I’m getting older. Well, technically I’m old, as I have passed 60. Because of that, (and probably some other reasons) I find myself getting more nostalgic. I’m also “missing my youth.”

Well, not so much being young, actually – but rather longing for the active out lesbian awareness, culture, and connections to community I had in my 20s-50s (circa 1978 – 2002). I miss that identity and engagement. I miss being “visible,” more than I feel I am now.

Why and how did I disappear? That’s a long story that doesn’t need telling right here.

But what IS happening for me now is the acute desire to resurge, as in to come back from a low point to rise again. For me, that means to more consciously and conscientiously embrace and act on be-ing lesbian. Claiming the “L” word with fervor. Seeking women-centered (only) spaces. Re-imagining lesbian circles. Creating and developing lesbian culture. Writing lesbian-inspired words. Holding and sharing lesbian herstory. Focusing energy and activism through the lenses of radical lesbian-informed feminism – promoting equity and justice for women. Affirming goddess spiritualities. Reconnecting to that Amazon in me that was so strong earlier in my life and resurging/repositioning her into my later years.

So now I am gathering my self through the process of reading.

• The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture by Bonnie Morris
• Eating Fire: My Life as a Lesbian Avenger by Kelly Cogswell
• Sinister Wisdom – multiple back issues (& #107 on Black Lesbians just arrived!)
• The Feminist Bookstore Movement: Lesbian Antiracism and Feminist Accountability by Kristen Hogan
• OLOC website (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change)
• We Want the Land Coalition website
• The Woman-Centered Economy: Ideas, Reality, and the Space Between edited by Loraine Edwards and Midge Stocker
• And so much more…

And I’m writing an article for Sinister Wisdom on Lesbian Learning.

So that’s where I am for now. More to follow.