The Total Femme

            Through the kitchen window of an evening, I can often hear my neighbors, a sweet family consisting of a mom, a dad, and a tween girl. Yesterday as I was doing the dishes, I could hear the mom exhorting her daughter to come outside and help train the dog.

            “Your head is fine!” the mom was saying. “Your head is all right! There’s nothing wrong with your head! You just have anxiety, like half the rest of the planet. It’s a complete epidemic among teens right now. Nothing is wrong with your head! Now, let’s make a plan about what we want the dog to do: a sit/stay? A down? Bring the treats!”
            This morning, in the park with our own dog, who is old and slow and recently not feeling very well, I tried to enjoy the kids playing, tried to feel excited about the day. On some level, I did both of those things, but on another, like my tween neighbor, I just couldn’t help feeling like something was wrong. For me, I feel it in my stomach. A feeling of impending doom. Coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. It’s very yucky.

            I can intellectualize it to death: my paternal aunt is dying and that grief brings up grief about my dad, who died while I was undergoing treatment for breast cancer. That grief brings up grief about my elder son, Seth, whose whereabouts I do not know and who does not currently choose to communicate with us. That grief brings up grief upon grief upon grief and you, dearest queer femme reader, can of course fill in the blanks about everything that’s grief-filled in our world today.

            I think that, even with as many supports as we can manage to gift ourselves with (meds, therapy, exercise, loving company, recovery community) there will still be these moments. How can there not be with all these challenges coming at us relentlessly, all these things we can do just about nothing about but that rip out our hearts? I won’t talk about those supports here, although I wish for you nothing but the best and most healing ones.

            Here, let’s just be in that feeling. There is nothing wrong with us, but we are sad. We are feeling the weight. We are grieving.

            Darlings, sweetnesses, perfect loves, there if nothing for it but to feel it. Today, for this moment, we are so fucking sad. We are so fucking worried. We are mortal and we feel it. The world is in deep trouble and we feel it. There is tragedy, up close and personal, and happening elsewhere to all beings. We hold it, we can’t ignore it, we can’t just cheer up and move on.

            Today, my queer femme companions, feel your sadness. Feel your anxious, upset, frenzied feelings. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your head or your gut or your heart. It means you’re human and aware. Me, too.

            Human with you. Human like you. Human today.

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. Would you like to offer up a Meditation of your own? I would love that! Send it along to me at thetotatalfemme@gmail.com.

At the Total Femme, my intention is to post three or four times a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy-Dingy Wednesday on Wednesday, Femme Friday on Friday, and (new for spring 22!) the occasional Sometimes On A. 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.