Author: Bekki

The Sunday Review – Ministry of Culture Edition

On By BekkiIn The Weekly Review1 Comment

Hello, lovelies.

I spent the last week in Warsaw, Poland and Sofia, Bulgaria, observing operations at various call centers. It’s amazing how exhausting it is to concentrate intently for a long period of time. By the time we wrapped up around 7 or 8 each night, we were wiped. I managed to steal a bit of time to see both cities, although not nearly enough. When Z’s big enough, I’d like to spend 2-3 weeks touring Eastern Europe by train. Continue reading “The Sunday Review – Ministry of Culture Edition” →

The Sunday Review: Rosie the Riveter Edition

On By BekkiIn The Weekly Review1 Comment

Hello, lovelies.

It was a rough winter; I didn’t realize how much of a hermit I’d turned into until the weather got nice and I started spending most of my day outside again. I’m going to try to make the weekly roundup a thing again, although I’ve said that before! Let me know in the comments or with the like button if you’re enjoying these, as that’s prime motivation to keep it happening.

1. Flight of whimsy. I bought a plane ticket to go to Hong Kong in September. By myself. For a week. This terrifies me, because it’s adventurous, impractical, and falls solidly in the “things I don’t do” category.

2. #metoo Amanda Palmer and Jasmine Power dropped a new song, Mr. Weinstein Will See You Now. It didn’t hit me nearly as hard as I thought it would, and I’m ok with that.

3. Black is the new green. After six months of feeling guilty every time I put vegetable peels and leftover food in the trash, I bought a compost tumbler. The last one took me six weeks to put together, this one took three hours. Now on my wishlist for the holidays: a proper cordless drill.

Picture of half-built compost tumbler.

4. Not a box. Z has been asking me to take her rock climbing for months. I got the gear during the big REI sale, then went to the gym and took the “intro class” so I could belay her. When I took her a few days later, she went straight for the bouldering section and proceeded to climb up and down the “ladder” for an hour. It felt eerily like spending lots of money on a birthday gift that your child ignores in favor of the box.

5. One of the trees in the back turned out to be a plum tree, and they are thisclose to ripe. Who’s got plum recipes?

Photo of almost ripe plums.

Links and Things

This article solidifies my cynicism around donating money to political campaigns: What Happened to Jill Stein’s Recount Millions. As someone who donated a measly $5, I’d like an answer.

I learned to take photos on my dad’s old Canon, which just sold its last film camera. I still miss the magic of immersing the photo paper in the developer and watching the picture appear (less so wrangling the film into the spool in the dark).

A tongue-in-cheek and a more useful guide to indoor plants.

I did what everyone’s saying you should do and read (ok, skimmed) the most recent “we’ve updated our privacy policy” email I received and what do you know, it had two helpful links for opting out of online ads.

Arkadin Horror

On By BekkiIn Musings & RamblingsLeave a comment

I played this board game recently. One of those really complicated ones that came with two rule books: the “read this first” book and the “actually contains all the rules” book. It also came with a default “I don’t want to look up the freaking rule” rule: in instances of doubt, choose the answer that will make the game harder (and therefore longer).

***

For the past few months I’ve been dating someone who’s poly. Because splitting up with A and leaving the house I thought we would be in for the next twenty years wasn’t hard enough. Because being financially responsible for two households while trying to find a new job that doesn’t require me to travel 1-2 weeks a month wasn’t enough of a challenge. Because sometimes the universe hands you something, something wonderful and precious and rare, and the only possible response is to say thank you.

Poly is hard. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It means letting go of most of my social programming, letting go of things imprinted so deeply they seem like fundamental truth. Having multiple, loving relationships makes sense to me in a way that monogamy never has. The reality of a lover who has a wife he’s committed to and in love with is something else entirely.

***

They’re in Australia for a few weeks, my lover and his wife. The week they get back I have to travel for work. The week after that I have Z, making it somewhere between five and six weeks before we see each other again.

I’m terrified of losing him. I’m terrified that the space apart will make him realize what a terrible idea it is to be involved with someone going through a divorce. That the pheromone high will wear off. That the mono archetype will assert itself, that he’ll have enough time with his wife in the next few weeks that he won’t need or want anyone else. That he’ll drift away from me, maybe without even meaning to, so that by the time he comes back there’s nothing left.

***

I tried to end it before he went. Tried to get ahead of the fear and the jealousy by making a break up my decision instead of something inevitable that would happen to me. Tried to tell him not to talk to me while he was gone so that when my phone didn’t light up it was because I’d told him not to instead of because he was having too much fun to say hello.

It didn’t stick. Instead of a clean break I have a lover in the other side of the world and a whole host of insecurities.

***

It’s easy to believe he doesn’t really love me, that I’m just some bright and shiny thing, that distance and time will fade it, that he will come back cold and distant and done. It’s easy to believe that a few weeks with his wife will have him questioning why he around want anything else.

It’s much harder to believe that this is real. That I am loved regardless of time and distance. That I’m not going to be set aside in favor of the real relationship.

***

I am trying to make the harder choice. The one that will prolong the game. It is the most difficult thing I have ever done.

New Year’s Wish

On By BekkiIn Musings & RamblingsLeave a comment

It has been a rough year, darlings. Triggers around every corner, hatred shouted at rallies and in the courts and by our president. An ever growing divide in our country, in our families and friendships. And in the midst of this, my own life examined and ripped apart and started fresh. I have been silent here, not from a lack of things to say, but from a flood of too many. A stack of half started entries that no longer seem relevant, a stack of entries not written because their stories are not entirely mine to tell.

In this space, I am leaving a wish for you, and it is the same two things I am wishing for myself.

Listen to yourself. To that innermost voice. Not the one that tells you what you should do, or what everyone else does. Your voice. The one that whispers shyly, nudges you along the path you’re afraid to take. Nurture it, cherish it, hear it. It is wiser than it knows.

And love yourself. Give yourself permission to feel good. To fall into and out of love. To enjoy the guilty pleasures without guilt. Know that you are strong, that you are enough, that you are worth listening to. You are exactly where you need to be.

Sacred spaces

On By BekkiIn Pinned Posts2 Comments

Churches make me nervous. I never feel like I belong in them. Still. I measure my decisions with the likelihood of future regret. This, I know, I will regret not doing.

***

There’s a small courtyard between the office building and the church, inside the church gate. There are always a few drifter sitting on the benches or the steps leading up to the side door of the sanctuary. The office is in the back. I take a deep breath, push the door open, walk in.

The girl in the office has short fuchsia hair and a permanent scowl.

“Is your labyrinth open?” I ask.

She looks me up and down, taking in the business casual. “There’s a Muslim congregation worshipping,” she says. “If they’re finished, you can go in.” I’ve no idea why you’d want to, lingers, unspoken.

The main doors to the sanctuary stand open. A few men are clustered outside, telling each other goodbye. I drift up the steps, hesitating at the inner doors. A few more men sit on the pews in the sanctuary proper. Someone stands at the edge of the dais, rolling up a large mat.

I don’t see what I have come here for, but there’s nowhere else it could be. I consider turning around, going back to the office. I don’t belong here. This is not my church.

Still. Setting my hand on the brass handle, I close my eyes and open the door.

The men inside talk back and forth, neither ignoring not acknowledging me. I make my way up the aisle, eyes on the floor in front of me.

Pass-a-grille ids white paint on concrete pavers. Grace Cathedral is metal set into stone. This is a hardwood floor, polyurethane shiny, the path laid down on top like a vinyl sticker. Behind me, the men continue to talk. I’m not sure if they’re speaking English. I’m not sure if they’re entirely with it. I step into the labyrinth.

***

Breathe in, breathe out, I tell myself. Focus on your breath. Focus on your feet.

I’m here because there are decisions I don’t know how to make. Things that don’t lend themselves to a neat table of pro and con.

One foot and then the other. It’s an easy path to walk, wide enough to contain me, narrow enough to keep my focus. Breathe in, breathe out. Some of the men leave, some stay. The conversation is softer now. Nobody pays any attention to me.

I’m not expecting answers. I’m not expecting anything, really. Still. I walk more slowly as I wind closer to the center. What do you want most? I ask myself, thinking I am asking a question about my job, about where I live, about how I want my marriage to be.

The voice that answers doesn’t care about any of these things. I want to write, it says, as I find the center of the labyrinth. One hour or one thousand words, I promise myself.

I am light, I am breath, I am air. I no longer feel like an outsider in this space.
***

I know I will fail. I know some days it will be too much. I hope that when I am tired and telling myself there’s no point, I will remember the way I feel right now, the surety certainty solidity.

***

I walk out the same way I came in, following the path laid onto the floor, the subtle curves, the long sweeps. The men have left, all but one who sits reading a paper in the middle of an otherwise empty pew.

I walk out the same way I came in, eyes on the floor in front of me, feet infinitely lighter.