Tag Archives: washington state

#2479

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“Olalla”

The river of time bends in its bed just north of here, leaving the Place of Many Berries nestled in the slower currents of its inner curve. The years have been kinder there, marked more by the growth of saplings into trees than the destruction of forests for cheap housing developments and box stores like everywhere else. The kingfishers still perch on telephone wires as they search for salmon fry in the estuary’s lazy waters; the stately heron still wades in the shallows and darts out his long neck to snap up a crab. The same decaying barns still gradually sink into the waiting soil and the same weathered fences still disappear bit by bit beneath encroaching blackberry vines. The beast of greed which devours this sleepy community’s larger neighbors has yet to turn its full ugly gaze on her bountiful woodlands, has yet to covet her velvety nights and clear, crisp mornings, and I pray it never has the chance. I pray society comes to its collective senses before bulldozers break the sacred ground of these fields sprinkled with wildflowers and tadpole ponds. This land grows children quick like deer, curious like crows, and generous as apple trees in autumn. Given a little more of time’s kindness it might raise enough generations of such honorable souls to slay greed’s beast for good – or if not, may it at least remain the last bastion of peace in our rapidly crumbling world. Hold on, home of my youth. We will try to keep you safe as long as possible.

#2180

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I am no wanderer. I feel no desire to travel far from home, to visit foreign lands or step foot on other continents. I am happy in the same state, the same rainy peninsula, the same ten mile radius of forest and water where I grew up and which I still call home. This place is where I want always to return at the end of the day and I ask no more than that. As I said, I am no wanderer. I am no wanderer, yet the land around me has changed so that I feel lost in this alien landscape. Forests razed to make way for shopping centers; picturesque waterfront blocked by million-dollar homes. Storefronts sit empty while commercial building continues to churn out box stores and parking lots and cheap cookie-cutter housing. The nights aren’t as dark, the stars aren’t as bright. Every season seems hotter and drier than the one before. Where am I? I did not leave my home, yet neither do I recognize this place.

#1941

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Queer Club: I Wanted To Do The Thing, So I Did The Thing! (Is this how you adult?)

A few months ago, I was lamenting the lack of local queer meetups while my fiance and I were grocery shopping. Living far from major cities like Seattle and Olympia makes it hard to take part in queer culture – being on the wrong side of a toll bridge and in a town full of old people makes it even worse. I don’t feel unwelcome in my hometown of Gig Harbor, but neither do I feel like my queerness is necessarily nurtured here. Besides the occasional Human Rights Campaign bumper sticker or the cool Safeway checker with the queer pin, it’s difficult to identify and connect with my own kind.

This wasn’t the first time I complained about being too far from the queer city hubs, and I’m sure it also wasn’t the first time my fiance suggested I start my own meetup. Here’s what made this time different: When we got home I actually did it. I sat down and made a Facebook group and invited the few local queer friends I had. I posted on Craigslist and Tumblr and Twitter. And when we went grocery shopping the next weekend, I nervously asked the Safeway checker if she wanted to come. After just a week or two, we had a total of 15 members – not bad, considering I was pulling from what is likely a small pool. The group was a nice mixture of people I knew, people who knew someone else in the group, and people who didn’t know anyone. Overall, I was pretty impressed with the results.

And then I realized I was in charge and would have to plan the first meetup, and I panicked.

Okay, not quite. But I was definitely SUPER nervous as I waited for people to arrive at that first meeting. I had a million worries buzzing in my head. What if no one came? What if no one knew what to say and it was really awkward? What if I forgot someone’s name or pronouns or didn’t have anything for a vegan to eat? What if everyone liked everyone else except for me, and they decided to kick me out of my own group? What if we just didn’t really have anything in common and the group fell apart immediately and I never tried to do anything like it ever again and became a recluse and my fiance had to cover all our windows with newspaper? You know, the usual fears of a totally normal person.

As you can probably guess, none of those things happened. The meetup went better than I could possibly have expected and people stayed until after midnight (for reference, I’m usually in bed by 8:00 PM). After our guests had left, I was too exhilarated to sleep and practically bouncing off the walls with relief and happiness. I had made a thing! That people had attended! And had liked enough to make plans for the next one (and to form a D&D group)! I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, I had managed to gather together a group of local queer folks who were all amazingly nerdy and hilarious. I liked them all. They seemed to all like each other. Was this how you made friends? Who knew it could be so easy!

I have no idea what the future holds for Queer Club – honestly, I didn’t plan past “make a Facebook group” so I’m 100% playing this by ear. It seems to be going well so far, though, and there’s already talk of attending SakuraCon together, so I’m feeling hopeful. At the very least, Queer Club is an excuse to get myself (and my fiance, who’s along for the ride) out of my antisocial comfort zone and interacting with, well, anyone. If I can help create a little network of local queer folks for attending prides and playing D&D together, even better.

We’re an open group and love meeting new people. If you live in the south Puget Sound area of Washington state, consider stopping by one of our meetups! You can find us on Facebook under the name “Gig Harbor/Kitsap Queer Club” – and no, you don’t have to live in those areas specifically. Anyone who identifies as being somehow under the queer umbrella is welcome, along with significant others of whatever definition. :)

Attention South Puget Sound Queer Folk!

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There are a lot of queer meetups in the Puget Sound, but most of them are in big cities like Seattle and Olympia. I want to create a casual queer group that meets in the Kitsap/Gig Harbor area for the folks around here who don’t want to or can’t drive that far**. I envision this meetup as being very casual and maybe focusing on sharing queer media (books, movies, TV shows, music, etc), doing fun activities, and being a general safe space for local queer folk. Also, if we meet at my house, you can rub my cat’s amazing tummy.

This will be a group for anyone on the queer spectrum (no gatekeeping allowed!) and their partners/family/whomever. The socially awkward and/or neurodivergent are especially welcome, as are people of all faiths, nationalities, etc.

You can find us by searching “Gig Harbor/Kitsap Queer Club” on Facebook; the group is closed but if you send a request to join, I’ll add you ASAP. We may grow big enough to warrant a Meetup.com group or something beyond Facebook, but I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’re at 9 members already, though!

**Tacoma folks, you are more than welcome too; I’ll try to make up the bridge toll in snacks or something. :)

#1645

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It’s hard to grasp and hold in my mind that distant, ancient land, to feel the great weight of the sun baking the earth and pressing against my flesh. Hard to comprehend the grandeur of tombs and statues, the wealth of gold on wrist and collarbone, the richness of celebration and worship beneath ever-present gods, so foreign is it to my own experience. I know this place existed once as more than sand and ruin, and exists forever at its most fantastic within Her memory, but it is not my memory and not my place. I am not a sun-browned child of burning sands and fertile deltas, of golden temples and gleaming hieroglyphs. I am a pale child of cedar and mountains, of white fog and rocky Pacific shores. The arid land of lion and cheetah is not my land; my land is the forested land of cougar and bobcat. I feel this land in my heart and soul, and struggle to imagine myself in the first. But why does this make me feel unworthy or disloyal? This is Her land too, isn’t it? Wherever Her children walk, She is there. Wherever Her followers exalt Her name, She is there. The same sun and moon and stars rotate over this land as over that of Her first cult, so why should She eschew it because no formal temple has stood on this ground? She is a goddess of fire and freedom, instinct and survival. The wilderness is Her temple. The shadows and lurking places are Her temple. Any place touched by a silent paw or fleeting form is Her temple. Seeking adherence to desert tradition, I forgot She has always been with me here in this land, in this time. I can sit among damp lavender and pine branches and speak to Her just as easily, and with as much approval, as I could were I able to find my way to Her first place of worship. Silly devotee, to have thought She could watch me grow up in this place and not call it Hers as well!