I would like to share with you some poetry and paintings that I have written and made over the past six months. This has been a deeply transitional time as I move towards middle age and after navigating a marriage for over 20 years. Also, I have just come out of a long intense time of study as I have just finished a PhD after six years. While this was rewarding in one sense, my creative self, family and marriage has suffered as I had to shut down certain aspects of myself to get it done. When I finished my PhD, the lid on my life literally exploded open. I think this may happen to anyone who has gone through a long intense period of deprivation of some kind when they have had to shut down important aspects of themselves such as the sensual, sexual, interpersonal and life giving.
I have decided to share this difficult, exhilarating and deeply personal struggle with you because this gives voice to an experience that is often held secret, silent and causes much pain for women. That has always been my mission....to out myself and uncover the secret life that many women often traverse alone. I wrote this poem after I feel in love with a man while still married to my husband. I had no intention of falling in love at first. I was just looking for sexual excitement as is common in many long term mostly faithful marriages. In other words I was having a mid life crisis.
I am an artist, passionate and very gregarious so I was partly prepared for my own intense responses but I was not prepared for what was to unfold and is still unfolding. At the time of falling in lust and love I was so obsessed and overwhelmed by the intensity that I found it difficult to focus on anything else. While I found so much joy, loving intimacy and deep sexual satisfaction in my liaison there was also a deeply dark side such as secrecy, deception, loss and grief. I thought that I could accept and distance myself from the emotional intensity but I was caught in the maelstrom of desire and became addicted to the feelings of being desirous and wanted. Later I became caught up in the cycle of rejection and the thrill, and pain, of the chase.
I do not intend this as a warning for you to shut down your own experiences of exploring your sexuality. On the contrary, I would still be stuck in a deeply unsatisfying state wondering what if, if I had not gone through this experience. I share this with you are a way of shared learning for me and you. I don't think we have many opportunities for face to face spaces in our lives that enable this kind of intimate sharing between women that can liberate a healthy sharing.
This blog will have to do but one benefit is that we can share a little bit anonymously. The downside is we do not get to share in the kind of energy exchange and reading of little signs and gestures that are important in human communication and that perhaps we all crave...like the raise of an eyebrow, the sound of slapping your leg in raucous laughter as your best friend and you laugh at the raunchy and ridiculous.....the smell of safe friendship and food and of course the heartfelt hug that needs no words.
So please enjoy the journey with me and I especially hope you can relate to my poems and paintings.
I have decided to share this difficult, exhilarating and deeply personal struggle with you because this gives voice to an experience that is often held secret, silent and causes much pain for women. That has always been my mission....to out myself and uncover the secret life that many women often traverse alone. I wrote this poem after I feel in love with a man while still married to my husband. I had no intention of falling in love at first. I was just looking for sexual excitement as is common in many long term mostly faithful marriages. In other words I was having a mid life crisis.
I am an artist, passionate and very gregarious so I was partly prepared for my own intense responses but I was not prepared for what was to unfold and is still unfolding. At the time of falling in lust and love I was so obsessed and overwhelmed by the intensity that I found it difficult to focus on anything else. While I found so much joy, loving intimacy and deep sexual satisfaction in my liaison there was also a deeply dark side such as secrecy, deception, loss and grief. I thought that I could accept and distance myself from the emotional intensity but I was caught in the maelstrom of desire and became addicted to the feelings of being desirous and wanted. Later I became caught up in the cycle of rejection and the thrill, and pain, of the chase.
I do not intend this as a warning for you to shut down your own experiences of exploring your sexuality. On the contrary, I would still be stuck in a deeply unsatisfying state wondering what if, if I had not gone through this experience. I share this with you are a way of shared learning for me and you. I don't think we have many opportunities for face to face spaces in our lives that enable this kind of intimate sharing between women that can liberate a healthy sharing.
This blog will have to do but one benefit is that we can share a little bit anonymously. The downside is we do not get to share in the kind of energy exchange and reading of little signs and gestures that are important in human communication and that perhaps we all crave...like the raise of an eyebrow, the sound of slapping your leg in raucous laughter as your best friend and you laugh at the raunchy and ridiculous.....the smell of safe friendship and food and of course the heartfelt hug that needs no words.
So please enjoy the journey with me and I especially hope you can relate to my poems and paintings.
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