Meditations for Queer Femmes – License to Putter

My mother tells the story of how, at the tender age of a mere year, I absolutely refused to continue taking naps. It was over, folks! I had shit I needed to take care of. Places to go! People to see! Apple juice to drink and goldfish to eat! I still hate taking naps. I mean, what a waste of time! I could be doing something!

Yesterday, case in point. Despite making all kinds of agreements with ourselves and with each other that we would rest and take it easy on Sundays, both my butch and I were quite busy. I mean, the schedule is all different these days anyway, and there were just a few little projects we both had going that needed tending to, it would just take a minute, oh, and then there was that one email to follow up on… We are both incorrigible, but, I’m happy to say, we did catch ourselves at some point, and then Tex went out and gardened, and I gave myself license to putter. Putter, as in, there’s no real goal or judgement hanging over you if you get something done or not. Putter, as in go ahead and drift from one nice little cozy project to the next, sitting down in-between with a cup of tea and a magazine. Putter, as in giving yourself time to just be, with yourself and in your space. Just leaning into the idea that you are exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you should be doing. Yes, that kind of putter! Oof magouf, as a friend says. Now that was just the thing!

My dovelies, do you know how to relax? Do you ever take it down a notch, or even more than a notch? Can you give yourself the go-ahead to disengage the gears of your beautiful, brilliant, busy brains and let your heart and intuition lead?

Today, in the midst of it all, I wish for you a moment of pure putter. You will go back to your worldsaving and worldhealing the better for it. Everyone you love will thank you for it. I thank you. For your incredibly important work, the work you do every day, and the part where you turn all that love onto yourselves and just rest.

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.”) As I undergo treatment for breast cancer, however, I’m just going to post whenever I can manage.

 

 

Published in: on May 4, 2020 at 4:21 PM  Comments (2)  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Doing it Right

Ever since I was diagnosed with breast cancer this spring, I’ve had the nagging feeling that I’m not doing it right. Every day, I wake up and think of smart, caring things I plan to do for myself, and then, at the end of the day, I fall asleep thinking how I did none of those things but instead ate indifferently rather than antioxidantly and watched, “I Am Mother” on netflix (a movie that, although it resoundingly passed the Bechdel test, continues to trouble me). Once again, I didn’t research the kind of cancer I have or the drugs and supplements I’m taking; I didn’t call an Al-Anon friend; I still haven’t touched base with my therapist; I’m having trouble exercising, going out in public, keeping friends and family in the loop, and don’t get me started on the dearth of thank you notes I’m generating.

On good days, I can counter my “I didn’ts” with some “I dids”, like how one day last week I talked with the social worker at the oncology clinic, managed to eat some vegetables, and even called a friend. But in general, I keep feeling like I’m coming up somewhere very far from roses.

I’m not sure why exactly I feel there’s a right way to do this. An ego thing, maybe: I’m intelligent and hard working, so shouldn’t I be able to figure this out? What am I supposed to figure out, though? Surely with something like this it’s not in the details but in the strength and willingness to get through.

Which leads me to wonder if maybe all this fretting about how I should or shouldn’t be COMBATTING CANCER is a distraction or even denial, something to keep from looking in the face the incredibly difficult challenge of living with grief and hope and not overbalancing into either. Life writ large, in other words. And if there’s one thing to know about life, there are many, many ways to live it. Sadly, for me and all other literal perfectionists – and even for the rest of you, too – there is no one best way. There is no way of knowing what the future may hold and the present moment is all we’ve got.

The social worker at the oncology clinic has been gently urging me to re-check the tumor to see if it’s shrunk. I’ve been way too squeamish to do it but two days ago, yelling, “JUST TOUCH YOUR BOOB!!!” in my head, I finally managed.

There is nothing left of the tumor that I can find. Nothing. My breast feels perfectly and wonderfully like it always has.

That has nothing to do with me. That’s not something I did. Or rather, I said yes to chemo and immunotherapy drugs, and those powerful medications went to town on my tumor. I asked for help. I needed help, because this is not something I can do on my own, and maybe asking for help and then getting along as best I can is ok. It’s not perfect. But it’s ok, and seriously, how many times do I have to hear “Nothing’s perfect!” before I believe it?

Almost every day, Tex tells me I’m doing great, that I’m doing just exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t think she’s lying. I know I’m working hard to heal, even if I don’t line up against some kind of “This is the Correct Method” checklist. If someone else with breast cancer told me about their day, even if it included eating potato chips and watching whatever on the TV, I would give them props and love for doing what they needed to get through. But when I do it??

If I can drift into a self-blaming, castigating place around dealing with a life-threatening disease crisis, think how ingrained that means this habit is. And I am quite sure I am not the only queer femme who drifts. Trying to heal from all of our own personal hurts, big and small, and trying to live in joy when we are bombarded with messages that joy is in short supply (all lies): this is not an easy, linear path. Instead, it is nuanced, layered, filled with irritating detours that are sometimes exactly what we need and where we are offered exactly the opportunities that will allow us to access untried and marvelous parts of ourselves. I’m not saying I’m glad I got cancer, but given that I did, and that it’s really scary, I’d like to take as much pressure off myself as possible, be as kind to myself as possible.

Darlings, my femme sweetnesses, today cut yourselves a break. Imagine that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing exactly what all that is lovely and right wants you to do. Allow your queer femme dazzle, pluck, determination, insight, and grit to cradle and benefit you for once, turn it onto yourself and bask in that persistent light.

Crank up the soundtrack.

Femmes doing it right.

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 June 24, 2019 at 3:41 PM  Comments (6)  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Scale

As the daughter of an archeologist, I was taught from an early age about the importance of scale. When photographing an artifact, you have to put some form of measurement beside it so that you can tell how big it is. There was a fun moment in my life when my mom even used me as the form of measurement, as I was exactly one meter tall.

It’s been a really difficult year for my family. I find myself hardly able to pay attention to my own writing, my own joy, because I’m so busy trying to manage situations. Some are just life stuff having to do with aging parents, others feel much more heart breaking, a string of poor choices and wasted opportunities. However, as I write this, I see that both aging and making mistakes are the stuff of life. As my therapist used to say, “Sounds human to me.”

I wonder if we queer femmes don’t sometimes lose track of scale. Scale isn’t comparing in order to judge, the way we can compare ourselves to other femmes with their seemingly-sparkly and perfect lives. Scale is just about showing something exactly the size it is. Without scale, the very small can appear extremely large. When I remember this, when I hold up some kind of human measurement to the problems in my family, to my insecurities about my identity, art, work, relationship, I see that I am exactly where I am: a human in the midst of human pursuits. A human among other humans, who also can get really twisted up inside their heads and hearts.

I still don’t like it when I’m mistaken for a straight lady, especially when it’s by a butch who somehow doesn’t realize that it’s a femme smiling at her, darn it, but the older I get, the more my scale is changing. I’m not measuring myself as much as by what other people, even other queers, other femmes, say is how and what I should be. I’m giving myself and my own experience and opinions way more weight, and I’m even allowing myself to go from one definition of scale to another in this post! Dear queer femme sisters, walk with me: Weighing in and measuring up as 100% human queer femme, learning that pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice, making mistakes, trying every day to show compassion, to be open to joy, to make art, to love ourselves and spread love to others. Femme Love Heal World!

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 March 25, 2019 at 5:21 PM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Shrine to Pain

A few weeks ago, we dismantled our son’s room, which has stood empty for a year, his things gathering dust, the posters beginning to sag and rip away from the walls. For a variety of reasons, not all of them happy, he now lives full time with his other parent, but we kept his room intact because of hope, or at least that’s what I told myself. Actually, it was a shrine to pain.

It was also painful to pack things up, but we did it in good faith, with a great deal of love, and in the interests of making the room into a guest room, to be blessed first by my dear mother-in-law, someone who loves us and who loves our son. We had our son’s stuff delivered to him, and we poured fresh energy into his old room, which my mother-in-law happily inhabited for her entire visit here. My other son’s room has been made into my study, in a much less fraught process. We are empty nesters, after all, and we are the ones who live here – it’s ok for our house to embrace us and our needs!

My son knows how deeply I love him – I always tell him this, and I know that I raised him in love. Allowing his room to shift into a more accurate reflection of life as it is today is also an act of love, freeing all of us to move into more healthy relation with each other and with our circumstances. As much as it stirred up regrets and grief, moving the energy also helped me continue to move my own energy towards healing. His birth was a gift; he remains a gift, however complicated our relationship has become. Right where it matters, right in our hearts, nothing has changed.

Dear femme sisters, is there something in your possession that you feel obligated to keep but that always gives the shard of pain lodged in your heart a little yank? A sweater from an ex that’s really cozy and fills a niche in your wardrobe, but that does not have good energy? Cards or gifts from family members who have not had your back or who have actively dismissed or otherwise wounded you? These are all things that might be released, either into recycling or a donation bin, both good uses of stuff that is no longer healthy.

The Japanese always do a good home cleaning before the New Year so they can start things off in good trim. Darlings, do a sweep. Even if it’s just one small letting go, your queer heart will rejoice and beat all that more bodaciously from the release of burden.

Let it go and go lightly into the return of the light and the thrill of new beginnings.

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 December 24, 2018 at 1:15 PM  Comments (2)  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Sanctuary of Empathy

After an Al-Anon meeting recently, I found myself rather forcefully welcoming a newcomer. On the one hand, I remember being a newcomer and I wanted her to feel seen and heard. On the other hand, I was a hot mess myself that day, and really didn’t have anything at all to give. I watched, not able to stop myself, as I went into my caretaker role, going overboard on giving her information, not grounded in my body, my energy jitzy and floating. The problem isn’t that I’m not a good caretaker, because I am; the problem was not knowing that right then, I had nothing to give and it would have been a better welcome for her if I’d just smiled and gone on my way. The truth was, I needed caretaking myself, which is why I was at a meeting.

I’ve always prided myself on being a good friend. As an only child, I became skilled at being friends with all kinds of people, even with kids who didn’t like each other but who were friends with me. I saw myself as a good listener, a problem solver, a wise advice giver. If I couldn’t have siblings, at least I could attract people to me who might fill that void.

As a grown-up queer femme, I retain many of those same ideas about myself and work hard to make queer community – this blog included. My heart’s desire is to be able to be here for every queer who is hurting, who needs company, who feels alone. But I can go so far down the line of being understanding and sympathetic that I forget to pay attention to myself and my own needs. I get off on being the one everyone can depend on…until I tank, which inevitably happens, and then I’m left without much resource, since I’ve trained my friends and colleagues to believe that I’m all good and don’t need a hand.

We all need a hand.

In her brilliant book, The Body Is Not An Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love, Sonya Renee Taylor says, “It is through our own transformed relationship with our bodies that we become champions for other bodies on our planet.” I must continue to transform my relationship with my body, my heart, my desires, my energy – all of it. If I am not right with myself – starting with my precious and beautiful body – I am not going to be able to do much for you, at least not something that includes the dimension of justice, which is what all loving relationships must possess in order to thrive and bring more love into the world. I can never offer you the sanctuary of empathy, no matter how much I long to do so, if I have not built it up around myself.

For about two years, every day, I read Swami Paramananda’s Book of Daily Thoughts and Prayers. It was a great exercise in my spiritual search for teachers and wisdom, and I learned so much. Although in the end I realized that the Swami’s path is not for me, I retain gratitude for his work and I absolutely love some of his prayers, many of which were of huge comfort to me during some very dark nights.

Sweet femme sisters, take care of yourselves. Seek wisdom with an open heart, seek support with humility. I know you love your families, your butches, your sweethearts, your babies and your friends and colleagues. But don’t run yourselves down until you have nothing left. Don’t forget that they love you, as well, if you will let them. Make room for them to show you that love. Ask for that love. Ask for support. Allow yourself to rest. Be good and loving to yourselves.

That is how our sacred femme work begins.

Oh Thou Effulgent Spirit,

Shed Thy radiance on my heart and mind

Fill my being with Thy divine light

That it may shine in all my thoughts and actions

And bring brightness in other lives

Surround me with Thy protecting love and Thy abiding peace

–Swami Paramananda, the reading for March 20 in Book of Daily Thoughts and

            Prayers, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, 1977

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.”)

 

 

Published in: on August 27, 2018 at 12:00 AM  Leave a Comment  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Seeing Femme

I’m old enough to remember being stunned with delight to see k.d. lang getting a shave on the cover of Vanity Fair, lo, these many years ago, and am still riding high on the thrill of Lena Waithe’s gorgeous cover feature in the same mag just recently. Go, queer representation!

And.

I have been thinking about audience. When a butch is on the cover of a big ladies’ magazine, what is the message? Who is that cover talking to? We butch-loving femmes can certainly groove on it and squirrel our well-thumbed copy carefully away as a treasured keepsake, but are we included in the gambit? Do we even want to be?

I am grateful for and in awe of show business butches like k.d. and Lena, whose perseverance and incredible talent are epic. They deserve every bit of cover time and everything else they get for their work and their dedication to their art.

In addition, I know that k.d. and Lena are being their authentic queer selves in the artistic milieu that they love. It is inspiring and fabulous and it gives me strength and hope, and I believe k.d. and Lena are speaking to me and to other queers, as well.

However, I don’t believe mainstream media is thinking about me at all. Mainstream media is only ever thinking about and talking to its market audience: straight people.

It would certainly be exciting to see a femme on the cover of some magazine you flip through at the supermarket check out counter, but you know what? That might entail some explanation on the part of the magazine. It would certainly require a more nuanced understanding of the fact that there’s more than one kind of queer, and would mean giving up relying on a shorthand representation of queerness, where butches and effeminate gay men are always doing the heavy lifting. I’m not holding my breath, and at this point, I’m not even interested in taking on that battle, because mainstream media is not my friend. Never has been.

Queer femmes are constantly being told by straight people and even by other queers that we don’t look gay. What does it mean to look gay? Are there rules? How many of us queer femmes went androgynous or even butch when we first came out because that’s what we thought we were supposed to do in order to signal to other queers we were now part of the club? How many of us now dye our hair purple or make a point to always wear some kind of queer marker like rainbow jewelry or a gay t-shirt or buttons and still get pegged as straight every day, every day? How many of us continue to feel isolated and freaky and, miserably, can’t even recognize each other?

The skanky hands of the Media Man are not going to hand us deliverance, beautiful queer femme sisters. We must talk to each other, make art for each other, be visible in any way we can and open ourselves to queer femme community, and queer community in general, where we can explore our full selves. Be fully femme. Be fully queer. Only we can define that, through exploration and community and self love.

Today, I invite you to gaze with love upon each other. To gaze with love upon your unbelievably queer self in the mirror. Find each other, celebrate each other. Revel in the nuance, the infinite variations on the queer theme that we know in our own queer femme lives. Let those revels radiate outward and inward, nurturing your heart and mine.

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.”)

 

 

 

 

 

Published in: on May 28, 2018 at 8:13 AM  Comments (1)  
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Monday Meditation – Queer Femme Healing

To alleviate various health issues attendant upon being middle-aged queers, Tex and I have recently embarked upon a Health Regimen of some magnitude. Ok, it’s the modern-day candida diet, which we both learned about a million years ago when it first made its appearance. Even back then, I knew the diet would probably be really healthy for me, but instead, I went with macrobiotics. Why? Because of community.

Macrobiotics had groups and workshops and cooking classes and other bright-eyed, judgmental people running around purporting to have solved ye ole healthy living dilemma (while secretly binging on forbidden foods and sneaking ciggies because if you had “pure blood” that was your prerogative…!). All candida had was a book.

I’m still a little worried about forging ahead with this diet (no potatoes! no corn! no sugar! no GLASS OF RED WINE!!), because food and community have always gone hand-in-hand for me, and, as suburban queers, Tex and I can already feel pretty isolated. I love communal meals, going out to eat with friends, whipping up a batch of my most excellent granola (no oats! no maple syrup!) and just generally eating as much of and whatever I like. See, I spent another million years working on resolving eating issues and body stuff and ha! Here I am back at the beginning again!

I’m thinking about authenticity, integrity and integration as I think about community. When I was so focused on body image, on loving my body, I ended up eating things that, on some level, I knew weren’t healthy for me. Why did having a healthy body image cancel out my being able to actually pay enough attention to said body to nourish it mindfully? Partly the consumerist, capitolist machine telling you “you deserve it”, “it” being whatever food or service being sold, partly the Western notion that you can control everything. I was so busy “conquering” body shame I didn’t have time to learn that it’s not really something you can conquer; really, it’s more like being neighbors with body shame, or even roommates – learning to get along together in a harmonious fashion, maybe ignore each other in a friendly way.

What is community? Do you have to share meals together? Food has been my go-to, but in the past, it turned into an emotional crutch, and something I used in unhealthy and even destructive ways. When I was in the macrobiotic community, for example, skinny and clear-eyed and perhaps healthy in my body, all I could do was obsess about food, which kept me from focusing on or benefiting from friendships and the joy to be had in getting together as a group of like-minded folks. How ironic and wonderful that physical health issues are now giving me the opportunity to focus on food in a healthy way, in the company of my dear Husband, for our enduring well-being. We are so much older and wiser and calmer now – we can do this! And when I really think about it, I have no doubt that our friends and the community we love won’t disappear because we’re not currently eating cookies. It’s deeper and way more layered than that.

We queer femmes deal with so much misogyny and homophobia and other oppressive bigotry that it is rare we escape unscathed, rare that we don’t spend a great deal of time trying all different kinds of ways to heal ourselves. This comes from such good intentions, but sometimes we end up neglecting one part of ourselves as we work so hard to heal another part. Throughout our lives, we do our best to negotiate the twisting paths leading to that authenticity, integration and integrity I was talking about earlier. The paths are rocky and steep and perhaps sometimes there is no path at all but the one you feel out, step by step.

Every time you take one of those precarious but healing steps, I hope you feel the love of queer femmes, past and present, who also took steps that uplift and inspire us. I hope you feel encouraged, accompanied and always, always at the heart of that queer femme community of fighters and lovers.

Sweet femme sisters, today I am honoring your drive to heal and be healthy and whole.

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.”)

 

Published in: on March 19, 2018 at 4:06 PM  Comments (2)  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes – Femme Agenda

I just finished reading Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division – the Inside Story of the First Openly Gay Pop-Punk Band by sister-Midwesterner Jon Ginoli. I had a little trepidation that his story would be a painful onslaught of drugs and self-abuse, hopefully with a happy ending like in Godspeed, written by his contemporary, Lynn Breedlove of Tribe 8, the first out dyke punk band. (Big femme love to you, Unka Lynnee! I’ve read Godspeed twice!) Instead, Jon sticks doggedly to the point of his book: there was no gay male pop-punk band, so he started one. A and then B.

“That I’m here at all writing this still astounds me,” he says in the last chapter of the book “I actually got to live out my rock and roll dreams. Perhaps some people’s dreams would have been grander, for greater stardom or riches, but part of me is still that kid from Peoria – a place of more modest hopes and ambitions. For a long time I felt that I had something to contribute to the culture at large, like a lot of people do. I feel lucky that I was able to actually make that mark, because many who try don’t succeed. From a young age I had a vague sense of wanting to achieve something, so there’s a sense of relief too, that I haven’t wasted my time and effort.”

In order to further my queer femme agenda, I need utterly queer stories like Jon’s.

His story inspires me because I, too, want to know that following my queer femme heart makes an impact. My efforts don’t include jolly perks like being asked to sign fans’ dicks or singing songs about being the buttfuckers of rock and roll who want to sock it to your hole, but I have gotten to hang out with members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, read my queer chapter book to local fourth graders, sit and have heart-to-hearts with queer, questioning and ally youth, bond with other femmes and so much more. These things feed my queer femme soul.

Some might say that Jon doesn’t tell the whole story in his memoir; for example, he doesn’t go into much detail about his experience with ACT UP or talk all that much about substance abuse or ditch too much dirt on other musicians, but that’s what I love. This is a story about making queer art happen come hell or high water. I appreciate the clear focus on that aspect of Pansy Division: he is satisfied with his work.

I know I’m not the only queer to struggle with not being able to see my strengths fully. Buffeted by heterosexual forces and misogyny and all the rest of it, it can be so hard to be able to clearly understand the impact of your efforts.

Last night, my kids told me they didn’t believe in New Year’s resolutions or taking time to regroup and recharge – you should always be doing that, they told me. Still and all, January is a nice time to put some good queer femme intention into the world, to interrupt the het narrative, to take a breath and not be in such a hurry for the Next. And in this time of frenzied divisiveness, to find encouragement and be heartened by the lives of other queers whose generosity and dedication have brought more bent energy into the world.

Part of my femme agenda in 2018 is to pay closer attention to what I like to do and what I’m good at and how I can use those to queer things up. To continue to champion queer femme and make room for our stories, but to also find love and gather courage from other queers. To take my own work as seriously as I take the work of other queers; to be as generous as I can in my own unique bit of the universe.

Dearest, queerest femme sisters: who and what inspires you in your Femme Agenda? What do you do in order to queerly rest and queerly sock it to us? Whatever it is, I wish you fortitude and every blessing as this new year begins. Your stories inspire me.

Every Monday (or Tuesday), 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.

pitsme_615

“Fem in a Black Leather Jacket” by Pansy Division

Published in: on January 2, 2018 at 3:26 PM  Comments (4)  
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Meditations for Queer Femmes — Queer Femme Body

How often we are told in words and examples and unspoken disapproval from all quarters that the site of wrongness is always in the body. I love Queer Fat Femme’s joyous statement, “Every body is a good body” because it gives a big middle finger to that evil message, and positions us on a path of self-love. Points to the real culprit: a culture that has swallowed ideas like, “The body is a machine,” “The body is a source of foulness,” “The body is to be controlled by any means necessary.”

When a femme friend and I read The Well of Loneliness together, we were struck by how much Stephen loves her physical body when she’s young: “She discovered her body for a thing to be cherished, a thing of real value since its strength could rejoice her; and young though she was she cared for her body with great diligence, bathing it night and morning in dull tepid water – cold baths were forbidden, and hot baths, she had heard, sometimes weakened the muscles.” She doesn’t begin that long descent into self-loathing until she encounters the “civilized” view that the body is gross, sex is gross, and anything other than het sex and presentation is beyond gross. And we queer femmes, although perhaps less gender non-conforming than Stephen and her modern counterparts, are also betrayed and damaged by this entrenched yet deeply unnatural cultural hatred of the body. For girls, especially, this hatred works on us practically from infancy. We’re told we’re too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, that our bodies exude odors or grow hairs that are unacceptable. Most obscene of all, we’re taught that all these things are our fault, that they are entirely under our control, and if we don’t manage them, we are entirely to blame for being “fat”, “gross”, “smelly”, whatever it is. There’s a spray, a pill, a regimen, a procedure and a course of action for that, and if those things impact the amount of joy and spontaneity and growth of spirit in your life, then that’s too bad. At least you’ll know you’ve done your best to corral your body so that it doesn’t offend other people. As if striving to conform to the soul-crushing status quo is a good reason to expend precious life energy!

At the National Day of Mourning this year, we were told that not only do we need to decolonize our minds, we then need to indigenize them. What would this look like if we did this for our bodies, as well? If we really acted as if Every Body is a Good Body? How freeing for our spirits and minds if our bodies were treated kindly; if we took friendly interest in each other’s differences, if we allowed each body whatever it needed in order to feel comfortable and at ease, rather than forcing a one-size-fits-all straight jacket on everybody! If it was just taken as a fact of life that all bodies are unique, all bodies have their own specific ways of moving through the world, their fascinating needs and multi-faceted desires? Because guess what, that is a fact of life! And that we’re not separate from other bodies, of animals, plants, the earth: we’re all part of the same great patterns of life and death, and it’s all normal.

What do we celebrate about our queer femme bodies, what do we adore? How do we love our queer femme bodies, love with our queer femme bodies? Some of us may start by experiencing such relief that we do not need to package ourselves for the gaze of straight men. We please ourselves, clothe our queer femme bodies with the outfits and pizazz that bring our queer femme hearts pleasure. Through pain and ecstasy, we are never separate from our queer femme bodies, and the Western schools of thought encouraging us to view her as a machine or as irrelevant (“it’s the mind that counts!”) or as a foul burden we must drag around do us no favors. What if we didn’t have to spend so much time re-learning the love of our bodies? Because nobody is born hating themselves in that particular way. That is learned behavior and is imposed on all of us.

Whatever their shape, ability, age, state of health, location and size, our queer femme bodies are to be adorned, honored, loved and held up as the sacred manifestations of the life force that they truly are. Come, now, femme sisters, with your good, queer bodies, and join in with our brother Walt to sing of yourselves!

I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious,

Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy,

I cannot tell how my ankles bend, nor whence the cause of my faintest wish,

Nor the cause of the friendship I emit, nor the cause of

     friendship I take again. (Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”)

 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.

Published in: on December 4, 2017 at 4:12 PM  Comments (5)  
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