A Broad Perspective

**I tried to write something funny this week, but everything I wrote was forced and insincere. There must be something in the air...maybe it's because it's January and all the New Year’s Resolutions are still lingering in the brainwaves, maybe it's the reflection that has come with our historic inauguration of change (aka President Obama), or maybe it's because when it gets cold outside we (I refuse to believe that I'm the only single lesbian that does this) neglect the non-fictional world that sits right outside our front door and cuddle up inside with (liquored-up) coffee and stimulating books. (I have been reading a lot of memoirs lately...reading a story about how other people have lived their life inevitably brings anyone to that unavoidable stage of reflection.) Whatever it might be, the funny just wasn't/isn't there...so, it’s another week of reflective rumination on my lesbian life. (Next weekend I'm being set up with a much older lady by my very straight and conservative friend, who believes that every time she meets a less-than liberal lesbian, the said lesbian must be the perfect lesbian for me...these set-ups are usually disastrous...I will most likely have something funny to write about next week.)**

I love women! I love everything about them. I love how one minute they can be sweet and considerate, then the next minute they're pissed and hostile, and then in the next minute they're witty and playful. I love the glow that you see in a woman's eyes right after she has done something empowering or something that has involved an extraordinary amount of strength. I love how expressive women's mannerisms can be and how when you know a woman really well her mannerisms are all you need to see to understand exactly how she's really feeling. I love the way that women play with their hands when they're nervous. I love the shape a woman's face takes when she's learning something for the first time. I love how when you meet a compassionate woman, you can see that compassion run through every vein in her body. I love that women have the capacity to be gentle and strong at the exact same moment.

I could go on for days, but all of this is not to be confused with my self-declaration for lesbianism; I loved women far before I knew that I was a lesbian. The authentic admiration that I possess for women has little to do with my desire to see them naked.

Nobody was surprised when I came out, and not just because I wear sensible shoes or know how to fix...anything, but because I have always relished in any chance I got to be around a woman. I assumed that my fascination with women stemmed from a place of inspiration and awe, and while I now understand that it was more than that, I don't think that my homosexual realization takes away from the genuineness that I felt towards women. I've always surrounded myself by really strong women, and all in the hopes that their strength would somehow rub off on me. I ate up (hey-oh) any book that I could find about empowered women and when I came across a woman that possessed a personality trait that I, myself, wanted to maintain, I would make sure that I was in her company; I would notice how that woman approached situations, I would ask her questions, and I would emulate all of her movements...thus, I've had really amazing female role models in my life.

Here's comes the reflective rumination that I was talking about earlier. My ability to pick strong and empowering female role models hasn't seemed to translate into an ability to pick strong and empowering girlfriends. When the potential to get to know a woman also involves the potential for an orgasm, all of my sound judgement about women goes out the window. I had good judgement in women before I knew that I was a lesbian and now I'm having a difficult time shifting that judgement into romantic lesbian endeavours. I don't want to be the kind of lesbian that over thinks every dating choice AND I want to be a woman of intention...I usually follow my "go-with-the-flow" behavior, until I wake up a week later and think, "What are you doing? You know that this is not the girl for you."

After twenty-two years of strict sexual repression, sex can become a considerable hang-up in a unseasoned lesbian's life. There's a thin line between having an intentionality about sex and not letting sex become a massive preoccupation to your love life. I'm not really one for rules, I find them limiting and claustrophobic, but I've decided to institute this rule about sex. When I meet a girl that I'm attracted to emotionally and intellectually, I'm going to wait until at least the second date to fuck her; now this isn't to say I'm going to throw out ONSs or women who come into my life for the pure and simple reason of sex, but if it's a woman that engages more than my carnality, then I'm going to wait. At least for now.

P.S. If you're a writer or want to be a writer or like to read about writing, I'm going to recommend a book that I read this week...It's one of the best books I've read about writing and I've read a lot of books about writing. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott...check it out.

What the Fuck Sam Adams?

I interrupt normal blogging this week to bring you my frustrations about Portland's mayor, Sam Adams. Adams became mayor on New Year's Day this year, making Portland the largest U.S. city ever with an openly gay mayor and Sam Adams is the coolest mayor in the world. The first time I met Sam was at a fashion show I was in called "Junk to Funk", where we wore fashion outfits made out of recycled material and this bad ass man hosted the event in a pair of pants made out of old tires... have you ever seen your mayor in rubber pants? Yeah, that's what I thought. Sam hosted the local drag show competition and sang karaoke at a recent GLBTQ event, he's a cool motherfucker. Portland started to pride itself in the idea that our mayor was a hip, cool dude that cared about the people of his city and had a genuine desire to make it a better place.

After being in office only 20 days, our very gay mayor pulled a Bill Clinton and admitted to lying about a sexual relationship he had with an 18 year old intern. What the fuck Sam Adams? In a press release issued on Tuesday, Adams admitted that he lied to cover up his relationship with a teenage legislative intern because a potential mayoral candidate had spread rumors that Adams had sex with a minor and that he lied because he was afraid voters wouldn't believe that his young lover had turned 18 before they started having sex. The irony around all of this is that the Oregon Constitution has a stipulation in it that prohibits mayoral recall in the first six months that the mayor is in office. (It was put in the constitution nearly 100 years ago so that poor losers couldn't recall their competitors.) All the people that are pissed about having a gay mayor, or a sexually promiscuous mayor, can't do shit about it for another five months and Sam Adams has been adamant about stating that he is going to stay in office, deal with the aftermath of his decisions, and not resign.

Every time that I feel like we make strides as a community to feel and be respected, something fucks it up. I have no problem with Sam Adams dating an 18 year old; what sucks is that we just keep adding to the list of things for straight people to throw back in our faces. Seriously Sam Adams, what the fuck? Couldn't you have just kept your mouth shut? In all fairness to Sam, at least he's going to be a man and stick out the consequences.

Breaking Bread and Bones

** DISCLAIMER: I’m going to talk about religion. I don’t want to offend/alienate/whatever and I’m not interested in turning this into a religious blog, but it’s what’s on my mind…so I’m going to blog about it; just take it for what it is. **

It has been exactly 21 months, two weeks, and a day since I have had communion. The last time I broke bread was on Maundy Thursday of 2007 and there are days, like the days that I have had lately, where it feels like yesterday. I knew, wholeheartedly and with a very clear and pure intent, that when I took communion on April 2nd 2007, it would be the last time that I would take communion for a very long time. It sounds dramatic, (and as a lesbian I accept that I make situations more dramatic than they sometimes need to be) but the drama was very real for me. My whole life; every thought process, every movement that resulted from my thoughts, and every life decision that I made, was explicitly tied to how I could best serve the church and how I could be the best person FOR the church.

I knew, from a very young age, that I wanted to go into full-time ministry. When I was seven, I wanted to be a monk, but my mom told me that I couldn’t be a monk, because I was a girl and girls couldn’t be monks. (Oh, and I wasn’t Catholic.) When I was ten, I wanted to move to Africa and teach children how to read and write, but my dad told me that it was too dangerous for girls to go to Africa without a husband. (I also knew, from a very young age, that I never wanted to be married; turns out I just didn’t want to marry a man.) When I was fifteen, I wanted to convert to Judaism, learn Hebrew, and travel the world converting Jews into “Jews for Jesus”, but my youth pastor told me that women’s roles in the Jewish faith tradition were much more limiting than those in the Christian faith tradition, and that if I wanted to take on a leadership role, I would have to do it from a Christian platform.

This is what I don’t get; (I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now) if we are to believe that God is limitless, then where did we get the idea that we should limit how people serve? When I chose to go to seminary at eighteen, I did so with the honest purpose of wanting to change that irrational and vain ideal. I did, and still very much do, believe that knowledge is the clearest, most effective, and most integrity-full (I know that’s not a word) way to foster change. My desire to create change was pure and simple… enable people to believe in the church as a tool to support them fully in their relationship with (insert your word of choice here: God, g-d, Jesus, faith, religion, doctrine, each other, scripture, spirituality, etc.), not as a place to pillage them of their dreams and solitary thoughts.

When you graduate with a religious degree and you truly invest yourself in your education, you become one of two things: incredibly strong or incredibly fake. When you spend four years writing papers about the historical reliability of the Gospel of John and you learn how to translate the New Testament for yourself (and you learn that modern day translation is iffy at best), you lose any hope of keeping your childhood faith. That is ultimately the entire point of seminary… to come out stronger on the other side. When I was sitting in the pew on that Maundy Thursday nearly two years ago, I had what people call a light bulb moment. To make a very long story short, I realized that I couldn’t do it anymore, that I couldn’t be the person to make those changes in the church. I wasn't willing to let myself become fake and I wasn't strong enough to keep going. I realized that I was going to have to break off all ties with church, scripture, sacrament, doctrine, and all of those things that come with the structure of faith if I ever wanted the possibility of a relationship with faith in the future.

When you break a bone, you have to leave it alone if you want it to mend. You put it in a cast or a sling and you don’t mess with it because it needs time to heal on its own. Have you ever noticed that bones are the only thing that we follow this kind of procedure for? Why is that? Seriously! Why? (This applies in particular to lesbians...we're not good at leaving things alone.) Well, leaving it alone is how I decided to handle my “break-up” with religion. I put all my church books in a box. I learned how to play secular songs on the piano. I took myself off all the Christian email lists. I didn’t go back for my senior year of school. And I have, completely, left religion alone so that it can heal on its own. I've been treating communion like it was a broken bone and I have the faith that things will heal...I'm just going to leave things to be and let faith repair itself.

P.S. I bought a new razor this week, cause I think that I'm finally ready to get back in the game and a girls got to be prepared, and it rocked my world…The Venus Divine…It is super amazing for those sensitive spots!

Dangerous Crossings

I love to be inspired and I come across inspiration quite easily. A simple sentence, a sincere sentiment, or a tiny token can toss me into the throws of insight and illumination without a hint of apology or justification. No matter how many times I feel inspired, it never gets old and it never losses its importance. I rarely think twice about letting a book speak to me. I try not to rationalize contradictory inspirations. I strive to follow my own inspirational road and I don't let myself limit who and/or what I'm inspired by.

I've been inspired by the Bible, Seinfeld, and Breakfast at Tiffany's. I've been inspired by Gandhi, Frances McDormand, the preschoolers in the church nursery, the man who gave birth to his families child and the woman who supported and loved him. I've been inspired by the women who came before me, so that I didn't have to fight to learn. I've been inspired by people who think differently than me, so that I get the chance to learn and to fight for what I think is important. I've been inspired by people that I've never meet and by people who know me better than I know myself. Inspiration comes easily for me, and not always in the most conventional ways, but always in an unrelenting way.

I am also somebody that loves to jump. I am no stranger to, nor am I afraid of, jumping off gigantic (life)cliffs or following a sudden idea without excessive (or if I'm honest, it's often with any kind of) processing and/or rehashing. I like to move my feet and I have a genuine desire to do everything, so naturally I welcome the big jumps. I think big, so I move in big ways; and no mental or physical obstruction stops me from jumping down the next life path.

I had no idea, absolutely NO IDEA, that I was gay until I absolutely knew that I was gay. At 21, I decided to leave the church and to truly figure out, for my absolute self, who I wanted to be and what I wanted to stand for. I decided to embrace every thought that came into my head and to not edit my thoughts or worry about what others would think about the actions that came from those thoughts. One day I was shopping in a department store and I saw this woman and I thought, "Damn, I'd like to fuck the shit out of her!" WHOA. STOP. BACK THE BUS UP. WHAT WAS THAT AGAIN? Immediately I thought to myself, "That is an interesting and unique and unexpected thought, I should pay attention to that." I did pay attention to those thoughts....and three days later, I was a lesbian (and accepting, for myself, that I'm gay is the best thing that I've ever done).

I love that I'm somebody that finds big inspiration in the little things and I love that I'm somebody that jumps into exactly who she wants to be; however, when these two personality traits cross at the same time, it can be dangerous...and by "can be dangerous", I mean its a "DANGER WILL ROBINSON DANGER" "HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM" "DID HE FIRE SIX SHOTS OR ONLY FIVE?" kind of dangerous. When random inspirations and sudden movements meet, then I'm either jumping into something for the sake of jumping or I don't know what I'm really jumping into or I'm leaving behind things that I big-time value. When I am feeling inspired by Alice B., while at the same time I'm feeling the desire to jump into something, then I'm jumping into pot brownies and domesticated chores and a lifestyle that, frankly, I can't afford. Add to this my very Type-B personality and...well...there isn't much room for stability.

I'll be honest and tell you that I used to rationalize all this by telling myself that I wanted (read:needed) to find a partner that could offer me that stability. When I think about that idea now it makes me squirm, because I don't want to be someone who relies on others to exhibit the traits that I want to value. If I value something, I want to have the strength to exhibit it myself. I can't ignore the fact that it's time for me to become a grown-up, but I also don't want to lose the things that I really love about myself. Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking and dreaming about the future and I want it to be a good future. I want to have a fantastic wife and fantastic kids. I want to be a writer that inspires people to be better. I want to be a genuinely good person. I want to be a grown-up that values stability, without losing my quirky, crazy, chaotic, hyper, neurotic self.

I don't have any answers for all of this; I just know that I want my dreams to come true and that something is going to have to change if I want the chance to live out those dreams.

P.S. An author from the mid-1800's, Henry David Thoreau, (he wrote "Civil Disobedience") is one of my favorite authors and I read this quote by him this week that's been making me think a lot lately...I thought I'd share: "Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."...yeah, intense right?!

Dirty Kind of Make-Believe

The New Year makes me think about fairytales (…and oddly enough, I don’t think it’s just me…every time that I turned the computer on this week, I ran into another blog entry/op-ed piece about Disney Princesses…anyways…) I think that the New Year makes me think about fairytales because the New Year reminds me of what it feels like to dream; to dream like you did when you were little, when there was no understanding of limitation. I was a childhood dreamer, but I was never very interested in or entertained by fairytales. I never dressed up as Cinderella for Halloween. I never made my little brother rescue me from the top of the bookshelf. Frankly, I never really understood why I was supposed to look up to an illiterate, ditzy mermaid.

Before I start ranting and raving about Disney princesses, allow me to back up and offer some context. As a kid, I grew up in an extreme, fundamentalist Christian community in Texas; being openly cynical about fairytales wasn’t really an option for me. I was implicitly taught that the only dreams worth dreaming were the pre-approved dreams offered to me and that those dreams would be mine just as long as I colored in the lines, didn’t cause any trouble, listened in Sunday School, and didn’t question…anything. I had no interest in being a Disney Princess, but I also had no interest in being rebellious, so I played nice and made a really funny make-believe step-sister. At eighteen, I went to college to study to be a minister and I chose to go to the most (“most” might be an exaggeration, but there’s no way to tell) conservative Christian college in the country; where I was the only (this is not an exaggeration, I was the ONLY) female in the Bible department and the only female at this college for the pure reason of getting an education. {My thought process in this situation: If I was really going to make a difference in the church, I wanted to understand where the people who thought differently than I did were coming from (and what better way to understand them than to learn from them) and if I could hold my own in this school, then I could hold my own in any religious setting…suffice it to say that I didn’t hold my own, but this is all for another time} Every female friend I made at that college was unabashedly there for her “M.R.S. Degree” and in this educational environment, it was admirable if a woman’s greatest desire was to become co-dependent and the accomplishment most commended by the college was a wedding certificate. All this to say: I spent a lot of time being force-fed fairytales that I didn’t, personally, want anything to do with.

Far before I recognized that romancing women was an option for me, I had no interest in living out the stories I read when I was younger. Honestly, one of the most comforting things about coming out was the realization that there was no longer any pressure for me to find a Prince Charming. To be perfectly blunt, the Disney Princess stories make me feel dirty and not the good kind of dirty. (Not to mention unsanitary…I am so not a feet person. Do you think that Cinderella made the Prince wash his hands before he kissed her?) The bottom line is that I’m not afraid of a little loneliness and I’m definitely not going to marry Prince Charming just because someone wrote a story about him a long time ago.

So, where does this all lead me? Ironically, it leads me back to the beginning and back to dreaming. As a kid I dreamed about things like being a missionary in Africa or writing the sweetest (sweet as in kind, not cool) book ever written, and it’s about time I remembered what those dreams felt like. I had forgotten how important it was to dream and the New Year has brought about a new admiration for it and has offered me the self-assurance to scream, “I want to write my own damn fairytale!” I know what I want from life and just because it doesn’t look like the Disney princess stories, doesn’t mean it isn’t just as magical. At the end of the day, I am not looking for romantic salvation; I just want to find a girl that likes to read and who can keep up with my hyper-active persona. I am not interested in living in/ruling a kingdom; the city is good enough for me. I am not worried about spending the rest of my life doing dishes or staying home from the Ball; I like hard work and I’d rather meet a girl at the bookstore. My New Years Resolution is to do more dreaming (or self-edit my dreams less) and if all goes well they will involve the good kind of dirty.

P.S. Sara Bareilles wrote a song on this topic called "fairytale." Listen to it.

P.P.S. Anne Neczypor wrote about this topic (this week) as well. Read it.