Love is a powerful, complicated, magical, mystical, terrifying force.  To Love and be Loved requires equal doses of strength and vulnerability unlike any other exchange or adventure we embark on in this life.  The Love we did not receive as children and the Love that broke our hearts as we progressed wending our way down the paths of puberty, coming of age and so on as we change and grow, will be for each of us in our turn the yoke that shapes how we give and receive Love… it all affects how we view, crave, and behave in the face of romance, passion our pain defines how and when and for whom we yearn.

It is a magical clusterfuck indeed.

Love will kick your ass, break you into bits when it changes, shifts, evoloves, walks out on you or ends.  That same force, from a different source can stitch you back together so you can face the world again.

Some people guard their hearts and their emotions and vehemently avoid connection and the sting of rejection.  Others toss themselves willy-nilly into and out of flings or relationships searching for something that may be staring them squarely in the eye, too close or at a distance, but they are so distracted it never quite comes into focus.

A shitty, lonely, traumatic childhood left me beautifully broken and my strategy for filling up the empty was to Love the absolute shit out of every-fucking-thing-all-the-fucking-time… then bolt.  I see magic and beauty in everyone because I was told in countless words and actions that I was broken and a burden and destined for failure. Well, that was all clearly untrue and I never want anyone to feel the way I did so I lift people up and cheer for others to the point it is almost pathological.

People who were brave enough to believe in me at my lowest moments paved a path for an incredibly successful adventure. Being told I was a failure regardless of what I did or do or am, made me both fearless and constantly afraid. Being shit on by people I ought to have been able to rely on made me want to be a force for good and help myself and others to get better not bitter in the process. This doesn’t always work out, but I’ll keep on trying.

My first husband often says I give people whiplash.  That’s actually quite fair and reasonable as an analogy.  With me, it is all on and I am all in and obsessed with people for a hot fucking minute, and just as quickly and completely disappear, sometimes never to be seen or heard from again. For years.  Or weeks.  Or forever.  Or whatever.  I am not an easy person to Love, or understand and I am a bit full on for most people.  A default of being told, shown and repeatedly treated like I was unloved and unloveable, meant a lot of craving attention and validation which is EXHAUSTING and can be very dangerous to myself and others.

When I married Grumpy Phteven I really did believe/want/hope it would not end.  But it did.  And I stayed well past it’s use by date.  But now that all of that pain, grief and drama is behind us, I cherish our friendship, our history, and the bond we share after creating four fantastically difficult and delightful humans.  I Love him.  That is forever, and not a day goes by that both of us don’t breath a sigh of relief that our marriage is over and our friendship remains.

At some point, arguably before I was quite ready and definitely after I was absolutely certain I’d one day like to actually be in a relationship, an aloof goof/spunky monk (who I definitely manifested one evening while talking to my dear friend Wiebe) arrived and was brave enough to accept the challenge of embarking on a relationship with me.

Nearly three years later we are weeks away from a wedding in Rarotonga.  In typical Dee-saster management style I freaked out, and suggested I don’t want to buy into “heteronormative and misogynistic paradigms designed to keep weird witchy women like me gagged and invisible” and I called off the wedding.  Thankfully, former husband assured future husband that it would be best by far to ignore my need to napalm things, and wait it out.  

Damon has been all in since the beginning of our romance.  He has offered support, Love, patience, and kindness like I have never known.  The fact he is a tall, good looking, successful white man – is not something in his control.  The damage done by men to myself and women I admire was not at his hand, and he is, was and will always be an ally and force for equality, and a voice that amplifies the success and strength of the women in his world.  I fell in Love with these things, and I trust him completely, but I remain triggered and traumantised and working through so many issues.  This recovery and facing my anger and disappointment is a journey I will be on for the rest of my time on this earth.  

When the dust settled and after a bottle of Lothlorien feijoa wine and several songs were shared with no power or Internet connection up at the farm, I rescinded my stupid suggestion and we reconnected as the vulnerable, fearful, fierce lovers and friends we have become and are destined to be.

Damon has reminded me countless times that I did not mis-represent the challenges he’d face falling in Love with a free-spirited wild thing.  He is just as quick to speak words of gratitude for the calm and kindness that rule most of our days and decisions.  We are a team and together we are building a safe and welcoming place for people and nature to thrive and revive.  And we are facing our fears, demons and insecurities together as the dream comes closer into focus and our relationship blossoms.  

So, in a few weeks, on a beach by a lagoon on a tropical paradise, surrounded by some of our most cherished friends and family, we will embark on a great adventure together. Not to fix anything, not to prove anything, not to change anything, but to draw a line in the proverbial sand and create a life together. We will continue our trajectory with a common goal to lift each other up and be the best versions of ourselves together and as individuals, facing in the same direction and moving ahead together.

Cold feet are okay.  But his warm heart keeps my hot head accountable.  In the timelessly cheesy words of 70’s songsters Crosby, Stills and Nash:  We are one person, we are two alone, we are three together and for each other.  And we are going to do great things and make magic. 

Thank you for joining us on the journey.

I wish you so much Love.

Thanks for reading.

I carry in me a pulsing orb of grief and rage that has been fed for decades. This hot, aching, ball of energy sits in my gut and is fed a feast every time some dipshit talks down to, mansplains, talks over, gaslights, deflects their own responsibilities, bullies, or takes credit for any women’s work or her ideas. Suffice to say there is ample fuel to feed this unwanted but continually fortified flame, and it is nourished further when I hear stories of my female or female/feminine identifying friends getting fucked over or made to feel small. This feeling is the furnace that makes sure I champion and cheer on the feminine forces in my life, and amplify and celebrate their success while quietly cradling their fears and insecurities privately while we talk together safely about such things.

I am struggling with a lot internally and universally lately.  The fear and confusion caused by the pandemic seems to have, in far too many ways,  given a voice to the scary far right angry and controlling aspect of humanity who have somehow successfully taken away women’s right to safe medical procedures to terminate unplanned and even medically unviable pregnancies.  I can’t even fathom how already marginalized women in the increasingly Gilead-esque landscape of some parts of the USA are faring in these strange and uneasy and genuinely scary times.  Canada is (thankfully) issuing a political/medical refugee visa for women who need a safe medical procedure to terminate a pregnancy.  But what will happen to some girl raped in a slum somewhere who does not have any hope of accessing such help?  These changes, that carry on removing all care and responsibility from the male and place the burden, blame and responsibility on women seem to me to be a direct attack on women, and the poor and vulnerable most severely.  

Let’s bring this down a couple notches and lighten it up at the end for anyone who has stuck with me thus far. We will go down and get back up by the end of this brain dump. That’s the plan. Join me to see how it pans out won’t you!

I spend almost half my life now on a farm away from people and totally off-grid.  

I threw myself into so many causes, and was kicked so squarely in the teeth, and thrown under so many busses by far too many people who ought to have been kind to me, that now I am scared and tired and grieving for the optimistic Dee I once was.  No pity party required though, I suspect I am genuinely happier, healthier and more blissed out and full of gratitude and hope than any of the cowardly pathetic bullies who hurt me. Not sure if that is called Karma, or just cause and effect. But I am happier than the busy old me ever could have imagined up here healing and licking my wounds. Everyone deserves a chance to heal and reinvent. I am not the first nor will I be the last to do so.

The world’s full of beautiful, wonderful, kind people of course, but it is also full of opportunistic bullies and mean, insecure, power-hungry narcissists and sociopaths.  These are just facts.  I was never much good at spotting assholes before they could do damage, but I am incredibly good at cutting them out once they have. I used to trust everyone. Don’t do that. It’s a terrible strategy. So now I fight my battles planting things, vetting anyone keen to get anywhere near me or my tribe of trusted friends, and nourishing myself and nature far away from spotlights, stages and microphones.  This will change and I will roar again when I am ready.  For now, I am safe and watching the world and planning my strategy to re-emerge.  

On the farm, we have a slow and unreliable satellite internet connection, not dissimilar to a mid-range dial-up connection in the late 90’s.  We don’t have any streaming services here so we watch DVDs and since we’ve chowed down on every single episode of Colombo multiple times, we have switched over to watching Quantum Leap.  

It would not be inaccurate to say that at least some part of my morality was shaped by Star Trek (STNG specifically), Quantum Leap and Jem and the Holograms. All of these Television programs had strong female characters. Star Trek and Quantum Leap also embraced cultural and intergalactic species tolerance, curiosity and respect. Jem was painfully white with a few token diverse characters. Gotta find those DVDs so I can refresh my memories.

I digress… Where was I?

Oh yes.

Quantum Leap had an episode in the final season where Dr. Beckett leaped into his great grandfather, a Yankee Captain who (according to the episode) assisted the great grandfather of Martin Luther King jr. as a conductor on the underground railway freeing slaves and helping them find safe passage to Canada prior to the Emancipation Proclamation being issued by President Lincoln.  His great grandmother was a fierce, feisty Southern Belle who had seen her farm looted and her first husband killed in Virginia.  She inherently knew what was right, and identified slavery as an abomination.  She could not believe the idea that blacks and women would both have the right to vote one day, as the world she lived in did not give any indication that such equality would or could be possible.

So here is what I am saying.

Humanity has been faced with shoveling shit since we first found how to control fire or write on cave walls.  There have been shifts in power, privilege, and oppression back on forth and up and down and all over the place.  

Now is not the time to bury our heads or let bullshit, fear and some noisy minority farther marginalize anyone who isn’t born into their club or carrying a Y chromosome silence us. Now is the time for us to stand in unyielding solidarity against misogyny, racism, greed, fear and ignorance. Now is the time to build up and help out and remind every goddess in your life that she is a powerful and important force to you and in this world.

Now is the time that we women and allies of women all get ready to roar.

Thanks for reading.  Love from my hurty heart up here on the farm. 

XXOO