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I met Wind Walker yesterday. An adolescent who was out and about, walking a dog while I walked alongside mine. Due to a slight straight slim build, ambiguous features and shoulder length brown hair, I was unable determine Wind Walkers’ gender. Therefore, due to the power of choice, I choose Woman as I like things in threes: WWW—Wind Walker Woman (or for others, the World Wide Web which also has power—-and knowledge).
I gave her this name as her slight adolescent self, while walking her dog, whisked twice, briskly by me. She was light, quick on her feet and flew like a breeze. If we meet again, I shall ask has she any tattoos and if not I will say:
“might you in the future, when older, consider allowing someone to inscribe WWW, Wind Walker Woman on your arm—the name I give to remind you—to always fly free.” (keep in mind here the WW’s as they come up unexpectedly while writing this for you).
LGBTQ2+ inspires me. I, as a heterosexual woman, sixty one years of age, admire and respect the freedom which came from courage, that this movement role models for me. I am an alcoholic—a label, identifier which I deliberately choose as it reminds me of the hell I wish to no longer revisit. Today because of recovery, I have a choice and as LGBTQ2+ has taught me, I get to feel, experience, the incredible, freeing sense one can have when they believe they have power to choose.
I work a twelve step program, have not consumed alcohol for over three decades and marvel at how the principles of recovery—love, acceptance, tolerance—parallel those of the marvellous LGBTQ2+ community. In my home community, I decided to follow the LGBTQ2+ yellow brick road of outing myself and after years of writing an anonymous “Ask An Addict” column, I finally self identified by giving my real name. Coming out was important as I see so many dying—Opiate, drug, alcohol deaths.
Francine Peters, a brilliant artist woman I once was given the privilege to interview and write about and whose story she shared intimately with me, comes to mind now.
I no longer wish to hide in the shadows as people like me (and possibly you) continue to die. I credit LGBTQ2+ for showing how the power of choice, having the courage to come forward to proudly claim—self identify who one is, (even while shaking in my boots), can set someone and then others to fly free.
I often think of how different the world, Puerto Vallarta would be—with no cure, no treatment for AIDS—if everyone had remained sequestered, closeted and hidden during all those horrible, scary, life killing, life threatening, epidemic years. If everyone had chosen to remain in fear (which my literature says I, as an alcoholic, am run by a thousand forms of), then imagine the tsunami of continued deaths, suffering, sorrow, hopelessness and pain.
Discrimination and stigma would be stronger than it is today and you, the out and about, proud, loving community you are now, would have been bleak, black, living in sadness, secrecy and societal shame. Instead, one brave “I’ve had enough and need to think of others” person then another—came forward, to proudly claim and choose their identity. Society no longer had any hold or power over this one, then another as they stood together, locking arms in firm solidarity. One grew to two which then grew to three.
Recovery literature advocates: “If it is to be it is up, to me.”
The LGBTQ2+ community has given the world, choice: the ability to choose who one wants to be. In 1945, Viktor Frankl wrote Man’s Search For Meaning, a book I read during one of my two summers as the resident nurse for artists and staff at the Banff School of Fine Arts. Man’s Search for Meaning chronicles Viktor Frankls’ experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II (remember the WW and the Wind Walkers ability to chose, to not have forced upon her, a numbered tattoo). If you have not read this—cited as one of the ten most influential books in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning, I highly recommend it.
At the time of the author’s death in 1997, the book had sold over 10 million copies and had been translated into 24 languages. I love culture, history and art and as an aside I divert here because I too, wish to be a brilliant book learned individual or diva; so perhaps on a lazy weekend or relaxed evening take a peek of Karl Langerfields documentary and notice the books…. https://app.primevideo.com/detail?gti=amzn1.dv.gti.b679136d-b7f6-4fc1-b368-f32005f1fbd5&territory=CA&ref_=share_ios_movie&r=web
In Man’s search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes his curiosity about starving frail men, who all suffered the same horrible torturous prison conditions. He wondered why some men choose to greedily consume their small piece of life sustaining bread while others would share, giving it away and yet another group of men would steal bread from their prisoner brothers. He wrote that a man’s psychological reactions are not solely the result of the conditions of his life, but also from the freedom of choice.
Choice is something one always has even in severe suffering. The LGBTQ+2 and other liberating forces illustrate this today. Based on the principles of recovery and LGBTQ2+ I get to choose. I get to choose who I am, how I identify. Despite the hate Viktor Frankl and other prisoners faced and with the world currently imploding around us, a possible extinction of our species, cities burning, towns flooding, guns shooting, people fighting, yelling, punching, throwing chairs….I get to choose.
I choose love acceptance tolerance
I choose Who I am and how I Identify
I chose how I React and how I behave
I choose to write, to express myself
I choose to thank you all, LGBTQ2+
for showing me
I can be free
I can be me
I follow your path
I no longer hide
I declare my recovery, Wild Woman, Wind Walker, White Swan Woman, the name given to me by an aboriginal spirit elder (when giving this name she had no idea that five years earlier, after one year of sobriety, my boyfriend at the time wrote a poem to congratulate and share about my white feathers, catching the light….)
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