The Spider Lilies Came Out Today

We woke up late, of course. Dawn and Storm scurried out the door. I exchanged jam pants for jeans, decided my jam shirt was passable and rushed the 3 little ones through breakfast. While we waited for Dawn to return to take them to school, William gave us a tour of our yard. The okra and cherry tomatoes are coming along beautifully. The peach trumpet that he lovingly tends has been feast for a Very Hungry Caterpillar, I think. He doesn't seem phased by it. And then. And then. The Spider Lilies. Our yard is covered in these wild lilies. We love them so much that we don't mow and risk the wrath of Mr. & Mrs. Snooty Pants across the street who have a tendency to call the yard cops. A ticket is worth getting to see these beauties climb up anything they can find and bloom, bloom, bloom.

Dawn says that I'm just like them - hanging all my really important parts out in the world, unprotected. I love her.

It got me thinking about Sissy. She is very big and beautiful and smart in her own way. And whether or not the folks continue to block my access to her, she will surely grab hold of something and pull herself up and bloom, bloom, bloom. My own little Spider Lily.

Go to my Soundtrack and hear the song I chose for the day. "You have to fall down to mend."

Thank you to those of you who took time to push some much needed goodness my way. Keep thinking of me and Sissy, the newest member of the club.

Baby Girl

Hoping for advice or at least a little boost, ladies.

*Forgive me, Jude, for sharing my email to you here. I just don't have the strength to re-tell this story.*

My little sister ran away this weekend with her girlfriend. The cops found her in Montgomery, AL - 5 hours from home and across a state line. My folks went and got her and pressed contributing to the delinquency of a minor charges against the girlfriend who is 18. (Sis is 15.) They have taken Sissy's phone and banned her from the computer.

I'm worried sick and just want to scoop her up. But I've been more or less estranged from the fam since I left my husband, and totally estranged since January when I went to their home and tried to repair the relationship. Sis witnessed their bigotry, anger and hatred towards me and my true family. Shortly thereafter, she came out and ran away for the first time.

I'm doing lots of Ham Sa, as you can well imagine. I may have to have my chakra realigned after this, too:] I hate the way this negativity feels in my body. I feel like if I could throw up, I would feel better, but I know that's not true. This hurt and confusion is deeply rooted and festers on a somewhat regular basis. Big Sigh.

Channel Boy George

Betsy's brother is Gay! I love Karma!

I'll be interrupting regularly scheduled programming to bring you more on this breaking story!

(If you're totally confused refer to my past posts, "Dawn has Kicked Down the Closet Door," "Boring, boring, boring," and "Testimony". That should get you up to speed.)

Boring, boring, boring!

In typical Dawn fashion, she has managed to turn this situation with her fanatic "friend" into some sort of "Come to Jesus" meeting. Both have confessed to allowing their friendship to falter and not doing their bests to be a part of each other's lives. Promises to do better and visit more and send more cards. Blah, blah, blah.

I feel a little cheated. I was revving up for a showdown. I wanted scripture slinging. I wanted heated policy debate with words that I don't understand. I wanted a cat-fight, Damnit!

Alas, my lovely peaceful Dawn surprises me again. I don't know why it still surprises me when she does the exact perfect thing, the thing that would never have occurred to me if I were chained in a think tank for a year and a half.

So now I guess I need to ready myself for Betsy's visit. If she comes over Memorial Day weekend and ruins my pride fest, well, we may get a cat-fight after all.

Dawn has Kicked Down the Closet Door

Waring Ninja Style. Beautiful angular body slicing through the air in slow-motion. For real. She finally told her Mom and her crazy right-wing nut job "friend" about us this week. They probably both already knew, but now she has said it out loud. And I am reminded of this song. And I am sharing it with you.

Her mom did great. The funniest thing she said was, "I hear the words you're saying, but I don't understand any of it." She laughed at herself.

The "friend" saga continues. She is uber-religious and super conservative and scary as hell. So far all she's done is quote scripture and say that she isn't like the other "Bible-throwing" Christians and that she hopes we are able to find the Jesus that eats with sinners. -Sigh-
Oh! And her feelings are hurt because she wasn't the first to know. -Another Sigh-

This should get really good once Dawn starts quoting scripture back to her. I'll keep you abreast (hehehehe) of the situation.

Everyone has seen this, I'm sure, but it bears repeating, doesn't it? Love it!

The Great Debate

Dawn and I have an ongoing debate about how, when and to whom we tell about the nature of our relationship. I want to tell everyone. Right Now. Here are my arguments -

1. If Dawn were a boy, I wouldn’t hesitate to say “husband.” Why should I not refer to her as “wife” or “partner”?

2. I don’t want to get in any deeper than necessary with bigots. I like to get the lesbian revelation out of the way in a new relationship, be it with a new friend or a new business associate or a doctor or anyone else. If the new person is a bigot, I want to know right away.

3. The children. I want to protect the children as much as possible.

Time out: This is where I don't trust you to remember to click on my paying gig, so I'm going to help you. That was the tease. This is the remainder of the article.

Affirmation for the Florida Manifesto

The stars have aligned and the migratory paths of the North American birds have shifted to prove my point. Minor exaggeration, but here is a fabulous story to illustrate my Florida Manifesto, nonetheless. Blue Light Special - Aisle 8 - It’s true.

Today my beautiful partner finally told her ex-husband’s aunt about our relationship. (This is the pause for you to get clear in your head what the relationships are. Do not proceed until you have it straight. I swear the pun is unintended.) She, my great love, has always been really close with the aunt. By “close”, I mean that they use the words, “Best Friend” to describe each other. By “close”, I mean that Dawn chose Happy to help her birth her daughter. By “close”, I mean that Happy will have the thickest chapter in our book honoring great women in our lives. Dawn’s folks still don’t know about us, and Dawn doesn’t care. They are little more than replaceable players in this production.

But telling Happy has been an undertaking, a script in near constant vision and revision. The love that Dawn and Happy share is important enough and big enough to be cemented with nothing but truth. Dawn struggled with how to tell her and grieved for the loss she feared she may suffer. But fear not! Happy showed herself true blue. Happy confessed that she had always suspected that we were in love, way back when we were clearly oblivious to the fact. She admitted to sitting back and waiting for it all to be revealed. She professed love and acceptance and the willingness to press the rest of the family towards good tidings for Dawn. For her part, Dawn was totally affirmed and relieved and jubilant.

Just when Dawn thought her conversation couldn’t get better, Happy said, “I‘m going to tell you something that I never told you before. Do you remember that I had a baby that died?” Dawn reminded her that, of course, she remembered the story of her first baby girl. Happy said, “But I never told you the name of the baby’s father.” Dawn thought about it and agreed that no, Happy had not shared his name. Happy took a deep breath and said, “His name is William Ray.”
I know it seems incredibly anti-climatic to you at this point. The mind-blowing truth is that William and Ray are the names of MY children, the ones that I grew and pushed from MY body, before I ever knew Dawn and WAY before I knew Happy. She has known my boys for years now, but held this precious secret until today.

Dawn caught her breath and said, “That means something. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s really something.” Happy confidently replied, “It means they are my nephews, and I love them.”