Tag Archives: romance

“SHALL I ADMIRE” HER ANOTHER 50 YEARS?

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YESTERDAY,

after growing my hair out for six months,

I chose a vintage Hermes scarf to tie it back

in the Vogue model style I wore when

she first fell in love with me.

I squeezed into a Saks Fifth Avenue label outfit

from the early 70’s that she’d packed away.

I applied Germaine Monteil makeup coaxed

from half-a-century old tin foil samples.

I selected a pair of Trifari, love-knot,

clip-on earrings that haven’t seen daylight

for five decades.

Neither had the ecru garter belt and bare beige nylons

I slipped into with less ease.

Finally, I splashed just a hint of Shalimar

to the nape of my neck.

It worked.

TODAY,

she asked me to make an appointment

to get my hair cut.

She returned the outfit, scarf, garter belt and nylons

to the memento place at the bottom of

our 19th century humpback trunk.

She mentioned she missed the emerald studs

I’ve worn daily in my earlobes for thirteen years.

She sprayed Shout on the Germaine Monteil

makeup stained washcloth.

And … let me think …

Oh! … yes.

She wrote “Shalimar”

on her holiday shopping list.

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IMOGENE’S ELOISE: Inspired by a true love story.

SERIOUSLY, MOM, you didn’t know?

I’m A 9th Generation American Homosexual

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Front Cover 4 FB Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, lovers, friends. With a public declaration on page one, this candid chronicle reveals how the thoughts and emotional conquests of women who love women differ instinctively from those of their parents and the male dominant heterosexual ideologies of a patriarch society.

Through lyrically warmed words engendering levity and benevolence these forty-nine relatable narratives shed insight on the simple dignity of an endangered female culture vanishing-by-assimilation into an age of artificial equality.

Spanning the course of 70 years, each story embraces a different kind of love and loss that bears witness to women who triumphed in spite of the tokenism shown by both straight society, and the preponderance of recorded gay history that virtually ignores the female perspective of people and events.

There’s never been a colored, a Jew, a Democrat, a Yankee, a queer, or a woman as Mayor of this town and there never will be! Page 167 • Entire worlds exist of just two people in love. Page 78 • Life is a silver lining for those of us willing to scrape the surface of adversity. Page 198 • So let’s stop telling kids that bullies are a schoolroom problem graduation solves, or law enforcement can control, or Congress can legislate against. Page 35 • Sometimes life is a sleepwalk in which we see everything clearly and deny it. Page 147 • I never danced on a grave, but I did steal something from the dead, once. Page 143 • Our existence evolves through exchanges, most of it involving how we choose to spend our time in pursuit of people, places, or things on which we place the greatest value. Page 15 • Eighty days after Bobby Kennedy kissed me, he was killed. Page 111 • I wonder if any other daughter remembers the first time she made her mother cry. Page 183 • There was this dog we loved and lost on Christmas morning, 1951. It changed everything. Page 95 • Back then, those of us in love with another woman conducted our lives without a need for labels or social acceptance. Page 13 • I want every woman to fall in love with the person who has fallen in love with her. Page 63 • There sat a black cat yowling through quivering whiskers. Page 47 • Because I didn’t know that Ann had been told I was queer, and I didn’t know Ann told all our mutual friends her mother said I was queer, and I didn’t know her mother told the parents of mutual friends I was queer, and I didn’t know certain teachers were warned of the same. Page 68 • But I don’t think he understands that most of us don’t want to be enslaved by the duplicities of straight society. Page 176 • et cetera

Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?

by Marguerite Quantaine

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TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN

THIS BEARS REPEATING

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Bears Repeating Sixteen friends called it quits in March. Adultery was cited as the cause in 5 of the 8 couple splits. I’m saddened when I learn of such heartbreak. Here’s why:
.
I once knew a woman who was a serial cheater, oozing charm whenever she wanted to seduce someone. Mostly, she targeted women with troubled lives. To gain their trust, she claimed to be the victim of a failed relationship. She fed them with words she knew only damaged women longed to hear. She raised them up while having her way with them. She promised them a future. She convinced them that they needed her. Eventually and inevitably, she ditched them. And, just to ensure none would chase after her, the last words she spoke to each woman she cut loose were: “No wonder nobody loves you.”
.
Infidelity is such an old and popular game of deception, you’d think women would have learned to avoid cheaters by now.
.
But no. Women persist in thinking they’ll be the one to tame the fox welcomed into their henhouse.
.
The fact is this: Every woman on earth has been victimized to some extent during her lifetime. Every . . . single . . . one of us.
.
Where love is involved, some choose to be perpetual victims, always eager for the ‘ideal’ person to choose them, accepting of similar characteristics in new partners to replace the former, growing old and stale like hard candy until all traces of sweetness have dissolved into bitterness.
.
A toxic indicator of having been victimized is chronic rage, a corollary of post-traumatic stress syndrome. When physical, verbal, or emotional abuse is experienced for extended periods (especially during childhood) it never leaves you. Certain words or actions push buttons in your brain creating a fight-or-flight frenzy, unleashing the dormant fury.
.
The thing is, we all tend to blame others for rages directed at us — while excusing our own rages directed at others — in order to justify the decisions we make.
.
This is where the intent of the heart comes in.
.
In the aftermath of tears and loneliness that are sure to follow once rage erupts, you must learn to measure the intent of your heart against the intent of the heart of the person who hurt you. You must. Only then will walking away be easier than staying; leaving be easier than being left.
.
The death of love is intended to be the hardest learned lesson in the test of time.
.
Because the reward of love is priceless.
.
So, try to remember the journey you took with the other person — not from the end of it looking back, but from the memory of the start. Chart how it soared. Determine if you made every effort to catch it when it began to teeter, every effort to shore it up when it started to crumble, every effort to revive it before you let it die.
.
Own that you aren’t innocent. Own your part in the turmoil. Own the buttons you pushed. Own the choices you made that enabled the demise of your life together. Own the carrot of false hope you dangled long after hope in you was gone. Own the lies you told to yourself and others.
.
If you’re hurting, join a support group to find comfort and get help. You can’t recover alone. But don’t allow the group to become your only source for self-esteem. Have an exit plan from it.
.
Then, every morning, face yourself in the mirror and ask: Have I cast myself as a victim? Do I look like one? Have I presented myself to others as such? Do I enjoy being seen as a victim? Is victimhood my aspiration?
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If not, don’t adopt that image. Don’t encourage or allow others to attach that tag to you. Don’t become a poster girl for victimhood.
.
Because, in the short term, you might find the comfort you need and the support you deserve — but in the long term, there are only two types of people you’ll attract:
(1) Those who embrace their suffering, dwell on their past, and treat being victimized as their red badge of courage.
(2) Those who will target you as prey to be used and abused again.
.

Victims say, “I am who I am because of …”
Survivors say, “I am who I am in spite of …”
.
Be a survivor.
.

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Marguerite Quantaine is an essayist, author, and animal rescue activist. She is the author of Imogene’s Eloise: Inspired by a true story © 2014 and Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?, due for release on Amazon in April, 2019.

I’M EATING CROW HERE

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I remember when the first articles were published by researchists revealing that hot dogs were dangerously bad for us (I stopped eating them), as was peanut butter (I cut back), and eggs (I wasn’t dissuaded), and donuts (get outta town!).

Much like telling those who bet on the horses that races are rigged, or lottery hopefuls that the odds are stacked against them, or fans that an event is sold out, or kids younger that seven that there is no Santa Claus — learning the dire details involving comfort foods did more harm than good, because (regardless of fact accuracy and well-intended truths) it robbed the partakers of the enjoyment of doing what wasn’t necessarily wise, or profitable.

And that’s about all my 15 hour post, And The Winner Is … Not Me, accomplished. It exposed something that everyone probably knew, but no one wanted to admit, because the happy habit was universally shared, and the group addiction did no harm.

I was wrong.

I apologize.

I took the long way down a wary road best navigated by denial, when only the end result was required reading. That, in essence, is this:

The finest award a writer can be given is the feeling of joy that comes from writing a worthy book. It’s incomparable. It can’t be taken away. It’s what makes you a winner.

And, should your book receive a good review, or is given as a gift, or mentioned to friends, or ordered by a library, or suggested to a book club, or introduced at meetings, or touted at functions, or buzzed about on buses, or pondered by strangers, or discussed by family members, or serves as dining repartee — well, that’s the mustard on the hot dog, the jelly on the Jif, the sun in the sunny side up, and the icing on the donut.

Gobble, gobble.

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SIGNING OFF

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Me, Minus 33 Years

My face popped up in the right hand corner of the screen as guest anchor, Peter Jennings, introduced the closing story on ABC World News Tonight one Friday in 1981. I’d authored an oversized, limited edition reference book under the Americanized spelling of my last name and it somehow engendered enough interest to garner a mention on national television.

I look back at it as pure luck now because, as any author (past or present) will confirm, writing a book can be exhilarating — but marketing it is exhausting.

Back then, individualized press releases were expected to be composed and printed to accompany personally written letters, each snail-mailed at considerable expense to those listed in Editor & Publisher Yearbook nationwide. Even for a book as minor as mine, the effort required to sell it seemed mammoth compared to the time it took to write. That made getting featured during prime time on ABC with Peter Jennings equal to an eagle feather in a yarmulke.

The follow-up was a headline and shout-out in the Sunday New York Times — not by a book reviewer, but by the much respected and often feared antiques and arts columnist, Rita Reif. I’d caught a wave, did some appearances, signings, a few more interviews, and a stint on PM New York, all culminating in a monthly column syndicated in a dozen trade publications for a couple years. It was a flattering, generally enjoyable, often tiresome experience that I was grateful ended after it contributed to resurrecting a fad that others were tooth-and-claw dedicated to treating as a full time endeavor.

Because, regardless of how glamorous it may sound or look, that’s what even miniscule fame and fleeting fortune boils down to; an eagerness and need to become the product by foregoing (and oft times, forgetting) the person.

I was never willing to put anything before my personal life.

I’m still not.

…and more

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A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

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The preliminary police report rendered me dead upon impact.

A drunk driving a Marathon cab fitted with an extended, reinforced steel bumper had broadsided us. He was clocking up to 70 in a 30-mph zone when he ran a red light and collided with the VW Bug I was easing into a parking spot as Liz sat next to me in the suicide seat.

The impact was ferocious. While peripheral vision allowed me a glimpse of my killer, there was no other warning. No screeching of brakes. No screaming of pedestrians. No sense of impending doom. Just a mild feeling of astonishment before whispering, “Oh my God, I’m dead.” That’s what I said.

Our car was ripped apart (lengthwise) from hood to trunk, welding the sheared pieces to the front end of the taxi. Twenty feet away, our flung wreckage had come to a halt at the entrance of a branch bank. I hung down twisted and broken through the remains, my face hovering just above the pavement, my auburn curls resembling a red rag mop.

Most gay couples are drawn and quartered by such tragedy. They’re impeded by laws awarding jurisdiction to distant family members. They’re intimidated by protocol and prodded by propriety. Their feelings and wishes are summarily dismissed as irrelevant. Barred from the ambulance. Excluded from intensive care. Denied decision-making.

“She’s my sister,” Liz lied emphatically. It instantly ended any question of her authority.

The first time she lied was to the officers who barricaded the wreckage, then tried to restrain her from reaching back for me. They’d dragged her clear, insisting I was beyond help.

How she broke loose, and what transpired is a wonder.

I must have responded to the energy of her touch. I must have been warmed to the blending of her tears in my stone-cold eyes. I must have sensed the silent incantations of her heart imploring mine to hold the course of ‘us’ as one, against all obstacles and odds.

“Hey, babe!” I breathed.

Her second lie was to the ambulance attendants. The third, to emergency room doctors. The fourth, to nurses. And then to technicians, aides, and investigators. She didn’t hesitate to claim me as her sister, knowing involuntary deceit had long been coerced from gays in lieu of being banished and public humiliation.

Lies were once our only conceivable lifeline.

Fortunately, I was a corporate executive for a large conglomerate. It gave me special insurance privileges that provided her with unlimited hospital access. She stayed in my room. She partook in every detail of my care and was privy to all my medical information. My doctors consulted her. My nurses kept her updated.

Nevertheless, when it came to certain courses of action, not everything suggested was automatically allowed.

It’s because (even now) most lesbians mistrust the medical profession. We cringe at the prospect of contact with male doctors. We shy to probes pertaining to our personal lives and intimate behavior. And, even though many older women entered conventional relationships in an effort to hide their true sexual identities, there are vast numbers of lesbians who have never engaged in intimacy with a man. Women who know being gay goes far beyond an aversion to heterosexual sex; that the differences in our genetic codes include a wiring that circuits a deep-seated aversion and basic incompatibility with all dominant aspects of the opposite gender.

It’s as if (equivalent to the distinction found between Asian and African elephants trumpeting in the night) science will someday discover that we, too, are a similar — but different — species.

So it came as no surprise to Liz when I refused to be catheterized, even though catheterization was necessary to save me. Regardless of the brutal total body trauma I suffered, this perfectly natural anomaly had triggered my sense of dignity, demanding decorum. Only the empathy and courage of a surgical nurse named Christine could clear the emergency room of male doctors and provide me with the symbiosis I needed to survive.

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This freshly updated essay by Marguerite Quantaine first appeared in the third person in The St. Petersburg Times (2008) and Venus Magazine in the first person (2010). Copyright by M. Quantaine © 2008 / 2010 / 2013.

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I’m all eyes and heart.

M A G P I E à la modus operandi

Memories by Marguerite Quantaine

Tag Archives: romance

“SHALL I ADMIRE” HER ANOTHER 50 YEARS?

I’m A 9th Generation American Homosexual

TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN

THIS BEARS REPEATING

I’M EATING CROW HERE

SIGNING OFF

A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION