The Vanishing of the Cheshire Cat, and why lingering isn`t supposed to be comforting.

"Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?

The Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to

Alice: I don't much care where.

The Cat: Then it doesn't much matter which way you go.

Alice: …so long as I get somewhere.

The Cat: Oh, you're sure to do that, if only you walk long enough."




The Cat, proudly professes, that it doesn`t get involved in politics. Yes, even when the Red Queen is about to chop the Hatters' head, and the Jabberwockie  runs just short of combusting Alice.  Strangely, it does appear when Alice are wounded by the Bandersnatch, quickly heals the wound and takes off.  Ever known a Cheshire Cat? Eternally present/unpresent comes and goes as pleases, verbalizes commitment - but then, grins and dissappears.  I once knew a Cheshire cat...



The Cheshire Cat manifests as a  quiet lingering ex from long ago who always left before she could hurt you,  until you realized;  the only reason she doesn`t hurt, is because she not real like your other lovers.  Its easy to be loved,  when showing up for a major event, playing hero*grinning * and rushing off.  Its a non commital freedom to them,  a verbalization of love and support with very little to substantiate it.  To us,  its a mere comforting thought of somoene who's commitment has been but a figment of our imaginations.  



Yes, realizing its was an illusion can be essentially as devestating,  as looking into the Grinning Puss`s face with love and longing, when waking up, realizing - OH SHIT,  I never knew you at all.  



Moral of the story:  When someone loves, they love like the way the Hatter would fight for Alice,  staying behind her all the way, risking his life to keep her safe and even landing in jail to protect her.  Its about positive visible commitment and proof that would hold up in court. Love is never a non committal grin, when you are begging for mercy,  or a simple inconsiderate vanishing as soon as the situation gets a little tough.  When the going gets tough the Cheshire cat gets going - to wherever she goes.... 



I had a cat like that.  I loved her.  she loved my hat... Thats about it.  After 10 years,  I looked up into the sky, and saw her face... - I suddenly knew, I don`t know this person. I don`t know her pretence, her lies and insencerity,  and I was a naive fool. Shit! I fell, over and over again.  With broken legs and serious bruises to my heart they were there.  The real, non vanishing entities.  Tweedeldee and Tweedeledum,  the dearest Absalom and her wisdom,  the Vorpal sword of love,  and my beloved Alice.  Without them I would probably not have survive the shock of  realizing, that the Cat that used to be my companion,  had vanished into thin air.... in time, became a mere figment of my vivid imagination.  



Isn`t it true, the some of us are in relationships like this... as time progresses, we lose them,  like steam, slowly evaporating, leaving an empty pond.... One day we wake up realizing - for a long time now,  this relationship, has been a mere figment of our imagination.  The cat doesn`t heal the wounds anymore,  it just doesnt show up.... It leaves a void that becomes part of us - so slowly, that we believe it to be normal.  



Beware of this.  Women need abundant committed loud loving.  We need to be held at night and kissed with a fiery hunger.  We need women who will fuck us into oblivion and then hold us like the world is about to end.  My dear fellow lesbians,  beware of the Cheshire cats in our lives - time doesnt sleep - don`t grow old lonely withou realizing it.... 



For ten years I held on to the idea of my Cheshire cat, ever vanishing, I kept believing.  When the day came to weather the storm without her,  the reality broke softly.... Like the waves at False bay... I expected a thunderstorm,  and then  realized this is no longer a earth shattering loss... Ive been in this soft waves for a while, used to the non-committal absence.  I`m just processing the reality of knowing, the grin and the eyes, has never had the meaning I attached to it.   Bantry bay will never be at Simonstown, no matter how I hoped it to be.   She has been gone much longer than her body, or the smell of smoke in her bedroom.  I don`t even miss her much. I thought the invisibilty meant ,that she was always there lingering.  I was wrong.  It meant she was always missing...



Go well, Cheshire cat of my imagination.  I love what we once had.  May you be spared the lingering emptiness you brought upon me. I will soar.  Grounded. Without you.  



...and sorry, I`m keeping my hat.    




NO kisses.

Darefaiy.

I love your Girlfriend - honesty and two degrees of seperation.

I will start out frankly: I am not a serious optimist when it comes to the viability of straight modelled lesbian relationships. I have just encountered a few too many lesbian relationships gone horribly awry. I have a friend who has not been in a relationship for six years. She simply doesnt feel like the high drama any longer. If I look around me, I don`t blame her. I suspect, that at the core of our lesbian relationship difficulties lies two things: firstly we try way to hard to imitate straight monogamous calvinist marriages, and secondly our female inability to stop caring for our ex lovers and perhaps following that, our intense need to own the person we love. So you have six ladies in your life you call friends, turns out they are actually all exes with whom you share a bag full of intimate and emotionally loaded memories. Your newest lover has issues with them, as they make her feel insecure. After various over emotional fights you choose between a friendless existence or another breakup and consequently another ex that you will remain in contact with inevitably. This mad but very real situation brings us to a choice:a) You can either decide that your current lover is the most important person in the world and abandon your exes, risking isolation and end up despising her for losing people closest to your heart in the long term. b) Your lover can learn to accept that she is your most imporant love and that caring and even loving other people does not derive from that. The facts are. If the only reason you are staying with your lover and not having juicy thoughts about other women is because you don`t get to communicate with anyone else, then she should be way more insecure than if you were frank with her about exes and other people dear to you.Its a bit of a cosmopolitan love. Myself and a friend in Cape Town recently worked out that in South Africa there are about two people between you and any other South African Lesbian (sexually). So, we are one hot and happy family. We have to accept ourselves as women whom, in kind are loving, warm hearted and bond tightly and easily we should probably stop trying to imitate straight relationships in our much diffrent way of loving. We are not stud bulls trying to spread our gene pool as far as possible, we are deeper, more caring beings, and thinking that loving anyone means forgetting and unloving everyone else you have once loved is a giant mistake. Especially with women. The solution lies in free open and uninhibited communication. My primary lover knows, about all the women I carry close to my heart. She also understands how important she is to me. In fact all the women in my life does. Yes, I love more than one woman. That does not make me the slut of Lesbia, it simply makes me honest, both with myself and the objects of my affection. One of the last things I want is someone who does not want me, or worse somoene that wants to imprison me. We must design our own working mode, l heavens the straight model doesnt even work for straights!!So, as a pessimist over the longterm viability of a relationship between two over emotional intense woman, I believe that lesbian relationships can only work if we are open and honest about the fact that we do love each others girlfriends - it does not mean we need to sleep with them, but denial has never caused love to vanish, it only broods and grows stronger until what you are hiding either bursts open dramatically or devours you from the inside.So honey, I love your girlfriend, sir, I love your wife - live with it, because if you are honest you will admit, that you too loves somene elses girlfriend. Remember to support www.alicemagazine.co.za

Kisses

Darefairy