Centrifugal Exposure

It had rained during the night. A light misting that did nothing more than lay a thick dew on everything. As soon as the Central fire rose I knew the ground would soak up all the moisture as if there had been none. But for now the ground and grass smelled wet and fresh .. birds and insects were behaving like spring and noisily busy.

I rolled the ground sheet and reminded myself to lay it out to dry later. I threw the saddle on Pekoe and swiped my hand over the leather to shed as much water as I could from it before I swung up.

Back at camp Oren asked me if she could take date to the verr herd .. there were three females due to birth and that was just a little more than Oren felt she was up to and raven was busy with flags and ribbons. I told her of course and then went about figuring where I needed to pitch in to make up for date not being available. I decided to do my own laundry .. something I did on most occasions but date had actually been doing it lately. I strode with it down to the stream hoping the misting the night before had not muddied up the water .. I was fortunate that it was indeed clear and cold.

I stripped to the waist .. no reason to waste the opportunity to do as much laundry as possible ... and then proceeded to do the task. I was nearly done with it when T'zuri showed up. It did not bother me to see her .. I had drank quite enough of that bottle the other night. But she started mucking with my bloody laundry and if there is one thing to shove me directly out of peace .. muck with my shit. I felt all exposed and naked .. and I actually do not mind being physically naked in front of a woman .. I do not have a shred of decency in me ... but this was my laundry and not for her to see all laid out there and .... well.. exposed. I finally got exasperated with her .. she is worse than Mezoo's jit monkey... and asked her what the hell she wanted from me. She said she just wanted me to have some fun .. to play a little. What in the hell is with this woman .. she wants me to talk and have fun and play? She is going to drive me insane. And I told her so .. I also told her she did not want to get me started. She wondered what I meant by that ..

It got me to thinking too. Just what do I mean by that? Why is it so hard for me to exist close to people. I mean I get along all right with my people .. as well as can be expected anyway. I do not ask for perfection. But none of them get close to me. It made me think of centrifugal force. When something spins and throws energy outward .. like a top. It spins along just fine until it bumps into something and then things go all to hell. That is how I feel. Like when Falon or Shaningo touches my shoulder. Or when T'zuri keeps teasing. And I do not like it. I feel this loss of control .. like I am close to something I have never experienced before and that is when things go all wrong. If they would just stay on their side of things and leave me on mine. Let me exist comfortably in my spin .. even if it is throwing everything away from me I am not sure I know how to exist any other way. And there sure is a lot of "out of control" between the spin and the stop. The kind of "out of control" that people do not survive through. And the things that bump me are when people get close to me. When I feel things .. emotions. Any of them ... that is why I do not play .. that is why I do not have female friends that are close to me. I have no desire to fall in love with the wrong woman. My love is dysfunctional enough.

At that point I had thought myself into more confusion and I just let it go. I do not know if what I said to T'zuri made any sense. I do not know if she got it .. if she did she needs to explain it to me. She did say something to me that made sense and eased my mind a little .. that her tears were about not getting things right all the time. But she did not mind them .. she still wanted to figure it out. Why was I so selfish and demanding that she not get hurt or have the chance to learn from her mistakes? I still do not like it. I still told her my promise stood whether she liked it or not. I still do not like my laundry touched while it is exposed and I am still spinning away with no change foreseen in the near future.

But at least I do have clean clothes.