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

Every once in a while, don’t you just want to whine? I mean, whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine! Like the most unhappy, tired, grumpy, have-to-pee, hungry, angry, frustrated, denied, ignored, befuddled, emotionally depleted, no-fucks-given toddler who’s been dragged on way too many adult errands all day?

Adult errands. I mean, honestly, how fucking deadly can you get?

That’s how I’ve been feeling just about every day lately. And lucky Tex got to hear me whine, a wee bit. Ok, a lot!

I don’t waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaana!

Everything combinded, as my boys used to say, is dragging me down. From the wide world to the closer world to the very most personal world, the responsibilities have piled up to such an extent that I am about to suffocate. Or implode. Or some damn thing.

Waaaaaaaaaaaah!

Every time I want to eat, I have to stop and figure out how much insulin I should take, then wait 15 minutes, and then I’ve probably calculated wrong, so I go low or high and then have to deal with that.

Every phone call I get might be bad news.

Every time I peek at the headlines, well, I don’t have to tell you.

And yet I step up, and step up, and step up, because of course I do. And I know you do, too.

But doesn’t it just make a femme body tired? Don’t you just want to let out the biggest, queerest, loudest, most heartfelt whine of all times?

Yeah, me too.

This morning I hauled my whiny butt out the door and to the farmers market. A very grumpy man was playing the accordion – it was excellent. The guy who sold me Swiss chard threw in a few wilty stalks for free cuz I was just planning on coming home and cooking it. I don’t mind a little wilt; shows character. I splurged and bought a bouquet of sunflowers, gorgeous tawny, stripy, cheerful faces, one strain of which is called Strawberry Blonde, the flower seller told me. As I was walking away, getting ready to head home, on to the next thing, let’s go, let’s go, better check your texts etc., don’t you have a list, etc., isn’t there shit you need to do, etc., a bee flew down and landed on one of the sunflowers.

I had to stop. I had to just slow the fuck down. The bee had shit to do. It was an absolutely beautiful bee, with a spot on either side of its abdomen and busy, busy gathering legs, important pollen, strawberry blonde pollen, lifegiving, rich and dusty.

Really, was anything more important? No.

I slowed my damn roll. I watched and admired. I listened to the wind, the music, the people around me. The bee did its thing. The bee took the time it took. I waited for the bee.

Thank you, bee. Thank you, grumpy accordion man. Thank you, Strawberry Blonde sunflower, thank you, wilted chard.

My irridescent, shimmering, buzzing, flitting, stinging, gathering, busy, busy, busy femme sisters, are you feeling whiny? Are you feeling a great big dollop of responsibility fatigue? So much to do, so many things to correct, so very very large amounts of taking care of everything that needs to be taken care of. Have you just about had it?

Darlings, beloveds, sweet honeybunch adorables, wherever you are, find the bee. The catbird. The spider. The ant. Someone – anyone – who is running on ancient time. Lean in. Breathe. Let go and come back to your own ancient femme magic.

Oh, thank goodness, oh, thank goddess, oh thank you, thank you, bee!

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

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

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

Words abound. When I was just learning to read, I regaled my parents with deciphered road signs every time we got in the car. “Merge” defeated me for a long time, but I managed the others quite handily. Even now, everywhere there is text, I read it. I can’t help it. It’s how I take in the world, through words, through the written word. Given that, you’d think I would like the encouraging phrases one finds everywhere these days, on stones in the neighborhood, on tea bags, yard signs. BE KIND they advise, GO TO YOUR SPECIAL PLACE, they intone, and HATE HAS NO HOME HERE. Sadly, though, these particular righteous words just annoy me and make me want to argue.

            “I AM kind,” I grump, and “YOU fucking go to your special place!” and “Oh, really? You truly don’t hate anyone, ever??” As I may have mentioned at some point in these oh so many posts dating waaaaay back to the early 2000s, a favorite story in my family about me as a toddler is me saying, a lot, “DON’T TELL ME!!!”

            But I do really like found poems and all the ways you can fiddle around with random bunches of words. I just don’t like to be bullied about what to do.

            This morning, going through a stack of accumulated pieces of paper (what? paper fucking accumulates, ok??), I found something that will be filed away with various other food-related bits and pieces:

Information regarding Sorghum and how to de-crystallize and use it indefinitely

I like that one. Sorghum reminds me of being in Kentucky as a child, in Mammoth Cave National Park, where my parents were members of the Cave Research Foundation. The six-hour drive from St. Louis, the humidity, the cavers, the cave itself. The sense of belonging, of being part of something important: the science of the cave, the exploration, the wonder of being underground in a living, breathing, mysterious environment.

            I don’t cave any more, but the underground is alive and present for me because of that time in Kentucky when I was a kid. The above reminds me not to let that knowledge become entombed, inaccessible. Community. Caring for the natural world. Respecting and allowing the cave to be exactly what it is, with all its systems, creatures, history, necessity.

            Stalactites, stalagmites, gypsum, carbide lamps and belly crawls my muddy, seeking, abiding in wonder, my exploring and allowing brave femme sisters, what is your own personal Sorghum? A food, a song, a certain make of car, a novel, the whiff of that one perfume?

            De-crystallize, my beauties.

            Use it indefinitely.

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

My grandad was a dentist and I have been blessed with a pretty good set of chompers, so getting my teeth cleaned is kind of soothing for me. At my most recent appointment, after things had been going along for a while, the dear hygenist (she has pictures of her cute dog on display and just seems to love her job) said to me, “Almost done! Thank you for staying open.”

Muffins, scones, cinnamon buns, almond croissants, hasn’t there been a lot going on these days to make us want to slam the fuck shut? Bite down really hard? Not let anything at all in? From small daily indignities (like, just now I bruised the shit out of my finger taking my blood sugar – wtf??) to the big to the bigger to the god damn biggest, we are in it, in for it, intent on it, inunadated, incensed. It’s absolutely more than one brave femme can hold. Can stay open for.

Did you hear about the young woman who used her job as snow reporter at Sugarbush to deliver reality when Vance went there for a bit of R & R? (Her statement is below.) Out of all the ways she could have chosen to protest and speak out, she brought forth this powerful statement from the bottom of her heart because working at Sugarbush, skiing and building community there allowed her to stay open.

My darling tartes au framboises, where, what, who help you stay open? It doesn’t even have to be as big as a mountain, although mountains are certainly powerful. And it doesn’t even have to be one thing and one thing only. Sometimes you might be able to accrue open throughout the day, from sweet interactions out in the public (the other day in the grocery store, a tiny child grinned big and waved back at me from his seat in the cart – oh, it made me so happy!) to coming back again and again to your art, your heart’s work, your family/Family, your garden, your creatures, your daily routine. It accrues, the open. If we let it.

Let it, today, my stubborn, transgressive, mourning and grieving but getting up and going still, my darlings, my femme sisters.

Thank you for staying open.

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

Saturday Mar 1st, 2025 – 6:31 AM

Daily Snow Report

Today of all days, I would like to reflect on what Sugarbush means to me. This mountain has brought me endless days of joy, adventure, challenges, new experiences, beauty, community, and peace. I’ve found that nothing cures a racing mind quite like skiing through the trees and stopping to take a deep breath of that fresh forest air. The world around us might be a scary place, but these little moments of tranquility, moments I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy as a direct result of my employment here, give me, and I’d guess you, too, a sense of strength and stability.

This fresh forest air, is, more specifically fresh National Forest air. Sugarbush operates on 1,745 acres of the Green Mountain National Forest. Right now, National Forest lands and National Parks are under direct attack by the current Administration, who is swiftly terminating the positions of dedicated employees who devote their lives to protecting the land we love, and to protecting us while we are enjoying that land.

This Administration also neglects to address the danger, or even the existence of, climate change, the biggest threat to the future of our industry, and the skiing we all so much enjoy here. Burlington, VT, is one of the fastest-warming cities in the country, and Vermont is the ninth fastest-warming state. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), a resource I use every day for snow reporting, is crucial in monitoring extreme weather events and informing public safety measures, and is also experiencing widespread layoffs and defunding at the hands of the Administration.

Sugarbush would not be Sugarbush without our wonderful community. Employees and patrons alike, we are made up of some of the most kind-hearted, hardworking people I have ever met. Our community is rich with folks of all different orientations, ethnicities, and walks of life, who all contribute to make this place what it is. They all love Sugarbush because it is a place where they can come to move their bodies, to connect with the land, to challenge themselves, to build character, to nourish their souls with the gift of skiing. Many of these people are part of the LGBTQI+ community. Many (well, that’s a stretch, we all know this is an incredibly white-washed industry) are people of color. Half are women. Many are veterans or adaptive skiers who, through Vermont Adaptive, are able to access snow sports in part thanks to federal grants through the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is also facing devastating cuts. Many of our beloved employees moved across the world through an exchange program on the J1 visa to help this resort run, and they are not U.S. citizens. ALL of these groups are being targeted, undervalued, and disrespected by the current Administration.

The beauty of National Forest land, is that anyone and everyone is welcome to enjoy it. Anyone and everyone can buy a lift ticket. I also imagine it is incredibly difficult, and likely impossible, to say “No” to the Secret Service. I hope that, instead of faulting Sugarbush management or employees for “allowing this to happen,” you can direct your anger to the source – the Administration that, in my oh-so-humble opinion, is threatening our democracy, our livelihoods, our land. 

I want to reiterate how much I admire and respect my fellow employees and managers – they work so hard to make this place operate, to keep you coming back and enjoying it and making lifelong memories. Many of them may feel the same way that I do, but their hands are tied, and for good reason. They have families to support, they have benefits and health insurance to receive, they face far greater and more binding pressure from Corporate. I am in a privileged position here, in that I work only seasonally, I do not rely on this job for health insurance or benefits, and hey, waking up at 4:30 a.m. isn’t exactly sustainable. Therefore, I am using my relative “platform” as snow reporter, to be disruptive – I don’t have a whole lot to lose. We are living in a really scary and really serious time. What we do or don’t do, matters. This whole shpiel probably won’t change a whole lot, and I can only assume that I will be fired, but at least this will do even just a smidge more than just shutting up and being a sheep. 

I am really scared for our future. Acting like nothing is happening here feels way scarier than losing my job. I want to have kids one day, and I want to teach them to ski. The policies and ideals of the current Administration, however, are not conducive to either of these things, because, at least how things look now, I’d never be able to afford a good life for a child anyway, and snow will be a thing of Vermont history.

So please, for the sake of our future shredders: Be Better Here.

It has truly been a pleasure writing your morning snow reports – I hope this one sticks with you. With love, peace, and hope,

Lucy Welch

I’ve never been a particularly boisterous person, nor am I a night owl in any way. In college, I was always the one whining and wanting my bed when other torrid youths were dancing their hearts out or doing drugs or whatever they were doing at 2 in the morning, and I never once pulled an all-nighter. These days, I am constantly exhausted. I can’t tell if it’s mental, spiritual, emotional, age, health, immanent demise, or what, but I am flat out knackered.

True, the world is scary. True, Seth is deeply troubled, his texts and phone calls more and more disturbing. True, my mom has only been dead a few months and I miss her so much. True, there’s been a lot of paperwork around her death, much of it quite difficult. As soon as I finish writing this, I have to go fight with her bank, again, because for some reason they can’t seem to be able to give me her last monthly statement which I need for her estate taxes. Not for love nor money nor me finally losing my cool at Chelsea, a supervisor, thundering down the phone, “You are being so rude to me IN MY TIME OF GRIEF!” I was magnificent. And came away without bank statements. We’ll see what happens when I go (again) in person. Ok. Back to being tired.

I remember being so irritated and puzzled by my grandmother’s slowing down. She had trouble threading a needle – yeah, that hole is tiny, people. Every time I manage now, the very few times I ever have to sew on a button, it’s like a major victory. I wish I had her needle threader, that cute little red plastic thing… Ah well! And just how slowly she moved, even her brain slowed down and she couldn’t get various jokes or modern happenings. It seemed so strange.

Boy do I get it now, though! I’m younger than she was then, but things have moved so so so much more quickly. I just feel like parts of my brain are fried for good. Most tellingly, I just no longer care about the kinds of pop culture hooptie that was my damn bread and butter for decades.

I feel like I’m walking a very fine line between giving up and letting go. Not letting go to make room for more stuff, letting go to just make room. To have space to take a breath. To rest. Some days I teeter closer to the LG and many days – today? Chelsea? – to the GU.

My chickadees, my nuthatches, my cooing, preening doves, are you tired the fuck out? Are you flagging, worn down, chugging uphill with all four tires losing air? Maybe it’s not anything but a healthy response to ALL THIS. Maybe it’s just a sweet whisper of love from somewhere wise within you that shutting things off and just breathing and being for a bit is not being a loser, wearing blinders, or giving up. Taking a knee is respectful. Burrowing into the sofa for a nap, preferably with a cat or a dog, is immanently sane.

Think of that, my beloveds. Now let it go.

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 is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Years before I knew that my older son, Seth, suffered from mental health and substance abuse issues, my then-therapist would often say that loving him was a long game. From an anxious, tender, cautious child to a seriously prickly and stroppy teen, I thought Seth was just being Seth. All these many years later, years of heartbreak slowly healing thanks to Al-Anon and the company of friends and family, I’m still playing the long game with my anxious, tender, angry, struggling, and so-beloved child.

After 8 plus months in a sober house, Seth recently relapsed. I don’t know the particulars but had severe moments of panic thinking perhaps it’s my fault, since just a few days before, Tex and I had declined to lend him money, not feeling comfortable with how much he wasn’t communicating – we didn’t even know where he was living for sure. I did a lot of crying and not sleeping, but friends and Al-Anon remind me I am not Seth’s Higher Power. “Guilt is just an ego trip in reverse,” said one dear friend. That was good to remember when I was thrashing around in the middle of the night, imagining all kinds of horrors coming down on Seth’s head.

The good news is that he called me. The good news is that I’m told that relapse is a normal part of recovery. The good news is that we’re back in touch after years of me not even knowing where – let alone how – he was. As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s a different kind of agony, but is certainly one positive aspect of having played the long game. Sometimes you have to wait. And wait.

As difficult as it is, I am ok waiting now. As difficult as it was, I managed to settle into long-game mentality when he told me he’d relapsed. I told him I loved him, that I’m proud of him for how hard he’s been working, that I have confidence he’ll find his way back onto a healing path. (All that crying and thrashing mentioned above was after we’d hung up.)

The long game is opening up the view to the big sky and the beauty in the world. It’s also focusing in on and cherishing the small, profound, everyday joys.

Seth isn’t able to do that right now, being firmly situated in a negative, isolated, hopeless place. As I pray that he is receiving fellowship and kindness and support from the various communities he’s worked so hard to build up, as I turn him over to his own heart and Higher Power and strength, I will bolster myself with this focus.

Crisp and tasty, soaring, squealing, robust, vulnerable and vivacious queer femme sisters, are things too too too negatory right now for you to spotlight those sweet, small, delicacies that surface no matter what? Like Seth, is there too much weighing down your brain to be able to remember that here, too, is joy? That was me last night, trying to sleep, trying not to let my extremely nimble imagination run away from me. But this morning, I can just about pull my brain back from the brink and here, here – let me share these sweet, fleeting moments that will, if I let them, enter and heal and ever delight:

–catfood on my old cat’s nose that he purringly allows me to clean off for him

–my friend’s cockatoo, who raises her crest and dances when I sing, “How much is that Rosie in the window?”

–a video of my old friend’s wee great-niece who is showing off her dolly, named after said old friend – such an honor!

–laughing harder than I’ve laughed in a year at Owen’s, my younger son’s, description of a movie he just watched in Tokyo where he lives, the scene in question a live-action portrayal of pooping, including sumo wrestlers as the sphincter

–doggie kisses

–my spry 80-plus-year old neighbor out shoveling snow wearing his extremely bad-ass leather Harley Davidson jacket

–all the different iterations of the Boston accent I come across every day here in yon Boston area

–stopping to savor a screech owl calling, calling, one snowy suburban evening

And there are so many more!

I bet you can come up with some, too, my dearest dearies, if you breathe and think a moment. Oh, hey! Lay ‘em on me, in the comments! Or don’t, that’s ok, too, just know I know you can and do and will play the long game with me. We need each other’s company, don’t we, my sweetnesses? So alive, so despairing, so coming back around.

You and me.

Me and you.

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 is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go through life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

                

Ever since my mom died in August it’s been, I mean, ever since I got auto-immune type one diabetes last January it’s been, I mean, ever since Tex and I went through a seriously rough patch in our marriage and I left for a few months, I mean, ever since I got cancer in 2019 and my dad died and then there was the pandemic and then Tex’s chronic health issues ramped up it’s been, I mean, ever since I had to get a divorce before there was equal marriage and then my elder son, Seth, started tanking (he recently told me he started drinking in 7^th grade, I didn’t know, I didn’t know – can a heart break any more than mine already has?), I mean, ever since…. Well, it’s just been a really, really, really hard batch of years, personally, and that’s not even mentioning the wider nation and world. Tex and I have just about had it.

Bumblebees, bunny rabbits, bountiful beauties, my bitchin’ queer femme sisters, have you, also, just about had it?

At 28, Seth is currently down in Austin working on his sobriety, back in touch. The difference in agonies is profound: the agony of not knowing where he was, how he was, is now the agony of having a seat on his roller coaster of pain and shame and punishment (he punishes himself, he punishes me) as he comes into the realization that without substance, he has to step up to so many real life things, including dealing with mental health and emotional challenges, dealing with what so many years of drinking has brought down on him. Agony.

Recently, Tex and I have had, um, let’s say, vigorous conversation about the impact of Seth returning to our lives. The upshot of which is a recommittment to peace and calm where we can get it: in our own home.

We’ve long had a family rule of not approaching difficult subjects after 6pm, and we are learning how to implement more actions that result in a less stressful environment. For us, that’s stuff like more regular cleaning and decluttering (what?! I like books! and papers! and things!), planning menus so there’s less stress around meals, going to the gym, paying attention to our art, reaching out to community, neighbors, friends. Scheduling in time alone, time together. Once we set our minds to it, we knew what to do, but it’s stuff that can get lost in the stress shuffle of everything that’s going on, near and far. Easy to put down but with lasting consequence if not attended to.

Calm and peaceful also means caring for ourselves with support and company, not necessarily from each other. For me, that’s getting my femme butt back to Al-Anon meetings, going to therapy, talking about my struggles with Seth to friends other than Tex, who is an adult child, buffeted all her life by alcoholic behavior. There are times when it just isn’t fair or productive to ask her to accompany me through every agonizing twist and turn.

Butterballs, beloved bon-bons, bodacious babes, wherein lies your calm and peaceful? What does it take to get there? Can you turn your attention to that for just a bit? Wherever you are, whatever you do, can you allow cozy to be on the ascendent? Resting, insulating, being soft and sleepy doesn’t mean you’re giving up. How many of us truly believe that? Believe it, believe it, my best best besties. For how we continue, how we thrive and strengthen and bring light and joy – you know we do! – believe it.

I choose cozy.

With all my broken, healing, beating brashly and boldly big femme heart, I wish cozy for you as well.

Every Friday, I showcase a queer femme goddess. I want to feature you or someone you love! Write to me at thetotalfemme@gmail.com and let me shine a spotlight on your beautiful, unique, femme story! If you’ve written a femme story or poem or song, oh, please let me post it!

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on Friday. Rather than play catch-up in a stressful fashion on those weeks when life prevents posting, I have decided to just move gaily forward: if I miss a Monday, the next post will be on Wednesday, and so on. Thank you, little bottle of antibiotics for inspiring me in this! (“…if it’s almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Don’t take a double dose to make up for a missed one.”) And…as I go life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.