The Amazon Trail

Fleeing Flatonia 

by Lee Lynch

We fled Flatonia, Texas, like it could pursue us. We’d be back home in the Pacific Northwest in just a few days and, we hoped, bed-bug-less. Once on the road, my sweetheart read to me about Flatonia, which boasts 8,000 people and a proud melting pot history.  We sped over San Antonio on I-10, a pretty city of light-colored architecture we want to explore some day when we recover from traveling. The more I see of America, the more I want to see.

Where El Paso by night looked like the inner circle of hell, as my sweetheart described it, in the daylight it was just another crowded city, baking in the desert heat. We motored on, stopping at a LaQuinta in Fort Stockton, Texas, gleeful at its cleanliness. We bought a little $.99 moon cactus there, named her Cactus Rose after the Larry McMurtry  book, and went on for lunch to the very windy outskirts of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Las Cruces is a required stop; writer Cate Culpepper and her imagination were nurtured there (Riverwalker, et. al). We’d planned to visit an Alice B. Readers Appreciation Awards committee member, but messed up our geography and settled for her promise to visit us on the coast.

We have Butterfields in our extended family, so paused at a funny little place   called Butterfield Station. It’s not even a town – just a tourist trap 20 miles west of Deming, New Mexico, and named, presumably, for the mid-1800s Butterfield Overland Mail route between San Francisco, St. Louis, and Memphis.  A little research revealed it’s actually one of a modern day chain of tourist traps, but we couldn’t resist a kitschy souvenir or two for our Butterfields.

We spent a morning of homage to Tucson’s vibrant women’s community. I had the honor of being a friend of the late lesbian pulp fiction author Valerie Taylor (Whisper Their Love 1957, Stranger on Lesbos 1960, et al.) We went to the site of her tiny home on Grande Avenue, and found nothing but a car wash where there should have been a museum or, at the least, an historical site marker.  At least her manuscripts are safe at Rutgers University and we were able to console ourselves with a trip to Antigone Books, one of the last brick and mortar women’s bookstores. It’s in a bright blue building in a quirky shopping district. We left with a heap of books and some gifts for friends. A fun place to shop, on line or off: 
http://www.antigonebooks.com/
.

I developed a hankering for a donut. Correction: many donuts. I have always had a warm spot for Tucson and the city came through again. Mrs. Bundt, our GPS, found melt-in-your mouth donuts. Who would have thought a couple of Yankees from Dunkin’ Donut Land would find spectacular donuts in the Southwest.

Before we left Arizona we had one more stop to make. Buckeye, east of Phoenix, is the hometown of Sue Hardesty, author of The Truck Comes on Thursday, et. al.) which draws on her memories of the area. We picked up every trinket we could. When we got home and she went through one of the history books, she discovered a picture of a long ago girlfriend.

Pasadena was next. Alas, we’d lingered in New Mexico too long and were too tired to find any kind of eatery, donut or not. Then we discovered a big city plum: a food delivery service that would come to the motel. It was fast, inexpensive and brought us something other than MacDonald’s burgers. What a deal.

We skirted the gay heartland, San Francisco, and high-tailed it to Hayward, CA the next day to be on time for a get together with beloved author Karin Kallmaker and family. It turned out to be Karin’s annual birthday dinner, but she and her wife graciously included us. The food at her favorite restaurant was as rich and tasty as her books. I had the pleasure of sitting across from her daughter, as engaging a conversationalist as Karin.

We were getting close to home and had one last stop to make. My great grandfather Lynch came from Ireland for the Gold Rush.  He did well enough to buy a horse farm in Petaluma, California. I’d passed over Lynch Creek on 101 a few times and always planned to explore.

Visitors Center staff greeted us like long lost – Lynches! For various reasons, including being queer, I’ve never felt rooted anywhere, especially in my family, until recently. Here, I was a prodigal daughter. They gave us maps and sold us history books then found more things to give us, including directions to Lynch Road.

We headed out to Lynch Road, not far from the burgeoning city full of historical buildings and handsome stores. Lynch Road is, indeed, in horse country. From the moment we turned onto it, I felt the peace of groomed pasture and well cared for animals. My ancestor chose well. The area smelled clean, the horses, stables and houses are proudly kept.

Later, my sweetheart read that Sonoma Mountain Equestrian Center is located at 100 Lynch Road. It’s associated with the horse rescue organization, Cimmaron Sanctuary. Which is weird. I’ve never had much to do with horses, but developed a ferocious belief, in my youth, that animals, especially horses, were not created for human convenience or pleasure. I’m still adamant about that.

We needed to hit the trail so drove around downtown Petaluma, imagining what it had been like for the early Lynches. All three sons became railroad men and settled in upstate New York and Western Massachusetts. For all I know I might have had gay great uncles. I have no idea what happened to the farm or my great grandparents. But that land, the old Lynch land, rang some deep bell inside me I never knew was there.

That night we enjoyed another old West town: Eureka, California, which sits at the south end of Arcata Bay just before the redwoods. The motel clerk sent us to a pricey restaurant with a snooty waitress and mediocre food, but the next morning I went to a maze-like, woman-owned used bookstore in Old Town Eureka, Booklegger, and found some Judy Grahn poetry and an old paperback copy of Patience and Sarah.

Patience and Sarah, by Isabelle Miller, originally titled A Place For Us. We headed north out of Eureka to a place for us, finally going home.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2013

The Amazon Trail

Crossing America Without Two Cats and a Dog

by Lee Lynch

3/13/13 And so we set off on our second cross country drive in two months. My sweetheart set up a navigable home, then flew back to Tampa while I unpacked (very little), spent time with dear friends and returned to my job in the Pacific Northwest. Of course we spent most of our time on the phone, e-mailing and sending each other lovelorn cards, but we survived the separation, found a great cat/dog sitter and soon it was my turn to fly to Tampa, incredulous at our continuing odyssey.

Without our little darlings meowling, barking and barfing up kibble in strange motel rooms, we were free to see some of our friends along the way.  Becky Arbogast, of Bella Books and the old Naiad Press, and her partner, author Robin Alexander, met us for dinner. It turned from a get together to a boisterous hoopla event when Becky’s mom and friend joined us for some tasty Tallahassee grub.

3/14/13  We drove to Metairie, Louisiana, tossed our essentials into the motel room and splurged on a taxi into New Orleans. Our driver was from Pakistan, and regaled us with tales of Mardi Gras shootings. The writers J.M. Redmann and Greg Herren, after full days of work, kindly agreed to meet us at The Snug Harbor Jazz Bistro on Frenchmen Street in the heart of the blues and jazz Marigny district. Missing our kitties, we stopped at The Spotted Cat Music Club and discovered a marvelous retro mix of Billie Holliday and Ella Fitzgerald in Miss Sophie Lee and her band, The New Orleans Cottonmouth Kings. If you can’t get to NOLA, buy her CD “Tallulah Moon.” The Snug Harbor boasted the best cheeseburgers in town, but I tried blackened redfish and ascended to culinary heaven. My sweetheart, who is thrilled by Nola’s open container policy, imbibed some of a Hurricane and a bowl of gumbo. While a jazz quintet provided the mood music, we talked shop with J.M. and Greg, sister Bold Strokes Books authors. Greg drove us home in an interesting jalopy only a New Orleans writer could love.

3/15/13 It would have been hard to beat those two gay literary America nights and we didn’t. We got stuck in Louisiana road construction: swamp and more swamp for hours and hours. Our motel’s internet had been down that morning, probably with a major NOLA hangover, so we had no motel reservation. Out of swamplandia at last, we chose a Denny’s for its wi-fi, but, alas, that had been eaten by an alligator or sunk in quicksand. After a meal that didn’t quite measure up to Snug Harbor fare, we discovered that our three-month old GPS, Mrs. Bundt III, after her last ill-fated trip through Texas, had gone on strike.

Next up was Columbus, Texas, where we had been stuck with a flat tire for two days over New Years. We were reluctant return, but it was getting really dark by now. My phone gave us some numbers and we called them all. Every goddess-forsaken motel was full to the brim with – who? What were all these people doing in Columbus? We were flabbergasted, as well as homeless. One place said they were booked for a wedding. But the rest? Was the town having its annual Great Tumbleweed Contest? Gay Cow Festival? Then we got lost. We almost squabbled until we found an open convenience store. He didn’t know why anyone would stay in Columbus either, but he directed us out of town, without even calling me sir. I guess I needed a haircut.

Finally we spotted, ahoy!, the Weimar, Texas, Days Inn. The first sign of trouble was the cards on the desk which read “Scottish Inn,” not Days Inn. The new owners hadn’t gotten around to changing the sign. Or anything else. There was a scribbled warning on the elevator: “Out of Order,” The clerk told us that people used it anyway. My sweetheart said, (sotto voce) “And they were never seen again.” She later sang lines from the Eagles’ “Hotel California” like, “You can check out anytime, but you can never leave.”

There’s more. Both beds were concave. No exaggeration, they dipped so far into in the middle they must have rested on the frames, if there were frames. I thought my sweetheart was going to barf at the sight of the rug. She said the stains were like something out of the film “The Shining.” We looked at the bathroom. She guessed they bought the whole room from a salvage yard, almost intact. The fixtures were rusted, the tub was missing large patches of enamel. Needless to say, cleaning was not in the owners’ vocabulary. “House of horrors!” cried my sweetheart as we fled back to I-10.

We spent the night in Flatonia, Texas. My sweetheart wisely asked to see the room first. It was dark enough to hide any faults so we collapsed for the night. Or my sweetheart did. After she fell asleep, I spotted a small bug on the blanket over her leg. I’d checked the bed for bugs, honest. After our last stop, though, I panicked. I grabbed my tablet and frantically researched the sizes, shapes and genealogy of bed bugs. I studied the one I’d put out of its bedbug misery. I woke my sweetheart and told her I wasn’t positive what the critter was, but we had to leave. She mumbled something that sounded like she wasn’t waking up and leaving that bed if I found a giant mutant Texas Horned Lizard in the room.

I sat shotgun for the next two hours, scanning the bed for anything that moved. Slowly, suspiciously, I let myself read a few pages on my Kindle, scanned the bed again, checked under the mattress again, read a few more pages, imagined a rifle resting across my knees, loaded for bug.

We were a mere third of the way home.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2013

The Amazon Trail

Crossing America with Two Cats and a Dog (Again)

by Lee Lynch

 

12/28/12: The movers, short of help, were here for 10 hours. We are exhausted.

12/29/12: We’re in Moss Point, Mississippi, near the Trent Lot International Airport. Be still my heart. Got in after leaving 3 hours late. Our cat Poppins had a bad trip on his calming medication. I rushed him to the emergency clinic while my sweetheart finished stuffing our little 2003 Matrix. The vet, (who appeared to be a dyke!) pronounced our man of the house to be okay. Tonight at the motel Poppins managed to lock himself in the bathroom, but I was able to pick the lock to get him out. Otherwise all is well except for my sweetheart’s aching body. She did all the heavy lifting. We have a king size bed and it accommodates all 5 of us comfortably. From my college roommate: Oy vay. And locked in the bathroom, on top of it. And in Mississippi, on top of that! Bob Dylan: “Stayed in Mississippi a day too long.” 12/30: Tonight we’re in Columbus, Texas, in a La Quinta, the lap of luxury. Gave Poppins ½ dose and he crooned all nine driving hours. We noticed a tire was low on air and struggled mightily with an air machine. My clever sweetheart figured the thing out. The store clerk admired my COEXIST button with such fervor that I gave it to her. She showed me her pentagram necklace and whispered that she’d been Christian for a long time, but it never felt right so now she is Pagan. My sweetheart thinks we can make it to Las Cruces on the tire; I think if we try it’ll blow while we’re in the left lane of traffic passing a truck and doing the speed limit: 85. That pretty much sums up the differences between my sweetheart and me and why we complement each other so well.

 

12/31/12: It’s 10:45 pm central time here in Columbus, Texas and my sweetheart, due to balky-middle-of-nowhere-internet reception, is still working at her job. Our tire looked to be in fine fettle – until it wasn’t. All two of the tire stores in town had already shut down for New Year’s Eve. Triple A was willing to tow us to a closed garage. What a wonderful decision staying put was, perfect for New Year’s. We’d wanted to get to Las Cruces to try a recommended restaurant, but would have fallen asleep in our salsa. Slept late instead of having said tire poked and prodded. I crossed the highway to reserve a table for dinner at Nancy’s Steak House, the apparent pride of Columbus, but the yee-haw/snooty attitude of the host and hostess sent us to Subway. There, I was called sir for the third time since we entered Texas and this time with a mean, steady glare. I had two lovely walks in muddy ditches along Highway 71. I couldn’t take Beastie, our 10 pound dog, as I was fruitlessly hunting kitty litter in every convenience store within walking distance. But none of that matters; we’re so happy to be together in whatever circumstances, making this journey to our little yellow house on the hill.

Highlights of the day: 36 hours in a hotel room with my sweetheart and, while she napped, our kitty Bolo, for the first time in all her 9 years, slept on my lap.

From my Best Butch: Happy New Year dear friends. I should have warned you about how very small Columbus is.
1/1/13! Nobody sold tires but a Walmart several exits up the road. So much for boycotting Wallys. Made it through Houston without being pulled over once,

unlike the trip east, when we were stopped twice in Texas. Maybe it was the rainbow stripe? El Paso is fascinatingly awful. Over the border, Mexico is a reflection of El Paso. Bolo was all upset today because she pooped in her carrier. We stopped and changed her bedding and she calmed down.

Highlight of the day? A call to our Texas pals. It pulled at our heartstrings not to see them.

1/2/13: We’ve arrived in Blythe, CA. The drive through the desert was, as always, breathtaking. I pointed out every cholla, prickly pear, saguaro, yucca. My sweetheart pointed out my favorite: tumbleweed! Crows the size and wingspan of sea gulls everywhere on the desert today. And a raspberry-orange sunset that wouldn’t stop. Poppins, on full meds, was silent 3/4 of the trip. Bolo tried to make up for him, but lacked Poppins’ endurance. They are pleased that we finally found them a room with a bed they can hide under. We allowed ourselves a stop at a New Mexico tchokes shop where Beastie was mistaken for a miniature Husky. Huh? We tried In and Out Burger, a California institution. Good burger, fries of molded cardboard. But my sweetheart ordered our toaster oven and microwave today. We will soon be enjoying home-nuked meals! The weather forecasts indicate that we may be able to squeak through the storms to get home Saturday. As the LaQuinta shower curtains say, we’ll be waking up on the bright side!

Highlights of the day?  Our friend Sue is going to turn on our hot water. We’re hearing from so many friends and relatives cheering us along the way.

The Beeg: Good to hear that you’ve made it to the west coast.

Me: Drunk on West Coast air, West Coast water, and not being called sir.
1/3/13: Today we did the Bakersfield, California hills, with their brown rolls and folds like an imprint of their creation. Traveling is seductive; at a certain point I never want it to end. We’re in Tracy, California. Mrs. Bundt, our ditzy GPS, led us the very long way to our motel and didn’t know the 210 was finished so took us through some ugly traffic, but my sweetheart used the HOV lanes to compensate. Meanwhile, my sweetheart’s Good Humor pop melted in her purse, Bolo tried to tear her plastic kennel to shreds, Poppins’ pill wore off way too soon, and his bed tipped over. Otherwise it was a glorious day. Tonight I am fretting about the wintry mountain passes; a friend in Washington State is feeding us weather information.

My high school friend: So glad to hear you are nearing the Promised Land! What an amazingly gutsy odyssey. A re-vision of the 60s road trip.

Me: Yeah, but Kerouac didn’t travel with 2 cats & a dog.

High school: Yes – my point precisely!

1/4/13: We’ve arrived safely in Roseburg, Oregon. My sweetheart drove the California passes and I drove the Southern Oregon mountains. It was a brilliantly sunny and dry day. The roads were clear.

Highlights of the day: drinking really cold good-tasting water out of the tap, seeing Mt. Shasta, and seeing Jackie, who came bearing gifts – and adoration for Beastie. We missed the meeting place, but Jackie missed it too and we found one another making u-turns at the same small trailer park. So West Coast.

1/5/13: The Pacific Ocean and our little yellow forever home.

1/6/13: Poppins wakes us at 5 a.m. yowling as if he is still in the car. Bolo is exploring the empty cabinets, pulling the doors open and letting them go with a bang. The dog needs to go out. We’re happy.

 

 

Copyright Lee Lynch 2013

The Amazon Trail

Handy? Man?

by Lee Lynch

 

I’ve never had much use for straight men other than my big brother, but I’m learning they have their uses.

My friend the handydyke turned 80 and gave away her tools. She has a contractor now, but he’s much too busy to work at odd jobs. So the manager of our development recommended a guy who loves doing just that. We’re on such a home improvement tear, he’s practically living with us.

A retired fisherman, Roley could have been anything. I picture him as a gentle teacher, maybe shop, maybe math, or as a die-hard surfer or – Instead, at age 70, he is putting up shelving and installing a doggy door at our house.

Actually, he’ll install a kitty door, as our little Mini Foxie is afraid of dog doors. Or maybe isn’t smart enough to figure them out. At the Handydyke and Pianist’s house, the dog sat and watched over a couple of years while the other dogs came and went through a dog-sized flap. She’d stare like a muggle at the train station, wondering where Harry Potter and his pals went.

In any case, Roley the Handyman is in our closets marking the walls, tapping for studs, drilling, attaching brackets and borrowing my tools. Or else he’s off buying materials. Sometimes he calls a couple of hours after leaving to pick up materials and asks if it’s too late to come back to work.  His lady friend lives down the street so I know where to find him.

Forty plus years they’ve been together, in separate homes, and here my sweetheart and I are, thrilled to be married and cohabiting. Kind of ironic, kind of fun, having the tables turned this way.

The house, of course, is a mess. We’re also downsizing during this transition and I actually turned down an offer of a bookcase from an ex who is also downsizing.  Who would have thought I’d still be dividing property with former lovers decades later? Though I was tempted to reunite the her & her bookcases, I remembered that my sweetheart and I already have 42 of our own.

Since Roley’s moved into our closets, we’ve dragged our “wardrobes” out. The house is not that big, so we’re sharing space with, besides the dog and cats, heaps of jackets, pants, t-shirts, my sweetheart’s dresses, my vests and a nightmare of tangled hangers. It’s kind of like living in a used clothes shop or a Salvation Army store, though Sally’s Army wouldn’t like that. Roley and his lady friend would be okay, but not lady lovers like us.

He’s also strengthened the bars in our closets. What a surprise: they were overloaded to the point of pulling out of the walls. I wish I was the kind of person who traveled light, but when I hit a certain age, I started growing, and not in a good way. I finally got rid of my size 28 jeans and men’s small shirts, but I’m hanging on for dear life to the 34s and larges with great optimism.

It may be time to stop collecting favorite things. Or not. I could ask Roley to put up narrow shelves for my toy cars. They haven’t been on display since I lived with my ex-bookcase. Back then, I had the energy and patience to do my own projects.

If only I was the kind of person who could leave things behind, and not save for tomorrow. I’m the child of depression parents. Like my mother, I’ve taken to making balls of used string and folding paper bags neatly, ritually, because I might need them some vague day.  Although I squander thread – Grandma Lynch would consider that a crime – I’m the kind of person who’s always afraid of running out – of words, of pet food, of safety in a county that just voted down domestic partner rights for everyone, gay or not..

The oddest part of working with Roley is how very much he reminds me of my friend the sailor who, when I first moved to the Southern Oregon women’s community, was the local handydyke. The sailor and Roley are both tall and thin, with weathered, handsome faces. More than that, they move exactly alike, always in rush-forward motion, with long quick steps, figuring aloud, gesticulating with tools and frequently in search of misplaced measuring tapes, small bags of nails or big orange loops of electrical cord.

The handyman is back, after an extended lunch hour. He’s putting up my sweetheart’s shelves for her collection of shoes and other femme essentials. He’s courteous, honest, respectful, non-judgmental and not at all sexist. Can a straight man really be as nice as a handydyke?  Will his shelves hold up till my sweetheart and I can marry in as many states as Roley and his lady friend?

 

Copyright Lee Lynch 2013

 

The Amazon Trail

Poor Me

by Lee Lynch

          My sweetheart and I are on extreme ends of the country right now, for very practical and very temporary reasons. I’m trying to keep the house clean, the animals content without their adored other person, and feed myself.

Last year I had treatments that released me from my allergy to corn products. I can go wild foraging in previously verboten aisles of the food co-op. If I so choose, I can have breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonalds. I could eat nothing but popcorn and ice cream made of corn syrup. But without my sweetheart, I have no appetite.

She is an outstanding cook. It’s certainly not the only reason I am heartsick without her, but when she takes out her beloved mom’s recipe book and whips up Pork Chops Liegoise with gruyere cheese and Dijon mustard, or her amazing Bread Pudding recipe, redolent of cinnamon and vanilla, which appears in The Butch Cook Book, I am so happy I get all teary-eyed.

On my own it’s ramen noodles with frozen turnip greens and diced turnips (two nights ago) or matzos with butter (last night). For the first week and a half she was gone I ate a bean soup I made with the recipe on the Bob’s Red Mill dried bean package.  One night I took two pieces of two-week old rosemary sourdough we brought home from a restaurant, added cheddar cheese, stuck it in the microwave and immediately forgot it. Later, I gnawed what I could of my rock hard dinner. The next day I made an appointment with the dentist to replace the filling I broke on that bread. It was one expensive doggy bag, but the actual doggy delighted in it. I may apply for a pet food patent: “Doggy Bag Cheese Bread.”

My thrill, on this lone Valentine’s Day, consisted of an iced tea and a soft serve cone at McDonalds. I stopped there on my way home from the dentist’s office after dental emergency number two. I’d eaten muesli at breakfast – something healthy – and a crown came off.

On the other coast, my sweetheart eats prepackaged oatmeal for supper. I found a box of 50 at the restaurant supply store and send a few each week in a care package. Fifty? she’s going to say when she finds out. They come in flavors: maple and brown sugar, apple and cinnamon, cinnamon and spices and just plain oatmeal. Hmm, sounds good. Maybe I’ll have one for dinner tonight.

So food is not filling the void of Without Her, but I’m not going to starve to death. We talk on the phone at least once a day and the emails fly back and forth. Between times, when I’m not working at my job, or writing, or giving meds to the pets or seeing the dentist (three times now and another appointment coming up), she left me something to keep me company: a Kindle.

I should be one of those folks who say, it’s not the same as a book and, passionately, I love the feel of a book in my hands. Although I’m not likely to stop reading and collecting real paper books, these e-readers and tablets are the future. I don’t want to be run over in the digital stampede. There will be books and there will be electronic devices and possibly other mediums for stories. There were, after all, once no books at all, only oral tales.

My sweetheart could not have timed this gift better. After work, I settle at the kitchen table with some food-like concoction or other, and I drown out the pangs of missing her with stories from my Kindle. I avoid breaking the household bank by borrowing e-books from the library. (Confession: I did give her a great big cream-colored faux-fur throw to keep her company.)

Holding a book is comforting and satisfying until the day when you’re reading and your hands get shooting pains and your finger joints ache. For a person with arthritis, a lesbian who wants to keep her hands nimble and functional, this basic Kindle is a little miracle. Hardcover books get heavier as I grow older. Holding a paperback open with one hand makes me wonder if the arthritis comes from doing just that since childhood. Holding a lightweight e-reader is sheer pleasure.

And so, while she bravely eats her oatmeal across the continent, I fill my sweetheart-less days with work, find excitement in a Subway sandwich on Saturday nights Without Her, and plunge into the worlds where my little toy reader, light as popcorn, takes me.

 

Copyright Lee Lynch 2013

February 2013

 

 

The Amazon Trail

Switching on My Lights

by Lee Lynch

It wasn’t quite Hanukah, Kwanza, Christmas, Solstice or any winter celebration yet, but the karaoke crew was singing the songs of the season. There was an Elvis impersonator, all in black, with fuzzy dark L-shaped sideburns, who, appropriately, sang “Blue Christmas” in a very decent deep voice.

My sweetheart’s beloved dad had just died, much too young, and we were in his coastal Florida town where she’d arranged a memorial service. She was holding herself together with baling wire and a piece of pink ribbon that came on a sympathy basket.

The plan was to get together for dinner with family, but preparations took so long we arrived in town late and the family was ready only for slumber. We had a choice between keeping everyone awake while we ate the family’s traditional Christmas Spaghetti, or letting them crash for the night and finding some late night joint on our own.

The cheap motel we were at boasted a little place called Jinnie’s Grille. It looked, through the glass door, dark and closed. That was my mood: dark and closed. Besides my father-in-law’s passing, big changes, albeit good ones, were looming in our lives.

Inside, Jinnie’s was dark, but definitely open. We sat at the bar and ordered from the minimal menu. That didn’t matter, it suited my mood of emotional numbness. I’d planned a day of writing, but hadn’t found the creative spark I needed.

Who wouldn’t be depressed? I hardly knew my sweetheart’s dad but he never expressed a qualm when my sweetheart told him who she’d fallen in love with. He welcomed me to the family like I was Prince Charming come on my white horse to bring his daughter all the happiness he could wish for her. He walked her down the aisle to me.

Each holiday we spent with him, it was the same. He was charming and gracious and embraced me literally and figuratively. Now he wouldn’t be with us anymore.  It’s a comfort to know that he was pleased his three daughters were settled, happy and fulfilled. He could enter the afterlife and report to my sweetheart’s mom that he’d stayed until the last of their chicks was safe in her own nest.

So there we were, at Jinnie’s gloomy Grille, my sweetheart devastated but not letting it show, and me glum as a grinch on the barstool beside her, no help at all. When the karaoke music started, loud enough to fill Yankee Stadium, I winced, cringed, was ready to flee.

My sweetheart was nonplussed by this surprise. With a smile, she whispered, “Everyone’s old in Florida.”

I looked around. Certainly, everyone was old at Jinnie’s, including the lone barmaid/waitress, who served dinners and drinks at the pace of a twenty-year old.

“This place is incredible,” my sweetheart said.

Without hope of incredulity on my part, I lifted my eyes to the singer, a woman who looked, under her makeup and fancy silver dress, to be in her sadly shriveled dotage. She sang an oldie – they all did – but with a voice so full-toned and professional, I had to look up again.

As I did, my eye was caught by the web of white lights strung along the walls. They sparkled in the gloom. Then I saw the framed pictures: Frank Sinatra, theater posters from the forties and fifties, quaint old liquor ads. Jinnie, whoever she was, had decorated with pre-boomer nostalgia. The karaoke singers were singing the tunes of that era. A big guy with a gut got up and belted out a lively Santa song. Someone else offered more traditional Christmas music. They were backed by recordings of big bands, swing era style.

“Hey,” I said, “this place reminds me of the basement rec room bars my parents’ friends built.” They were the hits of their times. Dark paneled walls. Short bars that were otherwise exact replicas of the places the veterans frequented during R&R.

“You could write stories about this place,” said my sweetheart.

And suddenly I was. This was what the holidays were like for old Floridians. I realized that the long table over on the side was filled with an informal karaoke club. One by one the singers performed and returned to the tables, or to tables of two or four, or to the bar, for hugs and hurrahs. They did this once a week or once a month, and prepared in between.

At the holidays they gathered and celebrated in song, lonesome strangers in this big gloomy world who found one another at Jillie’s and formed a karaoke family.

My mood turned cheerful and loving. My sweetheart had, once again, switched on my lights. I wanted to write about the one single woman at the bar, the short-haired one who was dressed in professional businesswoman clothes. A black dress, a red jacket, silver hair. Who answered everyone who greeted her with the words, “I’ve been traveling. And,” she added in a quieter voice, “traveling.” Her sigh wasn’t audible, but it was Florida-dive loud in the droop of her shoulders. Even she, older but not retired, separate but known at Jinnie’s, was drawn to the flame of this air-conditioned Florida dive.

It was a strange, unexpected refuge in an unutterably sad time for my sweetheart and me.  Holiday lights in a bar. Happy songs of celebration rising with glasses of spirits. People like us refusing darkness, reviving light.

 

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

The Amazon Trail

 

Happy Dance

by Lee Lynch

 

Okay, so there are a few who stare mutely at my Bo Obama button, mouths open, like they still can’t believe they lost to us commie hippie queer vile and disgusting President Obama-supporters, but that’s what watching FOX TV can do to people. The station is a teleprompter for viewers, scrolling non-stop scripts detailing what to think, say and do in the voting booths.

 

The rest of us appear to be doing happy dances.  Today a white clerk at Publix, looking at the Bo button, said, “So you’re happy about how the election went?” A little wary, I answered, “Yes, I am.” Then I asked, “Are you?”  “Oh, yes,” she replied, smiling, “I am!”

 

Yesterday, another compete stranger, grinning madly, commented, “We did it!” I said, “Yes, we did.” She kind of quietly sang, “It’s about time.”  Our eyes held and I echoed, “Yes, we can.”

 

Before the election, people weren’t as articulate. “I like your button,” was something I heard a lot.  They were worried. So was I.  My sweetheart and I live in a conservative stronghold. There were roads on which I could not bear drive because the plethora of Romney/Ryan signs were too disheartening. One local candidate identified herself in red, white and blue as a conservative Republican.  Sprinkled among the vote-for-me signs were big, loud, black on white warnings: “Fire Obama.”

 

It wasn’t about the man, we all knew that. This confrontational campaigning was about fear.  Racism, many of us acknowledged to one another. That was one word not used on the campaign trails. But you could hear it behind the name-calling: commies, homosexuals, and that most derogatory of words, women.

 

Yeah, well, that backfired. More women than ever are running this country now and more people could give a fig about gays marrying. The racism, though, you can’t make much headway against that. Millions of Americans see our President as a precedent they want to discourage. You could see terror shaking the forests of placards, you could hear prayers begging the heavens to keep public offices white.

 

I saw one Obama sign during all those weeks of campaigning. Republican-voting people slapped R/R bumper stickers on their cars, next to “My Child Is a Terrific Kid!” and stick figure families depicting the drivers’ procreational rates of success. Obama stickers, not so much. The revolution is pretty quiet around here.

 

Here being Florida, where lines of voters stretched around the block in some towns. Where three days after the election, votes are still being tabulated. Where so many voting sites had problems, hanging chads became ancient history. Where wildly divisive Representative Allen West is suing somebody, anybody, everybody because he lost to a 29 year-old Democrat who believes in unifying.

 

During the last two weeks before the election, a retirement-aged white guy set up shop on a strip of grass along a local highway here in the land of a-church-on-every-corner. He planted his Republican placard forest and sat in a lawn chair next to a flashy classic Corvette, held an American flag, and waved to drivers for hours.  Surprisingly few horns honked in support as they sped by. There was a whiff of desperation about his lone electioneering. I saw it again on the grim face of a woman in a Romney t-shirt, as if the world as she knew it would end if her candidate lost.

 

She was right to be grim, just as the flag waver was right to be desperate. An NPR commentator said that the pattern of votes cast in this state demonstrates that people are actually using reason. The long lines are at least partly due to the length of Florida’s ballot, pages of it. Floridians voted down almost all proposed amendments to the constitution and the three that passed evidenced a compassion for the low income elderly, first responders, veterans and military widows.

 

So thank you to the friend who gave me the Bo button. Thank you to my sweetheart who writes:

 

President Obama doesn’t represent the end of all that is good – he represents the end of all that is bad. His isn’t the party of free handouts, or taxing the rich into poverty, or stamping out the right to observe your religion.

 

His party is about YES:  YES we will get Americans back on their feet; YES we will enable industry to create jobs for Americans; YES we will help people to be tax-paying Americans; YES we will foster tolerance, not hate; YES we will not fight a war that only enriches the pockets of our supporters. Yes we can and yes we will.

 

I’d like to live in a bluer state, but while here, I’m doing happy dances with everyone who acknowledges my Bo button.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

The Amazon Trail

Finding Something Good Without Looking For It

    Now and then a spate of serendipity comes along. The stars align, one can’t believe one’s good fortune and we live in a benign, even benevolent, universe for a lovely while. Last night was one of those times.

I was invited to read at an event called “Wordier Than Thou,” in St. Petersburg, Florida. Tiffany Razzano, the spirited and inspiring editor of the LGTBQ blog in the local alternative paper, “Creative Loafing,” organizes this occasional gathering for the gay writing community in the Tampa Bay area. It’s held in a small space called The L Train Theatre Lounge which serves as both a performance space and a wine and beer bar.

Readings are not among my favorite activities. For one thing, I can’t sit still that long. For another, they take a lot of preparation and exhaust me because of the emotional duress that accompanies getting in front of an audience. This reading was different. To tell the truth, they are all different because once I’m there, I meet other readers and writers and my world expands. Gay people are an incredibly diverse and talented bunch.

I met a woman who practices spoken word performance, something so far from my sphere of reference I had to ask for an explanation. I met another woman who has plans for a lesbian speed dating service. I met a PhD candidate who works in a new independent bookstore that, amazingly, opens at 6:30 a.m. And I listened to a singer called Cuba Luna whose throaty voice was thrilling.

As if those gifts weren’t enough, I turned a corner from a hallway into the performance space and came face to face with two friends from Nottingham, England. As I recall, I looked from one to the other literally gaping. What were the chances that I would finally agree to read on a night that they would be visiting in the vicinity. That they would stumble across a Tweet announcing the reading. That they would be willing to leave the beach and tackle the insane Tampa Bay traffic. That they would be in the front row with my sweetheart to cheer me on during the reading. No way!

Way! This is just how we happened to find what we hope will be our retirement home in the Pacific Northwest. Not that we’re retiring anytime soon. We’re simply never going to move again, so when we do retire, that’s where we’ll be living.

We were actually in Oregon to visit our friends the Handydyke and the Pianist. As we plann to move back there eventually, we stopped in to see my old realtor and she kindly printed out some places to look at, to get a sense of the market. The last place we checked was a manufactured home. My sweetheart had not gotten out of the car to walk around any of the other houses, but this time, maybe because it was the last, maybe because the stars were aligned just right, she did. Then she called me to join her.

She was looking at a distant view of the Pacific Ocean. I can’t begin to describe how far out of our price range a view of any ocean, river, lake or pond is for us. But there it was, gray-blue, wild, an unobstructed and unobstructable view from this hilltop house. As we peered in windows and walked the miniscule, miniscule grounds, the next door neighbor headed our way. Not to shoo us off the property, but with key in hand,  smiling, friendly, eager to let us inside. Afterward, we sped back to the realtor.

The next morning we were at the mortgage office, applying. By that afternoon we had our insurance binder. Everyone was available just when we needed them. We are thinking positively that the lender will give us its blessings and we’ll be crossing the country soon. In the dead of winter, of course, leaving an unsold house behind us, but no matter how much I worry about such little details, by hook or by crook, that’s our hilltop house, that’s our future.

The UPS guy confirmed it for us this afternoon. Out of the blue, he delivered a package from our auctioneer friend. Last month, when a family member was going through a rough patch, we sent her a care package from a teddy bear company, with a bit of chocolate and the like. I hardly have to say that’s exactly what the auctioneer sent us on a whim, because the  bears reminded her of us.

Just in case I had doubts, and despite my aversion to Facebook, I went to friend one of the incredible lesbians we met last night. On the top of her page was the word serendipity—and the definition: “Finding something good without looking for it.”

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

 

The Amazon Trail

By Lee Lynch

Gaily Creaking

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

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

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

I loved ice cream and French fries until they became the enemy, adding lethal bulk to my middle. The doctor wants me to count calories, which involves—heaven forbid—cooking.  After all that comes the exercise. The replaced knee needs exer-cycling. The back takes twenty minutes. The medical insurer is trying to pack me off to tai-chi.

I finally understand why people need to retire. Who can work at a job with all these aging issues? There simply isn’t time enough in the day to get old.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

September 2012

The Amazon Trail

 

Butch Pockets

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

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

In this butch’s left front pocket: a blue pillbox for headaches, allergy attacks, and the

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

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

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

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

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

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

But my pockets? I claim pockets as butch territory.

Copyright Lee Lynch 2012

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