A BRITISH GIRLS REFLECTIONS : PROVINCETOWN WOMENS WEEK

For as long as I can remember a magical place known as Provincetown on Cape Cod in MA has been etched into my heart and psyche. It’s the real stuff of lesbian legends … I’m sure I first heard it whispered on the breeze in the heady days of my coming out in my twenties, by the incredible Amazonian women who were my community then.

Later I would find solace in the romantic novels by Radclyffe set here in these streets, bars and moody dunes.  At difficult sad and complicated times in my life I would return to the escapism and romance of those pages and imagine myself in those novels until I was in my mind and body all but walking the windswept beaches and standing at the bar in the crowded scenes , weaving my self into the chapters.

When my beloved wife Sandra died last year I promised myself in my grief and my healing and the trauma that I would travel to all the places that I dreamed about and experience life as fully as I could. Provincetown was high up on that list.

 I planned to visit Provincetown during the legendary Womens Week and in true lesbian stereotype style to travel with Lynne my ex of twenty odd years who had also always wanted to go. We were both excited, feeling the trepidation of the unknown and pondering on how we would find our place within it all. 

It is now a few days since the festival ended and town is deserted, the streets, shops and bars which were buzzing last week full of laughing women are now rattling empty closed signs. I feel a sense of longing and loneliness in contrast to the many juicy connections that wrapped around me last week - we can’t have one without the other.

I am sitting in the window at an old fashioned writing desk. From my current view I can see the sea and also a beautiful lesbian couple leaning on a van and kissing … I smile at how very ‘here’ this is and how despite how in many places times have changed this is still something I wouldn’t see in my everyday life in liverpool… how i am almost viewing snapshots from a movie.

Lynne and I booked our flights and ferries and started studying the programme for the festival-known affectionately as the weeks ‘bible’ and thinking how will we fit in all the things we want to experience.

To add to the list of events we also signed up for the singles week that runs alongside womens week thinking it would give us a chance to connect and give us more opportunities to hang out with people who had travelled alone. I felt anxious about this - I still don’t think of myself as having a single status and I feel strange explaining that my wife has died and that’s why I find myself dating again - although as some of you will know I didn’t really believe British lesbians date in the same way as Americans do. .Saying my wife actually died can be a conversation stopper and only the courageous hearts can see past that.

We arrived in Boston a few days before the festival started. We took the romantic iconic fast ferry journey across the sea to Provincetown at sunset. It was such a beautiful dreamy journey. The sun was painting divine colours in the sky as it dipped down over Boston skylines. The huge moon was setting in the sky calling us onwards lighting up the way to the cape. It felt perfect to scatter some of Sandra’s ashes into the ocean from the back of the ferry as the last of the light disappeared.

As darkness fell we approached Provincetown harbour as the ferry horn sounded and the air felt thick with a buzz of excitement. We wheeled our cases to Somerset Inn on the main Commercial Street and snuggled in to our beautiful attic room nestled in the rooftops with views of the tops of icon buildings and the pilgrims tower. 

We woke the next morning to a stunning sunrise and raced to the gorgeous beach just a few steps away from our place. We got into the water and it was gloriously refreshing. The locals mostly uber cool gay men walking their equally cute and stylish dogs looked at us like we were insane. A couple walking along shouted  ‘Are you ok ? Do you need help ? Are you insane ?” We shouted back that it was lovely and they should try it. They looked at each other and said “ oh they are British -that makes sense!” 

That stretch of beach, the harbour water and skyline was my touch point for the week… a place I came to swim, reflect, record videos to share on social media with my community back home. It was a place to return and check I’m with myself during the busyness of womens week. I sat there at sunrise and moonrise nearly every morning and evening . It I was incredibly grounding and beautiful to me. I wondered how many women at the festival connected with that landscape while they were at the week and how that could possibly be woven into the schedule a little more with morning gatherings, circles or even swims!

The first day we were overwhelmed. It felt a little disorientating and we felt lost wondering how we would ever connect with the crowds of women milling around who all seemed to know each other.

The order of the week is a little jumbled in my head now but early on we found ourselves in the WAYDOWNTOWN bar. I said to lynne I feel like I’m in an old American lesbian movie -she agreed. We were kind of all at sea- I haven’t been in a noisy bar at night for years and felt overwhelmed. We saw some seats at the edge by the window and grabbed them and luckily found ourselves next to the lovely photographer Julie Tremblay who has a gallery in town and her friends Chris and Lynne. We all got chatting and it was like being with old friends. The conversation flowed easily, despite not being able to hear ourselves think and the need for an interpreter at times. Chris and Lynne became touch points of gentle friendship in the week and immediately were texting and laughing back and forth like we had never not known each other. The strands of magic had begun to weave.

Telling people about my wife Sandra was a way of weaving her into the adventure here and in many ways it felt like people got to know her just as much as they got to know me and felt moved by our story- this was beautiful to me that she was able to be present with me.

The Womens Week events, which have been going for 38 years (Wow) originate from the genius of The Women Innkeepers of Provincetown. One of the first things we watched was the very moving fascinating film Clambake which tells the herstory of the festival and the women innkeepers many of whom are now retired and some have sadly past away.. Watching the film totally set the context and the spirit of the week for us - those women and their vision are at the very heart beat of the festival which is steeped in tradition with many women having come here for years and years on a pilgrimage of sorts to their safe place. The film inspired us to go to the Community Gathering Opening night at the church building which of course is run by the lesbian vicar.

The gathering fell on National Coming Out Day and woman after woman took to the stage to tell heartbreaking and uplifting stories of their coming out . In these days where for many of us life is a little easier and the perception is that being gay is more accepted -this was an important reminder of how hard won this is and that the fight is far from over yet for many. 

It was this immense sense of womens community, politics and long woven threads and stories that spoke to me the most during the week and what I will carry with me onwards as a heartfelt gift. In the welcoming hugs and dancing eyes of the older women at the weeks events I was brought home to the women from my past who had taught me what it was to belong to the lesbian community when I first came out … I had soemewhere in the grief and everydayness forgotten how powerful that really was and still can be.

The week intensified as our connections to more people wove a web of magic around us.

Meeting the fabulous crew of women working at the events felt like we were catapulted into the centre of everything. It was like a frenzied madness trying to attend everything and a real sense of FOMO, answering constant texts saying will see you here or meet you there, let’s go for dinner, see you at this place at this time. At one point I said to Lynne we are going to end up having three dinners tonight we have over booked and over promised.

The singles events were a hard stretch for me to attend. I felt a lot of anxiety. In the end I concluded it was probably safe to say there were no bad exes going to be there plus everyone seemed to love our accents and we were a novelty - what did we have to loose. We survived.

People might not have remembered our names but everyone shouted loudly “ hey wales and liverpool” everywhere we went!

Before long the streets were awash with lesbians of all ages, our heads were full of events we were dashing too and on the way to them were beautiful hugs with magical women and new lifelong friends who we felt totally connected to.

I can’t begin to list absolutely everything I went to. I loved the belly laughing we did with the comedians,  the talent and sheer courage at pop idol, the tear inducing community events, the powerful and brilliantly put together film festival and most of all the long chats with interesting fabulous Sistas.

I loved calling in for hugs at the womens week headquarters everyday - later finding out one of my daily huggers had also lost her wife last year - a moment of recognition and the hugs were a little tighter after then. 

I loved shopping at and hearing the remarkable story of Womencrafts Bookshop - one of only 13 independently woman owned bookshops in the USA. It felt it was a hub of kindness. The owner Michelle’s message of how we must welcome our young non binary and trans community to be an essential voice in the conversation of how to move forward together was much needed.

I loved the performers and singers, the artists, the organisers, the beautiful souls I met and how full and varied the programme was. 

I attended the film showing of PROGNOSIS - notes on living and sat absolutely broken crying my heart out throughout the whole film. I found especially poignant the end of the documentary which showed the actual death of the film maker from stage 4 cancer . The film echoed so much of the trauma I had witnessed from my wife’s death. It was gut wrenching but important. At the end, one of the other women at the screening who was also crying came to ask me was I ok. She offered me a much appreciated hug. We checked in with the other woman at the film who said she had slept the whole way through it but had it been a happy ending … this somehow broke the spell and we both laughed so deep and said oh no it was all a happy ending and left the cinema laughing and shaking our heads. 

In contrast I also attended the speed dating event for the singles - this was the first time I’d done anything like this and it threw me right out of my comfort zone. Everyone was so brave for putting themselves out there. But for the record maybe don’t talk about how much you hate your work for the whole three minutes , or worse still ask me for help interpreting texts from your toxic ex or talk so much about yourself and how you hate your life that I can’t get a word in edgeways ! Despite this I was so glad I pushed myself to experience new things like this at the week and was delighted to see my fellow singles hook up during the week and bravely ask people for their numbers or steal kisses at the tea dance and dance parties.

One night with the strong gentle encouragement of one of the organisers I even went dancing and stayed out till nearly midnight and one of my new friends twirled me across the dance floor and gave me the hottest dance I’ve had in years! Ha ha there life in this sista yet.

I laughed and cried at Fiona Godwin’s  funny, yet poignant show in which she told her story as “A VERY British lesbian”. I was also moved by Zoe Lewis, another British Sista who has lived in Provincetown for 30 odd years, the stories of her life in Provincetown and the many amazing characters she had become close friends with. 

Womens week for me is about old stories which honour its visionary astounding past, the  juicy new stories being written during the week in which each thread of connection impacts the unknown with tales unfolding as we make our way home and onwards into the future. 

Have I told you yet about the softball game with the Butchtown belles and the  Provincetown peaches ? … i didn’t understand any of it but I whooped and cheered along with others and I’ve got the t-shirt to prove it.

Have I told you about the first time I tasted lobster?

The hundreds of funny moments where I looked across and lynne and laughed and though wtaf ?

The dilemmas of the organisers as the future of the week tries to survive in a new post covid digital world ?

Did I mention the book festival in the library that runs alongside the main programme?

The story of the lesbian separatist sex shop and it’s hilarious shop signs ?

The heartbreaking stories of the height of the aids crisis in Provincetown and it’s deep impact on everyone ?

The moving ‘grief on the wind’ telephone booth I spoke to Sandra through and told her ‘I so wish you were here’ at Provincetown C,ommons?

Did I mention my lovely young energetic switched on mate ash - a fellow Pisces  single friend who shared my love of romantic novels ?

The whale watching tour where 28 whales surrounded the boat ?

The dune tour where we explored the magical landscape of the National park?

… it’s is of course impossible to share everything I experirienced at womens week but I hope I have given you a flavour of the magic available each year … how life changing it is for so many and how deeply moving it was for me … how rooted in community it is and how that sense of connectedness is available to you if you step out and take a chance.

I’m grateful to all the organisers for such unseen hard work, for the older women innkeepers and their vision all those years ago and our young new innkeeper Courtney where we stayed at Somerset Inn, for lynne for being my wing woman and for the safe strong shoulders who held me beautifully during the week with such love and tenderness - you know who you are.

I hope this glimpse at womens week inspires you to come next year maybe with a group I will bring… anything is possible

As I look out of my hotel window and write these words I smile at how I was able for a week or two to step right into the pages of those novels that saved and nourished me over the years … that now the strand of my story is woven into the streets and weeks of Provincetown …

and how through reading this you too can be a part of this magical towns juicy iconic narrative…

Thanks to Lynnette , kate, wendy, karen , Ruth. Ash , Courtney and so many others not names - this list is not complete but just a sample of people who we connected with - with thanks for making out trip magical x

POEMS I WROTE DURING THE WEEK.

I am writing new stories my love

with my days and in my hours

Stories like the ones I told you

In the middle of the night

When we first met …unknown

You’d say “ bloody hell love this magic just happens around you”

We wrote chapters together

Fighting for the punchline

Then later when we were scared

When everything turned sharp

Rubbing your back at 3am

You’d say tell me a tale

The old stories were the best

You’d heard them a million times

Both laughing into the dawn

unreal to think of those times

We couldn’t imagine all the life

lived before finding each other

Now you have travelled onwards and so must I without you

I am writing new stories my love

with my days and in my hours

Breaking my heart open… living

Longing to come home

to wake by your side

Hard to imagine all this life to be

lived after loosing each other

unreal to think of these times…

15th Oct 2022

Scar Tissue

“Can you see the scar tissue?

That’s where the whales

bodies have caught

in fisherman’s nets”

I thought of

Skelton woman

thrown overboard

this past year

Flesh dissolving

Intro salty seas

The only place

I could open my heart

I thought of how

we never really know

When it’s time

to wash ashore   

our own bony shadow

chasing us home

tired from

swimming too long

without comfort

If we are lucky

untangling

old bones

warm them

next to the fire

let ourselves

become flesh

holding close

the drum beat

of another heart

We have learned

for too long

how we can swim

In the wild storm alone

nobody told me

thats no way to put

flesh on the bones

Wash ashore

Washashore

14th October 2022

Provincetown

Soft Strong Shoulder

In the birthplace

of American Drama

the grief storm

blows me to shore

Ice water wild skies

Big moon disappears

Compass grass draws

imperfect circles

In the sand

Leads this way

to the soft solid shoulder

I didn’t know I needed

Oct 2022

Provincetown morning

after wild winds  …

rainbow slivers

Take their place

Shine unapologetic light

aside phallic pilgrim towers

My soul is unsettled

I rise and follow the sun

mirrored harbour waters

peace on the breeze

the way in awash

thick tangled seaweed

Floating islands of dark unknown

I know this much for sure

It must be navigated

Salt water is a benediction

this is my sanctuary, a holy place

bless myself with changing skies

Right on time chapel bells ring

home here safe to open arms

where she is scattered we dance

I needed to return to this

It sounds romantic

maybe it is

but today

I am simply

A gentle fish wife

washer woman

Looking out to sea

Waiting for boats that

will not return

gently wringing

out my massive heart

15th Oct 2022

“Tell me

how can I keep this

massive heart fully open

And yet safe from

Storm damage ?

I ask …

She laughs and says

“oh love

you don’t have the ability

to close it

yours came as

vast universe

not a small room

with a door” …

“breathe it all in,

take yourself

somewhere equally

expansive,

dive into the sea …”

Salt

is the remedy

for the

big courageous

heart…

I go to the water

to remind myself

who I am

Provincetown

19th October 2022

What the selkies knew

After the water

I found my feet

walked east

Further

than before

The way of air

Your element

Clearing my head

I found colour

art galleries

angel shops

juicy peaches

In massive jars

wondered

If a king

was watching

Taking notice

Asking herself

Was I of

this world

Or another?

And me

I was wishing

someone

somewhere

Would lower the

High branches

Bring me the juice

A painting entitled

One night with you

Would be an apothecary

And god knows

I need the medicine

But I’ve come too far

To not keep my eye

On where my coat is

This is what the

Selkies learnt

How to give it

All away

And

keep hold

Somehow

Of their skin

To not loose

Sight of the sea

To find their voice

Refuse shame

This

I cannot yet do

So for now

I rub my truth

Into salt water

Sigh

Head east

Away from earth

Pray for courage

This is what the

selkies do

19th October 2022

Provincetown

Links

Somerset Inn

Women Innkeepers of Provincetown

Clambake film

Prognosis notes on living FIlm

Zoe Lewis

Fiona Goodwin

Womencrafts Bookshop

Box lunch Provincetown

Waterside Cinema

Whale watching tour