(Note, I just saw that comments were off — I turned them on, you may now comment on this piece. In fact, please do! xef)
By Maria Padhila
About four years ago, at a pagan festival, I attended a workshop given by Raven Kaldera, author of (among other books) Pagan Polyamory: Becoming a Tribe of Hearts. It was the first time I’d tried to learn anything “formally” about polyamory, and I was pretty nervous, feeling, I suppose, similar to how someone first exploring paganism might at any other workshop that weekend. The nervousness dissipated quickly, and for the same reasons — just as all the witches look pretty normal, so did the small group of polyamorists: normal, funny, interesting.
One of Kaldera’s tribe was talking about his feelings when one of his partners tried to meet new people.
“It can be so frustrating, seeing someone you love get turned down by someone they’re interested in,” he was saying. “You just want to shake them and say: ‘What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see how great this person is? You’re such a fool!’”
I remember this because it touched my heart. It’s the way you feel about a friend who is out in date world again, with all its dullness and uncertainties and rising hopes and casual slapdowns. But feeling this way about a lover?
Years later, I’m sitting outside my boyfriend’s apartment on a surprise spring day in mid-February. He’s talking about his plan to invite the barista at the coffee shop (local, fair, non-chain) he goes to nearly every day to an open mic he’s been attending almost every week. They’ve been flirting for months, but still.
I’m testing feeling what he might be feeling. “I never think about how hard it must be, as a man, to approach someone, to move it up a level,” I say.
“Yeah… there’s that point, when you’re out, and maybe you put your arm around her. Will it work? Is it really what you’ve both been thinking about?”
I put myself in that place. It’s been almost a year since Chris and I fell in love. And before that, almost 20 years since that first touch with my husband, Issac. It’s so wonderful and strange to make that shift. It changes the energy, the future, the air around you both. So seldom did it ever feel wrong, on my part — I know pretty strongly who I want to invite in and who I don’t, and I’m good at walling off people I don’t want that close. How could anyone not want that feeling as often as possible?