Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Dears,

I haven't been here for a while. On retreat in California, another desert retreat, this time with women (or womyn or womxn). We've been having a lively discussion about the proper word. Womyn was coined back in the day by white liberal feminists, according to the internet. Womxn is more inclusive of POC and trans persons so...like Latinx is not gender specific as is Latina or Latino. Whew. And asking what pronouns a person prefers is encouraged because we make assumptions, don't we and we can be wrong.

My trans friend is just a woman, end of the discussion. Actually she said, "I am a fucking woman".

We're all getting ready for the women's/womxn's march on Saturday. We're meeting for signage at my house and taking light rail to the rally. I missed the march last year because I was in Burma but I'm going this year. I hope the turnout is huge. The MLK rally here was sizable. I was working.

Last night I went to a training to count the homeless in King county next week. We form teams, one of us is a formerly homeless person and we hit the streets at 2AM. From 2 to 6 we move through encampments, find cars and RVs to count. We don't disrupt folks, or wake them or invade their spaces. They apparently have algorithms to assess the numbers. The tally is rather complicated. I learned that King County has the third highest homeless population in the country. Very depressing.

Gosh, I sound so lecture-y. Well, the county is going to hell.

In other news, I spent some time with a road runner while I was in the desert. He/she/they was, um, running along and he stopped to eye me. I just sat down on the sand and talked to him. I admired his feathers and his long legs. We sat in companionable silence for a good bit. My father's ghost is always with me when I encounter the wild. I didn't hear coyotes this trip but I know they're out there. The desert is very special. In the winter it is tolerable; 70's during the day and 40's at night. So hardy, those plants and animals.

This momma is in a tub of water, making noise and breathing loudly with contractions. I will miss being at births but I do love my soft warm bed. And my poor knees are so achey now. I'm a regular old woman/womyn/womxn now. With friends who are half my age.

Two films: The Shape of Water and Call Me By Your Names. See both to be sustained by the goodness of humans, even in heartbreak.

I'll be with all my sisters and brothers on Saturday. We must look honestly at one another and stand up for what we know is right. See you there.

4 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Yep. My transfriends are what they are. I do know some genderblurred (I made that up, it's probably offensive) folks and I call them "them". Never forget when we were all at the river one day and Hank brought a friend who had breasts and beard. Gibson was highly confused and did not care a bit about being politically or anyways correct. "Are you a man or a woman?" he kept asking them. We, the adults, were trying to be sort of cool about it. Trying to explain in a cool way. But hell- a five year old has questions. They have to be answered! Oh my. It's a brave new world in some ways, a complete and utter mess in others. I love you to pieces for doing the work you do. Soon as you're done leaving your warm comfy bed to deliver babies, you're leaving it to count the homeless.
You are a goddess and a beautiful soul. The babies who have been helped into the world by you are blessed.
I hope it was a good and joyful birth.

am said...

Good to read your post today. Sounds as if you have been heartened through your retreats and meeting with the roadrunner. You've given me much to help me decide what to do this coming weekend with and for all my sisters and brothers. So much is possible when we work together.

It's time for me to re-read Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Love in Action.

May all have a voice. May there be dialogue. May we all do what we can, being love in action no matter how we choose to be of service.

Elizabeth said...

So glad to see you here. I'm going to try to muster the energy to go to the march here in Los Angeles.

Sabine said...

Oh those discussions. I remember a very heated debate on BBC radio in the 1980s with various etymologists explaining that the old English woman means female human or somesuch and that the word man came about much later.

If words matter, so be it. If they make the world a better place, even more so.