Words Matter
Word by word, she picked up the pieces and threw them against the wall. Some of them stuck. Many did not. Sometimes they feigned sticking before sliding to the floor. There were times she did not throw the words, just simply tossed them. Those times, the wind grabbed, then left without a word. One day and then another she mixed a bowl of words together and made a word salad. Many times she did not care for the taste – bittery, lackluster. It was the honey from the bees that lit up her day.
One day when she was in the throes of her word slinging, she took a break and flashed back to the time she and her very first girlfriend, Sara, talked about lesbian music, which during the late 1970s, was cryptically referred to over the public airways as “women’s music,” classic, gentle folk-rock songs, the lyrics of which lent clarity to the Sapphic flavor of a transition into full-on lesbian, but only if you were in the know.
“If you listen closely you’ll get the lesbian vibe.” That was Sara’s advice during my journey coming out of the closet. “Just listen.” She took a quick sip from the Lone Star beer bottle she was holding. I took a long drag off of my just lit Marlboro Light. At the time, in the cultural and political times we were mired in, lesbian lyrics were safely metaphoric or vague or both. But that didn’t matter because we listened intently.
Soaked in women’s love for each other, the lyrics also had a spiritual goddess-ness mixed in. This genre of music called out to young women like me who were slowly, and perhaps perplexingly, emerging from the closet, claiming their souls, finding their voices.
The imaginative, and somewhat clandestine, lyrics spoke to an eager place in me that wanted to bust out of the closet and get real. Like so many lesbians coming out back in that day, I learned the words, sang along with confidence, absorbed the lyrics and felt the music in search of a strong budding voice.
Because words matter.
Your ongoing support as I write my memoir is much appreciated. ~ Kay