Community

I am learning more and more as we get deeper into this process how important it is to be surrounded by our tribe. We live in an area that is really progressive, and there are lots of queer folks around, but the community isn’t in any way organized, so we don’t really know where to find one another. For example, we usually have a little Pride celebration in June during Pride week. It’s been pretty sparce for a number of years, but it’s been reliable at least. This year, there was no acknowledgement of pride, and we kept looking for announcements. Well, it turns out the local organization couldn’t get its act together, so they decided to have Pride in September! Geesh!

When J and I were in grad school, we had a few lesbian friends, but they soon left for greener pastures, and we have since become the lone lesbians in a sea of married or otherwise coupled straight friends, some of whom are great, but most of whom are not at all interested in what we’re doing. One such couple has even been known to call us their “token lesbians,” a label we’re not too fond of. Now the same couple doesn’t know what to talk to us about. They don’t want kids, don’t particularly like kids, and have informed us in no uncertain terms that they will never babysit for us. That’s fine. We don’t want such energy around our kid.

But this only makes us long for our people more. We need people for whom we don’t have to justify every detail related to our conception process or people for whom this at least makes some sort of sense. We need to talk to other people who have gone through this, who have the same sorts of hopes and fears for their offspring. This is one of the reasons we’ll be moving in the coming year to a slightly larger city with a really vibrant queer community.

 For now, we’re doing a couple of things to remedy this craving for community. We’re both loving our inroduction to the online lesbian mom (and wannabe mom) community. It’s full of wise and wonderful women, and we’re excited to be joining this little corner of the web.

We’ve also gone back to our local Unitarian Universalist fellowship–a group of mostly older (60s and above) Pagans, Buddhists, recovering Christians, etc. who are really quite lovely and welcoming and eager to share in our hopes and joys. Last Sunday, we lit a candle to bring some good conception energy our way, and they were so excited for us, so interested in our journey. We got lots of lovely blessings, and because it was the Solstice Celebration, we got an extra special blessing from a lovely lesbian crone. That day was the first we had felt community in a long time, and it lifted us both in this beautiful way. We need so much more of it, but for now, it will certainly do.