There is nothing straight about me...short and sweet

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

So here we are--- two weeks later…First I'd like to set the record straight…or not straight, really and truly. There is nothing straight about me.

 I've received comments recently regarding other 'lesbian bloggers' who, it seems, are actually men posers…

I know that there is allot of anger towards these men…But I prefer to look at it this way – They are jealous, truly jealous. I mean look at us. We are women, with all of the packaging and we get to be with another woman, also with the packaging…Not that it's just the packaging that we are attracted to – all though let's be real, there is nothing quite as sexy as a woman's body…And they can only want…but never really have what we have…that feeling of a woman to a woman, of a woman with a woman, a woman who loves another woman – she is truly blessed….Blessed with someone who can truly understand and feel…identify with her in a very special way…

I feel blessed, and I don't just mean in the BlesbiFather way…Although in that way too…But more in the Praise the Lord way…The deliriously happy way that you can feel when you know that you are not alone. When you know that you will always have that special someone by your side and in your heart forever.

And I would be remiss if I didn't say, Yeah NEW YORK! My hometown has chosen to recognize this. My hometown has chosen to accept, acknowledge and at least feign belief in the fact that what I have – what we have is real and true.

My son and his partner were here last week for a visit. My son's partner is a woman, a wonderful woman. I realized while they were here that I am again blessed. We all have so many people in our lives who don't take us seriously, who refuse to accept that what we feel is something that is not less then what the regular heterosexual feels and experiences. My son and his partner- there are no questions on their part. They know, they accept, they love us as we are….

And yes, there is nothing straight about me. My thoughts, my actions, my words, my looks – I am round and circular- I do get to the point, but as my readers know –it can take me some time…I believe in us. I believe in women. I know that we are fine and great and have the wherewithal to be terrific and strong and conquer all. My son knows this, so does his partner. They accept us, they love us and they will have us as their own.  For this I am grateful. In this world of right and wrong and good and bad and yes and no…I have a child – and his partner, who think we are fine.

I feel fine.

Mourning and morning on the couch or- hodge podge and what...

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

Waiting…always waiting. Hurry up and wait. Get up and go to sleep. Wait for the living, hurry up for the dying.

I am now waiting for a visit from my son and his partner. I miss him so much. I can feel the pain in the hollow of my throat. We all know that pain. Every woman I know has at least one someone she misses that much. For me it’s my sons…and now my aunt.

When the people we love die, we don’t know when we will be with them again. In time, after a period of heart wrenching and wrenching pain, our bodies and souls ‘adjust.’ We miss them…but the pain somehow softens and becomes less sharp.

When there is someone we love who we can’t see, the pain is different. It is an emptiness that can get so wide and vast that it can take over all of who we are… (Not more, but different…and in my heart, that emptiness remains the same…)

That is one possibility. The other possibility it is what I have decided to attempt, right here, right now.

I miss my boys. I think of them every day. I wonder what they are doing. I pray that they are safe…and then I go about my day. I go to work. I come home from work. I eat allot of chocolate- chocolate chip ice cream….and inevitably, I sit on the couch.

One of my best friend’s younger brothers has just died suddenly. I want to send her my love and hold her tightly as she weeps her loss. I love you and I am so sorry for your loss, for his loss and for all of the pain…

But, forgive me, I need to get back to my couch…Life is so unpredictable. One day life is here. The next day life is not. It’s gone and- like energy transformed… that life that was here, we very suddenly don’t know where to look. We can’t see where it’s gone and we so want to find it…We all need to get back to the couch…There is too much dying. There is. There just is.

It is these moments that I find sitting on the couch, being with my love, just being the LesbosOnTheCouch, saves me.

We sit. We wait. We eat ice cream. We watch TV. We read a book…Do you all know that my absolute favorite way to fall asleep is to my loves’ voice as she reads to me…? You should all try it…

It works like this. I’ve hurried home from work…battling traffic and/or train traffic…I rush into the house, I’m home!!!! Where are you?

Here I am! How was your day?

Me - talk, talk, talk, talk….

My love, -Wow, you are amazing… (Yes, she actually says that TO ME!)

-I am so glad to be home, I squeeze her tightly as she comes to me and we hug…I almost strangle her, I am so glad she is here waiting…

And then we sit OnTheCouch, Lesbos that we are…and talk and eat…and watch TV…and then one of us begins to doze…Get up and go to sleep…come on, you can do it…Get up…Get to bed, we’ll go to sleep.

Well, we actually do get up off the couch and into bed…and no matter how tired I am and no matter how long we have been waiting to get into bed…My mouth and brain are suddenly and inexplicably wide awake….

Talk, talk, talk, talk, I shot the sheriff…How dry I am…My bologna has a first name….Country roads take me home…and can you believe that I tripped off the train and landed right in that poor guys lap?…and what am I going to do about this? And that? And more of this and that? Talk, talk, talk…

Sssssssshhhhhush …I’ll read to you…

Talk, talk and talk and various body parts and a nose…boo boo boo booby air, boo boo boo booby air…

‘’As the rain came down…’’

Rain? Rain? Did you say rain or train? It sounded like you said train. That would actually be better….

‘’As the rain came down in the dark city, ‘’

City, titty…itty bitty titty…She wore an itty bitty tiny weenie yellow….

“As the rain came down in the dark city, Antoinette realized for the first time that she was alone in the night.”

Alone in the night – why is she alone? This is a dumb book. Who wants to be alone in the night when they can be lying here in bed with us…? Whoever wrote this book is definitely…a teeny weenie titty….mmmmmmfff.

“As the rain came down in the dark city, Antoinette realized for the first time that she was alone in the night. She looked down at the street through her bedroom window …”

And another day is done. Soon it will be morning. Please I pray the day will be a day with just morning afternoon and night. Please no more morning mourning. Please.

For Gram - She's 102!

LesbosOnTheCouch by Beth C, one of the Lesbos

Today is my gram’s one hundred and second birthday. Today is also the day she is to begin her life in an old age home…at 102 years she is still beginning something new…I wonder if she knows either of these things. Does she know that she is 102 years old? Does she know she is moving to a home? (The last time she was hospitalized she thought she was on vacation at some nice hotel that had brought her breakfast all the way to her bed!)

My gram…she was the source of so much information. The only Yiddish I know, I learned from her. When I moaned that I was bored, she’d tell me, “Gai kochin uffen yam!” – Go shit in the ocean! 

When I wanted a sweet snack, she’d give me carrots.  She told me that white flour was bad for me and that eating too many processed foods would make me unhealthy and fat. She ate a bowl of vitamins with every meal, went to a chiropractor instead of a doctor to heal her ills, she swam all summer long in the ocean after walking 2 miles to get to the beach. When I moved to Israel, she started studying Hebrew – at the local college at the age of eighty! She worked, she studied, she read and practiced a ‘healthy lifestyle.’

She taught us that not being in motion –is death…

My gram folked danced. My gram went to concerts and plays. When I was in junior high school, she took me to my first off Broadway play…My gram considered herself an intellectual – and she was…Did this make her a bit cold? Probably, but she’s my gram. .. and she’s an hundred and two. The irony is not lost here—I can’t help thinking of my aunt, her daughter, dead of cancer at sixty four. Gram, at one hundred and two does not even really remember my aunt – or anyone else…and yet she lives…My Gram’s message of a healthy and vigorous life was embodied by my Aunt…who died of cancer at 64.

(I am making the sign of hold ‘the scales’ in my hand.) Irony. One hundred and two, and unaware – sixty four, and enjoying life and loving those whose life you’ve touched…The scales are never balanced. They never will be…

Back to my Gram. My last visit with her, some 2 weeks ago, we looked at a photo montage of all her years. Her parents, her husband (my Grandpop), her children (my mother and my aunt) and my siblings and I. She loved looking at the pictures. When I pointed her out in some of the pictures, she continued to stare and replied, ‘Really?’

Really Gram. That was you. You are the Gram. The Grandmother of three, the mother of two. Your husband died at 84 yrs. Your youngest daughter died just last month. She called you every day to tell you that she loves you. You said ‘Thank you.’ Do you notice that she doesn’t call anymore?

When I got up to leave, I also said, ‘’I love you.”

You said, “Oh. Thank you.’ And then you said, ‘’Why did you come here?’’

I said that I came here to see you and tell you that I love you. I told you that I came here because I love you.

You said, “oh. Really?”

Gram…Really. I love you. Ellen loved you. We all love you. Happy birthday. Enjoy your next beginning.