Meditations for Queer Femmes – The Doomed Tree Yet Lives

When I very first drove up to my October den, in those first few minutes after a long trip, I met a young man in the parking lot who asked if I was Paula.

I am not Paula.

But Paula is the one who wanted to hire the young man to cut down a tree that is growing very close to the back decks of this building.

It’s a beech tree.

It creaks in the wind.

It has a lot of activity going on.

There are wasps, two different kinds. Perhaps one or both are invasive.

There are a lot of flies, too, crawling around on the leaves.

Those leaves are pretty chewed up, but the tree still looks more or less ok. It’s still putting out leaf buds and it reaches up to the sun.

A song sparrow pair spend a lot of time in the branches of a morning. I don’t know what they’re eating, but they are very busy. The other day, I heard and then saw some finches in there, equally busy.

At night, moths are zip in and around the branches. Maybe they’re an invasive species, too.

There is a vine encircling bits of the tree. Pretty sure that’s invasive, pretty sure.

When this hub is gone, all that activity will have to move elsewhere if it can.

I pay close attention to this tree every day. I feel like I want to bear witness to all the kinds of life it sustains, including itself.

Its beautiful gray-green trunk. The sky through its branches. Tips of twigs wreathed in fog.

With all these invasives eating it, this tree was probably doomed before Paula got after it, and maybe that death would have been more painful than a quick removal. I don’t know. But there’s a lot of life in and around that tree that I get to watch every day.

I like the way the tree creaks in the wind.

I like the way the sparrows move through its branches, fluffing their feathers, giving themselves a nice scratch, moving in and out of view.

I like the flutter of the moths, the zzzzzmmmm of the wasps.

I like how the branches are sturdy and wavy even if a bunch of the leaves are gnawed up.

I feel a kinship with this doomed tree. Like me, it doesn’t know when it’s going to go. It stands there as best it can, weathering the invasives and the wind and the sun and the sweet sparrows, the flitting finches. It does the best it can.

Blessings on you, doomed tree!

And blessings on me and blessings on you, stalwart swaying proud and leafy femme sisters!

No one knows when the time will come.

But until then.

Grow.

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Published in: on October 30, 2023 at 2:26 PM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Naughty

Here in the idlewylde of Provincetown where I am denning for most of October, here sandwiched up between Commercial Street and the cloud-filled sky above the moving ocean, one day last week I woke up and, in a moment of queer femme wisdom and grace, realized that today would be Total Femme Day.

All me.

All the time.

All by myself.

Ooh, what did you do? you ask, my doting dizzy delectable queer femme sisters.

Chi kung on the deck as the sun rose.

Bask in the blessing of a great blue heron flying right over my head I could hear its wing beats.

Breakfast reading my book.

Big nap on the couch.

Catch myself in the mirror – damn, I look happy! Relaxed, even, slowed down.

Ponder my current jigsaw puzzle, put in a piece or two, ahhhhhhhh, so satisfying!

Drive to the Truro library, browse, banter with the librarian, check out some books.

Run a grocery errand, stop in the thrift store, consider getting gas and decide to wait.

Back home to sit on the beach all bundled up reading my book and watching a cormorant in the waves, dive under swim, pop up paddle, dive under swim, pop up paddle.

I went out on the deck a lot.

In the evening I had a glass of wine out there. There was a moment when the seagulls flying overhead were lit up on their underside by the setting sun.

To light!

To flying!

Do do do tell, TTF, honey, what didn’t you do? you ask, my daring divine dishy queer femme sisters.

Screens. I didn’t do screens. No computer, no phone, no tv.

No

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e

e

e

e

e

e

e

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I’m not saying it was a breeze or easy. Even though I felt reasonably secure in knowing that everyone I care about is doing ok, that there was nothing pending I had to address right that day, that devastating news, nice news, connection and questions and hellos and oooh, that’s interesting could all wait, it wasn’t that easy.

But I came into it. I flexed some brain and heart muscles and gave myself a few little talking tos, and I came into it.

In fact, I started feeling rather deliciously naughty.

Like I was getting away with something. Like I was being such a bad, bad girl.

It’s not that I couldn’t feel all the nasty prickly icky nibbly teeth gnashing and crashing and trying to bite me back to the on-screen world, but I kept accessing my fuck no and you can fucking wait and I’ll fire it all back up to-fucking-morrow, and I let it prickle prickle prickle until it trickled away.

I got to where I just leaned into that delicious rebel feeling and went went went with it.

My own brain and heart and spirit and need and soul and imagination directed me, and I welcomed and embarced my marvelous, naughty, Total Femme Day.

Oh, you elegant biscottis, you cuddle puddles, you lessons in glamor and spitfire and ardor!

What does a day just for you look like? Manifest it, bring it into being, call it to you! The controls we labor under crowd out our own intentions and inventions and desires. But there is space for the taking.

Take up space.

Allow your mind to wander.

Do something that makes you giggle, makes you skip, makes you remember your absolute gorgeous unique and beatific deep down femme soul.

Be naughty today.

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women. This Monday, special post from the stoop of Womencrafts. xoxoxo

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Published in: on October 23, 2023 at 3:01 PM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – A Dear Little Bowl

I’ve rented a lot of places over the years, all over the blooming world, but right now I’m in Provincetown. Rentals are always a crap shoot and, especially when I’m stressed, I can get hung up on zeroing in on where things get wonky. Where the landpeople are doing things in ways I never would and what the heck is wrong with them anyway? If I were the queen of the world, tell you what I’d do… I mean, sometimes there’s no toaster, what the heck, no tea kettle, no sharp knives, and, almost always, no place to sit and read – sadly, a Provincetown constant.

All summer I’ve been on the move, away from home. Ructions and upheaval, lots of therapy, lots of bags in my car. My hairdo permanently in disarray from this hurricane wind of change. My family of friends has caught me and held me with generosity and love. A loft and love in Provincetown earlier this summer. A quiet, cozy room in Medford, a gathering up. Permission to take up space and just be in Brookline. Spiritual succor and long walks in Northampton. The comfort and company of an old friend in a scruffy hotel in Waltham where her dream one night eerily tapped into my psychic heartspace. We were wandering, wandering…

My therapist says, “When mammals are hurt, they want to go home.” In the absence of that possibility for the moment, I have denned with people who, some of them, have known me for over 40 years, who’ve seen me through so much and seen me in so many guises.

As I search and flail and try to remember who I am and what I need, they’re witnesses, wise counsel, insouciant companions who remind me to laugh. Compassionate, dear and dear.

Now, for the first time since late July, I’ll be alone for a more extended time. And guess what? The refrigerator sounds like a train. The bedroom gives out onto the busiest, noisiest street in town. There’s no wi-fi.

But oh, I had a snack of peanuts in the dearest wee bowl you’ve ever seen!

And I spent very needed recovery time reading on the very comfy couch. And the view, the view! Out over the bay and beyond.

You, my femme family, my wandering, soul-searching, exacting, zig-zagging, howling and stomping gorgeous hard working overthinking enduring bedazzled sizzling suffering heart burstingly queer to the core, be-sequined sisters, the longer we’re here, the more shit there is and the more shit there is the more likely it is to hit the fan. Let us ride the currents, honor the ups and down, be here for each other, hold each other up, call on each other when we’re both up and down.

Be each other’s company, knowing that being alone, however painful, is also a necessity.

Last night I dreamed I was wearing the wrong glasses, just going through the day not seeing things right.

Your company helps my vision to clear. Your company allows me to claim space and time alone so that this essential clarity can continue to enlighten and encourage.

Here together, on earth together, just for now, just for this brilliant moment. We’re not alone.

We find dear surprises.

We rest.

We take in the view.

Every Monday I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes, in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, and from whom I inherited her Meditations for Women.

At the Total Femme, my intention has been to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Lately, I’ve just been concentrating on Mondays. And sometimes weeks go by… I’m here, though. I’m here. Do you have a post you’d like to share? That would be fucking awesome! Contact me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com

Published in: on October 16, 2023 at 12:00 AM  Leave a Comment  
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