Skip to main content

Tenderness came crashing


The moment--the surprising, amazing, moment--his lips brushed mine, I was transported by his tenderness.   How long had it really been since I had experienced tenderness alongside physical closeness?

I didn't know and I was suddenly drunk on sweetness; appreciation; gentleness; and feeling wanted.

Tenderness crashed in on me.  And as I write, I realize that feels like an oxymoron because how could tenderness be crashing if it's tender?

And yet so much like the void of a vacuum; of a black hole in space; the absence of something is static until the presence of that same thing comes thundering in and suddenly it is a roaring revelation of understanding and feeling.

And at each step into the moments past that kiss, tenderness came first. Tenderness was all of it but not only it. It was everything I had almost forgotten I needed; it was nothing I had had in so many years.


Comments

Recent Popular Posts

Asshole in the woodpile

This is not a friendly, emotional, or reflective post. Nope.  This is directed at the ASSHOLE stalking my personal blog while all the while thinking that I am writing for YOU.  Imagine the ego. Since you can no longer leave bile-spewing comments on my blog itself, you are now trying to stalk me from WhatsApp, texting me condescending opinions about my life, which you have no other information about. Get over your infatuation with me, and what I am doing, and how I am enjoying my life.  Go find your own life and happiness, and don't concern yourself with me.  I am happy. And, just to be clear, I have enjoyed a number of men since my marriage ended.  I have fallen in love, and I have never looked back.  It has not been hard to meet men who want me.  I can happily say I am still friends with a number of the men I've recently dated.  They are ALL younger than me, some by quite a bit. Only a NARCISSIST would be concerning themselves with my personal li...

Running before the wind

Ayala Cove, at Angel Island I miss the salt air.  I miss hauling all our duffel bags and crates of picnic supplies and extra clothes across the parking lot; down the gangway.  I remember flip-flopping along rickety, briny smelling docks, knowing where the weak spots were and avoiding them, to our beloved sailboat.  I say, "sailboat," though there were many to love through the years. There was the O'Day, which we sailed for one day only.  The O'Day fell from grace before it could be christened when, on the open ocean, just outside the Santa Cruz harbor, we smacked off a wave that opened a large hidden crack in the hull.  My father, calm as a cucumber even in the face of a nearly three-foot long crack in the hull of the boat, crawled in the open cabin, took a look, and stoically turned for the harbor.  Once the O'Day was returned, my father chose an Aurora, which was a sweet little boat of about 20 feet.  My father liked that he'd found a boat h...

Not my first rodeo

Tender people make great targets.  They seem safe and easy to injure.  Often, the assailant has seen others targeting them, and they feel emboldened by the past "evidence" that the target deserves the attacks. The fact is though, that there are people in this world who just have a huge dose of empathy and humanity which keeps them from wanting to injure another, even in the face of unreasonable or even atrocious attacks.  And being tender and kind and empathetic does not preclude a person from also being smart, strong, and well-versed in defending oneself from onslaughts of narcissism and tyranny. Over the years of my life, those tyrannous and abusive people have found that a tender person such as myself doesn't necessarily lack the chops to defend herself.  I am never one to talk about the times I win the fight.  I do not gloat.  I understand that winning "the fight" means I had to fight, and I am never proud of that.  I am never willing to advertise ...

The Lois Lane Life

I'm probably dating myself, but do you remember Superman before all the superheroes, and Superman's alter-ego Clark Kent? Clark had a love interest. It was Lois Lane. And he never fully told her everything he was doing. He always kept his secret even from her. She loved him and somewhere deep down he loved her. But he was afraid to reveal his deepest self and his truest truths to her. His secret was that he was Superman, and he was vulnerable in certain ways. He feared sharing his truth would also reveal his vulnerabilities and even though he loved her he still kept some distance by way of not disclosing who his alter-ego was. Sometimes I feel a little bit like Lois Lane. I know who his version of his Super-self is. He is not required to hide his true superhero alter-ego from the world. So, fortunately I suppose, his alter-ego and he are one and the same. Also, sweetly, I know his vulnerabilities. Perhaps not all of them. But I know many, and I know where his pain lies. But unl...