Monthly Archives: July 2011
First-Person Plural
When I moved to Martha’s Vineyard in 1985, I’d been immersed for eight years in the feminist women-in-print movement and the local (mostly) lesbian women’s community. Before that I’d been a student activist and an organizer against the Vietnam War. … Continue reading
My dinghy garden
I’ve got a couple of really bilious posts on deck, but I’ve just mixed up a sourdough sponge that will rise all night and be ready to knead in the morning, and tonight I’m going to write about my garden. … Continue reading
The Most Important Credential
In the late fall of 1976, I was driving west on the Boston Post Road (Route 20) toward my evening job as a proofreader in Sudbury. West of Wayland in those days, the Post Road was a sleepy two-lane road … Continue reading
Here and Not-Here
My editor at the Women’s Review of Books needed the scan of an album cover to accompany my review of Alix Dobkin’s My Red Blood: A Memoir of Growing Up Communist, Coming onto the Greenwich Village Folk Scene, and Coming … Continue reading
The Backside of the Knitting
Deep background: Long time ago, like when I hadn’t been around very long, I was astonished by what looked like the ineptness of most town governments. (We’ve got six towns on Martha’s Vineyard, plus the County of Dukes County — … Continue reading
Thanks for the Fantasy
Dear B—, Thanks so much for the invite to the two-day Rally-O trial in New Hampshire later this month. For sure I’d rather be there than here on Martha’s Vineyard at the height of tourist season, but I just can’t … Continue reading
I, Trobairitz
What’s a trobairitz? Why, a female troubadour! Troubadours and trobairitz were traveling musician-poets in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Occitania, in the south of what is now France (see map below). They sang, they wrote, they carried the news — and they … Continue reading
Overheard
Dusk. West Tisbury School soccer field, woman about 15 feet behind man, both walking briskly to retrieve golf balls. Woman: Golf isn’t to be nervous. Golf is to have fun. I haven’t done anything in my life because I was … Continue reading
My Laundromat
It rain rain rained all night, but when I rose around 6 a.m. clearing looked like a definite possibility. Weather Underground agreed. The laundromat opens at 8; we were there by 8:30. Laundromats can be great catch-up-on-gossip community centers. The … Continue reading
Where to start, where to start?
It’s July, one of the two most challenging months in the Vineyard calendar. It’s also the birthday of my father, Robert Shaw Sturgis (1922-2008), without whom I might not ever have set foot on Martha’s Vineyard. The summer of 1965 … Continue reading
From the Seasonally Occupied Territories . . . 