Meditations for Queer Femmes – Bailey

I just spent a few days in Provincetown, cat sitting my big orange-sherbet buddy, Bailey, and taking a bit of a retreat for myself. Every day, Bailey and I hung out, sometimes together on the couch, sometimes just sharing the house and passing each other in the hall. One of his moms taught him some tricks – a pandemic project – and I never got tired of asking him to give me five or circle, which he would willingly do for a cat treat, which he nibbled gently right from my fingers. We had a lovely, relaxing time together, and when his mom got home, she texted me that it seemed like he’d been at a spa all week.

That was Thursday. Friday, I got a call from her: Bailey caught a blood clot in his heart and had died that morning.

I didn’t know that Thursday would be the last time I would see this sweet cat. Tex and I have been cat sitting him for a couple of years, and I figured we’d get to keep doing so. But one never knows, one just never does. I am incredibly grateful that he and I had such a sweet time together, that his last few days were so mellow and cozy. For someone who is more often than not simply riddled with regrets, I have no regrets about those Provincetown days.

Because I was away from home, away from my usual responsibilities, I was pretty tuned in to my most genuine and generous self. I’ve been thinking about that. Do I do that for myself – give myself nice days? What if they were my last days? How can I connect to that generosity a little more reliably even with my usual responsibilities, with all the anxiety that often comes with them?

My charmers, my pets, my cuddly femme sisters, bask today in that connection to the right here and right now. Who brings light and love into your life? Where do you want to shine your heart energy? What helps you remember your very truly truly self? Even if it’s just for one bright moment, rest there today.

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 April 12, 2021 at 4:24 PM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Situated

I almost didn’t buy the ratty copy of Stanley Kunitz’s book when I saw it at the book sale, but good sense caught up with me and it is now a treasured addition to our library. I almost skimmed over the essay on Walt Whitman when I opened the book recently, but managed to settle down enough to begin to absorb some of Kunitz’s wisdom, and through him, the raw energy, wisdom and love of Whitman. For example, Kunitz quotes Whitman, writing soon after the assassination of Lincoln:

Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness of heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us . . . We live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy throughout . . . The depravity of the business classes of our country is not less than has been supposed, but infinitely greater. The official services of America, national, state, and municipal, in all their branches and departments, except the judiciary, are saturated in corruption, bribery, falsehood, maladministration; and the judiciary is tainted. The great cities reek with respectable as much as non-respectable robbery and scoundrelism . . . The best class we show is but a mob of fashionably dress’d speculators and vulgarians . . . I say that our New World democracy . . . is, so far, an almost complete failure . . .

How delightful and satisfying, these words from a queer predecessor; how thought-provoking and how close to my own feelings about the time I’m living in! And how close I came to completely missing this delight and satisfaction due to my compulsive hurrying, my not feeling situated in my life and the flow of my life, due to not remembering what my relationship with books and words is. Due to not remembering who I am.

My contretemps with Kunitz’s book and words also got me thinking about how easy it is for me to brush aside my own intuition about what will nurture and uphold me. I get so caught up in hurrying on to the next thing that I can barely manage to take in, let alone process and enjoy, what is right in front of me. FOMA* has always been part of human experience, I’m sure, but now it’s worse than ever because of all our devices moving with such speed that no one can possibly keep up. Even – perhaps especially – on those devices, we clickety-click through thousands (millions?) of pieces of information, never ever giving our brains, hearts and souls a chance to catch up, to ponder, wonder, analyze, connect to our own lives in any meaningful way, in a way that has any depth or chance of longevity. The advertising world figured this one out a long time ago, that humans are challenged by the ability to imagine more more more and that a “never satisfied” condition can be nurtured and encouraged for financial gain.

Dear femme sisters, a moment. The stars and the planets are aligned, you are walking in a holy place, what surrounds you surrounds no one else in exactly the same way, being alive here and now in this essence and assurance is your gift and sacred duty. Today, remember one amazing thing about yourself. Take pleasure in one astounding event, place, person, poem, insight, in the way that you and only you can love into being. Be still. Be grateful. Inhale the aroma. Delight in the music. Situate yourself there.

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,

            The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into

a new tongue.

*Fear of Missing Out

All Walt Whitman quoted in the essay, “At the Tomb of Walt Whitman” in Next-to-Last Things: New Poems and Essays, by Stanley Kunitz, The Atlantic Monthly Press, NY, 1985.

Every Monday, I offer a Meditation for Queer Femmes in the spirit of my maternal grandmother, Mimi, who was fabulous, kind, and wise 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.”)

Published in: on April 1, 2019 at 5:52 AM  Leave a Comment  
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