Playing Big

I was asked to be part of a woman's power circle. 10 women who will meet 10 times in 2012 to help encourage each other in our careers and lives. We are calling ourselves Playing Big.

I am honored to be a amongst these super high-achieving, powerful women. We meet in a beautiful conference room overlooking downtown SF in Embarcadero One at PixInk, my friend Ayesha's design firm that focuses on developing and marketing brands for women.

We start out sharing something that we can brag about that has happened in the last month. Then we each get a segment of time to ask for something from the group. Then we have a guest come in and talk with us about something we all want to know more about.

This month I asked for help generating comedic scenes/stories about women in the workplace, a project I'm working on with H. and J. It can be about the glass ceiling or working in the man's world or anything as long as it's funny and personal. Right away got some great scenes. If you have any ideas, please email them to me. I love this brainstorming phase.

Being with these women, even though I hardly know them, gives me strength.

One of the women has a project called Madly In Love with Me. She said something that really hit me. It's about doing less and being more. And the inner voice women have, inspired by the early feminist movement, that we can "have it all." I have talked about it here.

What is wrong with wanting it all? Nothing. I want it all.

It's the message embedded in it, though, that we must therefore DO IT ALL. We must be superhuman. Yet I'm sure, like me, you are finding it impossible to do it all and be happy.

DOING IT ALL is too much. It means doing not only what we want, but doing everything for everyone else. Where is the real person in that? How can we actually DO what we really WANT?

One day you wake up and you are 51 and you realize DOING IT ALL is making you crazy and miserable. Maybe 50% or more of what you do is making you happy. But maybe there are a bunch of things you really need to stop DOING. That's how I'm feeling. I need to cut some things out so I can BE more.

I don't have all the time in the world. My time left on this planet is limited. I gotta be judicious. I gotta figure this out.

Shameless

Not the TV series by that name, which I have never seen. Rather, Downton Abbey.  I'm not going to lie: Joe and I had a five episode binge last Saturday night, and two episodes yesterday morning and one last night. We'll finish Season 2 tonight.

I watch it because it's a naughty pleasure to peer over the covers at Downton and all its gorgeous, uptight characters. Whilst naked.

I'm here nursing Joe and Joseph, who have some kind of virulent flu. Early yesterday morning I decided since they were too sick to drive with me to LA for my Mom's 75th birthday, I would stay home, too. The idea of being in a car with two sickies for 6 or 7 hours vs. driving alone all day vs. staying in bed made my decision instant.

I had been looking forward to participating in a family gathering that I did not organize. My siblings can host a special event without my help, and I was happy to just show up and enjoy it for a change. Because let's face it, I can be a controlling bitch sometimes. I whip things into shape and some might say I can be uncompromising.

I just asked Joe what "take no prisoners" means. He said it's when you kill everyone even after your enemy has been defeated, even if they've surrendered.  Wikipedia adds,

"Take no prisoners" style indicates viewing the world in two-dimensional terms. There is no third dimension where mercy can be dealt. Instead, there is merely forward active aggression from which no one is spared. Mitigating circumstances, as in warfare, of injury or surrender do not exist in the "take no prisoners" mindset.

That's definitely NOT what I mean, or what I am like with my family. I don't think.

I think about how I used to force my younger siblings to clean the house in a game I made up called "Deadman." When I gave the command, they had to die and freeze on the floor. I would whisper detailed chore instructions in each of their ears, and when I clapped, all of them jumped up and speedily swept or washed windows or scrubbed toilets.

If only I had that much control over my husband and kids now...

Since I was in SF and not in LA celebrating my Mom's birthday, I was able to help my son Ian (19) prepare to go on his walkabout. I don't know what else to call it. He starts in Big Sur, then may head to Oregon and Washington (as a general direction) and/or to New Orleans by way of Detroit or vice versa.

I bought Ian a zero degree sleeping bag and a new pair of pants. It's this instead of college, so I felt I could give a little bit of quality if not quantity. I was willing to buy him a new tent and backpack but he declined.

These days, since the Occupy movement, Ian is conflicted about allowing me to buy him things. He's an 'anti-capitalist' yet living on the Bender dole. Not conflicted enough to get a job 'working for the Man,' but enough to set out on a WWOOFing journey. Which I totally support.

Anti-capitalism is a nice twist. I still remember the rage young Ian (age 10?) flew into at the Novato Target because I wouldn't buy him a pair of jeans he wanted. They had some logo or stupid flashy thing I was against. He really worked me hard. I did not give in, but felt terrible. Now I am stoked that he has two pairs of pants instead of just one for his journey.

I like the new Ian, the one who spends 8-12 hours a day making music and reading Non-Violent Communication. No more video games. Lots of YouTube, though. Super chill. No job. Polite. Engaged. No job.

New Ian is walking away from his music-making and dj gigs to explore being on his own, in the wild so to speak. Don't laugh. Raising boys in Bolinas...you know what I'm taking about. They are adorable and feral. They don't domesticate well, at least without a fight.

I'm still making this parenting shit up, and it may not be right at all. I may be taking the completely wrong approach. But I do like how New Ian questions things, and likes to sit around the dinner table and argue about society (while eating our home-cooked meals). I'll miss him. I'm sure he'll be back.

What am I not telling you?

I went to a group the other night. It was such a relief to meet and shamelessly talk with others like me.  Joe was with me, and he felt the same way. We all had similar stories.

For now, we'll leave it at that.

Breeze from the Past

I got a note recently from my friend Ruth whom I hadn't seen in 14 years. Joe and I met her and her husband Bill for a drink Monday night at the Intercontinental, then had an lovely dinner at the Heirloom Cafe.  It was as if no time had passed, and yet so much had happened in everyone's lives.

We met Ruth 26 years ago when we were traveling on a surf trip for 6 months in Mexico. Zoe was a newborn. It was the beginning of the trip, and we were camping on the beach in Pescadero in Baja. I still remember the blustery January day when we saw Ruth and her then boyfriend Gus on the beach. They were both amazing surfers, tall, blond, young and gorgeous. There were no other people around except a scruffy gringo refugee and a local fisherman. A few abandoned trailers. Our tents. Beautiful waves. We had coffee on the beach together sitting by our Coleman stove.

Joe, Zoe and I headed south in in our VW Squareback to San Jose del Cabos. We camped on a beach where now there are so many hotels you can't even access the sand. Then we took the ferry across to Puerto Vallarta and kept driving south to the beautiful state of Michoacan. This was in 1986. Before the internet. Surfers traveled on word-of-mouth and something called The Surf Report, a typed, single-spaced, xeroxed guide that told you which dirt roads to turn on and where it was good to camp. Joe was in search of the perfect left point and I was looking for the perfect beach.

We thought we found both in La Ticla. No people. Empty palapas and ramadas ready for our hammocks. Great waves. We unloaded our stuff into a hut made of palm fronds, cooked dinner over a fire and slept in our hammocks overlooking the surf break. It seemed like paradise and we thought we might stay for at least a month. But we woke up to disturbing grunting sounds then felt something bumping us under our hammocks and realized it was giant pigs. We looked over and the door to our hut was open. Inside were a dozen enormous hogs rooting around our stuff, eating all our food and tearing up our gear. We had to swat them with our shovel to clear them out and assess the damage. All of the food that wasn't in a can was gone.

We left and headed further south to Rio Nexpa, near Caleta de Campos. We had talked about it with Ruth and Gus, and sure enough it was everything we had dreamed of. A beautiful river mouth with palapas for rent for $1 per day. One little restaurant on the sand run by a sleepy old man Don Gilbe. Beautiful palms. Friendly people. Hot. Tropical. No pigs.

Ruth and Gus showed up soon after. We stayed for almost three months. Ruth and Gus had to get back to UCSD for the Spring quarter but stayed long enough for us to get to know them.

Since I last saw Ruth in Del Mar in 1998, she became an acupuncturist and married Bill, who is a neurosurgeon. On Monday night, we immediately hit it off with Bill, who was here for a neurosurgery conference. At dinner I learned about Ruth's acupuncture practice in Southern California at a Children's Hospital--which is highly unusual yet makes so much sense. We talked about how Chinese and Western medicines can work together, and the positive outcomes she sees even with cancer patients. Ruth and Bill travel every year to do medical missions where their services are so needed. They live by the beach and still surf.

Traveling for six month and camping on the beach seems so far away. I long for the feeling of waking up at dawn and watching the tall palms sway and sparkle, swimming in warm the ocean alone, then making coffee on a coco husk fire. Maybe some day we'll have the time again, and we'll find a another place that has no electricity and has not yet been developed.

Meanwhile, we took Ruth and Bill to our favorite coffee place in San Francisco, Philz. A little paradise in a cup will have to do for now.

Wine and Friends

When you are my age, and you have a decent amount of friends, it's not that unusual to look around the room and realize there are at least two people that you have slept with. And maybe another one or two that you want to sleep with. I'm not going to lie. It happens. And it feels fine. It feels connected.

How about this connection: Last night my former boyfriend's employee J. (in her thirties) and I realized that she slept with my former girlfriend's girlfriend's daughter (in her thirties). "So we're related, right?" J. asked. Yes. It did feel familial.

Last night Joe and I went out with my above-mentioned former boyfriend K. and his two gorgeous employees J. and C. all visiting from NYC.  We walked from bar to swanky restaurant/bar in the unswanky-but-getting-there-mid-Market/SOMA (my neighborhood). It was fun because a year ago this same friend had told me about my plan to move to this block from "downtown" Bolinas: "You cannot live there. It's too dangerous." He was adamant. I gave him shit about it. "Have you gone soft?"

But now we were walking around looking at buildings and stopping into places like A.Q.  on Mission and 7th, then Terroir on Folsom and 7th. We left them at Bar Agricole and walked home. My neighborhood will never gentrify completely, and I'm glad of that. Our friend Jeff points out that the zoning laws that protect the SROs on both sides of Market, and the proximity to all the social services in the Tenderloin make 6th Street the pedestrian corridor linking them all to the Police Headquarters on Bryant. Explains why 6th often feels like the Walking Dead.

But Dottie's True Blue Cafe just moved to 6th and Stevenson. It's an amazing breakfast/brunch place, with a line on weekends that stretches around the corner right through ground zero of zombie/junkie/speedfreak land. I love it. Dottie's patrons know it's worth the wait so everybody coexists peacefully.

I love the architecture in this neighborhood. Old brick buildings with courtyards. Big warehouses. I was really loving it all last night.

At Terroir we had charcuterie and cheese plates that were really impressive. Drinking with us was a wine writer friend of K's. I grilled him about the first time he realized he got paid to drink wine. "It must be tough, being a wine critic," I said with a big smile as we sniffed and swirled and sipped our fabulous wine. Subtext: You bastard! How did you get that job? He smiled back. "I'm not going to complain about my job..." He told us the story of going to Paris with his parents when he was 14, what a revelation the food and wine culture was.

We laughed and drank and drank and laughed. After we left I learned it was Eric Asimov, who writes for the NY Times. He posted a beautiful column about wine today, which I just read. He says it so well that I have to stop now.

Fuck Valentine's Day

Patience.

Presence.

Pacing.

Having your husband be your lover is wonderful and challenging. It means being present for new interpretations of the body language you know so well. It means being honest even when it's painful. It means accepting new limits in order to have more freedom.

As lovers, Joe and I are committed to a whole new level of communication. Sometimes it takes more time than you want. It can leave you raw right before you have to go to work. Which sucks.

Early yesterday morning we had a post-Valentine's Day talk about feelings that are new for us. I hold up well during these talks. I hold the space for both of us. I allow myself to go into places I didn't know were there.

Joe is a champ these days. We are getting really good about helping each other come out of the internal world and rejoin the benign reality that surrounds us. (Mostly benign. Not counting the shitshow on 6th and Stevenson or even right outside our window.)

But yesterday I found myself entering the office full of residual anxiety. I was too raw for work.

I kept it together. I got past it and led my team.

Last night I told Joe that I needed a break from processing because it kind of fucked me up yesterday. But this morning I could tell he needed to talk by the way he got up to go to the bathroom. You know these things when you witness the posture and the way someone breathes for two and a half decades.  He was hesitant to tell me what was going on because I had said I needed a break.

I decided we could talk for 15 minutes. That would still leave me enough time to write. He agreed, and told me what was bothering him. I understood. And we got past it in a mere 7 minutes. Yeah. A dumb time limit was genius.

Patience.

Presence.

Pacing.

Valentine's Day is kind of bogus. I brought it up with some friends yesterday and we all agreed: it invites heartbreaking expectations that you don't even know are there until it's too late, and you are embarrassed to have those stupid expectations and to admit it, and how was your partner/lover supposed to read your mind and how were you supposed to read his/hers and you know you should let that go but couldn't they try just a little harder?

Patience...

Breakthrough

A lot of breakthroughs lately. Here's one.

Zoe is in London. She's staying with friends, checking out the underground dance and music scenes before she heads to Barcelona to work on some organic farms for the next five months. It's a trip she's planned for several years. I've been planning a trip to Europe myself, provided some financial things fall into place such as the rental of our house and staying on course with the repayment of some debt. Zoe's being there motivates me to make it all happen.

The deal is this: Joe and I have different goals for work and travel. He wants to work less and have more spaciousness in his life to paint, which means he does not have travel in his budget. Last year I challenged him on this position: "What about New York? Or going to Europe in 2012 to meet Zoe?" He was firm: No. To work so hard just to travel a few weeks a year is not his aim. He is content living within his means and traveling locally.

So a few nights ago I decided to research tickets to meet Zoe this summer, as planned. Joe got bummed. I reminded him of our talk last year. He got really bummed. The whole situation triggered bad things for both of us. For me, it was feeling guilt for leaving my family of origin behind, both literally and figuratively. Flashbacks of when I was 9 or 10, trying to give my Dad my entire savings ($350?) to help his financial woes. He laughed at me, not meanly, but told me it wouldn't help. Remembering this the other night pushed me over into a dark hole. It reminded me that once upon a time I was a good saver, and perhaps why to this day it is so hard for me to save.

Next to me in the hole, Joe was swirling around in bitter resentment, globalizing my plans to go visit our daughter into the demise of our relationship. He even said, "What is the point of trying so hard to be close to someone?" It was kind of shocking. We were both messes, groping around in a dark cave, blaming each other for some major hurts.

Luckily we have been in our own private relationship "re-boot camp," and knew to stay focused on what was happening. By now we were on the bed, mad at each other but staying calm. Joe realized something incredibly obvious when he said, "My Mom got on a plane to Chicago and never came back." She died when Joe was 10: she left "on a trip," and died months later in a cancer hospital. No one ever told him or his brothers she was dying. After months of her mysterious absence, they flew to Chicago and saw her for a few minutes at her bedside, still not knowing she was dying, and that was it. She died the next morning. No good bye, nothing.

When I heard that, I really lost it. I felt so bad for ten-year-old Joe, and my own pain was subsumed into his. I was apologizing as if I had been his mom and I abandoned him. It felt like it had in fact been me. But somehow, through this, Joe felt recognized. "You are not my Mom," he said tenderly.

For years, I wanted to be Joe's Mom. Not in a weird or infantile way (usually). But he wanted me, and I wanted, to make up for that terrible loss. But the truth in those simple words, "You are not my Mom," broke something open. He let go of the unreality of that fact, that I am not and never will heal that wound. It's something he has to do on his own. And he's working on it.

I have my own shit to deal with.

Meanwhile, I'm visualizing meeting up with Zoe in Europe. This breakthrough means Joe is 100% supportive of my going. Sure, he'll feel triggered at various times if I go by myself, and I'll be triggered, too. But we'll deal with it.

And an even bigger breakthrough: this breakthrough is helping Joe feel empowered to potentially work enough to buy his own ticket to meet us in London for a week. I won't hold my breath on that, or not move forward myself on my plans, but I still feel the deep satisfaction of having figured out a major hurdle that has plagued us over the last 26 years whenever I have gone away.

Plan for Pleasure

Went to the opening of the Animal Attraction exhibit at the Academy of Science. I thought the exhibit itself was weak. Maybe I was expecting some mating bonobos. Instead, fish and spiders in small aquariums/terrariums not mating, and really small interactive video screens documenting and describing their mating habits. Which was okay, but sort of Oh well. More interesting were all the young people (21 and over), mostly couples, drinking alcohol and huddling around those screens looking for clues about how to get laid later.

The best thing was the Good Vibrations vibrator collection. 100 years of creative devices designed to stimulate women. Once again reminded that in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, women with "hysteria" would go to their doctors for sexual relief, and the vibrator became a big help for doctors (and women) who otherwise might have suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome or something. Such a strange thing to imagine having an orgasm in stirrups. I'm sure many sexual relationships that weren't so clinical developed between doctor and patient. Right? "I think you need to "come" in once a week for treatment, Mrs. Bender." "Yes, Doctor. I wholeheartedly agree. Would you mind taking your cock out now?"

One of the Good Vibrations founders gave a talk on the "Science of Orgasm." Big take away was that the longer you are in a state of arousal, the stronger the orgasm. So stop worrying that it takes 45 minutes sometimes. Plan on long sex dates. More blood flow, more nerve and "neurological engagement" means greater pleasure. Duh. I need to rethink the quickie. "Plan for pleasure! Schedule it!" was her message. I couldn't agree more. It's working for me, anyway. This week was a bonanza, I must say. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Practicing sex often it just gets better. At 51, I can safely say I'm entering the expert phase.

Here's a good tip you probably already know: If you "miss the train" while you're masturbating or your partner is going down on you and have a somewhat unsatisfying orgasm, keep going! The next one will most likely be REALLY good. Just give it more time. Works for me. Does this work for you? I guess (from research I just did) if you have a cock it's different. If you have a cock and you miss the orgasm train, you might need a little rest, or it might really be over for that session. For you. No big deal: can you imagine how many times we women have had sex and did not come? So get over it. But ladies, I say we don't have to settle for anything less than awesome orgasms.

I'm forgetting about my boundaries in this blog after seven days of anonymous posting on the Sex Diaries Project. It wasn't hard for me to be totally honest about my sexual thoughts and activities. But here, in this more public forum, I try to be a little bit coy. I have some idea of who you are, my friend, but many of you lurk quietly and only tell me when I see you how much you love this blog. Which is both startling and sweetly satisfying. Thank you.

It still baffles me, this weirdly intimate and undeniably public forum. Many of you will never tell me that you are reading this. It's makes me a little shy on one hand, but only when I think about it too much. You are in Paris and Austria and cities in Russia and parts of Asia I've never heard of, and I would love to hear from you. Please give me an anonymous comment, or a private facebook message or send me an email at kimbender7@gmail.com.

Honesty

In bed alone. My turn to spend the night alone in the studio. I went to bed as usual around 11:00, and woke up as usual at 5:30 and dozed until 6:30. It feels like a breakthrough of sorts, this sleeping well alone thing. It helps to have an awesome bed.

I want to write about the need to be alone even when you love someone very much. It's Esther Perel's thesis, and one to which I (obviously) very much subscribe: giving space in a relationship, especially a long-term relationship or marriage, is so crucial to maintaining the eroticism. It's hard to see someone as sexy when they blend in with your old pajamas. Having some nights alone and being good with it, even if it means wondering where your lover is or what he/she is doing--maybe especially if it means wondering/not knowing-- increases mutual desire. It just does. You have to learn to cope with your insecurities, and that wanton and potentially deadly emotion jealousy.

I'm doing well with it. Because I want to be able to spend time alone and unaccounted for myself. I want freedom, and that requires that I cope with my own insecurities and jealousies. I'm finding that when tested, I'm actually quite good at it. My commitment to my own freedom exceeds my reflex to possess. Of course, honesty is a key part of this equation.

When I was 17 and left home with my best friend Anny P., we developed a radical honesty policy in our friendship. Though over time I learned other approaches, the inclination to be honest even in the hardest situations has been part of my core being ever since. Joe is discovering and I am rediscovering the freedom afforded by honesty. Years of the 'Don't ask don't tell' policy took a serious toll on our intimacy, and never felt right to me. There were benefits to having secrets, and I got to understand the eroticism of secrets.

But being honest...It feels so raw at first, like skinny dipping or sleeping naked: as soon as you try it you immediately feel the benefits of being more free. The old way feels so clunky and cumbersome and frankly boring. It takes courage to be honest about your true feelings, especially those things that have been under severe veto filters in your speech patterns but have lived full lives in your very private self. But like anything, if you practice honesty, it starts to be more natural. And you start to ask yourself, Why was I hiding this for so long? It feels so good to let it out, let it breathe...

Sex Diaries

I am participating in The Sex Diaries Project. You wake up and there is an email waiting reminding you to post a two to three sentence entry: thoughts and feelings about sex or things related. For seven days. The diaries are anonymous. You should do it. It's fun...to see how different people are, and maybe how the same in some ways. Anonymity is awesome for getting people to be real.

I am reading a lot about alternative relationship styles.

Joe just read this quote out loud from Sex at Dawn: "By 1917 there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes." What does that say?

Does it seem like I'm obsessed with sex? Is it inappropriate for a 51 year old? I have no idea. It seems like most people think about it a lot, even if they don't talk about it. It's pretty easy to get people to talk about it. It's right there, just under the conversation about "I need coffee," or "Did you like that blogpost?" or "Let's get lunch now."

But you don't talk about sex with everyone. You don't really want to talk about it at work. Except maybe a comment about a movie or a celebrity or someone else's sexuality. Or sexual policy. All of which can hint at your own sexual politics and predelictions. At work you are a cog in a fast moving wheel and don't really have time to think or talk about anything else. And you don't really want to think about what other people are thinking about except for work related things.

Which means at home all those pent up thoughts and feelings can fly freely and express themselves. Hopefully. Hopefully you can say whatever you want at home and laugh at things that are weird and talk about them with you partner or your girlfriend or your lover. Things that are potentially embarrassing or even stupid.

I said to Joe the other day, "It's so weird that we fucked and made three babies. And now they are adults out doing shit in the world. Just because we fucked. It's so weird."

He said, "Fucking is the only way people get here." For some reason that was hilarious to me. That every single person on the planet is here because someone fucked. Well, except for those who were made in a petri dish. But it's safe to say that every single person is a result of someone's orgasm. That little burst of pleasure. No matter how little or big.

Joe said, "It's weird how rarely fucking is about making babies." Most of the time fucking is a social act. A way to connect. Sometimes it's awkward or one-sided, and sometimes it's super hot. Just like any conversation or social interaction. It's best when both sides bring their whole selves and are fully present. And how often does that happen? Often, if you are lucky or demand it.