Hullo long-time readers, and new faces. I can hardly keep up with the wildness of our world’s current affairs (and my feelings about them). So, I’m taking a leaf out of Sam’s book** and sharing snippets that, well, I feel like sharing.
We got married!
We are now officially “Wifeys for Lifey”. My wife (surreal!) and I have started an Instagram account to further our “queer agenda” (issajoke – but also not). We’re hoping to shine a light on queer-friendly wedding vendors, and other experiences as a queer couple. Probably also LGBTQ news, poetry, literature… and a fair amount of soppiness. It’s a work in progress, okay.
Stonewall boardgame
Have you seen this kickstarter? I am a sucker for indie boardgames and this one, showcasing the gay rights movement, looks spectacular. There is still time to back it! Unfortunately, it looks like the physical rewards won’t be shipped outside of the USA or Canada, but it seems a printable version will.
(Does anyone else have a problem buying more boardgames than they can realistically play?)
Doctor-Transformational-Coach
My friend from university, Ashleigh, has left clinical medicine after a long period of honest introspection and self-discovery. She has now started a consultancy business “for professionals who want to realign with their truth”. She has a wonderful discussion on multipotentiality. I am especially inspired, because Ashleigh is, like me, a creative, and through her I am reminded not to discard my creative self.
Affirming religious spaces
When we were planning our wedding, one of THE most difficult things was to find a local minister to marry us, a same-sex couple. There were some well-known affirming ministers who would travel to marry us, but that would have involved transport costs that we were trying to save. We did eventually find someone in our medium-sized city who could marry us ceremonially, but because marriage officers in South Africa need separate papers to marry people under the Civil Union Act, as opposed to the “original” Marriage Act, we had to do the legal/paperwork at Home Affairs.
Having sat together throughout her sermon, the queer folk who attended that morning’s service stood up, moved in single file to the front of the church and sang.
Carl Collison
We found this part of our wedding experience to be an isolating one. Which is why I was so glad to see an article in the Mail and Guardian about a small rural South African town, Elands Bay, where the queer community fought for inclusion in their religious space.
My most recent (completed) read
I read and reviewed Hooked by A.C. Wise. Set twenty-two years after the adventures of the Darling children with Peter Pan in Neverland, Hooked examines the residual trauma held by Wendy, her daughter, and… James Hook, who managed escape Neverland.
Hooked is not a Peter Pan retelling: it is an after-telling. A truth-seeking. An analysis of the reader’s truth within an imagining of what came after for Wendy Darling, her daughter, Jane, and Captain James Hook. Hooked is a counter-verse, an argument, an exposé.
My review on Goodreads
There is also a beautiful male-male romance arc that I absolutely lived for!
I highly recommend it – but only if you are in a mental space that allows you to question your own past experiences.
** her blog, to be technical. Her book is here, and I do take pages from it – but not in this case.
Wishing you an inspired week ahead!
Whispers Unto the Aether 