brezsny-on-the-blog

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "Dear Rob: Last night I dreamt that I finally met the soulmate I've been looking for all these years. We were making love in a limousine that was driving us to the church where we would be married. Then a terrible thing happened. Right there in my arms, my perfect lover turned into a toothless, stinking geezer whose sparse white hair was falling out in my hands. I shrieked and ran out of the car. Can you interpret my dream for me? -Crushed Capricorn." Dear Crushed: Your dream may mean that your romantic ideals have become outmoded; your long-standing fantasies about what constitutes your perfect lover are no longer relevant. It's probably time to adjust your definitions."


y'know, i wasn't at all surprised to see this in my email box yesterday. personally, i've been somewhat wrestling with this one even as i've been wrestling with trying to affix in my mind the image of the lovesick swan as my anti role-model. they go together, if you really think about it.

the poor bird was in love with the wrong thing, chasing away people who were forever invading its space, loving something that neither cared about its love or even had the capacity to acknowledge it.

and though i know the fact i've recently taken a lover comes as no surprise, this is the first time i've actually acknowledged it to anyone who isn't *m*. i've been my happy, lover-free self for quite some time now, and great sex notwithstanding, there are other aspects to this whole lover thing that i've never encountered before.

this new territory is quite overwhelming sometimes.

while i know in my head and in my heart that *m* is Different, when those differences actually pop up i'm still completely blindsided by them. sometimes i'm even rendered momentarily speechless. i know, i know. delena speechless? yeah right. but it's true.

this new experience is something i've seen before, but only in two married couples i know. of all the couples i've known, only two share this new thing i'm getting glimpses of in my time with *m*. it's strange, wyrd, and i'm not quite sure what to do with it. it's like a strange new plant someone gives you as a housewarming gift and you're not quite sure of its care and climate or even what, praytell, it is you're looking at.

quite honestly, i didn't even know anything was missing in the realm of delena-as-lover. now, with *m*, i wonder how i ever could have missed it, if that makes any sense. and it's not limited to the bedroom, either. what is "it," you ask?

well, It is a sense i get, an actual physical Something that i can feel growing right here, below my solar plexus. its warmth spreads up into my chest and down to my womb. it's a feeling of certainty the way i'm certain about my feelings for li'l *c*, or *t*, *aj*, and my parents. and that feeling, whatever it is, creates a connection --i think-- between *m* and myself when we're actually together. it's what keeps us thinking about each other when we're apart.

and It grows stronger, i think, every time we look into each others' eyes as lovers. once upon a time, my orgasms were very private affairs. they were mine and mine alone, and i never even considered letting anybody in like that. but i have with *m*, and now i can't imagine it being any other way. it was powerful like no other experience i've ever had --ever-- but i think it was with the right person. i know i'll never be the same.

it's a matter of switching gears, i think. suzi called me the night before her wedding, and we talked for a while. i told her about *m*, whom she was all excited to hear about, and i said something about that feeling in my solar plexus, about that certainty i've never felt before. "it's funny how that happens," she replied. "it's like all this time you go on thinking, but then when you know, you know. y'know?"

yeah, i know.