writings from the edge

a rare, beautiful crisp sunny day here, and I’m just taking a few illicit moments away from work to enjoy my own thoughts.

 

I’m warmed from inside this morning - my mind is soft and misty and my thoughts are sensual.

 

Last night I found myself watching ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’ on Channel 4 - at first I switched it on expecting to see the Sean Bean production - he made a wonderful game-keeper - dark and brooding, with a perpetual snarl on his lips, like a fire-cracker waiting for the blue paper to burn far enough down - a partially-twisted man capable of harshness and perhaps a little brutality.

 

It started at a ridiculously late time - almost 11pm, and I thought, I’ll just watch a little before I go to bed. However, it turned out to be a french subtitled production, which did not overly enamour me, because really the subject matter is quintessentially english - to do with station and class divides (it’s been a long time since I studied the story in an academic sense, so I am open to be corrected), but anyway when I watched it, I didn’t look for the academic pointers, I just let it wash over me warmly, like an ordinary prosaic viewer.

 

I was held absolutely captive, from the first moment - this was much stronger than the Sean Bean version, and though I’m sure the french director took a lot of artistic license as there was no real brutality in the game-keeper, he was just brooding and unreadable, and there was real tenderness and love between the lovers, at the end.

 

A quick Google has thrown light on the above - I was just wanting to know why the gamekeeper was called Parkin in the french version, and Mellors in the Sean Bean version - turns out that Lawrence wrote three versions of the story, and this was actually the second version - so there was no artistic license taken, it’s just that Lawrence changed the character in the final version to include the enbittered, hard qualities in the gamekeeper. He also seemes to have given the second version a traditional happy-ish ending, as the lovers wait for each other, as the child is expected.

 

The french gamekeeper was not overly attractive, in the conventional sense, though he seemed a very powerful man, he was possessed of an unflattering ‘basin’ hair-cut, and he obviously had never given much creedence to foreplay in love-making. I wonder exactly when foreplay ‘came to the fore’, as it were - perhaps also it is not a question of time, but more a question of situation, or social class ?.

 

However I felt that what the french production did well was to use the absence of words to convey both feeling, awkwardness, need, and a lack of mutual understanding. Especially at the beginning, the silence at points was almost palpable, making your teeth grate, almost wanting to look away. Had it been me, I couldn’t've functioned in that thick silence - I would’ve had to throw in some meaningless words to fill it - I think this may be the modern disease that most of us would say we’re affected with - we don’t do silence, do we.

So there was no small talk, and also, on the part of the game-keeper, no smile when he met her, almost no preliminaries by way of speech or gesture at all. And the french mans face was a study in unreadability, though the actor doubtless had the ability for much expressiveness, he kept his face neutral with an everyday manner veneered with a patina of sadness, particularly effective when undoing her stockings and stroking the insides of her thighs, during which he did not look at her face at all, just the skin of her thighs.

 

There was a very real progression between the two, from at first, just making love quickly, functionally, inexpertly and self-consciously, with the clothes on for 30 seconds or so, to eventually running naked and wild, outside in the rain, and making love on the muddy ground, and drying their skin next to an open fire, decorating each others bodies with wild flowers. And in this version, you sensed that love had grown in this time, though there were no real visual clues to this - the clues must’ve been very subtle, which is what french films often do well. Perhaps concealed in a word or a gesture, or just in a facial expression.

 

I was sorry when it ended. There are not many programmes that grab me so conclusively, and make me sit and be quiet, but this was one of them.

 

I think some women will always have fantasies about what is colloquially known as ‘a bit of rough’, meaning a man who embodies the rough-and-ready male characteristics -

• Immobile face - does not often smile
• Does not cry, because it would mean he is irretrievably broken
• Is not even aware of womens feelings, so don’t even try
• May not even be aware of his own feelings - will certainly never speak about them, even if he does
• Resembles a fighting dog when challenged, sexually or otherwise - the teeth bare and you can almost feel the guttural growl
• Does not give a damn how anybody feels about him - it never even enters his head
• You may find him in the more ‘brutal’ jobs - butchery or abattoir work, assassin, because the ‘finer’ feelings are absent
• His house will be functional but he won’t wash up every night like ‘new’ men - there may be somebody to do this for him

 

Please be aware that this is a playful list, and yes, I am aware that in the totality, above, I have created a bit of a monster - I was just trying to quantify the basic characteristics of ‘a bit of rough’.

 

I wonder if there are many real “men’s” men even existing these days, now that mining and the whole working-class culture has grown up and melded into the modern world, and been sanitised and Health and Safety’d - you wouldn’t've caught Mellor twittering away on his Palm Pilot, or using hair gel, or downloading ringtones. I wonder if our society has made Mellor a thing of the past now.

Real men do cry now, may even carry their own handkerchiefs, and they are encouraged to be in touch with their feminine sides, and once they are, they call themselves ‘New’ men.

Men may use cologne and facial products, sometimes even make-up, just like women.

Men may be being feminised by the high levels of oestrogen in the water supplies.

Social provision for one-parent families means that even what small role men may have once had as ‘provider’ has been eroded

 

Heaven only knows what the Sean Bean/Mellor would’ve thought  !

 

 

 

Footnote:

This is a ‘playful’ article

I am very much a dyed-in-the-wool feminist

I condone neither violence against women or men

I approve and demand foreplay

I could not live with a man I couldn’t talk to

 

I will introduce the subject of this blog at the beginning instead of through the story - the reason for this is because I don’t wish anyone who has had the same experience as me to in any way be upset by reading my blog without knowing - it is on the subject of a woman being assaulted by a man. Six years ago, to be precise.

 

Did you ever wonder exactly how you would respond if this happened to you ?  I know I had thought that I would never let anybody hurt or frighten me - I would fight just as well as any man, and my strength and self-defence knowledge would help me - I would cripple him first. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out quite as easy as that, and the way I actually did respond, in the event, has baffled and tormented me ever since then.

 

I never solicited this mans attentions, not in any way. He approached me at my local agricultural show that I went to, back in September 2003. Just general chit-chat - I just thought he was being friendly. Then a couple of days later, he called me again, and invited me over to his house for dinner. I wasn’t 100% sure whether it was just a friendly dinner, or something else - I didn’t know quite what to make of it: he was known to me, he was a fair bit older than me, obviously well-known in the community, and was a dyed in the wool crofter and had probably never been off the islands. I have to be honest - it did occur to me that he would have another agenda, and I have to admit that I thought about it in the back of my mind. I have always found before that men who are older usually have better manners, and look after you better, and after all I knew next to nothing about him, and have always believed that it’s what is in a mans heart that matters, nothing else. So for all of those reasons, I decided I would accept.

 

He cooked me dinner, and we talked in his living room. It became instantly obvious to me that there was going to be nothing to take from this meeting. We had virtually nothing at all in common, and I didn’t feel comfortable with him at all - he was much too pushy, in this closed environment, and I didn’t like the way he would bellow at his dog even when I was in mid-sentence, nor that he seemed to be giving out ownership signals, even though he made no effort to know anything about me. I was friendly only, and told him that I didn’t want a relationship, made the excuse that I was too badly hurt at the moment to start another relationship, then I left and came home. There had been no physical contact whatsoever.

 

Over the next few weeks, he carried on phoning and phoning, calling me ‘darling’, trying to push me into meeting him again. I felt compassionate towards him, because I also felt guilty about blowing him out, but I wished he would just take the hint, and give up. I suppose I could’ve spelled it out more harshly - I just told him I didn’t want a relationship. Never once even, did I ever encourage him in his quest, either by omission, or by default - I told him friends was all I could deal with at the moment …

When he called me that last time in October, he said that if I would just talk to him, at his house, if I still felt the same, then that would be it finished, but he wanted to talk to me - there were things he couldn’t say to me on the phone. I told my lodger where I was going, and they thought that it was the right thing to do, as it really needed sorting out - it was getting ridiculous.
I left my lodger the mans name address and phone number details, and said I wouldn’t be more than an hour.
Then I went, (which with hindsight, seems stupid). But yes, I went.

 

He was OK to start with – we had tea. It was only twenty minutes into that he started getting a little strange, intense even. Then he began - said that if I would marry him, he would write his will so that I would get all of his property in his will. At this point I told him directly and certainly and reasonably that what he was saying was neither invited nor appropriate, and that anyway I made my own way in this world, and wanted nothing from anybody, whilst in my head, loud alarm bells were seriously ringing at this point, and I made sure my handbag was packed and beside me, and my car keys in it. I told him it was time for me to go home now, and stood up.

I knew, a split second before he did that he was going to lunge at me - he grabbed me by the shoulders, slammed me up against the wall, and started clawing at my clothes, pulled off my top and unzipped my trousers, copped a good feel or two, almost choked me with an arm across my throat.

As I watched events from somewhere inside myself, I raged at myself ‘why are you not fighting, gouging, scratching, kicking, spitting, biting, like you always thought you would?’, but nobody was listening, and nobody seemed capable of launching into any sort of defence. I’m not sure that I can even call it ’shock’, because this fighting with me lasted a long time, about ten minutes or so I suppose. He didn’t hit me – my bruises just came from slamming me repeatedly up against the wall, holding my arms, and my own struggling to get free. I slapped him hard, and I bolted for the door I had come through, but it was locked, and there was no key in it. I hadn’t seen him do that.

 

That is the part that haunts me now when I think back on it - that locked door, with no key in it.  Why lock the door unless you have premeditated the action which drives the woman to it? At the time, I just stood there, gazing stupidly at it, for almost a minute, until he came back at me again.

 

I guess if he had been anything but an amateur, that would’ve been it for me, but after he had forced me into a corner, on the floor, kneeling on my shoulder, I shouted out the one thing that had forced itself into my mind, and threatened to tell his mother what he had done, then I slapped him again, and amazingly that seemed to hit the spot and he seemed to start taking some notice of me, started apologising, and went into the other room to get the key.
I bolted for the car, he was still saying that he was sorry, and that he had had a drink or two, but I know he hadn’t because there was no smell of it, still pawing at me though, and the last things he shouted at me was that he would call me next week (!), and if I contacted the police, not only would it kill his mother, but that he would say that I had been a willing participant.

It was the continuing phone calls, which I slammed down, and a deepening anger, that made me go to the police.

 

I felt very stupid at the police station, but forced myself to tell them all of it. The policeman was very sympathetic and as supportive as a young man could be, and tried to get me to bring charges, but I felt I couldn’t do that, because it would make me look stupid, in public. I had been unwittingly stupid, and if people got to know, it would provide an endless source of rumour and gossip - this man is related to half of my neighbours, and friendly with the rest. I didn’t know if he had form, or had done it before, or would do it again, which is the only reason I talked to the police about it. Apparently, you can make a complaint, but bring no charges, then it just stays on record, no action is taken. They asked me whether I wanted him ‘visited’, and I said yes. I didn’t want to give him any excuse to badmouth me, and there are a million ways he could hurt me and my reputation in the village that I call home, but he had to know that I wasn’t going to just stay quiet.

 

But it was a wakeup call to me – those sorts of men are the same wherever you live - I had forgotten that.
And I can sympathise with women who don’t fight back as hard as they think they would, because I didn’t. You don’t realise that you’ve left the serious civilised world, you see.
While he was fighting with me, I remember thinking that he would kill me, or rape me, or both, but I couldn’t make myself hurt him still - couldn’t bring myself to knee him - I just went stupid and ineffectual.

It’s so hard not to blame yourself for the way you handled it - I am a grown woman, and I should know better. But when all said and done, it’s only a few bruises, and a fright, and a wakeup call. It’s only what could’ve happened that hurt me, and going back over things, and wondering how it ever got to that state.

The difficult thing is the way you think, afterwards, that you are ‘all right’. I felt that I was, but I seemed to have lost focus, and become very much more critical of myself. I hoovered a lot. And washed a lot. And I knew the significance of those things. And I wondered how women who were much more seriously hurt than me can cope with this flood of emotions over which you have no control, and cannot directly link with the attack.

 

But all things move on, and heal, eventually, and last week, on realising I had carefully avoided walking in that area, I made a point of doing so, which was the event which brought all the memories flooding back.

I made it though, and it now feels like somethings complete, and finished.

Now I think you may need a little background for this one, so here goes.

The Merry Gentry series of books deal with a world in which the mortal world has welcomed all manner of fey folk into their midst, for as long as they can exist together without hurting or exploiting each other. Amongst the fey folk are found faeries, goblins, trows,  the tiny winged demi-fey and roanes - the seal people.

Princess Meredith NicEssus is fey - a half-human half-faerie sidhe princess of the Unseelie Court. But forget all notions of tiny gauze-clad creatures flitting about in flowers, because here, the fey are warriors, magically talented and able to disguise their true selves with personal ‘glamours’, toning down their vibrant beauty, glowing flesh and two-tone eyes to more closely resemble humans. More often than not, they have a cruel streak too, along with the ability to dominate others.

The sidhe are the faerie royalty, wild and vibrant, full-blooded and sensuous. No-one can rival a sidhe lover -

“you can forget what the touch is like. You can fight not to dream of glowing flesh and eyes like molten jewels, a sweep of ankle-length hair across your body. But the desire is always there just under the surface, like an alcoholic who can never take another drink for fear that one drink will never be enough to satisfy that thirst”

In the mortal world, Merry works for a firm of private detectives, and during the course of an assignment, it becomes obvious that someone has been using Branwyn’s Tears, a faerie aphrodisiac, on human subjects. This is prohibited by faerie laws - the strength of Branwyn’s Tears is such that it could send a mortal mad, damaging them psychologically.

Branwyn’s Tears is a substance, used in the faerie world to enhance the senses - it can turn an lesser fey or human into a sidhe, to shine with their power, to give and take pleasure like one of them. It narrows the world down to the need to be touched, to be held, to be had. It is a great gift, but a double-edged one, because the human or fey would spend the rest of their life longing for that power, that touch. A human could waste and die from lack of it. For immortals, forever is a long time to want what you may not have.

Branwyn’s Tears is also used as a punishment or torture amongst the faeries - the miscreant would be stripped and chained in a dark room, and covered with the Tears. Their body would be full of burning need, magical lust, but left untouched, unfinished, unrelieved.

And it is this last instance of punishment which struck such a chord with me, with my life, making me want to set this blog down. Many are the times that I have felt how unfair it is to allow a woman like me to be alone for so long without human touch. Late at night, as now, I feel this loss and this need keenly, just as if I had been covered in Tears, and left in that dark room. For eight years now. That is a very long sentence.

I am not unpleasing to the eye and I am not without wit, heaven knows I am kind, loving, caring, outgoing and intelligent, and I have gone well out of my way to maintain a close and ever-changing circle of friends, but there haven’t been any single men amongst them, only other womens men, and I know better than that.

Perhaps it is specific to the Isle of Lewis, and other remote areas - I’m not in possession of demographic data, but perhaps there just aren’t many single men here. There are plenty of damaged or addicted men with too much personal (and legal) baggage to be capable of maintaining a relationship - I have been out with a few of them, but only once or twice, until I realised.

Cruelty is a strong word, but I feel that it is appropriate to describe what I feel has happened to me. Yet I have friends who are single, and would never change their status, because they enjoy not being beholden to someone, as they see it. I have tried so hard for so long to manage to view the world as they do, with only minimal success. My life is rich and full otherwise, my interests wide and varied, and I am not in monetary difficulty - I can do whatever I like with my life here.

So why does it feel that I’m chained in that dark room, my skin alight with senses and need, all my emotions displayed for the world to see, needing, and forever waiting for someone who may never come?

Music is powerful.

For those who are moved by it, or those who use it, it has the power to reduce you to tears, or lift you to sparkling elation, on an otherwise perfectly normal day, in the blink of an eye, holding complicated concepts which are difficult to express in any other way, and in just a few bars it can inject those concepts into your subconscious in an instant.

There I was, happily enjoying ‘Love Actually’, when a carefully-chosen snap of Dido’s “Resting here with me” filled the room, and it was as if a slide-show of feelings invaded my mind - loss, yearning, need, and suddenly I was in a different world, almost without my knowledge or consent -

I won’t go
And I won’t sleep
And I can’t breathe
Until you’re resting here with me

And I won’t leave
I can’t hide
I cannot be
Until you’re resting here with me

This song was used, to great effect, not only in this film, but also at the end of an episode of ER. I almost feel sometimes that I need to guard myself against this song.  There’s an interesting concept - music being used as a ‘weapon’ - perhaps not such a new concept though - look at the zulus singing on going into battle, or the americans playing ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ shortly before napalm in the morning.

There are others too - some of them have personal significance - 10cc “I’m not in love” was a song which belonged to me and my first husband - we would play it in every place we were, and it seemed to express our youth, and our perplexity at first love. Just the first few bars of music like this will instantly recall the feelings, surroundings, taste and smell of those times.

I have already mentioned Darren Hayes “Insatiable” and Roberta Flack “The first time” - both of these take their effect purely on the strength and meaning of the words, perhaps coupled with a personal harmonic ‘hook’.

There are ’stock’ tracks too, from romantic films, which no doubt depend upon the personal chemistry between the male and female leads - such as ‘unchained melody’ from Ghost, and ‘I will always love you’ from The Bodyguard. What can be more sensual than a man whose job it is to guard your body?

Then there’s the ‘talk to me in italian’ effect, demonstrated by Jamie Lee Curtis in ‘A Fish called Wanda’, as a woman who would turn to jelly when spoken to in a foreign language. It has this effect on me too, when listening to Il Divo singing more classical songs in spanish and italian - I cannot quote because I don’t speak any of the languages, but I certainly sing them, and feel their effect upon me.

Then there’s the song which seems to describe your life.
Two very different songs come to mind here - there’s Sting and ‘The Book of my Life’,

There are promises broken and promises kept
Angry words that were spoken, when I should have wept
There’s a chapter of secrets, and words to confess
If I lose everything that I possess

and Judy Garland, standing there on a flood-lit stage in a little black dress, her feet firmly planted as if to support her tiny frame amidst all those emotions, singing what I consider to be her best song - The Man who got away

The night is bitter, The stars have lost their glitter;
The winds grow colder, and suddenly you’re older -
And all because of the man that got away.

Some songs strike you because you know they’re written from the heart, and the words are raw and truthful - who could ignore ‘Nothing compares to you’. I once sent these words to my second ex-husband, mingled with my own words to make them personal, in an effort to tell him how I felt about him leaving. He was unmoved and I took that as confirmation that I was better without him.

It’s been seven hours and fifteen days
Since you took your love away
I go out every night and sleep all day
Since you took your love away

others are sung by people who have the skill and power of voice to sing quite literally from their hearts, and I’m finishing on one by Mariah Carey - I’d never followed what she did before I heard this song, and after hearing it, I bought the whole album on the strength of it - the song starts out quietly, you can only just hear what she’s saying, but gradually, coupled with the increasing strength of the sentiments, and as the knowledge is perceived that this will never happen again, her voice spirals out of the beautiful and calculated melody, into her own crazy thoughts, on and on almost into insanity:

I’d give my all to have
Just one more night with you
I’d risk my life to feel
Your body next to mine
Cause I can’t go on
Living in the memory of our song
I’d give my all for your love tonight

 

The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave
To the night and the empty skies my love
To the night and the empty skies

 

 

She was to come to him on an impossibly-beautiful day in June, with the sun shining down warmly upon the land and enough of a welcome cool breeze to relax and soothe her. She stood in her kitchen that morning, wearing a pretty body-shaper and fine stockings, ironing silk, and gathering belongings with the feeling that a cloud of shining demi-fey glinted, darting around her head, weaving and spinning thoughts which were hers, and somehow not hers.
The day was finally here when she would at last see and touch the man she had become so close to, over the last two years … But time was getting away from her, sliding like sand, as she made the last preparations before setting out on her journey.

She had been talking to Robert now for almost 21 months - they spoke by email and telephone because distance and circumstances made anything else difficult.
He came into her life at a time when she badly needed help and good advice, and as she poured out her heart, alone in the dark, during the quiet twilight hours, he answered her, and helped her find her way through it all.
She delighted him in return with spirited discussions about their favourite poetry and music, and with her unique philosophy on the world, relationships and love.

She had a lot of difficult decisions to make, and the stark advice he gave her always seemed to bear a caring but down-to-earth air of authority which helped her greatly when well-meaning friends were saying that she had to do what she felt was right. When the worst of it was over, their close but virtual relationship continued, but now had come the chance to meet each other, finally.

The phone rang, and shook her out of her reverie - he had completed the first 120 miles of his journey, and was making good progress on the motorway - she needed to get moving now. Quickly packing crunchy filled baguettes, fresh strawberries and cold Stella into the car, she began her own journey, forcing herself to remain calm when the world suddenly looked brighter, more vivid, and somehow different from usual. They were now on the same motorway, converging from different directions, and she thought about that voice that she had grown to love - the lilting edge which always turned her body to water. She smiled to herself - he had never known that sometimes she phoned him at work, knowing that he wasn’t there, just so she could listen to that magical voice on his machine.

As she pulled in to park, she saw that his car was already there, and she sat tensely for a few moments, willing her body to make the next move. It was a few minutes before it would respond, and only by sheer force of will did she begin that short walk from the car, imagining him watching her from the window, following her progress. By the time she came through the door, raw excitement danced through her fingertips and filled her head, and she realised she was seeing the world with wild, crazed eyes. Power crackled through her body as she broke the rigid set of her body to look, for the first time, around her, and then there he was, smiling at her side. Her eyes snapped to his in a high-voltage torque and for a couple of beats, she had no body and no control, just that narrow field of vision.

He was just as she had always imagined him from his photos, yet there was a new dimension in the physicality of this man, who knew more about her than most of her friends, close enough to her to touch, and a dawning realisation that here was a man who was here at her command - nobody else - just her. There was magic in that realisation, and she smiled too, as her body moved under some instinctive volition to his, to return his chaste embrace. Her heightened senses drank in his scent, the warmth of his skin, and the magnetism of his regard, and her mind just revelled in the thought that this was hers - he was hers. All of him was for her.

They sat down, with their drinks, and seconds went by as they just looked at each other, noticing, matching, fitting, anticipating, trying to free themselves from the draw of the power that flashed between them, striking them momentarily dumb. Her stomach was a tight knot in the gaping space of her midsection as she watched his eyes moving over her, taking her in, starting to know this one part of her that was new to him. This was the man who had comforted her through her darkest times, with whom she had shared confidences, hopes, and her deepest emotions. This was the man who knew her.

They talked, shyly at first, about mundane things, their journey, how they were feeling, and gradually the knots loosened as they shared, in person, things they had only spoken about with such distances between them. Laughter crept in, in place of nervousness, or perhaps, because of it. She realised, like a person watching herself from the outside, how she spoke to him with her eyes and her body language, how whilst she was talking her eyes were drawn time and time again to his mouth, and how much of an effort she was expending not to touch him – not just yet. Every part of her body wanted to just reach out, brush his knee, touch his face, but for now, she just watched how his expression changed as he spoke, and how he moved his body when he reached for his glass.

 

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Cassieopaeia is here now, I feel her,

 

It’s not really the perfect time for her to appear, I should be doing other things, I had many arguably prosaic but necessary things to do on this day, at this time, but then who can order her or forbid her .  Nobody can control her .

 

and once she has drifted into my mind, I feel her tendrils holding fast, transforming my everyday fibres into her own signature molten liquid, possessed heat .

 

Slowly but certainly, she dissolves me, leaving behind her glowing, her urgency, and my mind is filled with her thoughts, her remembrances, her imperatives .

 

She is irresistable - She leaves behind her own memories and fills my body with her own sweet visions, and I am dreamily useless, as I abandon myself to the red-tinged impulses, which seem to cry soundlessly, reaching out in a silent supplication .

 

I found myself with a melody in my mind this morning - for a moment I couldn’t place the words, and only half of the melody, but the whole of the raw, electric feeling of the song drove me along until finally my mind made the connections .

 

By that time, it was too late, and yes, I know her triggers well - sometimes late at night, I invoke them, mindfully, because to be possessed by Cassieopaeia is intrinsically a pleasurable thing, even though it opens the possibility of catching sight of the wide lonely chasm which is sometimes the inevitable consequence of letting her power into my own life .

 

We build our church above the street
We practice love between these sheets
The candy sweetness scent of you
It bathes my skin, I’m stained in you

And all I can do is hold you
There’s a racing within my heart
And I am barely touching you

Turn the lights down low
Take it off, let me show
My love for you
Insatiable

Darren Hayes didn’t get as much attention for this song as he should’ve done .
Of course, everything is relative, and everybody has their own triggers, but for me, this is the most beautiful love song ever written, and I fully recommend the whole album to those who might be interested - it’s called ‘Spin’ .

 

I hope to share a little more of my life with you, in the future - it promises to be a tactile, sensual, and above all, emotional blog, written through the filter of Cassieopaeia’s nature .

 

But just a slight caveat - those of a closed or rigid disposition may not really wish to subscribe, because although I don’t look for approval, and I don’t look to belong, I am essentially a sensitive creature - I hope you can appreciate that .

 

I just want to write what I feel I need to .