I’ll keep you safe he whispers in my ear. I’m telling him how I sleep in the dormer basically, my bed surrounded by firm walls. I sleep like that because I feel enclosed, protected.
He holds me closer, like trying to absorb my spirit, my fear into himself.
I revel in the moment, let myself be held. Try to pay attention to Mongol. Fail. Find myself wrapped up and lost within the sliver between minutes.
I believe him.
Years I’ve waited for someone to hold me and tell me such things.
Any of us who have been teenagers know well what it feels like to be alone in a crowd. So that would be all of us. Show me someone who has never felt the outsider, and I’ll show you a liar. We have all felt “the other” at some point, even if it was just once at the Spring Formal where everyone else was wearing a skirt and we wore pants.
Piece by Piece: Stories about Fitting into Canada, goes beyond the experience most of us have had. A compilation piece showcasing the immigrant experience in Canada, it starts with Svetlana Chmakova’s drawn story “Red Maple Leaves”, of integrating in high school, ending with Ting-Xing Ye’s “Permission to Work“, on her experiences on starting over after life in Communist China, and trying to find work. Between these two women are stories of varied experiences of arrivals from Iran to England, with the corresponding suffering, confusion and glee at finally being in Canada.
I personally love reading stories like these. Those of us who are generations in, born to Canada tend to take for granted how blessed we are, how a simple thing like dissenting freely is truly a gift. Piece by Piece is targeted to a young adult audience, and the brevity of the essays shows that. However, it’s an interesting and sometimes insightful read, allowing a view into a perspective many of us don’t imagine. The wonder of snow after growing up somewhere warm. The unconscious breath let out once safe on Canadian soil, where no one will rape or torture you for speaking out. How something as seemingly insignificant as a different name can have such an impact on who you are, and who you are perceived to be.
As someone will a relatively obscure name, I related particularly well to Mahtab Narsimhan’s ”What’s In A Name?”, her story of coming to Canada and having to “become” someone else, her name complicated for many native english speakers. We all have preconceived notions of who people are, especially when dealing with others over the phone. Her supervisor tells her to change her name to something easier “something more Canadian”
For many of us, it begs the question of what exactly Canadian IS, since we are, for the most part, a country of people “from away”.
This is a quick read-at least for those of you who, unlike me, don’t read 10 books at the same time. I’m looking forward to reading many of these stories to my daughters, and keeping this copy around for them to help illustrate how complicated our mosaic really is-the Canadian experience tends to be portrayed as all puppy dogs and peaches, when in reality, it’s a muddled, frightening mess, with the occasional glimmers of hope and happiness. The stories in Piece by Piece end well for the most part, but provide a good window into the experience of a newcomer.
Piece by Piece is published by Penguin Canada, and my copy was provided free for review.
I grope blindly at strangers with this new freedom.
It’s a thirst I cannot quench. I hear the honeyed words swirl around my head, they tell me I’m beautiful, they tell me how hot I make them, detail their dreams and fantasy. I absorb it all like so much water, soothing that sore spot on my soul. There are hands and fingers and lips and for a moment, my skin is the velvet I believe it to be, time slowing to a crouch in the corner, and it’s all about the short breath on a neck, the tension in palms, sweat.
But it’s hollow.
I find myself rolling into the warm arms and smiles, giggling. But I’m not there. I’m living the adolescent fantasy, and I’m not there. Quietly, in the back of my head I hear a voice whispering “Enjoy this! You want this, you need this!” and for a short while, my limbs go through the motions, my lips part admirably, and I place my footing back down.
But the cab home, the long dark ride home, I realize I don’t want this. I don’t want the zipless fuck. I want the warm giggling arms that make me dinner. I want the eyes that see me, not just want me. I want the songs of my charms to be verseless as I drift off in his arms. I want to melt into one of my possible futures, not become hung up in the tumblr-esq world of sex as diversion. Sure it’s fun.
But it’s like chinese food. 2 hours later, and you’re just hungry again, with only the slightest sense of something on your tongue.
****
We negotiate carefully, our desire for the other tempered by experience, by fear of loss, by the ache of guilt and anger and the sweet, sweet smell of hope. He asks me to jump in the pool with him.
I close the door to the others, and jump.
Some of you may remember last summer. How we trusted a woman-another mother, and she broke our trust, horribly. I teetered on the trust edge, trying to push myself away from my natural state of distrust to open my heart, help her and her terribly unattached wild son, try to give some stability to their lives, a friend for Viv.
One day, she took my kids, and her son, to the local amusement park. And left them there. The police called me and told me what happened, and I was shocked, but glad they were safe, also livid in my head, but outwardly calm and normal. The woman burst in my house soon after, sobbing her apologies. The kids were confused, but otherwise unaffected. I let my anger stewed, gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Soon after I learned she was a recovering addict on methadone, had a criminal record, and regularly locked my kids out of her house and made them pee in the bushes. I cringe to think what Vivian doesn’t tell me.
The final straw, the one that finally made it ok for me to say no to her, to their father who was a little more trusting, was the day she took Rosalyn without asking, just left a note, and when confronted said that she told Ros to give the note to her father as he drummed, and that we should discipline her because she didn’t do it.
We should punish a 4 year old for not telling her Dad another adult was taking her from her own house.
I was so inflamed I made him deal with it. To look at her I knew I would rip her limb from limb. She didn’t get it, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when she finally moved away.
I feel for her son, her lonely lashing son, who I worry doesn’t stand a chance.
But then a few weeks back, a knock at my door. Social services, wanting to follow up. Procedure, to check, to interview. I hate the idea, but I’ll deal with it. They’re doing their job.
Today I sat through a humiliating interview asking me about school, their personalities, how I parent, why and what things happened. When. Will I be punished if I don’t remember exactly when things happened? Will I be blamed because I went with my husband at the time, and tried to show some trust and compassion for the woman, tried to help her son, the poor lost poor?
I nearly felt my brain boil out of my ears when the social worker told me that the main reason for the visit was that I didn’t show any concern when the cop called.
I am my mother’s daughter. When things go bad, you do not show fear. You do not show emotion. You become polite and well mannered and understanding. You burn on the inside. And I knew they were safe, then. While I was frantic inside, wondering, angry and smouldering, I’m not going to freak out on the phone with the police. They were safe. I would save my ire for the woman who left my children alone for over an hour in an amusement park.
I dealt with a social worker examining my every move for 40 minutes today, questioning “do I spank? Have I hit” because someone perceived that my reaction OVER THE PHONE was not enough.
Sounds familiar. Sounds like a certain Twitter incident. The assumption, based on going off half cocked. Using a forum that does not provide enough inputs in terms of body language and context to come to an opinion.
THAT makes me angry. The fact that my lack of response, which for me, is normal, came back to haunt me. I freak out after, when I start thinking about the what ifs. But with a police officer? I’m going to be polite and calm, as I was raised to be. Keep my composure.
(The constant worry that because I can be deemed crazy they might take my kids at any time also keeps me under a tight rope with law enforcement. Which I imagine can be perceived oddly.)
So I stood today, staring at my house, the unfinished walls, the doors with no handles, the clothes and paper strewn on the floor because I cannot do it all myself, and lived for years with someone who had no desire to DO anything about it-I stood there feeling humiliated and embarrassed that having wonderful, intelligent awesome kids might not be enough-that my inability to keep a clean house might haunt my, that my honesty that yes, I’ve swatted Ros on the butt to keep her off a busy street-I’m not terrified that these thing will cause problems I can never be rid of.
And don’t get me started with how she had ZERO desire to speak with their father. Apparently this? Is all MY fault. Despite my constant assertions to him last summer that I’d prefer someone else watch the kids, even if it cost money. I didn’t throw him under the bus, but it was more than a little fucking painful to be stared at like this was all my fault when I did nothing but try and trust a woman my heart and mind told me to stay well away from.
So the what ifs start in my head again. I KNOW I’m a good mother-a little flighty, chaotic and not the neatest, but I am raising women who will roar. And I want to cry because I worry, I fucking fear in my heart, that the people I am creating, molding, will not matter half as much as someone’s half baked idea of how clean a home should be.
Why am I being punished? Why just me?
And ultimately, what if this punishes my daughters? All we did was try and cultivate a friend for Vivian, try and do the right compassionate thing in trying to give that little boy a soft place to land. We trusted.
And we were wrong.
I catch myself in a mirror and smile a bit. My hair streams behind me, joyous. My pants are loose, too loose almost, and I have a jaunty swagger to my walk, improved by Ladytron and Friendly Fires.
32 years in, THIRTY TWO fucking years, and I finally feel beautiful.
So this is what that feels like.
****
He whispers to me how soft I am, how he loves the feel of my skin. I melt, just a little more, until I rub my throat raw purring as I do, the low murmur of pleasure, of being seen and heard and enjoyed, the settling into that warm place beside him, the scent of a new lover. My body arches toward him, and he holds me closer.
I don’t even hear him snoring as I drift off to sleep, smiling.
****
For years I was a thing. A quiet, miserable thing, fighting for something that was never real.
And then, it left, and I woke up and saw, for the first time in my adult life, my own face, unwavering, clear and bold.
No longer the void. No longer the absent, muddled mess of a head. Instead, a full bodied constellation of dreams and glory. A lovely creature, buried all this time under what I thought I needed and wanted.
A delicate thing, made of stars.
Last week we had a review for The Aphrodite and the chance to win 70.00 FREAKING DOLLARS to spend on adult toys at mypleasure.com. All you had to do was comment-really, how hard is that?
Well, some of you did, and I plugged you all into the randomizer. AND….
Dusti, you and your boyfriend are gonna have some fun. 
70.00 to spend-have fun making up your minds!
YAY!
When ever someone is willing to give me sex toys for review, I’m pretty much there. I mean honestly, what’s more fun than playing with toys for free? So when MyPleasure.com emailed me about trying something out AND hosting a giveaway for you, my readers, how could I say no?
MyPleasure.Com sent me The Aphrodite, a best selling sex toy in the same vein as the Hitachi Magic Wand. As I’ve never tried that little bugger, I thought this would be a great chance to see if my notoriously fickle clitoris would be at all pleased by size and power.
Ahem.
Before I received my play thing, I checked out the website. And it’s great-nicely laid out, nothing too explicit or rough. It’s very matter of fact, and likely a hell of a lot less intimidating for women buying their first toys, or even looking. It can be scary for some women, and I must extend my kudos to MyPleasure for obviously trying to cater to the mid range demo-because they are legion, and they need love too! So for those of you terrified by the more…shall we shall, descriptive sites-fear not. You’ll be at home here. If scrapbooking had sex toys, they’d be at MyPleasure. (There’s also a bunch of sex resources on the site, cute articles and such-have a read through.)
The Aphrodite came discreetly packaged, although the shipping slip said “personal massager” so I’m pretty sure my Dad figured out what it was when the package arrived. Thankfully, beyond the smirk, he didn’t say a word. The toy itself is packaged pretty sedately-I could leave this packaging on the shelf, unlike anything else I’ve ever ordered or tested-those packages are mostly all still sitting in boxes in my crawl space until I figure out a safe way to get rid of them in the land of transparent garbage bags. My daughter saw the box and was so uninterested she didn’t ask me anything. (However, I DID leave the neat pamphlet that came with it, and quite nearly had a conversation about vibrating panties that I didn’t want to have just yet.)
The Aphrodite comes in a cute purple bag which can hold the wand itself and the detatchable silicone heads-there’s a nubby one, a smooth one, and a pointy one. As a person with long hair, I appreciate being able to keep the silicone pieces in the bag safe from hair, dust, cats, small people. The toy itself is rather large and heavy-but in awesome news, it’s rechargable.
That’s right ladies. No more scrounging around at 2am after watching Iron Man again. A 12 hour charge equals 1 hour of use with The Aphrodite-and if you’re still in need of assistance after an hour, I don’t know what to tell you. I LOVE not needing batteries-environmentally friendly, and just plain easier.
The Aphrodite runs on two speeds-low, which also has a nice warm infrared spot, and high, which is akin to your washing machine on spin.
I wanted to like this toy SOOO MUCH.
I tried.
Now, maybe it’s just bad timing and I’m already getting laid far too much these past few weeks. Maybe my clitoris just decided to be more than it’s usual finicky self.
I hold all vibrators up to a simple test-can it do better than my 10.00 pocket rocket? (I love that little guy.) And in this case, I have to sadly, say no.
I pulled Aphrodite out twice, and I’m sorry to say that she and I won’t be going to the prom this year.
I feel a little like Goldilocks about the entire thing to tell you the truth. Low was to low-a nice light hum that revved me up, but just left me sitting there. But high….lord, after a few seconds, I could feel my clit cowering behind itself, begging me to stop. And the noise-my house isn’t very soundproof, and my father lives in the basement. And while I’m comfortable enough, and adult enough to order him Hustler on the cable, I really don’t need him to hear me rubbing one out like a freight train.
And it made my hand numb.
Now, many of the reviews have been positive for women-many saying they’ve never brought themselves to orgasm before (my word you poor things, how? How is that possible?!?!) and that The Aphrodite made them cum-so by golly, if you’re one of those women, try it. For me, as someone who needs a very peculiar arrangement of pressure and not touch to get off, brute force is not the answer.
The Aphrodite does exactly what I expected-it’s just that my body is…special. She was too big, and too strong for me. And loud. I just can’t do loud, not with kids and my father around.
Would I buy it? No, but now I know I wouldn’t buy this type of massager, period. Would I recommend it to people who like this kind of thing? Yeah, probably. It does what it’s supposed to do, and, from what I can tell, it does it well. It just doesn’t work for me. I can see how it would work for some women though, and I encourage you to try it if you think it would. (And honestly, I love the rechargable factor so much I might try a little harder to like it. I can just plug it in! SWOON!)
But, for now I’ll stick with my pocket rocket.
Now, not only did MyPleasure.Com send me The Aphrodite to try for free, but they also threw in a giveaway! I’ve got 70.00 in gift certificates for one of you! If you’re in North America, you’re eligible to win-all you need to do is check out MyPleasure.com and tell me what you’d like to try the most! (Bonus entry if you tell me WHY you want it 
)
So head on over there, and see what you like! I’ll keep the comments open until Saturday at noon, and pick a winner for Monday!
Originally uploaded by thordora
Yesterday, I woke up in someone’s arms, to a purring cat, and sun streaming through a window. We drove out of town for lunch, and just kept driving, down the Fundy coast, to Cape Enrage, through the countryside.
He showed me geocaches, places where they once built mighty ships. He held my hand, kept a soft grip on my leg while we drove. We watched the tide roll in on a beach, the water swirling cold around our feet as the wind whipped my hair like a dervish. I grinned for it all.
He told me to wait for the Ha Ha Cemetery, and stopped for me, while I, forgetting of my camera, used my phone to take dubious pictures. I stared around me, nearly 9 years in this place, and I had never seen so many of it’s wonders, until a man I’ve only known for a few weeks said “It’s a capital day-let’s go for a drive” and smiled at my joy in the sunlight.
Maybe it won’t last. Maybe the silly grins will fall off, the surprise that we found each other, and equally enjoy each other will fade. But maybe it won’t. And even if it does, I’ll have the sun glancing off my hair and eyes on a vivid Sunday afternoon in my mind forever.
How long until I’m 10 Mummy? How many more days until I’m 6?
From that maudlin tempermental baby, to a stubborn toddler, to a child. She sits on my lap, leans into me, her tiny chin on my chest, hands reaching out for me, to grasp unconciously my fingers, my arms. She’s covered in chocolate, syrup and waffles, clutches pencils to herself for safety.
You’re going to be 5 Rosalyn.
When I’m 5, Vivian will be 7, right Mummy?
Eventually, yes. But you’re a big girl now!
She casts her eyes down, much like her mother does, any time praise is even vaguely alluded to. Her eyes, wide like the sun, bore into my own when she raises her head. I see every misstep I’ve taken in 5 years-to the brink and back, tasting death yet recoiling. Nights spent wondering why, how I was gifted this child, she I worried I could not love, nights spent with her cradled in the crook of my arm, fantastic even then, how I could create something so utterly fey and stunning.
I can no longer pretend she is my baby. She is legs and arms and that breathless feeling that comes from running through fields on dry warm August nights, the cramp to the legs, the exhilaration of just running for the sake of the wind in your hair and ears. She is snowfalling by moonlight, the fairies that dance with the toadstools up the street, hiding just before we reach them.
She is my daughter. Flesh from my womb, thought made real.
She is the beauty we search for, everyday. The perfectly imperfect being that makes us human. The creature who makes me more real everyday, as she pushes and stomps and yells, her temper keeping pace with mine.
She has captured my heart, long ago this child.
In a few days, she turns 5. My second born, my baby, is another step closer to the woman she’ll some day be. Her limbs lengthen and stretch before my eyes, as she morphes more and more into herself, her voice more defined, opinions clear.
My daughter, my self. I watch through jaded eyes as she discovers the magic around her, step back to let her breathe like wine.
*********
In a way it’s hard to believe 5 years have passed-that I’ve gone from a scared and crazy new mother and wife, to a strong, capable single mother who has overcome her demons. I look back and wonder how so much was crammed into 5 brief years. I stare in wonder at the person I was, the person I’ve become, and the road I’ve travelled to get here.
She is my reward-they both are. Sweet like summer’s first strawberries, they fill that place I never dared dream would be full.
They give me hope. I watch Rosalyn grow strong and loud, and she makes me hope and dream that life will be gentler on her than it ever was on me.
And it will be.
Happy Birthday my daughter.
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