Every time I leave my grandmother, she cries. I'm used to it by now, the consistency hasn't budged since I was just a young kid. I remember watching her in the driveway of the house in Colorado, smiling and waving and blowing kisses while heavy tears streaked down her face. Watching her fade away until she was just a small speck in the distance, standing and watching us go for as long as she could, as if nothing was as valuable as that last glance.

At 19 I have recently packed up my belongings, put my little studio amount of furniture and knick-knacks into storage and flown one way to Portland, Oregon. A big part of why I did this was because of my grandmothers beckoning, my grandfathers support of alternative pathways. I was driven into the large industrial landscape, the huge steel bridges and light rain on concrete and brick. I couldnt see beyond a couple miles, something that im not used too, coming from the desert where you can see as far out as you want from almost any point on the terrain. I felt like I was going to cry, my body fell into full anxiety mode. I realized I had no idea what I was doing there, I was going to be sleeping in my friends attic bedroom, no job, no school, no relationships, no nothing. I just had two suitcases full of vintage dresses, a ukulele, and my laptop. My first couple of weeks have been full of making friends, riding bikes, drinking tea and beer, going to house shows and old photo booths. They've also been full of obsessively calling home, spending hours on facebook longing for some word from my friends back in New Mexico, crying in the attic, and sleeping through full days.

My grandmother caught wind of this and promptly bought me a ticket to visit her again. Staying at a new house in Port Townsend, Washington. Nothing is as comforting to me as these visits, the security of her presence, as though anything I need can be taken care of. Watching her lovingly look out at the docks and the bay and the mist in the forest. She tells me that the northwest makes her feel at home, the gray skies a warm blanket to sit under day after day. She walks me by the lighthouse and brings me to her favorite cafe for salmon scrambles with yams. She tells me about her days of living on military bases, dropping out of society and woodstock while her hands shake out the swiss chard she's so excited about making for dinner. Her age is starting to show more, the usual qualities of growing older; forgetfulness, pains in her hips and back. Both of my grandparents are relatively younger, closer in age to some of my friends older parents then my mother is. It's the first time i've considered the prospect of their retirement, their moving out of the southwest to a place more familiar, their settlement in Washington. It's the first time the prospect of them not being around when im 30, 40, 50 has hit me.

Im waiting out my 4 and a half hour layover in Seattle, watching two girls that must be ballerinas from Cornish College of the Arts use all the strength in their flimsy frames to carry a single suitcase. Im returning to Portland with a job interview, familiar faces, my 100 pound bicycle, and a better sense of finding my way. Remembering my grandmother's teary smiling face dampening my cheek as she tightly hugged me goodbye. Observing her standing in the Safeway parking lot, watching the bus rumble down the road until the fog had completely come between the two of us. As if that last glance was the most important moment in her whole world.

Acknowledgment, 1964

by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Could have gone west. Could have packed your things,
who cares that you weren’t old enough to drive.
Could have sold yourself to truckers
and highwaymen. Could have gone down
the dark road between home and somewhere
better, the whole world watching tv and not one thinking of you.
Could’ve got lost. Could have said, “I don’t know”
when the waitress asked, “Where you live at?”
You could have lied and said, “New Jersey”
or “Mobile.” Of course, that assumes
you’d get past Mason Dixon.

You could have seen battlefields:
Gettysburg, Fredericksburg even Chicago
if you waded deep enough into summer. Could have slept
with your head on the ground like your sister,
her ear to the transistor, listening,
listening to “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”
You could have said, “Fuck the Beatles”
and left them behind, shooting the lights out
of every stadium, every coliseum.

You could have made girls scream because
you were the stranger under the bleachers, that ember
of the cigarette burning in the darkness just outside their
porch lights’ glow. You could have named them;
Helen, Rachelle, Ida May, and in Texas Irene Rosenberg
a girl just as lonely as you. Imagine,

your leaving before it ever got started. Where’s that
girl you married? You don’t know. You were half way
to Billings or Provo or Bend. You watched the cities
of the Midwest burn. You threw bottles and never
cut your hair. Remember the drum kit in Schlessinger’s
Instruments? How you crawled through the broken
window and banged away in the shards of that city.
If they could have seen you then! All muscle
and heart, sweating, sweating no more stupid melody
holding you back. Just the bass line, just the gas line
hissing and your foot on the pedal.

You could have gotten away. The country was different.
A boy could walk without getting beaten beyond an inch
of his life, without getting lashed to a fence
in God forsaken Wyoming. Why, God hadn’t forsaken
Wyoming or Birmingham yet. Chaney, Goodman,
and Schwerner safe in their beds. Perhaps you passed
by them. You could have passed me by and saved yourself
the whole mess. My mother doesn’t know you yet. She’s
on her back in the grass with some other man’s son.

Something I would really love to do is take a series of photographs of coupled exes. Ex-girlfriends, boyfriends, ex-wives with their ex-husbands, ex-high school sweethearts, ex-college lovers, ex-affairs, ex-long distance internet romances. I think its something we all do, as the years go by, we think back on the people we've known and the relationships we've encountered and gone "it seems so weird now that they/we were ever together". I want to document the changes and different directions that these two (perhaps more) people in a relationship have gone through. The two paths chosen, perhaps in spite of a once nurtured and cared for heartbeat in their hands. When people stay together, they grow together, grow with one another, they grow into one anothers lifestyle, personality, routine and aspirations. I want to document separation, two people growing apart.

Upon reflecting on my last post and having some conversations about my experience with good friends, im starting to see that these sort of radical queer circles are everywhere and they don't get any more inclusive or inviting.

I do identify as queer (specifically as queer), and its easier to identify as radical sometimes, rather then explaining all of my standing beliefs and politics behind certain notions concerning the LGBTQ community as well as elsewhere. It bothers me that instead of branching out and embracing one another, some queer folks are beginning to retreat into their very own cliques and rejecting others around them. It's beginning to seem that in rejecting the divisions within the mainstream gay and lesbian movement, the queer community is forming many divisions of its own. This is not, at least to me, what being queer identified and radical is all about.

Let me quickly put in my own two cents about being queer identified and radicalism, because I certainly think that the two go hand in hand. Something that the queer identity lends to many people is the ability to not be categorized into the sexual binaries provided for us by society, which in itself is radical, seeing as we live in a culture that primarily respects us when we adhere to certain labels and stereotypes. Queer for me, is also about alternative thinking, alternative politics, and alternative presentation. Part of the reason that I identify is queer is due to my upbringing which goes against many of the conceptions behind what growing up is in our culture. Also, the roads that I am choosing to take in my life and my reasoning behind that is considerably alternative to those complying with the paths awarded to them by society, this also makes me feel more connected with a queer identity. The queer identity within itself is purely one that goes against the grain. I feel that the original objectives behind the term "queer" is becoming lost to appropriation in the mainstream LGBTQ movement, along with other terms such as "butch" and "femme".

While talking to my friend last night, she mentioned to me something that Andrea Smith said (author of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex and co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence) concerning radicalism in all forms. She said that being radical isnt about you and your friends and your beliefs and their beliefs, being radical is about you and your friends sharing those beliefs with others and including others in your beliefs. So why is it becoming more and more difficult for younger queer folks to gain access to their community?

This whole realization hits close to home for me, as I had a difficult time being accepted by my gay friends in high school after beginning to recognize my attraction to other women. Most of my friends had started coming to terms with their sexuality at young ages, my first friend coming out to me as bisexual in the 6th grade. Honestly, if it wasn't for my being surrounded by the community I was surrounded by, and being exposed to such discoveries at such a young age, im not sure that I would have unearthed my own sexuality at 16. I remember specifically sitting in the car with one friend, who had openly been attracted to other women since the 8th grade, and when I began telling her about my crush on a girl I had been spending time with, she reacted negatively. She told me the same things that many conservative parents may have told me, that it was unreal, it was a phase, that she refuses to take me seriously. After being considerably deligitimized and embarrassed, I felt as though I had somehow gone somewhere I was not invited, invaded her space and done wrong to the gay and lesbian community by "switching over". I automatically cut off communication with the girl I had feelings for, and fell into a full frontal sexual identity crisis, hooking up with the manliest males I knew at parties, and flirting endlessly with the boys in my grade, trying to somehow gain my "straightness" back. Eventually I ended my efforts, I had been rejected by the straight community and the gay community. I was unable to cross the threshold and this is when I started becoming familiar with the queer community, which embraced me with open arms.

The notion that the queer community is becoming more and more segregated and closed off scares me. Im 19, it has been only a mere two years since I finally began to feel confidant in my sexuality and find solidarity with others who were just as complex and different as I am. But as I move on to different places and new people, new social circles, it makes me nervous that I will be rejected by the queer community, that I will fail initiation, I will fail the test. Perhaps this is a insecurity of my own due to past experiences, but also has been my experience as of late, and apparently the experience of many others I know in their towns and cities.

I guess all I can do is beg the queer world to stay inviting, stay inclusive, and stay accessible, because god knows that I, and tons of other youngsters out there need it.

Last night I had a rattling experience at work. Towards the end of my 9 hour shift, I was up at the register with one of my coworkers tagging jewelery when I noticed a group of young attractive queer women walk into the store. I automatically recognized most of them, many of them have made names for themselves in Santa Fe through various showcases with a unique and popular drag burlesque troop and I looked up to many of their friends and collaborators during my high school years. As they shopped the store many of them laughed and joked with each other, there was such a sense of comradeship,understanding and recognition. My heart began to ache a little bit.

Ever since moving to Albuquerque, i've made many new friends, I hang with the bikers, the golden kids, the creators. We spend nights drinking beer on astroturf, sitting outside of shows with our bikes, because no one really has the money to afford gas anymore. We go to antique malls and make vegan cupcakes and play music and eat lightly salted edemame. I've filled my home with books and feathers and tapestries and candles and good music. We go to the hotsprings to watch the sunrise and eat cinnamon and sugar toast and work long hours bouncing around and making jokes. However, through this, through making a life for myself here, not really having much of another choice, I feel that i've lost much of the queer community and friends that I held so dear in Santa Fe.

There is something about Albuquerque that is so disjointed, kind of fragile. I've met queer folks, the ones like me, the token queer girl among all of her heterosexual friends. But we dont have a community, a meeting place, events. The people that I talk too about my issues with queer presentations, politics, marriage, the whole lot, are few, if not all currently living in other parts of the country. My ongoing insecurity about my own queer presentation has strengthened and thrives here. I've always been a feminine woman, wearing make up and keeping my hair longer, wearing dresses. Ever since moving to Albuquerque i've felt the need to validate my queerness, offhand let people know that I like women, whether its automatically talking about my past relationships or name dropping or discussing my stance on gay marriage. I dont want to be assumed as straight, I dont want to be hit on by guys at parties, I dont want the only queer girls I meet to look right past me assuming that im not interested. But there's no compromise, and im not going to change the way I dress, the way I cut my hair, the make up I wear for the sake of being recognized by the New Mexico queer community. It makes me feel a little bit sick that I do feel the need to wear pants and cut off all my hair in order to feel like I belong to something, that I belong to a community with which I identify.

When the group of queer women came up to the register, I started to feel judged. I thought to myself "Can they not read me? Should I say something?", when one of them asked me how to get to Old Town.
"Oh I dont really know, im from Santa Fe" I said.
I did know how to get to Old Town.
"Yeah, um that's where we're coming from" said another.
They all stared at me, I felt the need to do something, say something. I wanted so desperately to be recognized, to be validated. This longing is something i've never felt, it dawned upon me that there really is something missing here in my life. Something I need to change.
"So, how do you guys pick your charities?" one of them asked, refering to our charity token program.
"Oh, um, well you have to bring in proof that you're a organization or nonprofit or whatever, and um, every nine months we all vote on which ones to post..." I said, realizing that this may be my chance to chime in, "I've tried getting some up there before from Santa Fe, like The Mountain Center and like, EQNM...".
They all looked at me blankly, the one in front rolled her eyes and asked who she could actually talk to about it. I felt young and meek and idiotic and also hurt. Could they not see that I was trying to tell them something? That I was desperate for them to ask me how I knew about those places? That im from Santa Fe, I grew up there, I know the people they know, im a part of them?

They left the store and I felt angry at myself. I felt that I had tried too hard to infiltrate their space, at least that's how they made me feel. I have a lot here, I have a plentiful amount of good friends, fun people, lots to do. But I am missing something, and its something that i've failed to fully recognize until now.

Where I am right now:

On the way to Colorado I stopped at an old church and graveyard just outside of Ojo Caliente. I'd been there once before, long ago with a friend, but never went inside of the church. The building is a run down light shade of pink adobe, with a turquoise doorway and a cracking hand painted mural of Our Lady of Guadeloupe displayed on the side. After taking some pictures I noticed an old chevy parked in a small dirt lot a couple of footsteps behind the church. I walked in and saw an older woman kneeling in prayer with a knockoff prada purse at her side. I tried to stay out of her way and take some pictures from the back without flash, hoping she wouldnt notice me. She walked over to me and started telling me the story of how her husband died, I stood and listened as long as I could before explaining to her that I was on my way out of the state and really had to be on my way. She thanked me for my ear and patted my shoulder.

Upon arriving at the Creede house, I was greeted with open arms and the warmth of a place that has always been my retreat. I made lemon shrimp pasta with my grandfather and lit candles while talking about divisions within feminism and performative politics with my grandmother over dinner. I played ukulele by the fireplace and baked brownies as the sun started to set. We're nestled in the mountains and fields and the rio grande is literally down the street. The clouds fall close to the ground, its almost as if I could touch them. This morning I woke up saw three elk in the backyard lapping at the small patches of snow on the ground before our dog chased them off. Soon I will be heading out for a hike and into town for some groceries and coffee.

Im realizing more and more how important mobility is to me, how much I need that in my life. Having the freedom to drive anywhere, be anywhere, having the time to do so. Its standard of living that i've always been kind of afraid of, but im realzing more and more how rewarding it will be to suck it up and brave it out. I've never felt so close to my family and its feeling really good right about now.