Saturday, September 29, 2012

Kyle's Bed & Breakfast

The Amazon Trail - Finding Something Good Without Looking For It


The Amazon Trail

Finding Something Good Without Looking For It


    Now and then a spate of serendipity comes along. The stars align, one can’t believe one’s good fortune and we live in a benign, even benevolent, universe for a lovely while. Last night was one of those times.
I was invited to read at an event called “Wordier Than Thou,” in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tiffany Razzano, the spirited and inspiring editor of the LGTBQ blog in the local alternative paper, “Creative Loafing,” organizes this occasional gathering for the gay writing community in the Tampa Bay area. It’s held in a small space called The L Train Theatre Lounge which serves as both a performance space and a wine and beer bar.
Readings are not among my favorite activities. For one thing, I can’t sit still that long. For another, they take a lot of preparation and exhaust me because of the emotional duress that accompanies getting in front of an audience. This reading was different. To tell the truth, they are all different because once I’m there, I meet other readers and writers and my world expands. Gay people are an incredibly diverse and talented bunch.
I met a woman who practices spoken word performance, something so far from my sphere of reference I had to ask for an explanation. I met another woman who has plans for a lesbian speed dating service. I met a PhD candidate who works in a new independent bookstore that, amazingly, opens at 6:30 a.m. And I listened to a singer called Cuba Luna whose throaty voice was thrilling.
As if those gifts weren’t enough, I turned a corner from a hallway into the performance space and came face to face with two friends from Nottingham, England. As I recall, I looked from one to the other literally gaping. What were the chances that I would finally agree to read on a night that they would be visiting in the vicinity. That they would stumble across a Tweet announcing the reading. That they would be willing to leave the beach and tackle the insane Tampa Bay traffic. That they would be in the front row with my sweetheart to cheer me on during the reading.
No way!
Way! This is just how we happened to find what we hope will be our retirement home in the Pacific Northwest. Not that we’re retiring anytime soon.
We’re simply never going to move again, so when we do retire, that’s where we’ll be living.
We were actually in Oregon to visit our friends the Handydyke and the Pianist. As we plann to move back there eventually, we stopped in to see my old realtor and she kindly printed out some places to look at, to get a sense of the market. The last place we checked was a manufactured home. My sweetheart had not gotten out of the car to walk around any of the other houses, but this time, maybe because it was the last, maybe because the stars were aligned just right, she did. Then she called me to join her.
She was looking at a distant view of the Pacific Ocean. I can’t begin to describe how far out of our price range a view of any ocean, river, lake or pond is for us. But there it was, gray-blue, wild, an unobstructed and unobstructable view from this hilltop house. As we peered in windows and walked the miniscule, miniscule grounds, the next door neighbor headed our way. Not to shoo us off the property, but with key in hand,  smiling, friendly, eager to let us inside. Afterward, we sped back to the realtor. 
The next morning we were at the mortgage office, applying. By that afternoon we had our insurance binder. Everyone was available just when we needed them. We are thinking positively that the lender will give us its blessings and we’ll be crossing the country soon. In the dead of winter, of course, leaving an unsold house behind us, but no matter how much I worry about such little details, by hook or by crook, that’s our hilltop house, that’s our future.
The UPS guy confirmed it for us this afternoon. Out of the blue, he delivered a package from our auctioneer friend. Last month, when a family member was going through a rough patch, we sent her a care package from a teddy bear company, with a bit of chocolate and the like. I hardly have to say that’s exactly what the auctioneer sent us on a whim, because the  bears reminded her of us.   
Just in case I had doubts, and despite my aversion to Facebook, I went to friend one of the incredible lesbians we met last night. On the top of her page was the word serendipity—and the definition: “Finding something good without looking for it.”

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

September 2012

Sunday, September 2, 2012

The Amazon Trail - Gaily Creaking

The Amazon Trail

Gaily Creaking

My next birthday is closing in on me. I barely remember the skinny, dark-haired kid I was. Back then I’d stay up all night playing and get to work at 5:00 A.M. Now, when I’m up late, it’s called insomnia and I take a pill for it. I used to catch boxes of groceries off a truck. Now I use a home shopping cart to wheel a half dozen of my sweetheart’s Diet Cokes from our garage to our kitchen.  I’ve had one knee replaced and the other one’s going. Something’s narrowed in my back, but if I do my exercises it doesn’t hurt too badly. What I’m learning is that while my time is running out, aging itself gobbles time like a Ms. Pac-Man.

                Suddenly my body needs all these little attentions it never needed before. What once was an annoying twinge in some joint has become my body’s demand to slow down.

Going to the beach to get a tan was an American way of life.  I see a dermatologist these days and am sent home with a pocketful of prescriptions for creams and ointments. My morning routine is becoming interminable as I armor myself to go out the door. Drops for dry eyes, gel for the mouth, cruel implements for the teeth. Medicine for the feet, for the tummy, for the mind. Liver supplements to counteract the medicines, more supplements for the bones, the muscles, the joints. Nasal sprays, pills and inhalers.

                I loved ice cream and French fries until they became the enemy, adding lethal bulk to my middle. The doctor wants me to count calories, which involves—heaven forbid—cooking.  After all that comes the exercise. The replaced knee needs exer-cycling. The back takes twenty minutes. The medical insurer is trying to pack me off to tai-chi.
                I finally understand why people need to retire. Who can work at a job with all these aging issues? There simply isn’t time enough in the day to get old.

                The republican convention was in town this week. I badly wanted to tie on my Occupy bandana and march like I used to. With the knees, the feet, the sun covering, the white hair, and sweating rivers from the heat—I’d look like a defeated soldier gimping along at the tail end. The final humiliation: my walking stick would be confiscated as a potential weapon. 

Or maybe I’ve just been lucky all these years. I never spent time applying makeup or perfumes. I didn’t sit for hours at hairdressers. Shopping for jeans and flannel shirts on sale didn’t take much time at all. Nor did I need to dress kids or bathe them or amuse them or attend teachers’ conferences. All those activities must prepare most adults to spend long periods of time taking care of themselves. I think I’ve led a Peter Pan existence, cramming writing into bits of time others devoted to trying on dresses and changing diapers.

Slowly, and everything seems slower except for dwindling time, I am devoting myself more and more to this self-care that threatens to swallow whole days. I’m at retirement age, but the Social Security payments and Medicare benefits I stashed away over the last 50 years, which the republicans are so greedily eying, are not sufficient to support a squirrel’s family, much less mine. Somehow, it’s necessary to find time in the day for all the responsibilities of a wage earner, a career writer and aging. There’s no pill for that.

On the other hand, surviving youth and making it to this point in late middle age are achievements not to be sneezed at. Age earns some privileges. The process of finding myself is done. I know much more about what I like and don’t like, who I want to be with and who to avoid. I had to chuckle when I found myself drawn to a painter I’d never paid attention to before, Eduard Vuillard. In my college years it seemed everyone was wild about Van Gogh, O’Keefe and Gaugin. Elizabeth Bishop and the Photorealists are more to my liking today. While I’ve never lost my taste for Bob Dylan’s work, happy or calming classical music is what I listen to. I’ve learned that tastes change.

My voice has deepened—not an altogether bad thing for a dyke—but I’m not as afraid to speak up. My hearing is slightly fuzzy when it comes to certain sounds, but I believe I listen better. Lesbians are told we’ll end up lonely in old age, but I’m about to celebrate five years with the love of my life. I’m creaking gaily along.

                Is there anything I don’t take a pill for? Why yes, loving a woman, which also keeps me young.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

The Amazon Trail - Butch Pockets

The Amazon Trail

Butch Pockets

Is it just me, or do all butches, soft or otherwise, carry alotta stuff in their pockets? My sweetheart has chronically empty pockets. I don’t understand how anyone can live that way. I guess I’m one of many dykes who took our Girl Scout motto to heart: I’m always prepared

            Here’s today’s (and every day’s) inventory. In my right front pocket: a Sante Fe Stoneworks pen knife with a superb Camillus blade. My sweetheart gave it to me to replace a similar lost knife. Next: a Fisher Space pen that opens to full size. It’s my everyday pen. My sweetheart gave me the same pen, in rainbow colors, for book signings. Next: spare keys. When I was single, I always carried an extra car and house key in case the Handy Dyke or the Pianist weren’t nearby when I locked myself out. Now that I’m married, they come in handy to rescue the femme of the house. On the key ring: a Cruiser flash drive for my works-in-progress and an intense, teensy flashlight. But most important is the handful of treats to reward our pup and make friends with every other dog I’m introduced to.

            In this butch’s left front pocket: a blue pillbox for headaches, allergy attacks, and the
agita I get when I’m missing any piece of my pocket arsenal. Also: a melon-flavored organic, vegan, GMO-free, cruelty-free lip balm for braving the elements. And last: my pocket rock, a blue agate from a west coast beach. Carrying it is my guarantee I will always get back home, but it’s slow-acting—we’ve been stuck in Florida for four years now.

            Back right pocket: a smart phone for e-mails at long traffic lights, finding the next iced tea stop, and texting with my cool young niece. Left back pocket: bandana; black paisley today. Color is of no significance whatsoever, so don’t try to make me out a hippie necrophiliac or something

            As a young dyke, I wouldn’t be caught without a cigarette lighter. Women, not all of them lesbians, tended to be completely wowed when that handy lighter proved I was at their service. If there were two or more of us little butches around, there would always be an unspoken contest to see who offered her lighter fastest. Now the penknife has replaced the lighter. If a woman needs a cutting edge, there’s a communal butch rush to provide one: penknife, jackknife, multi-tool. When I was in retail food, I went everywhere with a box cutter in my back pocket. Air travel prohibits this now, so I keep an inexpensive penknife in my checked luggage. Though the travel knife pales next to my prized Camillus, I’d feel sissified without something.

            Aging is not kind to pocket-geeks. Middle-aged spread makes me bulky enough without bulging pockets. I used to carry my wallet where my thin phone is now, but that threw my back out. We had lunch with a friend last weekend and she took out her phone. It had an extended battery like a little hunch on its back. I was wild with envy, but how would I carry it? My suavely slim phone slides in and out of a back pocket easily, but a more powerful battery would make for unpleasant sitting.  Our friend didn’t have that problem. Proudly femme, she carries a purse.

            So for these kinds of conundrums I have a pocket annex. It’s an “Uncle Milty’s Travel Vest” and it came with 17 pockets. It’s kind of hot for wearing in Florida, but the pocket rock will get us home soon. Besides, nobody, except one British firm, < thebutchclothingcompany.co.uk>,  designs clothing or accessories for butches. Yes, rainbow t-shirts and key fobs are readily available, but they’re uni-gender and uni-style and, while I’m proud of their message, they don’t solve any problems exclusive to butches. We get hand-me-down styles from men. Or tailored looks rejected by high femmes.

            It’s such a narrow line we butches walk. I do not in any way shape or form want to pass as a man. But if I want to wear a full tuxedo, I’ll be wearing one made for guys. When I wear Uncle Milty’s vest, passersby question my gender with their disapproving eyes. If I want to carry an adjunct pocket over my shoulder, I can choose between a ladies’ purse or one of those heavy, oversized carryalls with the unattractive name of man bags. As a matter of fact, I just looked for bandanas on Amazon because I want to get a few as a gift for a friend. What did I find? Bandanas modeled as hair scarves for women. And on Etsy, women, little girls and dogs are the models.

            But my pockets? I claim pockets as butch territory.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012