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Change

March 26th, 2013
Took this in Fort Ann, NY.

Took this in Fort Ann, NY.

I’ve been going through some of my old articles on various blogs and publications to get some idea of who I used to be. The way I put that seems overly dramatic, but truth be told, in the past two years, my opinions have changed so much through experience, research, and conversations that I really am a different person today than I was then.

For example, there’s a woman named Lori who writes for SexIs with whom I have a lot in common. She built a bit of an audience with a series on her life as a stripper in the French Quarter, and she’s very open about her religion. Lori is Jewish, and she practices family purity, which requires a woman to immerse herself in a mikvah after her monthly cycle.

Last year, a Christian woman happened upon the idea of ritual impurity, and how it relates to the idea of “dirty menstruation”, and she submitted an article to SexIs about how sexist the practices seemed to her. Minutes after the article was live, my inbox was filled with emails expressing offense, and disappointment. Jewish women, and the people who were friends with them, felt Jewish people were being persecuted for their beliefs on a site that claimed to be based on not just tolerance, but acceptance as well.

I took the article down, and started making some of my own inquiries into the subject. And at first, I began to jump to all the conclusions the author had. This just confused me more because I’d read Lori’s articles about her time as a stripper, and her opinions on women’s rights, and this “family purity” thing didn’t sound like something she’d get down with. So I gave up researching on my own, and asked her to explain it to me.

Turns out, if you eschew your own opinions long enough to listen to the description of someone who actually practices family purity, your mind opens. I find this is true for many things. So these days, instead of flying off the handle with my own perception, I do what I can to find out all sides of a subject. If I’m still pissed, then (and only then) I express my opinion.

That’s just one change.

In the fall of 2009, bloggers on EdenCafe wrote about things they loved, among other things. I submitted my own article about how much I loved Sundays. We were living in an upstairs apartment in the ghetto, long before the trouble with the neighbors started, and it was a crisp fall Sunday morning.

I sat at the window staring out for a while before M sent me to grab us some coffee from one of the corner stores. And when I stepped outside, I marveled at how quiet it was.

It was always quiet on Sundays in our old neighborhood. People partied till the sun came up Friday and Saturday night, sometimes without stopping on Saturday. By the time Sunday rolled around, they’d all crashed, and the only people running around were those of us who would much rather enjoy the peacefulness of Sunday than spend it snoring.

I’d dart across the street in a t-shirt and running pants—shivering and cursing myself the whole way—and grab us some coffee, and maybe a danish, and then we’d snuggle in for the day. Usually at our computers with World of Warcraft. The phone never rang. No one ever knocked on our door. The rest of the block was holed up inside sleeping or snuggling like us.

One Monday, after my post was published, we were talking to a friend, and he complained that his Sunday was hectic.

“I don’t know what’s going on with these people,” he said. “Everyone knows on Sunday I rest. No negativity, no work, no nothing. If you come over, you chill. Period.”

And I laughed out loud as I voiced my agreement. I thought it was just me!

Sundays are still peaceful. Hell, this past Sunday, we spent the day listening to Ambient Nights and alternating between laying on the bed and sitting at our computers. M worked on a fractal, and I wrote a blog post. We cuddled, and kissed, and fucked, and just generally enjoyed each other’s company. There was no negativity, no work, no nothing.

I guess some things never change.

<3

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  1. March 26th, 2013 at 11:01 | #1

    Rayne: Change: Turns out, if you eschew your own opinions long enough to listen to the description of s… http://t.co/OykC0qgJ19 #slave

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