the wanted one

Spring is hanging like a fine spider web, fragile and translucent out the winter window. Sickness showered days of belly aches and fatigue throughout our house. Time slides by ten times faster than it did before our daughter gifted us with her presence.

She walks.
She laughs.
She moos and woof woofs.



She is a delight.
She is delightful.

She is most of our waking moments at least those moments when we are not consumed with our other work.

The journey to willa was so long and at times arduous. When i read back through some of this blog, I am often left with my mouth slagging a little. Months and months and months which turned into years of trying to get to her. She is one of the most wanted children living on this planet (i know, there are hundreds of thousands additional very wanted children). But I think about the hoops and planning and persistence and iron chested will it took to continue to pursue this being into existence, and I am driven to anger and sadness for those people who still espouse the rhetoric of hate about my family.

You know the sant..orum said a few months back that a child was better off having his father in prison than having two lesbian parents. Usually, i brush off his hate for ignorance, religious intolerance and drivel, but the fact that he has had the spotlight of the american media and is taken at all seriously as a potential leader for this country adds a layer of fury to my disdain for people who would try to take my child from me or who refuse to give me full legal rights of my child. I know I've blathered on about it here before, but I cannot adopt willa here in this ass-backwards and repressive state of michigan and comments from someone who sucks up minute upon minute of television, and radio, and interwebs, and newspaper airtime like the one mentioned above are serious.

Oh, and by the way, I work with people in prison and encourage the good fathers and the once deadbeat dads, alike, to parent their children from behind bars. So, santo..rum's insult was not that insulting on its face value. I think people can parent from prison, but not as well as I can parent day in and day out, face to face with my willa. See, the insult rests in the attempt to make me and kk invisible/non-existent. It is reprehensible that we isolate and ostracise whole groups of people in cages throughout america. It is also reprehensible that this other otherised group, queer folks, are threatened with extermination of full civil and human rights (or do not yet have full civil and human rights). there are intersections here. In many ways I am not so different from the man in prison, both in my position politically and socially.

The man in prison (or the woman) is very vulnerable to having his or her parental rights stripped by the state. I have no (legal) parental rights from the state. People in prison are either made to be invisible by the media or portrayed as scary, evil folks who we must lock up in order to be safe in our beds. Queer people are often feared and/or otherised to the point of being draped in a cloak of invisibility or to the point of becoming the demonized, evil deviant who we should shield our children from ( i know this is changing, but not in enough spheres. example: i cannot be out in the work i do in the state capitol. whole pieces of me are invisible there. though, i out myself through appearance:)).

Similarities? yes.

Willa paints. She hugs. She blows kisses and showers our cheeks with love.
She was wanted beyond wanting.
We work to clothe her and feed her and bathe her and catch her vomit and soothe her tears.

Spring seems early. But winter never came this year, not really. The wind is howling and trying to carry the current of growing season on her back.

Life is wanted and we are working toward delight.

from pent-up aching rivers, from that of myself without which I were nothing

yes that is a line from Whitman, above.  A good line for the sentiments expressed below and the physical place where we are this weekend.

 

We are visiting good friends in Brooklyn.  And, oh, how good it is to be away from the regular, routine days of our time at home.  Willa is having a blast with her friends V and R as she explores our friends' big, open apartment.  And, oh, how good it is to be away from the same routines of our everyday lives in ypsi.

 

I have come to such a stale place on some fronts of my life.  I feel worse than dry toast.  Ragged and tired of the chaos of work (and all worn out from 9 years of being a witness to the heinous actions of humankind).  And on top of that hugeness, I am just about over the complications that arise from living in too small of a town.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love my family and I love all of these new adventures we are experiencing with this growing, beautiful being, willa.  However, there is this place I am coming to, and it is like a stutter in the almost middle of my life.  

 

K and I are both hankering for change.  And this is coming from me, someone who thought she would die in the quaint, old house we live in at the almost top of a hill in a small town in an area that used to be wetlands and forest and now suffers from the aftermath of industrialization. 

 

There are those times when my heart gets beyond restless and difference seems like the resolution to that constant urge that itches and tickles the lining of my chest.  I am in one of those phases right now.  But, it is the most intense one I've ever expereinced and maybe really it is my mid-life crisis.  Maybe my earth sign is being shaken to the core and my roots are getting exposed.

 

 

 And, maybe just maybe, I 'll build up enough courage to do something differently.  To change the patterns that make my heart heavy.  Maybe a scenery change will come soon.  Maybe, not.  

In these interim places, while time pulses by and my baby's face changes every morning into something new and something more beautiful, I'll hold fast to the pent-up aching river of my longing for change.  Perhaps I'll take real steps to change my circumstances.  Maybe that will involve physically shifting where we spend most of the hours of our days, or maybe it will involve shifting my soul... 

Here's to New York for getting me to think more deeply about doing that which I dwell on.  Here's to holding change close and loving the fact that yearning has my stomach all a flutter with hope in that which is different and new.

A year gone by

I know I have disappeared under some kind of stone.  

The stone is called no time. 

But, I miss writing.

I miss reflecting on all of the ins and outs of the decision to have a kid, the parenting that comes with aforementioned kid, and the struggles for justice, goodness, and a life of joy that k and I work toward on a daily basis. 

No doubt, it has become increasingly difficult to carve out time to get words down, or art drawn, or books read (though I have been able to really delve into some escapist and not so escapist fiction and non-fiction in the last four months: Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Geralidine Brook's The Year of Wonders and March, Wes Jackson's Nature as Measure, George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, Dorothy Day's Diaries: The Duty of Delight, and Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow).  But, what I would not give to really be able to have some time to reflect on most of the books I listed back there in writing.  

It really has not been the dawning of parenthood that has kept me from writing and making art.  If anything, parenting willa with k makes me want to reflect and jot down ideas even more.  It has been my personal tendency to live on the edge of working too much, always, that has left my down hours to being solely devoted to my family and nothing more (except devouring books when getting ready for bed or when insomnia strikes or when I am flying on a plane somewhere for work).  Otherwise, I would not be able to really experience my child all that much. 

However, I've made a commitment to myself to not put in hundreds of extra hours in 2012 (hours that I never use the comp up on).  I simply cannot afford to let my life and all of the beauty in it pass me by.  I am, by nature, a recorder of events and stories.  I love to etch in ink, pencil, paint, photographs, and typography the passing of time and the interactions of people, animals, stones, waterways, trees, honeybees, and all living things within that passing of time.  

When I fail to write or make art, a part of me sits hollow. And, depression leaks in.  Not to mention, this winter in MI has been gray, wet and only semi cold--the kind of cold wet that gets under your bones and causes an ache for warmth and sun.  In addition, I need to write in order to better analyze the world and the happenings around me.  Not doing so over the last few months, has let some things seep into my heart in awkward and overwhelming ways.  

With all that being said, let's see if this new blogsy app helps me get some more writing up on this blog.

Will turned 1 on November 30, 2011.  

She is awesome.  

yep

i wrote this long thing. spent two days on it. all of the words disappeared. a fluke of of technology. a reminder that it all WILL fall apart. it was a nice piece--significantly balanced with sentimentality and the daily stuff of being alive.

in the meantime while those words float in some kind of cyberworld purgatory, i will simply load a fairly recent picture of my daughter to this page. please understand i have been reading jonathan franzen's the corrections, which is cynical, realistic, and hopeful all at once. it is the worst kind of reading for someone engaged in the heavy stuff of suffering that i witness day in and day out. but nevertheless, my life is more than full right now.

with goodness and sadness and angst and heartache and love.

i have not too many words to put up here.

i love my kid a lot.

so what.

and in the interim we hurt one another and make one another laugh.

sorry to be heavy handed and hearted--but fuck.

to her scent i will go...

Today I had this semi-sacred experience regarding the new soul who inhabits my waking and sleeping hours.

I was at work and work has been hard. The grief and stress and violence of other people's lives constantly surrounds me. In our work we are witnesses to suffering and salvaging and sometimes small victories. On top of that, I also have to deal with piles of administrative bullshit, truly wonderful volunteers (something like 12 this semester), planning for meetings, and working in coalitions...

That, there shit above, is the backdrop. I sat at my desk almost paralyzed by the amount of stuff I had to do, when this scent came barreling into my nose. The smell of my darling daughter's skin fell over my face. She, of course, was at her home day care, not there with me in my garage of an office.

The gentle scent of her little head--the place where infant sweat, the scatterings of sweet food and breast milk leftovers, soft, downy hair oils, and her baby bath soap mingle--came over me as if she were sitting on my lap. I paused what I was doing. My eyes glassed over with tears; tears bordering on the edge of the divine and sentimentality, and I inhaled with devout attention for a breath.

Then it all became a divine moment.

It was some kind of miracle. A reminder of this sacred bond I have with another human being. A reminder that legal rights (while I will fight for them until the day I die or until I get them) mean nothing in the face of the daily miracles and sufferings kk and I go through as we engage and love this small child.

If only I could bottle this scent and experience and sell it to the conservative right. The people who think I have no business raising a kid. The people who do everything in their power to disconnect me via intrusive laws (or non-existent ones) from willa's existence...oh ya, folks, if I have not mentioned it here before, I cannot adopt willa in MI--there is no second parent adoption. So, I feed her, bathe her, dance with her, love her with all of me, but, in the end, someone who does not love her as I do or who does not love kk as i do could essentially do legal battle to get her from me and essentially kk's next-of-kin have more rights to her than me. Blah de blah blah fucking blah dee da.

But that ghost-like tendril of traveling smell, it reminded me of the oppressive nature of "man"-made laws. It reminded me of the lasting longing of the deepest sacred parts of humanity. It carried me to a new and better place. The connection embodied in this real, yet profoundly strange, moment surpasses that which the political sphere, the sphere of marginalization and bigotry, and the sphere of civil and human rights can never tap into. I have both animal and spiritual connection to my child beyond the imaginings of the human mind.

So, to her scent I will go. To the smell of her hands that now feed her own self--peaches and dirt, summer and minerals. To the smell of her cheeks when we enter the house from a walk in the sun. To the smell of her shit that invades the whole house with intestines discovering the nuances of various human foods for the first time. To the smell of her tears, like water on dry stones. To the smell of her breath, like an indescribable sweetness doused in the gentle sour of buttermilk. To this small being who I love with the deepest parts of me. To her scent I will go.

the injectors draft revisions to a 1970s sex ed book for kids

I've had these pictures of this old book that k's parents used to explain sexual intercourse and offspring creation to her back in the seventies. It happily reinforces heterosexual romance, sex and hetero reproduction.

about 8 months ago we were putting the finishing touches on willa's room (which she only uses on occasion, but will use more as she gets older). Some of the finishing touches included making her a kid's library. Her shelf of books is full up of books from both her pack-rat, hoarder mamas (yes, numerous books from our own childhoods) and gracious gifts from friends. She is well-stocked to say the least, but our special gifts of 1970s and 1980s kids' books knowledge is an excellent addition. It puts her collection over-the-top.


some of her many books piled on the floor...

I mean who can brag about having the following how to talk to your children about sex book in their own personal kids library.

Of course, I will have to guerrilla plant the queer version of things into this text before my daughter ever gets her hands (or eyes for that matter) on the book. Here are some feeble editing attempts thus far:

a singlet--with hair

Thanks to a very informative dialogue on swim wear with a focus on butches over at Effing Dykes, I went and ordered myself the sweet singlet seen above in an aggressive stance picture of me.

There was a time I had a swimsuit, actual full on old school swimsuit, with tight legs and a binding kind of restrictive top, etc. I wore it so much it got all thin and useless. So, I'd been searching to no avail for something like it. Then the aforementioned discussion took place in the comments section of offing dykes (every time I write effing dykes on this ipad it auto corrects it to offing dykes, hee hee) and someone suggested wrestling singlets. Then I found this great black with royal gold trim and I ordered it. The damn thing took an eternity to come in the mail. One of Will's caretakers actually said, "you sounded like a little kid every day asking--'did my singlet come in the mail yet.'"

Then it arrived. It fits great, but my tits kind of slide out the sides, so I will have to wear an additional garment underneath if I plan on not offending the public with glimpses of too much flesh.

This is all a very long introduction to the the real question of this post. How many of you gender benders out there-- you passers for dudes, you mostly masculine types--shave your legs even though you are as butch as can be? Tell the truth.

I've played sports with plenty of super butch ladies and every single fucking one of them but me, shaved their legs. I know sporty dykes are a different breed, but many of these ladies were full on passers for dudes, gender benders, etc. When it came to their legs, well, they were silky smooth.

This all has been resurfacing for me, because I think my kk wants me to shave my legs. I think she is embarrassed of my extra hairy shins.
We went to a pool party the other day (it was a very strange crowd; friends of and the children of friends of kk's deceased mama--all pretty damn gender normative to say the least). I did not sport my singlet that day. It was warm and beautiful, but I stayed in my rolled pants and let my hairy sandaled feet and ankles make their presence known without letting the big sisters on my shins and calves be seen.

K had been hesitant about me getting into my swim gear, so I take this to mean she wants them smooth. Though, the one time I shaved, in the past, when we had been together maybe a year point five, she ended up thinking the smoothness was fucked up in relation to the rest of me.

My armpits will always remain hairy.

But, kk says one day, "maybe you should shave." and the next, "no don't; it will look too strange."

I'm mostly of the mind to always keep them hairy and let all of the onlookers with their frowns and befuddled looks keep their twisted, distorted and more painful to carry faces for themselves. Sure, every once in a while, I become very uncomfortable when I think that people are judging me because I have lady breasts and booty and also a thick weave of hair on my legs. It confounds the dumb. It enrages the already mean spirited homophobes. But, shaving is a pure pain in the ass. It does not reflect who I am.

While it may sometimes feel like I have a thousand boogers hanging from my nose (I mean legs), from the stares I get at the public pool, I say fuck em. Next time, I am at a high falootin pool party, my hairy legs might just end up clogging the filter.