Exhale

The first year of grad school is completed. Many thanks to all of those shoulders, arms, minds and smiles that helped me stay sane for the most part. Those last two weeks were a bit surreal. But I got good grades and I know I am learning. I definitely feel like I’m in the middle of something. Only half of the thoughts are coagulating, the rest are slowly sinking in, then dissipating. One year done. One thesis project constructed. One puzzle piece of my identity cast in relief. Breath out. Exhale, release it all, empty the lungs, clear the mind…

 Now…   inhale. Open your eyes, and with a clear mind, bring the next steps in focus. Summer school starts on Monday. The reading list for “Women and the Prison Industrial Complex” awaits. Time to start recruiting participants for the thesis; interviewing has to begin next Saturday. Boys have Expo next week; C has his 4th grade passage presentation. A 33rd birthday needs celebrating. Just keep breathing.

May was a helluva month: The Sex Positive Photo Project kicked so much masturbation ass, Shilo deserves an ass kicking trophy. I got on stage to rep Oakland for Bawdy. I presented a paper and am now a member of the International Academy of Sex Research. I took the boys to ride roller coasters. In May, I moved a lil closer to meshing cerebral and vulnerable. I showed my lover the multiple sides of my Gemini being. I was advised to rest. He actually told me to spend one day… just resting. And I did. And it was good. But June is always a one upper. June is my month. The only month in the year named for a Goddess. June will be the month for the Dossie Easton interview on the SPPP and hopefully some sex positive conversations being facilitated by me in the Town for another e-zine.

My hackles get raised easily when I’m devouring theories on social inequality. Every conversation reveals a layer of oppression, every situation linked to a larger injustice. And it is aggravating and exhausting. So I needed to rest. Just a little. Just to keep my sensitive side safe, keep that part of me intact, close to the surface, available. It’s too easy to live behind a wall of hardened thoughts. To be suspicious, and therefore callous, with what is offered freely.

June will be a month of positioning. Positioning myself as a researcher, as a long distance lover, as a ‘the kids aren’t in school so entertain them all day’ mother. Physical positioning too; yoga and swimming are in the schedule. I am so excited to get into some fast moving cold water that I want to start holding my breath now. I’m aching for that first heart pounding Stinson beach submersion. My birthday will be a water day too. Going to Harbin with my Boo for mineral baths and Watsu. Water. It’s been raining and storming. But when I think back to my birthdays throughout the years, it seems to always have been raining near or on that day. That is NorCal for you. So for now, today, I am breathing. Exhale, inhale, annnnnnnnd GO!

 

Exhale
  • http://www.chasingmetamorphosis.blogspot.com Barbara

    Congratulations on your wonderful accomplishments!! Things will just continue to get better and better. I somehow feel that you are gonna change the game with your thesis 🙂

    Hail to the Gems, my little dual spirit will be having a bday this weekend!

  • http://airial.wordpress.com airial

    Thanks Mz B! I am really excited to start interviewing. <3