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.
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.
I just opened six new documents in my haste to start writing this. It’s been ages since I felt like I could sit down with the intent to write and the ability to do so, but my therapist reminded me to write from where I’m at, so, there it be.
It’s been a hell of a start to 2024. I’ve had a major health scare, some new diagnoses, a rough medication taper and subsequent change that has absolutely leveled me (stay tuned, more to come on all that another time) and on top of all that, I’m in the midst of moving.
I wasn’t looking for a new place; I haven’t been unhappy where we are, in fact, I was rather content with everything except the commute time to work and other things. I haven’t been able to build the community I want here, so I knew it wasn’t forever, but it was good enough for now. But then a good friend told me about an apartment opening up in her town with an excellent school system and extremely reasonable rent. Over the next few weeks, piece by piece fell into place, and now the second quarter of 2024 will dawn in a new home.
Now, one of the most daunting aspects of moving is packing, and while I’ve managed to reduce the amount of stuff I own, I’m no exception… especially because I’m (not-so-)secretly just three little book goblins with DSM-V diagnoses in a trench coat. Every time Hawthorne and I moved, the two things that everyone who helped us – paid professionals or paid-in-pizza friends – were the sheer amount of books and guitars. Oh, and the heavy boxes clearly labeled “rocks.”
I honestly don’t remember much about my last move; packing and moving away from Vermont was an undertaking that I know I had an immense amount of help with, and very little memory of. The newness of the grief was too encompassing for me to hold those memories. I know a ton of folks stepped up, and while I might not remember everyone by name, I’m forever grateful.
This time, however, I am fully in it. I am packing, and I’m ready to go through things that I know were simply just transported before. To do this, I have been leaning on my friends, and they have been instrumental in letting me process through my emotions with them. I am no longer overwhelmed by the absence of Hawthorne, and don’t feel compelled to keep every pair of socks they wore, every book they bought, or every item they touched. There are still many, many things I’m not ready to look at – our wedding planning, their notebooks, old family pictures – but I am now comfortable letting go of a lot more than I was in those first weeks after they died.
Hawthorne and I had never shied away from talking about deaths, in particular, theirs. They didn’t expect to make it to thirty, and when they did, they spent their remaining years rather shocked that they had. We both had suffered significant personal losses before we met, and since we had met in EMS and had witnessed the cruelty of both the universe and people, there wasn’t much taboo about death for us. I remain eternally grateful for all those conversations, as morbid as they might have been from the outside. I knew their wishes and beliefs, and it has brought me so much comfort over the past few years knowing their death was not intentional. I knew who was supposed to get certain guitars, and I knew to look through any books carefully before donating them.
If we were ever to get rid of a book, we had to page through it carefully first, and make sure there was nothing inside it we didn’t want to keep. It might be a dried flower or four-leaf clover, an old picture, or, as Hawthorne would excitedly tell me, there might long-forgotten money tucked in between the pages (I have no idea where they got that one). So before I even knew for certain I was going to be moving, I began to cull the shelves. I had done a mini-clean out a couple years ago, discarding things we had multiple copies of (three copies of Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet, for example, or several bibles) or the books on Christianity that extended family had foisted on us, but it was nothing like this. I made piles in the kitchen of books I didn’t have attachment to, or want to keep, or felt like I should. It wasn’t so Marie-Kondo as to spark joy, but if I felt a connection to a book for whatever reason, or if it would be handy to have the knowledge in print (think apocalyptic scenario and I couldn’t use the internet to figure out how to pluck a chicken), it stayed. The object wasn’t to reach some percentage of less books; it was to continue letting go of things that did not serve me.
Unsurprisingly, with that mindset, most of those piles ended up being things that Hawthorne had needed for school. I certainly didn’t need eight different books on Kierkegaard, or the life works of Becker and Weber (sorry, sociologist friends). There were also some things that I remembered from my parents’ shelves that had moved house to house with me since my mom’s death a dozen years ago; I didn’t see the need for 1970’s paperbacks of Freudian theory or a 1990’s guide to local fishing.
Pulling them off the shelves was only the first steps. As books began to lean and even slide down to lay flat on the shelves, I began to feel like maybe I was getting rid of too much. Was I really going to throw away four years of education that I had been supporting? Was I really throwing away memories of conversations and stories and other unknown super important things, that my anxiety brain was trying to tell me? It was a discomfort I had to sit in for a bit. But I let myself take the time to see those shelves with a little space as opposed to jam-packed, and resisted the urge to immediately get more books to fill them. I also gave myself the space to add things back to the shelves if I decided to keep them after all (at the end of it, seven were returned to the shelves; 3 were good apocalypse books, and four were inscribed).
The piles lived in the kitchen for several days before I felt up to actually going through them and pack them into totes for donation. I knew once I started doing that, I was going to have to complete it quickly, or live in limbo with bags and bags of books in my car for who knows how long. [Quick poll, how many of you reading this have a bag of something spring-cleaning to donate in your vehicle right now?]
Finally one evening, with my sister visiting and helping out with Lucy, I was able to start.
The process itself wasn’t bad; flip through each book, checking the back and front cover an additional time. A small pile started on the counter of papers and other ephemera (spoiler alert: there was no money. I seriously don’t know where the hell Hawthorne ever got that idea). I was able to remain rather emotionally distant, since I wasn’t looking at any of that stuff yet; my focus was on getting the books out of the apartment before they got factored into packing. I got through a few stacks, and then the next morning before Lucy was awake, I finished, sitting on the floor of the kitchen with thick socks and iced coffee. I packed up the books into reusable grocery bags – seven full bags all told – and loaded them into the car. I dropped off the kid and stopped at the book donation bin on the way back from the school, and stood in a soft drizzle as I let them go, three or four at a time, into the bottom of the dumpster-sized donation bin.
The time it took for me to go through the books and send them off was just under 13 hours. The four books that remained, and the short stack of stuff I found inside the rest, has been sitting in a pile in the five weeks since. I knew I wanted to write about it, but writing itself has been a struggle; another topic for another blog post.
Now, with my six open documents, I am mid-pack; my sister has stepped in and is giving me the bossiness I need to get things done, and I swear she’s the only reason I’m going to get through this move. Today is my day to work on my desk, and I’ve got the top cleared off except for the things I need daily, a small stack of mail to handle, and the Hawthorne pile.
Once again I find myself immensely grateful for all the times we talked about this. I’m so glad it was embedded in me to go through each book, because this is such a beautiful encapsulation of my wife. The books contained:
A circulation card from a Hampshire College Library book
There’s no title or author on the card, and I wish I could remember which book it came from; I’m guessing it was something they “forgot to return” when they visited a friend at their campus.
A doctor’s appointment reminder for Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 4:00 PM
A receipt from the Buffalo State College bookstore, paid with Financial Aid
The receipt is a good indication of the first time I heard “fucking Latour, what the fuck is this shit?”
A post-it with Stacey’s number and some doodles
I have no idea who Stacey was or is, but it’s not the Staci I know.
A $25 Lane Bryant gift cheque, valid through July 18, 2010
Two co-pay receipts from Buffalo Cardiology and Pulmonary Associates
An index card with predictions and favorites for RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 10
We had to start writing these down, because as the season went on, Hawthorne would forget who we had each picked and we’d argue about which one of us one that season; reading the names brought back such clear memories of some of the fantastic queens from that season, particularly Blair St Clair and Miss Vanjie (still, always, forever my fave)
A blank yellow index card
A blank piece of paper from a notepad that had some sort of design on the edging
A scribbled drawing of a pregnancy craving I had for chocolate-dipped candy lemon slices* on a Holiday Inn notepad
The syllabus for Introduction to Sociology (SOC 100) with Dr. Lindsey Freeman
An empty circulation card for Margaret Mead’s The Golden Age of American Anthropology
A circulation card from the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library for an unknown book, last checked out October 16, 1963
Two general admissions tickets (valued at $10.00!) to see Bob Dylan on July 18, 2013, with listed openers Wilco and My Morning Jacket
This was a fun day; some blacked-out SUVs drove past us and we were convinced they were for the unlisted opener, who was Brandi freakin’ Carlile, and the real reason we went. We only stayed for 4 songs of Bob Dylan.
A black-and-white picture of Hawthorne playing guitar in their early twenties
Their hair is a short faux-hawk, and their ears don’t appear to be gauged yet, so that’s the best guess on age. I’ve seen the other pictures from around that time and I want to say their brother was about 18, which would put Hawthorne at 21, best guess.
A page of notes from sociology class on 2/28/2013
It looks like they had forgotten their notebook and borrowed a sheet of paper from someone else. Based on the notes, this is likely one of Allen Shelton’s classes, but it could have been a different one I suppose.
A term paper for Dr. Staci Newmahr’s spring 2013 sociology class
This wasn’t the graded one, so I don’t know how they did – but I know it was lower than an A-, because they all were, much to their consternation.
An engagement picture of Hawthorne and I leaning on the fence of the posting location where we first kissed
Hawthorne’s social security number written down
This honestly baffles me, even knowing my wife. It was actually written into the blank first page of a book called The Cost of Being Christian; I just ripped the page out. Who writes their SSN down like that?? WHY?? C’mon, babe, what the hell.
Four photos printed at the one-hour photo on 9/3/2000 of someone on a corded phone with the following captions written on the back:
This was taken before you realized you had missed your train.
This was taken when you realized you had missed your time.
When you realized that you had missed your train and it was costing you money.
I didn’t understand the whole “little” things but I took a picture anyway
So I showed these to some of Hawthorne’s best friends, and no one could ID the folks in the pictures, but we did rule out a lot of people. Since I don’t know them, I’m not going to post them here.
The four (non-apocalypse) books I kept each have inscriptions, all from different people.
Destiny of the Republic, by Candice Millard
This was a Bookmas gift from 2016 and has a lovely inscription from my cousin to my wife. Our family swaps books, gifted along with chocolate, on Christmas Eve every year.
Parables of Kierkegaard, edited by Thomas C. Oden
This one has 3 names with phone numbers, an extra phone number from a Rochester area code, and a note to Hawthorne from a friend who visited while they were in the hospital for their asthma. This one also has a scrap of a note with someone else’s handwriting about neurocardiogenic syncope and a tilt-table test. The scrap looks like it was grabbed from a nurse’s station that used the back of misprinted documents, and there’s a timestamp that says 4/26/2005 – 19:30.
Hamlet by Shakespeare, a Dover Thrift Edition
This is “an average teenage girl note” with bubble-dotted i’s, written in pencil, from a friend of Hawthorne’s growing up. If it’s who I think it is, I’ve only met them once, but I cannot bring myself to let go of something from their “BFF!!”
Mere Christianity by CS Lewis
This was an interesting one. There are four lines of what sounds like a poem or a song that Hawthorne wrote down on the inside first page, under the publisher’s mark. I knew that Hawthorne had written songs, once upon a time, so at first glance I figured it was theirs. Good thing there’s Google, though, because once I really read the lines, it didn’t sound like them at all. Sure enough, the stanzas come from a book called The Singer Trilogy by Calvin Miller, which is a mythic retelling of the New Testament. Which made sense, considering the book and topic. Since I ended up handling this one more, I discovered an additional four lines on the blank back page of the book, from the same source.
I love when I find things tucked into old books that find their way into my hands. It feels like a glimpse of someone else’s story, no matter what it is. I feel like all the things I found in our books are just prompts – for memories, for writing, it doesn’t matter which. And while I’m always happy to stumble on other’s ephemera like this, I’m being true to my little book goblin self and hoarding these ones. I want to keep them for myself a little longer. I’ve thrown away the appointment reminders and the blank index cards and the receipts. The little library bits, their papers, the ticket stubs and photos – well, let’s just say when I eventually get around to making that scrapbook, I’ll have plenty of stuff that Hawthorne left to contribute. There’s a lot more to say about unfinished stories, and the threads we leave behind as we move on through apartments and lives and states of being. I’ll be picking at some of these threads another time, from another town.
*If you’re reading this far, and you noticed the asterisk, this story is for you.
So these lemon slices. Pregnant me did not have good taste. Pregnant me got sick at scent of sweetened hot coffee, and really loved the smell of Ella’s joint supplements, like, thought they smelled delicious. Anyway. I had been at a conference held at a Holiday Inn, and had used the notepad at my seat. All I could think about that morning was these candied lemon slices we had bought at Trader Joe’s after one of our appointments in Burlington, and I had been watching too much Great British Baking Show. I thought that fresh candied lemon slices, half-dipped in semi-sweet chocolate with a little abstract line design of white chocolate on it, would be the most amazing thing I’d ever tasted. Now, Hawthorne was an excellent cook, and always did love to make my dreams come true. So I had drawn this little thing to look like one of the signature challenge sketches from the show, and sent it to them. I think I also talked about it when I got home, and then promptly forgot about it by the next day (pregnancy brain was real). A few days later, I was having an angry emotional pregnancy day. I felt fat and miserable and uncomfortable and gross, and my beautiful, wonderful wife wanted to cheer me up. I’m standing at the counter crying and they tell me to close my eyes. I do, and I hear them banging around in the pantry before I feel their arms come around me and they tell me to open my mouth. I do, and they put something in my mouth. I immediately start horking it out, trying to get the offending concoction of absolute ass and garbage out of my existence. “What the FUCK was that?” I’m over here, trying to bend over the sink to run water on my tongue, and poor Hawthorne is standing there, eyes all wide, holding one of the candied lemon slices and a tub of dark chocolate frosting.
“I thought that was what you wanted! I thought you liked it! It was your craving!”
“Oh my god, my cravings are stupid.”
So yeah. They did make me feel better, though not at all how they had intended. We laughed about it every time I had another craving, like wanting to eat the dog’s medicine. We kept that little drawing, and I think it actually lived on the fridge for a while, probably until Hawthorne walked into the kitchen reading something and decided they needed a bookmark. Y’know, like you do.
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.
I sit here this morning, heart heavy but failing to weigh me down. I may find myself sinking later, pressing down to the floor, our songs playing and the curtains pulled. For now, I’m following what feels good, what feels fitting; and so this finds me at my favorite local café with a hot mocha, coffee cake, and classical music to cover the soft sounds of the other patrons studying. I came to write, and through that, hope to process the past weekend in a way I couldn’t while I was in it.
It’s been so long since I have written here in this space, and the years have been so full of both planned breaks and impromptu hiatus, I almost don’t remember what I’ve written. I’m not even sure I know where to start. But Sunday morning found me sitting there in the mountains that I called mine for nearly six years, and I felt more at peace and at home than I have in a long time.
It was almost the anniversary: almost three years to the day since Hawthorne died, and this stopped feeling like home. At least, I thought it did. The immediate loss and grief, the overwhelming urge to run away is not forgotten. Neither, though, was the slide of my shoulder blades down my back as the mountains came into view on I-89. The folds in the rolling fabric of trees that covered them, growing shabby as summer so quickly faded, blanketed me with warm welcome.
I was visiting with dear friends, a trip that got postponed from a summer of illness followed by Covid last year. Lucy was there, of course, and nearly twice as tall as when we left. The magic within her is likewise sparked by the return. She’s asked to watch TV a couple times but is mostly content to play with one of us, read her books, and plow through the donuts she asks for. Plus, I’ve told her that the TV isn’t working, just like every AirBnB we have stayed in. An unfortunate coincidence, should she ever call me on it (and one day, she will — she’s not yet four, and has already asked if it is plugged in, needs to charge, or needs new batteries).
I’ve been here twice more since the people’s jam for Hawthorne the July following their death, which was the most fitting celebration of their life I could have ever hoped for. The first was earlier this year, a random rainy Saturday in June where I let the tires point where they may, and stumbled upon a local author/book fair in the center of Woodstock. Lucy and I got maple creemees, and we took the dog and played at the river in the rain, driving all the way home stripped and wrapped in blankets with the heat on. Then just last month, another branch of my village spent two nights here, soaking in the music and the mountains. We stayed in Killington, and as the stars prick through the dark sky, I felt at home.
Those trips were lovely and I’m so glad I went both times, but now, I don’t ever want to leave.
Overnight the mountains started to dapple with color; green, still, with tints of yellow and ochre. The wind rustled leaves gone dry at the edges as the first showers of foliage began to fall. Every now and then a beech nut clanged off the metal roof above me on the covered porch, making me jump in the relative silence of the forest.
The whole weekend was magical. Friday morning, I took Lucy home, and brought our friends to see the river and the road we had called ours for almost six years. I took the backroad, turned onto the dirt road that warned against using GPS in that area. I parked just over the bridge and we walked the same path I had walked for so long, the same run that I’d taken with Lucy asleep in the stroller before the world changed under our feet. But this road was the same. The house, no longer ours, stood the same; there was evidence of updated utilities and the skeleton of a structure where the woodpile had been, likely for the same purpose. The grass had been recently mowed, and the meadow looked more natural than ever.
The streams that tumbled down the mountain looked the same, and the track of the river hadn’t changed much. It sounded like home in the water, and the air tasted of it as it crossed my lips. Lucy dragged a stick around in the dirt, running to my outstretched hand as cars announced themselves far enough away for her to be safe running ahead. We walked up to my Mother tree, standing tall and proud as ever. I leaned forward and placed my hand along her bark, and felt the warm beat of recognition.
Later that day, we had a picnic in the cemetery where Hawthorne and I would walk. We all trekked up the hill, leaving the blanket (and most of Lucy’s lunch) at the bottom. I spread myself over the thick green moss and let myself sink, sink, gentle and slow. I tried to teach Lucy how to respectfully explore the graves, with gentle hands and careful feet. Most of it went unheeded, and she log-rolled away from us down the hill, laughing wildly, whenever possible.
We journeyed throughout the day, my friends exceedingly patient with multiple stops where I’d see friends and folks I hadn’t spoken with in two or three years. I continued to be shocked and humbled by how many people recognized me, and more, recognized Lucy as the little tiny potato that Hawthorne and I had so welcomed and wanted to share, only to be mostly denied by the onset of Covid.
We did all the beautiful, mundane things that made up our lives in Vermont – went to the coffee shop and bookstore, got sandwiches at the local general store, visited the library, and shopped at the little grocery store. I bought eggs and tomatoes for dinner at the farmer’s market, and sat in clean air on green grass while Lucy played and danced. I ate a whole pint of small tomatoes, the aromatic scent of their stems filling my head with memories of tilling, digging, and planting.
It was Saturday night that hangs on a string around my neck and pressed to my heart, never to be lost. We were at the Wild Fern, a pizza café that defies simple explanation. It is the heart of the magic of that corner of the world, and is fed by the rivers and the trees all around it. I had planned for this to be as beautiful as it could be, and was given more than I thought possible. I had taken some edibles a couple hours before the show, and they kicked in just in time for the ride to the Fern. Once there, once inside, I was caught between two worlds. The front view – a 180-degree semicircle that bisected my body along the coronal plane – was the present, the now, the moment. Pressed up against that, all behind me, it was a Thursday night in the late winter, with Lucy a tiny bundle being passed from person to person, the cold night outside no match for the warmth of the kitchen and the music inside. I existed there, in that liminal space between, fully present in both. If I turned quick enough, I had a flash of that night before it slipped back behind me out of view. I could see the lights and the darkness outside, I could feel Hawthorne’s hands on the small of my back or my hips. It was as real as the Saturday night I faced.
This feeling stayed with me for hours, and I sank into the comfort of it, of being deeply aware of its transience, and soaking in every moment I had. On the stage outside was Rick Redington and Tuff Luv. With three fire pits glowing and Lucy dancing for hours, the band played. Bass, guitar, and drums all seamlessly blended to evoke emotions that swirled along with the fire smoke and prompted Lucy to yell, “rock and roll!” half a million times as she played air guitar and punched her fists in the air.
The music paused for a bit, as Rick introduced the next song and from the shadows pulled out a different guitar. It was unusual; small, double-necked, and heartbreakingly familiar.
Hawthorne had found this old guitar, a bit busted and unstrung, at the local dump on a Saturday morning that we were set to return to Buffalo for a visit. They didn’t know anything about it other that it clearly needed to come home with us, as every cast off guitar they’d found before had.
But this one was different (and more, I remember writing about it here). We brought it to our local luthier (because of course, hidden in the Vermont mountains we have an incredible luthier), who took wonderful care and brought the guitar back to life. It turns out it was a custom build, a small harp guitar, most likely from the late 1800s. One neck was strung like a guitar with a fretboard, and the other side reminded me more of a viola or cello. I wasn’t the expert, that’s for sure, but Hawthorne held that guitar with the highest reverence.
When they passed, they left thirteen guitars that I suddenly had to figure out what to do with. I kept a few that I knew were intended for very specific people, and the rest went to Rick, as I knew Hawthorne would have approved. That was a bond between musicians, and the harp guitar was a natural fit.
So there, sitting around the fire with our daughter dancing, Rick and I told the story of the guitar, before he played. I’d heard him play the song before, but not like this. Not holding a piece of Hawthorne so close that I could hear them in every note. Not with the stars shining down on me and Lucy. My tears fell fast and hot, soaking into the ground as my breath sobbed out. My friend held on and let me lean even as she cried herself.
For weeks, our closest chosen family has been telling me the ways they’re feeling Hawthorne and experiencing their presence, especially with the advent of fall and the time spent in Vermont. It’s been hard to respond over the feelings of anger and jealousy that I have not felt them.
Sitting there, listening to the harp guitar sing under Rick’s skilled fingers and vocals, I felt Hawthorne’s embrace. My face pressed against the night sky, against their chest, I wept out the pain and sorrow of the years prior – the words unsaid, the “I love yous” and “where are you for this?” unanswered. My soul cried out and was soothed; my heart broken and gently held. I was wrapped with the long-ago night of music and family and Hawthorne and magic against my back, and the current moment of unimaginable community and love and love and love.
The night continued on after that, and the nights began to blur together. Lucy fell asleep in friends arms with the stage lights shining and bass line thumping, just as before. I had one of Hawthorne’s flannels to keep me warm, and we stayed until the crickets took over for the band and it was the music of the night that echoed off the mountains.
It’s daylight now, and I’m nearly two hundred miles away. It was – is – hard to come back. I look up from the computer now and then to the café around me, half expecting the music to be wafting through the trees that surround me as I feel myself back in my forest. Everyone seems blurry and little unreal, as if the café has been the image imposed over the forest and not the other way around. The image fades when I remember to remove my reading glasses, so I don’t. Let me be there, in that other world, with the industrious squirrels under the music of the fairies.
There is a melancholy in me, sorrow that has softened with time and carries gentle waves of yearning – to have Hawthorne back, to feel the warmth of their love, to return home to our mountains and their arms. And while those things will never be realized, I can easily trade any windswept moors to wander despondent for the cool forests and running rivers of Vermont.
I will make my way back there. To visit, and one day, to stay. To return to a place that gave me so many memories, so much community, and family and music and love. That time isn’t here yet – I’m still in that space where I need the distance as much as I need to know it is there. I will get there; after all, I am forever a child of the woods.
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.
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.
I just came back from my second solo writing retreat. I started last year and decided it was going to be an annual thing, but both trips have been so beneficial for me, I really want to make it twice a year.
When I started writing this, I was mostly packed. I had my laptop and notebook out; that was it. The dishes were done, the linens collected and cute retro fridge emptied. All my bags were by the front door.
I did not want to leave Provincetown.
I had been twice before; the first trip with my ex-husband and his boyfriend, my memory was almost nonexistent. I don’t remember anything but walking alone while they held hands and walked ahead of me. The second time, with my wife and my cousins, was much better; still a little hazy in the rearview (and likely a beer or two), and close to ten years ago. My memories are blurred on the edges, photographs taken with too much joy and laughter to be in focus. I remembered the color on the streets, in the sky, on the people.
From the moment I first walked downtown, I could tell it hadn’t changed. I mean, sure, I didn’t remember the exact art galleries or the placement of most of the boutique shops, and there certainly weren’t at least four recreational cannabis retailers. We hadn’t left the main drag then, and weed had still been illegal.
Staying there solo for a whole weekend has been sating the craving in my soul for community, for being queer and creative, for the space to read and to write to my heart’s abandon.
Queer spaces are few and far between in the real world, and when I’m out and about and it’s not Pride, the absence is noticeable. I feel it in my bones, a whisper the arises with every step on pavement. You are not safe here, not really. You are not the same, and different is dangerous.
I know I exist a lot easier, safer, than a lot of folks in my community. I am protected by my femme invisibility in a way many queer and trans* folx are not; I am protected by the privilege with which I was raised, and shows on my skin. Were I to stop saying the words “wife,” “queer,” “Mexican,” almost no one would look at me and be any the wiser. There is safety in the layers of privilege and protection. Still, I know how many “other” boxes I check, and I know the risks of being “other.”
But here, there is a lightness to my step, a shedding of the fear that inherently ripples through a regular day, a tiny rock stuck in my shoe. Here, I feel I am queer until proven straight. Here, when I walk into a bookstore full of pro-choice and pro-woman and sex positivity rally posters, and I cry, those tears are understood. The woman behind the counter has to ring me up twice after we get to talking and the transaction times out. She offers me the dyke discount, and I take it, walking away with pins and canon I hadn’t previously known. She shared her publication, and invites me to call her when mine is available.
Here, the veil of threat that hangs over all strange men is gone. I am not leered at, by anyone. Children aren’t pulled away from anyone passing; the only up-and-down looks come from the drag queens who read you in the street the hour before the performance. Here people dress in clothes from the head shop, from the boutiques, the thrift stores and tourist shops, all mingled together. The colors of the town and streets and signs aren’t diminished by the rainbow flags; rather, if anything, the kaleidoscope of the town overshadows the six classic stripes.
I take my time; I walk everywhere possible in Converse and Docs, my skirt flouncing as I step on and off curbs. The goal of this weekend is to rest, read, hike, and write: my favorite ways to make myself a priority. Happy birthday to me, I’m going to enjoy it. This is the first time in five years I have actually felt like celebrating.
My last night there, I walked the mile from my AirBnB to the restaurant at 7pm when dusk was just stealing over, before the coyotes came out. I had two drinks and walked back in my dress at 9:30pm, alert, but not afraid of walking past emptying bars and through residential neighborhoods.
There is safety in numbers, and the ubiquitous presence of queer and trans* folk was a balm over my fight-or-flight response, still healing after Hawthorne’s death. There is so much hatred in the news, so many people in my community endangered by the insidious poison spewing forth from other states; this gay-ass heart feels constantly bruised. Being in one of the oldest historically queer communities in the US takes the weight off my heart. I drink here because I’m safe, because even at a table alone, I am held.
The second layer of ease is the sheer artistry I am surrounded with, created by hands and by nature. My first morning, I hiked the causeway at low tide, marveling at the curves the water carved into the sand, the glittering remains of seagulls’ feasts, the grace of the cormorants as they dove. My last morning here happened to be World Book Day, and I celebrated by finishing my 3rd and 4th books of the weekend. I took one to the woods and read poetry out loud, speaking the words into the wind and hearing the trees sigh in appreciation.
On the map I can see the acreage protected by conservation; in the streets I see the bursting expression of beauty and love in everything from the tiniest sparkle of glitter to the towering sculpture of a snarling griffon. It’s in the flowers planted in tiny gardens, the colors on the houses jam-packed into neighborhoods with streets too narrow to pass on. It is in the library, open til 8pm on weeknights, in the plate glass windows of a hundred galleries, in the crystals embedded into stone walls. It is in the queens’ makeup, and the wrinkled smile of the woman who greets us at the establishment. It is in the voice of an unknown language that sings and reminds me, this is where I belong. Somewhere I can lay down the daily weight of danger, of not belonging, and be enfolded in the loving arms of a place so steeped in creativity, community, and a not-so-subtle “fuck you” to everyone who thinks any of us are less than.
I didn’t want to leave, and already I yearn to go back. This time, I’ll remember so much more: the causeway and the hills, the way the sand blew across the highway, the comingled scents of lobster and taffy, the sea and pitch pines.
When I did finally leave, watching the rain begin in the rearview, I left with sand in my shoes, zero leftover cake, ten new books. This time, I leave with crystalline memories with the soundtrack of the sea, and a promise that I won’t stay away so long again.
Anxiety is a siren. She beckons, her voice sliding in to wind around my mind. I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want my thoughts to follow her sly whispers, but they are drawn along against my will. She does not sing of that which I most desire, but rather, she has charmed my fear into giving her my secrets. She sings of the death of my loves while I stand helpless, of my own violent end as if I am already half-ghost.
It was stormy last night; no lashing rain or blanketing snow, but fierce winds that whipped through tight screens and rattled loose shutters, and the temperature plummeted to -10 Fahrenheit. The hundred-year old house groaned and snapped, the heat clattering in pipes that sound off in the walls. The poor dog, anxious during any storm, was practically climbing the walls. She’s mostly deaf at this point, so whatever sense she has of storms must also be confusing when she can’t hear what we can. Still, she seems more comfortable outside than she does in during a storm. She stands facing the wind, her scraggly hair blown back as if she stands on the prow of a ship. She looks fierce in her Thundershirt and her long eyebrows swept back, and has to sniff every individual leaf that has entered the yard since the last time she was out. Then she comes in, shivering, looking pitiful, and only wants to be wrapped up in blankets.
The lights flickered as I made dinner, and I swore I could hear Hawthorne’s urgent voice. “Get the candles in one place. Fill the tub so we can flush the toilet, only pee in the downstairs one! Where are the beans? WHERE ARE THE BEANS? Oh, okay. What pot can we use on the stove? I’m going to make cowboy coffee! Maybe. Where’s the Mokapot? Better grind some coffee while we still have power, I’ll get the hammer to smash more just in case.” I think they were just waiting for their once-in-a-lifetime storm, the kind they heard about from their dad, who snowshoed to his parents’ home in the blizzard of ’77. They had already been through Buffalo’s October storm of 2006, but they wanted their legacy blizzard in Vermont.
It was comforting to think of them as I ran through my mental checklist. I knew where the candles and lighters were; the external battery for the phone was charged. We had plenty of pantry items, and we were not in a situation where we would be stuck without power or heat and with no way out. The extent of my storm prep was to text my cousins and ensure they knew that they were the backup plan if we lost power. It was too cold to mess around with that, and without another heat source.
We kept power; it didn’t even flicker hard enough to disrupt the evening run of PJ Masks. It was Friday night, so the TV stayed on a little later than usual, and we read a couple of extra books. By 8:45, I was ready for Lucy to go to bed, although she wasn’t quite convinced. As she climbed in, however, the siren’s song slipped past my defenses.
I was afraid that she would freeze to death in the night, and I wouldn’t be able to save her.
I stood, watching as she bounced around her toddler bed, avoiding laying down, and I tried to tell myself that was a silly thing to worry about. Her room was warm, the heat was on; I’d wake if the power went out and various things beeped a last complaint, and I would be awake at least twice during the night to let the old lady dog out. She was in no danger.
Do you want to take that risk? Are you willing to gamble on losing again?
I gave in.
It wasn’t hard to convince her to come to my bed. By 9PM, I had the fleece blanket I’d made Hawthorne on the bed, so Ella would have a soft, warm place for her belly, and Lucy tucked up on the inside of my bed, already hogging my pillow. I brushed my teeth and laid down, mentally checking off where my sweatpants and socks were, my robe and extra blanket for letting Ella out. It took Lucy a long time to settle down – relatively, I mean, for a three year old. Within fifteen minutes, my hand was rising and falling with her steady breathing as it lay on her chest.
At this point, I truly do not know if I could survive losing her. And so the siren sang me to sleep.
I’ve had all the standard advice about anxiety, from deep breathing exercises to medication to “just don’t think about it.” Those things can usually keep the irresistible song to a dull roar, and I can function.
Last night was just one of those times where it reached out and wrapped around my mind, pulling me against my own volition. I didn’t even try to fight it, not more than the most cursory effort, anyway. It had been a long and difficult week for my anxiety, and I simply did not have the effort, or the fucks, to give. Twenty-four hours later, I have no judgment and no regret. It was a simple fix; she climbs into my bed most nights anyway, jolting me awake in between puppy bathroom breaks. We all slept well and warm in the refuge of my bed.
One day, giving in to the siren may be my downfall, though it’s hard to think of how. Maybe it’ll keep me from taking a trip; maybe it will tell me to not allow Lucy to go off to college alone. I’m not really worried about that.
What I am worried about is that one day, the siren will speak truth, and I won’t hear it until it’s too late. Until I am too late.
So I listen; and some nights, when the wind whips and the temperatures dive deep, I follow her song and aim willingly for the rocks, and I take no chances.
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.
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.
Queer Mama Rising 