By Jane Barnes
I was in my twenties pretending I had oodles of time to live. Until I got cancer at 31 and prayed to God (I wasn’t a prayful person) to keep me alive for a month so I could write one small book. It’s been a long month; I’m 81 years old.
I survived a coma, breakdown, sepsis, cyst, pulmonary embolisms. I just had a stroke and can’t walk and have a paralyzed arm, so this writer is using one finger here. But here I am: bisexual, bipolar, and virtually bicoastal, having been raised by the sea in Northern California, living in Boston 32 years, and in New York City for 25; I’ve had about 80 addresses and 80 jobs. Three male lovers and two wives—so much for the numbers.
I’ve been to many places: South America, Paris and France, lived in London, drove all over the British Isles, been to Germany, and Italy, crossed the U.S. numerous times, in New York City lived in Greenwich Village, Harlem, the Bronx, and Staten Island.
You’d think I’d slow down. Wrote my first story at seven. Since the cancer scare, I’ve written four poetry manuscripts, 20+ novels, a memoir, and one novel that I mostly finished the night after I went into the ER last year for the symptoms that were a stroke. I’ve written 100 poems with my left index finger. My aides come from everywhere: Sierra Leone, Samoa, Kenya, Pakistan, and Morocco, and cook me their national dishes.
My body’s unbalanced and feels like it weighs 500 pounds. My right hand is clenched, and I take two Tylenol every six hours. Let’s not mention the other 13 pills.
What’s left? Korean romance shows. When I see a closeup of the man, I swoon. The woman, I swoon. Doctors come to the house. I’ve spent over $1,000 on my teeth this year. You-know-who is busy taking away the benefits I’ve paid into since I was 14.
Did I say I’m sober for 43 years? Thank you, Bill Wilson (Google it)! I’ve had the help of hundreds of like friends. Hey, one of my aides is 22 and openly bi; another loves women. I came out to them first.
I’ve had a long and eventful life. I’m grateful. If you’re young, I say go for your dreams. It’s more fun. And the Goddess is in your corner. Am I not proof of it?
Jane Barnes has published work in BWQ for more than 14 years, and has poems inGay & Lesbian Quarterly, Ploughshares, River Styx, The Massachusetts Review, and Wrongdoing. Her work appears in the anthologies Bi Any Other Name and Getting Bi.