In Sister Spirit

On Saturday I journeyed to Fort Bragg for the 75th birthday party of an old family friend of Fairleys, Suzanne, who just happens to be a bad ass radical lesbian. I was promised a wiccan ceremony, drag king act, and a bbq. What I got was so much more!

The drive up was gorgeous. We stopped at a little secluded vineyard and did a wine tasting. The wine was so delicious and I was so buzzed by the end that I bought two bottles! I have never been more looking forward to drinking a chardonnay in my life.
The views of the ocean from Highway 1 were so amazing I had a hard time not driving off the road. So we stopped where the Navarro river meets the Pacific and did a "I Love California" victory dance!

They told us it was too cold to camp out, and it did become freaking freezing when the fog rolled in, so we were given accommodation in a three (or four?) story house built by hand in the 1970s by a man who Fairley commented must have been "seriously tripping".

A family lived in "the Tower" for many years but now the mom lives in a different, but also cute and weird, house just a few feet away with her lesbian lover. The dad lives in a trailer in front of the house but still uses the kitchen and bathroom in the Tower. Right now, the only full time occupants of the house are two cats.

Inside, there were more levels than I could conceive, and it was hard to tell what was a step and what was intended to be a surface and most of it was covered in carpet. You go up and down through a series of ladders and steps of random height.

They had one daughter, who was also in attendance at the party, and I can not imagine the sense of wonder, possibility, and vertigo a child raised in such an environment would experience. The world is my tree house. Not that this is too much of a stretch for me, but I felt like a giant cat, crawling and exploring every nook and cranny. When we walked up, the daughter was on the roof with her boyfriend making bubbles rain down on the party below. Needless to say, Fairley and I felt like we had hit the jackpot.

The party got started with a Wiccan High Priestess of the Faery Tradition calling the corners and having us all chant Suzanne's name. I felt like I was finally getting my Michigan Womyn's Musical Festival experience when the band "Ravenstar" began playing (the guitarist is formerly of the Druid Sisters) cover songs like Donnovan's Season of the Witch and the bra-less middle-age lesbains began hippy dancing in the garden.

The drag was extremely cute and there were joints of the dankest weed and beer in abundance. The only disappointing thing was that they exclusively grilled meat for dinner and I had to make do with salads and cheese. I was pretty shocked, how can there be a lesbian potluck in NorCal without lentils?

Fairley brought her camera and we interviewed everyone and filmed the performances. I will post the sure to be amazing finished product once she is done editing. Stay tuned for more: Adventures in the search for Woman Town!