Category: Current Events

Posted in Current Events, On Writing

Sweet Pain, and Savoring

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

*Content warning: self harm (historical)*

In the writing circles I have been gathered into, writers fall somewhere along a spectrum. One on side are plotters – those who outline, timeline, and map out how their story will unfold. On the other side are the pantsers – those who write “by the seat of their pants.” For those of you who know me outside of a computer screen, you may be surprised to learn that I am an absolute pantser. 

Fun fact: whenever I sit down to write this blog, I almost always know exactly where it starts, and almost never know exactly where it ends. Sure, most times I know what I want to write about as far as a general topic, or story I want to share. Occasionally, even that is a surprise to me. For someone who loves structure and clarity as much as I do, it vexes me to not be able to find a straight line in anything I write. 

Don’t get me wrong – I absolutely love writing. I love the feel of a pen in my hand, the ease at which the ink flows across the page. I love that a simple Word document can keep up with my racing brain, even if my fingers occasionally fumble on the keys. I love the aesthetics of writing in all media it takes, and I will buy any sticker with a typewriter on it I find. I love notebooks and stationary, and how fonts can be used to impart tone and how twenty-six letters can tell infinite stories. I have never considered myself as someone who suffers for my craft.

But the lack of being able to plan for “what comes next” definitely abrades my neural network, sandpaper rubbing against the grain. When it comes to writing, I cannot think linearly; and the longer I do it, the less predictable it is. 

The need is there – the need to put words to my feelings, the need to express the constant churn inside me. Recently on social media I saw the question circulating, “why did you write?” My prepared answer for when I’m famous one day is pretty much, because queer stories deserve to be told like anyone else’s. But under that, a far more raw and truthful answer – because I had to. It’s a compulsion. I don’t believe I could ever stop writing again. So even as I struggle to find a routine, even a rhythm, that makes it possible for me to hit the release valve on these dammed words, I know they must. And they will, whether I want them to or not. 

I recently finished a book called, What Happened to You? co-authored by Oprah and Dr. Bruce Perry. While I have long known the impact of trauma (both capital T and otherwise) on my own life, it was still incredible to hear the neuroscience behind it. Every word, carefully spoken by one author or the other, brought more understanding to my own struggles, as well as those of people I love. 

It was also the first time that someone besides my own therapist outright called self-harm an addiction. 

I’m not sure if I’ve ever spoken about that here. Likely in passing; it’s not something I hide. I don’t wear long skirts or pants every day, or long for tattoos to cover the memories. It wouldn’t matter if I never saw the scars again. I’d still miss it, and still think about the kiss of the blade every single day. 

It has been sixteen years, nine months, and fourteen days since the last time I cut through my own skin in order to find relief. Six thousand, one hundred, thirty-two days. 

The best part about that? I had to look it up. I stopped counting the days long ago. 

Oh, I remember the last date, the whole last event. That one didn’t scar – my body, anyway. I still think about it. Sometimes, I still even crave it. I yearn for that release. I dream of it, romanticize it, and I never go back. 

Not too long ago, I threw a pair of scissors across the room from where I sat. It took me a few minutes to realize why the hell I had done that. Yeah. It’s an addiction, and the lure of it is ever present. I called my therapist, then my doctor, then pulled out my WRAP plan and followed it.

Now here I am, over 800 words into this, and just now getting to what I actually wanted to talk about. Total typical pantser behavior. 

Another concept What Happened to You? brought to light was that of post-traumatic wisdom. There’s something to be said for living through shit and coming through the other side. You learn things – about yourself, other people, and how you relate to the world. You already know, far too well, what doesn’t feel good. If you’ve worked on your trauma, if you’ve discussed and analyzed and contextualized and gotten down and dirty with it, you know it. 

And if you know it that intimately, you can get to know the seeds the shadows leave behind.

One thing my therapist and I have been talking about a lot lately is learning to savor. Lately, just the past month or so, I’ve been trying hard to be more present with what is in front of me, and give my anxiety and depression less of my active attention. (Getting off social media has, annoyingly, been very helpful with this). And while ‘mindfulness’ has been a word that just irks me, thinking about presence and intention has struck a chord. 

On our trip to San Francisco, I had zero chill. Like, none. (There will be another post about that trip coming soon). The train car at the airport heard me clearly blurt out, “Holy shit is that a palm tree?” and “Oh my god, that’s a cactus!” I couldn’t stop staring at staggered rows of pelicans flying overhead in the sunset light. I laughed until I was breathless, chasing my kid in the surf. 

So hey… When’s the last time you looked back through your phone at the pictures you took, on a trip or at a concert or something you wanted to remember? 

I have looked at the ones from that trip nearly daily, and not just pulling them up to show people; but opening them on purpose to think about, and recall the feeling of wonder in my chest as I stared up the impossibly tall trunk of a redwood; to feel the warmth of the tidepool water on the beach, and the cool breeze between my teeth from my jaw dropping when we discovered herds of elk on the cliffs. 

This past week, on Wednesday, I sat down with my morning coffee like I do every morning. Coffee ice cubes, brewed with cardamom and cinnamon, a splash of milk; it was one of the most memorable cups of coffee I’ve had. Why? I’m not sure, but I do know that I savored every sip. 

Another thing – when it’s trauma that teaches you to savor, it also teaches you when it’s safe to do so. There’s a quote I keep thinking of and have yet to find again, about the overwhelming sensory experience in a modern-day grocery store (and no, it’s not the Jon Kabat-Zinn one, which is possibly misattributed anyway). But anyway, the grocery store? Not a safe place for me to be intentionally present and try to savor. Hell, no. Get me out of there as fast as possible. Grocery shopping produces (ha) such anxiety in me, that when I get ready to go, I make the list twice – once to know what I need, then to put it in order of my route through the store, which does not change. The kiddo even has made a little song to remind me that “it’s okay to be stressed, just take three deep breaths” while we make our way through the weekly hell. 

And now, with that behind me, I can savor. I have a beer that I really enjoy, my kid bouncing her way through a game on the beat-up couch, doofy dog under my feet, and I’m writing. Not at my usual time, not even at my preferred time – based on past routines, I should be cooking right now – but here I am. I can see the small smile on my face in the reflection, feel the cool air on my arms and warm socks on my feet. It’s raining outside, loud enough to get past my headphones, and is adding to the ambiance. 

I’ve got a bunch of chapters left to write for my novel, and not wholly sure what I’m doing with them. I’m already dreaming up the next series. And I’m writing a blog post, while remembering I need to keep working on my Skillshare class for social media marketing.

I’m safe, sheltered, fed, and warm enough. I should put on my reading glasses; I should drink some water. For a few more moments, however, I’m going to write – because I love to and because I need to – and just savor this little slice of time. 

… Where was I going with this?

Now go look at the pictures of fireworks you took, thinking you’d look at them someday. Make that day today. Call up a memory, a feeling, if you’re in a place to do so. Or make a new one – let a pastry melt on your tongue, wrap yourself in your softest blanket, or whatever is going to feel so good that when you fall asleep tonight, you can think of it again, and drift off with a smile. 

Take care of yourself. We all have to start there. 

Posted in Current Events, Memoir and Memory

Mother [muhth-er]: Noun, Verb.

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

Today is Mother’s Day. Historically, not one of my easiest holidays.

The intensity of difficulty has eased over the past couple years. To be a little emo about it, the song lyric in my head is from the Goo Goo Dolls – “scars are souvenirs you never lose, the past is never far.” And yeah, I’m smiling as I type it out to put it on YouTube.

For a long time, the day was hard because of the strained (to put it gently) relationship with my own mother. It also made me think of my bio-mom, a missing piece of a puzzle that I got to place with warmth and love when I met her a few years ago (happy Mother’s Day, Kelly!). I had a couple of women in my life who were not my mother who I did occasionally send cards to for this day. I hope they understood why; I was never looking for a replacement, I just wanted to be able to express gratitude for what I saw as any maternal love. 

I have a lot of love to give. I always have. 

They say grief is love with nowhere else to go. I have a lot of that, too. 

I was pregnant with Oscar for this day in 2018. Happy, fat, physically aching, dreaming of the next year when I’d be holding him in my arms for pictures that never got to be taken. 

2019, I was pregnant with Lucy. Terrified, distraught, and afraid to dream, and already in love with the little bean.

In 2020, it was the pandemic, but that was fine with me. I wanted pictures, nice pictures, of Hawthorne and Lucy in their little matchy outfits, and I got that.

2021, I couldn’t function. I don’t remember it. I don’t have any pictures. 

2022, I took Lucy for beach adventure, just the two of us.

2023, we spent with the family, where I was gifted with their supervision and got to add an edible to the mix (highly recommended, by the way).

2024, my brother-in-law watched the kiddo, and my sister took me to a beautiful tea. My neighbor stole the kiddo when we got home and brought her back ten minutes later with a card she’d helped Lucy make. 

This year, I have no plans. It’s a sunny day, I want to enjoy that. I’m going to be headed to the grocery store soon, hopefully avoid most of the dads who decided to take the kids and (hopefully) the shopping list and have no idea how to navigate the crowded aisles. Lucy wants the skatepark, I want to see some baseball, I want to eat something tasty and follow it up with cake. 

The grief is there, a backbeat that never ends. It’s poised, kinetic, waiting for it’s time to be the singular sound or be overlaid with bright notes. 

I find myself particularly contemplative this morning. I opened my journal to pages I had once promised to read daily, and continuously skip in the name of expediency. 

Reading my word of the year and my affirmations, I felt like I had started a song I liked and then zoned out, and had to restart, because I wasn’t appreciating it the way I wanted to in that moment. I did that a few times, until I finally slowed down enough to read it out loud, each word of the definition of my word of the year, each of my affirmations.

It’s striking me today that the word I picked for the year – flex – can be considered a Janus word, or contranym. Janus was the ancient Roman god with two faces, each looking 180 degrees from each other. Two meanings (both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene…) that oppose each other. 

The duality is fascinating to me today. Boasting, an ostentatious display… or pliancy, an ability to yield. 

This is something I love about choosing a word of the year, as well as tarot and oracle cards. It provides a new angle more often than I could imagine on my own. It makes me think, and question, and play. My psyche is a kitten and the string today is a word. I’m going to let my soul tangle with it, see what happens. 

(being a mother is a flex, a demonstration of the shit I have walked through to get the both of us here for the five and a half years of her life; mothering has taught me more about flexibility than anything else could)

It’s Mother’s Day, and I am a mother, noun and verb.

Noun: I am a mother to a starside child who never knew doubt or cold, only love and warmth. 

Verb: I am mother to a wild and wonderful, fierce and feral force to be reckoned with. She challenges me daily, and brings me such joy. She has a shockingly wide vocabulary and the most incredible imagination. She feels so deeply, and she has so much love to give. She looks at me with my own eyes, and the mirror she holds up to me is warped in the best possible way. She has no concept of sin, and the most adventurous soul. She is going to be so much taller than me.

May she take the best of the notes I have given her – the crapshoot of DNA, the creativity, the deep well of feelings, the love of sunshine and wind in her hair, the wide-eyed willingness to learn. And while she will need balance, may she find her own, and not pick the strings of my anxiety, my mental health struggles, my fears and doubts and traumas.

May she write her own affirmations, and choose her own words with care. May she find her own way that is not mine, make her own mistakes, go to therapy for different reasons than I do. 

Because I am Mama, and so much more. She is my child, and so very much more. 

And so the song goes on.

Posted in Current Events, Memoir and Memory

Careening, Curating, Creating

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

My thirty-ninth year has begun. 

I’m not one of those people who has a birthday month, or even a birthday week – unless it’s the usage of the extra day of PTO given to me by work, or coupons in my email that I mostly discard. It’s never been a big deal. As a kid, there was always a family dinner on the day of; I’d still get chastised for what or how much I ate, dessert was often forcibly shared. Honestly, looking back, I can’t remember most of the parties with friends; those that I do remember, were they mine, or my sister’s that I helped with? No idea, especially since my parents were pretty content with “this worked for the first one, let’s do it again.” 

I remember my 16th birthday, not for any sort of license or freedom, but because it was the first time I had to call 9-1-1. 

I remember my 21st birthday, going to Fenway with my boyfriend and my bestie and spending $16 on one beer and two hot dogs. I’ve always been a lightweight, so the pint of Sam Adams kept me warm in the chilly April evening.

I remember misunderstandings and hurt feeling with Hawthorne until we figured out birthday traditions. It had always been far more special for them than me, and it took time to get used to it. They wanted me to take the day off and spend it with them, both for their birthday and ours. I always prioritized theirs, when it came back to the issue of PTO. We got the hang of it, and spent most of them fishing, with some sort of seafood for dinner and chocolate for dessert, and cards we delighted in picking for each other. 

I remember the first birthday after Oscar died, and how I felt like I didn’t deserve one. 

I remember the first birthday after Hawthorne died, and how desperately I wanted no one to acknowledge it. I didn’t want to celebrate. One of my besties ordered dinner to be delivered to my house, and that was the perfect balance of being taken care of and left alone. 

I remember writing about birthdays before; but if I go looking to make sure I don’t repeat myself, I’ll get distracted, and this post will end up in the growing file of “unfinished and-or unpublished blog posts.” 

I remember turning 37 and feeling unable to function, turning the age Hawthorne was when they died. I remember the jokes with their friends about careening towards forty, and feeling like they stopped mid-pinwheel.

I know the most recent years have been dinner with the cousins and cake; I remember last year being the first time I wanted to celebrate in what felt like forever. I got to spend the weekend with some forged family. I was only recently back on my feet from my health scare, so things were a little weird.  

This year, I was excited for the things surrounding my birthday, the time I’d get to spend doing things I loved. 2025 has been full of change, heartaches and utter joy smashing into each other. With so much in flux, I was even less concerned with the actual date than usual. 

It rolled in like any day, which honestly, is the way I like it. The child was a creature – I believe putting on shoes was the breaking point, but that could have been another day. I went to work, saw a friend who’d stopped by for a visit; her little man being exactly 38 years and 10 months younger than me, we obviously celebrated with sweet baby snuggles. I spoiled myself rotten at the bakery with croissants the size of my face and two different types of cake. My own man was celebrating, his first day at his new job, and he came over afterwards. We dragged the kid out for a walk, managing to catch that golden hour in warm spring air before diving into literal pounds of seafood – fried catfish for me, mussels and shrimp for him – and hot dogs for Lucy. We’d had edibles for an appetizer, and cupcakes throughout the night.

And it was wonderful. A normal day, a normal amount of stress and grief and work shit; magic and cake and love sprinkled throughout like Funfetti. 

I don’t stress much about aging. I have a few grays – still a countable amount. I’m starting to see fine lines at the corners of my mouth and my eyes, evidence of a lifetime of emotion. My belly is round and soft after carrying kiddos, a little extra flesh under arms when I flex. My knees ache when my weight goes up, old sports (and general lack of grace) injuries make themselves known. I groan when I have to change positions at the end of the day, and I use the heated seat in the car to make my back feel better no matter the temperature outside. I’ve got probiotics and aspirin in my pillbox, and the biggest contained of ibuprofen you can get.

I am always learning to take better care of myself; it is an ever-continuing education. I got new reading glasses with the blue light thingy, and a recommendation for yellow-tinted lenses for night driving with the influx of stupid LED headlights. I’ve had my cervical cancer screening, and check my skin for changes in freckles regularly. I finally hit my weight loss goals, and am trying to focus more on movement than scale numbers. I’ve dealt with consecutive injuries – right bicep, right ankle sprain, left bicep – so just now feeling ready to dust off the gym membership. 

I am trying to incorporate both physical activity (walking, gardening) and deliberate rest and relaxation into my days. My man has been teaching me to play video games on the Switch – resurrecting my love of Tetris and Spyro, and introducing me to Spiritfarer.

I’ve been working on a social media exit plan and reboot, working to cut down the time I lose to anxiety and distraction on my phone. I’ve fully deleted TikTok, tumblr, and Twitter. I’ve closed my personal Instagram, keeping my author IG and Threads accounts, as well as my Facebook. However, one of the best things I did was to delete Facebook from my phone. Not my account – I still have it, personal and professional, but now I have to use the computer to use it. I don’t know about you, but scrolling on a laptop is not the same thing as just thumbing the screen on my phone. 

The screen time itself was not the issue; it was what lead to the screen in the first place. I remember Hawthorne telling me they used their phone (reddit, mostly) to keep themselves distracted from their physical pain. I remember with extreme clarity the moment I decided that was a good idea – sitting on the red couch in the new spot I’d chosen after they died, Lucy napping in her swing. I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to watch anything; everything reminded me of them and I couldn’t choose something new. I picked up my phone. 

More recently I’ve come to realize just how much I rely on scrolling to “manage” my anxiety. Once that rise of overwhelm started, that whiny, physical discomfort of having to do something I didn’t want to, or was anxious/nervous about, or I just… didn’t want to be so damn present, I picked up my phone. And I hated it. I didn’t want to do it, but I had conditioned myself. And then it got to the point where it didn’t matter why I’d picked it up – to make an important call, check the weather for the day, see the picture from Lucy’s school or message from my man – I’d end up scrolling. I tried setting limits and alarms; that only worked when I handed someone else the control to set the password on the parental limits so that once 11pm rolled around, my phone became just a phone with an alarm and messaging. But that didn’t stop the scrolling the other 18 hours of the day. 

I need environmental and engineering controls. I don’t respect self-imposed limits; if someone else were to tell me “no, you can’t go there,” but they leave me with the key? Eventually I’m going to be the horror-movie blonde who finds a way to justify exploring it and discovering the consequences for herself. For something like breaking self-imposed limits on screen time, the consequences (feeling guilty) just fed back into the reason I picked the damn thing up in the first place. 

I don’t want to be scrolling. If I’m using my phone, I want it to be because I want to be – not mindless distraction. I kept my games – Wordle and Squardle and Killer Sudoku. Those are daily things I enjoy spending time on, sipping coffee sitting in the car or on the couch. No guilt. I kept Instagram on my phone, and Messenger – I don’t get stuck in those and lose time. I kept Threads – now that one I have a limit for, because I do get distracted, but so far, it’s quite easy to come back from and there haven’t been any negative feelings. Reacting to everyone for Facebook birthday wishes on the computer was a pain in the ass, and forced me to take the time to do it by hand and actually read the names of everyone who left one. 

There’s no guilt for me in deciding to pick up the Switch, or play an extra Sudoku game, or indulge in more smut on my Kindle. There’s no uncomfortable shame in using my laptop to make a post, or edit, or put new words down. To me, that means that my amount of time using screens is within healthy parameters. 

It’s also forcing me to face my anxieties differently, especially at work, or with interpersonal things. I no longer have that easy distraction. It might not seem like deleting a few apps and accounts could do that, but I simply don’t use what remains the same way. I’ve sat on less emails, had to apologize for not getting back to people sooner less, been (somewhat) more prepared for things. I’ve managed to do not distract myself away from some emotionally painful things, both work and personal. I’m fact-checking what I do hear, trying to be more responsive and less reactionary. It feels impossible sometimes, what with the current state of the politics, but it’s absolutely necessary to my mental health. 

Best of all, it’s re-lighting some of the creative candles that have sputtered out. This right here, case in point; like I said, multiple unfinished posts that may never see the light of internet fame. I’ve been playing more with collage, with markers, with coloring and stickers. I’ve picked Master Class back up, and have been watching the creative folks I follow on Youtube more than fifteen-years old sad music videos. 

One of the posts I have hidden away is mostly memes about why we need art; about art as revolution, creativity as response – to injustice, to war, to fascism, to a government that doesn’t seem to want so many of us to exist. I may resurrect it (though Easter Sunday would have been better for that I suppose). 

At the moment, however, I feel like I am the center of six orbits that both intersect, and remain out of sync, with each other. I don’t like this much unknown, this much simultaneous change and ambiguity. It’s not comfortable. It doesn’t feel good in my body. But if wisdom comes with aging, maybe this is the evidence – my phone is in the other room, and my battery is dying; I don’t have time for distraction. I’ve cultivated what I am able to take in, and focusing on what I’m able to do, to take action in the ways that don’t empty me. 

And so I leave you with this; one quote in one picture, what would have been the capstone to the other post (and the article above about Ethan Hawke’s TED Talk).

Let us grow and age and create, speak and write and do language; and let the 39 dripping birthday candles blow out, and not one more. 

Quote by Toni Morrison on a background of library books with an open notebook and quill in an inkwell. The quote reads "This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
Posted in Current Events

“Mama, my belly hurts.” Mine too, kid.

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I miss Hawthorne maybe the most on Election Day. Voting has always been a family affair, and it hurts that they aren’t here to take Lucy to the polls with me.

It’s a stunningly gorgeous day; it’s already 63 degrees, sunny, with pretty wisps of clouds that don’t create any shade, and fluttering cascades of orange and gold with every breeze. It feels too beautiful for things to go wrong today.

But the leaves that are left on the trees tremble, and the mid-morning shadows are deep. Schools are closed to students and open to registered voters, and the roads feel strangely empty. My mind darts wildly from work tasks to what feels like imminent violence to wondering if this is the last election.

Shit’s scary, and I want to escape, but that’s not possible. The internet says America is waiting for an STD test, a biopsy result. That this time is equivalent to waiting in an airport, where there are no rules and calories don’t count. They say democracy is at stake, that rule of law is questioned, that we have learned nothing from history. They’re right. 

The news reports are scary – footage of invoking religious dog-whistles, targeted ads designed to cultivate fear and distrust, pundits outright inciting panic and violence. 

My workplace sends out emails reminding me of the benefits of deep breathing, community, and exercising as ways to combat election stress. Shockingly, it’s not helping. 

Everywhere I walk and drive, there are signs – on lawns, on billboards, on cars. Even those that support a viable candidate make my stomach clench. 

I had to turn off NPR last week when they played a clip of Ben Carson warning that Christians are being persecuted for their politics, just like Trump is, but that God sees that and knows who is standing strong (I’m paraphrasing, because I refuse to look it up). I wanted to vomit. 

I am physically ill over this election. I know I’m not alone in that; I have been hearing about the increase in anxiety and suicidality, in anger and violence, in people seeking help to deal with all the unexpected ways the stress is manifesting.

I have educated myself on the ballot questions, and I have cast my ballot. I cannot give any more of my attention, energy, or spoons to this – and that in and of itself is an action. I am choosing to try to distance myself from the pervasive politics, and that makes me feel guilty. I have been of the mind – as was Hawthorne – that the political is personal. When your rights have been decided by court decisions, it’s important to pay attention. 

I still agree. 

And. 

I need to put on my oxygen mask on first. Right now, that means trying to avoid anything else to do with the election until the results come in

My kid has gone to the polls with me for every election since they were born. Their first, I embroidered RBG’s dissent collar on their black onesie – it was days before the first Covid lockdowns, Town Meeting day in Vermont. It was the only election that the three of us were able to vote together in, and Hawthorne’s last. 

Eight months later, the onesie didn’t fit anymore. The babysitter and I met up at the polling location to swap kids, and I cast my vote before taking her home and getting each of us a bottle. 

2021 saw us in a new home in a new state with a new polling place. We were able to walk to cast our votes, but it was too cold to go to the adjacent playground. 

In 2022, the primaries were on Lucy’s first day of preschool. We walked again, jumping in the puddles the warm fall rain had left. 

Last year was the first election I missed. My mental health was terrible; it was all I could do to keep things together, let alone leave the house after getting home from work. Lucy was enamored with watching Frozen II  and didn’t understand why I was weeping on the couch from both guilt and inertia. 

We also missed the primaries this year, because I had been in the hospital just the day before with a significant issue, and I was out of commission. I honestly don’t think I thought about it, but my memory of March 2024 is mostly nonexistent. 

But we went back this fall. 

It was after work, and I was running late for some reason. My friend picked up the kids from their school and we met up at a playground so she could run in and cast her vote, before I took Lucy across town to do the same. We talked about what was for dinner and what we were doing first. It was the first time my kid has been old enough/verbal enough to really engage in a conversation about elections and voting, and they were much more interested in if I had fresh dill (aka “the spiky leaves”) for the salmon we were going to eat. I hadn’t, and was told, “well maybe you should think about that next time, Mama.” (No, I have no idea where they get their attitude from.) 

Now here we are, on a day that feels like the tipping point, and I don’t have any confidence in what tomorrow will look like. I’ve had my plan to vote, and my aftercare plan for tonight, for several weeks. 

Even though we were starting our day at the dentist, this morning my kid had a million questions about why we had to go vote before I took them to school. They just had a birthday, so I’m truly living “explain like I’m 5” these days. I said voting is one of the most important chores a grown-up has; it’s when we choose the people to make decisions for our town, state, and country, and when we get to agree or disagree with changing certain rules. We talked about “little d democracy” from the book “A is for Activist,” and I hoped we will still have one by time our library books are due. 

We had to take the highway between the dentist’s office and the polling place. We passed under a bridge where Trump supporters waved flags and held up signs about protecting children and Jesus is their Lord, but Trump is their president. There were uniformed officers standing with them; road safety did not seem to be the reason, and there was not enough of a crowd to warrant control. 

I was reminded of something my friend had recently said: I’ve managed to hide my dislike of spiders so much so that my kid becomes friends with the creatures, but I’m not nearly so good at hiding my distrust of police. In a group chat with others just this morning, a friend raised concern when her 5 year old said that he hated those guys standing on the corner supporting Trump. 

There’s a hard line to walk with kids. We don’t want to teach them to hate in any sort of blanket approach; we also don’t want to teach them to fear that way, either. But the kids in my extended village also have lessons to learn that some kids don’t. Our kids are black and brown and queer and trans and neurodiverse. They are going to learn, someday, that they aren’t wanted everywhere, that they aren’t safe everywhere. There are people who will hate them on sight, and we have to teach them to not respond in kind. There are people who wish violence on them, don’t think they should have rights, or even exist; and we have to teach them to protect themselves and those rights. We have to teach them that not only “of course your existence is valid and matters,” we have to figure out how to teach them that “yeah, the ones that hate you and don’t even know you? Their existence is valid and matters, too.” 

Obey the uniforms, even if they don’t follow the same rules. 

Protect yourself, but don’t retaliate. 

The world isn’t fair, but you should treat people fairly. 

It’s not “live and let live,” it’s “try to survive, and let live.” 

The world is scary, and I’m not sure what this election will bring, and I’m not sure what I am more immediately scared of – four more years of Trump, or what a Trump loss will incite. Either way, I believe we are looking at more violence and discord and a very uncertain future. 

It’s a warm sunny day in November, and I am a terrified voter. 

Posted in Current Events

Safety First, or, As American as Violence

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

Today I discovered that the FBI released a public service announcement and website on how to attempt to survive a mass shooting. The FBI. The biggest law enforcement agency this country. It’s not even new; it was released three years ago, and just happened to hit my feed today.

Run. Fight. Hide.

If this messaging sounds familiar, there’s a reason for it. 

American politics and policies have long put the onus on the victim to protect and defend themselves. It didn’t start with active shooter drills in elementary schools. Gay folks in the armed forces were taught that they could avoid sexuality-based violence if they kept their mouth shut. Women have been taught for decades how to avoid getting sexually assaulted. Black families have taught their children how to interact with cops so they don’t end up jailed or killed. 

Systemic issues should not place the burden of safety on the individual. And yet, here we are. 

This country was built on the blood and bodies of innocents. The colonizers didn’t see indigenous people as people. Still don’t. 

This country was built on the backs and by the hands of people stolen from their homes and enslaved across oceans. The slavetraders didn’t see black people as people. Still don’t.

This country was built on the unseen labor of women and fertile wombs. The patriarchs didn’t see women as people. Still don’t. 

This country was birthed from violence, and begets, and begets, and begets. 

“It could never happen here.” It could. It has. It does. It will.

Four years ago, I was in the minority (along with my public health friends) who were aware that this country was not prepared for a pandemic. You can’t shoot a virus, so I guess there wasn’t much funding. 

Twenty years ago, I didn’t live with the weight that any day, in any public or semi-public place, I could be a victim of a mass shooting. Columbine was supposed to be a once-in-a-generation tragedy. So was the Oklahoma City Bombing. So was 9/11. 

It has been going on so long I don’t even want to say that it isn’t normal. Because now, it is. 

In my line of work, we like to use simple visual tools to convey big ideas (stay with me here). The one that comes to mind is from OSHA, the organization responsible for ensuring occupational safety. Here it the hierarchy of controls, courtesy of Wikipedia: 

Can you see where we are on the chart? Where marginalized folks have been for generations? 

We are at the personal protective equipment level. 

The hazard has not been removed. It will not be. 

The hazard has not been replaced. It will not be. 

People have not been isolated from the hazard. They won’t be. 

The way people operate their day-to-day lives has changed, it can be argued; but not for safety, not on a societal scale. 

We are at the point of the triangle, where the individual must accept that no one in power is going to do fuck-all for them, and it is their own responsibility to survive the violent actions of other individuals. 

I’m not saying it’s not an important video and message to get out; I’m not saying it won’t save lives. It will. My point is, even though it shouldn’t have to, there are not enough people with enough money and enough power who can eke out a single fuck to give.

I don’t have a solution. Well, I have some ideas, but they keep getting squashed in the hallowed halls of the government. Call this a rant, call this screaming into the void. The video tonight just made it crystal clear that, for some time now, I’ve understood that on any day, it could happen here. And you know what bothers me about that, is how matter-of-fucking-fact it was. Just like, oh, might rain on Thursday. Might cause traffic problems. Might get shot while doing the grocery shopping this week. 

And it’s coming out like this, rage pouring through my fingers, as I sit here knowing my daughter is sleeping soundly having no goddamn idea about this yet in the next room. It breaks my heart and strengthens my resolve that I know all too soon, she, too, will learn that she might be next. 

Check out the video if you have the bandwidth. My daughter will learn how to stop the bleed. How to run, hide, and fight. 

May that she, and you, only ever know the fear of it happening and not the reality. 

Posted in Current Events

Come at Me, Bro

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

The anger is closer, more accessible, than the reason for it or the details. I didn’t know anyone at Club Q. I’m learning the names slowly as the news quietly updates. It bothers me that the only updates I’m seeing are from Huff Post Queer Voices, and sites that lie inaccessible behind paywalls. 

Have we all become numb?

I felt it yesterday; I don’t know if it was the day, the news, or the season, but “numb” is a good descriptor for most of my Sunday. The way my bestie said it summed it up perfectly: “there’s so much to feel and so little space to feel it.” And so, blankness becomes survival. 

Today I woke up anxious and angry. Little things are frustrating; not the stomp-your-foot flavor of frustrating, but the take-a-match-to-it kind. It took me a while to realize why, to remember. It took until afternoon again for anything to cross my Facebook path. 

And this attack happened mere minutes before Trans Day of Remembrance. An annual day of mourning and remembering, scheduled and on a whole lot of calendars, because we know we are going to lose more of our community to violence and hatred. Not long before they died, my wife wondered if they’d make that list one day.

Today, I’m not numb; I am angry, and I am tired. 

I’m not even supposed to be writing this. I had a funny post planned, a nice short one with typos and mistakes I’ve made using talk-to-text, because it’s National Novel Writing Month. I’m about 6000 words off of my goal with just ten days to go. 

I couldn’t post that after I saw the news. And I couldn’t sit silently; not for long, at least.

There’s a tweet going around that says “If you can’t wrap your head around a bar or a club as a sanctuary, you’ve probably never been afraid to hold someone’s hand in public.” And that hit me, hard.

I’ve never seen myself as a victim; not when I was in an abusive relationship, not when I’ve been actively discriminated against. No matter what has happened to me, no matter the dizzying amount of anxiety I have, I still consider myself a fighter. 

Because yeah, I’ve been worried about what it would mean to hold my wife’s hand in public. I’ve felt my protective instincts go up when I am with another woman in public. I’ve taken stickers that I’m proud as hell to display down off my car in order to be safer travelling. I’ve used the buddy system in out-of-state gas stations, leaving the dog in the (running) car, so that my partner would be safer – or have a witness, if they weren’t.

I’ve felt the stares, directed at me, directed at my wife, and before that, other partners. I realize that not everyone knows what it’s like to feel that hot punch of hate, to feel unwelcome because of who you are and who you love. Not everyone knows what it’s like when conversation stops when you walk in, and you know what that silence means.

When Hawthorne and I were first married, there were states where we would half-jokingly say “Oh, guess we’re not married! Ok, see ya!” When we were first talking about having kids, we had to look into the legality of names on a birth certificate before we even felt safe trying. When I was preeclamptic and Lucy’s arrival was imminent, we elected to go to the in-state hospital, which was twice as far away as the out-of-state one, just to protect those rights.

We were denied wedding services by vendors because we were not a union of a man and a woman. We were not-so-subtly called out during our niece’s dedication ceremony; not by name, but it sure was uncomfortable when the message of the sermon was that Jesus can even forgive homosexuals, those that are sexually impure. 

I have been present for a couple fights at bars and clubs, and during my time on the ambulance, responded to plenty. Only two were at known queer establishments, where intolerant people went to make a point – or whatever reason they gave. Still I have felt safer in bars and clubs than I have in most churches I’ve been to. And no, I don’t expect everyone to understand that. What I want people to understand is, my experience is just as true and valid as yours.

These days, I’d love to get a night off and find a gay bar in a major metropolitan city, have a couple drinks, dance, and Uber home. However I’m increasingly afraid of doing so; I’ve got a kid I want to come home to more than I want to unwind at a bar; and truly, Starbucks is no safer from assholes with guns than a bar.

Historically, bars have been safe gathering places for people who existed outside the confines of man-and-woman, binary, and proper. They have been burned down, smoked out, condemned, and shot up. They are flagships of survival. They’ve given their bricks and mortar just as we have shed our tears and blood for our right to exist in this world.

For every person who exists outside the boundaries of the binary, for every person who loves someone they’ve been told by someone – person, organization, religion, or society – for each of you, I am angry, and I am with you.

For every person who has had their life taken by these senseless acts of violence, especially in places when you were supposed to be safe, I am remembering, and I am with you.

For every person who has been harmed, abandoned, assaulted, evicted, disowned, denied your human and civil rights, I am hurting, and I am with you.

For every person who has shed their blood and their tears just to fucking exist, every person who has fought – with cops, with protesters, with religious figures and politicians – I am thanking you, and I am with you.

For every person who has been afraid to hold someone’s hand in public, piss in a public restroom, cut or grow their hair, wear a dress or pants, have stickers on their car, travel to specific places, go out by themselves to get gas, I am raising my hand in sorrow and solidarity, and I am with you.

I’m no victim, and neither am I invincible. I’m fully aware that being a woman, and being queer, make me a target for certain bigots. I’m something to abhor, to castigate and disparage. I’m something to dispose of, teach a lesson to; someone who doesn’t match their idea of what a woman should be, and as such, deserving of scorn and derision. And as I am all of those things, I am something to be feared.

So go ahead, fear me. If you see me as a target, be damn sure that I know it, and your hateful opinion does not change me. You have come for us, and we are still here, and we will continue to be.

I am angry: for me, for my daughter, my friends and family and community. And hell hath no wrath like a woman scorned.