lydamorehouse | Mother's Day and Broom Closets (Reply)

When Mason was just born Shawn and I had a discussion about what we wanted to do about Mother’s Day. I thought long and hard about this and decided that I was far too selfish to want to share the day with Shawn. I told her she could have Mother’s Day, and I would have Ima’s Day, which we decided was the anniversary of my legal adoption of Mason – December 5.

So, for Mother’s Day, I did what I saw a lot of dad’s doing. Mason and I went out for cinnamon rolls (Shawn’s favorite) and then mostly let Shawn nap and sleep in. Yesterday was a good day for sleeping in, actually. It was windy and a bit cloudy. Shawn slept on and off for most of the day, actually. (She LOVES sleeping.) Mason and I amused ourselves with Twister (a game we bought at Goodwill on Saturday) along with a number of other great board games – Jenga, Battleship, Hi-Ho Cherry Oh, and Parcheesi. He’s a little too young for some of the games, but we played around with them anyway.

On Saturday, I gave a talk at the Midwest Fiction Writers in support of Her newest release in which I managed to come out of the broom closet (and possible the regular closet, as well, though I was much more subtle with that information.) As someone said to me after a talk, “If you want to silence a room, just say Wicca loudly.”

What happened was that Emma Holly asked what kind of research I did about the witchcraft in Dead Sexy. I looked her straight in the eye and said, “None. I practice Wicca. I’m a witch. So, as it happens I have a lot of books on the subject around that house.” (nervous laughter.)

You could have heard a pin drop.

What’s strange is that I almost NEVER come out of the broom closet. I will tend to tell people that I’m a lesbian at the drop of a hat, but a witch? Almost never. I haven’t ever officially come out as a lesbian at my local RWA chapter, because, well, frankly, in this case I don’t think my orientation is anyone’s business but my own. I don’t actually hide the fact, though – as I often talk about “my partner” followed by the pronoun “she.” I’m sure everyone knows, but I just never use the L-word.

Anyway, that’s not the issue. As I’m out in most aspects of my life, I don’t feel bad about being somewhat circumspect in my career as a romance writer. Apparently, I’ve decided that, instead, I’m going to tell them all that I’m a witch.

The funny part is that I kept stumbling onward … as I often do – having done this once before in a human sexuality class when a professor asked me how I reconciled being a lesbian with my spirituality [at a Lutheran college that I’m an alum of] and I replied, “What’s to reconcile? I was raised UU, which has always been open to gays and lesbians and now I worship the Goddess and She loves me.” Oops. Again with the pin dropping. Anyway, I ended up talking about how in the third Garnet Lacey book in which Garnet starts a new coven. I told the MFW ladies that I used that opportunity to play with people’s stereotypes about what a witch should look like.

Afterwards a woman came up to me and told me that she appreciated my comments about how witches can look normal, and said, “Merry Meet.”

Our secret handshake.

It was a cool moment. But, I suspect my talk will be the buzz for a little while at least.