it is daylight
it is daylight
Hallo,
Thanks for sticking around with my subst-ach. I’m reaching out to send a lil writing I did this summer, and to share an invitation to my friends who read along.
Time and distance are strange. I miss you all, even folks I see every day. I want more leisure with beloveds. I think about you all the time.
This past June I took a virtual lesbian writing class through the Warman School, taught by LA Warman. Most folks in the class lived in New York state, with a few of outliers. The only people zooming in from the West Coast were my recent ex and me. We met weekly on Sundays.
From February through May, I attended a political education class on Sundays. I’ve been without a church since July, and I haven’t been managing as well.
LA would share out a weekly writing prompt in advance of class. After the first class, she sent us a prompt to write about our lesbian ancestors. Here was my response:
I’ve never felt connected to ancestors. Three of my grandparents were dead before I was born. The fourth one was my mom’s mom. When I was small, I would eavesdrop on my mother as she called her. Every time they spoke, my mother would cry. I secretly wished that my grandmother would die, so the tears would end. I didn’t know back then how much sweeter it is to cry to someone than about them. I finally met my grandmother when I was 8. She was in her casket, and I was in a strange country at a funeral held in a language I didn’t speak.
I’ve always felt like that when I hear people moan about the past. It’s not that I don’t respect it, just that I don’t understand. There’s no one in my family who’s gay, no secret relative. And of course, statistically, probably, someone in my lineage was a little fruity. But, I don’t know. That possibility doesn’t inspire me.
My junior year in college I lived in an apartment once shared by Jeannette Marks and Mary Wooley, a famed dyke couple from my alma mater. Marks and Woolley met as student and teacher, and were together for 48 years. My two roommates at the time were in long term relationships, and the apartment usually smelled of sex. That year A broke my heart, I broke E’s and M’s hearts, and I fell in love with F. I talked a lot about Marks and Woolley, but most days I didn’t feel their presence.
Jean Baxter was the first one to tell me about Jean Rosenthal. When you work in the theater, Rosenthal’s name is slang for “hey, you’re a dyke, right?”. Rosenthal elevated theater lighting into an art form. She brought an eroticism to the work, using odd lights to highlight the curves of the performers. While she was only ever publicly single, Rosenthal had many significant relationships with women who publicly devoted themselves to her, both in the theater and in the home.
When Jean Baxter and I met, she was 64 and I was 23. I had just started a new job, and was in my new office when she stomped in. Upon first meeting, she ridiculed me for my age and my pronouns. She was there to make it clear to me that everything that surrounded me was all thanks to her. She had built this dance production department from the ground up 30 years prior, and as far as she was concerned, she could walk in any time and tell me what to do. I hated her immediately.
3 months later, she and I would stay late in the theater together, talking about our hopes and desires, all the anger we held, and our admiration for the artists we were working with. Jean listened to me intently, and praised me for being tough and protective. She liked that I talked back to her, no matter how scary she got. Jean Baxter was such an intense chain smoker that all the paperwork she brought to rehearsal would smell like cigarettes, even days later. Jean talked to me about love. She told me I should look for someone who brought me dinner during rehearsals and walked around with a large ring of keys. Jean was not a lesbian, and had found that love in George, a carpenter who built her anything she dreamed of. When I decided to leave Western Massachusetts, Jean said I should move to San Francisco. She died a year after I moved, and I was too poor to attend her funeral.
I believe so much in the power of people and community. I know that spirits surround us, and speak to us in strange ways. I love the elders who have paved the way for me, and I hold dear the guidance and care that’s been shared with me. But when I see myself in the world, I see myself alone. My room is an altar to myself. I write about my world and my connection to it. I know I should be worshipping my ancestors, but instead I worship myself, and the present surrounding me. Who can do this work if not me?
A Prompt
If you’d like to contribute, please send to me by September 28, my 30th birthday :)
The Ach st-ach is b-ach!