Libby's Journal - August

August 1

Yesterday afternoon was one of those times when you can tell it is getting ready to rain but you don't know if it actually will or not. It had been hot most of the day but then around sundown the wind started picking up and there started to be heat lightning. For me, heat lightning is like rainbows -- it doesn't happen very often so when it does you should stop and enjoy it.

So me and Mona sat outside together on the cushioned chaise lounge chair which is designed for one person but we manage to fit on it together. We had been in and out of the pool all afternoon and we were both naked as we cuddled on the chair watching the heat lightning and feeling the breeze.

Then I felt a raindrop on my skin, and then another and another. They were big fat drops and smelled of dust. I got up and jumped up and down and danced and Mona did too and then I started running and she chased after me and I ran out to the field of buffalo grass which is wonderfully soft and you never have to mow it and it is so soft to lay down in. Mona grabbed me by the hips and swung me to the ground and we rolled partway down the hill in the rain. I'm not gonna describe exactly what we did next, but it was Mona's favorite position for Serious Sex. She was ravenously into The Moment, but it was really raining hard now and I had to put my hands on my face to keep it out of my nose. And then ka-BLAM there was a huge bolt of lightning that was way too close for my comfort and because it was so close the boom and flash were simultaneous. Well, that kinda broke the mood and we ran back to the house.

This morning it was still very wet outside and I went out early to check my gardens. Some flowers had gotten beaten down and I gently lifted them up again. Over in my vegetable gardens I have a stone birdbath that I had neglected to fill and I knew it was bone dry yesterday, but now it was filled with rainwater. I put my fingers in it and then crossed myself, and when I touched my chest I felt a drip of water roll from my fingers down my stomach to my leg and I just felt so blessed to be alive and to be exactly where I was on this beautiful planet.

I was raised Catholic so crossing myself is just one of those little rituals that I still do even though I don't believe Jesus came to Earth to die for my sins. Even if Jesus existed (which is debatable), and even if he actually said a lot of the words attributed to him in the gospels, there's a huge leap from what Jesus is quoted as having said to what "Christianity" became. For example, look at what Jesus is quoted as saying about homosexuality (nothing at all), versus what he said about the accumulation of great wealth (that it is "easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter Heaven"). Yet most Christian churches condemn me for being gay, and although they try to get donations from their wealthy congregants they certainly don't condemn them for being wealthy.

And yet I go to Catholic mass, cross myself and take the Eucharist. I do those things in communion with what I consider the real church -- which is all life on earth, and perhaps also the continuing Spirit of all life that has ever been. When I take the Eucharist, I don't believe the bread and wine are Christ's body and blood (which is kind of a freaky thing to believe). To me, they are symbols of OUR body and OUR blood because we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

Anyways, my garden is on it's late-summer explosion of abundance. Every day I eat food from my gardens -- tomatoes, green beans, watermelon, pesto, cucumbers, squash, etc. The pumpkin vines are sprawling everywhere. My green beans needed harvesting again and I climbed in between the wire fencing that they grow on, which is taller than me. Whenever Mona helps me pick greenbeans she gets all itchy from the leaves and has to take a shower, but they don't bother me. I guess it is part of my "Amazing Nature Girl" powers because things like that never bother me. Bugs don't bite me, I don't get poison ivy, I don't get itchy. I rarely even have to use mosquito spray in the summer.

* * * * *

August 4

I am starting to cut down my sunflowers. I like it when they bow their heads, but soon after that, they start to fade, so I cut them and put them in heavy vases in the house for a little while longer. I have cosmos and black-eyed susans in the same vases. When the sunflowers start to wither, I will put them in empty clay pots on a shelf in my little greenhouse and let them dry in the sun, and then I will dig out the seeds with my fingers and put them in a jar to feed the birds.

We are at the time of year when I am eating tomatoes every day. I have lots of green beans and carrots I have been making pesto to freeze for the winter. We bought a bunch of blueberries when we were up north, and I froze them in pint containers so we can enjoy them as long as possible.I like the idea of eating things when they are in season, but freezing stuff is nice too.

Mornings are my favorite time. I often wake up at dawn when it is just beginning to get light, and sometimes I get out of bed while Mona is still asleep and go outside and sit quietly in the grass listening to the birds. Then I come back to bed and, if I am lucky, Mona will wake up a little early and decide to get frisky. While she is in the shower, I come downstairs to my kitchen and make coffee for her and tea for me, and then I walk down to the road to get the newspaper. I usually don't have to open the security gate because both the mailbox and the newspaper box are built into the fence and open on both sides. Sometimes the newspaper delivery person is a substitute who doesn't know the routine, and instead of putting it in the box, they just toss it on the driveway, sometimes way down by the road. Then, I have to open the gate and go out to get it, peeking both ways to make sure no one is coming down the road. Only once to my knowledge have I been seen by a guy on a bicycle who was zipping along and wearing all the spandex bicycle gear. We saw each other at the same time, and we both just smiled and said good morning.

After Mona goes to work, I tidy up the kitchen and then sit outside a bit drinking my tea and reading some of the paper, and lately I have watered the gardens then too. Some days I have places I go, like to the church pantry or the library where I volunteer, but other days I have nothing I really have to do, except my housework and whatever little projects I have created for myself. If it is hot, I dunk myself in the pool, and then I don't dry off as I go about my other business. Sometimes I nap in the middle of the day. I shower in the early afternoon and do my shaving then, so I am nice and smooth for special kisses when Mona gets home from work.

* * * * *

August 18

We just got back from Minnesota where we visited Mona's parents and spent the night with her old college pal Emma. We stopped at Emma's place first, and it was a rainy day late in the day when we arrived.

They have a very very interesting home, but I wasn't able to fully appreciate it that first evening because the rain kept us indoors and it was soon dark. But I did see that it was a partly underground home, built on a hill with the ground level up at about two feet from the ceiling all around. The whole house was built hugging into the hill, and there were skylights everywhere. But, um, they leaked. There were three spots where the heavy rain was just dripping right inside, and Emma had big houseplants positioned under each to catch the drip. She is a musician and used to tour with various bands, but then recently she met her soulmate, married him, and had a baby, Louise, who is now four months old.

Emma's husband is a nice guy, but I've forgotten what he does for a living. The next morning, after he went to work, we got to see how cool their leaky house really is. It is a "passive solar" house built in the early 70s by some guy who was not an expert and did a few things wrong (thus the leaky skylights), but basically he got it right. The house is snug into a hillside facing south, and the whole roof is a series of skylights, while most of the house is below ground level and stays cool without air conditioning.

And coolest of all, you can walk outside onto a wooden terrace that is built on top of the skylights. It is all white-painted wood and wisteria trellises and even vegetable gardening. They have tomatoes and cucumbers growing right there on the roof, and you can look up through the skylights and see red tomatoes and flowers and so on. It was just simply amazing to me.

I also enjoyed holding Louise and watching Emma nurse her. She was wearing a t-shirt, and instead of lifting it, she just took it off and nursed her shirtless. If you know me at all, you know that nursing a baby is something I long to do.

All my life, I have wanted to be a mother and to breastfeed. In fact, when I was about 17 and my oldest sister had one of her first babies, I think it was Daniel. I remember I was at her house holding the baby while she was in the other room doing something, and Daniel was opening his mouth looking for the breast. I knew, of course, that I had no milk to give, but I just wanted a few seconds of the experience, and then I would take the baby to my sister. I thought it would feel nice, but it was actually painful, and immediately he had a fit cause he didn't get what he was expecting. So I rushed him into the other room and thrust him at my sister, who, of course, did not know (until I told her years later) what I had tried to do.

But anyways . . . so we had this totally blissful day hanging out on Emma's roof. Louise slept most of the time downstairs in her room (we could peek at her through one of the skylights, over which grew a cluster of daisies and black-eyed susans.

Although we had not met before, Emma knew all about me from Mona, and so she knew I was a naturist and told me I was welcome to make myself comfortable during our visit. People often suggest that to me, but I usually don't do it. For one thing, most people's properties are not private enough, and besides that, I don't do it around children and husbands. Plus, I generally don't do it unless I really know the person well, which I did not in this case, but I felt such a positive connection to her that it seemed right, and since hubby was at work and she made the suggestion while she was still topless herself and on her way downstairs to put Louise in bed.

So I took my shirt off at least and waited to see if she'd still be shirtless when she came back upstairs, and she was, so I went ahead and undressed all the way, and we three sat in the sun and just listened to nature for a while. Mona even took her shirt off.

After a while, Mona asked Emma if she would play us one of her songs, and she went and got her guitar and played and sang out there on the roof. She has a lot of songs she wrote herself, but she also played some tunes by Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris, and I started singing along with her. I was blessed with a pretty good singing voice, but I can't read music or play an instrument. Pretty soon, we were all three singing, and Emma got her songbook so we'd know the words to everything. It was great, I wish we'd thought to record ourselves -- but then in a way that would have lessened "The Moment", because you know Moments are fleeting and spiritually blessed. It is almost always best just to let them play out without trying to capture them (like dashing off to the house to get your camera to take a picture of a rainbow -- just stand and experience the rainbow!).

We left her house late that afternoon and drove over to Mona's parents' house, where we stayed a couple more days. I get along very well with them and call them "Mom" and "Dad." Mona came out as gay at about age 13, not just to her parents but to kids at school and everything. She was tough and defiant and pretty much dared anyone to hassle her over it. So by the time I entered the picture, they had long since gotten used to one of their kids being gay (and of course society in general has been changing on that topic), and they were thrilled when we told them about wanting to have a baby together.

Because they live in Minnesota, where the weather is often problematic at Christmas, they now have their main family gathering in the summer. Mona's twin brothers were there, as was Molly (who flew because her work schedule didn't allow enough time to ride along with us). Mona's mother has bright red hair like her daughters, though perhaps a notch or two less radiant), and her father has more dark auburn hair -- which the sons inherited. In some light, it just looks brown, but when they are out in the sun, you can see all the red mixed in.

"The boys," as they are nearly always referred to, are identical, but I've learned to tell them apart. They are very entertaining to be around because they are funny and finish each other's sentences while telling stories.

This was my second year at this event, so I had met everyone before. It's a fun family with a lot of roughhousing among the siblings. And of course, there was a driveway basketball game in which Mona and Molly competed against the boys (they actually do have names: Rob and Dan). Like Mona, they played basketball in college, but we're not as successful as their sister (who led her school to the Final Four). The boys have a considerable height advantage (they are 6-4) and won the game by a couple of points because they got all the rebounds, but Mona frequently dribbled around them to score before they could react. Molly did not take the competition as seriously as Mona, but contributed with several swishing three-pointers.

The boys each have girlfriends, but are apparently in no hurry to settle down, and Molly has made it clear she has no interest in motherhood. So, "the 'rents," as Mona calls her parents, are quite enthusiastic about me and Mona's pregnancy effort. It is, perhaps, ironic that they have four children, but their best chance for grandchildren is with their gay kid. Which would be SO wonderful if it could ever actually happen, but lately it seems like it probably won't.

I should say "I" decided, not "we." This was my decision. In part, it is because, well, it isn't working anyways. But also because Jack has recently become involved with someone, and I'm afraid that this might be in their way. Jack has been seeing a woman named Leslie back in the area where he has still been living part of the time when he is not here. Jack renovates historic homes and still has some commitments up there, and he met this woman, and they are hitting it off pretty good. And I am happy for him and want it to succeed.

I admit I have had mixed feelings about the prospect of Jack falling in love with someone and settling down. I want that for him, but I fear it too because he might have to make choices and I know he would have to choose his life-mate over a mere friend, even an old and dear friend, if it came to that.

Not that I'm saying she has pushed him to that. I have no reason to think that she has, and Jack does not get pushed easily. He is independent and has always been his own boss -- and he always does what he thinks is right, even when no one is looking. I have tremendous respect for Jack, and I appreciate his commitment to me and our baby-making effort.

But we have TRIED for a long time, and I don't want his stubborn loyalty to me to get in the way of a new, emerging relationship which could be The One for him.

And I am willing to accept the possibility that while he is destined to be a father, perhaps he is not destined to be the father of MY child.

Of course, it is possible he could be the father of both, but if not, then so be it. It is very important to me that Jack be happy in life, and I don't want him sacrificing anything in order to tend to me. I have my life-mate in Mona and so I can't offer Jack what Leslie can. I need to be secondary to that, which is why I decided we are taking this three-month break from the pregnancy effort. Perhaps it should be a permanent break, but for now, it is just a temporary thing.

This will give them a chance to work on their relationship without this distraction, and I can use the time to think about what I want to do next anyways.

So . . . that's my news. Such as it is.

* * * * *
August 20

Okay everybody, I appreciate all the calls and emails, but I'd rather not make a big deal about it. Nobody DIED or anything. I mean, I appreciate it and all, but you know.

Anyways, I'm not even fretting over it right now because I am just feeling too good to worry about it. Usually, I feel my manic periods building, but this one happened practically overnight, and I have SO much energy and feel basically powerful and in control and so on. Not that I am generally any more in control at these times, but it feels that way. I hardly slept last night cause I just didn't feel like it, because I have a new ART PROJECT. This time I am making a mosaic top to that old farmer's table that has been sitting out on the screened-in porch all this time. If you have never seen it, it is very cool, an OLD big table that was probably built by the farmer who lived here decades ago. It was in a work room when we moved in and had been used as a work bench so the top was totally ruined, not just scratches and gouges and stuff but paint spilled and nails into it ant so on -- totally not salvageable, but the rest of it the legs and such was wonderful so what I finally decided to do -- like two days ago -- was to cover the top in a mosaic tile design.

I got the idea when I was moving some stuff in the basement and knocked over this stack of yellow tiles left over from when the bathroom was done, and a couple of them broke, and in my mind they looked like petals -- the shards looked like sunflower petals. And NO, I was not stoned, just kinda grooving on my own hormones, so I took the tiles upstairs to the back porch and swept everything off the table, and started breaking tiles to make sunflower petals. Cut myself also, but I just bandaged it up and went on. When Mona came home, I had completely lost track of the time and didn't know it was dinner time. Heck, I didn't even know it had been lunch time, and suddenly realized I was starving, so she made omelettes while I jabbered about my great new idea, which I still think is great. This morning, after mona went to work, I drove into town and bought a bunch of new tiles at the hardware store, but I also found some interesting shapes of brass and some polished wood -- AND I remembered my rocks I collected on the beach in Michigan last year, because they were so perfectly flat and so would be ideal for this purpose. I KNEW those would come in handy one of these days.

* * * * *

August 23

I don't have much to say today, but I wanted to apologize for my flippant response to your kind calls and emails about the pregnancy thing. I want to say thank you, I do really really appreciate your thoughts. But I am not worrying about this too much. Things will be fine, I'm sure. And maybe the right thing for me to do would be to adopt some special needs child who really needs me. That would be the noble thing to do. But I am not all that noble. I'm basically selfish, and I desperately want the experience of being pregnant, and the experience of giving birth, and the experience of breastfeeding. And I want to look at my baby and see my eyes or my fingers or my smile.

* * * * *

Mom and Anna visited for a few days (because they decided I probably needed a little extra mothering right about now). They got here over the weekend, so we had a big Sunday dinner with lots of our friends. Some people are embarrassed by their parents and are reluctant to show them off, but not me. I am really proud of them because they are both so beautiful and poised and self-confident and well-informed. They both have the natural elegance of Grace Kelly while doing ordinary household things. My mother can look like a princess while cleaning the toilet -- wearing long yellow gloves, of course.

Anyways, we had a great time with people over on Sunday, but then on Monday everyone else went to work and I had Mom and Anna all to myself. It was a warm day, and they skinnydipped with me in the pool. Although neither of them has the nudist urges that I do, they are comfortable in their bodies and love the fact that we have so much private land.

So the three of us were lounging naked in the pool for a while in the morning, and then we were in the kitchen making a salad and toast for lunch, which we carried outside to the patio table. Mom and Anna are both in their mid-50s, but still slender and fit. Even gravity seems to be giving them a pass.

While we were eating, the sky covered over and we felt a few random raindrops. The weather forecast called for a cloudy afternoon with a chance of scattered showers, so we decided to go on a hike. This would not be their first naked hike with me, but last time we went down to the wetlands and waded in the pond where the creek spills in. This time, we went up the hill all the way to the fence overlooking the interstate.

It sprinkled a little on the way up, but as we began our descent, the rain came down steadily for a while, which none of us minded. But then it stopped and the sun came out and dried the rainwater on our skin. This would have been perfect if it had not also become hotter and steamy humid. As we made our way through the stretch of open prairie, our skin got wet again from our own perspiration.

When we got back to the house, we chugged water and flung ourselves into the pool again. And since it was by now mid-afternoon, we decided it was not too early for vodka tonics. We air-dried again on the lounge chairs in the shade and then decided it was time for a nap. When we got to our somewhat unsteady feet, Momma started singing some song from their past and they danced a little -- and in a flash I could picture them dancing naked at Woodstock. They actually did that and I always reference that fact when introducing them to friends because you just can't beat that as a Cool Parent factoid. Momma says she's afraid that will be the first line in her obituary, which of course it will be.

So we all went upstairs, and they had their arms around each other as I watched them go down the hall to the guest room. I went to my own room and flopped down on the bed. Drowsiness was overtaking me, but I fought it a while, hoping perhaps I might hear something special again, but I quickly dropped off to sleep, imagining my cool, beautiful mothers in the bloom of their youth dancing naked at Woodstock.

* * * * *

Mona and I have always enjoyed each other's sweat -- and in fact get quite turned on by it -- and I used to assume that all couples felt this way. However, I have learned that not everyone agrees. So if you, dear reader, find this topic icky, I suggest you skip to the next entry.

Sometimes Mona and I get sweaty together while dancing or having sex, and that is nice, but for some reason, we both find it even more sexy when only one of us is sweaty and the other one gets to share that sweat when we embrace while nude.

Mona does most of her sweating during competitive sporting events, particularly basketball. I go to her games and like to hug her afterwards, smooshing my face into her wet neck. Although hugging Mona in that situation is a turn-on for me, we are both fully dressed and in public, so that is as far as it goes.

But when we are home alone, any random sweaty hug is likely to become sexual. On humid summer days when I am working in the gardens, I will dunk myself in the pool once or twice while I am still working on my project, but when I am all done, I just spray the dirt off my hands and feet and go inside sweaty and head for the shower. If I am lucky, Mona will intercept me, having stripped off her own clothes when she saw me coming inside. When we embrace, our bodies slip and slide together as her dry skin rubs against my wet skin. This experience is such an aphrodisiac to us both that we will soon be having sex, if not in our bedroom, then somewhere along the way.

Lately, however, there has been a new aspect of this. Because I have been off Depakote for our apparently futile pregnancy quest, my bipolar range has been swinging a bit wider recently. Not so much on the depression side (knock wood), but on the mania side. It's still pretty manageable, and I do generally enjoy that feeling, but often I can't sleep well, and we both know that if I don't get enough sleep, things can spiral.

I wrote in an earlier entry that sometimes, when I couldn't sleep, I would slip out of bed and go downstairs to dance silently. When Mona realized I was doing that -- and that it worked -- she suggested I do it just before bedtime instead. Not every night, necessarily, but she can tell when I'm too hyped up. Around 11 p.m., she will put on fast dance music, and we will dance together at first. But once I am in the groove, she will go do other end-of-day tasks as she keeps an eye on me. When she thinks enough time has gone by, she will bring me a glass of water, and I will stop and gulp it down.

By this point, Mona will be undressed and ready for bed. We will embrace, and she will rub her body against mine, sharing whatever sweat I have worked up. Even though this still turns us both on, our mindset is different in this situation, and instead of triggering frenzied sex, it will be much more low-key. We will just go to bed, and she will give me an orgasm or two, usually not wanting one of her own. And then I will sleep.

* * * * *

August 30

Well, that was working for a while, but now sometimes I wake up at 2 a.m. and can't get back to sleep. It's not usually a problem because my brain is just busy grooving on ideas for some project or artwork that I'm obsessing on at that particular moment. But sometimes my manic brain starts churning on negative things, like what has been happening recently with the baby project . . . and with Jack. I'm admittedly having a hard time with all of that.

When Mona left for work, she made me promise I would try to nap, and I said I would, but I knew first I needed to burn some energy in a healthy way, which meant going on a long hike. I put on socks and my good walking shoes, grabbed a ball cap, and set out -- and immediately I started feeling better. There has been on-and-off rain the past several days, and the earth under my feet was squishy, and all around me the trees were so green and wet and dripping. I decided on my longest walk, which basically goes along the interior periphery of our property, but set back enough that I won't be seen from the road. It's a long walk and takes a few hours.

After a half an hour or so it started to rain again, and I was glad of it because I love rain. I love the whole IDEA of rain -- that water invisibly evaporates into the atmosphere and then falls back down on us in drops! The Goddess of Earth sure has clever ideas!

A gap opened in the clouds, and suddenly the sun was shining directly on me through the rain, and I looked around, hoping to see a rainbow. Although I was out in the open at that point, there were thick woods to the west, which was where it would be. If it was there, I couldn't see it. But somebody probably did, and it was a beautiful moment anyways because the sun was reflecting off of a zillion raindrops and the air around me glowed brilliantly. It was so exhilarating. I put my arms in the air and twirled around and around, taking it in while it lasted. After just a minute or so, the clouds snapped shut again, and the rain came down a little more heavily.

I was about 45 minutes into my hike when the rain started coming down hard, and there started to be some pretty impressive thunder and lightning. That didn't bother me much because it's still just water, and I am comfortable with my odds on getting struck by lightning.

I was actually kinda grooving on it because I like weather and I like being OUT IN weather. Still, it made for a long slog because, as it got worse, I was hunched over and just plowing through it. The wind took my ball cap, and I tried to chase it, but it got caught in a tree.

Yes, I did reach the point where I was reconsidering my objectives for the day. I didn't NEED to complete this hike. I could just go home and have a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately, by the time I reached this epiphany, I was way up on the hill by the fence overlooking the highway and the wind was practically knocking me off my feet.

Jack's house was the closest shelter, and I fought my way there. I knew he wasn't home, but I also knew I could get in. Not only does he not lock his door, his door does not even have a lock, except a latch on the inside that he says he uses at night to keep the raccoons from waltzing in.

When I finally got there, I let myself in and stood dripping in his darkened living room. There were no lights on (he doesn't have electricity), but the front of the house is all glass, so it would normally be well-lit lit that time of day. I sat at his wooden table and took off my shoes and sodden socks. I felt exhausted, so I climbed the stairs to his little loft bedroom and crawled into his bed. It smelled like him, and I fell asleep.

When I woke, a couple hours later, I had that weird feeling when you don't quite know who you are and what's real. I knew it was Jack's place, but for a few seconds, I thought I lived there with him. Although it had been years since we'd routinely shared a bed, my brain remembered the familiarity of that and presented it to me as if it were my current reality. I was trying to remember what time he'd be home when my brain finally caught up with its various whirring and clicking processes and informed me that no, I did not live here.

My socks were still wet so I carried them and my shoes and went barefoot as I left Jack's house and walked down the hill in the now-sprinkling rain. At my own house, I climbed in bed and slept some more until I felt Mona getting in naked beside me. I was surprised the whole day had gone by and apologized to her for not making dinner. Mona stroked my hair and tears came to her eyes as she said, "I don't care whether I come home to dinner, Libby. I just want to come home to you."