The Total Femme

A femme avoids looking in mirrors. When asked why, she says she doesn’t like to be reminded of how she’s aging. She doesn’t like to see how different she looks on the outside compared to how she feels on the inside.

As queer femmes, we have the valuable opportunity to reject standards of beauty that weigh so heavily on straight people. The physical signs of growing older are not signs of failure. Allowing young people to represent everything that is beautiful and healthy affects everyone negatively, including the young people, who will grow old themselves and who do not benefit from having free reign to dictate rules of appearance and health to the entire culture.

And why does feeling good mean that you can’t be old? Don’t we all aspire to growing older as healthily as possible? And what is beauty, anyway? Yes, dew on a bud is lovely, but so is the full blown flower, so is the wilting flower, and so is mulch, which is rich and filled with nutrients. All part of the cycle, no part of it better or more useful than another.

Femme sisters, let us honor our bodies. Our bodies have moved us through so much; our bodies carry our intentions of love and connection and peaceful living. Do not give up on your beautiful body just because you may not be able to trip the light fantastic as you once did, because you trip a different fantastic now: more weighty, with more complexity, depth and wisdom. You are polished, rugged, tough, and sexy exactly where you should be. Still alive. Still femme. Still vibrant, contributing, resplendent, and still here.

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.