The Total Femme

I just got back from a whirlwind trip to Ptown where I spent most of my time opening our camper and getting it ready for the season, which alas meant cleaning up no small amount of mouse poop. The rest of the time I hung out with my dear femme friend, Janine, which was lovely and completely mouse poop-less.

Whenever I’m away from home on one of these kinds of projects, I get lots of ideas about what I’d like to get done when I get back. Something about being away from the house allows my brain to just go wild with ideas. All kinds of organizing and cleaning and projects and work. I never, ever, think, “Gosh, I’ve just been gone for a while and working hard, so when I get home I should probably just cop to the fact that I’m going to need a rest day.” Nope, I never think that, not even this weekend, when Janine and I spent a lot of time philosophizing about the effects of chronic health challenges on psyche, hearts, and bodies.

Tex reminded me this morning as I dragged myself out of bed that a year ago I was barely able to leave the house, let alone go all by myself to Ptown for a rather rigorous cleaning job. It’s true that ending up in the ICU with adult-onset diabetes type 1 put a huge fucking cramp in my style. But TWO years ago, I could’ve done just about anything, well, ok, maybe not anything, but I was certainly way more pert and peppy.

When I’m tired and moany I don’t know how to balance those two facts out. I’m better than I was. I’m worse than I was. Where should I linger?

Buddhism and Al-Anon certainly remind me to linger neitherwhere, but to be here now and keep it in the day.

When I was walking the dog this morning, I was thinking about how I’d like to sit quietly when I got home and have a muffin and another cup of tea. Read my book. Hang out with the best kitty boy and the best doggie boy in the house. Rest. Rest??!!

Man, oh, man. It is sure hard for me to be gentle like that to myself.

But I did, my chocolate chips, my bananas, my blueberries, my bran bravos, my gluten frees, my cranberry orange walnuts, I had a very nice muffin and a lovely cup of tea. The best kitty boy sat on my lap purring, the best doggie boy curled up in his bed, and I read my book.

Just for those few moments, I absolutely truly was who I am.

Don’t we just yearn, my rising, fluffy, crumbly, sweet and savory darlings? I don’t really know how to turn that yearing into an appreciation of what is instead of a miserable tumble into what I want-think-I-need-wish-I-had-saw-in-a-magazine-someone-else-has-and-she’s-way-younger-than-me-think-I-could-get-if-I-just-tried-a-little-harder-and-on-and-fucking-on, but at least today I gave myself a muffin moment and it was just exactly what it was, no judgement, no backsies, no what if.

Can you, in all your busy, gnarly, itchy, bitchy, irritating, round and round thoughts about not good enough or however else you tsk tsk tsk, can you be not how you used to be, not how you think you should be, but just you you beautiful you for one warm and fragrant moment?

I wish that for you today.

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

This morning, I went with Tex to a doctor’s appointment. Our route took us past the carnage wrought by a local private school who, despite passionate protest, razed precious remaining woodlands to make a parking lot. They didn’t even bother to make the pavement porous, the demon assholes.

From small to large to largest and larger, attacks like these surround us and plague us and if we don’t drive by them, they’re next door or down the street or streaming relentlessly onto our devices and into our bleeding, wounded hearts.

What can we do, what can we do?

How do we carry on, keep our medical appointments, keep an eye on our precious health, our work, our Work, our family, our Family, our neighborhood, our communities, the creatures under our care, wild and not so wild and right now sitting on my lap purring?

“A dog would just make things easier right now,” a neighbor told me recently, their sweet old pooch having recently crossed over the rainbow bridge.

No kidding.

But beyond dogs and sitting in a cozy chair with a big old kitty, where do we go, what do we do? How the fuck do we garner the wherewithal?

Working and playing with like-minded people, yes. Illuminating as we can with our beautiful work that is so different for all of us, so different and so important. Filling in the gaps. Observing, discussing, dissenting, agreeing, protesting, singing, all this, yes, yes.

And I think we need something deeper, something that’s not dependent on the vagueries of the march of time and the every day. Something on beyond communities that aren’t always permanent, and shouldn’t necessarily be permanent, like those of us who got together to protest that fucking parking lot, or, along similar lines, turf fields in our town instead of grass. These communities, families, friendships, neighbors, all of these come and go, giving and taking, feeding us, educating us, helping us mature and grow, yes, yes.

We hadn’t driven past the fucking parking lot in a long time, and seeing it again really hit Tex hard. She started fantasizing about going out there at night and spray painting something REALLY GOOD that would fuck things up and DO something. But then we both agreed there would be cameras and it would all end in tears.

But I heard that righteous anger, I feel it myself. How to nurture it, how to honor it?

Woad!

“Tex,” I said. “You have to put on woad!”

Woad is the blue stuff that made Tex’s Scottish ancestors the fiercest badasses around back in the day. Thinking about it immediately cheered her up and switched her self-defeating spray-painting energy into something more profound and uplifting.

We all have ancestors. We all have some equivalent of woad in our long human histories, something that can connect us not only to our lineage, but that arises from the particular strengths of where we come from, who and what we come out of. Something we can learn about, lean on and lean into, something that connects us to our unique and enduring human-ness. Something that we can interpret and use as guidance as we muddle through.

For Tex, thinking about putting on woad and a kilt helped her brainstorm how she could be a warrior and fuck things up without getting arrested. It fueled her fierceness in a more positive manner. Someone just told me about a guy whose tires were slashed because he had a Trump bumper sticker – really not going to help that guy think anything good about people who voted for Kamala. The anger is undeniable. The expression makes all the difference.

My kith, my kin, my hungering, seeking, vision-filled venerables, from whence do you arrive here in this whirling, cackling, smiting world? Ancestors, both queer and living, related and dead, might well give you courage and guidance. What do you know about them? How might you find out?

Today, my loves, reach into the positive past, into your hearts, and situate yourselves in yourselves.

Your strength is inspiring and beautiful.

Let’s fuck things up.

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