once a long time ago, i read on a blog, "i am a lesbian but thats not all i am". i was then just teetering on the edge coming out as a lesbian. back then, although i understood what she was saying, i was completely drowning in that one dimension of my identity. i knew then i was more than also but such turmoil tends to shrink your field of vision. it is scary and exciting and anticipatory and it is exhausting.
i am almost 5 years out now. some things look differently in my life. some things are the same. but i revel in the knowledge that i am a lesbian and in the knowledge that i really am more than just... my field of vision has grown to include the wide open spaces of life's endless possibilies.
for those of you who know me, you will be able to find the familiar places of my old writings which i will have on the sidebar. for those who stumble upon me and find yourself confused by fragmented references or are struggling to come out later in life, you will find the Closer to Fine link most helpful. I recommend reading it from the beginning, it makes more sense.
one more thing, blame my lack of capital letters on e.e. cummings...
I got your message. I was out late working on building sets for the Outlaw Trail Theater play “Wizard of Oz”. They put me in charge of designing & building a Platform 5 feet high with stairs and a trap door with counterbalance allowing the Wicked witch to descend appearing to melt. I hope I don’t kill her in front of all those people. I should be more careful what I ask for. But really I am flattered by the faith they have in me. See you…….Dad
i remember as a girl, my girlfriends and i would call boys we liked and waited for him to pick up the phone and then we would hang up. squealing with delight and burying our heads in our pillows and giggling with delight. we knew they knew it was a call from a slumber party because back then everyone knew what everyone was doing. anytime i had a slumber party, we would sleep out in our trailer and the whole world knew we were out there. water balloons would go flying.... scary scratches on the side of the trailer, and sometimes, sometimes, if we were really lucky, some of the really cutest boys would be hiding in the bushes and calling out our names. we would quietly sneak out and we would stand in the beautiful moonlight in our best pj's and our hair done and make up perfectly touched up.
rarely did any of us get a kiss by one of them but there was always that thick sexual attraction, the intentional touch of a shoulder, muffled giggles and the heat of the sidewalk that would warm you from your toes to your face. but at a blink of an eye, a car came down the street or a sound of a door opening from the house and we scattered and the night was over. but what a wonderful night it had been... we had a time.
life isn't so easy now. you can't call up boys just to hear their voices. it started with *69. (seriously, with as uptight as our society is i am surprised they didn't make them change it. but again we as a society was still naive. is it possible that our parents didn't "get it", right? the sexual connotation? or were we unaware that there wasn't anything new under the sun? then of course, caller ID and after that the mystery was over. well unless you were smart enough to know how to make the caller ID say " UNKNOWN NAME UNKNOWN NUMBER". but most of us were/are savvy enough to know that an ID like that just doesn't get picked up.
so now, when you desperately want to hear the voice of someone who you love but hates you, there is nothing you can do. prank phone calls... seriously... dead and buried. its sad sometimes because in the middle of the night there are numbers i long to call just to hear the voice on the other end of the phone. i don't want anything from them. i don't want to rekindle a fire that gave us 3rd degree burns in the first place. i don't want to reminisce over the "good ole days" cause the truth is, they weren't all that good. they just were. they belonged to us. i just long to hear their voice, know they are living and breathing and still a real person.
often i laugh at the innocence of the midnight sleepover clandestine meetings. they were so exciting, i would love to experience that once again.... a rock against my window or a voice whispering my name and sneaking out to sit in the shadows and flirt and feel sneaky and delinquent. sadly, i don't think those things exist anymore. they are called "booty calls" and have a lot more intent than any of us ever imagined the meeting to be. but god, in those days we really did have a time... we really had a time.
writers of all sorts and poets of all styles write with passion and longing and despair over lost loves. we read them and we feel all the pain, the desire, the death of an unwanted ending. but we are so far away from their time, their place. we can only speculate on the who was behind the death throws of unrequited or unattainable passion. we just cloak ourselves in the melancholia and tear up at the grace of the author as he/she explains how his/her heart dies. hope dies. dreams die. they are untouchable with thesplendor and safety ofantiquity.
we can't say "oh yeah, that was mary and ethel down the street.... gossip gossip gossip" we cant talk about the blood flowing out of their veins over a moment in time IF we realize that life just hurts too much and we want a way out. my god the gossip and horrible names one would be called if one fell so low that one would harm themselves. what would be a tragic romance from 100 years ago, would be turned into a situation where one can mock, or pass over in indifference with a shot of whiskey at a local venue. it will not be poetry to them. if they have the least amount of humanity they would try to reach out, if they were able. call authorities, if they were able. but would anyone stop to assimilate the emotion, understand the fine line we all walk, would anyone be honest with their friends about our hidden similarities? would anyone stand up for the need the author has to tell the story. by God i hope someone would at least sadly shake their head once before ordering another round and then changing the subject to something more comfortable. not many would read it over and over again, feeling the chill of the scepter by the sea, the crashing of the resounding waves surrounding his beloved Annabell Lee. Not without a snuggy anyway.
the literature, the style, the time that has passed has robbed us today from waxing poetic, speak of a love that will kill slowly from the heart. or cause the mournful indian maiden to to jump to her death from Mt Timpanogos. or a maiden who could jump to her death from any bridge that speaks to her. now if we read anything of that nature, especially if we "know" them, they risk ridicule. i wonder if 100 years from now, someone will, being far removed from any connection between the characters might read the story, poem, essay or cry for help and instead of rolling their eyes, will internalize and empathize and remember strangers who loved, lost and felt the emptiness that being human is able to experience among those brave enough to put pen to paper.
nina
Are we bound for glory?
sadly we may never know
until the light fades
completely from our eyes...
