I don’t know what it is about reality, gang, but just for no reason at all, I woke up battling those depression triggers this morning.

Those thoughts that I know are going to lead to nothing productive. You know — put your canoe in the stream here, where it’s all dark & negative, and let’s go. No, I refuse to put my canoe in there. Or over there, or over there, or over there.

I have so many streams of consciousness that are just useless to me. All these thoughts where I know I don’t want to go. Why do they keep wanting to pop up? I’m okay, as long as I stay on top of all these triggers and keep steering myself in another direction. But I don’t know why some mornings start out like this.

I’m actually really happy. I have only 2 things on my plate today, both of which I’m really excited about. During my meditation yesterday, I got clarity on Letter #5 for Girl in the Night: Erotic Love Letters to the Muse. 

There is always a general underlying theme to each letter (each letter also being a memoir of sorts). For instance, Letter #2 was about intercourse: not knowing what it was, then knowing what it was; not liking it, liking it; the ecstasy of it versus rape.

Even though the titles for the letters always come first (Letter #5 is “Hymn to the Dark”), the titles usually don’t illuminate what the letter will actually be about. I get an overall feeling or color in my mind, but it takes a while for the true gist of it to actually come through. For awhile, all I could get was “the genesis of angels and what angels smell like” but what the heck does that actually mean?

So, even though I was beginning to make some headway, yesterday during meditation, I got that real clarity I needed. Letter #5 is primarily about the orgasm.  First, trying to figure out what they are — but can we ever truly figure out what they are?

I remember really clearly being 5 years old, and waking quite suddenly, very early on a summer morning. and my body, between my legs, needed to do something with great urgency. I could not figure out what. The only thing I could equate it with was peeing so I did that, right in my bed there, and immediately discovered that this was not what my body was wanting to feel.

Then when I was 6, the little stories in my head started. Erotic, you know. And I loved those little stories. I’d lie in my bed at night and the little stories would unfold, and I just loved that. And then when I was 7, for some unknown (but wonderful) reason, I figured out that if I touched myself at the same time, the stories got super interesting. The orgasm part stymied me, though, because I knew my body wanted to get to something urgent there but I was convinced that all I was going to do was pee. And I already knew for sure that I didn’t want to do that.

But one night, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I figured well, if I pee, I pee, but I just really need to feel this urgent thing — and that’s when I didn’t pee at all and had my first orgasm. Although it was literally years before I knew that it had a name and that it eventually happened to everybody. Because right away, at age 7, I tried to talk to all my little girlfriends about it– ME: “You know, those stories in your head at night and they feel really good?” —  and none of them had even the remotest clue what I was talking about, so I just thought it best to stop talking about it.

But even at age 59, I still remember so many of those little stories that were in my head. They were so captivating back then. And even without intercourse or any of that stuff yet, they were really filthy dirty little stories, even by my 59-year-old mind’s standards. But oddly enough, that one specific night at age 7 where I couldn’t hold back any longer — that story was just weird.  I was up on deck on a big boat, in the  middle of the night. It was storming really badly — pouring rain, lightning. And I’m on the sea in a huge boat, alone except for the man who was almost always in all my little stories. We didn’t do anything “sexual”; it was simply full of really intense erotic feelings. And it’s kind of amusing now that something so full of the symbols of Nature would be the time I finally couldn’t help but have an orgasm.  I am not someone who is ever prone to using erotic euphemisms, you know? And I guarantee you that if I were ever up on deck on some boat on the sea in a terrible storm, I would not find it erotic in the least. I’d be super pissed-off. With or without the man.

But, I digress. “Hymn to the Dark” just has elements of that stuff in it, and I’m excited that it’s finally really unfolding.

However, in another brief digression — I also remember that my parents used to close my bedroom door part-way at night, and that the hall light used to slice in and form a sort of crow shape on the ceiling above my bedroom door. And I decided that this crow of light was God, looking over me. Protecting me. Weird, isn’t it? Especially considering that, in my 20s, when I went to study with the Lakota Sioux medicine man, we discovered that my Power Animal was a white cockatoo. Another bird. (A “really intelligent and affectionate bird that needs to be taught a lot of boundaries,” according to Google just now. Sounds like someone I know!! Really well!!)

All right, so. The other thing that I’m happy about today is that the notes from the director came through, finally, last evening. And he was very, very happy with the revisions. I still need to work on one of the character arcs at the end there. But he’s ready to start Workshopping the play. Which is so exciting to me. But it does indeed mean another trip back to NYC and I’ll probably have to fly this time. You don’t want to risk getting stuck in the wilds of Pennsylvania in the winter. Plus I can’t just put a great big ton of mileage on my car, because it’s leased. But I’ll just deal with it when I deal with it. (Driving to the airport an hour from here; long-term parking; shuttles; then dealing with LaGuardia airport and all that madness on the other end. I just hate dealing with all that stuff anymore. But whatever.)

I’m happy.

Okay, I’m gonna close and get started here today! I leave you with my breakfast-listening music. I was back in Negative Capability mode this morning. Marianne Faithfull. I just find that album (well, except for “They Come By Night”) to be really soothing, even while the songs can sometimes be very emotional. But this morning it was “The Gypsy Faerie Queen,” over and over, as I tried to keep my humble canoe from heading out into any dreary, unproductive waters. I’m usually not into faeries or witches or any sort of mystical forest creature type things. But I find this song, especially the musical arrangement of it, to be just stunning. And the vocals are hypnotic.  So, enjoy. Thanks for visiting, gang. Have a great Wednesday — watch where you’re putting your canoe! I love you guys. See ya!

“The Gypsy Faerie Queen”

I’m known by many different names
My good friend Will calls me Puck and Robin Goodfellow
I follow the gypsy faerie queen
I follow the gypsy faerie queen

She walks the length and breadth of England
Singing her song, using her wand
To help and heal the land and the creatures on it
She’s dressed in rags of moleskin
And wears a crown of Rowan berries on her brow

And I follow, follow, follow
The gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the twilight in-between

She bears a blackthorn staff
To help her in her walking
I only listen to her sing
But I never hear her talking anymore
Though once she did
Though once she did

And I follow, follow, follow
My gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the twilight in-between

And I follow, follow, follow
My gypsy faerie queen
We exist, exist, exist
In the country in-between

Me and my gypsy queen

c – 2018 Marianne Faithfull, Nick Cave