So here’s a huge surprise. Sex has begun to hurt.
All my parts are in working order. I have lots of experience and a great imagination. There are no more surprise pregnancies to worry about. I have a partner that I’m in love with…and…sex hurts.
Crap
My mother kept this from me because she stopped having sex. Most of her friends did too. Is that why they stopped? Did they know?
Well, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and advertisers know about it now. There are commercials and adverts in my magazines about a variety of new drugs and natural products meant to help.
Middle age is such a trip. Just when I think I got it, whambo a surprise. I mean, there I was having the time of my life. The family has grown-up. Husband and I are travelling. I’m fit, feisty and feel like I have all the experience and wisdom to take on the world. Then whambo-blambo – midlife. Twists, turns, mountains and valleys. I’m fumbling again, just like when I was 12.
I started this blog. Stick with me, it ties together. I did lots of research on the effort and made a business plan but I don’t know what I’m doing. Everyone has advice and there are a lot of folk making a dime or two on the how’s and wherefore’s of blogging. All advice is about building your list with names, algorithms, more names, comments and more comments. It’s like sex now. All the parts are in working order but it’s not quite working, it hurts sometimes.
Maybe it’s content? Maybe I need to spend less time on list building, algorithm worry, and more time on just writing.
Gertrude Stein wrote an almost incomprehensible book about how to write. I know there is a whole lot of wisdom in those crazy pages so I keep reading it. Or I try to. The first chapter is simply titled “The Sentence” and it starts with a simple sentence about nothing. Then she takes that simple sentence and builds on it. Then she changes it and builds on that Then she does it again. It doesn’t offer instruction, just rambling example.
I may not get the instruction I want, but I get wisdom. Start with simple and don’t move on until you get really good. Whambo- blambo. Start with simple- and move on.
I think I have to stay focused. My favorite blogs are just good writing. That’s what I want. Just write and chronicle this amazing time. But I need to do it as Anne Lammott instructs “Bird by Bird”, one sentence at a time.
Like sex. I know stuff. Lots of stuff. I know how to make it good- but in my experience have I lost the excitement of the simple?
Have I lost the thrill of the simple everywhere, even the bedroom?
Remember those early years of sex, of discovery before the bells and whistles? Maybe now before I rush off to the doctors for some pill to make it all right, I need to start at the beginning. Go back to the simple moments make them special again before I move on.
Whambo- blambo. Is that the solution to all these dips and curves? Go back to the beginning, to the first sentence and find that life, sex and writing are fun again?
As always,