Tag: Writing

Posted in Hawthorne

When Life Hands You Lemon Slices, Make Ephemera

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

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.

Posted in On Writing

“Hey, Have You Read…”

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I have been devouring books lately. 

While I always was a reader (save that anomalous period in my twenties), it’s hard to remember a time when I read quite like this. 

Maybe when I’ve been involved in a series; Brian Jacques’ Redwall comes to mind, as do the first five books of a most famous series involving an English wizard student. During my early teenage years, I read everything by Patricia Cornwell that I could get my hands on, about the forensic pathologist whom I hoped to emulate at the time. Prior to that it had been Lurlene McDaniel, the tragic romances of (some terminally) ill teenagers; after that it was Nora Roberts and the approximate six thousand books she’s written, as well as under her pseudonym, JD Robb. By these five authors alone I must have read somewhere between 200-300 books, and that’s not an exaggeration. This is also not to mention the everlasting Babysitter’s Club, Boxcar Children, and Judy Blume volumes that pre-dated any shred of romance or shadow of puberty. OK, so I totally read like this when I was a kid – or at least before college. 

I fell in love with public health reading my assigned incoming freshman book, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. Paul Farmer remains an inspiration to this day. That’s the last book I remember before schoolwork took over. I had ideas of being an English major on the pre-med track at that time. That first semester I took two heavier reading courses, one mandatory and one for adolescent lit, which introduced me to entire worlds – the ones that stick with me are Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials. Those books still take up residence in my soul and influence my daily thoughts, that there is something under the surface of everything we see. The next semester, however, I took a class on the American health care system, and that beckoned me on to major and get my degree in public health. Luckily, it meant I got to read a whole bunch of other books – memoirs and sociology alongside the drudgery of biochemistry. I didn’t realize that the accounts of folks living with Downs’ syndrome or paralysis would be some of the last things I would read for a decade.

The dropoff was steep; I struggled with my mental health in my senior year and ended up spending some time on an inpatient psychiatric unit. I can look back now and have compassion for the young woman who was scared and alone, both vulnerable and stubborn. After that, reading was largely missing from my life. It was a combination of the medications (which I definitely needed) and major upheavals in my life: getting married, moving to Buffalo, and knowing almost instantly that it was all a mistake that I couldn’t make right. For the first time, I was watching TV regularly. I’ve seen more CSI, NCIS, and other various cop drama than I care to remember sitting on the couch in my husband’s grandmother’s house. I was still very depressed even if I couldn’t articulate it then. Finally I transferred my EMT card and got a job with the local company on overnights. It took two semesters to finish the few credits I needed to transfer back to actually finish my degree. The year of school days and work nights pushed me to the brink of exhaustion. I’d sometimes pick up one of my Nora Roberts for a bit of comfort, but reading was something, like writing, that had largely disappeared from my life.

Later, in the early days of our relationship, Hawthorne and I didn’t exactly spend our time together turning pages. We talked about it, though, extensively. By the time they left the field to go back to school and I changed companies to be outside the city, we were an official couple. I had a brief window where I’d always have at least one paperback at the ready.

Hawthorne knew I had not been able to indulge in books and reading the way I wanted, the way we talked about doing one sunny day. They wanted me to read more than romance, which I wholeheartedly agreed with, though it has always remained my comfort food. I had felt so stymied that I was intimidated by the sheer number of possibilities of “what to read next.” I will forever be grateful to Hawthorne for gently opening the doors to whole new worlds and drew me back into this beautiful genre I hadn’t begun to explore of creative nonfiction with authors like David Sedaris and Oliver Sacks. They also introduced me (in some cases, re-introduced me) to Hemingway, to Steinbeck, to Jeanette Winterson and Annie Proulx, Truman Capote and Flannery O’Connor. As I returned to the written word, I introduced them to Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Tracy Kidder. In the four months between Hawthorne starting school and me becoming the quality manager at my ambulance company, I read ten novels, two of which – Bridges of Madison County and East of Eden â€“ are still some of my favorites.

It was an amazing way to build a relationship, on a bedrock of literature shared and mostly enjoyed. We had some failed trials, sure; I liked Lolita, but haven’t yet tried any Dostoyevsky; they never did get through more than a couple chapters of Nora Robert, and I liked more real science than they ever did. As for the myriad of sociological authors they left behind on our shelves? There’s only a few on my TBR: Proust, Foucault, Shelton.  

As I began to read more and more reports for work, I turned less to the shelves again, but never so hard as to forget their importance in my life. Even now I still have a tendency to absolutely inhale the volumes of Nora Roberts, gulping down chapter after quick chapter whenever I stumble across a new one. My mother used to buy me two of her books a year – one for my Easter basket, and one for Christmas. They never lasted a day. Now I willingly go on anticipated binges; I wait a while, cleansing my palate of formulaic cis-het, white, vanilla romance. Then I will frustrate myself trying to navigate the connection between the Kindle app and my library app to blow through four or five that have come out during my fast. I carry the Kindle to the kitchen to get fresh coffee, to the back door to let the dog out, and forget to feed myself (don’t worry, Lucy cannot be forgotten). At the end, I raise my head, utterly dazed and disoriented. It takes a couple hours for the headache to fade and my vision to clear, and few days for my neck to get back to the correct angle from being so intently bent towards the screen. (I’m rolling my shoulder out and correcting my posture now just thinking about it.)

After Oscar’s death, then Hawthorne’s, I have turned back to words. Writing them, reading them, watching my tears soak into the ink. I pushed myself through Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking and thumbed the dog-eared pages of my favorite romances. When I began starting to piece my new life that I’d been given back together, I filled my shelves to bursting (they were already quite full) with self-help books with titles like Girl, Wash Your Face and You’re Not Lost. They had some good lines; there’s plenty of marginalia to go back to, but over self-help books just weren’t that helpful. 

I began reading again, deliberately, in 2021. That year I started nine books and finished five. One of them, Too Like the Lightning, remains unfinished – not because it isn’t amazing, but because I rarely have the time to devote to being totally immersed into a world so different than mine. Ada Palmer’s glorious stories demand of me a minimum of two uninterrupted hours to make any progress. 

In 2022, I made daily reading a habit I wanted to keep (with wavering success) and set a goal of 26 books for the year. Counting a 500-page novel draft from a friend, I hit the goal with an eclectic mix of gay romance, mainstream fiction, Brene Brown recommendations, and nonfiction books about the death of the body. There was the beta-read novel for a friend, two audiobooks, and at least 5 Nora Roberts on my Kindle. 

My goal for 2023 was 30 books. I planned on pacing it out, but then someone gave me TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea.

Since then, I have had an insatiable need to stare into the pages, my eyes racing over the text, and never feeling like it’s enough. I feel greedy, possessive; I gather these volumes to me, unable to wait for the paperback versions, needing to feel the weight in my hands. The scent of new books, old books, the dust and the ink all further whet my appetite for them. I long to be in bookstores with infinite money and infinite time, and have visited three different libraries already this year.

On my little retreat in Provincetown; I brought several books that I had started or wanted to read, a mix of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction books on writing. To no one’s utter shock and disbelief, it turns out that when I have stretches of time to myself, I still will find a comfy spot and dive into a book until something interrupts me. I finished two books I had begun prior to the retreat, and read two more completed, and started a fifth. (I also may have visited every bookstore in town and purchased an additional ten titles but that’s not the point. In fact, I should be commended that it was only ten, especially since one of them was a used bookstore.)

I thought, okay, this is a little vacation fluke. I can’t keep up this pace. I’ll fall back into my old ways and struggle to get ten minutes of reading, my little goal, in per day. 

Turns out I was only partially right – I couldn’t keep up that pace, but holy crap, I am still reading more than I have in years. I’ve finished, what, three more books since returning? In three weeks? I am two books ahead of my goal per Goodreads. 

I keep a new picture on my phone screen to remind me that “what you are not changing, you are choosing.” I have been trying to get off my phone for a while. It’s hard. I like the distraction, the immediate dopamine hit, and I’ve also discovered a particular animal sanctuary whom I’m a little obsessed with. But man, I do not want to be staring at that little screen as long as I do. I’ve set limits on apps – 30 minutes on Facebook, 60 on games;  but I can easily make excuses to not follow the self-set rule. I find ways to circumvent it, opening things to read in my browser instead of Facebook, subtracting the Maps and Facetime minutes. Bad mental health days see the times spike; good days, where I hike or create or connect with live people, those days see the times drop. So, too, the days I spend reading – and that’s what I want. 

I want to live a life where I do read voraciously, where I am spending my energies in saturating experiences like books or travel or laughing with friends. I want to be caught up in my life as I get in the lives of characters, to be focused and mindful of the story and my place in it. I want to think of seas as cerulean and feel my heart pound for fumbling first kisses. I want to remember the hum of magic just under the surface and the feeling that we are never really alone in the woods. I want to find the worms when I dig my hands into the earth, brush dandelion seeds from my daughter’s hair, and show her the world beyond these screens. It’s not easy to get away from all the distraction, but oh, it’s so worth it. 

This was long and rambling. Thank you for reading. I hope you keep reading, anything you stumble across. Blogs and books and cereal boxes and bottles of shampoo in the shower. It is thrilling to me that my words can be part of your reading journey. Thank you.

Posted in On Writing

En Queer Air

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

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.

Posted in On Writing

All Tools Need Recalibration, Sometimes

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

We are a quarter of the way through the year; this is my fourth post, of a goal of 25, meaning I’m at least 4 posts off-schedule. And I’ll tell you, there’s something that’s been really circling in my brain.

Why am I writing this? Why am I so reluctant to give it up?

It’s not like I haven’t been writing – I have. I’ve got a couple different projects in the works that are insistent about the little time I have, and my attention no matter where I am. Soon, they’ll demand even more: a social media presence, marketing, and hopefully, in-person and virtual events. That’s a lot to squeeze in to an already full schedule of mothering, working full time, and general adulting. 

Many other projects sit unfinished; short stories, an essay collection, a Patreon under a pen name that I once had dreams of funding other projects. The simple truth of the matter is I will never have enough time to write all the things I want to, even if it were my full-time occupation that also paid the bills. Because once I start pulling those out of my head and onto paper and out into the world, they are replaced exponentially with new ideas. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ideas, the never-ending spiral of creativity. But the actualization of those ideas, the transcribing and editing and whatever comes next, takes the most finite of resources: time, money, and energy. Something’s gotta give. 

If you know me, or have been reading for a while, you’ll know I need a clear and framed approach. So here goes. 

Of the multiple potential routes from here, I see three solutions I’m willing to consider. 

  1. End the blog: or at least, the desire/promise to post every 2 weeks. This has already sort of happened naturally, except the need is still there, knocking.
  2. Change the blog: lower the drawbridge between what I write here, and what I write elsewhere.
  3. Change the goal: adjust downward from the goal of 25 posts this year to a number that feels more reasonable, and is in within reach, as long as effort is put in.

Ending the blog would remove the self-induced pressure and internet accountability (which, mind you, has been incredibly loving and gentle when it does come) of posting on the bi-weekly schedule. With my daughter getting older, there is now more to do with her – events at the library, birthday parties, sports and activities. This often comes on weekend mornings, historically my most productive writing time. 

Winter sapped my energy. Now that we have turned the corner into spring, albeit a chilly one, I had hopes of the switch flipping, and the tap of words just flowing. That hasn’t been the case. I am still tired, I am still struggling to wake up in the mornings with enough eyes-open time for myself before the day starts.

Perhaps the biggest reason to continue the blog on a schedule is simply the fact that I enjoy it. I’ve learned, with time and therapy, that reason is valid AF. 

So that knocks off choice #1. I’m left with changing the blog, or changing the goal. 

I’ll start with the latter, since it’s less anxiety provoking. Changing the goal is not really an issue for me. I work in managing change, for crap’s sake; you can’t do quality improvement without rocking the boat. And I support those changes, and the people making them. I know it’s not easy, it’s not comfortable at first. And sometimes, the goals we set need to be adjusted because of factors outside of our control. Even if it’s because of things that are within our control, they can need to change: maybe the original goal was too ambitious or aggressive, or it just does not fit anymore. Right now, 25 posts seems like a lot to catch up on, if all other things remain the same. 

Changing the blog? That’s a little scarier.

For over two years I’ve used this blog to explore grief, to maintain hold of some sort of thread of consistency after Hawthorne’s death; I’ve used it to complain and work through why things are so goddamned hard sometimes. I have hoped that by voicing my struggles, others who might stumble their way here might not feel so alone. Delusion of grandeur? I don’t think so, but it’s possible. All I know is that when Oscar died, there was one (1) blog about a queer family and stillbirth; an excellent one, to be sure, but only one I could find. 

More recently I’ve been writing about writing – not to steal the title from one of my favorite bloggers at Writing About Writing, which you should also check out. I’ve also written a couple fiction pieces, and a couple reworks of writing prompts I’ve had from other spaces. For the most part, the divisions between the different types of writing that I do have been secure and unbreached. What would it mean to do so?

I write under two different pseudonyms, for the sake of distinguishing and protecting the content and myself. I’ve got family who read this (thank you, love you all) whom I would not be comfortable reading my more, uh, explicit content. And I’ve chosen a name to publish my book(s) under which I’m not releasing here. If my wildest dreams come true, I want a little bit of separation for my daughter and my family. Maybe should have thought about that before I started this, but hey, I hadn’t even thought about writing a novel, let alone publishing it. Those goals definitely changed, so I guess now we will see how long I can successfully keep those separate. 

Also, I write these quickly. My novel has been in the works for nearly two years. But for me, blog posts aren’t painstaking works; sometimes, like today, they come out all at once. Sometimes there are weeks in between the start and the finish, but the actual writing/editing/tweaking time isn’t more than 3 hours. I’ve got friends who have been working on a single piece that will go on their blog – they’ve been refining and perfecting, moving with it as it morphs and changes – and it’s amazing (still, can’t wait to see that piece online, hmm?) That’s just not what my blog is for me.

Which brings me back to the changing the blog to work better for me, to have it meet my evolving needs. Over the years – and it feels astounding to know that it’s been a plural number of years now – I have used this space for exploration of my grief, of life after loss, of family and writing and myself. Sometimes I wonder if it’s too “journal-y,” but based on what my actual journals look like, the answer is definitely no. 

Natalie Goldberg says that we need to dive through and compost our thoughts in order for something halfway decent to come from it. In Writing Down the Bones, she says that “Our senses by themselves are dumb. They take in an experience, but they need the richness of sifting for a while through our consciousness and through our whole bodies.” This would still be a space for exploration, it’s just a matter of what I’m exploring.

At the end of the day, I realize that this is my blog and I can do literally whatever I want with it. I answer to no one for this. No higher power, no internet-at-large. You read it for whatever reasons you have – you support me, you like to ramble along the twists and turns of my brain, you’re bored and this shows up in your inbox. For whatever reason you show up, thank you, I appreciate you. 

And I’m going to keep showing up. Clearly the answer is not to stop writing, not when I’ve punched out over a thousand words of this on a solo Saturday morning. I could move the goalpost, and aim for 20 rather than 25, doing 2/month from here on plus a couple extra. But I don’t think I’m going to do that. I’m going to stick to the original goal of 25, knowing that I’ll be re-evaluating again come the end of June. 

Which means that the content is going to change somewhat, and this time, I’m not putting restrictions on it (don’t worry, fam, the sexy stuff will still be elsewhere). I’m just going to say, don’t be surprised if you read something that seems a bit different than my usual. And one day if you pick up a queer novel with a strange name you’ve never heard before and pieces of the story seem familiar? Maybe you’ll remember a blogger who had trouble with self-imposed deadlines. Or maybe you’ll just enjoy the vague familiarity, and you’ll let yourself sink into the story as if it were the couch of an old friend. 

However it goes, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope to see you along the way. 

Posted in On Writing

Grace? Yeah, I Know Her.

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I’ve learned to give myself grace over these past two-plus years; as someone who has always found relaxing to be stressful, it was a hard lesson. I needed to learn how to let things go, how to swim with the tide and let it carry me, without feeling guilty for it. Not everything had to be a struggle, even if life with a three-year-old can otherwise indicate. 

Now, I think, it’s time to give myself some goddamn accountability. 

This is said with no self-directed anger, no guilt, and no shame. There is no judgment to pass. I have given and given and accepted and accepted the grace from myself and others for what I have done and not done, and for what I have lived through. The past few years have been a lot; the past year, the past month. 

The days have been so, so long. I wake up, my child wakes up. We go to our respective daily responsibilities with different levels of engagement, with their different structures and purpose. We come home at the end of the night, tired; we eat, stare at the TV and each other, read a couple books and head to bed. There’s a lot of scrolling involved, a lot of half-hearted conversation. I have learned to be at peace with both wanting to do more, and knowing that these last blustery nights of winter are not going to be the time.

We’re supposed to get a big snowfall in a couple days; there’s been precious little this winter thus far, just enough for two quick snowy adventures. We haven’t even busted out the snow pants yet. Now here in mid-March it sounds like the lion finally has sank his claws into the low hills and curves of coastline, dragging the dregs of winters along. I won’t be running this week, though I’m cleared to, and I’m feeling physically better than I have since last May.

I made it out for a couple solid walks this week, walking out my door at work and letting it slam behind me, keeping my pace quick as I crossed neighborhoods and made my way to the beach. The sea was restless and high, prowling along the shore. She’s waiting for something.

I felt the pull of the tide, shifting and tense, echo in my veins long after I left the sands behind and made my way back to the office. I try to channel the energy into work, seat-dancing with the jitters, getting psyched up for a major project kickoff the next day. 

Until my director called and told me I was off the project; it had been recategorized to another (albeit more appropriate) department. The hours I’d put in on it this specific project for the past four months were for nothing. 

Anger spilled from my eyes in hot tears, tightening my throat on the repetitions of, “this is bullshit.” I felt overlooked and invalidated; thankfully, I’m close enough to my supervisor to ask if this is because of something I’ve done, and she was able to quell those worries before they even had time to blossom. 

The following four days were tough. Something about this felt pivotal; I remembered the sea’s edge, the cold foam that rolled up along the shore as waves broke further out in the harbor. Suddenly the surf seemed far away, as if I walked along a cliff edged with small stones that bounced their way over the edge. Change felt imminent. I talked with friends about it, paced and swore. I wished I was able to not throw myself into things like this. Why did I sink so much of myself, so many of my spoons, into the hours that I traded for pay? Because I care about my job, and I’m passionate about my field and the potential in it. OK, well, if I didn’t care about the job so much, would it be easier on me? Would I be less tired, feel less discouraged and down if I could find a job that didn’t challenge my heart and soul so much? 

If I were going to be so absorbed by something that it had the power to drive me to tears of any kind… did it need to be a job?

Yes, of course, I thought. I need to work. Working provides health insurance, stability, and a paycheck, which provides food and shelter and more stability. Those are basic needs that a job meets. Satisfaction comes after, then passion. Cool, cool. 

But what if… 

I grabbed a notebook and the first thick pen I could find.  

What would it look like if I took this writing thing seriously?

Not quit my job seriously, or like all the success stories of pretty white girls who “just went for it.” I’m 36 year old solo mom with student loan payments about to restart. The farthest I’m going to “go for it” is picking up the jar of medium-heat salsa at Wegmans for an untested recipe. I’m not moving to Bali for six months to write my book, or turn a fitness instructor career into a successful entrepreneurship. For those that did, good for them – that’s just not me, not where I am, and really, not what I want.

I want my stories read. I want people to read them, talk about them, enjoy them. I want my words to mean something to someone, whether it’s an inspiration or a moment of recognition, or a laugh in a dark moment. I want to connect with people. I want to tell stories I see myself in, see my friends in. I want to be part of the movement of more queer representation in fiction. I don’t need to be the next TJ Klune (though holy shit, if you haven’t read him yet, GO), but the mark I want to leave on this world is in that line. 

I’m currently sitting on 6 half-finished blog posts (yes, I’m still very behind) and two novels – one in its 9thround of edits, and I’ve been querying agents for, and one that is a rough draft of the second book in a series of seven. How long am I going to leave them sitting on my computer? How long am I going to wait?

The first novel – a standalone fiction piece, about 250 pages – wasn’t planned. Oops. It had started as a short story, and just kept going. It still needs some polishing, some work; looking back and editing it, I can see how far I’ve come in my writing since “finishing” it, so the tweaks continue. Still, I’ve sent out eighteen queries to agents for representation. I’ve had 8 outright rejections, consider 2 more to be rejections (waiting for a response for over a year), and have 8 open and sitting in agents’ inboxes. 

I wrestled with the idea of going the self-publishing route for an absolutely asinine reason – I felt like maybe I hadn’t paid my dues as a creative person enough. The memes are out there: “Stephen King was turned down 80 times. Keep going.” Agatha Christie had a bunch, John Grisham, Jack London, NK Jemison. 

I was absolutely shocked when I received my first rejection – a form email the day after I had sent it. I wasn’t shocked by the rejection, but by my reaction – I had done it. I had sent it out into the world. The letter felt like a rite of passage, and did not discourage me in the least. Some of the rejections I’ve received have been helpful, giving advice on what to clean up for my letter, or story or synopsis. A few have been just templated, [INSERT NAME HERE] that leave me nothing to improve. 

I have also had three actual people read, finish, and provide excellent feedback on that novel’s first iteration. Some of the points, I acted on; others I stood by, all for one reason or another. The consensus I came away with was, “this is pretty good, and could be even better.” 

After voicing my artistic angst at not “paying my dues,” to someone who loves me enough to not scoff (until later), I was able to let that notion go. I need a publisher to get my book printed and distributed, not to validate my talent. I wanted an agent to make the connections and worry about the marketing, not to pat me on the head and tell me that we will try again.  

If I don’t hear back with a positive response from an agent by my 37th birthday, I’m moving ahead with self-publishing. Based on that timeline, by the end of 2023, I will be a published author.

I had to pause after writing that. Sit back, take a healthy gulp of coffee.

How’s that for some goddamn accountability.

Posted in On Writing

Well, FINALLY

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

12/5/2022

There’s something wonderful about intending to go to bed early, and just read for ten minutes; then finding yourself at the end of a book, your feet freezing from being in such a position that they fell asleep without you. 

This is what I aspire to.

As a writer – a title I am still getting used to calling myself – my goals are amorphous(?). They are shapeshifters; I want to write full-time, I want it to pay my bills so I don’t have to commute any more. I want to afford a small house where the floors don’t creak until Lucy’s old enough to sneak in, and that’s when they alert me. I don’t need to be famous,  I just want my stories known. 

I want to keep people up past their bedtime reading my books. 

When I finished what I (foolishly, naively) thought to be my final draft of my first novel, I gave it to my closest people who would not blow smoke up my ass. They had some great notes and critiques, and told me all their thoughts, good and bad. And one told me they’d stayed up later than they meant to reading it. 

I carry that like an ember.

12/30/2022

I have done no writing this December, other than the 200 or so words above. Not a blog post, not a journal entry, not even scribbled thoughts from my walks. I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe I needed that break after November, where I wrote 50,194 words of a new novel to win NaNoWriMo. That seems legit, right? That’s a lot of output for one month, especially while balancing being a solo mom to my toddler, working full time, and trying to keep up with the rest of life – which, admittedly, some of which went to crap.

Maybe I ran out of motivation; it’s not always easy to get up and moving and settling down to pull words out of my brain at 5 AM, and often harder to get back to that after putting Lucy to bed.  I know my mental health took a dive; what poet Jarod K. Anderson refers to as “brain weather” was dark fog and thunder for days on end. But did that happen because it’s winter and I have SAD as well as complicated grief? Or did it happen because I stopped writing daily, all of my carefully structured routines fell away, and the darkness took the opportunity to close in? 

1/27/2023

It’s January now, less than a week left. The writer is there; I’ve got lines and paragraphs that are waiting to find a home, waiting to be taken in and finished and find their place. I’ve got quotes and prompts aplenty, creative fodder galore (quick, name that tune). I’ve updated my inspiration journal, my reading journal, my daily journal. My writing? Not so much. But she’s there; maybe buried under blankets of inactivity and depression, but there, and stirring. 

This is not going to be a good blog post. This is not going to get my voice out there and be read by anyone other than those who have subscribed, and honestly? Maybe only half of those folks, too. 

That’s OK. 

This blog is for me. I have other writing projects that aren’t for me. I write and edit things for work, for friends; there are a few of you who might read this whom I owe some thoughts to, and I promise I’ll get to them. I’m working on edits for two novels I’ve written, and one in progress. I have multiple short stories and flash fiction sitting, waiting for their turn. Those are different. Those are the stories I intend to put out there only after high polishing and buffing, and hopefully, professional publishing services. 

This is where I practice, where I make mistakes. Where I stream it out and write from the heart, whatever comes out. There’s no guise, no plan, no plot or structure. It’s raw, sometimes more so than others. It’s public because just knowing it’s public gives me the accountability I need to return, even when the words are slow to come, even when the document sits open for fifty-one days. 

My goal for this blog in 2023 is to publish 25 posts. I was torn between 24 (2 per month) and 26 (once every 2 weeks) and split the difference. In one aspect, I am already behind; I’m not going to get two out this month, which means I’m already playing catch up. 

In another aspect, I’m just getting started.

I haven’t spent the past weeks since NaNoWriMo idle. I’ve been in consumption mode; I’ve been reading more than ever, searching out inspiration instead of passively scrolling. I’ve been back in the MasterClass series, hanging on the words of N.K. Jemison. I’ve got podcasts lined up, and plans. So many plans. Best of all, I finally have my pen name for what I intend to publish – with or without a publishing house.

Two major things I have accomplished since NaNo might not seem like the sort of things one would crow about, or even call accomplishments. For me, they are. One, I’ve set a date to self-publish my first novel. If none of the queries I have out to agents come back positively by then, I’m partnering with a service to publish my own novel. 

The second is even more of a victory. Every so often, when I would write before, I’d come across something that sounded close to my poems, or someone who sounded more like me but so much better. And I’d stop. If I wasn’t going to be the best or the first, what was the point (I need to be cautious, my gifted child status is showing)? 

This changed in 2022. I remember the exact moment; I’m not going back to check, so forgive me if you’ve already heard this story. I had taken myself on a solo writing retreat in the mountains for three days and nights. I brought along The Night Circus on a whim. On my second full day, as I added more hot water to the clawfoot tub that had gone tepid while I was engrossed in Erin Morgenstern’s world, I felt the ground shift. Beliefs and doubts, worries and hopes were tossed around like Boggle cubes and settled into a new pattern, a mosaic tableau that rolled out, just waiting for me to take the first step.

I was reading something incredibly magic and engrossing; and it made me want to write. I wasn’t dismayed, I wasn’t disheartened that I could never write that well.

I wanted to write more.

I wanted to bring people into my world, into my stories, to captivate the reader, to pull them along the plotlines and pitfalls.

It took 35 years to figure out I could be inspired, not outshone, by people who were good at what I wanted to do. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, seeing as it took 34 years to realize I didn’t want to “have it all,” as I had been raised to believe. 

Better late than never.

Today, in the final days of January, I have more than doubled my word count for December. It’s nothing that will get me on the NYT bestseller’s list, but it certainly has not been a waste. I had already decided that my word of the year is “Forward,” following the concept of non-zero days, something I learned on Reddit (yes, inspiration is everywhere). Any progress is good. Another quote I’m keeping in mind, and I am not going to go down an internet rabbit hole trying to figure out where it first came from, but it was still important for me to learn: “Anything worth doing, is worth doing half-assed.” 

As I’m sure it is for some of you, this is a MAJOR adjustment from the idea that “anything worth doing is worth doing well,” another maxim I was raised with. 

So while my blog goal will stay at 25 posts this year, it’s just that: a goal. I may or may not make it. I will absolutely try, but as long as I can continue the forward momentum, no matter how small, I’ll take that as a success. 

If you’re still subscribed, or still reading after this ramble, I hope you’re coming along for the ride.

Posted in Uncategorized

Take A Walk With Me

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I am falling asleep at my computer; the record validation I am working on is going smoothly enough, it’s just tedious and I’m tired. Lucy’s schedule does not change for September, yet I feel like she’s already trying to stretch both ends of the day in the anticipation of returning to school.

So, with no meetings on the calendar, I take myself for a walk and head across the street to the little beach. I step deliberately on the bright shards of glass, grinding them further into the rocks and sand under my thick-soled boots. The glass here is not a gift from the sea, but the recent litter of people, so I like to play a small part in smoothing their edges.

About ten feet out in still-shallow water is a worryingly large splash, with no bird near enough to associate it with. This cove is rather industrial, and my imagination runs wild with visions of mutated sea creatures that feed on the pollution, pulling down the occasional gull from the surface.

A white band circles the water’s edge, marking an earlier tide. The pale skin of dried seaweed chokes out the grasses in a narrow strip. I use this as my guide; above the line is dryer, the stones and shells paler, while below the line everything is covered with a thin veneer of still-wet sediment. 

When I walk the beach, I find no bones. Those are gifted to me, at odd moments and at odd places, and never where I think I will find them. Instead I find crab and clamshells, and rocks broken under human intervention. So many of the stones you expect to find at the beach – rounded corners, soft edges that lay smooth in your fingers – have been abruptly interrupted. Maybe they fell to just the right pressure in just the right spot as they were buffeted by construction to sheer off into a flat surface, or thrown against a sharp boulder to crack them open and reveal the darker true color of the sun-washed stone. I take my phone out and make a note: stone-crossed lovers searching for the other half to the one they hold, meeting on the beach and discovering each other. Yeah, I can work with that. 

Thunder echoes in from the direction of the wind, and I look up to thick gray clouds. There’s no rain yet, just the tease of it on the humid air. The cove is sheltered, so there really aren’t any waves to join the strengthening wind.

I approach a tide pool in direct defiance of the thunder as the gulls begin to sound their alarm. There’s no life in the pool that isn’t already strewn along the rocks; periwinkles and limpets that cling to broken shells, turning what was once the home of a single mollusk to a crowded apartment building. 

As I begin to walk back up to higher ground, I think of the starfish story, and remember Hawthorne throwing back shell after shell stacked with new inhabitants. There is nothing here that I throw back, nothing I need to save; even as I’m thinking this, a clam spits out a warning from beneath the surface. The stream just misses the toe of my boot, and I laugh. They have their own defenses that don’t include a flight from my hands. Sure, they are more likely to be caught and eaten out here on the drying shore, but they’ll survive the cyclical rise and fall of the sea. Any who do become stranded will be quickly dispatched by the gulls. Such is the natural cycle of life on the beach.

I stoop and pick up a stone; quartz, it is jagged and pocked. I am always on the lookout for hag and wishing stones. This is neither, but it is oddly warm when I pick it up – I don’t need to scan the beach to know it is empty of people, even as it teems with life below me. The skin prickles on the back of my neck, and the cracking sound in the roll of thunder demands my return to the damp cool of my basement office.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Sometimes I will pick up a stone in the forest, or a shell on the beach, and find it feeling like it has already been held, warmed by hand other than my own. I wonder who it is. I wonder who walks with me; I wonder if they bend more easily than I do, or if pain still resides in their spirit, the very atoms scarred. If so, what scars are we made of, what marks do we carry as we are conceived and borne and grow? What pock marks and holes and missing pieces are we made of? Which star bled for each of us? How can we continue to consume and consume from our world and not give back, when will the universe demand it’s due? The number of people who die in a day are replaced within minutes. What is that if not the road to catastrophe?

The first fat drops of rain hit my back at nearly a 45-degree angle. Already the rain is coming in, driving itself sideways, hurrying those like me who’ve tarried too long, breathing in the energy of the coming storm. I wonder how Lucy’s day is going; if she’s feeling it, and being a little shit. My poor dog, I’m sure, is huddling behind the front door, her recent safe spot. I wasn’t expecting a storm and neglected to put on her Thundershirt. I’ll come home to a puddle inside the house, away from all the windows, my poor old lady. She’ll get some extra cuddles tonight, which will be easy since she’ll become my shadow the moment we get home.

I don’t have pockets in this dress, so I carry the stone with me and put in on my desk. It joins a couple pieces of glass, my wind-up toys, and a curved piece of broken shell that spoke to me on the very same beach when I was first transferred to this office. It might stay right there, just north of my keyboard; or it might join the plants in the window, enjoying the turns of shade and sun. I wonder if it will be warm when I pick it up, and who will hold it in the meantime.

Posted in Uncategorized

Co-Author, Co-Conspiriter

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

A week off schedule, but very exciting stuff!

I mentioned one of the other writing projects I have been working on is having a chapter as a co-author of The Rising Sisterhood, book 3. We are hurtling toward publication, and the blog for my chapter was just released.

You can read it here: https://therisingsisterhoodbook.com/marjanna-barber-dubois-the-rising-sisterhood-author-book-3/

(And yes, being in book 3 implies that there are two earlier publications as well, and you should check those out too. Proceeds from 1 and 2 go to The Trevor Project and Girls, Inc.)

I will return to my regular schedule next week with another Queer Mama Rising post, but I wanted to share my excitement of collaborating with some other amazing women to create the next installment of The Rising Sisterhood. 

Now I just have to figure out all the other social media stuff that isn’t pasting a link into Facebook. 

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It’s a Shame About the Weather

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

It’s a Shame About the Weather

I have not been shy about talking about the things I go through and experience – my mental health, stillbirth and pregnancy loss, losing my spouse, queer widowhood, sexuality and gender. These are often taboo to talk about, to write about; there’s a thin line between “enough” and “too much, I don’t want to hear this.” I try to stride down that line with my Docs on. I prefer to lead by example; if I think these topics should be destigmatized and not avoided, I’m going to write about it. The greatest reward would be to help someone else write or talk or explore what they need to.

There are also topics that are important to me that I don’t write about here. This isn’t from shame or remorse, stigma or embarrassment; some things are just private. A couple of times I’ve blurred that line, and asked the other person(s) involved if I could share the redacted story. This is, in part, in deference to the fact that I personally know many who follow this blog, and many of those are family. Oh, it still gets written; just not here. 

All that to say, my mental health has been junk lately. The early dark, the seemingly constant rain, the changing of seasons: none of these help. Depression has made its home in me again; uninvited, but not unexpected. 

I know the signs. The dwindling creativity, the defiance of self-care, the isolation all tell me I was right to be afraid of this season. I can function for about 14 hours a day; from the time I open my eyes before 5, unable to sleep longer, until Lucy is tucked into bed. After that, I shut down, as if programmed. I live in a state of exhaustion, one that is colored by that of having a toddler, grief, and depression itself. If you have never felt those last two flavors, I hope you never do; but those who have know the differences between. 

This is not a cry for help, or even a reason to worry. This is not the kind of depression where it is important to be able to ask, are you going to kill yourself? (The answer is no, anyway.) I have felt that depression before, and it is scary shit. 

This is an acknowledgment. I am depressed, and right now, that’s OK. This is a season I will get through. I’m not afraid; I don’t have scary thoughts, or thoughts I cannot control. I’m not in danger, Lucy’s not in danger. She may notice that I’m crankier and I cry a lot more, and she might watch a little more TV when my spoons are depleted before bedtime, but she still sees me laugh every day. She knows she is loved, she knows I will always pick her up when she runs to me. 

I have worked hard to gather my resources prior to the fall. My medications are stable; blessings on chemistry and SSRIs. I am on the waitlist for a counselor who seems to be an excellent match for what I need right now. I replaced my desk lamp with one used for seasonal affective disorder, and I love it. I have pulled back from social media, and I am allowing myself to only access the news of the world when I feel I can handle it. I have talked to my friends, to my family, to my doctor about it. I am open and frank about what I am experiencing. I buy little junk food and easy (I mean, easy; thank you, Wegmans) meals. I keep my routine and my bullet journal. I try to be strict about my bedtime. I have consistent plans to get me out of the house or allow people in, and I really enjoy my job. 

Someone asked me last week if they did something to upset me; another asked if something had happened. Both answers were no. This is just how it is, sometimes. And right now, sitting and writing with my sun lamp in the dawn of a new day, it’s easy for me to remember that this, too, will pass. This is a season, one I prepared for. 

I am depressed. I have chronic depression, and seasonal affective disorder. I have general anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD and agoraphobia at times. 

I am depressed, and I am OK.

For you creative types out there, I know you understand this next thing – when you start a new piece, in whatever your medium is, and it just takes off on you? You know what I’m talking about. That’s happening right now, real time. Front row seats for all.

I hadn’t intended to talk about mental health, mine in particular, like this. I had intended this post to be short and to-the-point. I wanted to tell my readership (and let’s be honest, anyone who will listen) that National Novel Writing Month begins on Monday, November 1st. I will not be keeping my schedule of biweekly posts to this blog for November, as I am concentrating my writing efforts elsewhere. I have a lofty goal to hit, and a lot to say. The blog will resume in December. Thanks for sticking around!

NOTE: if you are depressed and considering killing yourself, please check out these resources. It might not feel like it right now, but there are people out there who truly care. You will get through this. It gets better. 

(International) http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.html

(US) https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org

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Here Comes Your Ghost Again

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I’m looking for my place in this town. We moved here during Covid, when everything was still locked down, and had been for ten months. 

For a minute, I think I’ve found it.

This place feels like walking into a sitcom. It sits on the corner of two of the major streets, full plate-glass front. There are 8 tables, all two-tops but for one, four of them sharing attached bench seating against the wall. The tabletops are mismatched, some finished with a gray sage covering, mostly hard wood stained light. The chairs are all black, paint and cushions, and are the only thing in here that match. The walls are a deep blue that edges toward navy, with a blue mural of a grizzly facing you as you walk in. The organizer in me is in awe of their storage system; shelves for coffee beans and pour-over kits mounted to the support beam, narrow shelf for cream and sugar and various accoutrements following the slight curve of the window. There is a cold fridge directly beneath the counter at the corner where the tiny screen that now serves as a cash register sits, still under a Plexiglass barrier. A small case for pastries sits on the other edge of the counter, flush against the section where the focus turns inward towards the barista. The equipment isn’t new, but gleams even three hours after opening. There is a great deal of foot traffic, no optical illusion even though a line of more than four people winds out the door. The barista is in her forties, with grays just beginning to scatter in her short cap of black hair. She calls every stranger honey or baby, and her regulars by name. She remembers their orders, giving them a hard time when they try something new. 

I took the last empty bench seat, sitting between two men also banging away at their laptops. To my right is a man in his fifties, comfortable in dark-wash jeans and a gray T-shirt. So far, I’ve learned that he has multiple children, enjoys tuna fishing, and didn’t want his wife to resign her job because he likes the money she makes.

To my left is a tall guy in his early twenties. His posture is ramrod straight and three inches away from the wall; his slim-fit, cinnamon-brown pants that are a perfect match to his large canvas backpack and leather “work” boots offset by a bright teal T-shirt. I know far less about him; he hasn’t said a word, has his Airpods in while he focuses on his computer. Occasionally he picks up his phone, but puts it back down after attending to whatever it was that notified him. I want to ask him the secret of his focus. 

The one other long-term occupant sits against the window, facing the back wall. She is also on her laptop, with a full headset and mic on. She’s taken three calls since I’ve been here. She is clad in pastel workout shorts and short-sleeve shirt, blue running shoes with the white of her ankle socks showing. She could have stepped out off the track if it weren’t for the Michael Kors bag with her own power strip and various chargers at her feet. She leans into her screen, readers perched on her nose, long red hair pulled back in a ponytail that was thrown up hours ago. 

There are a number of characters I’ve seen come in. One tall man in his fifties, navy polo tucked into his belted chinos, knew the generic picture of mediocre successful man sitting to my right. They chatted while his order was filled, the seated man never rising, the tall man never sitting. I could only laugh listening to their conversation; not eavesdropping, since it was the loudest thing in the cafĂ© at the time. They couldn’t recognize the irony in their conversation about downsizing their sailboats, but bitching about their daughters’ tuition, wanting them to go to state schools and work part-time through their pre-med program, because “we told them, you know, you can’t just have everything. So anyway, where’s the little boat?” 

I haven’t met the mayor yet, but there have been several men in double-breasted suit coats and varying levels of white hair who have come in. Two young students come in and take a table, papers and notebooks and coffees all jousting for position on the small table between them. A mother in jogging clothes, stroller covered with a rain-cover, bright eyed baby quiet and staring. Construction workers pass the door to enter the convenience store for cheaper coffee and snacks. At no point in here is the radio ever drowned out. I don’t recognize a single song from the contemporary easy playlist. 

The coffee is strong, the muffins are soft and delicious. I’ll be coming back, but I don’t think it’s going to be a mainstay. 

Now, the library is another story.

My family didn’t go to the library often; it was across town and the parking was terrible. The sidewalks would be slick in the rain, and I feel like it was always raining when we went; perhaps we only did when we couldn’t be sent outside to play. I remember the stone had a softness to it, having been carved long ago enough that no sharp edges remained in the architecture. The stairs of the entrance were so well tucked under the building it was always dark. The double doors are giants in my memory, and probably only somewhat smaller in real life. It reminded me of an old church, but so much warmer, both in sentiment and temperature. It still held the reverent hush in its very walls. As you entered, the circulation desk would be directly in front of you, guarding the way to huge rooms with cathedral ceilings and stacks of books beyond it. The wing to the left was two stories, the wraparound balcony with its high wall and brass bar skirting around the edges of more stacks. Little desks were tucked here and there, lit by brass desk lamps with the green glass shade that I associated with colleges and professors; I had one on my desk at home, and I was immensely proud to see it there after visiting the library. 

The wing to the right was much more open and bright, at least, brighter gray; no shadows here, no towering stacks. Here there were individual cubicle desks, and a couple of old benches; shelves held VHS tapes in tattered plastic cases, and, if memory serves, the giant wooden card catalog. I thought those were fascinating; drawers upon drawers of little cards with secret codes that let you find whatever book you wanted. Now we have browser tabs, and all the code is hidden. 

I, somewhat desperately, want the library to be our place. It’s not walking distance; I imagine it will be biking distance at some painful point in the future. The architecture is highly reminiscent of my childhood, sandstone and pink granite with craggy bricks and soft curves. There’s no half-mile, uphill trek in, just a few steps on level sidewalk to small staircase. Once inside those magic doors, the stairs go down to the right, and up directly in front of you, welcoming you to ascend into the worlds of the printed page, or detour down into the open workspace of technology. At the top of the half-staircase is the circulation desk, now tucked behind Plexiglass. 

I had gone alone to the coffeeshop, but brought my daughter to the library. Lucy’s eyes were wide as she stood, taking it all in. I spoke with the librarian about the application I had started online, and within moments, was grinning ear to ear with library card in hand. I have a secondhand Kindle, which I have yet to use; but holding that card, I felt like I was given the keys to the castle from Beauty and the Beast. Any book I imagined I could conjure up and bring to me. The timing worked out well; just as I tucked the plastic card away, Lucy took off, thankfully to the children’s section. She stopped in her tracks and looked all around, trying to make it compute, before running over to the low table with its equally tiny chairs. She climbed up and spent a happy twenty minutes taking the crayons out of their basket and replacing them, occasionally moving a handful somewhere else nearby with seeming deliberation. I found myself, as I often do when I watch her play like this, wondering what spell she’s casting, what magic lives with her beautiful dark eyes. The moment breaks when she pulls down several books from a shelf. She’s found the books about trucks and other large operable machinery. I smile as she scatters a few of the books, and the pain slices me through like a scalpel, so sharp and neat, I don’t feel it right then. I don’t realize I’m crying until my hand comes away from my face, wet and streaked with running mascara. I don’t feel the ground beneath me until my knees start to buckle. I stay upright with a willpower borne of an audience, not willing to cause a scene, although we are almost the only patrons.

I want to find our place; I need to. I need to keep searching for this new dream, keep building this new life. As the one year anniversary closes in, the pain is swordsman, hiding around every corner, steel glinting only after it strikes. The missing of them is visceral; I feel it, deeply, in the fissures of my heart, in my empty arms. My chest wants to cave in upon itself, my body to bow as only the grief-stricken can. 

I stand straighter. 

A half-hour later, we finish our first tour of the library, making friends along the way. Lucy turns and waves, calling “bye!” to everyone and everything. She is entrancing; her  wide-eyed amazement over a painted flower pot, her desire to put everything she can pick up into her mouth. She keeps me going; she keeps me standing. 

We will find our spot. Maybe we already have, and I just don’t recognize it, because a world without Hawthorne still doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe it never will. Maybe the best we can do is to find some middle ground, some worldly place between absence and nonsense. Maybe that will be enough of a place to call home without my original vagabond by my side.