The Total Femme

I remember a professor in college telling us that the first time he heard back-up beeps it was in Japan. This was back in the antediluvian days of the early 1980s when I was still writing my papers on the typewriter and walkmen were just barely a thing.

How far we’ve come since then! Now, everything beeps.

I also remember how disturbing those early back-up beeps were. How they startled me, pulled me out of whatever it was I was doing and thinking, demanded my attention. Struck up that slight feeling of panic, a worry of the unknown danger approaching, until I was able to put the sound into context.

Here’s a fast and dirty rundown of things that beep in my life currently: the washer, the drier, the rice cooker, the timer on the stove, the timer at the gym, the alarm clock, the microwave, countless cars and trucks backing up, my car dashboard when the tires are low or I’m low on gas, and I’m sure I’m missing some. That’s every day, just about, and doesn’t include other noises like all the notifications and people’s ring tones, and the weird freaky creepy back-up swell from those newfangled cars and on and on.

I just saw a thing somewhere about certain spiders who can weave soundproof webs to live in. Clever, beleaguered spiders!

We are so used to all the beeping and pinging and dinging and ringing and prodding and poking that we assume we’re not really paying attention, or that it doesn’t bother us, but I think it does. I think it fractures our calm, our ability to stay focused on one thing for even just a few moments. Even when it’s quiet, I think somewhere in our bodies, we’re just waiting for the next beep to call us away from ourselves.

Did any of you read that book where the author spent 24 hours watching tv and 24 hours sitting by a pond in the woods and then compared the two? We’re talking early 1990s now. You can imagine that a lot happened on tv, a lot of directing the watcher’s attention to this and that, pulling the watcher this way and that, always providing a new bit of visual beeping to keep the eyes on the screen.

In the woods, things were much, much quieter. You might even say that not much happened. Ducks drifted by. A pinecone fell from a tree. The wind blew across the surface of the water. Then it stopped, and maybe the leaves moved a bit as the wind passed by that way. Very slow, very deep, things were happening in terms of mulch, decay, growth, moss, grubs, bugs, air currents, algae, water currents.

It used to really trouble me when I thought about people way way back in the day who lived their lives without books, without even knowing how to read. How did they pass the time? That guy sitting in the woods for 24 hours gives you a clue. Nothing happened. Everything happened. That’s one of the many things people without books were doing.

Obviously, this femme bookworm does not want to go back to a world without books, but I do try to get my nose out here and again and see what’s going on out there and in there, like in my heart and mind. Because that’s the connection I think we lose with all the beeping going on. The real direction and purpose of our day, our week, our whole gorgeous lives.

Combustible, reliable, sizzling, swinging, redoubtable, outrageous, rage-filled, deeply desiring and desired and delirious my sage and questing femme sisters, does it beep in your world? How are you coping? Do you remember who you are and where you’re going?

Not something that can be answered in just one day, or perhaps even in just one lifetime. But for today, can you give yourself a moment somewhere that will give you the strength to remember that there’s so much going on below the surface?

Right now, I am listening to the rain. I am talking with you.

Situated, myself, connected to my femme heart. Just for a moment. Just for a breath.

Thank you.

https://billmckibben.com/age-of-missing-information.html

NYT, 3/22/2025: Everyone in the City Needs Soundproofing, Even Spiders, by Joshua Rapp Learn

Many a 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.

Do you have a meditation to share? I would love to welcome you here! Email me at: thetotalfemme@gmail.com