Tag Archives: community

re-entering the chaos of radical love and belonging

[Photo description: a red and white sticker, young woman's face in profile surrounded by a red circle and the words "Don't give up the fight - Queer up your life"]Good morning, good morning. It’s not even seven here yet and already it looks like high noon outside, the sun making an enormously bright arc of the horizon. I close all the shades, trying to hold on to dark for a little bit longer. What do you do when you want to hold on to the dark?

I went too hard and too fast this weekend; the pendulum is swinging back from “constant engagement with others” to “go hide in a cave,” and I’m in Facebook withdrawal right now. Between following the organizing of a couple of outsider events during Gay Pride weekend (a Thursday Throwback “march” that ended up being a sweet gathering in Dolores Park of folks who all knew and loved one another in queer 90s San Francisco, and a Take Back the Dyke March march [note: that link’s NSFW] that was hastily and yet professionally thrown together when it was made known that the Dyke March was taking a new route and the community couldn’t get any answers as to why) and the Supreme Court ruling about marriage equality on Friday, I was on Facebook constantly. I get a little obsessive with it, refreshing my screen over and over, but not necessarily participating in any conversations as much as I’m just consuming, consuming, consuming. What’s happening? What did she say back to him? What do they think about this?

Yes, on Friday, it was powerful to watch everyone and their sister rainbow their Facebook profile pics in support of the newly-announced right of gay/queer folks to marry anywhere in the country, if they chose. All those rainbows felt like a virtual gay pride parade — and yet I kept reminding myself about the other side of the equation: “This isn’t in support of gay/queer folks generally — this is about marriage, about a particular and comfortable and romantic vision of togetherness. There’s lots about queer folks that mainstream America– and the mainstream gay community — still isn’t dealing with.”

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love your community on v day – believe and then take action

Good morning good morning. How is the morning where you are? Here the day is just dawning, and the air outside is a hazy, misty blue.

I have been trying to write about Dylan Farrow and her adoptive father and her resilient naming of his actions and the way the whole world has something to say to her about it. I want to write about how, when you tell your story, things get better — because of course, people believe you, people will listen, people will take action. But, of course, that’s not true. We know that’s not true. Many of us told, both directly and indirectly, and were not protected or were not believed.

It’s hard for me to write about this. The people tell me that I have to be articulate, calm, composed, and objective when I write or talk about sexual violence and sexual violators (otherwise I’m just another angry victim shooting off her mouth). If I speak about W.A. and his actions (both copped to, like marrying a very young woman who had been a surrogate child of his, and not copped to, like sexual abuse of an adoptive child), or if I speak about how horrifying it is that the Interweb wants me to understand that they’d very much LIKE to believe Dylan Farrow’s story, but, oh, look, she was a child who didn’t tell the story the same way every time, and, oh, look, her parents were involved in a really terrible custody battle and her mother was very, very angry, and oh, look, the conditions under which she was supposed to have been abused are totally unbelievable and oh, look, W.A. is a pretty great guy who makes all these films and has all these big Hollywood films who’s never been accused of child abuse *before* and oh, look, there was no physical evidence, and oh,look,the cops came and other authorities came and they investigated and they came to the conclusion that no charges should be pressed and that means that, sorry, Dylan Farrow is probably a liar but it’s not her fault because she was just a kid and she was being manipulated by a lying, scheming, money-grubbing, crazy mom — when I speak about all this, I have to be quiet and calm and composed about my response if I want anyone to listen to me.

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a world larger than the tight wound I’d come to inhabit

Good morning — it’s finally beginning to feel like “early” when I wake up. Today the alarm went off at 5, and I started that inside conversation:

you keep saying you want to get up early, come on, now

but I’m so tired. do I really have to get up?

It goes on like that for awhile; I won’t repeat all the parts.  Outside, it’s still quiet. Outside, it’s still dark. Here at my desk, I actually need the candle, and even though I’m yawning, I’m so glad to be here. I’ve missed the sense of being at the computer so early that I can barely remember what it is that I’m saying as I type it, and my head says: what are we doing here? and outside the birds are still asleep and, back up in the North Bay, this would be the time that the owls were talking to each other. No owls yet here in midtown Oakland. No deer either. The wildlife look different here.

Still, this is what I know: the earlier I can rise, the more writing I can do in the morning before I have to go in to “work.” Also, the earlier I’ll get tired, so the (ostensibly) easier it will be to get up and do it again tomorrow. Why am I telling you all of this? Because it’s early, and I’m tired. And I’m proud of myself for getting out of bed.

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This morning I am thinking about trauma and community, about intimacy and how we learn to find something like home in others after home turned out to be the unsafest place of all. Last night I went to hear my friend Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore read from her latest book, The End of San Francisco. It’s a novel memoir, wrangling with hope and possibility in communities that crumble, communities of folks who are all facing death all the time– Continue reading

witness in the aftermath of disaster

There were lilacs at the table where I worked on my novel this morning, which made the day smell like home — although back in Nebraska, the lilacs don’t start blooming until the end of April or May. (I couldn’t quite remember that and had to look it up; that’s how spoiled I’ve gotten by California and their green-wet winters and January-blooming daffodils and year-round gardens.)

I’m deep in morning sunshine, I’m listening to the kids shouting during gym class at the playground a block or so away, I’m watching the dog try and climb the fence after the squirrels. I’m trying to figure out why it matters for me to sit at this keyboard when there’s a garden to tend and a dog to throw the ball for, friends I need to call, muscles to stretch, grass to feel beneath my toes — I mean, when there’s real and embodied life to live, why am I here sitting in front of a screen, giving myself carpal tunnel (knock wood)?

I don’t want to write about Boston yet, so I go online and read a news story about yesterday’s bombings. I look at the map, red starbursts marking the sites where the IEDs exploded on Boylston Street. I haven’t been to that neighborhood for years, not since my last Boston Pride. I think about what it’s like when throngs of people are gathered in one place, and how terrifying it would be to have those masses suddenly panicking in fear for their own and their loved ones’ lives. I think about Martin Richard, an 8 year-old boy, and the other two people who died as a result of the explosions, and the over 170 people injured (many of whom lost limbs). I think about the trauma that everyone at the Marathon experienced, and how their lives are changed forever. Continue reading

Fierce Hunger — so much love.

Cover of Fierce Hunger chapbookGood morning (it’s still morning technically) — I have here a little cup of decaf coffee loaded up with cream and a sleepy pup and a full and achy heart. Is Monday welcoming you in with its tender arms? (I know Monday often feels more like a grabber — I just wondered about shifting that story a little.)

Today I feel softened and broken open and a little weepy. Writing Ourselves Whole’s tenth anniversary benefit and celebration on Saturday was a gorgeous success: a roomful of writers and friends, wonderful food and drink, and about fifty items donated for our silent auction and raffle! What an astonishing space we made together. Continue reading

when it’s time for independence

graffiti of a pocket watch (the hands read just past 12 o'clock) on a green background with a bird hovering, seated, just to the upper leftWhat a good morning is this morning: lovely cool morning air that promises to heat up as the sun fully takes over the evening damp; a puppy who gets to run in the park grass, gets to leap high in the air for her ball; morning pages and candlelight alongside green-anise-cardamom tea.

What happens when it’s time for something new? When it’s time to claim independence from some part of yourself, to allow another part of yourself to rise?

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sharing our ink

the Dirty Ink logo, a woman lying on a pen, weilding a whip of words

the fabulous Dorian Katz's gorgeous logo for Dirty Ink! Click on the image to check out more of Dorian's work...

In just a day or so, I’ll be on tour with the Body Heat: Queer Femme Porn tour. This is the fifth iteration of this tour, and the fourth one I’ve participated in.

It’s strange for me, to have this be a normal thing to say: “Yeah, I won’t be here for that event, I’ll be on tour.” On tour? Me? How did that happen?

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Safetyfest 2011 is less than a month away!

Promo Poster for Safetyfest 2011 - April/Abril 14-17, 2011

Mark your calendars: CUAV’s second annual Safetyfest is coming, April 14-17!

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we could work there together, we could support each other

graffiti of a bee nestling into red clover

check out this fantastic commissioned graffiti in Inverness!

Gorgeous first meeting of the Fall ’10 Write Whole workshop last night — one of those meetings that leave me so damn grateful to get to be in this work. Declaring Our Erotic starts on Thursday night: pass the word, will you? That’s going to be a joyful space!

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writing hands are strong hands (a new workshop begins tonight)

freedom/graffiti calligraphyVery sleepy here at my morning writing desk.  I have a cup of strong decaf brewed with cardamom and a dash of stevia — so no added sugar! I have Groove Salad slowly waking my auditory self, singing me into this Monday morning.  I have a messy desk, receipts to file, notebooks to type up, seeds to plant, and little notes on torn scraps of paper holding topics I want to write about.

A new workshop starts tonight, another group of folks coming together to dive into their creative selves, to make space in their lives for words-in-community, words that get to commingle with other(s’) words, words that feed and are fed upon dreams and synchronicity.

I get nervous at this moment, when the workshop’s just about to begin, when we all don’t know or remember each other yet, when we’re re-finding our way to our inner songs. This sounds a little simplistic maybe.  What I know is, the nervousness is about possibility, about my learning this particular chorus of voices and energies about to come together.

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