Meditations for Queer Femmes – Why Are You Like This?

Sometimes I feel my Grandma Daisy’s spirit rising in me. It’s in the narrowing of my eyes and in the set of my mouth. In the way I rush around cleaning or cooking, fast, precise, taking no prisoners. Grandma was no joke. Once she ditched one of her exquisite pumpkin pies down the disposal when one of us had casually remarked that the pie tasted slightly different than usual. From this former beauty queen and secret smoker, I inherited a stubborn insistence on perfection and the isolation that results. Or rather, let me say, the tendency towards those things – I’ve been in therapy a long time, not to mention all my Buddhist readings, and last but not least, my Al-Anon.

Still. Sometimes I feel her spirit come down over me and it’s like I can’t help myself. “No!” I will say, when my deep-down really wants to say “Yes!” “Fuck you!” I’ll say, when my deep-down really wants to say, “I’m scared, I’m lonely, I need love!”

Why am I like this? Because I come from the people I come from, and they are who taught me how to be a person.

Grandma Daisy was also a voracious and wide-ranging reader, to whom we were always sending books, way up into her nineties. She was an astute political observer – boy, did she hate Nixon! I can’t imagine how she would have cut Trump and cronies up into miniscule pieces and ditched them down the disposal! And she had an enduring, endearing sense of humor. I can see her now, in her powder blue pants suit, her white hair in the same style it had been in for decades, a wee pinch of a woman, snickering and even doing a small bit of hooting at the jokes and absurdities of life.

She rises in me in those ways, as well.

Butterscotch kisses, gumdrops, licorice allsorts, why are you the way you are? Whose expression is on your face, in your movements? Who is directing your actions, those times when you let down your guard, when something takes you by surprise? We do have our default settings, don’t we?

Today, reflect a smidge on some of your influencers, those folks who made up the blueprint you followed without thought to adulthood. The negatives and the positives.

Discard.

Allow.

Say, “No thank you!” and “Thank you so much!”

Be still with the discrepancies and hidden gifts. Complex, maddening, filled with grief and gratitude.

Memorize my sweet wise friend Miel Rose’s prayer that you may have it close at heart for when you need it:

Bless Me, Ancestors

May I live each day

Honoring my connection to you who came before

However complicated

Knowing my inheritance is rich

In both wisdom and wounding

Choosing which legacy continues with me

And which is put to bed

Buried in the healing Earth

May my heart beat in time with those Ancestors

Reaching back

Who lived in a deeply balanced relationship with all things

Those who recognized and honored kinship

Past human relations

Those who lived attuned to the cycles

Through abundance to scarcity

Birth to growth to death to rebirth

Waxing to waning

Let my heartbeat recalibrate to yours

And may this change ripple outward

Creating exponential shifts within and without

I claim you and am claimed by you

And may my steps through this life

Be in alignment with your sacred legacy

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.

Since 2016, I here at The Total Femme have done my best to post thrice a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy Dingy on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on you know when. I’m pulling back the reins now, darlings, and going down to once a week, this Meditation. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you. Send me your poetry, your musings, your art, your wonderful you, and I will love you and hold you and feature you right here. So let me hear from you! thetotalfemme@gmail.com. And stop by on Mondays for a bit of sacred femme space.

Published in: on November 28, 2022 at 3:58 PM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Here I Am, Here We Are

I thought they knew I was queer. I was acting all queer, the way I always do, and they are definitely queer, with their cute outfits and queer presentation.

“Oh, I miss the kids from when I was the advisor for the QSA!” I said, looking smiling into their eyes.

“What’s a QSA?” they asked.

What just happened? I think my age and femme invisibility won out over any queer markers that I might have, and the young person just couldn’t line up Queer/Straight Alliance with this old gal, just another of the many old gals in the chorus for which they play piano.

I let them know the meaning of those three letters, we laughed, and moved on. And. I still don’t know if they know that I’m queer. Maybe just a nice straight ally? That’s awesome! Way to go! Thanks for your support! Grrrr.

Or, even worse, my queer is perhaps seen to be defanged – what would an old lady like me be doing with radical politics, anyway? Oh, precious. Think of the support and holding that’s lost if you don’t see me! If we don’t see each other across the ages.

This young person is such talented musician, writing a piece for our chorus on homeless queer youth, out there working with youth, representing. Darling, we, too, were once queer youth, and we, too, went through all manner of hardship.

Years ago, with the QSA mentioned above, we were part of an intergenerational event where older queers told their stories, coming out and otherwise. Afterwards, a couple of the dykes confided to me that they’d kept some of the most difficult facts out of the conversation. They didn’t want to upset the kids.

Oh, my sisters, how can we help each other see each other? How can we older queers make ourselves known to our youth, who are necessarily s consumed with their own affairs? How can we become part of those affairs, not because we’re there to simply cheerlead and praise (although we are, of course we are!) but because we know. We have invaluable resource and information to pass one.

Today, break down a barrier, my loves, my queer femme bombshells. Reach across a divide. Write a letter, make a picture, post something, catch someone’s attention for just long enough that there’s a spark, an understanding.

Don’t we know it? Don’t we know how deeply, desperately, decidedly we every single one of us, all across the ages, need each other?

Now and now and now. Forever.

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.

Since 2016, I here at The Total Femme have done my best to post thrice a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy Dingy on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on you know when. I’m pulling back the reins now, darlings, and going down to once a week, this Meditation. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you. Send me your poetry, your musings, your art, your wonderful you, and I will love you and hold you and feature you right here. So let me hear from you! thetotalfemme@gmail.com. And stop by on Mondays for a bit of sacred femme space.

Published in: on November 21, 2022 at 3:58 PM  Comments (2)  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Bubbles of Protection

I had a doctor’s appointment last week, one that was making me incredibly anxious. I have doctor PTSD certainly from having cancer, but also, I think, stemming from having had to be in the hospital quite a bit when I was a toddler. Along with the PTSD I almost always am on guard for homophobia, sexism, and, as the years go on, ageism. I can get myself in a right twist about having to see the doctor, even to the point of going into some version of a fugue state that makes it hard to communicate, ask questions, retain answers.

Years ago, at a Creating Change conference, I attended a Radical Faerie workshop about healing, where we all received a small plastic bottle of bubbles. The bubbles had been magicked, and we were told we could use them to protect us when we were about to go into a dangerous or scary place, or even just when we needed a lift from our own or the world’s difficulties.

Just as I was about to leave for the doctor’s appointment, I remembered my bubbles, but couldn’t remember where I’d put them.

Tex said, “I’ll give you butch bubbles of protection.” Taking my hands, she asked me to imagine all the butches in my life who love me, who wish me well, who hold me – my whole and gorgeous femme self – and want me to be well and happy. I closed my eyes and there they all were: dear old friends, who have been there for so many difficult and happy times in my life; newer friends bringing joy and goofiness; the shy butch who approached me after a reading and thanked me for writing a story so close to hys heart; butches I’ve never met, but who enrich my femme universe with their art and existence, and of course, my own sweet butch husband standing right in front of me. I breathed. My shoulders relaxed. My heart slowed to a more steady beat.

I left the house fortified and calm. For once, I was able to totally be myself sitting in that stuffy little room with the doctor, myself and honest, asking for help and listening to the answer.

Tex’s loving butch bubbles of protection helped me remember that my queer community is always there for me to tune into so that I can ground myself, remember myself, honor myself. That same beautiful week, I was in touch with three wonderful femmes, sparkling, vibrant, filled with life. We none of us live in the same town, and one of them I’ve never even met in person, but together we radiate and concentrate a beautiful queer femme energy that makes us stronger and wiser. That helps make us more able to face dangers and disappointments with clarity and resiliance.

Today, my petals, my beamish beauties, be still for just a few moments and breathe in the support of your queer community, the people for whom you shine and who shine for you. Remember what it feels like when your shoulders relax and you know that you are seen and appreciated and loved for being your exact and wonderful own very own queer femme self.

Rest a moment in those bubbles of protection, my queer femme sisters.

Rest and be adored.

Rest and gather courage to carry on.

P.S. I have bubbles! If you, too, would like some actual bubbles of protection, email me with your address, and I will send them to you! thetotalfemme@gmail.com

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.

Since 2016, I here at The Total Femme have done my best to post thrice a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy Dingy on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on you know when. I’m pulling back the reins now, darlings, and going down to once a week, this Meditation. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you. Send me your poetry, your musings, your art, your wonderful you, and I will love you and hold you and feature you right here. So let me hear from you! thetotalfemme@gmail.com. And stop by on Mondays for a bit of sacred femme space.

Published in: on November 14, 2022 at 11:40 AM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditation for Queer Femmes – Butches and Librarians

Lately, I have been a bit more out and about, not just my routine in-town necessary errands and visits. I’ve gone to downtown Boston, people. Even to a writer’s residency! There’s still a major scrim over everything for me, I mean, a layer through which everything has to pass before it gets to me, muting and distorting information, like whispered words through a mask, but I am doing what I can to motivate and activate.

            My Boston trip was to keep a dear femme friend company as she went to some appointments, so I had a little alone time to bat about while she was otherwise occupied. It was so much fun walking around the city! I stopped in here or there, when I could deal with putting my mask back on (the ratio of store/organization to mask effort is a complex one). One place I absolutely made the effort for was a really fine branch library. They had an amazing book sale, so amazing, I had to limit myself to one shelf, and still came away with a satchel-full. As I was paying, I said cheerfully to the librarian, “Your book sale is SO DANGEROUS!” “Three dollars, please,” she replied. Oh, darn, she wasn’t going to play.

            It reminded me of another time when I was at a lesbo softball game, standing next to a dyke who read butchy to me. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but I tried to engage her, as well, and girlfriends, she was for sure not playing. Maybe not even listening! Yikes.

            As I grow older, I find that I’m misread and misunderstood in places that were tried and true for many years. I always forget that maybe people aren’t expecting an older gal such as myself to josh around with them or whatever it is. Flirt, chivvy, joke. It hurts my feelings the most when I try to connect with those I identify as my people – librarians and butchy dykes, for example – but it happens quite a bit with other folks, too.

            At the writing retreat this past weekend, one of the lectures was about the writing process, but, writ large, it was really about the stories you tell yourself, and if they still serve you. The lecturer said she used to tell herself she was just a dabbler in order to get herself to write; seven published books later, she needed to change that story.

            After I left the Boston branch library with my satchel of books, a woman stopped me to ask for directions. As we parted, she said, “Thank you, Mama!”

            Not three blocks later, another woman stopped me. “You got any spare change for me, Baby?” she asked.

            I am. I am both. What a gift to be seen.

            Petunias and dahlias, my most perfumed femme darlings, who are you in your hearts and how do you show it? How do you invite back the love that you need? How have you changed in your bodies, minds, emotions, and how can you accept the new ways that you are seen by those whose company you crave and those passing you in the street? Sometimes, you get that love and that seeing from the least expected interactions.

            Today, if you are able, pause for a moment and think about some of the stories you tell yourself about who you are. Open your hearts to change, to unexpected connection, to your own ability to flower in surprising and gratifying ways.

            Sweet. Oh, sweet!

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.

Since 2016, I here at The Total Femme have done my best to post thrice a week: Meditations for Queer Femmes on Monday, Pingy Dingy on Wednesday, and Femme Friday on you know when. I’m pulling back the reins now, darlings, and going down to once a week, this Meditation. This doesn’t mean I don’t want to hear from you. Send me your poetry, your musings, your art, your wonderful you, and I will love you and hold you and feature you right here. So let me hear from you! thetotalfemme@gmail.com. And stop by on Mondays for a bit of sacred femme space.

Published in: on November 7, 2022 at 11:08 AM  Leave a Comment  
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