4. — OUT IN THE MOUNTAINS — OCTOBER 1997 Dr. Shoshanna Shelley Licensed Psychologist Helping individuals & Couples With Depression, Anxiety. Abuse, Sexual identity, Addictions, Self Esteem & Relationship Concerns. Over 20 Years Experience Most Insurance Accepted 496-4964 WAHHIEN, VERMONT M-ichael Gigante, Ph.D. Psycliosyntlzesis Comiseling 6* Tlierapy .\lUI1£pc'lE<'z' 22925220 JOSIE JUI-IASZ. M...-x. Lic. Psychologist - Master LYNN GOYETTE, M.S., .\t.A. Lic. Clinical Mental Health Counselor \\ll% sliding fee scale Counrelmg ' Dru cluoizlnera p-.4 \ (602) 254-7345 Bmttlelmo, VT ossoi Tell. your vision-i 1 new B (502) 2544032 1:; Myrtle 51-ms}, Brattleboro W 05301 Burltnggton 860-6360 insurance accepted C(;>i.,sN.sri,iNo CL"-N’l‘L‘l‘t or NORTl~iEltN VEltMON’l‘ Dame LEARDI. t_ics~w-—————-————a I ”’I like growing old,’ I say to my- self with surprise. I had not thought that it Could he like this. There are days of excitement when lfeel almost a kind of high witlz the changes taking place in my body, even though Iknow the in- evitable course my body is taking will lead to debilitatiorz and death. .....My own body is going through a process that only my body knows about. I never grew old before, never died before. I don ’t really know how it's done.” —— Barbara Maedonald in "Do You Remember Me?” I, too, like growing old. It's exciting to see who I have become, what has emerged from all that living. But our society isn't much interested in the aged. Like all the isms, ageism’s greatest success lies in the difficulty of naming it. It disguises itself as so many other things: a T.V. documen- tary is filmed at the place where I work, but only younger members appear in it; few of the magazine I pick up, gay or straight, depict older people; and at most of the con- ferences I attend, I ’m one of the few older women there. Unfortunately the poorer you are economically, the more vulnerable you are to ageism. I've been working in the same place ‘seven years, and yet, someone hired today is hired at the same salary I'm making. My experience is that the work place is the most likely place for older women to be ignored. I work under a Vermont State grant. I work well with the young man who supervises my grant. It is the other State employees, some lesbian, who look right through me. I know they see a gray—haired woman. I'm not dramatic like Kathryn Hepburn or as well known as Mary Meigs. These officials voices from the ‘mountains have never asked me for the history I carry. They have never asked me to be a part of larger State conferences, even when I am one of the few people in the State doing the work I do. They will, instead, invite someone from out of State who is younger, better known and, probably, male and heterosexual. Last week, I accompa- nied my eighty-four year old aunt when she entered a nurs- ing home. She has dementia, and it was a difficult decision for the family to make. What I saw at the home were a few men, but, primarily, room af- ter room of women. I thought of all that wisdom locked away -from the world. They are seen as children and children they become. I do not want to inti- mate that nursing homes are not well run, or a place where _ needed care is given. But I could not help but mourn for the accumulated knowledge shut away from our everyday life. And how many of them were lesbian? We'll never know. — Iidentify very strongly as lesbian. I attend Pride marches. I speak up in my community as lesbian. I am known as a lesbian poet. Of- ten times, when I attend some lesbian function, as I said ear- lier, I am practically the only one there with gray hair. Where are we all I wonder? And I am just beginning to be old. If I stay healthy, I have twenty or so more years of it to go. ‘ Does this mean I'll have to fight for every inch of atten- tion given to me? It looks like it. Does this sound familiar to lesbian ears, no matter what your age? I've been fighting invisibility all my life. It should ease at the end of it. In- stead, it increases and comes from yet another direction. But the heart breaker, the straw that brings tears to my eyes, is a lesbian who sees me not. I learned early in life, as a child of immigrants, to take what is around me, and do the best I can with it. On my worst day, I can find something to re- joice in. I can laugh at how ab- surd life often is. I'm a defi- ant, life-oriented woman. But lesbian indifference hurts like hell. I began this in re- sponse to reading Barbara Macdonald. She says, ”...I don't think my oppression as an old lesbian is self—imposed. I have no difficulty in locating the sources of it—-—in the larger, patriarchal society, in the women's community and in the lesbian community.” Op- pression from the larger com- munity hurts, but when I meet it in the lesbian community it hurts much more. ”Don’t think that an old woman has _ always been old. She is in the process of discovering what 70, 80, and 90 mean. As more and more old women talk and write about the reality of this process, in a world that negates us, we will all discover how revolutionary that is.” Yes, that's true, Barbara, but I’d like the revolution to begin today. I’d like it to begin in Vermont. — Lynn Martin OITM Wish List: 35mm camera Phone Photocopier Color Printer Office Space Sleep Contact Chris and-Don at 865-9294 by Eric drner The Mostly Unbabutoua Social Lite of; «Ethan Green NEIGHBORS are the lesbians with whom you share cups of coffee, tales of pet parenting. and the occasional cross cultural exchange. Ex HUSBANDS are family. And like V everyone else who falls under that The designation, they are loved and not livenwith-able. Gray Man's Guide _ , . .. ._ Ermm, YOU 8,“ j cHARt.°TTe. iitvsg N£sD1’o get » I'VE ENWRED A QUQQR to Y Li 6 s when Lorgnoflrre grmnsaiségu g