The Total Femme

Yesterday was a sweet day here at the end of the land. A dear femme friend and I drove around in a most relaxed and joyful manner, flitting about like a giant femme butterfly duo. She finally got her adored summer soft serve deliciousness (hey, about time, halfway through August!) and we enjoyed picking up take out in Truro and eating it in jolly togetherness. Along the way of the day, we discussed what’s going on in town this week. It’s Carnival, Provincetown’s biggest influx of people, a huge parade, tons of drag queens doing their thing, a pool party for people “of the sapphic persuasion,” and so much more. Just contemplating all those things exhausted us. We had to laugh.

Laugh slightly ruefully, I admit, but laugh all the same. We’re both 63, we both deal with chronic illness on a minute-to-minute basis, and many, many of the things that would have been de rigeur in our callow youth are no longer so. No, we decided, as much as we would have loved to see the amazing-sounding Pattie Gonia show – go, Pattie, with your bad-ass environmental activism and sexy dress made out of a tent! – it starts at 8:30. FOFA* wins out over FOMO these days every damn time. Not to mention the bounceback toll: pushing hard to do something like a late night show often takes so long to recover from (I’m talking days) that it’s not worth it.

For the past few years, I’ve been experimenting with relaxing, breathing, being happy the event/drag queen/parade/whatever exists and is out there in the world, then letting go of me having to take any responsibility other than that. I don’t have to be in the audience or the crowd this time. I can roll through the back roads of Truro, enjoying a jolly chat with a friend, and be in bed by 9, happy and content.

Pomegranates, Carolina wrens, baby raccoons, hedgehogs, sunflowers, fragrant apple muffins, is it all too much sometimes? A lot of the time? All the time? Please, please remember that you don’t have to do everything, even if your bounceback is at its peak. We live in a time of way, way, way too much, and it does a number on our heads. If you know about it, need you engage with it? No. No!

Happy, healthy queer people are so necessary and precious. That’s how our love and our fierceness will get out and do the most good, if we ourselves are rested. If we have gorgeous queer clarity about who we are right now, what we are able to contribute, where to focus our gazes, who to bring into our hearts.

My femme darlings one and all, reach for the jolly, be mindful of the bounceback. Don’t do it all, just do it with care and queer finesse.

Cherish yourselves, as I so deeply cherish you all.

*Fear of Falling Asleep

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