Category: Beliefs and Practices

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

Muted Rainbows Demand More Sun

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

Just a few months ago, in one of my many notebooks, I scribbled down that I couldn’t wait to welcome back June me. Now that it’s here, it’s almost disappointing; I feel far more subdued, far more anxious. I feel the things I associate with November and winter, not my favorite time of the year. 

I love summer and Pride and hot weather and sunshine. I love the thick, lush canopy of leaves that erupt from every stick that survived the ice and wind of the winter. I love the extra hours of sunlight – not so much the fights that come from trying to put my kid to bed before it’s dark – but the extra time that I take, that I am granted by the natural world. The longing for my home in the mountains doesn’t slice quite as hard when I can raise my eyes from typing and see a spectrum of broad-leaf trees, and pines that seem to relax because their friends and neighbors are visiting again. 

But this year, June dawns grayer and cooler than expected. Whereas the turn of the calendar always filled me with life and vibrancy, this time I find myself struggling with motivation and a level of anxiety that is usually reserved for fall temperatures. 

Pride season always fills me with hope and gratitude; this year, those burgeoning emotions war with trepidation and a near-existential dread. It feels like more than I have the reserves for after this past winter and cool, rainy spring. 

Changes come; patterns emerge, change, revert, change again. 

As we approach the solstice, I find myself seeking solitude. I am reflecting, drawn to digging into my own shadows. The tumult of the past half-year have found me here, sitting in the same physical place as Mabon. So much the same as then, and I feel so very different. 

I am drawing back, recommitting to myself right now; my body, my home, my kid, my writing. The investments of my time and energy, my blood, sweat, and tears; none of it is without deep thought and intention. 

I am indulging – no, not indulging, because that makes me feel as if it’s something I don’t deserve or need – I am embracing where my heart and soul are leading me. 

I’m no longer waiting for perfect moments and clean spaces – if I feel called to read my tarot, I pull out my cards. 

I’m no longer waiting until the house is clean to sit and write. 

I’m no longer waiting until the weather is nice if I want to go outside. 

I’m not waiting until the kid falls asleep to take care of myself.

I’m not waiting for someone to come over and watch a particular show or movie (though, let’s be honest, how much do I actually watch). 

I’m not waiting for things to be offered. If I want it and I have the energy, I take it. 

I’m tired of feeling like “deserve” is a word that doesn’t apply to me, that never has. That I don’t have intrinsic worth, just by being alive and here. I’m tired of feeling like I don’t deserve; I’m tired of constantly feeling like I have to earn, to strive, to compete. 

I recently bought a t-shirt from a writing conference I am attending that says “Writing is my therapy,” and as I sit here, words flowing from my fingers, I can feel my soul working through some sticky shit. 

I’m tired. I’m grieving. I’m frustrated. I’m despairing and frightened. 

I’m angry. 

I thought I knew anger well. She is but one of my familiars, after all. But there are times when she surprises me. She does not take my hand and smile gently, pointing out the flight of a bluebird. No. She grabs my face in her hands, forces me to look at her head-on, then turns my head to shove my face in what’s been waiting for me to see. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

Thank you, I breathe. 

She draws a finger down my spine, reminding me that she is aware of the steel in it, even when I forget. 

So I sit here, writing, feeling, one eye on the clock. Today is a big day. 

It is Saturday, one week from Midsummer. It is Boston’s Pride for the People. It is No Kings Day. It is my eleventh wedding anniversary. 

I have been turning to… well, “faith” would be the easiest way to phrase it, but that feels jarring and uncomfortable. “Spirituality” doesn’t feel quite right, either, but not as icky. “Craft” still means writing. Eh, fuck it. 

I’ve been turning to my witchy shit a lot more lately. I shove stuff out of the way on the couch, or the blankets off the bed to spread out my cards. If the dog is asleep and I can get some space from the child, I still take the floor, or even better (and of course, far rarer) outside. I don’t spend (read: waste) a lot of time searching for the perfect spread to lay out, the questions that fit. I’m following my natural curiosity and determining what it is I need, and find that the cards appreciate that a hell of a lot more.

In almost all my spreads these past few weeks, in every deck, I keep pulling the Wheel of Fortune. This card indicates the nonstop movement of life, change and cycles, that what comes will also pass. [I remember someone I love dearly pulled the Tower for months, and I miss them acutely.] I’ve also repeatedly pulled the eight of pentacles (indicating hard work pays off, effort creates progress), the nine of wands (ready and prepared for a fight), the ten of swords (the pain is real, but the storm is passing), and the Fool (adventurous, experimental, possibilities). Again, these cards come up to me through three different decks, at completely different times, and after lots of shuffling. 

When I did my yearly pull for my birthday (which I actually did on May 1, Beltane) I rejected the first reading. It was full of angst and anxiety; also my most intense deck, so I tried with one that I feel is better for my creativity. And still, though I accepted it, there was a lot of uncertainty in messages; a lack of clarity in my life, clearly indicated by the cards. 

I keep thinking about that. These days feel so uncertain, so fraught. I’ve removed social media from my phone, and I feel better about that most days, but also know that I’m sticking my head in the sand. Whenever I pull it out and get a glimpse of what’s going on, all I can think of is “the fascism, boss!” 

So… now what?

Great, I know that I’m angry. I know that the world is constantly moving. I know that I deserve, not riches or success, but to live as myself, love myself, without compromise or apology. 

And so, I’ve signed on with a writing coach for six months. I booked a writing retreat and I’m attending a virtual conference. I’m clearing my mind before I get to work, and I’m taking messy action. I’m leaning into my witchy shit. I’m planting gardens and my own roots. I am investing in myself. 

I am afraid (I am doing it anyway).

I am creating (I am protesting).

I am parenting (I am resisting).

I am loving (I am rioting).

Here’s to Pride, not just today but always.

Here’s to No Kings, not just today but always. 

Here’s to La Vie Boheme, reminding us that “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation!”

June may have dawned gray, but I vow that I will keep reaching until I can pull the brilliant sunlight out of the clouds with my bare hands. 

And so it is. 

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

The Secret that Insta Therapists Don’t Want You to Know!

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

The offrenda is small this year. Symbols and touchstones take the place of photographs. A tussy-mussy of marigolds snatched from the last scraggly pot at a pumpkin farm lie wilting in front of the tiny urn and crystals. The light from the small candles barely reaches to the floor before the altar. This simple and unplanned space is all I could manage this year.

It has been a rough six months, on the heels of a difficult winter. 

Every time I feel like I’m turning a corner, that my mood and energy will start to improve  – with this new therapist, this new medication, the hours of sunlight a day –  something interrupts my anticipated progress, and I am grieving all over again. 

I grieve the hours stolen from me – by the depression, by the job, by the stupid amount of time I spend driving place to place. I am grateful for the pay and the health insurance, and the meaning buried deeply in the work I do. The traffic exhausts me and by the time I arrive home, it is all I can do to empty lunch boxes and get dinner together. 

I grieve the energy and patience lost to having to shoulder parenting a toddler alone. I am grateful for my village, without whom Lucy would not have had a birthday celebration or trick-or-treating on Halloween. My Target receipt would be miles longer for clothes and shoes, and I would have missed out on music and so much conversation with other adults. 

I grieve for my wife, as a widow. I grieve for my son, as a loss mom. I grieve for my daughter, as any parent does, as there aren’t enough hours in the day to both function in this world and to focus on her joy and her journey. 

I grieve for my friends and family who have suffered at the hands of others, even as they fight back against oppressive systems. I grieve for strangers who went bowling, for strangers who find themselves displaced and endangered as war rages in front of their eyes and ravages their families. 

I know that I cannot take on the sadness of the world, and that is not my intent. Nor is it my intent today to use this platform to provide a beacon of hope or light or whatever positivity I can muster. 

Because right now, even as I wait for my daughter to awake, for dear friends to arrive, even as a new exciting chapter is opening its pages – amidst the small joys, I am weighed down by everything from war to neurotransmitters. There will always be people who measure their power in the taking of human lives. The oceans are warming and the sea is still rising. My first child and my wife will still be gone from this plane. My brain will never make its serotonin quota on its own. These aren’t lamentations or intrusive thoughts; these are irreversible facts that I have to acknowledge every day.

I think we do a disservice to people suffering when we cannot acknowledge it without also providing some sort of golden thread of hope.

I’m not saying give up on hope. I’m not saying that we, collectively, should stop lighting candles or saying prayers or looking for the helpers. I’m not saying don’t continue seeking and demanding justice and ceasefires. I’m not saying little moments, gestures of kindness, or offerings of hope aren’t massively important. 

I’m saying that shit’s just heavy sometimes, and the presence of heavy shouldn’t automatically trigger a response of lightness. The “equal and opposite response” law isn’t an evenly spread layer of karma that makes the balance evident. Balance in the universe doesn’t trickle down to the individual level, and we don’t need to fall into the trap of false or toxic positivity to try to make ourselves or others feel better. 

So if all you can see right now is dark, I get it. I see it too. And it’s enough to acknowledge that. Whatever you can muster, in whatever season you’re in, is enough. You don’t need to look for the lesson or the silver lining. You don’t have to think your flaws are beautiful, or that blessings always wear disguises. 

There will always be heavy shit, there will always be darkness, and the seasons will change. If all you can do is acknowledge that, it’s enough. 

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

Me, Myself, I

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I’ve been talking to myself for years. Out loud, in my head, for as long as I can remember. Truth is, I can’t really tell silence apart from my thoughts when I’m alone.

I remember when social media discovered that not everyone has an internal monologue and how shocking it was (I was surprised, were you surprised? I was very surprised). I have no idea what it is like to live and not have a constant radio in my brain, peppered with dad jokes, movie quotes, and song lyrics, like hurdles for the racing of my thoughts. Even now, I can hear the words as they want to be written down. It’s so hard to keep up, even though I know I have good typing speed. The red lines indicating misspellings are new obstacles that must be corrected and cleared before I can go on. Unless I am taking minutes and need to keep up with others, there is no way for me to not edit as I write. It takes far more energy to fight that urge than it does to simply roll with it, hit delete with my pinky a few times, and correct the spelling. Does it screw up the flow of the radio? Not really, because I’m watching the screen and if I spell something like “F-I-H-G-T,” and don’t correct it, that’s when my brain stumbles trying to figure out how the hell to say that – out loud, inside my brain, where no one else can hear it. 

This is something I have wondered about with telepathy, or the burgeoning technology that allows those who cannot speak to be able to communicate brainwaves. Do they have an internal monologue? What gets transmitted? Is it all the static, the rushing thoughts, a high-speed monorail constantly switching tracks? Or does it have to be delivered, a thought like writing, like “this is what I want to say?” Either way, unless I lose the ability to speak and write (one of my greatest fears), count me out. I don’t want to have to share this with anyone; not for their sake, but mine. Usually. 

I started reading Oliver Sacks close to ten years ago. Between us, Hawthorne and I collected and read a dozen of his titles. As a person with migraines, and with close proximity to other ways the brain can betray the body, it was fascinating. I recognized some of the stories – patients I had taken in the ambulance and the things that they had said. Some of the diagnoses with more rare characteristics I know I’ve seen on hospital drama shows. The self-care movements of late, with emphasis on how we speak to ourselves, make me want to reread those titles. (Should I add them to my GoodReads list? TBR pile? Change their spot on the bookshelf? Does it count to my year goal if I re-read something? The train rushes on without answers.)

In listening to folks like Brene Brown and KC Davis, as well as in therapy sessions and with certain friends, I accept the challenge of looking inward. I think of all the different “me’s” there are: my inner child striving for perfection, my alter-ego struggling to come to the surface. I think who I try to focus on most are more time-based than psychological, though – past, future, and present me. 

How do I take care of me today?

Past me, I can give her therapy. I pay the fee and let her lead for the 50 minutes. It is her time, to bring up whatever she needs. Parents, relationships, pain, grief. She usually tries to save the good memories for me, or just share them with friends who aren’t paid for their service. She is gracious and if she doesn’t want to use it, she gives it back to present me. 

Future me, I can give her action. I can get that thing done instead of waiting til tomorrow; I can unload the clean dishwasher, prep the coffeemaker, charge the devices. Future me is often harried and forgetful, trying to get out the door with a dog barking in the crate and a toddler insisting her shoes be on the wrong feet. It’s not that she’s not grateful, she just doesn’t usually remember to say it.

Present me. What can I do for present me? I’m still learning. I’m learning to slow down, to let present me breathe. To enjoy the moments as they’re revealed, miniscule packages wrapped in grace. I relax my shoulders, unclench my jaw.

Present me has it tough. She has to deal with the negative self-talk I still fall into (though my most common nickname for myself, dumbass, comes out less and less these days). She gets caught up in the shit; being touched-out, exhausted, and unable to do anything of substance past toddler bedtime. A mere mortal, my wife used to call me, when I wouldn’t accomplish ridiculous amounts of things on an arbitrary list. Fuck that noise. 

All of these gifts – the therapy, the action, the grace – come at costs that I’m willing to pay, if not always able. Sometimes I screw up. I rushed through watering my plants this week, a chore I always enjoy. I usually stop to stroke the leaves, and yes, talk to each plant. They get compliments and wonder, apologies if needed (add to the list: repotting some of these plants. Who can help with the old hoya? What size pot do I need for the new succulents? Why is aloe such damn challenge for me to keep alive? How much food do the violets need? The tracks are singing.) This week I was distracted with a sick kiddo and wanted to get it done. When she is sick, she’s much more snuggly, and it’s easy to let myself rest with her like that. 

If future me gets action, she also gets accountability. That’s a gift, wrapped and waiting patiently, for present me to get there, the satisfaction of checking it off a list or the time and energy saved from it already being done. 

If past me gets therapy, she also gets space. She is not shoved into corners to let everything inside build and build and build; she gets the space to release that. Another gift to present me, the cleanse of release. 

And if present me gets presence in this bonkers and beautiful life, what more could she want?

There’s a quote that has been lodged in my head, paraphrased and uncited. The part that sticks with me is where it says something to the effect of, if we were to be fully present when we did something as simple as grocery shopping, we would be utterly overwhelmed by the beauty of the colors of the produce, the smells from the bakery, the choices before us. Not that I want to spend more time in the grocery store, but I get it. The moments when I put my phone down and pay attention to the moment – good and bad, the snuggles and the puking, the books and the bills – fill my cup. Those moments, the ones saturated in color or scent or light, the ones where I feel my connection to whatever earth I’m standing on, it’s those that I can give myself over and over again.  

And if my mind whispers along the tracks of calling myself spoiled, well, it’ll find something else soon enough. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the view; after all, we’re all just passing through. 

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

Dia de los Angelitos

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

We kept the celebration small this year. The kitchen table was pulled out, the basket of condiments banished to the pantry for tonight. There were 6 place settings crowded around the square table. I pulled the three chairs I owned in around in and added the stepstool; the kiddo would get a kick out of that. Lucy had her high chair, and I was happy to stand. Truth be told I was too excited to sit. 

We set the table together, with silverware clattering on plates, as “Lucy Danger” and “gentle” don’t always go together. The sun had set already, and the sky was vaguely purple with the cloud cover and light pollution from the city refracted inside it. I fiddled with the vases of bright orange carnations, and bit my lip as I worried that they were not marigolds.

Suddenly, there was a rush of warmth and the voices of our beloved guests poured into the room. Lucy was startled and ran to grab my leg a moment, but found herself swept up in hugs.

Oh, but they looked wonderful. They’d all dressed up for the occasion. Stan, in his suit from the church picture that his wife had taken, shit, must be ten years ago now; Clark, a fresh flannel button down and pressed slacks, with his hat and walking stick and sunglasses. Hawthorne, dapper as could be in a lavender button down, jeans, vest, bow tie, and pocket chain. And Oscar, my sweet boy, in a checkered Oxford shirt and suspenders on his jeans.

He’s gotten so tall, a full head taller than his sister, who was looking at him with wide eyes from her perch up on Clark’s shoulders. He’d be four now; he sure seemed like it. Lucy kicked her legs and demanded “down, down please!” Clark lifted her off his shoulders and put her down, and I watched my children, my babies, run into the other room to play. Their grandfather went with them, a smile on his face that I could tell reached his eyes, even with the sunglasses.

I turned from hugging Stan, who followed in to watch his grandkids play, and found myself back in my spot, head under Hawthorne’s chin, their arms wrapped right around me. We fit perfectly together there, and always had. I breathed them in; sandalwood and calendula, and the smell of their skin that I remembered so well. I wanted to pause time, to feel those arms hold me like no one else could, to lay my head on their chest where it fit so naturally. The bossa nova station I had playing on my computer slid toward something slower, wrapping around us as if we needed help holding on to each other. We swayed in place a moment, then Hawthorne tugged my hand. I spun away and back in, laughing into their eyes. We danced in the kitchen like we had so many times before. 

The kids ran in, demanding food, followed by the men. Hawthorne gave me a last squeeze and let go, reaching to pick up Lucy as I turned to the stove. 

“Hey, baby. Remember me?” 

Lucy  nodded. “You Papa,” she said, pointing. My eyes stung, and I closed them against the wave of emotion. She was always to ask to look at pictures, and didn’t always recognize Hawthorne. “That my Mama,” she continued, the same way she told her friends at school every time I came to pick her up. “Who that?” 

“That’s your brother Oscar,” Hawthorne told her. 

She gasped. “My picture!” She strained to get away, and since neither of us knew what she was talking about, they set her down. She ran into her room. “Mama, my picture!”

We all followed her in, Oscar pushing through legs to get to the front to see. Hawthorne gripped my shoulder and tears filled my eyes.

She was pointing to a painting given to us by our beautiful and talented friends when we had been pregnant with Lucy. A branch of a birch tree against a truly Oscar blue sky – she had color matched it to pictures we posted of our Oscar sky. On the branch was a birds nest made of twigs. Inside the nest was a gold crown, and half of a perfect egg. Well, when it had been given to us, it was the shell of the egg, glued on like the twigs and the crown; the shell had been broken during the move. Lucy asked about it often, asked why it was broken. I always told her it was because she had hatched, and the crown was for her brother Oscar. He left it here when he went to the stars, I would tell her. 

Lucy climbed up on her bed, turned and gestured to Oscar. “C’mere,” she told him. “My picture. My egg broken, I hatch. You has a crown! My picture!”

Stan clapped his hand on my other shoulder. “Ya done good, kid,” he said as he turned and walked out. He wasn’t much one for displays of emotion, his own or that of others’. Clark echoed the sentiment and action. “Well done,” he nodded, before stepping out. The kids began chattering about the books on Lucy’s shelf, and we watched our babies play. 

The timer beeped, and I ran back to the kitchen. It wasn’t a traditional dinner in any sense of the word. We had chicken nachos with Chiavetta’s, shepherd’s pie, shrimp cocktail, cereal with milk, and ice cream. We sat and ate the smorgasbord happily, passing things around the packed little table, then one of the grandfathers would turn easily in their chair to place the dish on the counter. Oscar got a kick out of sitting on the top of the backwards stepstool. Wine flowed and beer foamed, raised in toast, and enjoyed without any negative anticipation. All were well here. 

After dinner was finished, I pulled out a cake I had hidden in my bedroom, away from little fingers, frosted with bright orange flowers. I lit the candle and brought it out carefully. Hawthorne, Clark, and Stan joined in singing Happy Birthday to Lucy, and she clapped along in her Papa’s lap. Between us all, we managed to eat half the cake, and polish off a tub of ice cream with it.

Despite the sugar rush, Lucy and Oscar were both beginning to droop after the meal. We moved to the living room, where there was just enough space to have Stan and Clark each take a comfy seat in a high-backed chair known for cradling its occupants. Hawthorne and I snuggled up on the couch with the kids. I took our son into my lap, and Hawthorne held our daughter. We sat and talked, sharing family stories we never had a chance to, as well as old favorites. I caught them up on the highlights of the year. They had felt some disturbance through the veil, more of the unpleasant things that I tried to lighten in the retelling. I didn’t want to dwell on the hardships and illnesses, the tears and sleepless nights. I wanted this bright, golden memory. 

We continued to talk as the candles burned low, and the grandfathers each drifted off to sleep. I held Hawthorne’s hand over the back of the couch, surrounding our sleeping babies. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open any longer, but I didn’t want to let go. Hawthorne laughed and my head came up; I’d fallen asleep and kept talking, nonsensical ramblings. I shrugged and smiled. It’s not like it was the first time that had happened. I laid my head in their hand as they murmured to me, all the little things we used to say in bed together, before they rolled over and I’d curl around them to finally fall asleep. A tear slipped from my eye – I knew they would be gone when I awoke, my lap back to being space for only Lucy, my couch and house otherwise empty. The dog would wander around, confused as to where her family went. I didn’t know how Lucy would respond. Another tear fell, and Hawthorne wiped it away with their thumb. 

The last thing I heard was them telling me they loved me, with the weight of Oscar back in my arms, before the candles faded out and I drifted off to sleep.

I hadn’t needed the marigolds after all.

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

This May Not Make Me More Friends

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

In case you haven’t heard, I am queer as fuck. Relentlessly gay with a twist, flannel and skirts, Docs and eco-friendly glitter.

I have a kid. Her papa and I named her Lucy, it seems to fit. It might not always, and that’s ok. We call her “her,” and the same applies. I tend to stick to more neutral language but for pronouns with her; she’s my sweet baby, my smart kiddo, my helpful kid.

I never really thought much about teaching her the words for “man” and “woman” until she came home from daycare last spring and I realized she called men “daddy” and women “mommy.” It made for a few interesting interactions when she’d babble at some guy walking by with his girlfriend and Lucy would point and shout “Daddy! Daddy!” 

I’m not the only solo parent at her daycare; there’s at least one other mom who is also a widow. We’ve connected on a very superficial level and I made it a point to remember her name. Other than that, If the holiday cards are any indication, the percentage of two-parent, heteronormative nuclear family units is quite high. I may be the only openly queer parent, but maybe not. It doesn’t really matter. Or it didn’t, until Today.

Her daycare, now preschool, knows I’m queer and a widow. They know I wear some sort of crystal every day, that I’m a writer, and that I don’t live in town. I doubt they know I am witchy, and I’m certain they don’t know about my late wife’s evangelical upbringing and subsequent church-induced trauma. If they had the slightest idea of what my reaction would be, Tuesday would not have gone down the same way.

It was the first time a glossy invitation came home in Lucy’s lunchbox. I know this is how they distribute birthday party invitations to the parents, because all the kids’ lunchboxes goes home at the end of the day. The parents hand the stack to the teacher, and when the kids are napping or aren’t in the room, the teacher tucks one into each lunchbox. Boom, invitations sent, no stamps or even personal interaction with other parents necessary.

My first thought, “Aww, her first invitation!” was quickly replaced by a swift kick of guilt that I hadn’t gotten her birthday invitations out yet. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for time ahead of invitations for kids’ birthdays, but I figured around 3 weeks was sufficient. I added the task to my to-so list absently as I looked at the invitation. Something felt wrong; it took me a second to notice there was no information about a kid’s name, birthday, or anything. There was a picture of a kid, maybe 6 or 7, on a mechanical bull wearing a cowboy costume. That was my first warning bell. I flipped it over and saw some activities listed, encouraging kid-friendly Halloween costumes, games, and food options. It was a free community event, but it didn’t say who was throwing it, just that all were invited. 

Then, there it was, the mark of the beast. In the bottom right hand corner was a tiny logo for a church. The warning bells rang in triumph.

The tiny human that won’t stop growing suddenly ran in, distracting me for the moment from diving deeper. She didn’t care about the invitation at all. Seeing as she can’t read yet, it was just a picture on thick paper, and she wasn’t particularly impressed. 

We had a quiet evening; watched her favorite show, read some books, colored some pictures. It wasn’t until after I put her to bed that I remembered the invitation. The initial urge of wanting to say something to the teachers had passed. I didn’t want to create a scene, and I was sure there was no harm intended. Still, I was curious if I had been right in my initial thinking.

I looked up the church and saw familiar language and practices – dedication of infants, the distancing of baptism from salvation, the term “Christ-follower.” All the FAQ were answered carefully; too carefully, for my recovering Catholic brain. Ah, there it is: “proud members of the Covenant Church.” It wasn’t until I clicked on that link that the word “evangelical” finally came into view. It took just two more minutes for me to learn that the Covenant Church had voted to “involuntary remove” two churches from the denomination for continuing to perform and support same-sex marriages. The vote for removal had occurred in the last week. 

Four clicks. It had taken me just four clicks from the initial website to find the evidence I’d suspected; granted, I had the breadcrumbs, and I knew what I was looking for. I almost wished I hadn’t looked into it, because now, I definitely felt like I had to say something. 

This time, Lucy wasn’t affected. She is still learning her letters, and learning that they can be tumbled together into so many words; words that make stories and books and invitations – and messages. Messages that deny the full personhood of our family in multiple ways. 

What’s going to happen when she can read, and she sees this party she wants to go to? It looks like fun! There’s costumes and Halloween activities, food and friends. That will be the day she starts to figure out why we don’t eat at Chik-Fil-A, why we live in New England and always will, why calling her other parent ‘Papa’ draws quizzical looks. She will learn that the rainbow flag doesn’t hang in every house; that rainbows in general mean more than beauty; that the books on her shelf are not found in every kid’s room. She will learn that there is intolerance and hate in the world, and it directly affects her family. She will understand what she has heard many times before – the first Pride was a riot, love is love, and why when she calls other people “mommies and daddies” I correct her to “people.” 

That day is coming. As an inherently queer parent, I have to acknowledge and accept that, just as much as I do that the day will come when she no longer believes in Santa. As a single femme queer parent, she’s protected from much of what she may otherwise see, what I (and especially Hawthorne) have seen. I have a cloak of invisibility in my femininity and single womanhood. Gaydar aside, it’s very possible to look at me and see what is still taken as the norm – a tired single mom. The heteronormativity is implied and expected, which is in part why I try to live my life in a way that screams GAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY. I say this with my politics and my paycheck. I say it with my signature on petitions, with my attendance or lack thereof at events, with memes and blogs and whenever I have the chance. I say it when I take my kiddo to Pride, when I buy her rainbow princess dresses and toddler boy’s pants, when we talk about her Papa. My queerness is absolutely integral to my identity, my life, and my parenting. I love my queerness, and I’m privileged enough to be safe in celebrating it every day. I have a very real fear that this will not always be the case, so I will be as loud as I can about it for as long as I can, and I will show my daughter those ways. 

I have asked my daughter’s preschool to refrain from sending home anything else from any faith-based organization. A blanket request; I don’t think a secular preschool should be handing out anything with religious affiliation at all. Plus, in my experience (and yes, more than this one), it is the evangelical denominations of Christianity that find it acceptable to recruit through children. There are those out there reading this who may be thinking, “You’re overreacting! It’s just a free community event, it’s not recruiting! It’s just a nice thing for the community!” To them, I say that, if that were true, why would an organization go to the trouble and expense of having quality paper invitations designed, printed in bulk, and given to members to be distributed? There has to be some return on investment expected.

The teachers were both wholly accommodating and surprised; as I suspected, they weren’t aware it was from a church. One of parents had asked if they could give out invitations to this free community event. Additionally, I don’t think the parents would necessarily recognize this as I do, but who knows? I certainly don’t know any of them. Since it seems there is at least one family that aligns with not recognizing mine, I’m in no particular hurry to get to know any of them any time soon. 

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

Blessed Be the Fruits

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

“Why aren’t you crying? I mean, are you even upset? Do you understand what this means?”

This was the start of the argument Hawthorne and I had the night before they died. I had just told them that RBG had passed away, and they immediately became distraught. I was sitting on the edge of the bed where they were laying. I may have had to wake them up to tell them; I don’t remember anymore. 

I sat quietly. Yes, I was upset. Yes, I understood what it meant to lose RBG, a sitting liberal justice who had championed civil rights for everyone who was not an affluent, cishet, white man. 

I was also exhausted. It was Friday night, and I was balancing working full time, doing all the driving needed, and providing the majority of care for Lucy, who was just ten months old. I reminded Hawthorne, too, that I was not the type to get emotional right away. It would hit me later, I said. This did not satisfy my wife, who was absolutely distraught. 

“They’ll kill me,” they said. “There’s nothing to stop them now.” 

I thought back to election night 2016, how awful yet different it had been. Watching the results start to roll in, 1, 2% at a time, we had snacked and gotten slowly drunk on bourbon. It was before Lucy, before Oscar. We had recently lost Clark, Hawthorne’s father, and remarked about how in a lot of ways, we were glad that those who had gone before us weren’t here to see this. I figured my mom would have been making plans to move back to Poland; Clark, were he healthy, probably headed for Canada. It had already been ten years since we lost my dad. 

Hawthorne and I had felt a lot closer. We were standing on more equal ground; both of us working; school and family plans had yet to steal attention away from each other. We talked about how we were in the best place for this eventuality to happen; Vermont would not be taken over by Trumpers. Sold to Canada, perhaps, but that was OK. We joked that maybe we could ask them politely to annex us sooner.

We knew this was more than an election; this was a regime, with a long-range agenda and the weaponry and war chest to carry it out. Obama’s Supreme Court pick had already been stymied, and the court sat at 8. We knew Trump would cater to his base, after all, he had claimed to be Christian, and the evangelicals ate that shit up and asked for seconds. As long as he was getting the kind of attention the Republican party and lobbyists were willing to lavish on him, he’d do their bidding. That included seeding the courts with anti-choice judges, and cherry-picking the perfect “moderate” justices. 

Over the next few weeks, we heard (as many of our progressive, queer, trans, and myriad of “othered” friends did as well) that it would be okay. We were overreacting. The US government had checks and balances, Trump wouldn’t be king, after all. The courts and Congress would balance things out. 

Right. 

Now here we were, four years later. We had been through the wringer. Hawthorne had come out, changed their name, their pronouns, and their body to match and reveal their true self. It was a journey that even they weren’t sure where it would lead – though we had never dreamed it would be so abruptly interrupted. 

Hawthorne was scared of what would happen; Trump had already put Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh on the bench. Ginsberg’s breath had barely left her body before the Republicans turned a wild and greedy eye on the vacancy. Their strategy had worked, and their chance had come.

I knew Hawthorne was terrified, and I understood. We had so much to lose, so much that had been decided in just the past ten years that made our family possible, and safe – and even that felt tenuous. I was upset, but not scared yet. I didn’t have the energy to be scared. I was still processing the loss of life; death has affected me much differently since losing Oscar, and I couldn’t tear my thoughts away from Ginsberg herself to focus on what was so disturbing my wife. I could only take care of the baby, tidy up a little bit, and try to get Hawthorne to calm down enough to get some sleep. 

Hawthorne had put the message out on Facebook, needing to talk to someone who was similarly emotional; I watched as they stepped outside to pace the porch and smoke while I cleaned up the kitchen and took care of Lucy. I could hear their voice rise and break at times, the deeper timbre still relatively new. They spent an hour in the cool September night out there, talking to their cousin. When they came in, they demanded to know if I had even cried yet. I hadn’t.

They died before I shed a single tear for the Notorious RBG; after that, all my tears fell for them.  

In the days since the Supreme Court leak of Alito’s draft opinion, I have thought of that last night more often that I feel like I have since their death. I have been so angry; the kind of hot, pulsing anger I keep thinking I’m done with. I’ve had more memories surface this week, none of them happy. I understand that with the traumatic events that are happening in the world it’s only natural that it would stir the painful memories first. Still, I am frustrated that it feels like the best memories still lay beyond my reach. 

I cannot help but see beyond the potential fall of Roe v Wade, however. I see this as the first in a long series of dominoes that would put my humanity, the rights associated with that humanity, back in the hands of the state courts. And yes; I live in Massachusetts, have always lived in the Northeast, and have much less to fear than most. I would be safe; my family and local friends would be, too. 

I don’t want to go back to a time where we had to wonder if we were safe – if we would be considered married still, over state lines. If Hawthorne had ended up in the hospital somewhere out of state, how would they be treated? That was somewhat of a concern, even here in New England. Bigotry and hatred don’t care about state lines or laws; they just don’t man the political wheel where we have lived. 

If Roe falls, it is only a matter of time before marriage equality – as far back as Loving v. Virginia, I fear – are back up for debate. I am utterly incensed with the court’s apparent willingness to undermine the autonomy of half the country. In a country with some of the worst maternal health statistics in the developed world, they want to force more people into risking their lives in being pregnant and giving birth. 

There has been nothing in my life that has made me more pro-choice than my experiences with pregnancy and birth. I did not recognize how endangered my life was, when my blood pressure began to rise and rise. I did realize how uncomfortable and painful things could be; how my kidneys could start emitting blood and shards of calcification, how my gallbladder could fill will sludge, how my placenta could trick my body into changing insulin production. Being pregnant is a (at times hostile) takeover of one’s body and lifeforce in the creation of another, which may or may not be healthy enough, or lucky enough, to survive the ordeal. 

I have carried my two babies, not easily. Both pregnancies were celebrated, and both were difficult. One ended when my body turned on me even more, and Lucy had to be welcomed six weeks early. The other ended with an aberrant twist of the very cord that gave my baby his life. I delivered my son, already dead, at more than a week older than my daughter at her birth. 

I would never wish that on another. I would never wish pregnancy on someone who did not want it. And I would certainly never wish anyone to be forced to go through what I have. 

There is a march today, in cities all over the country. I was prepared to go, thinking of bringing my daughter, but ended up securing a babysitter since I simply do not have the energy to wrangle a toddler in the heat and press of bodies. Either way, the plans did not come to fruition; mission aborted, as it were. It’s a hard decision. There is a part of me that still wants to find a way to go – because I believe in activism, and this is a cause that calls for action. However, most of the reason I wanted to go specifically today, goes back to that night where I never cried for RBG. And while she played a role in the events leading to today, it is the memory of Hawthorne that makes me feel most like I should go. I have to remind myself (with the assistance of beautiful friends) that I do not have obligations to dead people. Not to RBG, not to Hawthorne. 

Maybe that seems cold and unfeeling. Maybe you don’t feel the same about doing things that “they would have wanted,” whoever “they” is for you. I promise you, there is a tumult of emotions every time I think about what Hawthorne “would have wanted.” That is a storm I am very familiar with, and will continue to go through. Yet I have come to a place in my life, as a person, as a mother and friend and widow and everything I am, where I am living this life for me. Not for RBG, not for Hawthorne, not even for Oscar. My life. My body. My choice. 

To everyone marching today – your reasons are your own, your journey is your own. I raise my glass (mmm coffee) to each and every one of you; know that I am with you in spirit if not in sneakers. To everyone Roe v. Wade has affected – my heart is with you today, as well. You always have a safe space with me. To everyone worried about what this will mean for them, now and in the future – I’m with you, too. 

And to anyone who wants to deny people their autonomy on the grounds of “morality,” politics, or religion; anyone who wants to roll back civil rights for folks who have had to fight for every inch of them; anyone who wants to bring back any measures of discrimination – let me make it absolutely clear that I am not with you. 

It’s a lovely May day, don’t you think?

Posted in Beliefs and Practices, On Writing

Girl, You’ve Got to Be What Tomorrow Needs

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

When I woke up this morning, two things came to mind: I remembered being extremely wary of mystical readings until just a few years ago; and I cannot begin to count the number of times I’ve been told I have an “old soul.” My feet hit the floor with purpose, knowing I wanted to tap into that soul today. I readied for the day, getting Lucy fed and dressed, the dog out. I did the things that needed doing; took Lucy to daycare, picked up prescriptions, called to get a repair on the car.

The sky is Oscar blue, brilliant and deep in the spring air. The maple tree extends her shade, bright new leaves reaching for the sun, a blanket of her fallen flowers in her shade. My new plastic Adirondack chair was covered thickly with samaras, helicopters that never quite touched down. I feel insulated from most of the noise of the city around me, and the tension in my shoulders finally starts to slide away. 

Since my birthday, I have had ideas knocking around my head. Essay topics, snippets of poems, ideas for long-form and short-form stories; fiction, nonfiction, memoir, academic writing. I feel surrounded by words; if this were a Disney film, my hair would catch and lift on a breeze of prose, as the words wound themselves through my animated world and the townspeople joined in my song. Je m’appelle Marjanna, et j’ai quelque chose pour dire. 

I kept my birthday very low-key this year. I had a beautiful weekend where I was more focused on myself than I had allowed myself to be before. One of the gifts I gave myself was today. I am off work today. I took the day off, on purpose; I have no appointments, no reservations. I’m not sick, and neither is my kiddo. 

I took the day off so I could write. 

Those reading it may not gasp at this thought, but I certainly did. I practically heard the record scratch. What a crazy idea, I thought. Taking a day off to write. 

I texted some friends; want to hear a crazy idea? Sure, they said. I told them. 

“Cool. So what’s the crazy part?”

I do not take days off lightly. I don’t take days off without reason. To do so, and focus on writing, on me and my craft, feels over indulgent. Who am I to think that my writing is so important that I can skip my actual job in order to focus on it? I must have some ego to think I’m good enough to justify that. 

The audacity of me. 

Self-doubt began to slither in the door that sarcasm and negative self-talk left open. It climbed like smoke, scaling the walls, winding around my body, curling tendrils around my fingers. I tapped out my thoughts on the bright screen in front of me. 

No, it’s silly. I can’t. I’m not really a writer. I’m not published, how can I actually be a writer? This is stupid.

Three dots, blinking. 

“You write, don’t you? You’re a writer. Take the damn day.”

Sometimes we need reminders of what’s true in our lives. When the night closes in and the doubts follow, it’s easy to get trapped in the sticky, negative thought spirals that can drag you down. You start to follow that path down, down, a sickly pale the only light you can see, so you follow it. 

It leads nowhere; it takes you through caves and channels you didn’t know existed, paths you thought you left behind long ago. It is the upside down; you’re not sure if it’s real, but it’s all so familiar, almost comforting. It’s easy to stay, in this dark world you know; you’re tired of fighting, tired of trying. The effort to get back is too much, why not just sink in? The darkness gets its hooks into you, a thousand tiny daggers; it feeds on you, draining you of your energy, your will. 

It is so insidious, so quick to come when you slip. It is opportunistic and cagey, using your own thoughts and words against you, twisting and distorting everything you have worked for, dismantling the structures you so carefully built. 

And it lies. 

The smoke shrank back as I pondered that answer. I write, yes, this is true; doesn’t that make me a writer? I cook, but I’m not a chef; I stitch, but I am no seamstress. What makes writing different? 

I cook to feed myself and my family, to show love and to share with them. I stitch to relax my mind and keep my hands busy, to show love and to share with friends and family. 

And I write for me. 

Me, first. I write for Oscar, and I write for Hawthorne; I write for my father, my mother. I write for all those beyond the veil, whose stories are left in limbo; and I write for those here as well. I write for my friends who can’t find the words; I write for those who hurt, for those who question. For those who wish, and want, and dream. I write for Lucy, that she may know who I have known. 

And.

I write for me. First. Foremost. Finally.

I recently was a guest on a podcast where I talked about confidence (among other things). I felt like I rambled, and the final version hasn’t hit the air yet, so I am not sure how it all worked. I enjoyed the experience so much; I loved talking to the host, and getting to dig into my interpretation and experience with confidence. A lot of my readers thus far have been friends and family; if you’ve been around some years, you know that confidence has not been something that came naturally. If you haven’t known me long, it may or may not surprise you. 

Confidence, to me, is an energy. It’s a force and a flow, something that can be harnessed or let loose. It shifts; it waxes and wanes. As with any energy, there can be disruptions, and you need to reset. On the podcast I mention those friends who help make that happen.  

No one can shake my confidence like I can, when I follow that path, when I let myself be carried by that thick gray smoke. I am a master at getting in my own way, at talking myself out of things. I flip to feeling guilty and self-indulgent very easily. It’s hard for me to see that it is an act of love to do things for myself, too, not just for others. I am learning every day how to love myself. 

I had a tarot pull for my birthday, a full-year spread to welcome 35. It’s been on my mind, daily; I’m not so skilled at reading the cards yet. My mind plays with them like Lucy with a Rubiks cube; futz around with it, shake it, chew on it a little. This is the first time I’ve had such a major pull. I have an app (which feels a bit like cheating, but I like it) for a daily card. I believe that you bring as much to the cards as they give to you. Some days it’s a BOLO, sometimes a new perspective. Some days, it’s the piece that completes the picture.

My card this morning was the Four of Wands, and the key words given were Home, Backbone, and Foundation. Not a bad omen for my first day off to pursue being a writer. 

Posted in Beliefs and Practices, Uncategorized

Witchy Woman, She’s Got the Moon in Her Eyes

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I was raised Catholic by my off-the-boat Polish mother and mostly agnostic father. Every Easter, he would don his sport coat and mention converting in his soft-spoken way. He had been raised Methodist, I believe. He didn’t practice anything; he would sit in the truck reading the paper while I rolled my eyes and reluctantly attended Sunday school at the Catholic college in our hometown. I would often be rushing to finish my homework for the class right before, or on the cold dash of the old F-150 as Sunday morning country oldies played over the speakers. Because it wasn’t academic, my dad would shake his head and simply remind me to be more timely in my work before going back to humming along with George Jones. 

My mother, however, was still very much a practicing Catholic. She was a member of Holy Cross Church in our hometown and would go to Mass on Saturdays, as she enjoyed the music more; the cantor was usually Anne DiSanto, half of the couple who ran the music studio where my sister and I took lessons. While I was young enough, then my sister years later, she would go to the children’s mass on Sunday mornings, but she preferred to attend when the sky outside was dark and the candles shone brighter on the stained glass. She would sing along with the hymns tunelessly, not so much to make a joyful noise, but because it was what one did. She knew the aerobics like the back of her hand and taught me the same, the patterns of sitting and standing and kneeling. I’d be reminded that the kneelers she grew up with had no padding so I should be both grateful and still, or at least quiet. She knew the various prayers and creeds like she knew to spell her name, but still opened the hymnal and read along as if the words were somehow unfamiliar to her. She never talked about faith or religion or even Catholicism with me; church was just a simple fact of life, something routine that did not require explanation, like grocery shopping. 

When I was thirteen, I came out for the first time – I declared that I liked both boys and girls at the table with my parents in the kitchen. They were not rocked by this news; the response I got, as I sat somewhat nervously with my pre-algebra homework, was that it was a phase, followed by a complete dismissal of the subject. It didn’t come up again until after my father had passed and I came out again, as gay this time, to my mother at age twenty-one. 

Growing up Catholic, I never remember feeling the need to go to confession or being worried about going to hell for being “90% gay,” which was the best way I could think to identify, since “queer” wasn’t in my vocabulary at that point. I even went to a Catholic high school (yes, schoolgirl skirt and everything). I never worried about my soul or my education; I was never treated differently because I was out. It likely helped that I had a steady boyfriend  – who did not go to my school – but even if I hadn’t, I think my high school experience would have been just as wonderful. It was a family, a community I came to depend on quickly. When scary and terrible things happened – my father’s ALS diagnosis, 9/11 – it was where I wanted to be. I wanted, needed, those teachers and friends, nuns and clergy. I enjoyed the faith as it was revealed to me – it meant a net woven of unbelievable strength that would break whatever falls the world had in store for us. I became a member of the “God Squad,” the senior peer outreach class who helped put together the retreats for each class and served as alterfolks for the monthly masses. I still get those songs stuck in my head on occasion. I carried my faith outside school as well, becoming a Sunday school teacher as part of my senior year community service. The day I turned 18, I got my first tattoo – the rose and cross of St. Therese, chosen in part for her love of writing and nature. The Little Flower, as she was often referred to, was young and stubborn known for her convictions and passion; a strong choice for patron saint for a teenage girl.

After graduating from my close-knit Catholic high school, I went to Brandeis University, a predominantly Jewish liberal arts college outside of Boston. I felt the loss of community acutely, and half-heartedly looked around for another church. Nothing fit; I already understood that what I was looking for had nothing to do with faith or religion. I was looking for that unquestioning acceptance into a community based around ritual, attendance, and routine.

I found it years later when I started to attend Pilgrim St. Luke’s in Buffalo. By this point, I had long considered myself a recovering Catholic, being too divorced and too gay for their doctrine. I had come to learn much more of the violent history of the church, not just the glossy version presented to us in high school, but how religion has been wielded as a deadly weapon by Christians throughout the ages. I was fed up with the absolute patriarchal institution on every level; politically I was frustrated with the influence of the church in reproductive and civil rights, and personally, I had finally come to terms with my views on death, reincarnation, and the absence of heaven and hell as destinations for once-mortal souls. The Catholic church – as institution and dogma – had long since ceased to make sense; all the preaching and morality and promises of eternal life could not overcome the strata of control, power, and intolerance for it to ever be a place I felt welcome again. But Pilgrim St. Luke’s didn’t care about what the Catholic church had always taught me were sins. Instead, they were open and affirming with their motto of “God is still speaking,” and their extravagant welcome, no matter where someone was on their faith journey. 

I have not been back since my father-outlaw’s funeral service nearly four years ago. Today, I have to look up the Wikipedia for St. Therese to remember her miracles. I still carry her mark behind my right shoulder, a little faded from 15 years of summer sun. I still have to catch myself so as not to respond, “and also with you,” when people quote Star Wars, and I know that “Gloria” has 18 syllables. But what I believe has overcome my learned responses and ground me to my core. I believe in the sanctity of the natural world. I feel an undeniable connection to trees and stones and fields. If I pray, it’s to all those who have gone before me. I am not washed in the blood, but the ocean. There is no heaven I raise my eyes to, but the wind and sky. It is not the light of the world that guides me, but the fires left by the witches they could not burn. I am a child of the earth. Maybe that’s why even in high school, when I had to choose a patron saint, I chose the Little Flower. I hope she’d understand that I will always carry her with me, a wildflower through all seasons; she bows her head in prayer as I lift my face to the moon, and we meet on sacred ground.