notes from the fen at OBG

My new essay is up at Our Big Gayborhood.

homophobia in my hometown

I used to drink my coffee and write at a coffee shop about six blocks away from my house. I won't be going back. Nor will I eat in the attached restaurant, or drink the excellent microbrewed ale that they sell.

Here's why.

Now, I know that there are differing opinions on the subject. The cafe owner said that she would have ejected any couple for kissing at such length. It's a family restaurant, in case you didn't know, even though the incident took place long after any children would have been asleep....

Here's the thing: if an opposite-sex couple had been kissing each other goodbye, I doubt that anyone would have noticed.

And here's the other thing: I want my daughter to see affection. Between men and women. Between women and women. Between men and men. Because I want her to know that kissing as an expression of love is normal and healthy.

Your thoughts?

tongue-tied

All the time. I write like nobody's business and I can't speak.

Picture me, sitting across the table from a singing icon that I much admire (no, Mon, not her), and picture me struggling to say something with any level of coherence. That, folks, is the story of my life. When I am in the midst of my social anxiety, jokes sail right over my head. I miss the humor in certain comments. I say the stupidest things.  I am sure that half the world thinks I'm a blathering idiot because my brain and my mouth cannot function together.

And then I go home and say to myself "What the hell was that? What were you thinking?"

I am not exaggerating.

Put me in a room full of children or dogs. Sit me down in front of a Scrabble board. Put me in the company of a few people that I've known for years - it sometimes takes years for me to get to a level where I am comfortable - and you can catch the smallest glimpse of the inner me. Engage me in a one-to-one conversation, and you might get somewhere, as long as I am not incredibly nervous about something. And I can find the smallest things to be incredibly nervous about. I worry so much about sounding stupid that I end up sounding...stupid.

I am a great listener. And to cover up for my own insecurities, I ask very good questions. Because then the heat is off me, and focused on someone else.

So if you ever meet me face-to-face, please be kind. I really am rather intelligent, even if I can't put five coherent words together.

Maybe I should just take a notebook and pen with me everywhere I go and write everything down.

hello

I'm checking in quickly after a busy weekend - a great weekend that involved a long drive, a house concert, meeting old and new friends, and some much-needed solitary writing time. I will share more when I am awake again - because right now, I think I'm typing in my sleep.

I hope everyone had as good a weekend as I did!

opinions wanted

Sooo...I'm heading into dating again after 12 years...any advice?

Not that there's an actual date on my horizon...well, not really, although I've been talking to a few people.

But my questions to all of you are about warning signs. And no, I am not trying to rationalize myself out of becoming involved with someone. Yes, I am aware that it's very easy for me to talk myself out of things, and I have tried to stay positive....I am positive, but something is troubling me about a particular contact....

What are some things that really creep you out? Not in a suggestive sense, but behaviours that might indicate that someone is being dishonest/hiding something/getting a bit too stalkerish for comfort?

If you share your summer plans with someone and they automatically assume that they're coming with you, is that not a bit....weird?

At the early conversation/IM stage should the focus be on having fun, while getting to know someone? Or am I being too...frivolous. Hey, just started this process and not ready to settle into a serious, long-term anything unless the absolute, right person came along, and even so, I'd want to keep things light until I knew where it was going. Right? Or am I in the wrong head space?

On the honesty thing: Is it possible for someone to have lived in MI for twelve years..without having ever heard about Michfest? I'm not talking about whether or not they went...whether they even knew about it. (She lives elsewhere now).  She's not a newly out person, either. As far as she's told me.

Sisters, am I just being paranoid? Or should I be running really fast in the other direction?

accident

I accidentally went to my blogger dashboard instead of somewhere else, so I took it as a sign that I should update....

I have a new dog. I think he's going to stay. His arrival into our lives is a long story, which I will tell later, but he is (about) fifty pounds, some kind of shepherd/collie cross, eight months old and un-neutered (so far, but that will change). He is gentle, quiet, bouncy and silly all at once. He was house trained and knew some simple commands when he arrived, and this week we've been working really hard at leash training. It's coming. He's smart, but he listens, so it should be okay.

It's March Break for the kids next week, which means I get a bit of a break myself. Shorter days and more time to spend with Emily.

I'm working on my next post for Our Big Gayborhood. Have you dropped by yet? Read some of the essays and articles? It's an amazing site, where some of my favourite writers have gathered and pooled their talents.

While I'm lax about many things, my plans for the summer are all laid out. Michigan, how you call to me! I'll be there twice in the same month! I'm looking forward to music festivals, camping, and writing under the summer sun! Can't wait, really.

The snow is almost gone here, and the spring birds are slowly starting to return. I know I can't count winter out yet....but the longer days and warmer weather gives me so much hope!

My next post will have photos - of the new dog, of my neighbourhood in springtime, and the little things I love. But now I have to run off to work.....happy weekend everyone!

it wasn't supposed to be like this...

Wait a minute...be like what?

Depression is insidious. It winds itself around you almost before you realize what's going on. It wreaks havoc on your own perceptions of yourself, and the world around you. Hope is lost, there is no hope, there is no change, what the hell was the point of all this hard work when I'm still sitting here....I'm sure you understand.

I've resisted any kind of chemical remedy so far, beyond any natural substances within my reach - Valerian seems to work okay for the few days every month that it gets really bad.  But something is always hovering, just below the surface, waiting to grab at any slight failure, missed opportunity, unhappy moment and say, "See? And you thought things were getting better...." Some days I feel like I traded a sterile and comfortable existence for a life that's shorter on material goods, more independent and true to me, but much, much lonelier. In the low moments, it doesn't seem to matter that my former life partner spent all of his available spare time creating computer stuff in the basement, that we had nothing in common, that the corner of the world that I could call my own was very small, indeed.

Was I any less depressed, really? Probably not. It was just...different. I didn't allow myself to feel, because feelings were somehow...not okay. So I floated. Now I seem to vacillate between treading water and being pulled beneath the waves by whatever errant current is grabbing at my ankles. I'm not really moving forward, but at least I'm somewhere. And I'm still alive. But I would like to see land some day, would like to feel as though this journey somehow makes sense. So far, it's an elusive prospect.

And I could...if I had to...I could live out here indefinitely. The water's not cold. I do get fatigued, but I have enormous reserves of strength.

It's an isolated existence. Never alone completely - with kids you're never really alone, thank the goddess. But I haven't bumped into many other swimmers in this part of the ocean. Only wonderful virtual swimmers, who are the most marvelous support system imaginable. I am so grateful.

And I am so scared. There's nowhere to go when you're out here. It's a big ocean. And I'm out here, with my head above water, treading as fast as I can, but not really getting anywhere. While I can name any number of reasons why I can't move forward, I think my biggest challenges are fear and geography.

I don't know anyone in this city except my co-workers, my ex, my kids and my sister, and a few other people whom I am not close to. I traveled the streets and byways as a straight woman for eight years, I went to market and shopped in the grocery store, drank coffee and browsed for books then, just like I do now. I've never really felt as comfortable here as I should have, never really put down roots, and now it's worse. Coming out at 42 means that you don't grow into those familiar spots, and even when you find them - which I can't - you're surrounded by people who have been secure with their identity all their lives. And you get questions that are uncomfortable to answer - like how I know I'm a lesbian when....and what made me "change my mind" so late in life. As if I'm 80. As if there was some kind of choice I made, beyond deciding that I was going to live my truth.

Sometimes I feel like the freak I know I'm not. And I feel like I don't belong anywhere. The rational side of me knows, hopes that this is temporary, that I will carve out a place for myself in this community that's not completely isolating. But it's so very close to my childhood experience, a childhood that was composed of isolation, rejection and grief. Too close to the bone, too much for me to tolerate, especially when I am in such a fragile state.

I know that I can and will get through this. I don't think about an "end point" because once you've reached a point, a milestone, there's something else to reach for. But I'm drawing on that very same strength that pulled me through childhood, through my adolescence, through other moments of deep despair when I felt, really, as though there was nothing left. I can't leave as long as there's work left undone. I have children to raise. I have more words to write. If I can't find happiness, I can always find more work to do.

But there's always hope...and my hope can be found in the spaces between the notes. Here's a glimpse of the concert I saw last night, listening with joy, and tears, and everything else in between....David Francey is amazing. The first song reminds me so much of where I am right now - out at sea, not sure where I'm headed, but with lights burning brightly, hoping to find my way. The second song is another favourite.