If Verne Troyer Can Get Laid. . .

Posted on 07/01/2008 by Jane Devin

I was going to make this my new response to every friend who complains to me about their lackluster sex life. I was going to keep it as a mantra in my head since as you all know, given that I’ve spilled my aching guts here more than once, my own sex life is nothing to wax erotic over.

It’s too easy, though, to think the way a normal person thinks. To call upon the romantic ideals of the middle-class and see love and lust behind every thrust and moan. Sometimes a gyration is just a gyration, and a tongue is just a tongue. Sometimes people, including some pretty nice looking ones, put out for reasons that have nothing to do with the laws of attraction.

Fame, even one grainy speck of it, seems to act as an aphrodisiac. Somehow sleeping with a hairy, three-eyed hunchback is less repulsive if that hunchback has appeared in the National Enquirer, drunkenly pissed in a corner, or otherwise flaunted their fucked-upness in front of millions of people.

Others may ponder the perversity of humping a freakish celebrity little person and making a sex tape of the debacle, but I can’t help but see a broader, more positive issue here for us middle-class mensches.

I mean, c’mon people! If Verne Troyer can get laid. . .

Doesn’t this negate the whole meaning of impossible? Doesn’t it just turn the hollow thud of pipe dreams into a virtual waterslide of hope?

Maybe there really can be world peace. . .
Maybe there really will be a Democratic dream ticket.
Maybe Starbucks will bring back the Coconut Mocha Frappacino just for Tod,
and my friend Neil will live happily ever after with Sophia.

Maybe I really can make that paycheck stretch into next month. Maybe Trader Joe’s will open in my neighborhood. Hell, while I’m dreaming large. . .

Maybe there really will be a Mac Powerbook in my future. A small house by the beach, and a puppy that doesn’t hump his fleece toys at every opportunity. Maybe time will stop for about a year and let me finish at least 40 of the things I’ve started. Maybe I’ll learn the difference between sincerity and placation. Maybe chocolate really can be part of a balanced diet, and that cute girl at the bookstore won’t end up being an ex-cult member, reptile collector, or straight Republican!

And we don’t even have to be famous to realize our dreams! No, because in our little perverse world, there was no rational reason Verne Troyer got laid. If Vern were a leprechaun sitting on a pot of gold and boxes of Godiva, pulling a steady stream of pearls and diamonds out of his little ass, chances are 1001% that he would not get laid. The fact that he did only proves that the world makes no sense. And in a senseless world, no dream – no matter how unattainable our rational minds once thought they were – is off limits.

We, the everyday people, can skip fame, and all the paranoia and suspicion that goes with it. We’ll never have to worry, even at the heights of our dubious successes, if we are some vapid, attention-starved woman’s Verne Troyer. We’ll never have to feel dumb for mistaking that hand in our pocket for a romantic gesture. Best of all, we won’t have to suffer the humiliation of seeing our hard-wrought, sweating sex tapes in the dollar bin, where they’ll be sought after only by poverty stricken perverts and those looking for a gag gift.

Instead, when hope fails us and our dreams seem far away — when we’re reaching for the stars and ending up with palms full of pigeon shit — we only have to remember that Verne Troyer, drunken little person and sleepwalking pisser, got laid.

Now really, don’t your own dreams suddenly feel a little more obtainable?

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The Proposal

Posted on 06/27/2008 by Jane Devin

All that pent-up passion, where does it go? It travels in endless loops and spirals like a lost and wild thing that can’t find its natural environment. It cries out in unremembered dreams, and wakes in the morning to buttons and buzzers, fluorescent lights, and just enough sun to keep it thirsty and pulsing.

March on, soldier girl, march on. There are some mercies you will never know, and others you are probably better off not knowing. Carry your arsenal of words proudly, and spray paint the obstacles and alleyways in your path. Write your name boldly, and let your vivid colors splash against the graying admonishments and swells of whitewash.

Once, I wrote you a story by hand, in plum colored ink, in a beautiful leather notebook sent to me by some cigarette company. I did not hover over lines or pause between paragraphs, and I did not sleep for three days. It seemed urgent then, but somehow all those flowing words got lost. Stolen or lost – or maybe never found – does it really make a difference? There was no one there to protect anything, and it was easy, so easy, to pretend I didn’t care. I bought three piece suits from the secondhand store, read books that taught me how to aspire and conform, and forged my way into some musty tapestry held together by false needs and even falser promises.

I faltered then, I know. I was young, and bumbling, and out-and-outside of everything, scrambling desperately just to understand the essential facts, such as the chasm between how people acted, and how they really were in their own private and natural worlds, where no acting is required. I struggled to slow down the alternative other-scripts in my head, where I could create and arrange, rewrite and edit, until every new imprint and revelation made sense. It was not easy to evict myself from that sanctuary, but I did. I took a deep breath, and plowed my whole self into dangerous, unknown territory, as determined as any pioneer looking for a title and forty acres.

I did not have the means then to promise you what I am promising you now.

I want you to do whatever it is you really want to do, love, with any sort of abandon. Stay out and outside, if that is your wish, and I will protect whatever messages you leave in your path. I will let no one pour a whitewash over your words, and in this, I will not fail you. I will be the Theo to your Vincent – the unflagging patience to your spitfire impulsiveness, the protector of your interior art, and the keeper of your secrets. I will secure the essentials, keep the destroyers at bay, shore you up, and pick you up in ways that will be unintrusive and unnoticeable.

I will do it for your art, because it’s not always beautiful. Because it’s often curious, gritty, unrefined, full of question marks, and unmistakably yours.

I will do it for your hands. The ones that still plead when you talk, like a last vestige of childhood, a desire for your soul to be understood, even when your words are wrapped in the esoterica of language.

I will do it for your mind. The one that has been spent in fractions and unjustly divided in a world where half or less of a human being is thought to make a whole.

I have loved you from the day you recognized your separateness. When you gazed at your hands and feet and happily realized they belonged to you alone. When you lolled on the shag carpet of your pink bedroom, dreaming of horses, oceans, and Amazons. When you rebelled against the teachings of a monotonous life punctuated by fistfuls of anger.

I loved you when you were a hero, experimenting with the world, filled with unbridled energy and a desire to do and gather all that was good. I loved you when you were on your knees in the river, begging for your life, praying to whatever god watches over the set-apart and abandoned, and when you felt vindictive, angry, and bitter, knowing that no such god existed, and that you were truly on your own. When you numbered your scars, 1-17, and gave them names. Snake in the Grass. Saint Albert’s Fence. Five Minutes Late. Two Against One.

I know how love begins. It begins alone, in the sacred flesh of a new soul, as an intuitive desire or a biological imperative. It rises up to fill in the barren spaces, smooth the jagged edges of scar tissue, and nurture the mind, body, and spirit. It becomes intrinsic, outreaching, sacred – birthed over and over again in neophyte stages until it becomes agape and all-encompassing.

I do not know, and have never known, how love really ever ends.

All those years when passion was kept in tight coils and stored away for some future days of freedom, had this effect; my love is a renewing thing that knows no end. It is not fickle, or conditional, or wary. Once given, it is given forever, no matter how great the distance, how few the words, or how lost the original reason. For this love, and out of love for you, I will stand my ground, as close or as far away as desired, and guard the gates.

The world that made it impossible for us to be one, to be both artist and worker, dreamer and survivor, existing in the same physical being and outward expression, is no stronger than the shoulders that carry it as a necessary burden. I have grown strong enough to carry that burden for the both of us, and brave enough to face the consequences. So be, my love, that girl under the tree who paints poetry and writes abstracts. Be wild, and unrelenting, and undaunted. Burst your spindly roots out of the ragtag world, and leave the broken branches and dry leaves behind. Abandon the dogtag chains, the crumbling mortar, and the numbers that would subtract art from your every equation.

I will be here, holding steady the balance pole, guarding the gate, and gathering all the good that falls.

From me to you, for us, this is my promise.

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A Pauper’s Tale

Posted on 06/15/2008 by Jane Devin

I had a better Father’s Day post planned, but I can’t find The Picture. The one taken years before my birth, in which either my son or I appear to be about two years old. It’s hard to tell the gender of the child in the Hawaiian shorts and white t-shirt, but s/he is definitely one of us — one of the dark-eyed, olive skinned ones in a sea of green eyes and pale skin. A brother? A sister? I don’t know.

That picture has always been a curiosity. I like to imagine that one day, someone else will see it and be able to connect all the scattered dots and fill in all the blanks. If they couldn’t do that, maybe they’d just be kind enough to tell me his name. As long as it’s not Warren Beatty or Rod McKuen. My mother tried to pass those two off on me at the height of my pubescent naivete, the era of Shampoo, (my favorite movie at the time), and a poetry album I played until there were no more grooves. At ten years old, I filled my mind with lines like I will fly into your belly like a plane flying into Rome. I had no idea, really, what it meant, but I loved the visual of that line, the romance of it, and the way the words rolled off my tongue.

Later, MJ brushed off my who’s-my-father inquiries with stunted lines like “some guy in a bar”, “some sailor”, and my personal favorite, “what does it matter anyway?” Sometimes the chill of her mind was just stunning. MJ was full of high-drama and bittersweet illusions. Her magic was in the way she could sometimes make her wild and fluid self appear to be stable and solid. Her solid self appeared to be promising — it tantalized and teased a moment of reality — a sliver of truth that was just out of reach. I’d struggle across the brutal desert of my mother’s psyche only to discover mirages, like nightmarish funhouse mirrors that scoffed at my efforts, and sent me crawling back to the starting gate. It took me years to un-love her enough to abandon my perpetual place at that gate, and years more to quit torturing myself trying to make sense of her kind of crazy.

Anyway, I was sure I’d get the answer before she died, because that’s what she told me in 1996. “I’ll tell you before I die.” Except that she didn’t. The two months between the cancer diagnosis and her death in 1999 were full of opportunities for mother-daughter moments. Truthful moments. Ones that might have had led to some sort of redemption or understanding. Yet MJ chose, even while dying, to keep her illusions, particularly the grand ones in which she was superior, infallible, and invincible — and not the bulimic-anorexic, violent, narcissistic, and callous woman she really was.

So I have no idea who he was, that dark-eyed and olive skinned, long lost, and never known father of mine. The pauper who left me with an imperious Queen and her soulless stand-in husband. Maybe he, too, stood perpetually outside the gate and tried to pluck the thorns from the roses. Maybe he was just a bastard, a one-night stand, or a really bad poet. Maybe he just wasn’t that memorable.

Except that I live, part pauper, part Queen, and no small part a dark-eyed Alice who can’t stop wishing there was something of substance on the other side of this looking glass.

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Missing Something on Mother’s Day

Posted on 05/12/2008 by Jane Devin

Being Mother’s Day, I wondered if I should write a post about my mother but then I thought, no. It’s too sad, really, and not the kind of tribute others want to read. Many mothers, it seems, left dark mysteries and heartaches as legacies to their daughters. Mine was no exception. It would be more fitting to write about MJ on some other occasion, like a cold rainy day, when there’s no sunshine to compete with my pen or my memories.

I then thought maybe I should write about my kids, but everybody who reads this blog already knows how much they mean to me, and Lis and Mac have heard it a thousand times over. We celebrated Mother’s Day early this year, and I was beautifully spoiled, but in a grown-up way I’m not sure I’ll ever really get used to. Not that I don’t appreciate the thoughtful and lovely things my children pick out, but let’s face it — they’re not exactly finger paintings or handcrafted dinosaur dioramas. They’re not rhinestone studded potholders or construction paper cards. They’re not Mommy presents, but presents for a Mother. With a capital M. Meaning mature, meaning older.

I miss the days of getting misty-eyed over Crayola drawings. I miss reading children’s books out loud. I miss writing stories for my own kids. I miss the smell of freshly shampooed heads, and the feeling that the crook of my arm had a divine purpose. I miss having a little person to go places with, and I miss how everything that was old and boring to me was brand new and exciting to them, like light switches, twinkling stars, ice cubes, and telephones. I miss the grade school essays they wrote about family, even when they were embarrassing. Along with “I love my mom. She is funny and good and paints my fingers,“ my daughter also once wrote, “My mom’s favrite thing is be naked and eat spaggetti.” (Meaning — I like to take baths and eat spaghetti. Separately. One is a naked activity, the other is not).

My son once told his school principal that I gave him fifteen names, and then proceeded to tell him all the derivations, terms of endearment, and nicknames I gave him. The principal called me and told me I was confusing my son, who apparently didn’t know what his birth name was. Of course MacKenzie Richard Cooper Ross Love Honey Boychik Sweetie Handsome Boo Bear LittleMan Mackie Deega Daw knew his name. He just thought it was funny to string the principal along. The same way he thought it would be funny, at three years old, to sneak to the top of my closet, where I kept a whole bunch of promotional materials left over from radio remotes. One of the boxes contained colored and glow-in-the-dark condoms. Mac decided these would be great for preschool. We were living in uber-conservative Montana then, and the preschool owner was a devout Christian. I got the call about an hour after dropping Mac off. She was not amused, and Mac was kicked out of preschool. (Is there a doubt which of my kids were the problem child? Of course, it was the one most like me).

I really should have had 10 more kids, spaced two-four years apart each, so that I could always have one in tow. It’s strange to me being the mother of grown-ups. I still have a lot of child left in me, and am often surprised by the mirror image of a 46 year old woman. I am nineteen, fourteen, ten, and five in so many ways. I remember viscerally every moment and milestone of childhood — my own, and my children’s. I remember the taste of Pixie Stix even though I haven’t had one in years, and I still get a little thrill over seeing old favorites like Old Maid, Chinese jump ropes, Jacks, and real roller skates in the toy section of the department store.

I coo over other people’s babies and toddlers, and think how very lucky they are. And I have to admit I feel a small pang of envy every time I see one of those big toothless smiles from an infant, or watch a toddler doing the it’s-all-new-to-me mummy walk. I still browse the children’s section in a store, and wish more of my friends had babies so I’d have an excuse to buy tiny shoes, jeans, and dresses.

Neither my recently engaged daughter or my college-attending son want children any time soon. My daughter hasn’t decided if she wants children at all. She dreams, instead, of an inter-species ranch, with dozens of feathered and furry beings to fill her time.

So I’m in the in-between stage. No longer a mother to little ones, and not yet a grandmother. (Yikes. If I don’t feel old enough to be the mom of grown-ups, I sure don’t feel old enough to be called grandma. Still, if it happened tomorrow, I’d be thrilled. And I’d be called Nana). In the meantime, of course I think about it. Adoption. Giving birth. Doing it all over again, but better, with more experience, more wisdom, and more purposeful intentions.

Then I look around. The world outside is growing colder by the minute. People are just a shade crueler than they have ever been before. Apathy not only abounds, but has become a way of life for millions. Irrationality is still acceptable, and even promoted and catered to in some circles. Opportunities slip and slide and no matter how good or smart a person is, there are no guarantees of success. There are pains involved in raising children, and those pains almost always involve other people, like bad parents, bullies, and tired teachers. The rest of the world will never care about or want to protect your children as much as you do.

I look, too, at my clean apartment. There are no crumbs on the floor, no piles of school papers on the kitchen table, no mountains of laundry waiting to be done. Didn’t I wait for this? Didn’t I long for the day when I wasn’t mopping up after muddy shoes and endlessly folding clothes? Didn’t I yearn for the day when I could take a long, uninterrupted bath, or write for hours at a stretch? Of course I did. But the frustrating part of parenting was the smallest part. The larger part — the gold stars and long talks, the small hands in clay and the school age dramas — never got old. Only my children did. I, on the other hand, hardly aged at all, unless one counts in years and biology. I don’t. I count in words and memories. In experiences and feelings.

And on this Mother’s Day, I feel both fulfilled and empty. Like a mother, of course, and one who is well-loved and appreciated, but one who’s also missing the days of being a Mommy. Missing the goodnight kisses, the tuck-ins, and those sweet hours between their bedtime and mine, when I actually relished my “alone time” and felt compelled to do something grand, special, or important with it. Now there are many such hours. I fill them as well as I can, with work, writing, books, projects, friends, pets, and more — but.

I just miss being a stroller-toting, school work correcting, dinner fixing, Band-Aid carrying, bath running, toy buying, tickle your back, love you to infinity and bigger than the universe, crook of the arm Mom.

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Jane’s Guide to Proper Cussing

Posted on 04/11/2008 by Jane Devin

Dear Elisabeth,

Somehow, in all those sterling lessons I imparted as a parent, I left out this highly crucial one regarding cussing etiquette. As I watched you, my beautiful Venus daughter, trying to cuss the other day — and doing it all wrong — I realized I had failed to teach you even the rudimentary basics of proper cussing. Shame on me. What the hell was I thinking? Every well-versed and emotionally generous woman should be able to employ these colorful words properly.

Let’s start with hell which, as you may have noted above, should always be spoken as if it’s italicized. Otherwise, what’s the point? The fiery meaning of hell is subdued when it is said without the proper attending passion. What’s a hell without fire? North Dakota. So if you’re not going to give this devilish word its due, you might as well say just say Fargo for all the feeling your improper usage will evoke.

Fargo.
Hell.
Fargo.
HELL.
Feel the difference?

The word “fuck”, unfortunately, has entered the mainstream. It’s unfortunate not because it’s not a useful (and even occasionally beautiful word) but because its use among people who are not really cool enough to say it has diminished its rebellious nature. Face it — we don’t want to hear pubescent teens or Bill Gates say fuck. Never mind that they’ve done “it” — the word is rarely about “it” anymore — and it’s certainly not about wearing hideous jeans halfway down your ass, or even dominating a world market.

The word “fuck” is about being ethically outraged, or full of righteous passion, anger, or emotion. Losing a video game, or being found guilty of monopolizing, hardly qualifies as ethically outrageous or righteously passionate, angry or emotional. Uncool people, of course, don’t know these things, so they totally fuck up a perfectly good word, and sound like complete idiots when they do.

Now that I’ve shared rule #1 of the word “fuck” — that you should be cool enough and passionate enough to use it properly — let’s move on to rule #2. It’s fucking. Not fuckin’. The full ing is crucial to proper usage, which is? Let’s review — to express a state of being ethically outraged, or full of righteous passion, anger, or emotion. Without the “ing” this otherwise strong word loses much of its muscle and becomes weaker, watered-down slang.

One word that should never precede the word “fucker” is mother. It is just not cool. (However, if the pre-fix comes from outside the family, such as “ex-lover fucker”, or “sperm donor fucker” than this usage is entirely appropriate).

Oh no, here it comes. . .the oft-despised, much maligned “C” word. Like the infamous “N” word its usage should belong exclusively to those who were once the targets of the name-callers, in this case women. Women should own the “C” word with all due authority and do with it what they will. Most will choose to use it sparingly, some will choose to integrate it into safe and sane playing, and others will shriek loudly and cover their ears at the mere mention of the word. It’s best to use this vibrant, powerful word only in select, known company.

Shit. Please don’t make a habit out of saying it — any more than once or twice a day usage goes beyond earthy good humor to redneck overkill. The only cool redneck woman is in a song, and she — according to Gretchen Wilson — ain’t no high class broad. No one wants to be the pride of Dublin, TX anyway, unless they’re from Dublin and have no plans to go anywhere else in life.

Bitch. Now here’s a word that women have tried to own with pride. Meredith Brooks wrote a lovely, popular song about it, and there’s even a feminist magazine that has the word on its masthead, but the co-opting of this verbal complement to “bastard”, and especially its duality of use as a squawking, backbiting verb — “he had the nerve to bitch about it” — has left women as the renters, rather than the true owners of their favorite cuss word.

I say if you can’t really own it, give it away to those in need. Namely, men. Not just our lovely, needy gay male friends, but men in general need this word. “Bastard”, as it were, is underused and understated, and doesn’t really cover the full spectrum of male diva behavior — such as starting a war with a third world country in order to make astronomical profits for your friends, or lying to millions of unsuspecting consumers about the safety of certain products, or looting hundreds of millions of dollars from investors in order to live a lavish, if unlawful, lifestyle. Yes, Bush and Cheney are bitches. Slick lobbyists and their predominately male political allies are bitches. Dennis Kozlowski is a bitch.

See? We can give the word “bitch” away, and let them keep “bastard” while we’re at it, and suffer no ill effect. Let’s choose, instead, to own a word like Goddess, which has no negative connotations, and which truly reflects the spiritual and aesthetic beauty of women. Like you.

Love Always,

Mom

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The Power of Venus, Revisited

Posted on 04/03/2008 by Jane Devin

A decade or so ago, she flipped her blonde hair back with a wave, adjusted her sunglasses, and leaned forward for the customary hug goodbye. I thought, as I often did, how very stunning my sister was, how elegant, and how unlike me, from her long, thin legs to her alabaster skin. Dianne was beautiful from birth on, as if she had won some feminine lottery that gave her Venus-like features, and assured she would never have to stoop to changing her own tires or emptying her trash.

She evoked her charms early, and employed them well, even with me. Why did I so often do her chores? I don’t know, it’s a mystery. I also borrowed her perfectly clean and pressed clothes on occasion – never without being unmercifully caught – and put up with a hundred humiliations that only an older and far more savvy sister could dole out. And I loved her, deeply, with a wide-eyed awe, a steadfast loyalty, and just a twinge of pain.

I was the Mars to her Venus. A skinny Amazon tomgirl with chapped lips, skinned knees, and untied shoes. An outdoor warrior who conquered rivers on oversized truck inner-tubes, and who hammered and nailed neighborhood trash into girls-only forts, which I defended with a mean right arm and a pile of rocks. When I was stuck indoors, I read books – tons and tons of books – none of which ever sated my need for definitive answers but which, instead, were always something of a tease.

While I was flexing my wiry little muscles outdoors or losing myself in some fictional adventure, Dianne was honing the feminine arts. She could dance, she could sew, she could knit. She knew how to apply makeup and what colors and fabrics matched. She grew mysteries, flowers, and curvy hips. She knew which fork to use, and how to properly address a letter to the President. Her room was a fortress of all things femme and wonderful, and on those rare occasions I was invited in, I reveled in her warmth and artistry.

I protected Dianne many times, with all the fierceness of a sister and all the strength of an Amazon-minor. In return, she taught me gentleness and social graces, and how to properly apply mascara to my barely-there lashes – a lesson I quickly forgot.

Anyway, on a warm summer day during the late nineties, she leaned her perfumed neck down and I felt her breath in my ear. I was sure that what was coming next was the typical “I will miss you,” “take care of yourself.” Instead, my sister – someone I have unfortunately known only from a distance since we were teens – whispered in her elegant voice,

“Remember to control your passion”.

I was stunned. I couldn’t even come up with an appropriate response. The comebacks came later, hours later, as I rolled along the desolate Nevada highway in my Ford F-150, blasting Joni Mitchell, lighting cigarette after cigarette (after weeks of smokelessness), and yes – feeling kind of passionate.

Eventually, I let those words go, although for months afterwards I found myself checking my level of excitability, wondering if perhaps my enthusiasm for certain subjects would be viewed as something wild and unrestrained.

Like other minor crises of confidence, this one passed over time. I went on with my rustic existence some 2000 miles away, and shook off the decades-long, on-and-off feeling of being somewhat undone by my Venus sister who, in the glowing light of her perfect femininity, could still make me feel as rough and unpolished as the rocks I used to sling through the fields – or who could just as effortlessly stoke the fire of sisterly love and make me feel eminently cherished.

Enter Dorothea. No, that’s not her real name, but that’s not the point. The point is Venus Redux. Not a love interest, just someone I love. A sister of some differential soul I hold in esteem. Another feminine beauty, with dramatic eyes and sculpted bones whom, if I was a painter, I would never stop painting. I would stand there, in the shadows of my sun-drenched studio, and capture every fleck of light and wisp of mood, with a glass of deep red Cabernet in one hand and the finest sable brush in the other.

If I was a carpenter, I would build her the most beautiful house in the world. I would haul up the most perfect river stone, and make her an exquisite room with high ceilings and large cathedral windows topped in stained glass. Red, blue, and yellow prisms of light would play along ancient stones and dance on dark wood floors. There would be a fireplace fit for a castle, and live, luscious plants growing everywhere. A plush rug, handwoven by the wisest and most artistic of crones, who would tell a woman’s story in shades of red – royal red, blood red, carmine and rose red, the flame red of Mars, and the brilliant red of passion.

And if I were a writer. Well.

I would tell the story of Venus’s great natural power. The way the women of Venus shine and stun, and burn and inspire, and lift-up and set-down whole other spirits, without ever really knowing, let alone analyzing, the effect they have on others. I would speak of their innate love of luxury and beauty, and their propensity to have and know only the finest things in life, from clothes to art to friends. I would speak of their womanly gifts, their flair and artistry, and their ability to set others at ease or on edge with their sharp wit and eloquent tongues.

I would speak of the comfort they provide, and the tantalizing meals they create from Nature’s great bounty — beautiful plates laden with nourishing food, deep bowls of hot, hearty soup – the warm and gracious invitations they extend to others to be nurtured at their table.

And, of course, I would speak of their power to heal.

Dorothea, my friend and sister of the differential soul, invited me over to her new 100 year old abode to paint a few weeks ago. When I arrived, I learned it was not just a room that needed work, but an entire house, with old window frames that had to be sanded, and ceilings that needed to be scraped, and walls that needed to be patched. Somehow, the thought of all that work made me ecstatic. I would get to help build a castle after all, even if it was in the blemished heart of the Uptown district. More importantly, I would get to spend all that time basking in the radiance of all things Venus. There would be a lot of laughter, an abundance of good food, and of course, a few minor but humorous arguments, because the Venus soul is very particular about what goes where and how it goes, and passionate Amazons aren’t exactly short of their own ideas.

It was a blast. On the last night, while the last of the paint dried, we sat out on the balcony, which I was pleased to note would need to be re-stained in the summer. It was a somewhat chilly night, and a blanket she made covered my shoulders. We were sipping warm wine from crystal glasses just sprung from their packing crate, and talking about nothing in particular, when she turned to me with her big green eyes and tilted her beautiful head.

“What?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Seriously, you can’t change your mind on the bathroom again.” I had painted that bathroom four times, once in primer, then in some shade of orange, and then twice in light blue. Bathrooms and kitchens are a bear to paint.

She didn’t laugh, and I was already figuring out how much primer I’d need in my head.

“Someone is needed to slay the dragons,” she finally said, “and you’re my favorite dragon slayer. I just love the passion you bring to everything you do.”

It was, far and away, the best compliment I have ever received. I remembered then what my sister said to me so many years ago, and when I told Dorothea the story she laughed. “Control your passion. As if. I can’t even fathom that possibility in you.”

Did I say Venus Redux? I meant Redone. Rebirthed. Healed. I took home a quart of Lentil soup, a hand-knit blanket, and an abundance of refreshed Amazon pride — even if my shoes were untied and my clothes were covered in paint.

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