#spinsters

And immediately being very #life_goals about it.

So in honor of hitting another "milestone birthday" today as an utterly unmarried and unattached single person, I would like to celebrate my having achieved that goal by any and all imaginable metrics.

Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals, Spinsters, Ink, Argyle, NY, 1980 [Between the Covers, Gloucester City, NJ]

One of the OG romance tropes is on the table today -- we're talking about heroines who are on the shelf! It's not quite wallflowers, not quite ruined, not quite spinsters...it's a very particular flavor of unmarried woman, and one we basically only find in historicals.

In the opening scene of Sleeping Beauty when Maleficent cast the curse, everyone in the castle should have laughed at the idea that a princess would be anywhere near a spinning wheel.

I read that during the Middle Ages, spinning wheels were not household items, they were specifically used by those in the wool trade. I imagine the cloth guild at the time was responsible for that.

So that scene in Sleeping Beauty where the spinning wheels are burned, that was a major blow to the kingdom's economy. Unmarried women who are spinsters probably lost their jobs. Shepherds would not be able to sell as much wool as they did before.

At Home With Ourselves is an interview series in which we profile lesbian homes. From van life to the suburbs, from self-built cabins to studio apartments, from collective houses to the things that make you feel at home wherever you may find yourself. Wherever and however lesbians live, we want to know about it.

Devorah: I can relate to the idea of home needing to be a place where you don’t feel infringed upon. Have you always aspired to this?

Medusa: Even as a young girl, I went against the grain. I admired the Maiden Aunts in literature and real life that were supposed to frighten us. I thought they were gutsy and interesting. Like those fabled Spinsters, I grew up to live in my own attic and to wear a lot of black dresses. I am a lifelong lesbian, now in middle age. My space is appropriately named Spinster Heaven.

Devorah: What else do you want to share about your space and what home means to you?

Medusa: Women are often told we are “selfish” when we need time or space to ourselves. We need to reclaim “selfishness” as the self-care that it is and to let go of guilt about needing our own spaces. I am an introvert, psychically sensitive, and have a busy mind. I need a lot of space, quiet, and time to myself. Many of us do.

Like many women, I grew up in a family where I did not have a lot of control over my direct environment. I lived with a constant low-level distress which compromised my health. As an adult, I lived with roommates and lovers, but it was not until I had my own space at Spinster Heaven that I was able to truly inhabit it and live.