Farewell, MichFest

Next week, thousands of women (womyn) from all over the US, Canada, and from many other countries will gather on 650 acres of land in Michigan to celebrate the 40th anniversary and last Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, or MichFest. 

I won't be there, but I'm feeling nostalgic and a bit sad.

I didn't come out until my mid-30s, so I never went to MichFest until the late 90s. Between 1998 and 2010 I went five times, each fest unique, magical, transformative. I've danced topless with hundreds of other women who were clothed or not in all kinds of ways, to amazing musicians under bright summer skies - losing my shyness for my post-mastectomy body and feeling sexy and alive. I'll never forget a young friend I'd just made that first year who ended up supporting me as I got a henna tattoo across my chest to celebrate my survivor's body and embolden me to be free with it. 

I've wandered the trails at night feeling completely safe, and watched - mouth gaping - the open, pure sexual wildness of the Twilight Zone. I've attended with friends, and with my spouse. I've picked up women during single years. I took salsa lessons in the morning dew. I even spent a week with Ubaka Hill's Drumsong Orchestra and performed on stage, sweating out the drumbeats, trying to keep up, so happy. One year, at the request of her surviving partner, I sprinkled the ashes of a dear friend lost to breast cancer in special places on the land. Holy places. I wonder how many women are scattered there over these 40 years.

I think Nedra Johnson's beautiful ballad Hail Mary captures the feeling of my MichFest experiences best of all. Listen. Holy love, sacred place... 

The whole debate about the exclusion of transwomen (there are so many articles - do a Google search) came into full force after my first couple of experiences with MichFest, though I have no doubt I wasn't paying attention. (I was more tuned into the racial politics - white women who didn't understand the need for women-of-color-only community space.) I personally don't get the exclusion of transwomen. Transmen are welcome, as are every stripe of gender nonconforming women. It's some theoretical divide about what constitutes a "woman-born-woman." I believe the folks opposing the inclusion of transwomen have never reached a place where they can see our trans* sisters as fully women. And this lack of acceptance is most likely what slowly killed MichFest. I feel full of sorrow for that. A holy place, a sacred land that couldn't invite all women in, and in the end, lost it all.

But in this last year, I've developed greater empathy for those who couldn't embrace that change. MichFest started posting photos from the early days on their Facebook page, which brought me viscerally to a place and time I missed - the 70s and early 80s era of radical feminist lesbianism, from which MichFest was born. Those women, many who still attend, are in their late fifties, sixties, and beyond now. They had a specific experience that indelibly marked their souls. A revolution I benefitted from but didn't participate in. MichFest manifests the heart of those days gone by. It's a way to return to what was. I can see their point of view with more understanding now, even if I don't agree. 

Photos from the early years of Michfest courtesy of their Facebook page

This post is not about the debate, the fierce feelings of anger and hurt that have been stirred on all sides. It's just my closing thoughts on a place I'm grateful to have experienced.

I'm missing this last hurrah not as a boycott, but because I really just didn't want to go. I've got more places to see and things to experience with my limited vacation and travel dollars.

But I can imagine attending, the last of everything. The line to get in. The crazy old buses driven by sturdy dykes (of both the butch and femme variety), setting up camp, the porta-janes, the outdoor showers, the food served under big tents in the dusty heat/melting humidity/pouring rain. The woods, feeling so safe walking anywhere at anytime of day or night. The women, clothed and naked, old and young, radical and everyday. The village. And of course the music - acoustic and night stages - funk and folk and everything in between. The closing ceremony. The lovemaking. 

The love. 

Let me leave you with photos from my own personal MichFest collection, various years, no particular order:

       

 

Goodbye, MichFest. See you in my dreams.