The Total Femme

I often say to Tex of an evening as we’re cleaning up after supper, “I wish we had a nice little pig!” (“I don’t,” is the inevitable reply.) But if we had a nice little pig, we could feed it our scraps, just like we did at Camp Plantation, my hippy farm camp: all leftover food went into the pig bucket and from there, into the pigs. Alas, Tex is right, having a pig in the ‘burbs would not be practical, but I can at least support this amazing pig rescue place:

http://www.ironwoodpigsanctuary.org/

Also, when I hear about the latest horror inflicted on all the animals on this planet, I can recite “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Barry to give myself the strength to keep showing up and putting one foot in front of the other for all the creatures with paws and claws and hoofs and fins who are so precious and so vulnerable.

Ironwood Pig Sanctuary and Wendell Barry, you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for the hard work of rescue and art with which you grace the world.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

–Wendell Barry

from Collected Poems 1957-1982

I’m a typewriter whompin’, card catalogue lovin’ white girl from back in the day, and I yearn for a time before the covers of trade paperbacks were all squidgy, so you can imagine that I don’t actually understand what a pingback is. I do know that it can in some way be part of spreading the love, and since that’s what I’m all about at The Total Femme… every Wednesday, I pay homage to the laughter, love, and inspiration to be had elsewhere online.

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.”)