4

After the Disappointment

-by Yasmin A. Sayyed

What happens, I recently pondered, when one realizes that she's given away more of herself than she had intended to in a romantic relationship? What happens after the disappointment and the anger (with both) finally subside? I, at best, began to think about restructuring the relationship, of maintaining respect and a less intensified degree of love between us; at worst think about terminating the relationship and working single- mindedly towards reoccupying my "alone" space.

Since I I have a proclivity to catastro- phize and immediately run for my supposed emotional survival, I only later began processing around the reformalizing of the relationship's pattern. For weeks, I, aided by a cracked knee cap, sat around being meditative, rereading old journal notations, entering new ones, and pondering my direction.

There are precious few models for those of us who wish neither to continue within the existing framework of a partner- ship, nor to terminate it. As lesbians, we do not have any culturally defined constructs, no traditionally delineated limits on the scope of our relationships. What we do have is a unique opportunity to create structures that respect our individuation. If we operate with honor, compassion, and integrity, I beleieve we can develop diversified formats that are conjointly self-respecting. define and refine the parameter of our partnerships to accommodate our diff- erentiated needs at specific times in our lives. I'd like to share with you you a journal entry about reclamation, from a November dream.

We can

taken

The density of the woods thickened, my feet bare and unaccustomed to the rocks and downed twigs, are scratched, pained, and bleeding; my lungs, unaccustomed to the ever- darkening forest, cry for the light of guidance.

Yet, the heart knows no fatigue, knows no discomfort, yearns only to forge on beckoning illumination of the vision that lies within. Within, I am full. Satiated.

My skin stretched taut. My belly is

full with child

Heaviness of body, and lightness of soul.

Confluent consciousness forging on. Weariness the point of exhaustion.

to

I stop. Wrap my arms backwards around a small tree as I support my arched back.

The Krisna Krisna blue of the sky peeks through the light-to-dark green leaves of the trees.

The trilium, patches of Douglas irises, oxalis, and yellow violets dot the dampened ground.

It's a far cry from Southern Boulevard, the the El trains that vibrated my bedroom at clock- able intervals;

The vacant lots filled with broken glass

That dubbed as playgrounds. It's another reality out here, Would I still be me, I mused to myself,

If I had stayed in in the South Bronx?

Would I still have connected so profoundly with

This reality of interconnected consciousness,

Would I have lost my dreams and Myself

weaves

In the labyrinth of horizontal hostility and internalized rage.

some

The energy tugs at my mind again. My thoughts broken, and again again my tired legs move. The spiralled path to a pattern familiar inner mechanism that my conscious mind could not readily recollect. I move, walk, run, stumble, climb upward, around over, meandering with deliberation, driven by gentle tugs

and guided guided through the eye of my

mind that sees/senses in inarticu- late ways.

I follow, trust, as trust I must, for but to follow I have little choice.

The leaves swell and touch one another.

Their gynemorphic forms lean, sway sensuously backwards, allowing greater amounts of light to shine through the tops of the skylight effects of the encirclement. The slowly descending, ascending, and redescending hues of lavender, moss green, Persian blue, and glowing gold of the sky and leaves enters my innards.