(Unfortunately) We Need to Talk About Dominic

We need to talk about Dominic. First let me tell you why I really did not want to talk about Dominic, why I have gone through several false starts with my weekly writing. The main reason I don’t want to talk about Dominic is that I am beyond over wasting my time and energy talking to, thinking about, writing about and most especially being in the same space as Entitled White Men. 

The false starts spoke to my reluctance. And then I remembered the thing about how when we are avoiding something, it’s quite possible that is the very thing that needs addressing. (Exceptions to this rule, for me anyway, include purposefully avoiding aggressively hurtful people, including but not limited to narcissistic abusers, because in my world, this sort of avoidance is actually a tool of safety.)

I’m not going to thank Dominic for forcing me into deeper contemplation about what I want as I enter my winter season. I am going to thank myself for remembering I am allowed to want in general and also that I am specifically allowed to want things I was brainwashed into believing I should never want or dream of. 

Dominic booked a spot at the ranch through AirBnB ten days ago. The spot he reserved was a large wooden platform I have, upon which guests can pitch a tent. I have every single rule and detail posted in my Airbnb rules guide. Knowing a lot of people don’t bother to read that, I send every single guest a personal note explaining it all, beginning with the fact that checkout ends at 9 pm sharp, no exceptions. I also tell them GPS will take them next door. I send a photo of my front gate. I tell them precisely how to get to their specific spot.

Though Dominic received this notice, he arrived after 9 pm. He informed me via text that he didn’t know where the spot was. I reminded him I’d sent detailed instructions. I then re-sent those instructions. I said I was in bed and that I needed him to let me know when he found the platform. He texted back that he was all set.

I woke up the next morning to discover Dominic’s car parked on my lawn, twenty feet from my bedroom window. He was sleeping in it. This explained why the animals had been spooked and rowdy all night, the guard dogs barking incessantly, disturbing the other guests. They were trying to warn me, to protect me.

When I saw that Dominic was awake, I went outside and told him to leave. Now. Dominic proceeded to leave a one-star review of a spot he did not stay in. He noted that this spot he did not stay in— a wooden platform— was not to his liking because it was “dusty.” He also noted the animals were bothersome failing to recognize he was the one that set them off. 

I spent a week on the phone with one customer “service” rep after another trying to get that review removed. Each in turn would bullshit me, hinting at resolution but never promising it, until at last a bot informed me case closed, the review stands. Nothing I offered them mattered—not the photo of the car on my lawn, not screenshots of his lying text, not that my PTSD around having been sexually assaulted in my past was highly triggered by this creepy dude sleeping by my window. 

My usual habit of thinking and overthinking and debating with myself is in extra high gear right now courtesy of the Social Media and News Cleanse I am in the midst of. I cannot use kitten videos and current events to numb and distract myself from my Dominic Irritation, which is actually a drop in the bucket of my ongoing outrage about having been duped as a child into believing my role was to submit to men. 

I understand, clearly, the privilege part of having a ranch, of having a way to generate good income through rentals. I get it that if I can’t stand the heat I need to get out of the kitchen, even if that means taking a heavy financial hit. I’m really glad I finally understand that my Mental Health must always be my priority and if doing things one way spins me out, I need to find a different way.

As I stewed on all this, a magical thing happened. A book appeared on a shelf. Just sitting there, out in the open, its cover half chewed off by a dog. I had forgotten about buying it years ago. I did not recall noticing it in that spot before. But there it was. Not the first time a book has literally jumped out at me. When this happens, I believe it is important to look closer.

The book, The Stations of Solitude, was written by Alice Koller and published in 1990. It’s a follow up to her earlier memoir, An Unknown Woman (1981). In lieu of reading the news with my coffee I have been digging into The Stations. I’m not sure yet if I like it enough to continue, but currently the message the book has delivered most loudly is to remember the most important message I took from An Unknown Woman.

That book is an account of how, after completing her Harvard Ph.D at 37, Koller, feeling wildly unmoored and realizing how much of her life to date she had shaped around men, decided to experiment with solitude. She wintered on Nantucket with a puppy named Logos. She was hoping to figure out what she truly wanted to do with her life. It took her a good stretch of alone time to realize that before she could figure out what she wanted, she had to own and integrate the fact that she was allowed to want. 

Her epiphany became my epiphany. Since I read the book, I have tried to foster awareness around what *I* truly want. Of believing I am allowed to want, instead of believing, as I was taught, to put the wants and needs of others first always. Figuring out what I truly want turns out to be like that Michelangelo quote: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” To understand what I want, I have to eliminate what I do not want. What I literally cannot tolerate anymore. Only then will I be free. (Though never to be confused with an angel.)

The list of what I don’t want is ever-growing and too long to catalog here. But at the top of the list is not wanting, ever again, to cave to the still ubiquitous societal demands that I “behave” or “suck things up” or, most especially, fall for the myth that I am weaker and dumber than those with different genitalia than me. 

It shouldn’t be this hard. But indoctrination is a crazy thing. And unfortunately awareness is not enough for me to escape it—witness my residual catholic guilt, a full forty years after leaving that pedophilic institution behind, to give but one crippling example. 

When I ask myself what I truly want, often enough the answer I receive takes the form of another book I have read many times. It is a book I have gifted more than any other. The book itself is not written elegantly, which is not a reflection on the talents of the author Pat LittleDog. Border Healing Woman is an as-told-to account, much of it transcription, and Jewel Babb, the subject, was a barely educated woman not trained in the ways of verbal eloquence. 

Babb was in her late 70s when LittleDog spent three months with her in her tarpaper shack in Valentine, Texas, on the border of the Rio Grande. The shack sat upon acreage strewn with junk and hobbled together animal pens. In particular Jewel loved her goats.

Babb also was well-known in the Rio Grande Valley as being a healer who, through the laying of hands, could ease the suffering of the people who traveled from all over seeking her help. Often these people had little or no money to give her. She herself remained poor her whole life, which she did not love but accepted because what other choice did she have? 

I’m not sure when I realized I wanted to be Jewel Babb, or at least be like her, but the idea has been brewing for a very long time. To me, her life most closely resembles what I feel is, for lack of better word, my purpose in life. I’ll save philosophizing about the notion of a purpose-driven life for another time. For now, I will say that even if that is a superstition, that we have no real purpose beyond biological imperative, it is a superstition I turn to when I am feeling existential angst, a rather regular visitor to my mind. I tell myself even if there actually is no true purpose to “finding a purpose,” that I must arbitrarily choose one if I am going to endure the rest of this ride with any measure of peace and comfort. 

I have the goats. In fact, since I last checked in with y’all, I have ANOTHER baby goat. A goat so cute that if I had broken my Instagram Fast in its first days, fault squarely would have fallen upon the two new baby goats because oh how I want to share the glory of them with the world. 

Ever since a powerful intuitive told me in 1988 that my hands literally have the power to physically heal people, I have had an X-Files reaction when I imagine doing this. I want to believe. But to find out for sure, I would need to try. And there’s one major problem with this alleged superpower of mine. Because of the physical violence I have dealt with in my life, I have severe difficulty with any physical contact with other humans. Surely this is a big reason I have so many animals because we all need touch and I have to get mine somewhere. But if I can’t touch humans, how can I ever test out these hands of mine? 

Sometimes I’ve thought that maybe the intuitive was not being literal about my hands. Maybe what he meant was that in using my hands to type out my scariest stories, I have managed to bring comfort to others who experienced the same. 

Whatever the case with my hands, I do like that I’ve been able to offer some healing to some people and I include myself on that list. I know from readers’ letters that feeling understood is useful. This goes both ways. My original words help them feel understood. Their notes help me feel understood. These exchanges prove that while feeling alone exacerbates pain, discovering we are not alone promotes healing. 

If Dominic’s bullshit is to serve a purpose (real or imagined) then I choose to see that purpose as being delivered another unwanted but apparently necessary reminder that it’s time to do still more re-shaping out here at this little ranch of mine. 

At some point last week I got so fed up with AirBnB’s refusal to take my concerns into account, let alone seriously, I pulled down all of my listings. They remain hidden and if I hit a major financial hurdle, I suppose I can turn them back on. But the universe offered plenty of proof this past weekend that I’m moving in the right direction. A writer friend asked me if I’d host a writing retreat for her students. I scheduled a writing workshop and a mid-August women’s retreat. These things are filling up. 

I’m also getting seemingly random requests from artists to come and stay and be quiet and work. I have no clue how they are finding me, unless it’s the energetic SOS beacon I am currently emitting. Whatever the case, I’m grateful for this reassurance that I can perhaps, achieve my chosen purpose of offering a safe, quiet space to heal.

Oh yes, it’s question time—What do you really, truly want? If money were no object, what would you do differently with your life?

NOTES:

*My six-week memoir writing workshop for women begins next Tuesday and is nearly full. If you want one of the few spots that are left, email me. The weekend retreat for women in August still has room. Work on your writing, your art, your peace. Info for both is at TinyTRanch.com

*If you or someone you know wants a quiet break, I’m offering weekend spots at the ranch at a much better price than I had on AirBnB. Message me. And please help me get the word out. 

*If you’re up for it, please consider subscribing to this substack for $7 per month. Helps me keep doing more of what I want to do and should be doing and less dealing with random assholes. In fact, here’s a subscriber perk—if you sign up for an annual subscription I’ll give you a couple of nights at the ranch so you can experience the magic for yourself. If subscribing isn’t something you’re up for now, it also helps me if you share this substack.

*Crone Shenanigans is starting up in Mid-July. A gathering of women of a certain age (honestly all ages are welcome as long as you have Crone Spirit). If you want to be on the mailing list for that, let me know. Thanks.