more about the future than I do. She definitely doesn't know where she stands sexually, but for the rest she's really clear, I'm the one. So if I can make a wish for this year, it's to be sexually brave and learn from my mistakes instead of living with a wounded ego every time I get rejected.

He's a shot of Sambuca to me, lit in my mouth, gulped down and delivery to the brain 5 seconds later. I made it to 41. I never really thought I would make it after going through all those years of anxiety. Goodbye anxieties. I don't need you any more. I've got me in the driving seat. And now I'm letting the car drive itself because I've had enough going around in circles trying to understand what is going on with her!

What's the point?

It's two in the morning. The number of sleepless nights accumulates. She sleeps, no matter what. But I keep going, hoping to find some consolation, something to make me believe that this will turn out well. I want to know NOW NOW NOW. I can't let go until I have this one worked out or until I slip into sleep between the crack of two un-answerable arguments or until my heart gives in and the love creeps back. There is no solution at this late hour, so Iogic, and Budha's teachings, say to let it go. But I'm wrestling with myself and my belly quivers and the bouts of anger wrench me from bed. Enough, I can't sleep. I'm hurting bad. There is no solution in this state, except to run. But for seven years I have been unable to run and I don't understand why. I used to run easily, but this time I'm not. I wish I could. I don't understand why. When is enough enough? Never. Right now, it's enough. Right now I've had enough. And the answer is still never. I hate it. I hate that I have no control over the answer.

I have lived what is clinically called a "sexless" couple for seven years. She always rejected me in that way. At first I thought that it was because I have so much fear. And when I did finally make it inside her, there was pain like I have never known. My pain, her pain? I have no idea. It definitely didn't feel like mine, at least not emotional pain having sex. Then again, there is enough pain in my life, so maybe it was mine. I sensed her lack of interest, her limpness, from the beginning. Maybe that's what was painful - I already knew what was coming.

I moved the world to be close to her. I was so in love with her. From the moment I set eyes on her. And for once in my life, I think that I saw the person, as opposed to the self love. I knew that I was heading for trouble and this is probably why I put a big rock in my heart when I changed continents to live with her. We started our personal evolving together, our spiritual growth. But at first we were a mess. I have no idea why we stayed together. She pushed me away sexually every time I came close to her. She would shudder and turn away. I would freeze, not knowing what to do, what I did wrong. She would sleep. I would lie awake, body full of fear. Eventually she threw me out. That's why I had so much fear. I broke down weeping a dog's bark and for some reason, probably pity, she kept me. I remember that I had my ticket booked to return and when she kept me, a small voice said, go anyway and let the wind decide things. If I went, that was it. So I stayed. I wanted her too much. Why? Only the soul knows. I've always had the strength to leave. But not this time. I wish someone would tell me why.

Nothing really improved until just before my daughter Zoe was conceived. I discovered real therapy and it revolutionized my life. Have my own opinion. That was the message. I changed many things in my life on the wings of those words (well, after one of those heart-wrenching therapy sessions that you only see in movies). And then I let anger lose in her face for the first time, probably the first time in my life, and suddenly my heart was full of love. That's how Zoe was created.

She said parenting was our connection. I guess I'm a great father, but I don't really see why that helped her love me more. Or maybe I can see it but refuse it because I wanted her physical love. I actually got tired of being hurt every time I made an advance so I resolved to reduce my sexual desire. That made life easier but after some time, the frustration showed. Frustration made me less subtle in my advances and so she took the sex away completely. That was the crisis. It happened after my first business trip since having Zoe. I came back and she told me that she had discovered she could cope on her own and probably didn't need me. The shit hit the fan. We argued so much. Expressing anger took the anxieties away. It made us closer, much to my amazement. I started massaging her in the evening and that is how Hopi was created, another beautiful and rare sex moment in our lives together.

We left sex hanging in the wind after Hopi was created. Not that it mattered - life was full of other complications such as unemployment, new job, birth, moving house, bad job, new job. It wasn't until she announced to me that she was seeing a woman that I woke up. She always said that she had this thing for woman, but given the kind of violence that she experienced from her father in her childhood and a possible rape incident with arab boys when she was ten, I kind of figured that it was more of an escape than anything else. I actually handled it very well the night she announced it. A week later I started exploding. And I started going through the horrible roller-coaster of feeling hurt, despair and the high waves of love.

She gave me the most beautiful sex of my life. And that was a month ago. My heart was full of so much love and physical desire. And it keeps on being beat down. Dealing with the hurt and jealousies of the love affair going on under my nose. Feeling neglected. She blocks any sexual energy unless we're in a situation where it can never go to sex. My heart breaks. I start to trust less. She won't stop the affair for me. I don't want to deprive her of this important experience. I finally bring all my anger and she agrees to see a sex therapist, she who loathes the talking therapies. Then I understand how open this question of woman is and my fear puts me in the movie where she might leave me any moment now. So I tell her to sort herself out first. She's hurt and when she's hurt, all the doors are closed for a week at least.

Finally tonight I get the sex therapist back on the table because I don't see how else this is going to work. And now I'm tormented. She admits that she's not attracted to me. That blows my ego away, especially after all these years of rejection. What's the point of a therapy if your woman isn't attracted to you while meanwhile she's exploring her sexuality else where with a woman? Is it just me or is it something deeper going on here? She's had more passion for other men, but she hides too much to know what to extract from that admission - we all hold onto some sexual experiences in the past where somehow we were different. Still, my gut screams. I can't stand the feeling knowing that she's not attracted to me. It would be better to be thrown out than kept as a mouse to toy with. She says, get over it, we both have our touchy child sexual histories that makes us bang our heads against each other and we can work on it. And I felt positive about seeing the therapist last week. But tonight I keep on hearing it: she's not attracted to me sexually. Not that there is anything new in this admission. I remember when we were fighting two years ago before Hopi was created, she even admitted that she didn't like my uncircumcised dick! I have no idea why I keep on going and I have no idea why she keeps on insisting with me when she knows that she can find something more suitable than me. Why struggle so much? Because I'm an amazing father? Can't be. I hope not - I don't want her staying with me for that. I want her to stay with me because she loves me and she wants me physically.

When is enough enough? When there are no more lessons to learn? I have one more lesson to learn (who am I kidding, I have thousands). Maybe this one is the hardest. When I was a boy, I got into trouble for playing you-show-me-yours-if-I-show-you-mine. Police trouble. I was in a small Catholic village, so you can understand how this didn't go down too well. I carry the fear to this day. If my woman brings sex, then I'm fine. But I don't know how to take my sexual energy and excite my woman. I always did it indirectly, meekly. She doesn't stand for that. What do I need to learn? To bring my sexuality.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate that life doesn't ever let up on me. I feel so far far away from the love and the joy I felt making love to her a month ago. Once we're in it, we're good. But getting there is next to impossible. She ignores and I frustrate until I can't stand it any longer.

And now I exhaust myself worrying how much longer this is going to last. I cried so much today. And no-one can do anything about it because it's still not enough to run. Something deep inside wants to believe that we can make something out of this. Something deep inside wants to be back inside her. I love her when I'm there. I feel strong.

So close and yet so far away. I hope we get there.