Meditations for Queer Femmes – Living for the Apocalypse

Today I was much on the phone with my mother’s health insurance company as I sort out claims and coverage.

            “Do you mind if I place you on that hold?” says the agent, and I listen to the same strange riff of repeating music. “Ooh, wah wah!” sing the ladies, and suddenly I’m having a slight out-of-body experience, rather common lately, to tell you the truth, where I sort of float sideways and stand beside myself, thinking, “Hmm, what exactly is going on here?”

            My 89-year old mother just got out of the hospital, and is currently receiving 24/7 home health care at her assisted living facility. There wasn’t a diagnosis for her changed behavior and constant dozing, but one of the aides told me that my mom had been up six times the night before, wanting to get ready to go down to breakfast. I guess every time she wakes up, she has a sense of urgency that she needs to be somewhere. Which, come to think of it, might be a big reason her behavior was off: she has completely exhausted herself.

            It’s pretty obvious that she needs another level of care so that her energy and attention can be gently redirected and she can get a little assistance staying in the reassuring present moment without stressing that she’s got something else she’s supposed to be doing. That’s what I was working on today for her – ooh, wah wah! – as I waited on the phone. I am very glad to do it, too, because she can’t manage on her own anymore; she can’t even express what might or might not be troubling her.

            Oh darlings, aren’t we, too, a bit weary of living for the apocalypse? Waiting, preparing for the very worst? How might we get off that hamster wheel? Give our belabored adrenals a rest?

            Sweet petals of femme daintiness, times are strange and getting stranger. Some things we have absolutely no control over, and yet they affect us and will direct us into a frenzy if we aren’t careful.

            Do, oh do, be careful with yourselves and your direction today, my lambs.

            Let the apocalypse recede with the ooh wah wahs, place it on that hold, and stay here, with me, with yourself, with the dear and the good and the present.

            Deep roots, feet on the ground, as the old wise world goes round.

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 graduate school and life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Pingy-Dingy Wednesday – Susan Robbins’ Zoom Sings

Last night I was singing about light in the darkness and night-blooming jasmine as candles flickered and other women in the zoom room danced, played drums, closed their eyes and opened their hearts. This was my second year joining Susan Robbins for her Solstice Sing, and it was again extremely moving and meaningful.

Susan Robbins, you get one pingy-dingy! Thank you for your kind, creative, talented, calm, and loving presence ushering us through the longest night of the year and beyond.

You can learn more about Susan and her work below. Keep singing!

Susan Robbins, Founder and Artistic Director of Libana

RECENT ON-AIR and ONLINE ARTICLES ON LIBANA!

   All Things Considered

   MusicOvation

   Arts Fuse

   Making Music Magazine  

Libana’s Sites:

   libana.com

   facebook.com/Libanamusic   

   sonicbids.com/Libana 

   youtube.com/user/libanamusic

   twitter.com/Libanamusic

   http://journals.worldnomads.com/libana/ (Libana’s India travel blog)

Director of Third Life Studio

   thirdlifestudio.com

   facebook.com/thirdlifestudio.unionsquare

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 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.”) And…as I go through graduate school and life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Published in: on December 22, 2021 at 1:27 PM  Leave a Comment  
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She’s Let Herself Go

When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, my father had a little red book featuring a calorie counter, a cardboard wheel. You turned it to the food item you were contemplating eating, say an apple, and the number of calories would appear in a little window. 100, if I remember correctly, and I think I do, because I spent a lot of time as a teen counting and recording my calories.

            It was a time not so different from the present, when bodies were considered imperfect and needing to be taken in hand. Watched and examined with an exacting eye, pruned and denigrated, gone over with a fine-toothed, angry comb, as if those things would reap anything other than despair. As if those things could make the world a better place to live in.

            “She’s let herself go,” we would say, shaking our heads at the family friend who never lost her pregnancy weight, at the neighbor for whom menopause brought about changes in belly and butt. “She’s really let herself go.”

            Looking in the mirror recently, that phrase drifted into my mind.

            Even now, all this time later, even after all these years of body positivity, of the company of everyone from Susie Orbach (Fat is a Feminist Issue, 1978) to Sonya Renee Taylor (The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love, book published in 2018, international movement ongoing), I still glimpsed my lovely body in the mirror and thought, “I’ve really let myself go.”

            I caught myself immediately, happily, no spiraling into misery as might once have happened. And then I started thinking about that phrase. Does letting yourself go have to be a bad thing? The family friend, the neighbor – me – aren’t we all actually letting ourselves and our bodies be? Be exactly where and who we are, right now, right here?

            When you let go, you allow a little more space into your life.

            When you let go, there’s room for different and other and wonderful to show up, and more importantly, room for you to notice them showing up.

            When you let go, your shoulders relax, your face unclenches, you breathe deeply into your beautiful belly.

            It’s not just about your body, either. This culture is obsessed with MAKING YOURSELF A BETTER PERSON. Because for sure, all the ads scream at us, something is definitely wrong with you. For sure there is. And there are products and programs and apps and medicine and on and on that you must purchase and pay attention to, PAY ATTENTION, YOU! that will help steer you right, but only if you pay and only if you work yourself into a frenzy.

            No.

            Look up and out. The moon is gorgeous.

            Feel the earth. The Solstice is upon us.

            Put your hand on your heart and know its rhythm. That is the real grounding.

            Give gratitude for your connection with the creatures in your small corner of the world. That is true freedom.

            Darlings and dearests, how precious your bodies, your lives, your interests, your love, your place here among us.          

            Oh, you know it! You know what I’m going to say now. Say it with me:

            Let yourselves go!

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 graduate school and life life life, I will post as I am able, Mabel.

Published in: on December 20, 2021 at 7:58 AM  Comments (4)  
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