The Runner

February 25, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I attended the new writer’s group on Sunday that my friend put together of East Bay folks. We
were circled in plastic chairs, old-fashioned arm chairs, and couches tucked inside
the spacious two-car garage that had been repurposed into a
library/workshop/extra living room. (Only in the East Bay!) I was one among 9
of us, the only girl, and though we spent copious amounts of time arguing
whether Stephen King was a writer or a storyteller, and if David Foster Wallace
was a genius or simply mentally masturbating onto the page, eventually, we did
actually write some.

We wrote from a prompt I’d invented that morning, “You walk
into a coffee shop and etched into the linoleum are the words:….”

In response, I came up with this story. No editing, no forethought, you
just write, and when the time’s up, it’s up, and we shared around the room. I
love that part of prompt writing in a group (not that I’ve done it much), but I
love the variety of ways people go with something. The disparate styles we had
became obvious, and also, we all visibly relaxed a little after the reading was
through, as if we’d marked one another with a nod of approval, Yes, you are a
writer, I feel comfortable having you in this group. It’s funny, but it’s also
important, I think, to have that kind of respect for one another in a group like
that.

We’ll see how often I’m able to attend. But I’m very glad I
went.

The thing that’s been occurring to me about this story I
came up with spontaneously is that I am the girl in it–the one we never meet. I am the girl who gets
up in the middle of the night and leaves her lover. And then unceremoniously
dumps him.

Fiction though that story may be, the seeds of myself are
there. I was curious to find who in the story I was, since, well, I have an
opinion that we are all or some of the characters we create. I am both the
runner, and the lover calling after myself to please stay.

I think I’ve reported this anecdote before, how in college I
was in a casual “relationship” with this guy, who was by all rights a decent
fellow. One evening after we’d been in flagrante, he was holding me in his
strong early-twenty’s arms and intoned that he’d like to take me out sometime, like, to
dinner. I gasped, Why?? And he replied, because he liked me, and wanted to get
to know me.

I never called him again.

I am the runner.

I have two songs in draft form, one that
goes

Send me somebody that I can say Yes
to.

Send me someone who I can come home
to.

Just gimme somebody somebody to make me say

Yes Yes Yes

and the other:

Married men make it so easy

To wanna misbehave

I never have to do their dishes

Just be their sex slave

CHORUS:

I wanna be the girl who spends the
night

And doesn’t sneak out around two

I wanna be the one who stays over

To wake up next to you

I think my ambivalence about commitment is pretty clear! And
to clarify, “Married Men” is a song, not an autobiography. It’s an impulse, a
thought, a cop-out, a desire, a fantasy, an avoidance, a way to stay stuck and
alone, since ultimately, I won’t follow through on those impulses.

So, I’ll work it out in song, in fiction, in blog. I’ll tell
you how skittish I am, I’ll let myself be surprised at how I show up in my own
work and reflect myself back to me. I’ll warm up to the sword-wielding, 2-a.m.
sneaking, rabid runner. I’ll tell her that commitment to living in one place
has only brought me health and stability; I’ll tell her that, in owning a cat for
the first time, the love I have for her I’m happy and proud to give; I’ll tell her that in the many places I’ve used
“Stability First,” I am the better for it.

And then I’ll let her go on a run. But maybe this one will
be shorter.

adulthood · authenticity · choice · courage · sex

The Wrestler

February 13, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Do you ever notice how Jews tend to answer a question with a
question?

Why shouldn’t we answer with a question?

Call it the Jew in me, call it the Libra, call it the
overactive thinking machine tucked behind my eyeballs, but I question things a
lot. And repeatedly.

Little though I know about Judaism and even littler about
other religions, Jews are purported to “wrestle and grapple” with G-d. This is our purpose—not necessarily to obey a god, as perhaps some religions require,
but to wrestle, argue, question, mull, and ponder.

I have a date with the 25 y.o. on Saturday. We haven’t seen
one another since our “State of the Union” conversation last week when it was
decided that we don’t see a relationship happening, but we genuinely enjoy one
another’s company and also are very attracted to one another.

This led us to the conclusion that we won’t see one another
less, and be in the ambiguity of friends but not friends. Until one of us
doesn’t gel with the ambiguity anymore.

I think that one is me.

See, I sort of know this scenario: Now that we’ve agreed to
be more “casual,” that probably means sex, which we haven’t had yet. In my
experience, here’s how casual sex goes: You have good to great (and
occasionally lackluster and regretful) sex with someone a few times. Maybe
twice, maybe three times. And soon, since the investment isn’t really there,
the communication begins to wane, you text one another less and less, until
soon you don’t communicate at all, and sort of fall out of the orbit of one
another’s lives.

So, for me, in my own experience (and I know this isn’t
everyone’s), casual sex = the end of a potential friendship. It just does.

What I wrestle with right now, then, is how important is
that potential friendship to me? How important is this person in the mosaic of
my life? For now, not very, but as I said, we do have a lot to talk about and a
lot I’d like to continue to talk about – beyond all the theater intel I
want to glean.

So that’s not a very good measuring stick, then. Because
it’s ambiguous.

Let’s try another model I use to tease out information from
myself.

In meditation, I sometimes go to this long dining table in a
small house. It’s a large, wooden, old-time crafted, dark stained table with divets and
dents in it. A long-loved and -used table. Seated around this table are all the
disparate parts of myself I’ve been able to gather so far: the brain, the nymph, the baker, the child, the
sorrow, the jokester, the anger, love, vanity, warrior, healer, to name several.

So, I asked this gathered group: All in favor of sleeping
with the 25 y.o.?

Up go the hands of the nymph and the brain.

All in favor of not
sleeping with the 25 y.o.?

Up go the hands of every other entity at the table.

Hmmm. … Well, nymph, yes, of course, you lovely and talented
minx you. I expect as much, and that’s okay. You’re at the table because you’re
valued, and your vote has been heard.

Brain—I get it. He’s a wildly smart guy. The interest in
long and winding pillow talk; the desire to be in close contact and proximity
to someone who fires synapses you rarely use. I get it. I know you miss that
fuel.

But… everybody else
says we don’t want to do this.

So, still, this hasn’t been the clearest exercise in coming
to a conclusion.

Finally, I ask the big question: Which action supports my
highest good?

And thus, it is clear to me, in this situation, to not sleep with
him. If we can forge a friendship, great, and if not, I tried.

Because as I reported, I had some pretty great casual sex
recently (well, a few months ago now)—with casual sex as my intention and feeling very good and happy with my
behavior and outcome. And, don’t get me wrong, when I can get it on the regular, please, I’m down. But otherwise, I’m okay without it. Sometimes I
miss it, the connection of two bodies. But I also had some disappointing casual
sex recently, and, well, not all sex is great.

I have previews that this sex could be great. I really think
it would be. And I know the vixen inside me is just mewling to get some
sexy-time on. To wield the tools and tricks we’ve learned, to sharpen them
against someone who is well-matched, to exude Level 10 sexuality that I keep to
a 4 (max) in regular life outside the bedroom.

I know it would be fun. But I know it doesn’t support my
highest good, and my highest goals for myself. It doesn’t undermine them, per
se, but it simply continues a pattern of behavior that isn’t the most
fulfilling—and I think what I’m saying is that I’d like to be fulfilled. And
therefore “filled” by someone where there is a mutual understanding of
continued partnership and exploration.

I also know that I have often and many times been involved
with folks and situations that my “dining table” wasn’t fully behind—and I’ve
felt that … loss? emptiness? disconnect. I know this road.

I am a wrestler. I grapple and wrestle and tease and shimmy
my way into and out of every eventuality. And though I have run the gamut of
“pros/cons,” my ultimate guide can only be my highest good. Even when it means
I miss a savory, delectable, oh-so-mouth-watering meal.

anger · change · childhood · discovery · freedom · love · maturity · progress · recovery · sex · sexuality

Rage Against the Whatever’s Handy.

June 11, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Last summer, before I started getting help around money, I
was in a bad way. I answered an ad for a company/house looking for dominatrixes
(dominatri?). I was desperate for money, and was almost willing to do anything
to make it.

So, I answered the ad, spoke with a woman on the phone,
looked at their website, and scheduled an interview.

Then, I emailed a friend of mine who’d been a dominatrix
once upon a time, and I asked her what her thoughts were around it. She replied
with an interesting thought. She said that it was a very low and base level
of energetic exchange.

Even though it sounds “woo-woo,” I knew what she meant. She
didn’t tell me yes or no, she just said, basically, that it felt icky. And that
she was heavily using drugs at the time.

A few days later, and before my interview, I called to let
them know I wouldn’t be coming in for my interview, that I’d like to cancel.
And that was the end of that.

However. I’m reminded of this now, about a “low” source of
energy, or power, because I’ve been experiencing the most wonderful (<–
sarcasm) feeling of free floating anger lately.

For those of you who know me, “angry” is likely the last
thing you’d associate with me – quirky, awkward, loving are most likely the top
layers, and indeed, the most core layers. But, in the middle of those is
everything that I’ve tried to put in between me and you. That includes sex, and
that includes anger.

Now that I’m in the process of extricating myself from any
sexual entanglements, grey areas, … dating sites…, I’m noticing that anger has
arisen where “sex” used to be.

When I was in junior high, and I came into school that one
Monday with contact lenses and makeup and suddenly I was visible, I rode that
high, and my anger that “you” only now noticed me, I rode that well into my
twenties.

I fed off of that energetic exchange. The power that a woman
(or man) holds via sexuality is more than palpable, it’s addictive. It’s
enlivening. It becomes what I’d come to believe was my only source of strength.

This was a “low” form of strength, and a false form. But oh
the many heads of it. I feel powerful (or visible, or valid) when you pay
attention to me. When you’re giving me what I think I need, when you’re eying
me, or flirting with me, or seeing what I know (or think I know) you’re seeing
when you see me.

So, now, I’m removing this source – I’m calling this well
toxic, and trying to walk away from it. Sex isn’t bad – but it can be a natural outcropping of feelings rather than
hormones.

I said yesterday to a friend that I feel like someone has pulled my
covers. That my defense mechanisms are being shorn away one by one, and so,
now, here I am with anger.

I am very aware that anger is just the other side of
vulnerability. I don’t want you to see how vulnerable I am, so I will put on my
angry armor and tell you to fuck off.

But, being aware of it doesn’t cancel it out.

I was reflecting this morning about the power of anger. I
realized that before there was the Power of Sex, there was the Power of Anger
in my life. It was modeled to me that if you were angry, you were powerful. If
you were angry, you were paid attention to (and left alone). I learned that
anger was an appropriate way to feel visible.

This, is a poor lesson. As frightened as I was when I was
younger, I began to learn to fight fire with fire. I learned this young too. I
was not really a pleasant kid, behind my shy exterior. The shy came after.
After I learned how to be angry, to yell back, to provoke, to antagonize, and
to defy. I learned that not everyone, especially in school, was going to put up
with that, and it sank inward, enclosed by the layer of “demure” and “shy.”
I’ll just disappear then. If I can’t have power via anger, then I apparently
don’t have any at all.

When I found sexuality, I found a “more acceptable” pathway
to visibility. And now, again, as that one’s being taken away from me – the
abuse of that power, rather – now, I’m falling backwards through my timeline
into anger.

Rage, really. I learned a lot about rage growing up – surely,
not as much as some, but more than Mr. Rogers would have wanted in his
neighborhood.

So, here I am at rage. One of my last defenses. I am sorry
to be here at it. And I also know that freedom from it will bring untold gifts.
But… I like it. And that’s the problem. The problem is that these sources of
power are still salivating. I still feed off them. I still feel powerful from
them, even “knowing” that they’re false.

I made someone angry yesterday, and I liked it. I felt
validated. If I’m able to make you mad, then that means that I’m alive, around,
meaningful. If I’m able to cause a reaction in you (previously, a sexual one;
now an angry one), then I have a purpose.

Yes, I “get” that these are totally fucked up thoughts. I
get that this has to be “gotten through” or it will continue to cause me pain.
And isolation.

But I felt that “low source of energy” when I was the
recipient of that anger yesterday. It’s like a “HA! See, you do care.”

It’s so Psych 101, it’s stupid – better negative attention
than no attention. But, it’s recorded in textbooks for a reason. It must be
prevalent enough and common enough to fall asleep to at your freshman college
desk.

So, that’s my thoughts for the day. Thoughts on feeling
vulnerable, and what I do to hide that. Thoughts on my reluctance to let go of
sex and rage as sources of “power” and validation. My thoughts on compassion
for myself, as I know this is hard. And a modicum of hope and self-validation
for choosing to move through this anyway.

anger · relationships · romance · sex · sexuality · vulnerability

Sex Type Thing: Poems.

June 9, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Can you fix me from inside the slickness?

Will callouses and scabs be rent off by our friction?

Will the explosion of your cum inside me tremble into the
core of every cell

and paint them newly red?

No?

Then get the fuck off me.

* * *

my foot cramps in the closed position monkeys

must still be able to make but i can’t

my hip bone pops in its socket and i’m

unsure whether that’s into or out of it

the lightest swing of my body against the mattress

mimics an old playset and i’m suspended

* * *

everything switches off, except your breath

against my hip bone

* * *

everyone i know has an o.c.d. mom

and an absent father

will this fix it?

does it need to be fixed?

how the fuck do you do that?

* * *

i want her to stop claiming “broken,”

as if it’s a setting on the dishwasher

and when its turned all culpability and

engagement in the world is paused

indefinitely

* * *

the tiniest fibers of hair

freshly shaved this morning

no matter how new the razor

they vibrate like frankenstein’s

monster and map
everything:

my skin against yours

us in this town

the triangles of string that

connect where i’ve been

connect other lovers

not comparing, enhancing this one

touch

how his tongue felt against the densely

moisture

tentative

sloppy

the lightest grazing and

sickly sudden entrance

of manicured or not

fingertips

strapping my attention

chaining it to the bed.

* * *

how does this alchemy work?

it hasn’t so far.

lead returns to lead as

i bolt the door behind you

the moment gimped

by an awkward exchange of

see yous

what tangle the sheets are in,

still warm,

i climb back into them as if

i could coax them into being

you

and you were something else

* * *

i only ever imagine the weight of you

when i’m alone with myself at night

i can find folds that you can’t

and pace myself as you won’t

but alone, i can never press myself into the

evaporating softness

or
grip the muscles of your back

as if you were my life preserver

6.9.12.

adulthood · change · dating · fear · intimacy · Jewish · love · progress · relationships · sex · sobriety

Mind your own music stand.

May 26, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Several years ago, about 5 or so, I was dating a wonderful
man. I was also in therapy. These things were and were not related 😉

One day, my therapist and I stumbled across a metaphor that I’m reminded of
today – when I get into relationships, it’s as if I’ve been the conductor of my
own orchestra, and ultimately, the highest ideal and intention is that my
partner, boyfriend in this case, have his own orchestra, and that the two sounds mix
and meld in a way that increases the beauty of both, without losing the
integrity of either.

Surely, you may have your own metaphor for this, as there
are many, but that’s what came to me then.

The “problem,” as it were, is that I was noticing my
tendency to want to begin to conduct his orchestra. That if his oboe were a
little more resonant, or his triangle more tingy, we’d sound better together.
The result of this peeking over onto his side, was that I began to neglect my
own. In beginning to mind someone else’s business, I forgot to mind my own.

When this happens, things like self-care, integrity, and reason
begin to go out the window. I become more interested in making sure you’re
doing things “right,” and that we “sound good together,” that my whole balance
of living gets thrown off.

That was then. This is now. Will it be the same?

When, before I began dating that man, I asked a trusted
friend if she thought I were ready to date – as he would become the first
person I’d date while sober – she said that if I was ready to handle the
emotional twists of a relationship without drinking, then go for it.

And so I did. I learned a lot, and ultimately, it didn’t
work out, but I learned so fucking much.
I learned how to try to love, how to try to be loved. I learned how to be
honest with another person. I learned to look at the clouds and see shapes and
animals again. I learned how to relax a little.

Yes, these are things I can learn “on my own,” they are. And
I get more of that now than I did then. But, too, there are some things that
can only be learned in communion with
someone else.

I notice that that big hunk of manic-depressive wild-haired
meat that I call my inner manifestation of Love is “up” right now. As when I
met her on one of my shamanic journeys, and she threw herself on me after I
gave her one bit of kindness, she is not yet one who knows balance. When I
pushed her off of me, she got rageful and went Neanderthal.

This is part of my pattern. Show me some kindness, and
suddenly, I light up like Times Square and drape myself on you, my needs,
expectations. Show me that you can’t possibly meet those demands, and I will
turn to ice quicker than an eskimo’s piss.

There’s more to this. As there usually is. If you’re not
meeting my demands, and I’ve turned cold, you won’t really know it. It’s subtle
closing off and shutting down, this Elvis leaving the building. We’ll have sex,
but I won’t be present. I’ll still try to use it as a way, the main way, to
connect, but it doesn’t really work when I’m not there.

Also, as I recognized last night on my surprise-last-minute okJewpid date, before I know more or better or have a peg on the situation,
sure I’ll be outwardly as gregarious and charming as always, but… I felt it – I
felt my shell.

Perhaps this is “normal.” You’re meeting someone for the
first time – you of course have some guards, maybe. But, I’m just so much more
acutely aware of how scared I am. How scared I am to allow that shell to melt,
because inevitably, in my past, it has meant a descent right into that enormous sigh of relief that you are here, that I can now
relax, depend on you – and make a few adjustments to you while we’re at it.

When I let go of this shell, I start a pattern that leaves
me alone, sad, and feeling pretty childlike. Not womanly. Not adult.

So, I keep the shell. I’ve kept it for years now. Better to
avoid the whole game than to try to play it differently, acknowledging and
using the new skills for living and being that I have. I could have garnered a
whole fleet of new tools and attitudes, but fuck if I let them out of the gate.
They’re like a trained – well, I was going to write “army,” but I’d rather
leave the military out of my love life, thank you – they’re like a well-trained
dance company. Having rehearsed for years, perfected, practiced, fallen, and
learned – but … me, their manager, I will never and have never let them perform. They
are a lost art. They are a lost gift, because I’m too scared of how they’ll be
received, or of if they’re really ready for the big show.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but with the Cousin, I
said at one point (not to him) that I felt like I wanted to put him up on a
shelf, and “fix” myself, or get better, and then, only then, when I were
better, then I could take him down, and we could have a wonderful life
together. Life.Does.Not.Work.In.Darkness. It does not work in absence, and it
does not work without my active participation.

I may be the world’s best anything, but I’d never know it.

And so, it’s time to see if my conductor skills, my dance
company, my emotions have learned things that I may not know they’ve learned.

Because my date was awesome. And, likely, I may want to date
again.

adulthood · courage · fear · finances · recovery · relationships · sex · the middle way · willingness

Romance & Finance

May 19, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The Third Thing. That’s what a woman told me yesterday,
after I met up with this new group of folks who, apparently, talk about
intimacy, relationships, and habitual avoidance of (or indulgence in) such things.

I was telling her that for years, I’ve been trying to find a
balance between Betty Crocker and the Vixen, to find the middle way between
them. And she said something I’d never heard before – that likely, whatever it
or I turn out to be, it’s probably neither of these – it’s a Third Thing.

I’ve said sometimes, that I don’t like the analogy of
“living in the gray,” you know, the balance between black and white – between
black and white thinking, all or nothing. Some people call this middle, attempting
to live in the gray area. But to me, that sounds pretty awful, like living in a
fog bank (looking at you, San Francsico!). And so, I’ve said that instead of
the middle of black and white being gray, I call it color. That something other
than black, or white, is color. And so, “the third thing” thing makes sense to
me (she said it’s a Bill Clinton quote, and g-d love Bill – I’ll have to look
it up).

Romance and Finance. I hear so often that these are the
things which so often plague, worry, or motivate all of humanity. I’m reading
this book on the art and history of Europe (“for the traveler”), trying to get
some more info, things I slept through or didn’t care about or was too worried
about the aforementioned “ance”s to listen. I have a few books on European
travel on my desk, and this one is giving me the history, the why and wherefore
of how come art and architecture look like they do. And here’s what I’ve
learned: people, throughout history, have fought and been motivated by romance
and finance. Kings marriages, new religions, revolutions. Many have been about
who has what, who doesn’t have what, and how they can get more.

So, I’m not alone, apparently, in the grand scheme of these
issues. Of working on them, and my own grating relationship with each.

This is good. And there is a solution, but as Jung said, (I
think I’ve mis/quoted him here recently!), You can’t solve a problem on the
level of the problem. And the problem here is that I have only my well-worn
resources, patterns, and behavior to help me “solve” these problems of romance
and finance. So it’s time to look for help.

My romantic life as having fallen in either Betty Crocker or
Vixen territory is very much like my relationship with money. I’m either
restricting, meagerly existing, and isolating – or I’m burning money to quench
and balm the pain of all that restriction. Binge, remorse, restrict. Repeat.
Many people can notice these traits in anorexics or bulimics, and so far in my
life, knock on every piece of wood and mock-wood in the vicinity, that has not
been an issue for me in that particular way. My binge and restrict is with
emotions, money, and sexuality.

And if the middle way is not indeed the “middle,” then I
have to keep coming back to those who know a different way, and can help me to
get there.

This morning, I queried in my Morning Pages about this desert
I go to in meditation. How was that desert, I asked. I hadn’t been there in a
long time, and it was a place that I’ve gone to occasionally in my meditations
for years, and one which I was encouraged to solidify in myself and my brain
while I was doing some EMDR work with my therapist earlier this year.

She said it was interesting that I chose a desert as my
“safe place,” that many people choose cozy small place, places where they feel
protected. But, no, for me, I want a wide wide field of vision. There are no
surprises, no sneak attacks, I have full view of every single thing for miles
and miles. It’s a desert like those you see in the southwest, with ocher
colored mesas in the distance. And the flat, flat, cracked earth expanse of
dirt and dust and a hawk flying lazy circles in the bright, expertly clear
sunlight.

This, is safe to me.

I suppose I’m reminded of it today, as I am going to be
needing to touch into places like this – safe, calm, where I feel almost in
charge. There is nothing hidden, nothing freaky, nothing to shake me or scare
me or surprise me. I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of surprises
and shakes and scares as I begin to dive into this romance stuff. This
emotional intimacy, undoing this very deep pattern of all or nothing. And so,
it’s time for me to strengthen my base, root within my safe places, and get the
hell out of the way.

This is like a geyser, this work. Or maybe it’s not, what do
I know. What I do know is that I am grateful for the help I have available to me,
internally and externally. I was asked in my meditation from my Feminine, as I
reported the other day, if I was ready – I guess I was being asked if I was
ready to work on this stuff – because she/I have reawakened, and is powerful as
fuck. It is no wonder to me, then, that it’s taken me as long as it has to come
to this place of beginning to integrate and work on my
sex/relationship/intimacy stuff – I’m going to need all the resources I’ve
acquired, and many I have yet to discover.

Here’s to an assault on old ideas, however that looks as it
is coupled with a cosmic cease-fire.

adulthood · recovery · sex

Delicious Evil

May 18, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Today’s a day off from the temp gig, but not a “day off”
for me. I slept later than I have this week, which is nice though. I have to
meet some folks throughout the day, and I have a teaching resume to write,
and some jobs to apply to, and some other writing that I need to have ready for
Monday. Also… my workshop is tomorrow in SF, so I should likely prepare for
that!

So, “day off”, but full. It’s alright, I likely need full
right now. There’s a lot of chaos in my brain. Luckily, it’s found something else
besides imminent poverty to latch on to, but what it’s latching on to is sending
me to the bottom of something else. And for that, I’m going to go meet up with
some new folks today and see how they deal with some of this type of mental
obsession and compulsion.

Turn over a rock, and there’s another rock.

Basically, my discomfort at my financial situation, as well
as some recovery around it, is revealing a set of behavior I thought either
long dormant, dead, or just not my problem. I was wrong. Resurrection is an
ugly beast.

I find myself engaging in behavior that, well, makes me feel
uncomfortable. And intrigue and thrill … however lovely they are to experience,
they’re waving hot pink lures down a path of self-destruction.

I think it makes sense, honestly. I’m coming to a place
where I’m beginning to take ownership of myself and my life, beginning to want
to do so, starting to try to be the
woman I want to be – one with a job, and hobbies, and some self-respect. And,
“suddenly,” I find myself being derailed and side-tracked by a whole new set of
“issues,” things which chop all that good work off at the knees.

Oh, silly Molly, it’s not right to feel good or proud or
accomplishy – let’s give your brain this poisonous chew-toy instead, and see
what happens. Let’s maintain the small, hamstrung, going-nowhere-fast Molly.
That’s the familiar and easy one.

I’m a little surprised at the voracity of the new behavior.
It’s a twist on some old ‘going for unavailable men’ behavior. And again, I
thought that I’d sort of let all that go, somehow. But, apparently not. And,
like a snake at rest who strikes suddenly, I’m bitten, poisoned, and fucked.

Luckily, in this case, not literally.

It ain’t fun. It ain’t fun to talk about, admit, or lay
claim or words to the behavior that’s causing me discomfort. Unavailable men
have meant many a thing in my past, though usually over the last several years,
that has meant emotionally unavailable.
I’m taking it to a new level this time, and I’m hitting a bottom around it.

Because I don’t want to stop. I do. I vehemently and
vigorously do, want to stop. Engaging, intriguing, contacting, … flirting. But,
oh that part of me that doesn’t. That part of me that makes that slurping
delicious… ha. I just remembered. “Delicious Evil.” That’s the phrase, the
face, the action, the feeling of this behavior. Delicious Evil, you can taste
it on your tongue like chocolate velvet. With an afterburn of horror.

When I moved to San Francisco 6 years ago, I was ushering
for a small theater company downtown, then, as now, trying to keep my toe in
the acting world, or the periphery of performance. I was a few weeks sober.
There was a cast party that night that I’d been invited to. And as I went to
the restroom to weigh that option, I was putting on lipstick, and caught my eye
in the mirror. I gave myself that hypnotic, lightly cruel, lip curling sneer of
a smile, the look that says, we’re gonna do bad things tonight, and it’s going
to feel great.

I stopped.

I know that look. I know the results of that look. I knew
that if I went out that night, I’d drink, I’d flirt, I might sleep with someone
I barely know, and I’d feel like shit afterward.

I knew whatever happened at that party, Delicious Evil was
on the menu.

And I didn’t go. I felt like an asshole, like a loser, like
a party-pooper, and not a little bit strange/aloof/confounding to the actors –
but I didn’t go. I’d been to that party before. I know how it ends.

For all of this/that knowledge, “playing the tape,” knowing
the results, having been down roads like this before, I find myself unable to
stop the careening wheels of this mining cart. Plumbing further into the
darkness, away from all that I’m working for and toward.

This is a hot stove. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It
is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot. It is. I keep on checking to see if it’s hot.

It is.

And so, today, I’m going to try to do something different,
and seek out folks who maybe know the way to slow, and even stop this cart.

Because I have been walking toward the light, toward
respect, responsibility, toward adulthood, toward love of myself, and I’ll be
goddamn fucked if I allow myself to be buried all over again.

adulthood · crazy · faith · love · recovery · responsibility · sex · sobriety · spirituality · time · vulnerability

How to Not Lose Your Car in Twelve Easy Steps:

May 8, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Six years ago today, I woke up, or came to is more like, in
a room in my shared apartment in the Sunset District on San Francisco. In my
room was everything I’d brought with me to San Francisco, so, two suitcases,
and a pillow. When I’d moved into the room, I didn’t even have a bed.

In the other rooms in the house, lived the “angriest pot
head I’ve ever met” (though I concede, I could be more than a bit techy
myself), and another lanky UCSF student who liked to talk about LOST.

That morning, I got myself together, and went out to drive
downtown to a job interview I’d gotten through a temp agency. I’d been in San
Francisco two weeks to the very day.

Outside, I realized I had no idea where I’d parked my car.
The day before, my only SF friend’s boyfriend’s band was playing at the Park
Chalet out by Ocean Beach, and I’d gone, for the first time in my memory, with
the intention that I was not going to drink that day. But, we all know a Bloody
Mary is a breakfast drink… and so, several pitchers and hours later, I come to
in the middle of a conversation with a dude I don’t know.

The band was gone. The sun was setting. And my friend was no
where to be seen. I excused myself from this stranger, and called my friend to
ask where they were, and she told me I’d said to leave me there. I asked where
they were, she said the Marina. So, I stumble to my car, … and realize I have
no idea where “The Marina” is. So I ask a passing couple if they do. And the
first thing they ask is, Are you sure you’re okay to drive? Sure… No problem.

Once in my car, I realize I need gas, so I decide to do that
first, and then, by Divine intervention realize I’m too drunk to go out, and
drive back to my apartment and pass out.

Therefore, the next morning, as I stand squinting in the rising
light, I have zero recollection of where my car is, and I begin to walk in
increasingly large circles of blocks looking for it. I call the police – Have
you towed it? I call the tow lot – Is it there? No. After nearly a half-hour of
increasedly frantic walking, I turn the corner on my way back to my apartment,
and there it is. Parked nice and neat just around the corner from my house.

I apparently was not sure if I was parked “nice and neat,”
however, as scrawled across my dashboard is a note that reads, “PLEASE DON’T
TOW MY CAR. THANK YOU.” And my phone number.

That was the last morning I woke up hungover.

For six years, I have not washed beer grime out of my
clothing. I have not managed my drinking with a steady pace of water or advil
or corona to polka dot the vodka. I have not puked in six years. I haven’t peed
while leaning against the side of a building. I haven’t woken up next to a
stranger. I haven’t slept with taken men.

I don’t have “UDI”s – a college-invented term: Unidentified
Drunken Injuries. You know, those bruises you really don’t know how you got. I
don’t have names saved in my phone as “Pinky Guy,” “Bar Nana,” or “Scary
Scott.” For six years, I’ve known where I am when I wake up.

And here’s where I am when I wake up today. Strikingly
similarly, I am heading into downtown San Francisco today to apply for a job.
I’m following up in person on an application to a gallery job I applied for
last week. I’ll be going through the rest of that building with my resume as
well, and be leafleting for my workshop next Saturday.

This morning, I wake up in my own apartment. My very own
studio. With furniture. A cat – my monument to a crumbling resistance to
commitment and love. Car stolen, I have a bus pass and many logged BART hours.
I have a bicycle, and a coffee maker, and magnetic poetry on my refrigerator.

My life is imminently different than it was six years ago. Yet, there are some details that I want to label as “the same” – single, unemployed,
financially insecure. But these are just similarities, not clones. The
difference between how I will show up to the job search today is that it began
with Morning Pages, meditation, and a blog to you, friends who I’ve met over
these last six years – people who actually, sometimes, maybe, sorta, like me! From here, I’ll go hang out with some of you
folks for an hour, and remind myself of the miracle it is that I get to walk through all this. All this human emotion and
life-strewn eventfulness.

My life is eventful – but not chaotic. My life path is vague
– but not hopeless. Most of all, my heart is warming – and my soul doesn’t house that painfully threadbare echo-chamber anymore.

I still get to practice. I’ve absolutely loved engaging in a thrilling, alluring, morally ambiguous “Drink with Two Legs” distraction this past few days – it’s been wonderful to feel
something other than uncomfortable. But in the end, my conscience (and my
exuberantly caring friend) reminded me yesterday that I’m living in a way so
that I don’t have to feel bad about myself or my behavior anymore. So that I
don’t have to clean anything up later, if I can help it (unless it’s dishes).
I’ve watched myself walk to the edge of decency, and reel myself absolutely
kicking and screaming back from the temptation to throw myself in.

See, my life is full of people who remind me that there is a better
way. That this is only a beginning, and that I can hang on to the love that
I’ve built within myself. That it’s safe to do so.

I thank you, Danger-Will-Robinson lure, for your welcome and
passionate resurrection of a part of me that has long been dormant. And I thank
YOU, reader, friend, lovers, G-d, for helping me to learn there’s
nothing wrong with my Vixen, as long as she doesn’t slice away at my self-esteem.

So, here’s to six years of learning the easy way, the hard way. To
six years of sitting in rooms with people who are learning the same. To six
years of showing up on every inch of the spectrum from megalithic tantrum to blissfully
serene. And to just one more day of this unusually verdant path.

acceptance · adulthood · change · courage · discovery · forgiveness · gratitude · grief · honesty · intimacy · kindness · love · meditation · progress · recovery · sex · sexuality · sobwebs · spirituality

Somewhere New.

May 1, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

For several months now, I’ve been working on a particular
area of healing. For those of you who have read the “Savage Love,” then “Savage Beauty” blogs, you know that I’ve been working on healing my relationship with
my sexuality, and my past behavior and experience in this area.

This is likely going to be a little heavy – for which I’m
not thrilled, but I’m honest – so if that’s not what you want today, I’m sure Cyanide
& Happiness will provide some levity
today.

On my way back from the sweat lodge this Sunday, I was riding
with my friend who was running the lodge. I told her that earlier this year,
and late last year, each time I’d “go in” via meditation or shamanic journey
work to ask what I need to do next to move forward, I was presented with the information
that I needed to work on this stuff – sexual trauma and other murky stuff. I have been. Working
with my therapist on EMDR for a little bit (though I’m not seeing her
currently, due to finances), and in these other more alternative ways.

And most of all, through my thesis.

Basically what my thesis trails is a path through my sexual
history. That story parallels my mental breakdown, and my parents’ divorce, but really,
what is being excavated and brought into the light is all of that. The
“highlights” or representative incidents.

Over ages 16 through 24 (a little earlier than 16, but
that’s when it really took off with a very chicken-or-egg tag team with my drinking), is a napalm blanket of sorrow, shame, and
dissociation. When riding in the car with my friend on Sunday, I said to her
that I hadn’t “been in” to ask for a while if I’m “done” with this particular
set of work or not, and wondered if maybe I was, but/and as I found out a little this morning, there are still
some corners left to sweep.

I am grateful that I had the courage to put all of what I
needed to onto paper in my thesis. But, I’m also aware that it goes much deeper
and further than the stark, strobe-like glimpses that I give you, the reader.
And this morning, in meditation, I began to psychicly clear out some of the
cobwebs. (I just accidentally wrote “sobwebs,” which I suppose is pretty accurate
for this morning.)

In fact, I did something pretty literal to sweeping out – in my mind’s
eye, I walked through and into all those situations I remember, and
unfortunately or not, I remember quite a lot quite vividly apparently — more
than I thought I did. I walked through these times and places, into these
couplings and actions, and burned sage there. I carried this sage through all
the circumstances I could remember, and asked them to be cleared of any energy
which is no longer needed.

There are the few where there was kindness,
and the kindness will remain, but there are the many that were out of a sense of obligation, or resignation, or force; or just wanting to feel better; or just wanting to feel anything other than what
I felt. There are those that are truly tragic, and require some extra doses of
compassion and witness, instead of repression.

I don’t know what may or not come of this work this morning.
It was sort of “unbidden;” I didn’t have the intention as I closed my eyes for
meditation this morning to do any of that – but I guess the Powers That Be had
that intention for me, anyway.

One thing I asked for aloud in the prayer circle in Sunday’s
sweat lodge during the final prayer round – the one where we get to pray for
ourselves, out loud so others know what we need – I prayed for healing around
physical intimacy. And that’s where the majority of my tears came on Sunday. My
relationship with my body, my femininity, sexuality, sex, intimacy, being
present in my body when being intimate – all of this needs healing. I’d still
rather hide within my body – offer you it, but not what’s inside it; assume
it’s really all you want from me anyway, so I might as well just give you only
that out of spite – even if you in fact want more. But, hiding within myself doesn’t work
anymore. Beating myself out of my body – or having someone do it for me – doesn’t work anymore. Not being present
is painful now. And not voicing my physical needs to a partner is another way of hiding.

I don’t really know what to do about it yet. I know that I
don’t do what I used to. But I feel like I’ve swung to the opposite side of the
spectrum – from the vixen to Betty Crocker, as I’ve put it. But I know opening
these doors, clearing these wounds, being willing to treat my flesh with care,
and being willing to meet all of you with all of me are mile-markers of
progress.

I’d like to be done with this work. I’d like to declare
myself fit for duty. Maybe it’ll always be an ongoing process, maybe it’ll come
to a place of plateau. I don’t know. But apparently I’m ready to clear the
sobwebs, and arrive at somewhere new.

beauty · courage · modeling · sex

LadyScaping

April 2, 2012 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

The very first monologue in The Vagina Monologues is “Hair.” It begins, You cannot love a vagina
unless you love hair. – This, is something of an outdated sentiment it seems
these days.

Why discuss this? Two reasons, firstly, reading some
articles yesterday on the effect of porn in our bedrooms, and secondly, because
I modeled nude yesterday.

The reality is that nowadays, having no hair down there is
very much a norm. Much of that is the proliferation of what it looks like in
porn, and long from men associating that look with an 11 year old girl, they
associate it with sexual maturity. From a woman’s point of view, this is often
not so. I’ve had a few conversations, and run the gamut myself from all kinds of
ladyscaping, including the nothing at all – for myself, not for my lovers,
though that plays in, of course. But for the majority, it’s like another
accessory we get to play with.

However, in art, in drawing and in painting, it’s a
different world. I’ve been in art classes where we’ve had live models, and
those with hair are much nicer to draw or paint. There’s a feeling of
femininity about the look, the fluff, and the mystery. It looks mature,
basically. There was the girl with nothing, clean as a baby’s bottom – but
really, is that the association you want to make when looking at a woman?

The associations have skewed and diverged somewhere along
the line. The artist yesterday made her own approving comments about the state
of my ladyscaping, and confirmed that many of the women she sees now don’t have
any hair, and it’s, again, nicer to draw this way. Let’s not say it’s the
Amazon. We have pride. But, I knew what my job was yesterday, so I “dressed”
accordingly.

To tangent from the above, yesterday, I did model nude. It was my first official drawing 3 hour
session. Recently, I’d modeled for a photographer friend of mine, but I was
very wary of that, considering the state of the interwebs, and the fact that
employers, my students’ parents, my students, all have access to it. But, I
trust this photographer a lot, and I knew his vision was not porn, but art, and
you wouldn’t really be seeing me, as much as shapes and crooks of arms and
legs, etc. That said, … nervous fun as it was, I don’t think photography is for
me. It’s just too close to life, and for whatever reason, for me, feels too
close to intrusive and the fuzzy edge of my own values about my body.

So, drawing. Much better. You get a real sense – she says
from her one day’s experience! – of what the artist wants – it becomes a
collaboration and a mutual exchange of artistry and creativity. I loved it. I
had a great time. It was physically
demanding, and I’m getting to learn my body and the limits of my body, but I
was also surprised at how well I could hold some of the poses.

And luckily, some were laying down. The artist is currently
working on a “death pose” series, so there were some gawky awkward, laying
down poses to do. We worked for 3 hours, we chatted, we listened to music, she
drew, I posed, it was lovely.

And at the end… she paid me. I got paid!! I wasn’t expecting
that at all, as I thought this was just a trial “let’s see if I have what it
takes” session, but she handed me a check at the end and was very pleased with
my work, and is going to forward my info to other artists, and she wants me back again in a month! How ‘bout them apples!

So, the female form, live, in the bedroom, in the studio –
stylized in the interwebs – who is to say what is beauty, what is reality? I
have nothing against porn – I’m known to visit on the occasion it strikes, but
ladyscaping is personal. And too, I do believe and hope it remains that
sex is personal – not virtual.