One Fey's Tale - My Path to Sanctuary

[LifeLube is delighted to announce a special new semi-chronological, autobiographical series to accompany our very delicious Faerie Fridays. Our pal middle will be contributing a series musings called One Fey's Tale. Welcome middle!]

by middle

It’s clear that from an early age my path was destined to lead to faerie space and culture. Born in 1962, I was raised by parents with values that predated those of my friends’ parents by a generation. Though some would’ve considered them conservative, they valued things like independence, honesty, and compassion and taught me that bigotry was wrong. I don’t know if they ever “got” that my dogged idealism was borne of their example.

Too young to experience the summer of love first-hand, I was introduced to sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll by my brother who was four years older. Rock music became the source of my philosophy, religion, and politics. I spent my seventies adolescence smoking weed, listening to head music, going to concerts, and pondering my cosmic connection to an era it seemed I’d largely missed.

My awareness that there were faeries in the woods nearby stemmed from two significant realities of my life – I’m gay and HIV positive.

I got the results in 1987, about two years after the first local AIDS organization was created. As I passed in and out of the one-room office as client and volunteer, I heard a story or two from others about the commune they’d visited to talk about AIDS. Meanwhile, participation in early local gay pride events led me to take for granted the participation of long-haired, bearded men in boots and dresses. I listened as assimilationist gays decried these cross-dressing men (and the local drag queens,) wringing their hands over the supposed public relations impact.

Strangely, during subsequent years, before I’d ever really heard the term - before I ever met a faerie - before I ever entered faerie space - I held the idea in my mind that this place could be a personal sanctuary. Still frustrated by my separation from 60s movements, I occasionally thought about the commune in the woods. When I was struggling with life, I thought it might be a place I could run away to, but I never did.

Finally in 1999, I met a few queers who told me I was probably a faerie and long overdue for my first trip.

(to be continued)