River's Blog

One of the things polyamory involves (well, for me)...is accepting and cherishing love in your life, with the form of the love being secondary to the love itself.

You share beautiful love with faraway sweetie...and yes, love sometimes hurts.

My thoughts are with you
 
Thanks, y'all!
 
Hello, y'all!

("Y'all" is actually Texan lingo, and I'm in New Mexico, but I can say it anyway!--even though I've only passed thorugh Texas a couple of times)

I guess my vacation from here is over for the time being. So I wanted to say "hi" and give yaal a nice big hug. >hug<
 
Welcome back, River! I have thought of you many times and wondered how you are doing. Good to see your username pop up in "New Posts" and looking forward to reading more of your perspectives on things again. That is, if you feel like sharing your wisdom... :D
 
Hi, NYCindie! >slightly loud cheek smooch<

Wise? Ha! I'm a wise ass. You know that.

My only kernal of wisdom is ... "Don't be too afraid to be a little bit nuts."

"Nuts" here is interchangable with: weird, odd, different, freaky, risk-taking, risk avoiding, ... or normal, conventional, standard issue.

No, scratch all of that. Replace all of those with "yourself".

That's it. And even I can't do that! So I'm a wise ass instead.
 
Update / What I'm thinking and dreaming about...

First, there's the expert on Arctic sea ice, who says the Arctic sea ice will be all melted in summer within FOUR years. Reading this news was -- emotionally -- sort of like getting struck by a Mac truck. I'm still pondering the implications and letting it settle into consciousness. It's just too much.

I think we should all abandon the fossil fuel world as soon as possible, and that means a radical transformation of our way of life.

I think we can have a good quality of life with a vastly smaller dependency and use of fossil fuels, but doing so requires a serious reconsideration of all kinds of basic things. It also requires cooperation, collaboration, organizing.... But I will not put a lot of stock in "the political process". The necessary changes won't be primarily political / governmental in nature. The lead needs to arise from within a small -- but growing! -- minority.

This is a global emergency, folks.

===

Dreams ...

I've been dreaming about the touch of women. Erotic touch. It has been SO long! Way too long.
 
- human skin -

(or, dendrochronology)



human skin
may have been
the original
poem

with all of its
elbows and
ribs
and lobes

stigmas
styles
ovaries
ovules

its river bottoms
with colored pebbles
its exotic and
invisible wounds

the way it wades into
waters
over its own
head

and how it colors itself
with sky
and shades itself
in summer

as if it were a
blue heron
with a giant menacing
beak

which longs to walk long
legged through
pressed cotton
sheets

leaving wild unintelligible
markings
droppings
incendiary devices

which shivers itself
awake
or
drinks itself asleep

oozes or dips
its pen in
deep sea
ink

every age
of this poem
leaves
rings

raises its limbs
reaches
touches
roots



.​
 
The Beautiful

The beautiful caterpillars ate the beautiful nasturtiums.

The beautiful bluebirds ate the caterpillars.

The beautiful hawks ate the beautiful bluebirds.

The beautiful worms ate the beautiful hawks.

The beautiful nasturtiums ate what the beautiful worms ate.

The beautiful caterpillars ate the beautiful nasturtiums.


....


And when you think about it, well there's no need to doubt it.
That bright green caterpillar was no ordinary killer.

The glorious butterfly took wing
Upon the meal of ... itself.


________________________________________________

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhRnDqCJu8Q
 
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Well, after years without dating or "seeing" anyone apart from my now very long term partner, K (twenty years), I've been swapping wet kisses and long cuddles and touches with R (male), who is an old friend of sorts (we've not been hanging out for years, but are now doing so again. I said "of sorts" because we did not hang out often or long in our earlier friendship exploration, which also included physical intimacy. He left the country for a few months after we had first met and spent time together.).

And I have also "met" (in a manner of speaking) a woman (!) online, and she lives in my neck of the woods and is bi and poly like me(!). She ("D") and I have plans to spend some time in wild nature together very soon, just hanging out. :):p We have a little plot of "wild nature" (mostly wild) right near the city where I live, walking distance from down town, really. A rare spot not everyone knows about.

(It is not impossible that either of them could read here, so let me say this:
I promise to totally respect your privacy and will not give away any identifying information here.)

I have no idea whether D (the gal) and I will explore beyond anything platonic. But I'm kind of excited about the mere possibility of doing so with a woman after, well,
two decades with nothing more sexy between myself and a woman than a few wet kisses with a woman who has since become probably my closest platonic woman friend "S".

In our email exchange, I was pretty direct, open and honest with D about my history with women (and largely the lack thereof) -- which has been very limited, even though I've been quite open to intimate, loving, romantic / sexual... relating with women. It is the women who have been more reluctant than I -- because I've been partnered with men almost all of my adult life.

Anyway, I guess things are starting to get interesting, regards my experience with polyamory, so I thought I'd make a post here. I'll let y'all know how things unfold -- while respecting the privacy of the people involved.
 
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Let me say a little more about R.

R is a lovely, fascinating, unusual ... man. Now I don't remember his age exactly from the years ago revelation, but he's quite a lot older than I am -- and a really fine physical specimen for his years. He must be somewhere between 60-70, but
exactly where, I do not recall. (We've only just begun to hang out some again.)

He hikes a lot in the mountains. That's his main thing, or almost so. And so when we get together -- because this is a shared need / interest -- we generally go up into the mountains and take a little hike ... and then we find ourselves a place off the trails and in the shrubbery where it is private..., we sit or lay down and talk ... and pretty soon we're touching / cuddling / kissing.... That's basically the routine.

I like him. But things are not without their challenges. He's married to a woman who has a DADT agreement with him.

DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL (DADT): A relationship structure in which a person who is partnered is permitted to have additional sexual or romantic relationships on the condition that his or her partner does not know anything about those additional relationships and does not meet any of those other people. Commentary: Many people in the polyamorous community frown on don’t ask, don’t tell relationships, and choose not to become involved in such relationships. There are many dangers in such relationships, including the idea that a person who claims to be involved in such a relationship may simply be cheating (as the relationship often provides no mechanism by which that person’s partner may be contacted to confirm that the relationship permits other relationships); the fact that many people choose DADT relationships as a way of avoiding and not dealing with emotional issues such as jealousy; and the fact that DADT relationships are built on a foundation of lack of communication within the existing relationship. -- excerpted from: https://www.morethantwo.com/polyglossary.html

It was the DADT aspect which had the most to do with the fact that R and I stopped seeing one another. It was not the only factor, but the largest -- with me being responsible, mainly, for backing off.

I suspect very much that R is not lying about the DADT agreement he has with his wife. He appears to be a man of integrity and good will. She just doesn't want to know about his involvements with men. And the friendship between R and I is agreed by both of us to be "key" -- not sex. Most liars are all about the sex, I gather. And the intimacy (other-than-sexual) between R and I is much greater than is typical with average people -- at least at such an early stage of getting to know one another.

I really don't like the DADT part, but I do like R -- and could probably even grow to love him.

I wonder if that would freak him out -- if I grew to love him? Well, in an other than platonic way... and surely we're not at all platonic... but as I said the situation is unusual, as are the men involved. :p
 
!

For me, lust seems to have died.

Oh, sure, I can see and appreciate physical beauty in men and women, but when I'm in the grocery isle, or out on the town, etc., ... lust has died for me. I see their beauty, and the "type"of chassis they have -- if it fits the mold I call "my type" (lithe, slim, carved like marble...). Men, by the way, have curves. If you have not noticed, you ain't been looking. Women have 'em too.

I don't yet know -- not quite -- how to live in a post-lust world, but I think I'll have to find out. Whatever the chassis, now, ... well? Okay! How wonderful; how lovely! But there is no longer a direct link between appreciation and desire.

I am in the age of soul now. Gone is the age of lust.

Life is short.
 
I had my "date" with D today. And what a date it was!

D had a BAND-AID® on her arm where the plastic surgeon had cut away a scar which she had inflicted on herself as a "cutter" way back in the day.

We shared our stories with one another in a very frank, open, intimate way. She was surprisingly able and willing to set aside small talk (weather, sports...) and relate at a more genuine level (a level which I prefer, since life is short).

Since she was a little girl, life was such that -- to cope and to survive -- she had to largely dispense with her capacity to feel -- sensations, emotions, aliveness.... You know, abuse, neglect ... that now almost entirely ubiquitous "normal" average people had to survive in order to grow up and one day have a choice as to whether to begin to open it all up again, feel again... begin to heal and grow.... Again. Maybe hers is worse than typical normal, but it is normal in kind -- if not degree.

She likes to "fuck". Fucking does not require feeling at or above the heart. We talked some about the Pink Floyd song, "comfortably numb".... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7EpSirtf_E

[huge necessary gaps in conversation].... She's brilliantly intelligent. She knows her own situation - some version or another of anhedonia (google it). She had been abused, neglected. She survived. Just....

I thought it good when she said "You're not my type". So long as she's not interested in "being in a relationship" she's not my type, either. Not for "a relationship". But we talked about how friendships are relationships. Does anybody remember those days, when a friendship was one among several kinds of relationships -- ... days when pay phones were ubiquitous, with their rotary dial connections? Days just after they stopped delivering milk door-to-door in little glass bottles? When people watched where they were going while driving cars (how many tons?) through towns and cities ... Days when "human kindness" meant someting...?

We hung out only for a couple of hours, but because we said nothing about sports or weather -- and talked entirely real with one another for a couple of hours (amazingly!) we got to the parting hug.

She had already said, earlier, that she does not feel comfortable with hand shakes, much less (much more?) hugs. I had already let the cat out the the bag about how "tactile" I am. We were real open and honest.....

When we hugged at the end of our little get-together (which hug SHE offered!) she gave me perhaps the warmest, tenderest, longest of nourishing, beautiful hugs of my life. I am still in the glow of it. Deeply, intimately, touched.

Words. Bla, bla, bla ... You would have had to have been there. :)

Wow!
 
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Love

So here's the latest.

I've been "dating" an extraordinarily beautiful, young Navajo (Diné) man for the last six weeks. We see one another (often only for morning coffee) several times a week. He's a senior at a local university... and works full time besides, so only late evenings and mornings are open for him, seven days a week.

I can only tell the short version of the story, so I'll pick out some contextual bits and highlights.

It has never been clear whether we're destined for something more "romantic" or more platonic -- of course. But we met in a context in which "romantic" possibilities are more foreground (online, initially). And we soon discovered that there was mutual attraction. But attraction is just attraction, and having coffee together is just having coffee together, and exchanging text messages and emails is just that. And when I first spent the night in his bed we "just" cuddled. We didn't even kiss.

We have tended to communicate some every day, by text and email... and phone. And we have tended to meet for morning coffee (pre-work) about three or so times a week, maybe four(?).

After a while of getting to know one another, early on, I learned that he very recently ended his first "long term" relationship -- which lasted only roughly a year. This sense of what a "long term relationship" is (and that he's not had any of these previously) clues the reader in here that he's probably quite young. Indeed he is. He's hovering near 30, but under -- and I can't divulge too many identifying details, for obvious reasons.

I've NEVER before spent so many "dates" with a person before swapping kisses or cuddles, usually soon proceeded by ... well, you know.

The night before last I was at his place, helping him with a writing project for school. It got very late, and I had arrived at his apartment by bus, and all in all I decided it would be better for me to spend the night than to spend money on a cab. For various reasons the reader here will have to guess at, I offered to just keep my hands (etc.) to myself ... and asked to spend the night in his bed with him -- without cuddling... without touching. After all, we were pretty much decided to be platonic, though lovingly intimate, friends. After all, he had recently broken up with a man who he had seriously considered marrying. Etc. Time wounds all heels. Etc.

He knows I love him. He knows I'd love him any way he wants it -- platonically, romantically.... He knows I'm attracted to him. He knows I'm in love with him, but not a desperate, clingy, attached kind of love.

So there I am in his bed, contentedly waiting for sleep to arrive, which was slow to arrive. Quite slow.

And I hear his voice, which says, "It's okay to hold me."

So I did.

Such delicious cuddles!

Lots of cuddling.

And sometime nearing sunrise, but a while before, in the darkness of a full moon night (was it a full moon night? - almost morning?) it happened. We crossed a line which included open-mouthed, passionate kisses (and etc.).

And we had coffee again this morning. But for the life of me, I have no idea what we are together. And I suspect he's in the same boat.

I know he's never even considered "polyamory" or being involved with anyone
polyamorous before me.

So far under water here, swimming..., totally okay with the uncertainty, yet completely human and stuff. :p:confused::rolleyes:
 
I was writing another update and it got typoed into evaporation.

So the summary version is this.

We had kissed. Interestingly enough, those open mouthed kisses were so much more amazing and wonderful to me than the going down South was.

It is said that rivers have mouths. So we were perhaps two rivers conjoining at the mouth. This is not a play on my name. It's coincidental, that's all. When a river joins another it's a confluence. When they join at the mouth? That's freaking astonishing. Tongues of fire. Tongues of riverine rounded stones, precious stones, flickering things, life concentrated.

We are all rivers, head to toe.

So he and I had coffee again the other morning, days blending, swirling -- day before yesterday? Yesterday? With a life so full and rich one loses count.

What I know is that when the wet kisses come, and after sex has come (no puns), people often bail out on me.

I'm trying to be very mindful of my "story" on this. I do NOT need to repeat that story any longer. I just fucking don't. I just don't.

Oh, if you could see him, you'd understand. He's exotically beautiful -- to me he is. He's just. So. Beautiful.

Nothing remains here in these swirls of dust from a longish life other than to exclaim it with exclamation points and devotion: Love Is Abundant!

Love IS Abundant!

Love IS Abundant!

I deserve to love and be loved!

I deserve to love and be loved!

... and then even without the "I"

Love IS Abundant!

I will not live in Scare City any longer. Love is A Bun Dance!

I LOVE him! I do. :):p
 
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Welcome back, River!

Thank you for sharing your elation and long may it continue xx

Evie
 
Thanks Evie.

:)
 
I'm getting lots of practice at endings.

Yesterday evening he let it be known that he's planning on leaving the region in which I live after graduation from his university. And my roots and life are here.

So I'm going to abruptly shift gears with him and just be platonic friends with him. (Ouch.)

Some part of me wants to generate a story from this which goes roughly like this: "Gay and bi men are generally not available for long term, polyamorous loving relationships. Both men and women tend for various reasons not to be aviailable for such relationships with me."

Worse, it wants to say: "Because I've always had things come to an abrupt end soon after it gets started, I'm doomed to repeat this experience over and over and over again -- or to simply stop trying to include another love in my life."

I want to resist buying into these stories, because I'm pretty convinced that if I come to believe them I will be creating the very condition I bemoan.

I've been seeing this pattern for so long now that it looks and feels like a broken record. And I'm genuinely curious to understand how I may possibly be unwittingly involved in the creation of this broken record pattern.

Perhaps I've come to believe this must always happen to me already, and, somehow (mysteriously) this belief is implicated in my unfolding experience?
 
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I just sent him these words.

-- excerpt --

I care for and about you a lot. I find you immensely attractive, and just love cuddling and kissing with you. I'm at least a little in love with you. Probably more than a little. If we could never cuddle and kiss again, that would be something I'd have to grieve as a loss.

Still, I want us to be platonic friends if we are not sexy, kissy, cuddly friends. I always want us to be open to one another in a friend way, at least.

So please don't let my "confession" of love deter you from being my friend.

I've never had a cuddly kissy friend where there was a kind of deadline or expiration date for our connection. Knowing you intend to leave the region upon graduation caused me sadness -- and initially I was sure I'd have to withdraw from the kisses and cuddles to protect me against hurt upon your leaving. But I'm not sure that's a wise decision, and am open to seeing things in another possible light.
 
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