Om Shanti

It would all become meaningless if everything was yours. The clothes you wear, the food you eat, the love you keep. Sometimes you have to starve to appreciate the taste of life, loose someone you want so much because you knew it was the right thing to let them fulfill individual destiny. Sure it hurts to cry, but sometimes the pain is worth a try to remind you that resilience is an endeavor of the human spirit. Peace only comes in silence, whether in the markings of a smile or the tracing of a lovers lips. This is it - your chance to live life alive.

The Land of **** (a fable)

I am going to see this, and I recommend you do too!
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A fable of love, lust and heartbreak in the modern age.

Using the social perceptions of a simple word – fuck – and its transformation throughout recent history from a highly censored word to its present expressive acceptance, this conceptual dance work aspires to define a period in evolution that is of the immediate – the here and now – through a theatrical and exploratory landscape.
"To ‘fuck’ is humanity at its best and at most base, at its highest form of intimacy and lowest. It is a word and an action that divides the generations, divides the sexes, divides the moral compass. At the same time, of course, it creates."
- D.A. Hoskins
 
March 23-27 at Workman Arts Theatre, 651 Dufferin Street Toronto.
Wed-Sat 8pm, Sat & Sun 2pm.
Tickets $25 – Student/Senior/CADA $20 – Saturday Matinee PWYC
Tickets: www.totix.ca 
Info: www.thedietrichgroup.blogspot.com

An Ideal Timeless Sitcom: The Golden Girls

I have an unusual obsession with 4 white women: The Golden Girls. What is it that draws me to love these ladies with a hearty laugh? I can see myself in all of them. Rose Nylund, Dorothy Szbornac, Blanche Devereaux and Sophia Petrillo make up the tight click of sassy older ladies who brought laughter, wit, friendship and cheesecake to the 80's.

If you grew-up in the generation of The Golden Girls, whether you liked them or not you knew who they were from their printloud and lounging 80's style. Each unusually square outfit paraded on the tube made us think of  tacky fun at its best!

Watching these ladies  remains an exhilarating and exciting sensation partially because of how rude they are to eachother. I always love Dorothy's witty and dry comments cutting Rose's lack of street smarts. On the other hand it is always thrilling to hear Rose bust out something rude herself. For example by calling Blanche a slut.  My personal all-time hero is Sophia because of her ability to balance poking witty comments at all her younger roomates. She damn funny.

The Golden Girls is one of my favourite shows of all-time because these women make race, gender, class and nationality invisible and rather encouraging smiles to the forefront of living rooms across multi-racial North America, now and then.

I remember watching The Golden Girls with my Ba (Grandma). My Ba spoke very little English and would always look forward to tuning in on the tube to see these funny ladies (Ba also had a fond spot for Sophia like me). The cutest part was while watching Ba would dictate to me what she thought was happening, and I would tell her if her interpretation was correct. She always knew what was going on. I feel Ba understood each woman's characteristics and personalities. The show did well to develop 4 distinctive female characters. Even Ba with little understanding of the language they spoke could tell the intentions and sentiment of each woman from show to show.

The Golden Girls ran from 1985 to 1992 and even today when I catch them on a TV rerun or pop in one of my DVDs - Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia and Rose still manage to captivate me. The writing is so intelligent that though today's viewers may not understand all the pop culture references from the time, they can still appreciate the fundamental messages this show brings around appreciating aging, adjusting after the divorce or the loss of a spouse, survival and embracing the continual lessons life offers. These sisters made us believe we could do it for ourselves.

Which girl did you relate to the most? Leave a comment and let me know!

Labiaretto Lullaby‏

Resting my head upon her pink breasts, I think of how memorable it feels to have her heartbeat drum in my ear beat by beat. The tension of my excitement mounts as she falls deeper into a slumber and I know that she's not going anywhere until morning awakes. She has spent the day doing one-hundred million things, growing, achieving, learning and simply being, but now she is home. Tired as she may be, she fights to stay awake and spend just a few hidden moments with me. I read and she draws, and before I know it she mutters that sleep calls. A day cycle comes to a completion with her eyes drifting to dream. Goodnight my love, sleep tight.

The Magazine Project

Ready for a new exciting place for lesbian women to share their thoughts, get informed and create an online community? The Magazine Project is just the place for you!

Please check out my first article with these ladies and keep on supporting keeping this space alive and well!

The Days of Yesterday

Remember me? I was the one who held your hand and encouraged you to grow the wings to fly away from this misery. I remember when you were just a lost child with no direction, reason or sense of time. Just by looking into your eyes I could see the hope you possessed to get past all the impediments that kept you captive in this complacency. Not having a good father, not having enough money to stop struggling and wondering how to get to all the places in the world that inspired you to reach higher to learn more. I knew from the moment that I saw you, you were someone special. Now I see you and I wonder if the spark is still inside, have you faded and become a dimmed light? Then I remember the un-savaged mind that found beauty in everything, even in the darkest times - how by helping you, in turn you helped me to be a better teacher, friend and woman. You taught me what love is in it's greatest form: kindness and modest pride - to feel good inside. To strive to seek the adventure of my own dreams, much like you continue to seek yours. I have found my strength because of you.

Marsha Ambrosius “Far Away”

In light on all the gay bullying a suicides, a beautiful song.

Couples Divide at Christmas Time

New couples are faced with the challenge of spending time apart  during the the holiday season.

This holiday season I am being challenged with a situation for the first time. Though I have had a lover before during this season of jolly, I have never actually been part of her family as I am with my current girlfriend. We have respectfully decided to spend Christmas with our individual families, but we are confronting the thoughts of what to do in following years, as she wants to be with her family and I with mine.

I know it sounds petty, there are problems that are much larger in the world, but I have had a few sad moments thinking that I am not going to wake up beside her on that snowy morning, kiss her under her hand-crafted mistletoe and  remind her that she is the best gift I could ever ask for. It is our first Christmas together afterall.

I don't have a quick solution, perhaps this is why I am thinking this one out so much. She has younger siblings and parents of her own, and I have a 12-year old niece, parents and siblings of my own. I know that sometimes you have to be away from the ones you love to appreciate them more, but I can't help but think of the lyrics from the Mariah Carey Christmas classic, "All I Want for Christmas is You" and feel slightly melancholic.

Speaking with other couples I have learned that they rotate holidays among their families, and I guess perhaps that is something her and I will have to think about. Or perhaps when we are more mobile to get between our two houses that are about an hour apart, we can just drive between the two (but who wants to not be drunk on Christmas!).What I realize it that I have my own little family now, and though I love and cherish all the Christmas' with my Mom, Dad, brother, sister and niece - I will certainly miss my baby boo on that cold yet fuzzy-warm feeling morning.

I am one lucky lady to have such wonderful people in my life, full of kindness and good energy. I think I will promise her that when I wake on Christmas morning I will call her and say "Merry Christmas baby, I love you." I guess that is the best I can do.