A Room of One's Own

In October of 1928, Virginia Woolf gave a series of lectures at Cambridge University which invoked several feminist and lesbian-based themes, published later as a book entitled, A Room of One's Own. Eighty-three years later, her thoughts are true and manifest in my post now. While I am not interested in exploring personal finances, feminism, lesbianism, writing per se on this particular blog, I would like to air grievance on why having a room of one's room -- in the most literal sense -- is something that every person, male or female, absolutely must possess from time to time.


I find myself in an impossible situation ever since I semi-moved to Ohio to be with my beloved. On the one hand, the act of suspending one's established modes of living temporarily to seek love and closeness with one's best friend, companion, and loved one surely is the most noble, fulfilling, and spiritually uplifting experience one can ever know. Thanks to the support of family, friends, and co-workers, I was able to "move" a few possessions, my cat, and myself last month to stay indefinitely with my beloved and her aging aunt. On the other hand, all that said, the situation is difficult and tenuous at best, starting with the situation that ties my love here in the first place.


As I mentioned, we are living with her aunt, who just turned 87 this month. The aunt is not exactly the most pleasant of people; she is most times quite cranky as she is fighting partial hearing loss, blindness, glaucoma, and something with her stomach that the doctors and hospital staff have so far not been able to pinpoint. Now, before we blame the docs, note that the aunt is not exactly the most cooperative of patients, either. Anything that medical practitioners tell her to do, she either ignores it, or sometimes blatantly lies about where she is/not feeling pain. The result is a misdiagnosed, aging woman, that instead of resolving to get better, likely is sitting around waiting to die. It's depressing, indeed, and I hate writing such a thing; however, she has not shown me that she's loving life and wanting to hold on to it. She has no friends, smokes 3 packs a day, ignores all good advice regarding her health, is constantly cantankerous, and rarely thanks her niece for the little things that she does to make her aunt's last years in her own home the most comfortable that she can (grocery shopping, cleaning up, favorite foods, cooking, etc). The secondary result is that there is often an air of negativity in the house, such as the one that has pervaded tonight.

Prior to moving in on this temporary basis, I asked my love if she wouldn't mind fixing up the long-abandoned (but finished) attic so that I might enjoy a respite away from some of these ills, to which she graciously complied, furnishing new paint, carpet, and a cleanliness, quiet, and solitude that I could truly call my own in a space that I do not own and never will. It is where I sit and write tonight, as a thunderstorm slams northeastern Ohio and prances staccato beads of moisture on the roof. It is where I came to shut out the negativity that awaits me below.

I've tried to be patient and kind, and I want to be, but sometimes the bitter taste of the inhabitants of this house get to me. First, my love is angry because she feels trapped here. She feels the obligation to help her aging aunt as much as she can, and knows that she cannot simply abandon her, because her aunt had no children of her own, and there's no one left down the family line to care for her. Furthermore, it is a love-hate relationship of needs on both sides. My love needs her aunt to supplement some of her income through checks she receives every month and therefore continue to supply a home base that she's known off and on for over 58 years; her aunt needs my love to drive, shop, go to the doctor, fix the house, mow the lawn, and be the "superintendent" of the homestead. However, as you might imagine, a relationship built on need often turns volatile, and when this volatility is coupled with one woman that wants quiet throughout the house, but depends on another that cranks up her television almost as loudly as it will go (since she cannot hear well), sparks fly frequently. In this case, the aunt becomes angry and feels that she cannot live her life as she must (loudly, smokily, slobbily) and the niece remains angry because all she really wants to do is leave this mess behind, regain her autonomy and some freedom, and let go of the guilt that constantly nags her regarding the circumstances. She loves her aunt, but she is not her spouse, and was never cut out to be a housewife, but feels that's exactly what her aunt expects.

Enter me, stage right, and right into this mess. For the better part of a year now, I have comforted and supported my love through some tough times, fraught with fights, guilty feelings, anger, and negative sentiment about her situation, as she has done for me through my various emotional, familial, and legal battles. And my dilemma is no easier to solve. As I mentioned before, I am very happy and grateful that finally I can see and be with my love every day and night. I remember too well how desperately lonely and depressed I was and am without her. However, I am also constrained and stifled into living into a situation that I never would have chosen if it weren't for the love I have for my partner. For one, I cannot stand the smell of cigarette smoke; it makes my eyes burn and the odor is so rancid, I just want to run from it. But remember again that I live with a woman who smokes 2-3 packs a day, so one cannot rightly run and hide from the pervasive nature of this vile smoke. It's everywhere and has been embedded into this house for over 60 years. It's in the furniture, on my coat in the hall, and it is always rising, rising up the stairs to find me and smother me with its ghastly odor. On the lower floors, and in particular in the living room, main hallway, and foyer, the smoke hangs in a thick cloud that reminds me of a bar at the height of its busy hours, and because there is but one kitchen in this house, I cannot avoid it entirely when I go downstairs to prepare or enjoy a meal. Secondly, I am also not thrilled about the television that is constantly tuned to Fox News, blaring gloom and doom through every floorboard on the south side of the house. And lastly, the cantankerous and downright thankless, bitchy, and spoiled-brat-I-could-give-a-fuck behavior from the aunt herself compels me day after day to simply hold my tongue, because it would do no good for me to complain or argue for better conditions from my love's aunt. Now here's the kicker; don't get me wrong, her aunt can be a good and fun person to talk to -- just not as often as one would like. Most of the time, she just scowls, howls, smokes, and sometimes sleeps.

My beloved does recognize the toll that it takes on me and has apologized many times for her own crankiness, fatigue, frustration, guilt, and rage. None of this is her fault, but it does little to mitigate the effect that these circumstances have wrought. It still continues to pin me into a corner. For example, nothing really holds me here but my love for my partner; nothing bars me from renting a car tonight, packing up everything I brought, grabbing the cat, and driving 19 hours back to Denver. What holds me is that I know that if I did, I would feel so lonely, distraught, and miserable, that I would question my very motive for doing it the entire time, and hate myself for putting that level of distance between us over these outside factors. I would suffer an immense guilt of having abandoned the one I love here, even though this was her home and the situation way before we met. But it's tempting, let me be honest; so tempting. It is so tempting to move back to a home that's quiet, smoke-free, and a symbol of absolute freedom for me to go out when I want, stay out if I chose, and let some of this pent-up frustration go. But I cannot do it. My love for my partner supercedes that, and the situation here is, sadly, and gladly at the same time, very temporary.

So I have to remind myself hourly of the perks. I do have a room of my own up here; two, in fact. I have a lovely, quiet, smoke-free office that I can run to for work, games, writing, research, and reading. I have a second room right behind me that I can use to practice the piano, get dressed in the mornings, and will be able to relax in the summer (A/C will be in there to cool the entire space). And I do have closet space up here that allows me to hang up my clothes (like a normal person!) and not live out of a suitcase. Once again, because the attic is smoke free, at the very least, when I get dressed in the morning, my clothes are fresh and comfortable; it's only throughout the day, in small doses, that said clothes actually start to smell like a carton of used Maverick butts. And on nights like tonight, when the Ohio rain slams against this 110-year old gem of a house, I get a front-row seat to its symphony of raindrops, lightning, and thunder, dancing upon the roof.

Discovery: Summer Explorations, Ohio

If I had to choose just one day
To last my whole life through
It would surely be that Sunday
The day that I met you

- That Sunday, That Summer, sung by Nat King Cole
Written by Joe Sherman and George David Weiss, 1963.


If someone would have come to me six months ago and said that I would fall in love with a female friend of mine, who would transform into the love of my life, and that I would choose to spend the summer in a 110-year old Victorian house with no air-conditioning in northeastern Ohio, I would have said that they were completely batshit crazy. However, that's precisely what happened to me this very summer, going on right now, and I feel compelled to share some of my inward experiences about it, the environment all around me, and the transformation that is going on deep within me as I go.

I first came out to Ohio on a road trip, following my step dad to a sales meeting in Kansas City, the Monday after Father's Day, June 21. The journey itself was perfect and uneventful; blue skies, avoided thunderstorms, no issues with the car. Twenty-two hours after leaving Denver and taking the I-70, I-35, and I-80-90 routes (which I do not recommend, since it's three hours too far to the south, but since I was going with my dad, I sucked it up and made the most of it), I arrived in Lorain and the homestead where I have been living for the past three and a half weeks of the summer, and likely will until August, when it's time to return to school to finish my MBA.

Lorain, Ohio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain,_Ohio), some thirty miles west of Cleveland, has definitely seen better days.

Lorain is a former steel and automobile powerhouse hub, which established itself firmly within America's manufacturing glory days when Andrew Carnegie's U.S. Steel set up its formidable mill in the center of town (http://www.ussteel.com/corp/company/profile/about.asp - the mill now only runs tubular operations from Lorain but still feebly keeps going, a far cry from its glorious past). Lorain again received a boost in the late 1950s when workers came from all over to find employment at the giant Ford plant (http://www.blueovalnews.com/plugins/p2_news/printarticle.php?p2_articleid=54) and built trucks such as the F-150, vans like the Econoline, and the Ford Fairlane.

By contrast, the city appears to be in mourning for what used to be and, at least in South Lorain, near where the three-mile mill was, little hope blooms for what it might become again the future. However, the city's mayor, Tony Krasienko, (http://www.cityoflorain.org/mayor/) and his council members refuse to give up and therefore tirelessly repair city parks and roads in an effort to keep Lorain attractive to future possibilities. Much of this is likely because the mayor was born and raised in Lorain and therefore has an active interest in fighting the good fight. (Go Tony!)

The town sits on the southern edge of Lake Erie and there are a great many Victorian, Denver Square, Cape Cod, and other turn-of-the-previous-century beautiful homes to be found on its shores. Laborers and steel mill fat cats first built Lorain and offered a great many job opportunities in the 1930s, and the town grew still more during World War II, when people came for the chance to make some money and patriotically assist in the effort to indirectly kill Nazis. For many years, Lorain was popping, growing, and a decent place for a blue-collar family to live.

However, when the Lorain Ford Ford plant laid off its last worker in 2005, and again when the Lorain Works branch of U.S. Steel shut down a majority of its domestic operations here, the town, again particularly blue-collar South Lorain, was struck by hard times. I've stayed here twice his summer; first for two weeks in June and again from Father's Day until present.

South Lorain is not an overly dangerous part of town; at least not in contrast to the inner cities of places where I have lived in the past and feared enough for my life upon driving through them, day or night. This does not mean that it does not have its share of crimes, but barring the occasional blaring stereo, booming bass audio assault, or the occasional domestic violence and drug bust, it is a quiet, working-class side of town, not unlike most towns in America. However, due to its proximity to the steel mill, years of blue collar housing, portion of South Lorain that IS more dangerous than where we are, and now with its growing Hispanic population, it earned a local reputation as rough as a whole. Per the Wikipedia article cited above, 21% of Lorain's 68,000+ estimated (and that was in 2000, there could well be much fewer people now) residents are Hispanic, and more specifically, in South Lorain, the vast majority are Puerto Rican. Many PR families have settled here, bought the huge Victorian homes formerly owned by steel mill bosses, and begun to raise their families. Most of the owners have done everything they can to to keep the homes in good condition, not a small feat for homes over a century old and mostly on low incomes, again shattering the myth that South Lorain is rough and undesirable. In fact, the city mandates that the residents either paint or side the homes regularly to keep from showing disrepair, and many others have either built onto the homes, completely restored them, built beautiful decks and porches, and have tried to keep an otherwise depressed part of town looking nice.

But tell that to business owners! Many restaurants and shops are now closed and boarded up on this side of town, strip malls are vacant, Wal-Mart is moving to the more attractive neighboring suburb of Amherst in September, and there's really only one major supermarket. There is an indoor mall here, Midway Mall, that fights to survive as well. The country's recession, on top of the fleeing commerce that once made the town great, has taken its toll on local residents, many of whom have taken large losses on real estate, simply because there are few jobs and no potential buyers. Property values throughout the city have plummeted, and it is not unusual to find a home within walking distance to Lake Erie going for around $10,000; sometimes even less if the property is in foreclosure. The community needs jobs. Except for the Lowe's in Elyria, because when you live in an old-ass house like my love's family does, there's enough work to do be done on it, and enough trips that we've made to it that would send every one of its employees' kids through college, maybe twice each.

During the golden years of the city, my love's grandmother and grandfather moved their family into this Victorian after World War II (1953), and prior to their habitation, it had been a rooming house, interestingly split into little apartments and rented out. Two of the three bedrooms on the second floor literally boast a large white sink and adjoining cabinets, the remnants of what used to be a kitchen in the apartments. Between two of the bedrooms, one of the closets has been removed to reveal a small doorway that allows one access to the other bedroom without having to step out into the common hallway at the top of the stairs.

There is only one full bathroom (in addition to a toilet and sink in the laundry room downstairs and a standalone shower in the basement), complete with the traditional deep, Queen Anne clawed-foot, white-enameled, iron bathtub, also on the second floor. Should we build a second bathroom; probably, but then that would mean sending still more kids to college over at Lowe's.

The house is an electrician's challenge, as the wiring is original, and nothing in the house is to modern code or grounded, causing occasional electrical surges and necessitating power strips for one's prized electronics. Plumbers need not feel left out either, as a sink and a toilet have both started leaking since I started staying here, causing my love to literally have to rip up the floor in the bathroom and rebuild it (as we speak) to stop a potential water hazard from leaking into her aunt's bedroom ceiling directly below.

On the first floor, below a gorgeous oaken (painted black) staircase, (there are actually two staircases - the proper one and a "back staircase" closer to the kitchen door - is a parlor, a kitchen, laundry room, and a dining room that has been converted into yet another bedroom. A door off the kitchen leads to a large stone basement, which still boasts a gas boiler for heating the many radiators throughout the house in the winter. Before you say that this is charming, imagine constantly having to clean putrid yellow gas stains off the walls of your house; suddenly, it's not charming, in fact, you would simply have to repaint the walls from time to time to cover it. And as I mentioned before, there is no central air conditioning in the house; it is kept cool in summer by giant oak shade trees, window fans, and a small window air conditioner in my love's bedroom, whenever the heat simply becomes too much to bear. On average, however, I've either gotten used to it, or the Lake Erie breezes have really helped to keep us in the pink. Maybe both, because we've had some hot nights here, with temps in the 80s, as well as in the 50s. You just can never tell what the jet stream will bring.

Finally, in the attic, there is yet another kitchen, with a 50s-era original Kenmore gas range, another white porcelain sink and cabinet set, and two more rooms that were home to my love's family many, many years ago. All told, this white behemoth of a house boasts over 13 rooms, with at least 6 of the living spaces available as bedrooms. It also has beautiful and large front and back yards, two "sleeping porches", a super old detached garage that could fall over at any moment, and a turn-of-the-last-century stone block smokehouse at the edge of the backyard property line. This is probably where the bodies are buried. I don't ask questions.

The American Pickers on History Channel would have a ball here, as the garage, attic, basement, and several other rooms are all stacked with potential antique treasures (but probably really just accumulated junk that the previous inhabitants of the house were afraid to throw away!). Car parts, old stereo components, telephones, tools tools tools, a bazillion linens, you name it, you want it, it's probably here and could be put up for sale if the price is right (Mike and Frank, call us...) ;) In fact, a couple of days ago, after watching that very show, my love and I picked around in the attic, and in addition to the 50s Kenmore range, we found an Emerson black and white television, with tubes and everything intact in the back, that likely dates back to the early to mid 50s (remind me to get that serial number and I'll find out how old it is!), as well as some beautiful dressers, mirrors, a vanity table and more that likely date to World War II and before. As a lover of antiques and history, the attic -- in fact the entire house -- is a constant inspiration for my imagination, leaving it to wonder endlessly about the generations of people who lived in this house, what they did, what they went through ... not only for my love's family, but also for the 50 years that it has stood in this very spot and served as apartments for transients, after it completed its early glory days as shelter and home to Lorain's steel bosses and important citizens. If the walls could talk, certainly there would be a veritable encyclopedia of memory of the human experience in America over the last 110 years; what a tale it could tell!

One such human experience that is happening in this house now lies with me. If you had read my previous posting relating how I fell in love with my dear, you would certainly have to infer that this winter, spring, and now summer, over the past 5 months, have been life-changing in more ways than one. First, I determined that I finally grew tired of being in a loveless marriage by which I felt like I was responsible for taking care of all of my husband's needs while he in turn did nothing for me, and therefore, I did not really grow in the 8-10 years that I was with him, neither with him as a partner or even within myself. While I learned a great many things, emotionally, I stayed in a place where I constantly felt like his needs superseded mine and that I felt that I had to ask permission to live my life as I chose. In mid-April 2010, I finally said goodbye to asking for that permission, stated that I no longer wished to build my life with him, did not desire to have a family, and by July, began divorce proceedings to that end. As this is not a blog that bemoans that choice, suffice it to say that there are a great many reasons, things, that led me to that decision, and I do not regret either separating or filing the papers. It is an amicable separation, and sadly, one that has hurt him in the long run more than me.

What has transpired in its place is that I discovered that the instinct I had about myself when I was about 15 has finally rung true, and may have even been an instinct that others saw in me long before I chose to face it (props to Rick Rupprecht, wherever you are.) I have learned that I can be in a relationship and love a woman every bit as much as I had loved men in the past, if not more, and that I love the dynamic that it presents. I love the fact that in this relationship, I am treated completely as an equal, prized for my difference as being the more "feminine" (femme) of the two of us, and loved for exactly who I am, without any pretense, games, bullshit, and so on. I am finally understood, accepted, and desired by someone else, and I have accepted this reality within myself. I do not feel guilty, sad, or ripped apart by the experience; by contrast, I am embolded and validated. My energy molds to hers, completes it, as hers completes and compliments mine. The internal issues, however, come with how I now can "out" myself, present myself, to my friends and family, people whom I love very much and love me, but honestly might not be able to accept me.

Many of the fears around coming out are often completely unfounded. Parents, more often than not as studies show, do tend to accept and love their children unconditionally, no matter their sexual orientation or choices in life, even if those choices are painful to them. Regarding friends, I know that the best ones will stand behind me, while others fade away due to homophobias or discomfort; and that's fine, as I will never force my beliefs or lifestyle on anyone that is not prepared to accept it. They are free to live as they choose; so am I.

All of these considerations are logical; I KNOW this is how things go. The issues within me are emotional. What do I say? Hi folks, I've lived a straight life for the past 20 years because I couldn't really accept that I might be gay? Maybe. How do I present the love of my life to people I care about, especially because she's female, masculine, oh, and so much older than I am? Does it mean that I really need to lead a solitary existence to truly be who I am inside, and if so, am I prepared to do that? If not, am I prepared for the weird side looks and notes of puzzlement on my friends' and families' faces? And at the end of the day, does it really matter? Isn't the point that I am an adult, this is my life, these are my choices, and I ultimately am the one that has to be able to deal with myself and said choices? Since when do I live my life for other people? That's what this trip to Ohio this summer has been all about ... branching out, doing something completely different, completely against the grain, but at the same time, so completely me, for me, by me.

This trip to Ohio has been a part of my overall "coming out process." Psychologists often note that gay people come out in stages, first to themselves, then to trusted friends and family, and then, if it ever gets that far, completely to the world at large. I'm somewhere in the middle of that. Personally, I know I have the ability to love someone of my own gender fully, be sexually attracted, and build a relationship with her, hands down, no problem, it's a reality. As for the rest, all of four people really know that I'm like this -- my parents, my sister, and my friend, Mark.

Why Ohio, might you say? Because it's neutral territory to explore and think. Because it allows me the opportunity to live with the person that I love on a daily basis to know for sure that the relationship is truly grounded in reality and is not an Internet offshoot, doomed to fail because we aren't stuck behind our computers and using Yahoo voice to express our innermost feelings. Because it gives me space, 1300 miles away from the source of my longest-standing pain, to sort through the crap that has been happening in my life with my soon-to-be-ex since 2000, and blaze some new emotional trails for myself. Because I can come out here, work as usual, life my life, on my terms, and be free to be myself, and that, at the end of the day, is really all I want. Some peace, some quiet, and some real freedom to be. It is not a permanent vacation, as I do have my own home and place that I love. I have no intentions on relocating here forever; and in fact, my love does not intend on staying here forever either, so it's a type of purgatory, a way to make the best of a situation that for the nonce cannot be altered, but can yield happiness in the interim just the same.

So what do all those words mean? I'm in love with a woman who loves me back and wants to love me for the long haul. She calls me the love of her life and I completely believe her and share the sentiment. Neither of us cares about the obstacles; we are willing to surmount them, own them, knock them down, and triumph over them. There is nothing greater in the world than the pursuit of happiness, and trust me, depression, anxiety, and negativity are all on the run whenever we're together. You can see it in the long-awaited smile on my face and glow around my heart. We are strong individually and even stronger together. Maybe that's what scares people; if so, it shouldn't. I would hope that it would inspire and embolden people to know that true love and happiness CAN be found in this world, even if it's between two middle-aged to Baby Boomer women who could give a care about what anyone really thinks.

So I am on an internal quest to determine how people that I love can deal with it, since I have dealt with it, silently, for many years, as a possibility. Perhaps they won't be able to deal, and if that's true, again I am sad and sorry, but not sorry enough to lie about who I am and whom I love.

Dear Loved Ones .... 6/15/2010

Dear Loved Ones,

No doubt you have all wondered what has become of me lately and what I am going through, so I thought I would write you this little letter to express the turmoils going on inside of me and the good changes that are emerging as a result of my self-exploration.

I have come to the end of a decade of turmoil and tragedy and have finally begun to find myself, breathe deeply, and seize what I need inside. For the past 10 years, you may recall that in the course of loving some of you, I have dealt with constant mental illness, near-suicides, anxieties, weak-willed men, frequent deaths of close family members (including 2 grandmothers, my father, my aunt, and my uncle), and finally, with unspoken demands that have been placed me upon to magically fix all of this -- to be there unequivocally, to be strong, to always be someone else's rock.

In the process, I have been called controlling, over-bearing, bossy, and difficult to live with; however, these terms have come from you, my dear loved ones, who never saw or would acknowledge the tragedies up close and in person, day to day, as I did. Some of you witnessed them from afar; still others of you were the causes of my pain. The rest of you actually leaned on that "bossiness" to give you the confidence that you were lacking when we entered into relationships in the first place. How dare you say that you loved that quality about me when we met, but when everything ended, such strength was actually a liability, instead of an asset? Again you are trying to play both ends to the middle; it simply does not work this way. You either needed me to be strong and in control, or you didn't, but you cannot have it both ways and always in your favor.

For example, you had never faced coming home one day to find one of you lying on the floor, wishing to die, with a fistful of pills in your hand, refusing treatment from the hospital and making me trick you long enough to get the help you needed, then being reamed by your mother for saving your life. You had never dealt daily with another one of you who believed you were his sole reason for being and coasted along happily as I did everything for you, wrote your letters, fought your battles, placed your calls, cooked your meals, did your laundry, pushed you forward to goals you wanted to achieve, and soothed your soul in the process, while you rendered yourself blind and incapable to know what my needs were -- because had you known, you would have understood how you were draining me and leaving nothing in your wake. Finally, you never dealt with a clinging parent, again one of you, who placed all her hopes and dreams on me, loves me dearly, but is ultimately confused and worried that she is losing me, simply because my hopes, dreams, and person within do not match her image of me or what she would have wanted for me.

Your love has caused a barrier of noise between us, and it is mostly because you all desire different things than what I deeply want inside. My main desire now, and always, lies in being accepted, respected, and understood, not in being all things possible to all of you. I have tried to do this and finally found something in life at which I have unilaterally failed. There is no way I will ever be that all-inclusive person that most of you seem to want ... a sometime 'girlfriend' that you never really got over, a dutiful daughter with a happy marriage and kids, the nice girl down the street that always makes everyone else feel good, throws parties, makes a big deal at every holiday season, the solid rock that can take anything you throw at her and make you stronger as she slowly breaks down into pebbles ... no. In my current state, by trying to do this, I feel drained, saddened, angered, and used, and so at this point, I am merely reclaiming the right to live my own life, on my own terms. I hope that at the end of the day, you can still say that you love me, even if the person that you see in front of you does not necessarily conform to the image that you need, want, or thought you had seen in the past. If not, however, I no longer seek your permission to be as I am.

The person inside yearns for her freedom; the freedom to do, say, go, and experience the richness of life, without asking permission, without making excuses, and without your tears, guilt, judgment, or scorn. There is no reason to be so negative or fearful or worry about me; I am happy and liberating myself for the first time in my life, and if you truly love me, you need only to look at me to see that I am a ball of light today.

The person inside wants you to love her as she is, the highly-intelligent, free-spirited artist, erudite, and poet, who also happens to do quite well in the business world and can take care of herself in any situation, as she did when she was on the road for seven years as a consultant, and as she still can do to this day. This person inside simply wants you to nod your head, smile happily, and say, yep, that's my girl, I'm proud of you, live life out loud, and let it go at that. Please save your expectations for someone else, because I've now proven that I will simply not satisfy them. I'm OK with this; I hope that you will heal and move on as well.

The person inside yearns to express her love fully for someone that deserves it, and if the person that I love happens to be very different (female, older, different social class, far away) than what you might have desired for me, you need to be strong enough to accept that this makes me happy and that I have the deepest capacity to fall in love outside of your and society at large's expectations.

Furthermore, I also do not need any future matchmaking services, nor do I feel that I need to be alone or 'coast' for a while. I have felt alone for many years that most of you did not witness and did not see. I have gone without passion, sex, or intimacy for a very long time, even while one of you was still living here. I have gone without knowing who I am inside, and pushing down other things about me that I have known for easily 20 years, which is again why I do not need another man, another mate, ever.

I have endured years of both fights and cold wars, been ignored, not listened to, not heeded, but today, I finally found a love who does none of these things. She means the world to me now and as a result is one of the few 'loved ones' in my life that is excluded from this letter; the rest of you know who you are! She is the only one in the world who allows me to be myself and encourages it, while the rest of you scratch your heads and play the guilt game, wondering what all "went wrong", when nothing did. Everything would be perfect but for the guilt, restraints, and noise that you insist on placing upon me.

So the best way that you can show me that you truly love me, is to listen to me, and let me be myself. If I choose to go East for six months, or indefinitely, to be with the person I love, I will do so, and you will not take it as an opportunity to guilt me into any other recourse. If I want to take a cross-country road trip to clear my head and get there, I have the ability to do so. If I choose to take an exotic cruise by myself somewhere, you will not worry about me, because you know that I can and have taken good care of myself in the past; in fact, answer me this --- why is that I am so qualified to take care of all of you in one way or another, but when it comes to me, you suddenly start worrying about me, challenging my abilities, and questioning my mental state? You need to stop doing that to me. It again simply does not work both ways but always in your favor.

With that, I ask that you be happy for me and the decisions I make in my life from now on. I ask that if by doing so, if we no longer can be friends or loved ones, that you exit stage left, quietly, without drama, and give me the respect I deserve. If you can understand and accept me as I am, I believe that you will find a happier, even more giving, and even more alive person than you have seen in the past, and you will be happy for letting go of your previous illusions and expectations, which wear on me like a suit that doesn't fit anymore. Please stop worrying about me; worry instead about the guilt and negative emotions that you are attaching to me that drown me further. I am cutting those cords today, and I have no doubt that some of you will feel this and try to cling harder; others will take the hint that I no longer need your concern and will let it go.

With that, I wish all of you my love and respect; now go forth and live life with me, as I will, to the fullest.

Poem: Modern Husbandry

I will never forget
The night I made lasagna from scratch
While you mowed the lawn and killed weeds.

As I mixed the ingredients
Preheated the oven
Browned the ground beef
I also

Stood in the kitchen
Watched you ride the mower skillfully
Smoking a cigarette
Getting the chores done before it rained.

And it dawned on me
We were in another time and place
Your wife in the kitchen
Her husband tending the lawn.

I never felt so right, so natural
Something so unexplainable
Never felt so loved or needed
As when you devoured the meal that night.

It brought to mind the essay I read you
About how butches and femmes do chores
Neither attaches superiority
Inferiority
to them
Just get them done
and assigns them
to whomever does them best.

You are the expert on the lawn
I am the expert on lasagna.

But in a one-hundred year-old kitchen
I watched my lady husband work the yard and
Time stopped
It could have been 1955 ---
--- 2010 --- time warped --- out of time ---
The most perfectly complete relationship.

We give and take from each other like no one else
We share a magic undescribed
We stop and bend time, gender, to our will
We love like no one's business.

You love the femme inside me
Dying to live and serve her beloved
I love the butch within you
Who grows all the more masculine through me.

Our spirits dance and compliment
We fly freest when we fly together
While in the material world
We may not have much in common
In the spiritual
You and I move as one.

I describe the joy I felt that day
Of serving my heart's meal
To the woman I love best;
Know that you always bend gender for me
And delight me the entire time that you do.

For you are my spirit husband
My woman gentleman
Who loves me fiercely for who I am
And inspires me to surprise even myself.

(c) Androfemme
6/8/2010 - 11 PM MDT

Poem: Business Trip

She lugs my huge suitcase
Down the 100 year old staircase
Refuses my help until we hit the front porch
Says love can you pick that end up please
Resumes her chivalry and hefts it down the front walk and into the trunk

Drives to the Arby's for the last supper
Reminds me its a just a business trip west
I will be home soon
Orders the big beef for me, junior beef and Swiss for her
Doesn't like curly fries

The Crown Vic glides the wrong direction from Denver on I-80, 480, to Cleveland Hopkins
Hand on my leg, hand, hair, neck
Never stops loving me
Proudly fingers the exquisite silver and iridescent glass pendant at home about my neck that
She made
With those same skilled hands

Eyes searching, saddened, but always loving, they miss me already
Missed me since I made the reservation to Denver three days ago
Lost their usual steely hardness as she
Refuses to cry, will not get me started

Sees me crestfallen, says what is it baby, Knows damned well what
Tells me I am not allowed to cry on the plane, remember, just a short business trip west

We will be together again soon she says
Until then we are never parted
We steal soulful kisses in the darkened parking garage
A businessman whisks by with his rollerbag and never notices

She drags the wretched behemoth suitcase to the check in counter
Overweight by 7 pounds, 60 bucks for 2 bags, united sucks, should have shipped the fuckers, woulda been cheaper
The weights in our hearts are tons heavier and priceless

Seating group 4 means the last to board
Plenty of time to chat since we're early
We say our public goodbyes, deep hugs, snacks from the machine

She never turns her back on me, even when it is time to go
All the way up the escalator, locks eyes, smiles, waves, wails inwardly, back to the car, back to Lorain, back to the shit
My heart breaks to go on this so-called business trip, home;
I moved overnight to Ohio without a van

Through security, my gadgets, my necklace, her protection of me, I'm no threat
Might as well have placed the gate in the terminal, it's so close, 2 minute walk
The hole widens in my heart, not to have her close to me
Not to smile, wink, nod, grin, stare, admire, and need me
No place is home now without her.

On the plane, no wireless allowed
I can hear her silently crying for me just the same
Texted me the second she got home, in pain already as I took my seat
Her face, skin, lips, touch, hair, scent, manner, being, all burned into my soul forever
Hands itch to glide my love over her
She is one of a kind and wonderful
Her love has changed my life

I am with you my love, always, I send to her, of no immediate comfort;
Tears well up in my eyes a moment
but
I am an honorary butch and wont cry,
I promised;
I lean on some of her strength to make it

Two hours into the flight my heart sinks
Resolve threatens to collapse
Still light in the west, sun likely setting on her eastward, chasing the light, futility apparent
Can't cry in front of all these people
Besides I promised not to

There is no going back, only forward
Only forward, only this time together, and this time she is only mine, and I am hers, not shared, no back burners
Fully dedicated to each other's cause

Stevie Wonder in my ears does his best
To drown her deep, masculine, gorgeous voice out of my mind
As this plane ride only widens the physical distance between us
Stevie does not succeed

But I know she is all mine
And I, hers, for what other pain could be as great
As this, when it is time to go "home"
I know where my home really is
Anywhere you are, love of my life,
Anywhere at all but here.

- 6/2/2010 7:00 - 9:00 pm eastern
United airlines express flight from
Cleveland to Denver

Quotes

“Change is the essence of life. Be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become.”
- Mahatma Gandhi


"There is a butch for every femme, and a femme for every butch ... a butch needs and seeks a femme for her completion ...

The femme is made whole in union with the butch she loves as the butch is made whole by her femme, a wholeness no amount of friendship can give them. I do not know how to put into words the difference between this lesbian love and a friendship that includes sex. There is a kind of feeling between a butch and a femme in love with each other that is neither purely erotic nor purely friendly, though these feelings are present too. There is a total and liberating kind of possession, each of the other and each by the other."
- Rita Laporte, 'The Butch-Femme Question', from The Ladder, 1971. Reprinted in Joan Nestle's, ed, "The Persistent Desire: A Butch/Femme Reader", 1992.

.... Coming Alive ....

While I immediately recognize that I am not a published, certified, or lauded expert on gender studies and identity, this does not prohibit me from exploring that very concept on this blog or why such a study not only has always been important to me, but continues to be important now.

For years I have nursed and espoused an idea that people, souls, are actually complex mixes of an amazing and divine energy. Some think of this as the Breath of God; still others, not wishing to ascribe a deity idea to it, simply think of it as the everliving soul. Regardless of what it is made of, I think of it as an energy that continues on into the universe long after the physical body dies, and that energy morphs, changes, and becomes yet another entity that perhaps as we live and breathe, cannot fully comprehend. It is the driver behind who we really are inside, despite our best efforts to conform to society, morality, convention, folkways, and mores. It is a force that cannot be denied and often, cannot be fully explained. We know less about where we came from or where we are going, and barely have a lifetime enough to deeply explore the gift of this energy that we are.

I am obsessed with the idea that the soul very likely cannot be pinned down and labeled from a purely physical, binary-gender, perspective, but posit that it comes into this world as it is, unchangeable in its disposition, but open to learning and growing that disposition through the lens of life experiences. We are usually either classified as "male" or "female" (unless you're the FBI, who recognizes over 11 different "genders" in its database....) Today, in this posting, I want to walk through revelations that I am personally experiencing, regardless of what the academic community or leading experts in butch/femme lesbian relationships, bisexual connections, or any other camps with an agenda have to say. This is now my voice and my experience, and I am slowly learning to be proud to be privy to this difference.

Three months ago, I fell (and am) deeply in love with a woman for the first time in my life. This is not to say that she did anything to "sway me" or "turn me" into a lesbian, in fact, when I first met her through a popular game online, I and everyone else that she associated with thought she was a guy, due to her incredible masculine energy. However, I have known, regardless of if I came out and stated it publicly, that I am bisexual (or sexually "fluid" as some say), simply because I become attracted to a person's energy, their essence, and do not limit myself just to loving based on their gender, their "parts", as it were. Furthermore, I was not in an overly vulnerable situation (although I was unhappy for years as I was married) and she pounced on me to steal me from the het camp to the homo ... no, none of that crap from the propaganda films in the 1950s and 1960s (that somehow made their way into societal models of thinking) were relevant to me. She was simply herself, and as she related more and more to me, the more she opened her soul to me, put down her defensive walls, and became a real, living, breathing, and incredible person to me, the harder I fell. I felt free to fall like that for the first time in my life; free to break out of a societal box and loosen the chains around my ankles that said what I "should" be like or do. While I am still a very private person, this action allowed me to set myself free inwardly.

I fell because she could see inside of me, see what I loved, what I needed, how I longed to be set free, how I had grown tired of feeling like I was living on societal terms that says all good girls just find a husband (or two), settle down, get married, have 2 kids, and live out their vanilla lives together, a concept that is not only outdated for many women, but unrealistic when posed against the complexity of the human soul and experience. While there are many women that long for this level of security, for me it does not work. To me, life is not a cookie-cutter situation and those that fall outside of that are "weird" or "freaks." She has helped me to realize that the only thing that matters in life is that you are true to yourself, that you live life out loud, and that you never lie to the one person inside, lest you compromise your happiness in this life.

All of the odds, socially speaking, would appear to be against such happiness. Her energy, her soul, is very masculine, subject to jeers, strange looks, whisperings, and yet is completely at home in her own female skin. If one were to ask her to wear a dress and heels, s/he would instantly see what a mistake that request was, as such clothing does not match her on the inside at all. But this does not mean she is not handsome or is not even beautiful; she is, inside and out. And she has known who she is, what she wants, how she loves, and ultimately the kind of woman that she wants to love for the rest of her life since she was 12 years old. She has never felt any shame associated with being gay, taken all the crap that the bigots and assholes of the world have dished out, and remained true to herself the entire time, especially coming from an age in which being yourself was not always accepted.

Did I mention this? She is 24 years older than I am, which along with being gay, might be considered the second strike against this relationship. She was in her first relationships with people and sometimes in seedy and tough places when I wasn't even born yet, and on to her first major forays in life when I was still a baby.

She has three grown children: an adopted son (warded from her cousin) and two daughters (through a long-term relationship that she held in her late 20s-early 30s), is considered a second mother, but through that energy, that strength, that power, seems more of a "father" to the daughters; she has gone through the complete cycle of parenting, whereas I do not even wish to have any kids (strike three? Maybe not.) She has been witness to the slow and arduous changes in American society and law in terms of civil rights, and yet still dealt with the pain of watching a so-called liberal state (California) take away her partner's children simply because she was gay. She has never been able to marry someone she loves because she is gay. She was never fully accepted into mainstream culture long enough to be able to dance, hold hands with, kiss, or touch a woman that she loves in public, outside of a gay bar or event, because she is gay and thus bears the scars of being butch back in the days where men thought she was the enemy, waited for her outside of a club with guns and baseball bats, and refused to see her for whom she is ... a 'brother', a fellow woman-lover, an ally. Yet through all of this, she would never change who she is, never feels any shame, is proud and should be. She is not a saint and is not perfect, which makes her completely approachable, human, and wonderful, and is a kind person from whom to learn from her life's experiences.

She has run the gamut of same-sex relationships, and through loving women, has borne the brunt of her lovers' mind-games, issues with their ambiguous and undefined sexuality, made the subject of experiments, endured voyeurism and lesbian-lifestyle obsessions from men and subsequent destruction of friendship over it, and been in love long enough to realize that often times, that love would never be fully reciprocated due to the other woman's fears, self-consciousness, and self-shame. She has looked for love in less-than-desirable places, because that's where she was able to find like-minded women, fellow lesbians, ostracized as she was by society and their times, living on the fringes.

And yet through all of this, she has never lost her groove; never lost her identity, and I hope that I am able to capture even a piece of that identity through the feeble rambling on this blog. In this woman is a mix of power and tenderness; and assertion and extreme giving. This is a woman who never wished to physically be or live as a man, but for the most part, thinks, acts, holds herself, loves, and conducts her life in a way that most would consider "masculine". This is an amazing person who knows how to fix a classic car, meld silver into gorgeous jewelry and items, paint and side a house, fix anything and everything in a given house when it's broken, and is completely self-sufficient, yet, has cared for four of her ailing relatives at their ends of their lives. Barring the obligation to take care of those that she loves, she is not materialistic, and thus could throw all of that away tomorrow and simply live in a van if so inclined. Her tastes are simple, non-refined, and yet always demands the best of a given situation, person, or friendship. She is loyal and expects friends and those she loves to be as well, and has been very dismayed over the years at how people have failed her and wavered.

The fourth strike would be that we met over the Internet and she lives 1300 miles away from me. This makes getting together (outside of a video/online game, Yahoo audio/video, or watching movies together online) almost impossible on a daily basis, and we must (for now) form our friendship, our relationship, around the constraints of meeting online. Furthermore, since she is a full-time caregiver for her elderly aunt, which makes leaving the house for extended periods of time also very difficult; if and when I wish to see her in person, I must extend myself to come see her and accommodate my life and schedule to do so.

Another strike might be felt in terms of religion; she is a non-practicing Catholic, and I am a Reform Jew. In many relationships, this a potential emotional dealbreaker, and sometimes the only strike that might keep someone from pursuing a love interest due to the difference in thoughts, beliefs, and creeds, for fear of what might divinely or sadistically happen in the Afterlife to that soul that they love, or deny to love, in this life. However, we attest that either one of us may be right, or wrong, but have the freedom to believe in our convictions and let the Guy Upstairs decide the rest.

Yet another strike could be that she smokes (has for years); I don't (never started). Always a difficult thing to work through unless both have a respect and an understanding about how to keep each other comfortable; in fact, due to meeting me, she is considering quitting, hates the habit, and is for once motivated to try. [Update: As of the week of October 11, she HAS quit, sick of the whole scene, and I enthusiastically cheer her on as she breaks one of the most difficult habits known to man.]

The final strike that I can think of today comes in the form of economic backgrounds. I grew up in a middle-class suburb, surrounded for the most part by trees and quiet; she grew up in a blue-collar steel-town where the mill was literally less than a mile away from her house and fell asleep each night to the clanging and banging of its processes. I grew up in a relatively white, suburban, Christian, homogenous part of my city; she grew up integrated with many Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. I grew up in a relatively prosperous section of my town; she, on a rougher side of hers that had long seen better days and only got worse as the steel mill closed, jobs were lost, and futures shipped elsewhere. I lived in a different house every few years, as my step-father loved to build them; she has lived in the same house, off and on, since she was 5. Today I work for a national bank and make six figures a year; she worked in factories, blue-collar jobs, and finally for herself for many years, and is today retired and getting ready to receive Social Security in a few months. She is a child of the rebellious and turbulent 60s; I am one of the plastic and conformist 80's. We are as different, to the outside world, as two women could possibly be, and could understand fully why some might not think that we would ever make it.

But on the inside, we are very, very much alike, complement, and resonate strongly with the other. She is masculine, sexy, powerful, bold, strong, and yet tender and sweet; she loves my sweetness, my high-maintenance/perfectionist/want what I want/I will give everything to you attitude. She basks in my femininity as much as I revel in her masculinity, as two teenaged lovers might do as they profess their love to each other and cannot wait to see what lies beneath the convention, beyond the closed emotional, psychological, and actual physical doors.

By my femininity, I make her feel even more proud to be who she is and how she loves and lives her life, because now she wants me in it, and shows me each day how she is mindful of my needs as well. She protects and fiercely loves those that show her as much devotion as she is prepared to show herself, and never demands from others things that she would not be willing to do herself. She is courageous and was a part of a generation that paved the way for my generation to be just as strong and to move forward assertively. She looks out for my best interests, listens extraordinarily well, and asks pointed but relevant and probing questions to dig deep into my psyche and help me learn to be the person that I am often afraid to be, afraid due to criticism or unconventionality. She excites me, makes me incredibly happy inside, tingles every chakra, and challenges every notion I ever had about myself, only to turn negative ones into positive ones from which I can grow, prosper, and give right back to her in her times of needs. She is a perfect emotional compliment to me, playing off of my moods, and I to hers, so in tune, somewhere between a well-tuned race car and a finely-pitched valiant orchestra. I come alive whenever she is near and feel like crying whenever she leaves; she makes me whole and buzz with pure delight. She is my best friend and my mirror image and has the ability to bring things out, make me see the things in myself that I cannot stand, and places me on the road to enlightenment, to repairing myself, to healing. She does all of these not by being a parent to me; rather, as a steady equal who knows that I possess the ability to do the same for her. She "gets" me. I "get" her.

The only thing she ever asks in return is that I never fail to be myself; to express my innermost thoughts; to let her in on those thoughts; to live life out loud, be real, and always authentic. She is the first one who ever said, "F*ck what they think ... be yourself, always. Never falter on that." She is the first one who ever said, "I see inside of you, and what I see is so beautiful, you must let it out." The first one who ever said, "I don't care about labels; I only care about you."

Androfeminology

Ever since I opened this blog in March, I have had a lot of time to explore and discuss what I feel it means to be "androgynous", and noted that through researching on the Internet, there are a myriad of terms that people have used to try and describe this unprecise frontier of being.

Starting with the Urban Dictionary, a user-based, open-source, free-for-all glossary of evolving English slang terms, the definitions regarding androgyny there deal mostly with the physical appearance -- if someone "looks" male or female. (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=androgynous) It calls to mind the skit on Saturday Night Live over 20 years ago, where viewers met someone that just went by the name of "Pat", and it was impossible to tell if s/he was male or female by appearance. The jokes further continued by Pat's answers about his/her life, whom s/he dated, etc, all of which had blurry, indistinct, and ambiguous references as well.

However, I mention that androgyny for me is a state of mind, and therefore, a psychological plane of being. I quoted this in my first post, and have found several other posts over the Internet, branching across both "straight" and "gay" (queer?) worlds to get there, and the more that I meditate on it, the more I realize that I am certainly not "straight", but I don't know that I would be fully accepted as "queer" either. In a similar manner of feeling androgynous, I would also be accepted (or not) in a kind of invisible, emotional, mental purgatory of human existence, and depending on who was examining me, my actions, and my way of life at any given point in time, this might serve to define me to the outside world.

Case in point: I read today an outstanding analysis and opinion on the state of "femme" lesbians within their own community. The focus of the opinion was simply that femmes have a difficult time navigating through both the straight and gay worlds, because inhabitants of those worlds are often confused by the signals that they perceive from the femme. For example, in the straight world, should a man see a gorgeous woman, he has been trained to recognize that she dresses femininely and carries herself, her attitude, her looks, etc, to "attract a man." However, in the gay community, the same woman could possibly be dismissed as straight, or worse, a sell-out that doesn't "look gay", who "passes" for being straight. She is therefore rendered invisible to her true desires, which is to fall in love and be wanted by a member of her same sex. She lives in an emotional purgatory and feels that no one sees her for whom she truly is.

From Sugarbutch.net, a posting from AlphaFemme:

It starts with not being able to see myself. That must be at the very root of it. As a little girl … I loved tea parties and dollhouses and dresses and patent leather shoes, I loved American Girl dolls and dress-up and imagining my future wedding. I was obsessed with … figure skaters and ballerinas. I fit snugly into my gender box. No questions asked. … it took me quite a long time to come out to myself. … There was no way I was gay. It just didn’t make sense. I was a girl. I was supposed to like boys. That was that. … Understanding of sexuality is so, so so tied up with gender. That’s really what makes femmes so invisible. To ourselves as well as to others. There often aren’t any outward signs that we digress from the norm. They’re all inward. And society tells us (all of us, not just femmes) all the time that the inward things? Are figments of our imagination. … So unless you look different, unless there’s some physical proof of it (whatever it is), there’s plenty of room for people to doubt you. And judge you. And feel justified in doubting and judging.

Now take that idea and apply it to someone like me, who loves men and women, who can see inside of a person and extract the goodness there, want to share it, and want to be loved and respected in return. Take that idea and complicate further with the idea that depending on what day it is, what mood I am in, and where I wish to go determines my manner and my dress, and that I am completely comfortable with myself in this world. Note how very lonely and invisible I must feel when I am sure that no one can see inside to who I really am, or trust that I too can love and be loved fully, if only someone would take the time and effort to learn about this closeted, discreet, hidden, and largely invisible world that I have felt a part of since I was a teenager. Take it to the next level and you begin to understand what it is to live within the androgyny of the mind.

Secondly, Sugarbutch herself mentions something key and important to this discussion, especially if and when I may decide to "come out" and be real and honest about who I am inside:

can we please just start to practice believing a feminine woman when she says she’s queer? Stop questioning her agency. Stop forcing her to defend herself. Stop being an ignorant idiot and realize that femmes exist and are real and valid queer identities. Any time you call a femme’s queerness into question, that is what you are doing.

While I cannot say that I am 100% "femme" in the classical lesbian way, I could not agree with this statement more. The thing that causes the most stress, strife, grief, and pain, is the act of coming out of the proverbial closet long enough to say, I have been living like this, with men in my life, molding to certain societal and familial norms, for easily most of my adult life, and perhaps before, because I never felt that I had the freedom to be myself, to explore my psyche, to break out of whatever box my friends and family believed I should and did live in.

Because that finally brings me to the point of this post. We live in a world that is largely intolerant to diversity, differences, and certainly to people who choose (or don't, are predisposed!) to live their lives outside of convention and safety and the black and white sepia print otherwise known as gender identification. We are spiritual beings, set on this Earth to learn and grow, and we live in a binary gender system, by and large, where we are forced to attune and conform strictly to that shell, that body, and all the baggage that goes with being "male" or "female." We are told how unnatural it is to be any other way, shamed, closeted, ridiculed, hated, and marginalized by larger society because we do not fit, never will, and asked indirectly, why are you doing this to me? Why can't you just find a nice guy or girl, live your life like everyone else, stop trying to make things complicated, and be a good little vanilla self, because that's what I can comprehend, that's what I understand.

I will tell you why. Because I am a free being. Because I love what both men and women bring to the table, and in particular, the beauty in humanity, once we trek past the bullshit and get down to what makes us lovable and partners in creation. Because I do not fit any pattern, mold, or die cast but my own, and I choose to surround myself with people who understand this, or will not surround myself at all. I would rather be alone rather than misunderstood, judged, or hated.

That said, what is androgyny to me? The ability to keenly adapt to any given circumstance and feel comfortable doing it. If I am going to a black-tie classy party, you had better believe that I will not show up in jeans and a t-shirt. If I am invited to go fishing with the guys, again, believe that we will not be discussing the existence of God and neo-Existentialism. If I am making love with my woman, I will not reduce her to being the "male" and insist that she satisfy me as a man would; I accept, take, breathe in, and love the diversity of life, and adapt myself to that beauty on a case-by-case basis. This is the essence of ambiguity, androgyny, and that which make it almost impossible for anyone to categorize me or pin me down. Ultimately, to paraphrase Duke Ellington, it puts me in a space that is "beyond category"; extraordinary.

I have recently been asked why I did not come out sooner, why, if I knew some things about me as a teenager, did I not explore them, did I not sleep with a woman just to be sure, etc ... and the simple answer was that I didn't feel that I belonged anywhere. In college, I did run around with the "gay" faction of my music department, went to many parties with these people, and definitely considered them my friends; however, because I dated guys, I was considered the 'fag hag', the 'straight girl', the 'safe girl', and a bunch of other terms that now come flying back to me. I was never considered a date, never considered serious, and to be honest, perhaps I had something to do with that too. There were not a lot of lesbians in my small-town college community, most of them already had dates, most made up their minds about who I was, and I didn't find them attractive, mostly due to their in-your-face, thuglike, rude personalities. At the time, this told me that regardless of what I found exciting (Jeanne Tripplehorn half naked in Basic Instinct.... gawd, how hawt! ....) it must just be a girl crush, nothing to see here, just move on, move on ...

I determined that if I were gay, queer, both, none of the above, who knew? ... that it would take someone special to see through my facade, cut through the andro-femme shell, and look deeper to determine what I was really like inside. All I knew growing up is that when anyone asked about sexual orientation, I would say that I was "straight, so far." I cannot say that now ... however, I am still working through exactly what I can say, other than, this is me.

An Ode to Old-School

A butch is what all men want to be
When they grow up.

Although they may not realize it,
Butch is a gender in and of itself;
A precise blend of all that we perceive as male
Made perfect by a female's mind.

People ask sometimes why butches want to be men
Such an insult to butches!
Why not ask
Why men do not try (and thus fail) to be butch!

Butch is not an act, it is a state of being;
A natural component of a minority of souls
That proclaim that there is no limit to humanity;
No black and white, only shades of ability.

The same soul that can touch a woman's heart
Can fix her car.
The same soul that loves all that is feminine to behold
May choose not to beholden it on herself.
The same soul that is so often in control
Will allow her love exclusive control over her.

Butch is a raw and untamed, unlimited sexuality
Which yearns to give every inch of her soul
Has no reservations on the capacity of her love
And demands the same of the captor of her heart.

Butch is a noun, an adjective, and a verb
It is androgyny in action
Alternatively masculine and feminine
Broaching a genderless frontier in-between
Where only a bodiless essence resides
And dares we more mortals to determine ---

--- is she?
isn't she?
Is he?
Isn't he?

Yes and none of the above. ---

Butch is an attitude that pervades the psyche
For you, my love, a deep voice beyond the sultry;
Almost a man in a woman's shell ---
And yet again, to say that
Would be an insult to the woman you are
And to the lady that you bring out
in me.

4/26/2010 2 AM MDT
(C) Androfemme