10 Comments

There is no death and all vibratory reality is erotic Kundalini/Shakti energy. Start fucking snd don't stop.

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Very beautiful

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Beautifully written, thank you!

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Tolly, I find such resonance in your words. My father is ill with Parkinson's disease and I live far enough away that I see him once, maybe a twice a year. Seeing the decline every time we gather is a fresh layer of grief that is so hard to hold. It makes me want to stay away, and go home more.

There is something so visceral about your experience of experiencing such numbness and then technicolor vibrancy in the same month, in the same body. As a Sexologist, I can attest that pleasure is deeply healing and nourishing medicine. It's so good for our nervous systems!

It brings me pleasure to hear that pleasure is doing the trick during a season that is destabilizing and filled with grief -- and pleasure both. I loooove how you described that one orgasm that pinged in your entire pelvic floor. Fuck yes to more of that!

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A touching essay -- thank you. Grief impacts me in precisely the opposite way. Desire is a sign of healing, a feeling of opening once again to possibility.

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I will write a full comment later today, but here I offer my thanks to Tolly for joining me as guest author on Inner Life. Take a look and be surprised.

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Thank you for having me, Mary! I appreciate the safe space to work out these complicated thoughts. And of course, I appreciate that you yourself have written so beautifully about grief and loss. Thanks for setting a precedent here, which inspired me to talk about my own experience.

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Now that I've had the time needed to read your essay with full attention, I am struck by its essence--the desire to feel alive in the face of the death of a loved one. I wrote a short story in my collection _The Woman Who Never Cooked_ that is fiction and is entitled "The Burglar" --and is maybe one of the best I've written. Used to be available online after it won a prize but I can't find that link now. In one layer, the story deals with a woman whose mother had died and she has a seemingly insatiable need to make love to her husband. You've hit on a truth about living and dying--and written about it bravely, Tolly.

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This was such a beautiful and vulnerable piece! Thank you for sharing. It makes perfect sense to me: to want to feel alive in the face of death. We human being are so complex. This piece was a wonderful reminder of that. And I’m sorry for your father. Cherish the time together.

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Thank you so much Imola!

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