Queer

Go here for the above book.

I upset someone today, using a word that rolls off my tongue as naturally as breathing.

My employer and teacher seemed rather rattled when I mentioned that of the fifteen living cousins on my paternal side, three of us are "confirmed queers." He questioned my using queer, and apparently assumes it reflects low self-image. He said he doesn't think "gay" has the same negative connotation. It may be useful to mention that he graduated from law school two years before I was born.

Although I grew up in a small town, and certainly heard "fag" used pejoratively, and probably "queer" too, I just feel really happy (gay, if you will) about the word queer. I was surprised by his reaction. The word is so normalized to me that I found myself blinking and stammering, surprised that I felt a need to defend my position.

Sure, I'll concede that my mom wailed a bit when I first used the word around her and I recognize that not everyone is thrilled with its use. But dammit, if I can't use the best umbrella term I know, for the sake of someone else's comfort, who the hell is accommodating and tolerating who?

So what does this mossygrrl do when she is baffled? She goes to the internet.

~ The wikipedia page on queer seems nice and round and overviewish, as wiki is wont to do.

~ I enjoyed the tone of this page from a queer spirituality blog.

~ This post talks about reclaiming, making distinctions between the Q-word and the N-word.

~ A how-to-decide guide for whether it's okay to use the word Q/queer made me grin.

Yet, for all my fervor and comfort with the word, I am now also thinking about effective communication. Shutting down pathways for connection by using a term that sets people on edge is not effective. And yet I find "queer" so normal. Is that ironic? Undoubtedly my comfort with queer is affected by the fact my undergraduate degree was in gender studies in the 1990s. Educational status certainly plays a role.

But beyond academia and postmodern mental masturbation maneuvers, at a very core level, the word queer is not only comfortable, but also comforting to me. It's broad and inclusive and makes space for me. It made space for me as a bi married person. It made room for me as a kink-curious person. It made room for me as a polyamorous person. It makes space for me now, mono and seemingly "lesbian." It doesn't require me to define myself too narrowly, providing space for fluidity and movement.

To me, being queer means being free.

A Poly Song!

Whether or not I'm doing poly, I'll probably always be interested in it.

This song had me humming along by the end. How dear.

My favorite verse:

"Have you ever seen 'Big Love'?
Know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge..."
And they say "Oh, so you're a Mormon?"
"No! ...I'll explain from the beginning..."

Cycles: A Year of Closure & Opening

Closure is not an event. It's a series of steps backwards and forwards, stumbling, slinking, striding toward wholeness. And from closure, opening is possible. Opening memory, opening compassionate and generous heart, opening possibility.

Finding closure has been a slow accumulation. As I realized at the E11 temple burn, after I smeared snot and blue makeup on D's tunic, I could only cry for a few moments because I'd already cried all my tears. Emotional closure.

Legal closure came by way of a divorce decree being issued in Salt Lake Third District Court on June 18. My marriage to B is legally finished. We are now divorced. And somehow, that legal closure, after all we've been through together and separately, gave me a peace I hadn't realized I was lacking. Administrative closure.

Over the fifteen months we've been separated, I've been rattled to learn how many people didn't even know we had been together, let alone married. That in and of itself may be telling. Of what, I'm not entirely sure. But we were together. We were married. On a beautiful Saturday in September 2000, twenty months after falling in love, surrounded by friends and family in our new garden, we promised to feed, clothe, grow with, comfort, and love each other.

Our relationship and our marriage were never typical, by anyone's definition, and two years after we were legally married, K joined our family. Over the next three and a half years, the joys and pains we three experienced individually, collectively, and in our respective dyads was intense. Incredible joy. Excruciating pain. Those emotional extremes inform and define the other, I believe.

I've been purposefully vague in my online writings about the relationship and family transitions I've been experiencing over the past year. (I consciously choose to call it a transition rather than a breakup. My reasons for that choice varied.) Part of my reluctance to address it directly was because my feelings shift radically, and usually they shift into a space of more compassion and understanding. If I were to have regularly recorded my thoughts and feelings, much of it would have been based in the agony of my process toward healing. While painful spaces and the kinds of words that result from those spaces are valid and accurately reflected where I was in the moment, I had no desire to capture and share those words any more than I already did. Shamefully, I often spoke words of blame aloud to anyone who would hear me. Despite those words of blame, I felt simultaneously blessed and grateful for the lessons B and K gave me and the personal growth I experienced as a result of the family structure I chose to help construct and the reality we three created together.

Paradoxical emotions and the clumsy communication of how I felt seemed to cause such pain in my circle of friends and in my interactions with my former partners that writing it down seemed patently unwise. But maybe writing it out would have provided some clarity. In any case, I spent the year with a cracked skull (yes, literally) and a lot of emotional terrain to cover. It's been quite a ride, and I am profoundly grateful for all of you who have supported and loved me in spite of myself. And to those of you who never took sides or saw the transitions we were experiencing as a war or battle, even/especially when what I said or did made it seem that way, I am particularly grateful to you for that neutrality.

In the past months, I've come to see several things. Firstly, what B and K and I did was brave. We were courageous. Our friend called us "pioneers," not as though no one else had ever done what we were trying to do, but because there weren't a lot of clear paths, and we were forging our way without many guideposts or examples.

Secondly, time and space were/are necessary for me to disengage. I fought against that for a long time, and that struggling only perpetuated unhealthy cycles. My upcoming move to Oregon will likely help with that disengagement and continued healing.

Thirdly, I can see now that we all did our best with the tools we had at the time. Perhaps sometimes our best was kind of pathetic in retrospect. But still, we tried. Would I do it differently or better were I to do it again? Of course. I have more tools now than I did when I started. My compassion for B and K and the roles they played in our journey together has grown significantly. My compassion for myself has grown tremendously as well. Without that compassion for myself and my recent acknowledgment that I did the best I could, forgiving anyone was impossible.

Now I feel capable of moving forward, of continuing the opening of my heart and throat, of deepening the healing. Though they aren't regularly online these days, and may never see this post unless someone shows it to them, I still feel compelled to end by offering my most heartfelt love and gratitude to B and K. Without them, my journey of the past eight years would not be the same. Thank you both for helping me become the person I am.

Namaste.

Peering in the Rearview

Lately I've been gaining perspective on a particularly predominant storyline over the past twelve years of my life. I encountered Teafaerie, with whom I share several commonalities, and had the opportunity to tell that story to someone who didn't have preconceived notions, not knowing any of the players. In some ways, it was a little strange to tell such a personal story to a virtual stranger, but it was also quite liberating. From what I know of this person, she is very open and generous, and it felt okay being so forthright.

It was wonderful, to look back and tell the whole thing, from a brief overview of my first boyfriend at age 17, to coming out, to meeting B and practicing polyamory, to getting married, to meeting K and living in a poly family for four years, to extricating myself from that family and all the consequent emotions, realizations, and growth.

The messages I wrote were long, getting the whole story out, and I suppose in some ways my motivation for writing them was highly self-interested. I just needed some outside motivation to get me to sit down and really look at it from a birds-eye. My perspective right now feels very solid, and I'm noticing things about the way my body reacts to different scenarios and interactions. I'm paying attention to what works and what doesn't work for me. I'm feeling not only accountable for what has been but also willing and excited to make new kinds of choices for the future. I am eschewing regret and sorrow for choices and choosing instead to learn from has been and create my reality afresh.

Were some event to unfold at any moment and my life were to end, I have lived an amazing, incredible life. I have learned, I have loved, and the living just gets better and better.

As sappy as these kinds of posts sound, they are an accurate reflection of where I am. And to realize how far I've traveled on this journey makes me profoundly glad.

Blessed Life! I'm enjoying the view in the rearview, but even more excited to see what lies ahead, what I create for myself.

Time Spiralizer

The three years it took me to finish my juris doctor flew by. Flew. Where did they go? It feels like yesterday that I was bemoaning my stress-induced cold sore on my first day of law school orientation week. And now I'm out, facing a bar exam in July, heavily indebted, and more disillusioned about The System than ever before. Nevertheless, these years have brought about a host of changes, internally and externally for me. I'm learning to open my throat chakra, to tell myself Truth so that I can be genuinely honest with others. I left the marriage/partnership/family that took me on my journey through my twenties. I learned to hold my tongue. I learned to listen, even when I had a LOT to say in response to what I was hearing. I learned to change my mind. I started to smile and laugh more than ever (this was despite law school, not because of it). I learned how to play with fire. I remembered that I am fun and that I deserve to be happy.

After my last final, I headed to the desert for five days. Moving to the Northwest in ten short weeks, I knew my opportunities for redrock mystery and wonder were limited, and I thoroughly enjoyed the hot days and chilly nights and of course spinning fire under a rising full moon.

Life is truly a grand and glorious blessing.

Oh, bummer! The photoCD from my latest trip has a huge heat bubble and won't read on my computer! I will have to get J in Alaska to send me another disk with the images so I can post some of my favorites from that trip here. In the mean time, here are a few shots of my fireplay at the graduation party at my house ...




This one is the lovely Gypsie in the foreground with me in back. (Thanks, Jeff!)

Edits, Transitions, and Evolutions

I set this whole blog aside for the better part of a year. When I re-read some of the stuff I've written, especially stuff last spring, I have to fight the compulsion to delete posts outright. Like the Commitment post from a year ago. Why would I feel compelled to delete? Because where I am, the ways I identify, how I live my life - these things shift. So while I'm not going to take the time right now to write about polyamory, commitment, and how I fit within those things, I did feel compelled to say that bottom line: I'm committed to being myself. To looking myself in the eye in the mirror every morning. To living as honorably as I know how.

And you know what? Celibacy isn't so bad, either. If there's anything I've learned for sure this past year, that would be it.

I've always loved this quote by Ntozake Shange:

i found god in myself & i loved her
i loved her fiercely

Commitment

Anyone who thinks that polyamory is somehow divested of commitment should live inside my head for a day. An hour might even be sufficient. This wee-hours-post is me saying that my embodiment of polyamory takes commitment.

The commitment is philosophical. The commitment is emotional. The commitment is sometimes wrenching. And yet I persist. Am I just stubborn? Deluded? Too idealistic for my psychological and emotional well-being?

At the risk of sounding like an unrealistic hippie (perhaps an apt characterization in light of what follows), living my truth is the only way I can look myself in the eye through the mirror, and what makes gazing in others' eyes comfortable. My truth is fluid, evolving, and I wrestle every day with being honest with my views and their application to the minutiae of mundane choices that create my life.

And for a little more hippie-talk, I've come to realize, in lessons building to a crescendo over the past year, that my capacity for love is tremendous. Greater than I ever knew possible.

And yet, in this moment, I feel a profound sadness. There are two people for whom I care - someone I've loved for a long time and someone I've only very recently known with growing fondness - who feel unsure and doubtful polyamory is the right lovestyle for them. I would never want, nor presume, to change how anyone lives and loves. But vague uncertainty drains a bit, leaving me slightly worn and raw. Exposed.

These, for me, are the challenging moments of polyamory.

Franklin has a great website, so I looked there for guidance, understanding, comfort, something with which I could relate. "Poly relations for monogamous people" doesn't seem to quite catch the nuance of the various poly-resistant relations and interactions I'm currently experiencing, whether it's changing perceptions of a poly-self, or misgivings from the outset. "Things your partner wants you to know" has some good stuff that rang true, but not quite there either. "How to become a secure person" has something different to say to me, every time I read it. But ultimately, it was "Poly 101" that reminded me of what I needed to hear.

Writing this out has made me feel better. Mission accomplished.

Now I'm tired, on a bifurcated sleep cycle, and need to get a few hours of rest before getting up for another long day.

And an expectedly beautiful springtime day.

Catching Up

The new decade is already moving too quickly. These last weeks have included a string of very good academic and professional news, an excess of partying in celebration of that good news and my birthday, moving out of my house, thinking about trying to pull my nose above the quickly rising tide of schoolwork and work-work (and not quite doing it yet), negotiating how to restructure an evolving seven-year poly relationship, telling my parents I'm amicably divorcing that same partner this summer, and thoroughly enjoying a new interaction with someone I've had my eye on for awhile.

My festival week was fabulous, culminating in a celebration with about twenty friends at Ouida Lounge. One of my favorite things about Ouida's - besides the blue sky and clouds painting on the ceiling - is the hookah rentals. Oh yeah. Nothin' keeps me from smoking cigarettes like puffing on some apple-flavored tobacco.




And of course, here's the requisite daffodil, my birthday flower. Something about daffodils makes me glad to be alive. And something about snow on daffodils (which we got a few days later), tells me I'm home. Springtime in the Wasatch.


It's good to have left my twenties behind. I'm so over them.

Introductions & Explanations

Much of what I post here will likely refer to (or be directly about) my family. Since my household isn't typical, I should explain.

I've recently accepted that I'm accurately described as bisexual, although I prefer to identify as Queer. I resisted using the bisexual label for so long it's ridiculous. See, I honestly thought I was a lesbian who made a Chasing Amy-esque exception. But no. I'm bi. Bisexual identity can be a complex topic. Possible fodder for future posts . . . ?

My immediate non-bio family includes a male partner of six-plus years (B) and his female partner of nearly three years (K). Can you say polyamory? We aren't missionaries for this love-style, but it's how we live and we are (surprisingly? gratefully? happily) functional. B, K, and I are each open to new relationships, but tend to be . . . selective. This selectivity is for our individual and familial health, both physical and psychological. (No, we're not swingers. But sometimes I wish I were one. More sex would be kind of nice.)

Our human family is complemented by two dogs (Cassie and Aki), four felines (Gaia, Merlin, Smoky, and Buddy), two aquariums of waterlife ("the fish"), and a lot of indoor and outdoor plantlife ("the plants" and "the garden").

• Cassie is a Shih-tzu/Toy American Eskimo mix, born in early 2002, and is very outdoorsy considering her pansy ancestry. We've had her since she was twelve weeks old. The people whose un-fixed dogs had a backyard breeding session that conceived dear Cassie and her brothers called her "princess" until I adopted her, and that quite accurately describes her attitude towards life. I'll stick in a dirty hiking picture, just to keep it real.
• Aki is a Rottweiler/Blue Heeler mix, born circa 1997, lived with K's mother and stepfather until January 2005, when we adopted him. He was a ranch dog and is thrilled to sleep indoors and eat food from bowls instead of carrion. Actually, he might miss the carrion. Aki has lots of stories - maybe you'll read more about them later.
• The cats' lives are terrifically convoluted and somehow telling stories about one's dogs seems less strange than telling the life-stories of one's cats. Since I'm strange, you'll get the cat-stories, but you're spared today. Oh, and pictures will undoubtedly follow. You've been warned.
  
• The fish just aren't that interesting to me. B and K run that area of the household, thank you very much.
  
• The plants and garden have fantastic lives.
  

Now that I've introduced some of the key players, future posts will hopefully be less confusing.

I spend my days doing law school. And doing things like this. I spend my nights doing things like this and pretending to study.