Beloved and I have just returned from a several day festival at a city not too far away, where everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, was Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer.
It was heaven.
We held hands. We gazed into one another's eyes over dinner at a spectacular restaurant. We did NOT make out publicly; we're lesbians of a certain age, and we leave that sort of thing to the young (such as the twenty-five-ish girls at the next table who were engaged in quite a bit of lip-chewing). But we were very together, very publicly, in that safe, safe space.
So this is what it's like!
I have so appreciated everyone's responses to my recent post "Four Options: a Cycle." I think there is great truth to what many of you say; I seem to be leaning increasingly towards the "option" of being out in the world. I put "option" in quotes, because, as many have pointed out, that is the direction in which I am heading, no matter how I hesitate or pretend to myself that I have some decision to make. I continue to do things such as take trips with Beloved and spend time with her very publicly even in our own community. Large numbers of LGBTQ folks know about us, and it is only a matter of time, really, before the communities of my life intersect.
My greatest hope is to be able to do it all with integrity, not to skulk or try to hide, but, when the time is come, to simply smile and say, "Yes. This is my life. And I believe that God blesses my love. And I believe that by my fruits in both my personal life and in my ministry, you shall know me."
I am grateful that my children know me fully, that my ex-husband is supportive, and that Beloved knows from personal experience the pain and beauty of coming out after a long time in the closet.
The roller-coaster is nearing the summit. Time to let go and experience the terror and exhilaration of the fall.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Friday, June 1, 2007
A Literary Meme... thank you Mother Laura
1. This one is the literary meme. The instructions are:
2. Grab the nearest book.
3. Open it to page 161.
4. Find the fifth full sentence.
5. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
6. Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
Mother Laura at Junia's Daughter posted her answers to this meme yesterday.
I don't know how to tell you this, but the nearest book is The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007 by Lt.-Col. William "Bill" Tanner (belonging to my son, and which I have twice tried to type as The Book of Bong). A quick search of Amazon tells me it is way out of print.
There is no page 161. I will read the fifth full sentence of the last page of text.
"Your research board recommends the adoption of the recognition ritual set out in our founder's fifth adventure."
Ok, here's the ritual.
'Excuse me, could I borrow a match?'
'I use a lighter.'
'Better still.'
'Until they go wrong.'
Indeed.
2. Grab the nearest book.
3. Open it to page 161.
4. Find the fifth full sentence.
5. Post the text of the sentence along with these instructions.
6. Don’t search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.
Mother Laura at Junia's Daughter posted her answers to this meme yesterday.
I don't know how to tell you this, but the nearest book is The Book of Bond, or Every Man His Own 007 by Lt.-Col. William "Bill" Tanner (belonging to my son, and which I have twice tried to type as The Book of Bong). A quick search of Amazon tells me it is way out of print.
There is no page 161. I will read the fifth full sentence of the last page of text.
"Your research board recommends the adoption of the recognition ritual set out in our founder's fifth adventure."
Ok, here's the ritual.
'Excuse me, could I borrow a match?'
'I use a lighter.'
'Better still.'
'Until they go wrong.'
Indeed.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Four Options: A Cycle
I am rapidly approaching the point where I ought to know what I want to do with my life. Hell, I am well past it.
I spoke to Beloved on the phone about it this morning. I told her that I regularly cycle through about four options. These are:
~ Find a church-- perhaps even a progressive church!-- in my own denomination, and settle in and hope for the best-- i.e., remaining reasonably closeted (even though this feels already like a losing battle. Am I really fooling anyone? Away every weekend that my children are with their father, staying at Beloved's? Though no church people live in her neighborhood... I can't explain how I know this, but I do).
~ Find a church in an open and affirming denomination, transfer my credentials to that denomination and live happily and outly every after (though the churches with more congregational polity still have stickiness at the local level... 'open and affirming' makes it onto the denominationally supplied bulletin covers but not necessarily into every heart).
~ Find a church-- definitely a progressive church-- in my own denomination and come out to the search committee. Come out to my local judicatory. Become a cause celebre, and let the chips fall where they may, darlin'.
~ Find a job, not in a church. Teach. Or work for a non-profit organization. Or open a business (doing what? selling what?). Do anything that will permit me to keep a roof over my head and live out and proud.
This is my cycle, day after day, week after week. When I spoke to her about it this morning, Beloved said she thought some recent time away might have been helpful to me in discerning what I want to do. But I am no closer to zeroing in on one of these than I was six months ago.
So here is my plan. Go on an interview (one is coming up). See how it feels. See how and whether I am moved to speak out in the interview about my concerns. See if coming out now feels right and good. See if the church in question speaks to me. See, for God's sake, what I think God has to say about all this.
Well? God? What do you have to say?
I spoke to Beloved on the phone about it this morning. I told her that I regularly cycle through about four options. These are:
~ Find a church-- perhaps even a progressive church!-- in my own denomination, and settle in and hope for the best-- i.e., remaining reasonably closeted (even though this feels already like a losing battle. Am I really fooling anyone? Away every weekend that my children are with their father, staying at Beloved's? Though no church people live in her neighborhood... I can't explain how I know this, but I do).
~ Find a church in an open and affirming denomination, transfer my credentials to that denomination and live happily and outly every after (though the churches with more congregational polity still have stickiness at the local level... 'open and affirming' makes it onto the denominationally supplied bulletin covers but not necessarily into every heart).
~ Find a church-- definitely a progressive church-- in my own denomination and come out to the search committee. Come out to my local judicatory. Become a cause celebre, and let the chips fall where they may, darlin'.
~ Find a job, not in a church. Teach. Or work for a non-profit organization. Or open a business (doing what? selling what?). Do anything that will permit me to keep a roof over my head and live out and proud.
This is my cycle, day after day, week after week. When I spoke to her about it this morning, Beloved said she thought some recent time away might have been helpful to me in discerning what I want to do. But I am no closer to zeroing in on one of these than I was six months ago.
So here is my plan. Go on an interview (one is coming up). See how it feels. See how and whether I am moved to speak out in the interview about my concerns. See if coming out now feels right and good. See if the church in question speaks to me. See, for God's sake, what I think God has to say about all this.
Well? God? What do you have to say?
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Mom Being Mom
After church on Sunday I helped Beloved with more gardening. She had been working since 9; I joined her at 1 and we worked until 4. Then I went home to rest and ended up falling asleep on my bed, awash in the bright afternoon sunlight.
I dreamed of my mother. I dream of her so seldom, it seems. Though I think might remember more dreams if I slept longer... the less sleep I get, the fewer dreams I remember. Is it like that for everyone?
Anyway, I dreamed of mom. She came into the room where I was napping, and in the dream I ended up on the floor next to the bed, on my knees, as if I'd tried to get up but failed. Or, alternatively, as if I were praying, as a child, next to my bed. She came around to that side of the bed and asked if I was still tired, did I need more sleep. I nodded, Yes (I remember-- I think-- actually nodding my head). Then she asked me if I'd like her to take off a necklace I was wearing when I fell asleep, and I bent my head so that she could undo the clasp beneath my hair.
Mom was a firm believer in naps. She told me that once she had read that FDR napped, and insisted on wearing pajamas to nap, because, she quoted him, "You can't fool the old bod." I have internalized this, not to the point of donning pajamas, but certainly to the point of trying to get as physically comfortable and free as possible if the opportunity to nap does present itself.
Sunday afternoon seems to me the perfect time to nap. If such a window exists.
The dream... it was so simple and real-- no dragons, castles, bad guys giving chase. Just mom being mom-- wondering if I was tired, and what she could do to make me more comfortable. She was also in my house, upstairs, a place where she could not be for about the last two or three years of her life, since she was not able to walk very well, before she was not able to walk at all.
It was a dream of comfort and care. Just mom being mom.
I dreamed of my mother. I dream of her so seldom, it seems. Though I think might remember more dreams if I slept longer... the less sleep I get, the fewer dreams I remember. Is it like that for everyone?
Anyway, I dreamed of mom. She came into the room where I was napping, and in the dream I ended up on the floor next to the bed, on my knees, as if I'd tried to get up but failed. Or, alternatively, as if I were praying, as a child, next to my bed. She came around to that side of the bed and asked if I was still tired, did I need more sleep. I nodded, Yes (I remember-- I think-- actually nodding my head). Then she asked me if I'd like her to take off a necklace I was wearing when I fell asleep, and I bent my head so that she could undo the clasp beneath my hair.
Mom was a firm believer in naps. She told me that once she had read that FDR napped, and insisted on wearing pajamas to nap, because, she quoted him, "You can't fool the old bod." I have internalized this, not to the point of donning pajamas, but certainly to the point of trying to get as physically comfortable and free as possible if the opportunity to nap does present itself.
Sunday afternoon seems to me the perfect time to nap. If such a window exists.
The dream... it was so simple and real-- no dragons, castles, bad guys giving chase. Just mom being mom-- wondering if I was tired, and what she could do to make me more comfortable. She was also in my house, upstairs, a place where she could not be for about the last two or three years of her life, since she was not able to walk very well, before she was not able to walk at all.
It was a dream of comfort and care. Just mom being mom.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Marked
A recent pair of Christian Century articles talk about tattooing, its mainstreaming (is it possible that almost one in five Americans are tattooed? Really?) and the Christian response/ perspective. One article (by Tim Keel, emergent guy and pastor of Jacob's Well) is more of a "surveying the landscape" of tattooing and the kinds of tattoos Christians might get (a cross?). The other article, by Beth Felker Jones, a biblical scholar, offers some scriptural perspective and a challenge to the notion that tattoos are a "witness," suggesting there are other ways to show that we have been "marked for life" by Christ.
About ten years ago a good friend celebrated her 40th birthday by getting a tattoo-- a wolf, just over where she was guessing her ovary might be. I remember thinking that it was quite a cool way to celebrate that landmark, and wondering if I might not do something like that... kind of edgy.
A few years prior to that, I was swimming frequently at a local gym. As a result of that habit I was being confronted regularly with what I now recognize was my discomfort at being in the presence of women in various states of undress. One woman particularly intrigued me because of a tattoo she had: a thin ring of ivy around her ankle. I thought it was beautiful and quite alluring. At the same time, I couldn't quite see my way to making a plan to get one myself.
I have been thinking about these articles and memories this week, and it finally hit me that I have one memory of tattoos that goes back even further. I was 18 or 19, and I was in college in a big Northeastern city. I was, for the first time in my life, enjoying the kind of adventure and freedom that a small town girl experiences when she leaves the nest. I went to foreign films. I ate Chinese food for the first time (hilarious in retrospect... now as ubiquitous as McDonald's). I rode the subway. I saw homosexuals up close.
One night I was riding the subway, I assume with a friend, but I might have been on my own. We were going into the city-- to a concert? Play? Movie? Those specifics are lost to me now, but the following memory is vivid. Sitting across from me were two young women whom I figured out pretty quickly were lesbians . They didn't look any older than I was. They were dressed in a way my children now might describe as "goth" or "indie." They had lots of chains, and really short hair, and piercings in places I'd never seen before. And they both had the same tattoo-- a tattoo of a small chain, circling the fourth finger of their left hands.
I remember feeling a kind of stirring in myself... I was not, at that point in my life, prepared to seriously consider that I might be a lesbian, despite the fact that I'd known myself to have "those feelings" for other women at least since the age of 13. Still, I had this stirring, which I would describe as a mixture of desire and fear and longing. And the impossibility of it all. All because of seeing those tattoos.
I wonder where those young women are now, now that they are middle-aged lesbians? Are they still together (which, of course, would seem to have been the intention behind the tattoos that functioned as wedding rings)? Or, as with so many college-age relationships, are they each but a fond (or awful) memory for the other? And what do they feel now about marking themselves so dramatically for one another, for their love, in a world that was at least 25 years less willing than it is right now to acknowledge and celebrate it?
For what and whom would I be willing to so mark myself?
About ten years ago a good friend celebrated her 40th birthday by getting a tattoo-- a wolf, just over where she was guessing her ovary might be. I remember thinking that it was quite a cool way to celebrate that landmark, and wondering if I might not do something like that... kind of edgy.
A few years prior to that, I was swimming frequently at a local gym. As a result of that habit I was being confronted regularly with what I now recognize was my discomfort at being in the presence of women in various states of undress. One woman particularly intrigued me because of a tattoo she had: a thin ring of ivy around her ankle. I thought it was beautiful and quite alluring. At the same time, I couldn't quite see my way to making a plan to get one myself.
I have been thinking about these articles and memories this week, and it finally hit me that I have one memory of tattoos that goes back even further. I was 18 or 19, and I was in college in a big Northeastern city. I was, for the first time in my life, enjoying the kind of adventure and freedom that a small town girl experiences when she leaves the nest. I went to foreign films. I ate Chinese food for the first time (hilarious in retrospect... now as ubiquitous as McDonald's). I rode the subway. I saw homosexuals up close.
One night I was riding the subway, I assume with a friend, but I might have been on my own. We were going into the city-- to a concert? Play? Movie? Those specifics are lost to me now, but the following memory is vivid. Sitting across from me were two young women whom I figured out pretty quickly were lesbians . They didn't look any older than I was. They were dressed in a way my children now might describe as "goth" or "indie." They had lots of chains, and really short hair, and piercings in places I'd never seen before. And they both had the same tattoo-- a tattoo of a small chain, circling the fourth finger of their left hands.
I remember feeling a kind of stirring in myself... I was not, at that point in my life, prepared to seriously consider that I might be a lesbian, despite the fact that I'd known myself to have "those feelings" for other women at least since the age of 13. Still, I had this stirring, which I would describe as a mixture of desire and fear and longing. And the impossibility of it all. All because of seeing those tattoos.
I wonder where those young women are now, now that they are middle-aged lesbians? Are they still together (which, of course, would seem to have been the intention behind the tattoos that functioned as wedding rings)? Or, as with so many college-age relationships, are they each but a fond (or awful) memory for the other? And what do they feel now about marking themselves so dramatically for one another, for their love, in a world that was at least 25 years less willing than it is right now to acknowledge and celebrate it?
For what and whom would I be willing to so mark myself?
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
A Haiku: Thanks to Bill
I have hurt my hand--
I did it in the garden!
(I have no regrets).
(Edited for more riveting punctuation.)
I did it in the garden!
(I have no regrets).
(Edited for more riveting punctuation.)
A meme...
DIRECTIONS: I was sent this meme by a woman I know through
my church work. I thought I'd share it here.
1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? My parents decided my
brother and I would have the same initials as my dad; also
my middle name is the same as my mother's given name.
2. ARE YOU AN ONLY CHILD? NO
3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? It's ok.
4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Honey Turkey.
5. ARE THERE CHILDREN IN YOUR LIFE? Yes, 2 of my own plus
their friends, plus those from churches I have served,
plus plus plus
6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS
WITH YOU? I hope so...
7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Not as much as I used to.
8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? I was supposed to have
them out in 5th grade, but my mother worried about my voice
being changed, so... still have 'em.
9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? Ah, no. That would be "No."
10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Oat Squares
11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
No, only when I put them on.
12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Yes, stronger than I knew.
13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DRINK? Coffee, Coke, Chardonnay,
Cosmopolitan.
14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
Whether they are male or female (a shout out to Katharine Hepburn in
"Desk Set")
15. RED OR PINK? Red
16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
My selfishness.
17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? My mom, my fairy godmother.
18. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO DO THIS MEME? If they
can, if they'd like to-- on their own blogs, if they
have one, or in the comments. It could be fun!
19. WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING? Grey
sweats and white sneakers.
20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE? 1/2 cup part skim
ricotta mixed with 1/2 cup oats and 1 cup raspberries,
sweetened with sugar free caramel syrup (the kind people
put in their coffee)
21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? Birdsong,
refrigerator humming
22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Purple.
23. FAVORITE SMELLS bread baking, garlic sauteeing, fresh
grass, lilacs in bloom.
24. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE
PHONE? Pal to schedule lunch.
25. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? I like her
immensely AND I admire her. She is cool.
26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH? Baseball and tennis.
27. HAIR COLOR? Brown tinged with grey.
28. EYE COLOR? Blue
29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? No. But ask me if I wear glasses.
Yes. If I can see without my glasses? Yes, but I cannot read.
Not at all. Alarmed my children at a restaurant recently by
asking them to hold a menu far, far away from me so that I
could read it. My daughter ended up reading to me. Sad, this
middle age.
30. FAVORITE FOOD? Italian: spaghetti and meatballs;
Chinese: sesame chicken; homemade chocolate chip cookies.
31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS? Happy Endings all
the way.
32. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Lianna by John Sayles. Sort
of a happy/ sad ending
33. COLOR OF SHIRT YOU ARE WEARING? Aqua T-shirt.
34. SUMMER OR WINTER? Summer for weather, winter for in-
door coziness.
35. HUGS OR KISSES? Both, thank you.
36. FAVORITE DESSERT? Chocolate Chip cookies, apple crisp.
37. MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? The one who started it.
38. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Not sure.
39. WHAT BOOK(S) ARE YOU READING? "On Beauty" by
Zadie Smith, a novel inspired by E. M. Forster's "Howard's End"; and
"The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden Story of Jesus, His Royal Family
and the Birth of Christianity" by James Tabor. I recommend the first,
but don't recommend the second. The Tabor feels like a Geraldo Rivera
special-- very disappointing.
40. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? Laptop-- no mousepad.
41. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? TiVo'd "Desperate
Housewives" Season Finale. EDIE!!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!!
42. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SOUND? Ocean waves crashing.
43. WHAT IS THE FURTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Greece, when I was 15.
44. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? All things auditory--
music, language, imitation.
45. WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Philadelphia, PA.
46. WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING
BACK? Everyone and anyone.
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