from Risa D'Angeles’ Night Life News (this week):

LEO (July 21-Aug. 22): Is there a wound occurring? A loss you're grieving? Is there hope of healing? Are you adequately nurtured or do you feel all nurturing is fading away? Are things occurring so swiftly that you now question reality? Have you longed to go somewhere and be something but were held back? Are you becoming too thin? Are you eating well enough? What do you need? Do you speak with someone -- another -- who listens?

Yes, there is a wound occurring. There are several. Present and past. Connected through time as if with an umbilical cord. The pain I am experiencing now is fed, nurtured, by the pain I experienced as a child. That I couldn’t look at, that I thought was over and done with, healed, sealed up. Until now. I open these old wounds and the sight is frightening and grotesque. I want to look away. They ooze, revealing infections that were never healed. Releasing their toxins into my system. My system is in shock. I want to look away. But I can’t. I am being poisoned by these old agonies and I have to heal them and I haven’t figured out how and in the mean time, my resistance is down. My immunity is shot. I am defenseless. And raw. There is nothing that can’t harm me.

Yes, there is a loss I am grieving. There are three. A man I have loved passionately, exquisitely, who might not even know that he has left me. The innocence and ease I shared with the woman I have built dreams with. The daily, everyday joy in me. These three I grieve.

Yes, there is hope of healing, though the path feels longer than my lifetime. And hope and I aren’t getting along so well these days.

I have occasional, exceptional moments of being nurtured, powerfully, by strong, extraordinary women whose love cuts through my terror, the panic of overwhelming pain and sadness and confusion and loss. The heartbreak and disappointment. They tell me that I am beautiful, when I am full of shame. They tell me that I am not crazy, when I doubt myself completely. They offer understanding when all I want to do is cry and scream and kick things. They say it makes sense. That my reactions are not excessive. That they have cried and screamed and kicked things too. That it’s all right sometimes to cry and scream and kick things. That sometimes there is energy that has to come out of the body it’s trapped in, the body it’s tormenting. They hold me close when I am shaking and some are even moved to kiss me when I am crying. They tell me that I do not have to be alone in this, when I can’t imagine having this part of me seen, accepted, loved, understood, held close. I am so surprised. I am a small animal terrifed. I have moments of being nurtured, powerfully by strong, extraordinary women who are not in this mess with me. Nurturance is an iffy proposition with the people I am most aching for ease with. The man who is gone, the woman who is here, but often hurt / confused / frustrated by me and my emotions. So often we cannot give each other the nurturance we need. And want. I spent too many moments these days feeling lost in the world, guarding tears in my eyes as I walk down the street, anguish as I drive my car, conflictedness & confusion as I pull up to the front door of my house. I do not trust myself to nurture myself well. My head is not the safest place for me right now. So, no. Though the moments of nurturance, themselves are more than adequate - are more than could possibly be hoped for – no. I cannot say that I am nurtured adequately. I am nurtured powerfully but intermittently.

Things are occurring so swiftly that I now question reality. Yes. That’s it, exactly. How did you know? And I wonder if I’m crazy. On the daily. In January (and 2005, for that matter, and 2004 for the most part, too), I was positively happy-go-lucky. I don’t understand this April me. This March. I feel everything so poignantly. The love. The little moments. A stranger smiling at me. A child waving at me through the window. A cat jumping into my lap. Spring flowers in Atlanta. Pink and white flowering dogwood trees. Azalea bushes everywhere. Leaves new and fresh and a yellow green that I had forgotten existed. Sunshine on my skin. An upgrade on the plane ride home and sitting in first class next to another young black person – something that never happens (and he was beautiful and articulate and engaging). Delicious reunion with precious lovers (that remind me by the fact of their continued presence in my life, that things get better, that hard moments can be overcome). Two sudden pieces of writing: a recounting of the past two days – a window into a dear love’s heart – a view that shakes awe into me – and reverence – and so much humility. And a letter from a love that tonight left me gasping, wanting to drive across town after midnight to find him. New and old friendships. Touch, bodies, the sweetness of being there for someone, of someone being there for me. A rapture of skin that draws my attention away from this persistant confusion and into laughter, bliss, comfort, relief. I feel everything so poignantly. I am both extreme ends of the spectrum, when I am used to just the joyous one. The despair is undoing me. Anguish. Grief. Devastation. Me and the woman I build dreams with at odd angles with each other. I alternate between reveling in her sweet skin, amazed and dazed at the good work we can do together, in the 3 or 4 or 5 hour conversatons that end in so much closeness; I alternate between this bliss and shaking and crying alone in my room, hurt or angry or embarrassed or afraid or confused or just plain old jealous, reacting to something gone wrong between us. Not a day goes by without crying and I’m so tired of it. The back and forth. My heart was not built to be a giant pendulum. In March, a precious love told me with warmth in his voice, “You’re just a little rollercoaster right now, aren’t you?” And I was so happy. At the tenderness implicit in the dimuntive. I was a little rollercoaster, then. I have graduated to an emotional nuclear disaster. In about a month. Everything feels like it’s coming apart, too much of the time. The pressure builds up inside of me and my body explodes. Rupture. Burst. I don’t know how to diffuse this energy when it comes. Or how to hold it. I don’t know what to do.

I long to go home. Every day. I long to go home. And I can never seem to remember that the home I want to go to doesn’t exist. I know this, because I can be here, at home, and still want to go home. Desperately. I can never seem to remember that it’s imaginary. That it’s an alternate reality, a sanctuary where everyone understands me and I am held in comfort and solace and softness. It is womblike. It is so warm. I ache for it. Want to run away, slip through the veil between the worlds and find it at the same address in Oakland I always come back to, where all my mail is sent, and all my plants wait for me to water them, and where lives the woman I have come to think of as home. The woman I build dreams with.

I do not think I am becoming too thin. Brittle, yes. Breakable, yes. But still full in the hips and round in the belly. I don’t imagine I am consistantly feeding myself well what I need. But I am trying. And sometimes, when I can’t, I am fortunate enough to fall into the arms of someone who will hold me and spoon the good stuff into my mouth with so much tenderness and love.

I do not know what I need. Too much of the time. But I know that I need. I need desperately. And I wish it would get here on the doublequick. Whatever it is. And stay. And never ever leave.

I do speak . . . to another . . . and another . . . and another . . . and to these three I am deeply grateful for the quality of their listening and the exquisiteness of their care.

Thank you, everyone who has held me in the last two months. Thank you, everyone who has listened to me. Thank you, everyone who has reached out to me. Thank you, everyone who has laughed with me. Thank you, everyone who has told me something I need to hear. Thank you, everyone who has made love to me. Thank you, everyone who has held my hand. Thank you, everyone who has shared their bed with me. Thank you, everyone who has shared their home with me. Thank you, everyone who has read to me. Thank you, everyone who has fed me. Thank you everyone who has welcomed me. Thank you, everyone willing to do deep and challenging relationship work with me. Thank you, everyone who is still loving me, and working with me, even through all this uncertainty.

I want to bring you my joy and I am sorry to bring you my sadness. But you teach me that my sadness, too, is worthy of love. And I am grateful for the lesson. I want to bring you my dreamful face, and sometimes there is only anguish. I trust that this will pass. I don’t believe everything I think in difficult moments, even if I write it down, even if I share it with you. I trust that I am learning and growing in all of this. I have much to learn and much to heal. I belive there is no way out but through. I choose this path. This painful, rewarding, terrifying, glorious, heartbreaking, exquisite, devastating, awe-inspiring path. Though the way is wet with tears. The woman I build dreams with keeps telling me about rainbows.