Opposum

I saw the possum before.  I liked his feet.  I think people wanted to throw rocks at him.  He was where he didn't belong.  When everyone went away he came down.


I saw him on a night.

He was dying.  And I pulled over and I blocked traffic!

And I couldn't take one more thing I couldn't fix.

I couldn't fix.

It wasn't his time to stand.

The police came and they did not protect him.  I dialed numbers like in dream and there was no one to help him. It was up to me but I couldn't.


I saw him tonight.

In the hurricane rain I had listened to all day.

Dry.  He stood nose to nose with the hunter.

And he was safe.

"O-B-E-D . . . " WTF?

"Obedience is the very best way

To show that you believe:

Doing exactly what the Lord commands,

Doing it happily.

Action is the key--do it immediately,

Joy you will receive!

Obedience is the very best way

To show that you believe."


Well that's just groovy if "the Lord" has been sending you clear messages written in the sky in three point outlines. I can't help but wonder if those three point outlines weren't actually the ones contained in editorial sermons and that was what we were supposed to be following exactly, immediately, and happily. It's a heck of a lot less abstract that way.

In my parenting, I'm kinda dropping the word "obey" from our discussion, at the very least for right now. It might be more for my frame of mind than for hers, I'm not sure yet. I just, personally, am not seeing where obedience is a useful adult skill. I working constantly on respect and gentleness. So a lot of "obeying" stuff falls into those for us. And I think a lot of the rest can be categorized as following instructions - I think that's an important adult skill for her. I want her to think independently. I think adults choose every day what rules they will obey and which ones they won't. I don't drive over 9 miles over the speed limit because it's not worth the consequences. I do indulge in buying raw milk. So this morning instead of saying, "I need you to obey." I said "I need you to follow these instructions right away." I'm not putting it out there as a parenting philosophy for everyone, I've never parented anyone other than my child, but I think this might work better for my baggage and for her need for very clear, non abstract language. And I'm not very stuck on the idea that the KJV (1611) uses the word "obey" or that my biggest parenting goal is to teach her to "obey" God.

I think, whatever God is, there is a lot more room for learning and feeling and nudging and responding and finding your "alignment with truth", and then following that - sniffing your way along, "Oops not that way, where did that track go? There it is, there it is!", than that song ever hinted.

 I don't think that song was ever about God actually. 

To My Young LBGTQ Brothers and Sisters on Spirit Day

** unable to credit this as I borrowed this from a friend who found it elsewhere - if you know who this belongs to I would love to give credit where it is due

Belief and Beauty

Belief And Beauty

Belief and beauty and truth.
(these I hold)
That the earth is rounding and thankfull -
That it is full and greeting.
Like the smell of coffee -
And the bright eyes of children running.
Change and hope and seasons and dismay -
The beauty of trees, as bear as an old man.
Long established customs like the human greeting -
Laughter and humanity and meaning and dignity
An ideal world of memory and warmth
An ideal world of hope against hope

Alan Johnstone

Used with permission from Ethan Johnstone
Photography and Tattoo by JJ Ohlinger of Relentless Tattoo

In Case You Missed The Announcement I'm Gay, "It Gets Better" Is For You, Melissa Etheridge Lyrics, And Other Thoughts On National Coming Out Day.

I'm gay.  I'm queer.  I'm (gasp!) a lesbian, though that's the description with which I am least comfortable.   It says less, I think, about who I am.  In case you missed that announcement, I don't want to leave anybody in the dark.  It IS National Coming Out Day, after all.  And there is a lot to be said for coming out, both for personal wholeness and for the bigger picture - for saying out loud "THIS is what gay (queer, bisexual, transgendered . . . ) looks like.  I'm not a political position.  I'm not a theory.  This is me."

I can't imagine National Coming Out Day though ever not being, for me, about the people who aren't out.

Two years ago today I sent tons of love to my brave beautiful sister.  And I tried to stand up as an ally and a supporter, and inside I ached, physically ached, to be able to say "Me too!".

One year ago I posted a picture on Facebook of myself wearing my bright pink "OUT" hoodie with the tag "NCO Day 2011".  I couldn't catch my breath as I hit "Post".  I purposely did it just before I left the house for the evening so that I couldn't monitor the reactions in real time.  My heart pounded while I was away.  And, ironically, almost no one caught it.  In fact I don't think anyone who didn't already know learned that I was gay that day.  I mean, come on, it's a blurry picture and "NCO" is pretty vague.

Today my Facebook cover photo is the first picture I publicly shared of me kissing a woman - the woman I adore.   (And it includes three gorgeous dogs and the little girl who lights up my life.  Just sayin'.)   This year I get to write this blog.  This year my friends list is different, and my "irl" friend list is even more different.  And I am so flipping grateful to be here.

Because I don't think brave people come out and people who don't have the guts to live honestly stay in the closet.  I believe I am blessed to be at a place and live in a world where I have everything I need to BE ABLE to live life authentically.  I believe as Melissa Etheridge sings "every day I lived in hell I chose to stay", but I also believe that the moment that I had the love, the strength, the people, the hope to come out -- that was the day I started that journey.  And it took courage and strength and tears and all I had,  it took so much of me that I can't even comprehend it all yet, but there also was no other choice.  The day everything was in a place I could do nothing BUT begin the baby steps I had to take.

And too many places in the world, in the South, and in my dear closeted friend's homes, it's not safe to come out.  There are people starving for authenticity who can't do it yet.  So that's what National Coming Out Day means to me.  It's the day I remember them, I remember me, and I want to send them, and me,  all the love in the world.  I want to tell them this:  I watched those "It Gets Better" videos.  I saw the pictures.  And I WISHED they applied to me.  I thought they were for the people who were brave enough to come out - who were on that journey and were struggling.  And they are for them.  But they were also for me.  They were for the girl who chose to spend one more day in hell because she couldn't face rejection, and loss of friends, and loss of support from the people she leaned on the hardest, the girl who wasn't ready yet to lose everything she knew because she didn't yet know that, if she let go of the cliff edge she was hanging from, the ground was only a few feet away.   I didn't know that these two things were both true -- It was going to hurt more before it got better, AND living the way I needed to right then, hiding that huge chunk of me, was already the hardest thing I'd ever have to do.

And I live in the US of A.  I can't wrap my mind around the plight of my glbt family around the world who have so much more to lose.

So that's my post.  I'm out.  I'm gay.  To my LGBTQ family who aren't out - oh heavens, I love you!  I remember how this day hurt.  It's ok.  Be where you are.  And when everything you need is in place, you'll walk out into this gorgeous sunny world and all the love you need will be here for you.  All that love is already wrapped around you right now where you are.  I hope you feel it today.

(Photograph by Austin Robert Photography)

Writing the Body

The title isn't original, it was stuck in my brain and jumped up, volunteering, when I started typing.   I was craving writing, probably due to the nudging of the oh so lovely Christy from Seeds and Weeds.  If you don't know her you might wanna fix that.

Tonight I celebrate with my dear friends at One Wheaton.   I can't help but think about last year.

The sign, since you probably can't read it, says "Rooted in Baptism".   Under that sign are we, students past and present, of Christian colleges and universities who gave years of our lives and large chunks of money because we believed learning who God is was worth both our years and our money.

I took this picture because I knew that where I was then was not where I would always be.

You can see the bandaid just under my hem.  This is what it covered.

Actually it was worse that night.

This is the outside view of what the inside felt like -- turning the inside pain of rejection, of questioning, of people rewriting my story into outward pain.  Outward pain is easier.  That spot between your ribs, just above your stomach --  it is so much harder to hold the pain there.

That night was cool sweet love on my burns, the inside ones.  More importantly than anything else in the world, I wasn't alone.

One year ago we sat under that sign, rooted in baptism.





This is now.

This is now.

This is now.

You don't have to change a thing.  

“to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.”
Ellen Bass

The Way It Is

The first thing I do
When consciousness touches me, early morning
Before I open my eyes
Is figure out what day it is.


Is it Friday?  Am I taking her away today?


No.  It's Sunday.  She's coming back.
I breathe.


Sunday morning,  better even than Sunday night.
When I tuck her in tonight I will already count
How many more tucking ins I have
Until Friday.


Call me nuts,
It's just the way it is right now.

Superfluous

When she was tiny and needy someone asked to hold her and then, when she cried for me, wouldn't give her back.  Go relax, they said.  She's fine, they said.

And now.  He decides when I have her.  When he's ready he'll give her back.  If she cries, if she needed me, the softer one when he is harsh, when Daddy needs to be stern, well that's too bad.  She'll be ok.  She'll cry without me.  She'll be perfectly fine.

And I should relax.  I should enjoy the time.  Because I do need it.  I've become the one who does the stuff.  Who gets her ready for appointments.  Who wrestles to get out the door on time.  Who makes her get to bed.  Who says no more treats.   And they are the ones who play.  Until she is too wound up and rough or unkind or overtired.  And then I'm not there.

Somewhere between asleep and awake I was telling someone about the things we'd done. The memories we shared.  "When did he die?", they asked

And I take anxiety meds to make me let go.  To let go of being Mom who I've learned for almost 7 years how to be.  The mom I need to be.  Because there's no room left to be that mom.  Now I have to be the one who says, "Yes, you're right."  Laughs.  And walks away.  She'll be fine.



Tomorrow is a holiday.  So tonight she leaves again.  

A day.

Too hot to have the windows open.

Closed up, shrinking, waiting for the heat

Turned into one

With every door open wide

Welcoming the rain, the cool breeze, the thunder

The clean air.

Open, open.  It's ok right now.

Take it in.  

Bleed

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

 So said Ernest Hemingway, at least according to Facebook. I'm not taking time to fact check, I'd rather just say "Right on!". Or maybe "Write on."

 There's a funny thing about bleeding. It's messy. So not only are you dealing with the pain and the actual trauma, now you also have a mess to clean up. The point of bleeding though, I'm told, is to clean the wound. That makes sense with a small cut. With a large injury, the kind where bleeding becomes the issue, where one may in fact bleed to death, that can hardly be the point.

 So here's the blood. It's messy, it may be cleansing, but at this moment I just want to find a way to stop the bleeding because I'm afraid I might die.

 The other thing about blood. It gets people's attention. You can hurt for a long time and no one sees it. The moment there's blood everywhere, it's everyone's business.