MWMF: Allies In Understanding, Pt 2

I find myself not wanting to write about her. Partially because she so quickly became significant to me, but mostly because these words will be read flat and she deserves only fullness.

She stood in front of me, book ended by red but wrapped in cooler swirls of blue. I could feel us each rooting ourselves, ready for battle should it present itself. It was a skill I saw in her which immediately spoke of kinship. Her eyes were bluegreenbrown, the color unimportant but the intention, knowledge and ferocity was clear.

I asked her name, stretched out my hand and offered her the final bites of my trail mix. That is my way. To sweet my way through struggle, sometimes. It is a protection but it is also a value system. A belief that sweetness and earnest generosity is the key to any movement, any building, worth living in.

Our hands touched, our feet shifted, our gazes met firmly. And we locked there. She 60 something, I 27, both showing our strength and sincerity. And then she said, ‘I’ll probably cry through this whole damn thing’. And my hand snapped to my chest as I said, ‘Me too’. And it was not just words, it was a promise, a commitment. To her and to myself.

‘Really?’, she said. I nodded slowly. And in the same moment our arms opened to one another and pulled into the space between. We stood tears flowing, something broken, some illusion. And I felt the power of remaining open. Felt all it can bring to us. There was relief and connection but there was still not ease. And for the first time, that was ok.

We were asked to return to the meadow for conversation and we returned with arms wrapped round one another to begin this talking together.

MWMF: Allies In Understanding, Pt 1

Breakfast was had in the tent. Peanut butter in granola, thick in my mouth. There was loneliness and anxiety for what was to come.

I walked down the long winding path past the crafts womyn, past the community tent, past Gaia girls. And as I walked flashes of red fabric added to the viscosity of the morning.

Womyn born womyn (WBW). As if these words could only mean one thing to anyone. WBW, an organized response to a push for inclusion of all womyn at this festival. A push for understanding that womon is a broad and beautiful thing. A thing that we each come to, or don’t, in our own way. Red was their color, these womyn born womyn. And red came to mean many things for me that week.

Red came to mean blood and the sacredness and separateness of a body that bleeds. Red was anger, fear, passion and fire. Red was life itself, my roots and also the wound that kept weeping.

That small meadow my path emptied me into was heavy in red but not dominated by it. I found others with soft white cotton shirts or pins that said Trans Womyn Belong Here. That white read to me as a softening, a peace flag. Not surrender but no longer sharp suspicion. Though many couldn’t, or wouldn’t, know that. There were many others there in jeans or dresses, bare breasted or swaddled against summer heat. They flagged no color. I could hardly see them at all. My eyes stuck to the red.

There was a nervousness, a tension, a closeness. We had gathered for a workshop, Allies in Understanding: Womyn-Only Space, the Shifting Concepts of Gender, and Trans-Inclusion. The workshop was facilitated by two people, one grey haired and one baby faced. They set a tone of honesty, humor and challenge. They spoke to the nervousness and all the womyn in that meadow laughed together. That was significant. It meant beginning this conversation knowing that our voices could join in a joyful unison. It was possible. It was already happening.

They explained to us that we would be pairing up with someone and asked to watch people model respectful dialogue. It seemed trite but it was welcome. They asked us to consider where we stood on this issue and to line ourselves single file down a long dirt path. People who felt strongly that the space should include trans womyn on one end, people who strongly felt this should be a ‘WBW’ only space on the other, and all those unsure in between. The line stretched long as I would say there were 100+ womyn there. I could not see which side was longer or how full the middle was. I could only feel trepidation trickling under my skin, the heat on my neck and the force it required to keep my feet still.

I stood perhaps 4 people from the end of this binary and the facilitators asked that we fold the line in half, with the WBW folks walking their end of the line towards ours. This is how we would find our pair. One on one with the same level of passion, commitment and fire. And so it was that I waited to meet my match. And so it was that I met her...

MWMF: Home

With all this talk of ‘Home’ I have never felt more homeless. I am not at ease in this space. Do not feel this automatic sense of safety that people speak of. Maybe that speaks to the fistfuls of privilege I carry with me. Maybe that speaks to a different way of viewing the world. Or maybe that speaks to this position I have printed across my chest.

I’ve met some beautifully kind womyn here. People who remember my name. And when they hear it’s my first time many of them look sweetly my way and say, “Welcome Home”. For many this place is home. A space and setting they would choose to live in year round. It is where they shed their armor, love the way they’ve always wanted, dance with reverence and fuck without shame. It is where their family lives. Family that is sometimes decades old and stronger than blood could ever bind. For many this is the only community that has told them they are precious, perfect, lovable and worthy of protection.

I, in many ways, am without a home. I have found that love in small nooks and corners. Sometimes I’ve lived there for years. It has been a blessing to find it at all. But there is a small sadness there. And more than that there is a longing. Home is meant to feel full, abundant. But so often the space I was supposed to call home reeked of not enough. Part of me hoped this could be my home. But each time a womyn welcomes me it is made clear that I am still searching for a space that feels unconditional.

MWMF: Stubborn Streak of Lightning

Last night the wind blew, the sky lit, weather thundered through the campsite. I did my best to keep my faith, my will to be here. It led me out in my shortest, blackest dress without underwear to look for the community dance party. I would be bold, I would find Victoria, we would dance in the darkness and rain, it would be a moment. So I stomped through mud and flooded trails, stomped through puddles calf deep, feet soaked, everything soaked. And when I got there the dance was cancelled, my friend wasn’t there and I was just alone in the rain.

I get stubborn when I get lonely. Find myself testing gods will and my worth. So I kicked through mud streets looking for other fun to be had, willing god to send it my way lest it confirm some terrible self taught notion that I was alone and did not belong.

Lightning met a tree somewhere in the too close distance and bodies streaked naked through the night. There was laughter and shrieks in equal measure. I didn’t know which I was looking for. I wished for company, for silly adventure, but I can feel myself not writing how even in this moment there was a freedom. There was a return of willfulness laced with surrender. There was me standing in the storm, mud splashed past inner thigh, and daring something, somewhere, for more. I stood in the middle of that path, water pouring over dripping hair and red lips, and I had nerve. It was an irritation. But it was also an awakening.

MWMF: The Quiet Before The Storm

There is a quiet about this place. Not just a quiet but a silence. Maybe that’s just because I’m still feeling very much like an outsider, a spy. I watch everyone and everything with a close eye while trying to go unnoticed. I suppose that’s the rhythm of figuring a place out.

Breakfast was smooth this morning, a small crowd ignoring the roped off maze that waits for more womyn. They have everything finely tuned and ordered. I camped not that far from the kitchen, right on the edge of Bush Gardens and Crone Heights. I am surrounded by other tents and tall trees. Forest. It is raining now but the leaves catch most of the moisture before it ever meets my tent. Still the air is humid and everything is damp. This morning Anna helped me put a tarp up over my tent, doing my best to prepare for the thunderstorms we’re to expect later today.

I’m lonely here. Maybe just for today. But I am tired of doing alone. Putting the tent up alone. Wandering alone. Last night after getting my tent set up I walked through the dark, sauntering past tents of topless women some of whom sat entirely nude on plastic folding chairs. That image stayed with me. A womyn’s pussy against plastic as night fell in the middle of nowhere Michigan. I was supposed to be meeting friends but I’d gotten in late and missed our scheduled time. There is no electricity or phones, so that was as close to a plan as we were gonna get. Instead I was left wandering through a sea of woods and women, wondering how I would ever find anyone.

But it is true how they say that there is magic here or maybe it’s just grace. Because as I rounded the corner of Lois Lane to the sounds of a drum circle, I met my limit. I had driven several stressful hours to this unfamiliar space and now darkness and drums were swirling around me and I was alone. It was too much. I stopped and whispered aloud, GOD PLEEEASE. And 30 seconds later I was wrapped in the arms of 3 friends from San Francisco who were waiting just around that bend.

I wanna say that everything eased in that moment. In the realization that I had asked for what I needed and it was given. But instead my body still pulsed quietly with stress and uncertainty as we sat under stars with hundreds of other womyn and watched a movie about the ever attractive and inspiring Topp Twins.

That pulse is still steady now as I move into my first afternoon here. As if I am waiting for something to come. A person, a fight, a prophecy or maybe just this storm.

MWMF: Getting There

Today was a journey. One with jerking halts, near breakdowns and lots of deep breaths. I wanted it to be easier. Wanted to climb into this beautiful red pick up, turn my brain off and go. But instead there were gears to mind and a broken radio playing too soft music. It gave me great pause to laugh at myself and try to be a good sport about it all.

I learned to drive stick yesterday in about 20 minutes on an abandoned road near the Cleveland airport. My Grandmother reminding me again and again to take my foot of the gas when I shifted. Today I drove near 400 miles to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. My body stiff with anticipation for both what I would find in those woods and the possibility of a fast breaking semi and the need to downshift. It has taken me years and many friends to get here. I thought of that each time I considered turning around.

After about 9 hours I made it to The Land. I pulled into a grassy parking spot, got out, registered, signed up for work shifts. Everyone seemed to be engrossed in their particular job. Clearly wanting to do it well. Whether that was directing traffic, loading cars, driving a tractor or cheering as you drove through the gates. A few took distinct pleasure in yelling “Festie Virgin” as I walked past. It made me smile, blush and cringe a little.

I’d arrived but the sun was setting and I still needed to set my tent up somewhere in the near 650 acres of woods. Panic was lingering. So I shifted my stuff from one pick up to another, took a deep breath and let a womyn drive me deeper into the woods.