Part of not knowing what is true
anymore is an opening up to all sorts of taboo.
What have I sectioned off as valid and invalid,
appropriate and inappropriate,
good and bad?
Well, I’ll tell you, that sectioning fence falls in huge chunks
daily around here.
Tattoos are ice breaking, and beautiful.
Art that makes me curious and loving –
Yet, when MY 19 year old appears with a tattoo, unannounced,
a piece of flesh that was formed within my own,
my knees go quivery soft. What is the difference?
I have a hard time even remembering to put creams on me –
jewelry a rare afterthought-
yet I do cover my face with foundation, often, and draw little lines around my eyes
making appearing naked face, at times, a taboo. Ridiculous – yet, no. habit, face, world –
silly comparison, nothing compared to
bold, relentless piercing –
What am I to make of my feelings
when my daughter says her comment about being a dancer
led the whole restaurant to assume she is a stripper?
She laughs, I still cannot!
Why not a whole face tattoo?
Do I wince at cussing? not anymore.
So mild, that!
Have I ever known a sex worker?
What if she were my granny?
Where do the fences lie?
Why do I lose my sense of humor when it comes to my daughters, sometimes?
OH, you gorgeous fence stompers!
A late night game of cards against humanity –
I feel easing around the dark collection of words with
this group of souls who embrace uncomfortable, strange, random, dark –
opening dear mama to whatever is arriving here now.
Where do I have trouble loving –
Where am I boundless –
open, observing,
impassively –
out and out and out – a land without ownership, a mind without opinions?
Life as Improv 
Sign of the times Marga? Quite what is taboo any longer? When no one is harmed – big caveat – then it seems increasingly that our response to former taboos is little more than a shrug of the shoulders, a brief nasal exhalation standing in stead of ‘who cares?’ I want to bet that the reservations you express here are still seen by you as old thought-patterns whose time is known to have lapsed, despite their occasional surfacing. You’re not kidding me. 😉 H ❤
Time-lapse alarm bells going off so often the floor is fairly throbbing! I might as well dance to the beat! What do I owe you for your bet, Dear H? xo! m
like the earth
embracing it all
whether immaculate
or defiled.
like a human
feeling unpleasant
at lost possibilities 🙂
Oh, the sunny day lost
yet I can rejoice for the replacement
by the wonderful and wicked storm!
My boat stairs blew away
a few weeks ago,
and now I rejoice in my new
and better entrance
forced from the upheaval.
You are so great at the few-word-
bulls-eye-darts, Mr. D!
I am chuckling at the way encounters with our taboos take us quickly to a survey of the extremes… Why not a whole face tattoo? Because once you cross the line– (that I’ve drawn for myself, and which of course is perfectly reasonable)– by what possible logic could you place the line somewhere short of where this is obviously headed…? I don’t understand how could cross the line and then tell me you have your own line and it’s okay… Once you flaunt the rules, how do you establish other ones??? If you can laugh so easily at the notion of yourself stripping for a living, how comfortable are you with this notion…?
I am thinking that with your daughters, as with any parent with their children, it is the message contained in the act that is far more near and intimate– (whether intended as such or not, and probably not)– than the message contained in the act of a stranger getting a tattoo… We’re not so worried about what these acts of self-expression mean or portend for the future of strangers we see without a parent’s concern, and we certainly don’t have the context to see what those acts may be saying deeper down… We haven’t seen the way they sometimes proceed uncertainly and place themselves into difficulty by hungering somehow for what has always been offered them, or how they become stubborn when provoked and cannot be persuaded… We wonder what the deep-seated feeling was that gave birth to a tattoo… Why couldn’t we have talked about that…? I love you… I should be consulted about such things… Are we not a team…???
🙂
Such beauty, indeed!
Michael
I smile at the depth and beauty of your response. Such wonderful dance partners I have chosen and who have chosen me. I made them squirm in the same way when we played “Card Against Humanity” and I had an odd and immediate penchant for the game. 🙂 They turn that same worry back, if mom is okay with this, what else is she okay with? Two-way-street-relationships provide such great gifts for learning about ourselves. Thank you for your crystal-clear mirror, too, Michael!