Last night, I picked Owen up at the airport, where he’d flown in after 10 days on a school trip to France. Senior Assassination had already been going since Sunday, so he had a lot of texting and catching up to do. Sure enough, he received recon from colleagues that his assassinator was waiting outside our house, squirt gun loaded. In order to help him stay alive, I let him out one street over, and he snuck into the house via back yards. When I pulled into the driveway, a wholesome young person popped out of the parked car to inquire politely if this was where Owen lived. I gave away nothing.
One of the things Owen brought home with him from France is a t-shirt that reads, “Life is full of bananas”. Now, ain’t that the truth? Owen deftly maneuvered a wonderfully satisfying stay in France, despite the casual homophobia of his host family and his not having packed enough layers for the damp and chilly French spring. Meanwhile, his older brother remains a ball of confusion, stressed to the max and wedded to the negative; wedded also to the coping mechanism of either no communication, or communication consisting of angry blaming of those who love him the most. Still and all, he seems to be making it through the second semester of his sophomore year of college and personally, I am trying to stick with the positive.
Tonight, I am slated to speak at Town Meeting about the proposed Rainbow Commission, which would be in charge of all things queer around town, something that has been a long time in the making, and for which I and many colleagues have worked diligently. I am definitely feeling good about this, but I am also feeling done. I’d much rather spend time on something that feels both selfish, in some ways, but really exciting and deeply necessary: building exactly the kind of femme community that I crave. Using my organizing skills to fulfill my very own needs. It’s not that a Rainbow Commission won’t make my life in town much, much better, it’s just that I am understanding that this is the time and the hour for me to apply my own creativity and energy to projects that directly feed my creativity and energy. I’m thinking exit strategy for my town organizing and I am inviting in new projects that are actually old projects whose time has come. Despite all our responsibilities with elder care and college kids, Tex and I know that this is the time where pulling out all the stops on our art, relationship, spirituality, and joy is indicated, no, required.
As Tex says, “That is what our parents and our children actually want for us, whether or not they can articulate it.”
So, dear readers, I will see you there, dans la vie, la vie plein de bananes.
This banana-filled week, please accept the above post as both Monday Meditation and Femme Friday. Next week we will resume our usual programming!
And a shout out to Roda over at Growing Self for nominating The Total Femme for a Liebster Award! Thank you, Roda! I don’t have the bandwidth to continue on with the process, but I very much appreciate your support. Check out Roda’s joy-filled, blog, folks!
The Total Femme 