JUNE 1980 •HIGH GEAR PAGE 21

Another story

strange to me that, we were' so happy. but I was certainly not living the dream of many of my Lesbian friends in nearby Toledo.

By Riki Anne Wilchins

over our boots. In the winter there was often a foot or more of snow. and it was a chore just getting to the mailbox out front. But mostly it was a joy and a blessing to walk out back through the high grass. There was a small stand of unpruned and therefore worth less (for eating. anyway) apple trees, overgrown and twisted, that separated our property from the next. We would stand there on the rise where they grew and watch the sun go down. Often, when I needed to be alone, or just to escape Jody for a day. I would walk out into the high grass and sit down. The sun would pass overhead, and I would grow roots like the grass, or pretend some such silly thing, but it was how I would pass the day.

We were isolated, which was nice, when it was not a drag. Friends dropped in from time to time; we were always very glad to have guests for the weekend. Three or four, sometimes even up to a dozen of us: sitting around on the hardwood floor. late Friday night, discussing Rita Mae Brown, or Kate Millet, vaginal politics, or some male-friend's alleged case of acute uterus envy. It was glorious. Sometimes the sweet smoke of grass perfumed the cool night air: as often we shared an unknown brand of cheap red wine passed from mouth to mouth until the morning wore on. Then to bed, knowing that we had a precious weekend together, away from the world, to walk and talk and share our woman-experiences together in

The house was somewhat ramshackle, which was how we wanted it. Somehow, I was living my life's dream: I don't know how I was so lucky. Jody and I had' moved into this old country house not two years ago: we were still happy and strangely content. There was no carpeting, except for scraps we had accumulated through the months when neighbors were spring house-cleaning Our furniture was "broken-down modern," meaning huge pillows, bean bag chairs, wooden tables polished by use rather than Pledge, my old stereo, and a T.V. bought from a city friend. The high point, for me, was the attic studio. There, beneath an old skylight clouded with dust. was my work place. Tables, benches, my easel, paints, charcoal pencils. enormous newsprint sketch pads. our much-beloved old SmithCorona, and poetry stashed in corners. drawers, books, the work-bench, and still standing in the typewriter roller. Most of all, I loved my little library: most of a wall lined with books that were. by now, my oldest and perhaps my best friends. Love sonnets, gay books, Lesbian poetry, spy stories, pulp novels, the Old Testament, some of Jody's writings hand-bound. A few of mine in similar binding: we were our own little pocket civilization. So it is not so

peace.

The walks were especially nice. whether they were with friends, or just Jody and I trucking around in the dusk. The unpaved road led out back of the house and suddenly terminated where a barn had once stood and then burned crisply long ago. In the summer the road was dusty and the dust rolled up in miniature storms as we kicked along and it washed

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Summer Softball League 1980

Women's Division

Regular Season

cracks, and break-downs. Her art was in her ability. It was an unconscious art, for I think she always took it for granted that all human creatures could do such things. I knew, of course, that I. for one, couldn't. I would marvel at her garden, and she would find joy in my appreciating but remain mystified as to why I made such a case out of something which was. to her: only natural. We were a case in point: we loved each other, and we were sisters

Sunday mornings 'Sunday mornings. Sunday mornings were for love. She would reach for me and I would come. How I loved to give myself to her totally, without reservation, and Jody was the only one I trusted with that wideeyed innocent I still carry so deep inside me. Guided by her hands. I would climb into her bed, beneath the ancient blue wool blanket, handed down from who-knowswhom. I had no illusions; Jody was not the perfect woman. I didn't want one. Her face was enough older than mine to have lines to read it by. Her skin was neither truly soft, nor smooth, but a pleasant texture that always struck me as worn and friendly. The muscles in her back and arms showed, which often excited me. Her legs were strong from work, down growing in from not having shaved that week. Her hair was no different: Jody grew everything in abundance. There was no fat on her anywhere, her neck was long and straight, her cheekbones strong, her brown hair incongrously frosted at the ends. Sometimes she would pin me down, with the blanket thrown back. Her strong hands would hold my shoulders to the mattress, her naked weight hovering above me as a thigh wedged between my own. Holding me like that, she would kiss my face and neck as I rubbed. against one well-muscled thigh, until exhaustion overtook me. and I lay satisfied. Then we, would lie down together, my head in the hollow between herl neck and shoulder, and fall back to sleep.

I always insisted on separate beds: near enough to reach but far enough for privacy. I suppose needed my own little space. At any rate I often enough woke to find my arm draped over the nearby and still-sleeping form of Jody, covered neck-to-toe in her old wool blanket, passed down by her grandmother or some-such, she once told me. Totally unconscious of me, her face pressed close against her pillow and her mouth half-open in that curiously ridiculous and yet innocent way. I would study her. What was it I saw in her, what attracted me, what would I do when she was gone, would she ever go: would she ever get up and make me breakfast-goddess I was hungry. A thousand, thousand thoughts. random, foolish and profound. until she stirred, kissed the arm across her shoulders, and looked at me with wide open green eyes that said good-morning. She was part-lover and part-mother to me. and all friend. She was a wizard with canning, growing, and building or fixing. My exact opposite, you might say. Her province was things natural and concrete, and she ruled it effortlessly. The house was mostly in her name, and she fook the most endless joy in using her hands and mind to fix up what were to me the most exasperating stream of leaks.

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