It is moving day. The last moving day for awhile.
Portland is a special small city. I love it.
I love the lights and the diversity, the activities
and the art ... I just cannot manage to stay with so
work to do elsewhere.
So I am leaving.
For awhile.
Back again soon.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Valentine
This was a lovely good morning surprise on Valentine's Day in Portland, Maine.
Every window in Old Port had a red heart on a piece of white paper taped on the outside ... there were hundreds of red hearts all over the city, including Munjoy Hill ... everyone was looking and laughing and smiling. Very terrific. When I drove by the Portland Art Museum, there was a large heart hanging down from the building. A huge red heart.
At first I thought it was a lone activist who had a day off and is in love who was making things right for her lover for when they went downtown for coffee on Valentine's Day. Now I think she works at the Museum had the day off and is in love and was making things right for her lover before they went downtown for coffee on Valentine's Day!!!!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The Sun is Important
I know you know.
And.
Hey now, this is no laughing matter. In New England there is a long winter, and often without much sun, despite all those lovely pictures of folks on the ski slopes laughing real big with their white teeth and amazing goggles. I like those goggles.
The sun is a gift in New England, and most of us will take a real cold day with sun than a thirty-degree gray day.
I grew up in Florida and I talk of this with ease. Thirty degree days, as if they are not terribly cold. They aren't. Anymore.
It's all in the goggles.
Serious.
Today the sun is out and it is cold, but it is amazing.
Vitamin D for the taking.
Smile on.
And.
Hey now, this is no laughing matter. In New England there is a long winter, and often without much sun, despite all those lovely pictures of folks on the ski slopes laughing real big with their white teeth and amazing goggles. I like those goggles.
The sun is a gift in New England, and most of us will take a real cold day with sun than a thirty-degree gray day.
I grew up in Florida and I talk of this with ease. Thirty degree days, as if they are not terribly cold. They aren't. Anymore.
It's all in the goggles.
Serious.
Today the sun is out and it is cold, but it is amazing.
Vitamin D for the taking.
Smile on.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
For Women
For the love of women.
The NYTimes article on wimmin's land failed to note the success of the Michigan Women's Festival ....it has been happening for more than 30 years ... one week of women only and five to ten thousand women show up each and every year to feel community. Men are not allowed on the site .... women come away from that week renewed and strengthened. They come back year after year after year. That is worth examining and worth an acknowledgment of the possibilities.
Most of the women attending do not profess to hate men. They do recognize, honor and respect the difference of the moments spent within the woman tribe. It is profound.
And it is difficult on many levels. Tenting only unless you stay away from everything in the rv area. Extremely hot days and very cold nights. Long lines for food. I am writing this because to be in the company of only women, thousands of women each year take a week and give it to Michigan and it is not easy or inexpensive.
The NYTimes article on wimmin's land failed to note the success of the Michigan Women's Festival ....it has been happening for more than 30 years ... one week of women only and five to ten thousand women show up each and every year to feel community. Men are not allowed on the site .... women come away from that week renewed and strengthened. They come back year after year after year. That is worth examining and worth an acknowledgment of the possibilities.
Most of the women attending do not profess to hate men. They do recognize, honor and respect the difference of the moments spent within the woman tribe. It is profound.
And it is difficult on many levels. Tenting only unless you stay away from everything in the rv area. Extremely hot days and very cold nights. Long lines for food. I am writing this because to be in the company of only women, thousands of women each year take a week and give it to Michigan and it is not easy or inexpensive.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Wimmin's Land
After the NYTimes published a piece on a group of older lesbians living together
in Alabama I heard from friends and family who wanted me to know about the article.
They were pleased to find lesbian lives examined in the New York Times.
I have to wonder about the article. There are lesbian communities all over this country, and beyond ... they exist in a variety of ways ... some much older and more well-established than the one in Alabama that made the Times. Most cities have a "gay" neighborhood and many have lesbian communities that seriously seek to locate in blocks owned and rented by only lesbians. Kansas City has a good thing going, Arkansas and Atlanta, NYC ... Minneapolis,Seattle, San Francisco .... oh the variables keep growing.
The point of the NYTimes article was that the practice of separatism is dying.
The wimmin in the group from Alabama were older and having difficulty encouraging younger wimmin to join their efforts, their family and their land. Without new women entering the group their efforts end with their lives.
It is a hard point. I worked with a group to create affordable and lovely housing for aging lesbians in midcoast Maine. You must incorporate some inclusion of younger women, or you are not sustainable. True. We had a number of ideas, including creating a scholarship for med school with internships served at the Old Dykes Home.
Design for inclusion.
One writer ranted over their "sexism" and hatred of men.
Arguing sexism over lesbian separatism doesn't work .... lesbians are marginalized and oppressed, old lesbians more so, and you must have power to reinforce your prejudice (and isn't this a key word .... prejudice instead of knowledge from which you make personal living decisions) but let's use the term "prejudice" and point out for the umteenth time, that you need power commit an "ism" .... these women have no power over men. Please.
And if you read the article and look at the accompanying video, you see they interact well with men in the community and in fact, they say they depend on these folks ... .... which really means that for all the separatism talk, these women are dependent on men to some extent. That may be the discussion here ... however their dependency is selected and self-defined, their boundaries respected and acknowledged. And if this was the conversation to have, the idea to examine in all of this .... in patriarchy can any woman's land be totally separatist.
And.
Why the NYTimes selected this group as an example, I don't know. They were reported to have formed after the demise of Pagoda ... which is never accurately explained. Pagoda was conclave of lesbian space almost on the water in St. Augustine, Florida. You crossed over a big bridge (my former partner and I walked this bridge to Pagoda after taking a short vacation there in 1984) .... the town moved this bridge so that it emptied and was accessed directly across from the entrance to Pagoda .... a hard way to live. There were a number of other reasons this long-time group disbanded, but let's not forget to include the absolute lack of community support with a major highway in their driveway. And they kept a journal. I wrote in it and I read it. They took notes in every meeting, so much to learn on the difficulty of keeping this special place going. So many decisions and disagreements. From the heart.
When I visited there in 1984 it cost us $15 a night for a room with kitchen privileges ... we were both working non-profits, I worked with battered women and C worked with people with HIV-AIDS .... we had no money, wanted to support women in whatever we did and so Pagoda was a good choice for us .... we took the bus down from Atlanta. It was in February, I remember still. It was warmish. I saw dolphins and I still have the black shell I found on the beach there. C made a shell mobile as a gift to the house before we headed back to the city. It was a good time for us.
Women's Space. I have found something to write about ... and will.
Part two to follow ... my interview with some of these women at the Michigan Women's Festival and a bigger discussion of Wimmin's Land.
in Alabama I heard from friends and family who wanted me to know about the article.
They were pleased to find lesbian lives examined in the New York Times.
I have to wonder about the article. There are lesbian communities all over this country, and beyond ... they exist in a variety of ways ... some much older and more well-established than the one in Alabama that made the Times. Most cities have a "gay" neighborhood and many have lesbian communities that seriously seek to locate in blocks owned and rented by only lesbians. Kansas City has a good thing going, Arkansas and Atlanta, NYC ... Minneapolis,Seattle, San Francisco .... oh the variables keep growing.
The point of the NYTimes article was that the practice of separatism is dying.
The wimmin in the group from Alabama were older and having difficulty encouraging younger wimmin to join their efforts, their family and their land. Without new women entering the group their efforts end with their lives.
It is a hard point. I worked with a group to create affordable and lovely housing for aging lesbians in midcoast Maine. You must incorporate some inclusion of younger women, or you are not sustainable. True. We had a number of ideas, including creating a scholarship for med school with internships served at the Old Dykes Home.
Design for inclusion.
One writer ranted over their "sexism" and hatred of men.
Arguing sexism over lesbian separatism doesn't work .... lesbians are marginalized and oppressed, old lesbians more so, and you must have power to reinforce your prejudice (and isn't this a key word .... prejudice instead of knowledge from which you make personal living decisions) but let's use the term "prejudice" and point out for the umteenth time, that you need power commit an "ism" .... these women have no power over men. Please.
And if you read the article and look at the accompanying video, you see they interact well with men in the community and in fact, they say they depend on these folks ... .... which really means that for all the separatism talk, these women are dependent on men to some extent. That may be the discussion here ... however their dependency is selected and self-defined, their boundaries respected and acknowledged. And if this was the conversation to have, the idea to examine in all of this .... in patriarchy can any woman's land be totally separatist.
And.
Why the NYTimes selected this group as an example, I don't know. They were reported to have formed after the demise of Pagoda ... which is never accurately explained. Pagoda was conclave of lesbian space almost on the water in St. Augustine, Florida. You crossed over a big bridge (my former partner and I walked this bridge to Pagoda after taking a short vacation there in 1984) .... the town moved this bridge so that it emptied and was accessed directly across from the entrance to Pagoda .... a hard way to live. There were a number of other reasons this long-time group disbanded, but let's not forget to include the absolute lack of community support with a major highway in their driveway. And they kept a journal. I wrote in it and I read it. They took notes in every meeting, so much to learn on the difficulty of keeping this special place going. So many decisions and disagreements. From the heart.
When I visited there in 1984 it cost us $15 a night for a room with kitchen privileges ... we were both working non-profits, I worked with battered women and C worked with people with HIV-AIDS .... we had no money, wanted to support women in whatever we did and so Pagoda was a good choice for us .... we took the bus down from Atlanta. It was in February, I remember still. It was warmish. I saw dolphins and I still have the black shell I found on the beach there. C made a shell mobile as a gift to the house before we headed back to the city. It was a good time for us.
Women's Space. I have found something to write about ... and will.
Part two to follow ... my interview with some of these women at the Michigan Women's Festival and a bigger discussion of Wimmin's Land.
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