Saturday at the Gathering
May. 3rd, 2004 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseSaturday was a remarkable day. As the only full day at a weekend gathering, it tends to be the highlight and, often, it seems to stretch on until it feels like you've lived many days in one.
Saturday represented a cascading series of challenges and highs for me. I woke up knowing I had three challenges ahead of me and I felt ready for them.
Sex seems to be a fairly big theme for me lately and I was determined to use the weekend to explore more feelings. In addition to the workshops on the weekend, we create so called "affinity groups" which are informal leaderless discussions around topics that a group of men are interested in. On Friday night, we brainstorm groups and then have our first of three group meetings.
Sick as I am of feeling bad about things I enjoy, I wanted to create an affinity group called "dealing with sexual shame" but then I suddenly realized that I was already starting off with a negative cast on the subject. Instead, I suggested "Sexual turn-ons" and we ended up with a really cool group of nine men of varying sexual orientations. On Friday night, the talk started off very fun and horny but people stiffened up (forgive me) a bit and we entered into theory for the rest of the time. Afterwards, Mikey and I determined that we had to get back to sex because in the land of pure theory, people weren't really getting to the meat of their pleasures and the triumphs and anxieties around them.
Mikey got the ball rolling on Saturday at our second meeting by saying "Let's start off by going around the circle and naming something that gets our dicks hard." My first challenge of the day was to name something around which I have pleasure and shame. I did it and I'm proud of that but I still feel like I didn't take the ball bravely enough and seek support on exorcising my shame.
Challenge number two of the day was to deal with the pointless fears I'm experiencing over the move to making the creation of art and the public dissemination of that art central to daily experience. It was a powerful but brief workshop and I will come back to it another time as I'm still groping to understand things we talked about.
Challenge number three was my performance in the evening coffee shop including the first public performance of my new Brel translation. I spent an hour going over my pieces and Mikey and I perfected one last line.
After that, it was time for nap, but then something happened, y'see. He's really cute. Is that the word? He's kind of mesmerizing. His energy is that of a satyr. His sexuality is right out there in the hang of his body, in the dark intensity of his eyes, in the frankness of his listening and sharing in the "turn-ons" group. But I was surprised by the age issues that popped up in my breast. I mean, he's 29 (though I thought he was a bit younger) and I'm only 12 years older and yet the powerful young sexual magneticism I saw in him seemed to scare me as much as it attracted me as we talked, him in nothing but a pair of white overalls. I felt like an old troll.
So, he announced that he was going up to the pond with a few others to swim. My brain thought, "Nap or skinny dipping and then lying in the sun naked with this boy?" and I went to get my towel. The idyll in the sun by the freezing cold pond was beautiful. There were about seven of us there, precluding a tryst (not that I thought one was possible). And yet, when I threaded a clover through my pubes, he liked the effect very much and proceeded to add further shamrocks to the treasure chest, causing a rise in the gold standard. (Oy, that last sentence hurt my brain).
The combination of blushingly pefect idyll and underlying tension seemed to charcterize the whole day and who was I to fight it?
Short version: I performed really well. Really well. The performance gods came down and I let them flow through me. After that, I was happy. The satyr had volunteered to go up the hill and start the bonfire while everyone else did some dancing to tunes. I followed him with a sense that the day was as perfect as it could be and nothing was going to happen.
We sat close and talked as we watched the fire climb higher. Then we kissed and started making out. Even then, I was not thinking about it going anywhere. We had to get up to attend to the fire and we laughed over the tents in our pants. Someone joined us briefly and then left. We kissed again and then, seeing people climbing the hill towards the beacon we had sparked, he took me by the hand and we slipped beneath the canopy of trees at the edge of the clearing. It was midnight, the air was warm, the moon bright enough to read each other by.
I ask for things now. That's what I do. "Do you like to have your ass eaten? Good, then turn around." I carry the burned-in memory of his sassy striped shirt, his overalls at his ankles and my cock in his mouth.
We cleaned up with my t-shirt and I spent the rest of the evening in just my sweater, the scratch of the wool making me feel very sexy. We chatted with others around the circle and smiled at each other every now and then. Dumb songs were sung loudly. I headed for bed, but there were still two conversations to be had, one that cemented my affection for the man I brought down to the fest with his debate fight street cred.
Then sleep.
Saturday represented a cascading series of challenges and highs for me. I woke up knowing I had three challenges ahead of me and I felt ready for them.
Sex seems to be a fairly big theme for me lately and I was determined to use the weekend to explore more feelings. In addition to the workshops on the weekend, we create so called "affinity groups" which are informal leaderless discussions around topics that a group of men are interested in. On Friday night, we brainstorm groups and then have our first of three group meetings.
Sick as I am of feeling bad about things I enjoy, I wanted to create an affinity group called "dealing with sexual shame" but then I suddenly realized that I was already starting off with a negative cast on the subject. Instead, I suggested "Sexual turn-ons" and we ended up with a really cool group of nine men of varying sexual orientations. On Friday night, the talk started off very fun and horny but people stiffened up (forgive me) a bit and we entered into theory for the rest of the time. Afterwards, Mikey and I determined that we had to get back to sex because in the land of pure theory, people weren't really getting to the meat of their pleasures and the triumphs and anxieties around them.
Mikey got the ball rolling on Saturday at our second meeting by saying "Let's start off by going around the circle and naming something that gets our dicks hard." My first challenge of the day was to name something around which I have pleasure and shame. I did it and I'm proud of that but I still feel like I didn't take the ball bravely enough and seek support on exorcising my shame.
Challenge number two of the day was to deal with the pointless fears I'm experiencing over the move to making the creation of art and the public dissemination of that art central to daily experience. It was a powerful but brief workshop and I will come back to it another time as I'm still groping to understand things we talked about.
Challenge number three was my performance in the evening coffee shop including the first public performance of my new Brel translation. I spent an hour going over my pieces and Mikey and I perfected one last line.
After that, it was time for nap, but then something happened, y'see. He's really cute. Is that the word? He's kind of mesmerizing. His energy is that of a satyr. His sexuality is right out there in the hang of his body, in the dark intensity of his eyes, in the frankness of his listening and sharing in the "turn-ons" group. But I was surprised by the age issues that popped up in my breast. I mean, he's 29 (though I thought he was a bit younger) and I'm only 12 years older and yet the powerful young sexual magneticism I saw in him seemed to scare me as much as it attracted me as we talked, him in nothing but a pair of white overalls. I felt like an old troll.
So, he announced that he was going up to the pond with a few others to swim. My brain thought, "Nap or skinny dipping and then lying in the sun naked with this boy?" and I went to get my towel. The idyll in the sun by the freezing cold pond was beautiful. There were about seven of us there, precluding a tryst (not that I thought one was possible). And yet, when I threaded a clover through my pubes, he liked the effect very much and proceeded to add further shamrocks to the treasure chest, causing a rise in the gold standard. (Oy, that last sentence hurt my brain).
The combination of blushingly pefect idyll and underlying tension seemed to charcterize the whole day and who was I to fight it?
Short version: I performed really well. Really well. The performance gods came down and I let them flow through me. After that, I was happy. The satyr had volunteered to go up the hill and start the bonfire while everyone else did some dancing to tunes. I followed him with a sense that the day was as perfect as it could be and nothing was going to happen.
We sat close and talked as we watched the fire climb higher. Then we kissed and started making out. Even then, I was not thinking about it going anywhere. We had to get up to attend to the fire and we laughed over the tents in our pants. Someone joined us briefly and then left. We kissed again and then, seeing people climbing the hill towards the beacon we had sparked, he took me by the hand and we slipped beneath the canopy of trees at the edge of the clearing. It was midnight, the air was warm, the moon bright enough to read each other by.
I ask for things now. That's what I do. "Do you like to have your ass eaten? Good, then turn around." I carry the burned-in memory of his sassy striped shirt, his overalls at his ankles and my cock in his mouth.
We cleaned up with my t-shirt and I spent the rest of the evening in just my sweater, the scratch of the wool making me feel very sexy. We chatted with others around the circle and smiled at each other every now and then. Dumb songs were sung loudly. I headed for bed, but there were still two conversations to be had, one that cemented my affection for the man I brought down to the fest with his debate fight street cred.
Then sleep.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 02:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 05:38 pm (UTC)A space where ideas co-exist with the passionate expression of the body and heart is ideal for me. May my life ever move deeper into that zone.
Maybe I'll bring you along next year or in the fall to a mixed men's and women's event I attend.
Thanks for reading my long post and thanks for your beautiful long post I read this morning.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 08:28 pm (UTC)So true! I wrote down everything that happened at the one I went to, and it took me two days to just write out Saturday. It seemed like so many different days, in different seasons and different years.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 10:13 am (UTC)Thanks, Jonathan. : )
What was the gay/straight ratio at that event? I'm just curious...
no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 10:28 am (UTC)Of course, I am ignoring the bi's in this discussion and also (as they were labelled in a workshop on the weekend) the "queer str8 guys", including my friend Mikey who I mentioned in the post and whom I slept naked with each night.
There is a second gathering group I attend with both men and women that started off with a large group of bisexuals at its core and many gays and str8s as well. I prefer as much heterogeneity as possible.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 10:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 10:46 am (UTC)