3079 Words From Su Penn
Dear Friends,
Three things in this email:
Intro: what is this? Why are you getting it?
News about a reading and my new Patreon.
Chat! Stories!
What And Why
Last week sometime, I sent a long chatty email to about 20 friends, either people who I expected would enjoy it, or people who requested it when I made an offer on Facebook. Today, I moved all those addresses into Buttondown, newsletter management software run by one really nice guy. An advantage to me of using Buttondown is that I don’t have to remember who wants any given email; an advantage to readers, is that, if you don’t want chatty emails from me, you can unsubscribe with a button click, and not have to take the awkward step of writing to me to tell me you’d rather not get any more of these.
If I’ve messed up, and you are not a person who knows me well enough to want this thing, then please forgive and unsubscribe.
I started writing group letters to friends back in 1990, when I had moved back to Michigan leaving behind a cadre of close lesbian friends from my graduate program in Women & Politics at Rutgers. Those first letters had to be printed and mailed in envelopes with stamps on them. They were so popular that one of my friends, who had moved back to her hometown of Tampa, Florida, developed the habit of reading them out loud to her friends when they arrived. When I visited her over the new year, a number of women came up to me to tell me how much they enjoyed them.
I kept doing it, eventually in email form, to an evolving group of friends. I never know how often I’ll be moved to write one; sometimes they come out of me at a rather overwhelming pace, and sometimes not so much.
I am very prolific. It is common for these things to be thousands of words long. Not everyone has the time to read them all the time, even if they enjoy them. Do not feel you need to apologize for this! I do this kind of thing in a spirit of Wanting to Tell Stories and Be Listened To. I love it when people write back, but I don’t want to obligate anybody
Reading, Patreon
First, as of yesterday I have a Patreon! One post up, one subscriber so far! Everyone at every tier gets everything (I have too many poor people in my life to have "premium" content, and I believe deeply in economic access) but paid pledges are very welcome. This is part of fundraising to support travel to and from Pendle Hill, and to provide some resources while I'm there to do things like go into Philly to visit museums or have dinner with a friend, or whatnot.
My Patreon: patreon.com/SuPenn
Second: I am doing a talk/reading on Thursday, May 15 at 8 p.m. I'll be talking a bit about the epic Walt Whitman/Queer/Quakers project I'm engaged in, and will also share some of the pieces I've already written as part of it. The Zoom meeting address is:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/4057856681
Meeting ID: 405 785 6681
No password is needed.
It will be recorded and posted to my Patreon if you're not able to be there but are interested.
I’ll be posting this info on Facebook as well.
The Chat, The Stories
Today, i spent several very happy hours in Special Collections at the MSU Library, reading through issues of Lesbian Connection from my time there. I wanted to refresh my memory about contents, controversies, and so on, rather than relying on my very unreliable memory. I relived a lot of moments: the death of Pat Parker; the death of Audre Lorde; the controversy over including ads for erotic videos in the Winter Catalog; the trans woman who was removed from the festival; the two women who were hit by a car while in line on the dirt road that led to the festival; the first issue produced on a word processor instead of being typed; the National Lesbian Conference; and much, much more.
Also, of course, big fights about S/M at Michigan; parents bringing children to Michigan; women of color only spaces at Michigan; trans women at Michigan; and reports of the 1988 Year of the Shigella Outbreak. It was these issues, especially the trans issue, that I wanted to have confirmation on.
It's fascinating to me that there are things I simply don't remember at all. Toward the end of my time at LC, (pre-transition) Scott discovered an easier way to fold issues for mailing. Subscribers had many opinions on the matter! I have no memory of this at all.
I remember the first time I was aware that I simply had no memory of something. It was some years ago, and Scott was reminiscing about a thing that had happened back in the early days of our relationship. Up until that point in my life, if a friend brought up something I hadn’t thought of in awhile, job my memory. But my brain had no reaction to the story Scott was telling me. It felt like a terrifying empty place in my brain, even though I had always known that I couldn't possibly remember everything. As I get older, and my past gets longer, it's not uncommon for this to happen; there are many things that just didn't make enough of an impression to be held onto. But it was jarring the first time it happened. There were a few things like it today.
For instance, one issue talks about how four of us Ambitious Amazons went to the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. I remember being at that March--I vividly remember coming off the Metro and being immediately struck by how much corporate advertising there was (beer ads! car ads!) compared to the 87 March, just six years earlier. I have no memory of how I got to DC. I must have driven there? But with who?
LC tabled during the weekend. If I had been there, surely I would have worked the table. Right? It was a way to get paid for going! But maybe not—maybe we decided that, say, only two women would be subsidized for the DC traip.
I have no memory of it either way. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only thing I remember specifically from the 93 March is my mismay at that first glimpse of the corporate advertising. And, possibly, standing next to a woman who had thread sewn into the flesh of her upper arm, with beads on it. I was squicked. But that might have been 87. My brain is 100% sure it was in Washington, DC, and in 87 I would have been at all times with my then-girlfriend, and the memory has an aura of me being alone. But who knows?
One of the interesting things about my memory of my time at LC is that I remember certain things happening there that, when I check, did not happen while I was working there. I vividly remember being at work and one of the Amazons, probably Margy, talking about how thrilling it was on Star Trek: Voyager, when there was a scene with Captain Janeway and B'Elanna Torres problem-solving a technical problem with the ship: two women who are both scientists and engineers talking about it! It was revolutionary.
Unfortunately, Voyager didn't debut until two years after I had left LC. I've grafted some other, later, conversation with someone else onto a memory of working at LC.
Memory is weird.
If you want even a hint of how rich lesbian culture was back then, grab a copy of the LC Winter Catalog, an annual issue chock-full of ads for lesbian-run businesses and groups. Bookstores, festivals, writers, publishers, magazines, jewelers, T-shirt makers, performers, B&Bs, women's land, spiritual retreats, Tarot decks, videos, and more, more, more.
Speaking of videos: I saw an ad for when the 1992 movie Claire of the Moon came out on video. It cost $89.99. $89.99!! In 1993!
You’re only allowed to have three items at a time, so the archivist/librarian on duty had to regularly had to replenish me from the enormous stack they had previously retrieved from deep storage. One of the staffers was impressed with the artwork on the covers, as was I. Somebody needs to make a coffee table book, something like, "Lesbian Connection: The First 20 Years of Covers." I took pictures of some of my favorites.
It was a beautiful day to be out and about. To get to the library from my bus stop, I have to first cross the Red Cedar and then amble alongside it for a ways, which is always a pleasant thing to do. When I was on my way back to my bus stop afterward, I realized I was right by the MSU Dairy Store, so I popped in for some ice cream.
It's only May 7, but I have now had that quintessential summer experience: strolling along on a sunny, breezy afternoon, in no hurry, surrounded by other relaxed people enjoying the day (the semester has ended, and it’s very quiet on campus)and stopping into a slightly cramped non-chain ice cream shop with faded linoleum on the floor to get a cone, and then strolling out into the sunshine again, trying to eat it before too much drips down your hand. It was delightful.
I looked up at one point when I was working to see Terry Grant, of all people, chatting with the staffer at the desk. Terry Grant is, of course, the iconic lesbian who founded major women's music distribution company Goldenrod Records in 1974. Terry was at every single Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. Along with Lesbian Connection, Goldenrod is the other absolutely vital lesbian cultural institution to come out of Lansing, Michigan. I know her from way back in the day; and, at some point, she and her partner joined my Quaker meeting. My friend Stephanie, a straight woman who went to a women's college--I want to say Bryn Mawr, but it might have been Smith--tells a story about not realizing what a lesbian hotbed her college was going to be. During the summer before she left for college, she was doing some kind of door-to-door fundraising, and at one house, she had a conversation with an older woman who seemed a bit intense, in the sense of being really, really excited that Stephanie was going to a women's college. Only later, when she got to school and met all the lesbians, did she have any clue why that might have been.
Years later, Terry showed up at Quaker meeting, and Stephanie thought with a jolt, "I think that's her!"
I thought it was an interesting coincidence: the first time I’ve been in Special Collections since 2019, and there’s Terry! I waved at her, and she gave me an awkward little wave, the kind you do when you’re either not sure you’re the one being waved at, or not sure who that person waving at you is. I was a little taken aback, but, on reflection, I remembered that I was wearing my new sunhat, which has a very wide brim, and also my special indoor anti-headache sunglasses. I might as well have been in disguise, I suppose.
I had a bit of a rough moment this morning. My roommate, whom I will call Jimmy, came in to talk to me, very distressed. You may recall that they came to us originally as Athena’s partner, and, though the two of them broke up quite a long time ago, they have been sort of “grandfathered” in my David’s and my softheartedness and inertia, and we are still supporting them. When Athena moved in with me last summer, Jimmy came along. Athena moved out into an apartment with Yev a few months ago, and it has been very good for both me and Jimmy, but Athena is back with us now, and will stay in the apartment with Jimmy while I’m at Pendle Hill. Our lease is up August 31, just as I get back, and I will be either staying here or moving to a one-bedroom in the complex, and they will no longer be living here.
Athena is impossible to live with, and I don’t think Jimmy recognized how stressful it had been until they had a few months without her.
Anyway, they (Jimmy’s pronouns are they/them) came to me very upset and agitated over having Athena and all her legitimate mental health issues, and also all of her bullshit, back in the house.
I have been drawing some pretty solid lines with my various kids in recent months. I can’t, I tell them, be the person you come to to complain about your dad, or each other. Especially their dad—it’s so re-stimulating for me. And i told Jimmy today, this is not something I can help you with. I understand how you feel, and I understand why, but I simply am not the person you can talk to about your troubles with Athena (I have enough of my own, right?)
Jimmy has severe anxiety and a healthy dose of learned helplessness. They became homeless as a teenager, and were dependent on their best friend until well after Athena came into their lives. For awhile there, they were a nice poly throuple. I was very proud.
When Athena left Gateway, the supported transitional housing for at-risk young adults, Jimmy had become homeless again, and when David found a place for Athena to stay, Athena brought Jimmy along.
So, basically, David and I have been Jimmy’s support for several years now. I get so frustrated with them sometimes—they have untreated medical conditions, but won’t see a doctor. They desperately need therapy. They have no support system but me and David, and, to the extent she is a support, Athena. They have known for months that at the end of the summer, they are going to have to find a new living situation, but they’ve made almost no progress toward, say, getting a part-time job, or getting their health issues dealt with. Or anything else.
There has been some talk about Athena and Jimmy moving in with David. This is a terrible idea on so many levels. For one thing, David and Athena are very, very, (very), bad for each other. When Yev had his emancipation hearing a few months ago, the judge said in so many words that David and Athena shouldn’t even be in contact with each other. And she was pretty much right.
But, for another thing, at some point, Jimmy needs to find another way to live. They will be much better off separated from Athena. But I have no idea if they will ever be able to make that break.
Today, when Jimmy was trying to talk to me, I felt both anger and resentment for almost the first time. I’ve felt a kind of detached frustration. I have too many young people in my life (mostly Athena) who will not act on their own behalf, and it is very frustrating to be dealing with people whom you cannot help because, whatever step they need to take, whether it’s actually showing up at an appointment or making sure their state ID is up to date, they will not take it. But I don’t remember ever feeling this direct anger and resentment at Jimmy. I wanted to say, “I’m sorry, is the free housing I’m providing you not to your liking?”
I am actually back in therapy specifically to have a person helping me hold the line. Can I actually make someone move out of my house who might become homeless as a result? This has always been a stopping point for me with Athena: it is not possible to persuade, cajole, or threaten her into taking responsibility for things, and I have spent a lot of time trapped in her mess with her because I know I am not capable of throwing her out if she has nowhere to go.
She will almost certainly move back in with David at the end of the summer, as he can no longer afford to rent her an apartment. This is terrible, terrible, terrible for both of them. My therapist’s job is help me let them make their own bad, unhealthy decisions.
Also to help me enforce Jimmy moving out at the end of our lease.
The past decade has been a long, hard lesson in the reality of trying to take care of people who cannot be taken care of. I’ve learned a lot about knowing what I can and can’t do. But I’m going to need a bossy therapist as well as bossy friends to help me stand by my decision to take care of myself, and to put Carl’s much-neglected needs ahead of my other children’s. The only way I will live with another person come September 1 is if Carl decides to move in with me. He doesn’t want to; he’s very unhappy and stressed living with David, but he’s also comfortable in the home and neighborhood he’s known his whole life. It will be very good for him to get away from David, and perhaps the prospect of Athena moving back in (Carl’s PTSD from when Athena stabbed David is still very much affecting him; he doesn’t like to have her in the house at all, and who can blame him? Not too long after I moved out, I figured out that I can’t go back into that house without being flooded with bad feelings. Heck, I went as far as the front porch one time to drop off some things for Carl, and came away saying, “Welp, I’m not doing that again!”)
Carl gets to make his own decisions. David gets to make his own decisions. Athena gets to make her own decisions. Jimmy has to make their own decisions.
This is my mantra.
I have been writing for a long time, so that is certainly enough for now. Check out my Patreon—one thrilling piece of writing so far, about a scholarly edition of Walt Whitman’s “Live Oak With Moss,” but there will be more soon.
And remember, if you don’t want emails like this, you can hit that unsubscribe button. I will not be offended at all!
Much love,
Su