Fierce Fucking Women (Atlanta 7/2017 and some personal history)

This post is going to dive more into my personal side as it pertains to my traveling. It’s also going to talk about kinky things by association so if that’s not your thing, skip this post – no hard feelings.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the good stuff.

I identify as a Leatherwoman. If you don’t know what that is, Google it or wait for another post. That’s a whole post of its own and not one I’m writing today.

I have been exploring BDSM for about 10 years (as of 2017) and for a little more than half of that, I have quietly but steadily been exploring Leather and what that looks like and means to me. I am so lucky to have some amazing people who are also traveling their own path in Leather.

The event, Drummer, in it’s current form, Drummer North America (DNA), holds a huge part of my Leather heart. When it was brought back in it’s current incarnation in 2015, the man who I consider my Leather brother and who took me under his wing a lot of years ago, asked me if I wanted to volunteer for this event. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I have pretty severe social anxiety and I wouldn’t know anyone but him at this event but I said yes anyways. We had spent a lot of time trying to bridge the gay and pan communities and despite not knowing anyone else, I felt a responsibility to put up or shut up. So up I put. The weekend came and pointed in the direction that might need some help. The help that was actually needed that weekend was minimal so I was left to figure out what to do with my anxiety-ridden self. Little would I know that there where two big things that I would experience this weekend that would impact my Leather journey.

Pushing my boundaries that weekend, I started meeting new people. People from all over the country and further. People who where my peers in age and others that years of experience on me. Everyone was kind and welcoming and engaged me in wonderful conversation sharing their experiences and asking about mine. One of the people I met was the fan-fucking-tastic Toni Solene. I had been put in contact with her before on Facebook with her but never had the opportunity to really meet or talk with her. She invited me to the women’s roundtable but due to the timing and other responsibilities I had that day, I was unable to attend and always carried a bit disappointed about that. (Mark this as important point #1 of the weekend.)

Later that day, I was asking what else I could help with and was told that there wasn’t anything else that was really needed and to just enjoy the event. Wait, what? This totally threw me and took me out of the realm I was socially comfortable with. So I did the one tried and true thing from all of my socially awkward years growing up. I went to the library. This one just happened to be the Carter/Johnson Leather Library. For those of you who don’t know what it is, the Carter/Johnson Leather Library is an amazing collection of all things that pertain to our Leather history. Vi Johnson is active in reclaiming items to ensure that they either get back to their original owners or are preserved as part of our history. She takes portions of her library and travels to different events so people can experience some of this amazing history. This is where I felt completely at home at DNA.

I so carefully went through the library, looking at each publication and item, soaking it all in. Truly some amazing pieces in our Leather history held in this little sliver of a larger collection. As I went through, I found “Spirit + Flesh” by Fakir Musafar. It is a photo collection of Fakir’s personal body modifications as well as others over about 60+ years. Most in the body modification/piercing world would regard Fakir as the one of the pioneers of modern body modification. I had heard of this book but because of it being out of print, the cost was too high for me to purchase for myself. I remember settling in and savoring each picture and page and just being awestruck with the beauty and power held within. A couple years prior I had requested information on his body piercing intensive workshop but due to the price and where I was with my life and health, I had dismissed it as something I wasn’t going to be able to do any time soon. I just remember sitting there, going through this book thinking “It’s time to invest in me and what I do.” (Important moment #2) As the evening drew to a close, Vi gave me a pair of the white gloves used to handle the older books and told me to keep them so I would have them when she was able to convince “them” to add flagging library to the hanky code with a white glove 😀

I left DNA really feeling connected to the Leather community for the first time ever and inspired and motivated to take action in my dreams to grow in my skills and desires.

About three months later I was in San Francisco, learning and honing my craft from Fakir Musafar. That’s pretty powerful, if you ask me.

What does all of that have to do with my recent trip to ATL?

In the start of 2017, I saw all of the usual announcements of the new title holders for DNA 2017 but along with all of that I saw an announcement for Women of Drummer and to stay tuned for details. Well, that totally had my attention. As much as a had a love for DNA, it was still a Gay Leatherman’s event and my spot was from a supporter standpoint (albeit an enthusiastic one.) I was completely excited to even have a the possibility to be a more active participant with DNA.

After a few months, the announcement was made that there was going to be regional Women of Drummer (WoD) gatherings. As locations were were announced, I wondered just how far I was going to have to go to participate. Finally the Southeast gathering was announced and Atlanta was the city. Atlanta was “doable” even if I went by myself, but I put the call out for anyone who wanted to join me for this. I didn’t just get one but two takers so a weekend churn and burn road trip was planned.

Out early on the Friday from work and off we went. The awesomeness of the weekend started from there. Usually, with longer times in transit, I expect to have times of silence (not bad, just lulls) because in my opinion, comfortable silence is better than forced conversation. Despite this expectation, we had a drive up ( and back) of comfortable, honest and engaging conversation with little to no downtime without being fake or forced. In fact, the open dialogue that happened over the entire weekend, whether it was 1 on 1, with my travel companions and myself or a large group, the constant dialog was one of my favorite things over the whole weekend (which is saying a lot, given my slight introverted tendencies). Some of the conversations were rally cries, some were sharing similar or different experiences and some were difficult but honest conversations that grew me.

The Southeast / Atlanta WoD Roundtable was to (that) date, the largest of the regional gathering with an estimated 35 women coming to participate in some combination of the meet and greet, roundtable and play party.

The most humbling part of the WoD weekend was the reminder the roundtable gave me that there is so much diversity within the umbrella of “women.” So often, being a women’s whatever is different enough that it’s easy to forget the vast diversity women can bring within themselves. The WoD roundtable reminded me that even in a group of 25, there were so many ways we all identified and even those who shared labels had different experiences and were in different places in their journey. Lesbian, queer, hetero, pansexual, black, white, submissive, dominant; these were all descriptors that were used by the women in attendance to identify. Then, add in the fact that we all were sharing that space at different parts of our journey. It was humbling and so fulfilling to come to this space and what made each of us unique was not that we were a woman with these experiences, but that our individual experiences were what set us apart and gave us something to share with one another.

A big thank you to Toni and Jessica for their vision and action to put this in action and start to build what I hope will be the starting ripple female focused Leather spaces for us to revel in our fierceness!

I could keep writing but I think that it would end up rambling even more than it already is. What I do know is that I have come to cherish sharing space with the fierce women I know and continue to meet in my travels. I look forward to helping make more opportunities for shared space for fierce, badass women to gather and celebrate their fierceness.

Participating in a Social Event with Social Anxiety…

In November 2015, I saw a meme that said something to the gist of  “Did you know there is a Hogwarts like castle in Poland called the College of Wizardry where people can go study to be a wizard for four days?”

This sounded really interesting so I did my usual research thing and fell in love with what it was.  It was a LARP (live action role play) game that was surprisingly affordable and doable.

So I bought my ticket and started my planning.

Traveling  solo wasn’t much of the concern for me.  I had lived in another country , away from my parents in high school and generally have a pretty adventurous spirit.  I have a bit of a scrapper attitude and can generally make things work.  Also, solo I’m comfortable with.  A product of my anxiety is that unless you are someone  in my close knit bubble, I generally don’t need (or want) constant companionship.

To that point though, some background on me:

After getting out of an abusive marriage at 24, I started to find my way into the local BDSM community.  Since I generally find small talk paralyzing, I tend to like to help and volunteer with events as it gives me a sense of purpose and something to share in common with others around me.  Before I knew it, I was running a popular meet-up group and kicking off what would be a highly successful annual event (largely because it was easier on me to organize these things rather than attend them).   I have no problem getting up in front of groups and giving my spiel about an event I am working or a charity I am fundraising for  (you know, interacting with a purpose) but people always seemed to be so amazed when they learn I have severe anxiety and struggle with the one-on-one small talk.  For me, getting up and talking to groups is just playing a role for the situation.  There have been good years and bad years, good days and bad days with my anxiety.  I have it pretty well managed these days but I have also worked really hard to built a life that is supportive to this part of me.

Then I decided to go and shake up my comfort level and go participate in ( not work, not volunteer for) a highly social event.  In fact, one might say that the whole premise of the LARP is dependent upon the social interactions of the participants to be successful.  WTF did I get myself into?

I did lots of reading, anything I could get my hands on, regarding the College of Wizardry LARP.  One document was a compilation of past players experiences and several of them talked about having anxiety and how the LARP helped them or how it was an ok place to be despite of their anxiety.  Ok, this may work out to be ok.

For a while, I focused on the technical/practical aspects of my travel; securing a  place to stay during my time in Berlin, determining where I wanted to go in Berlin, things I needed to get to make my travels easier and the like.

Then came the character building part.  Once I got my character, all the nerves came back.  Even though I was going to be playing a character, I was worried about how that character would be perceived and how would I, as the the player bringing them to life, be perceived as a first timer with no real connections to help me navigate this.  Of course all I could hear was my anxiety brain telling me not to reach out and ask about how to best do this  because I got myself into this, I should be able to figure it out.  So I went though the motions of establishing a social media account in the in game social network site and put my call out for relations in the game.  It felt awkward and false but, this is what I signed up for, right?

The closer it got to leaving for the game, the louder my anxiety brain got.  Traveling from the US meant that I couldn’t bring as elaborate props or costumes  and I was still working on being comfortable with my character.  I couldn’t fall back to my comfortable producer/staff roles and my contact with my support network was going to be minimal due to the lack of consistent wifi and my never being able to fully figure out which cellular  provider worked at the castle.  I was doing this as a participant.  Alone.

Holy Hades.

For the record, I never once did I think I should cancel. I knew if I did that, that I would regret it and I don’t do regret.  I did, however, worry what my experience would be like.  Despite all of it, I packed up my bags and off I went.

My solo  time in Berlin was just as I had hoped for.  Fulfilling and rewarding and replenishing.  I do love Germany (it’s where I lived before) but soon I was repacking my bags to leave first thing in the morning to catch the bus to Czocha Castle in Poland.

Berlin Dom – exterior

Berlin Dom – at the top of the dome

Ramones Museum

Loving the Ramones Museum

The day started off rough on the anxiety front since the taxi was late picking me up and there was added traffic due to President Obama being in Berlin at the same time (go figure).  As the time lapsed away past the meeting time, I started to worry that I was not going to make it to Czocha to even see if I could do this.  Thankfully, others were late as well.  I got on and found the first open row to sit in.  The bus was a flurry of conversation and people catching up and I worried that I would be that awkward girl not chatting but soon much more outgoing people than myself started introducing themselves or their characters.  I stumbled over my character name a couple of times but eventually managed to get out a decently sounding introduction of my character and started to get to know a few people sitting near me on the bus.  The warmth of those people helped soothe the first set of nerves and gave me a chance to breathe and think that just maybe I might make it.

Once we arrived, it went into full steam ahead.  We were ushered into the foyer of the castle to get room assignments and escorted to our rooms.  I opted for an off game room so that I would have a place to go if I needed to get out of the mindset or if I wanted to talk off game things with my roommates.  There was barely enough time for roommate introductions when we  were divided up for orientation for the game.  The first two sets of orientation were good.  The final one where we met our fellow House members was fantastic.  This was primarily led by the two people playing our Prefects (one of which I had met previously on the bus ride in) and they went out of their way to make everyone feel included, connected and a part of the House and in turn (at least for me) the game.  One of the Prefects also  did something really awesome with their character that went a very long way to making me feel safe and connected (see blog here) which was wonderful and unexpected.  All in all, once I met the people who were my “home base,” I suddenly felt less alone and less worried about how this was going to work for me.  I didn’t feel judged or scrutinized.  Maybe this wouldn’t be as nerve wracking as I thought.

Czocha Castle Nov. 2016

Czocha Castle Nov. 2016

Czocha Castle Nov. 2016

Over the next couple of days, I pushed myself, started conversations and placed myself in situations that made my heart race, not because they were scary or dangerous but because in or out of game, they were uncomfortable for me to be in.  There were times during the LARP where I had no idea what do with myself so I walked from the one end of the castle to the other and back trying to figure it out.  Almost always though, I wound up in a conversation or a crazy plan and it would put me back on track.

Come the end of the ball when the LARP was brought to a close, I felt a genuine sadness to know that the following day, we would all be going back to where ever it was we had come from and that this would become just some amazing memories.  There was a debrief room where participants could go and talk about some of their experiences in small groups out of character.  Since we were sharing our experiences, I decided to go for broke and share that despite my social anxiety, I had come here completely on my own, knowing no one and that I was really proud of myself for doing so (and of course got choked up and started to tear).  The love and support I got from my debrief group was instantaneous and nearly overwhelming.  All of us sharing our experiences in that group became one of the highlights of the LARP for me.   Afterwards, I got to thank some of the players that made the LARP so memorable for me, share memories and some more tears and have a few drinks before going back to finish my packing.

One of the things I was surprised me was the fact I was sad and disappointed I didn’t get to know some of these amazing people better off game more than some short but meaningful conversations before and after the game.  I didn’t expect to connect with other participants in the way that I did but maybe that’s the real magic at work here…

What am I trying to say with all of this recounting and sharing?

It is possible for those of us who have this sometimes crippling anxiety to go out and experience things even when it seems like it would never work out.  I mean you, the one reading this who called out of work or canceled plans with friends yet again because the idea of leaving your home was too much today.  I mean you, who has been therapy for years wondering if it even makes a difference.  I mean you, who has to talk themselves down from panic attacks because it’s not a good time or place (not that there is really either but…).  I say this because I have walked those roads for 20 years (geeze) and it’s ok. It’s ok to struggle and it’s ok that sometimes the victories are small.  It’s also ok to be scared when an opportunity so awesome presents itself that despite everything, you have to take it, even though your anxiety brain is screaming at you.

To the College of Wizardry and all of it’s participants and organizers, thank you for being that thing so awesome that I had to push my boundaries and be uncomfortable so that I could share in an experience so much bigger than all of the self doubt and fear.

I am eternally and completely grateful.

An Unexpected Safe Space

(Originally written on November 20th, 2016 and cross posted with minor edits to Facebook)

As I sit in my little Berlin hotel (feeling very splurgey-I have a room AND a bathroom all to myself), I am working on processing everything that I have experienced during my time at the College Of Wizardry LARP (CoW9). I was nervous going in with my anxiety; I had no LARP experience and none of my support network. Yes, I made the conscious choice to push my boundaries in this way but it’s one thing to make that choice and another to be smack in the middle of it. I never regretted the choice to go, but my nerves were starting to waver.

(my little hotel room which felt decadent after sharing a room for a week)

There is never a day that I don’t know how lucky I am to have surrounded myself with my amazing chosen family. They provide me with an accepting, safe place as we all do all the crazy shit we all do. Stepping outside of this, I hoped that I would just enjoy the LARP for what it was, hopefully meet some cool people and not expect much else. Certainly not a safe space to truly be just me.

Some context: the LARP is set up similar to Hogwarts. If you where not a first year waiting to be sorted, you already knew what house you were. Every house has a common room and the prefects live in and manage the common room. If you weren’t a first year, part of the intro to the LARP included a tour of your common room and introductions of your housemates both in and out of game.

I had met one of the people who was to play one of the Prefects of my house earlier in the day on the bus ride into Czocha but nothing too much more beyond that they had been a part of the LARP before and that they were in my house. During the introductions, the woman I had met on the bus introduced herself and her character and made a very awesome distinction for her character. Her character’s name was rainbow in Hebrew and that her character used gender neutral pronouns and to try to use them in game for her character and that she was going to hang a rainbow flag in her part of the room. The rest of the introductions went well but I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome it was to be sharing game space with someone who put that out there. It made a huge impact on me knowing that in this foreign place that even if I didn’t know anyone, I at least knew that someone was on the same wavelength and that the shared space that they created was a safe one for me. Just knowing it was there gave me this sense of foundation that allowed me to feel more confident in knowing that taking these chances to push my boundaries was the right thing to do and enjoy my time there that much more.

Once the game had completed and everyone was talking and sharing, I went up to her  because I wanted to make sure she knew what an impact she made by doing those couple of things in game made for me off game. We ended up talking and her motivation was to try and make these things more visible here and also, in regards to the pronouns, she wanted to provide that exposure for people who may not have that in their day to day life so they might be more understanding when they do meet someone who identified as gender neutral. We ended up talking and sharing experiences in and out of game and even a few tears and it all stemmed from a couple of seemingly small actions.

Which got me thinking….

In places we are comfortable, are we making an effort to create a safe space for someone who may not feel that way there? What small actions can we take that could make all the difference for someone around us?

For myself, other than work, I spend nearly all of my social time inside my communities of LGBT and kink so I enter into a place that is already designed to be safe for me and people like me and that’s easy to take for granted. Which makes me want to do more.

Ever since the Pulse shootings, I haven’t been able to shake how I felt at work for the days following. There wasn’t anywhere I could go to or anyone I could talk to at work to talk about what I was going through largely because of my “passiblity” of being straight (or bi invisibility or the feeling I was not “queer enough”) and it was an awful, lonely feeling. I haven’t known how to fix this until now. When I go home, I am going to see about incorporating more of this side of me into work. I may not be wrapping my desk with a pride flag but I can find smaller ways of making this side of me more visible in the hopes that if someone is struggling or needs to know where the safe space is at work, it can be me if they need it. And selfishly in turn, helps me heal further. I think that that’s ok.

I want to challenge each of us to find small ways to create safe places for others where we can. For each place we do this, we have the potential of reaching and helping more people that we may ever know. Even if we just help one person know that they have a place they are safe to be themselves in, it’s makes it fucking worth it.

A little about me.

My name is Voss and yes, this is yet another travel blog.  It feels a little cliché but hey, it’s something I’m passionate about and some of my situations and experiences (at least from what I found) aren’t widely talked about.  So, let me introduce myself.

I am a 30-something alt lifestyle female, who has a family, a formal full time job and several part-time jobs (events I own/work/run) and actively working on starting a small business.  With all of that being said, you can safely guess this is not a travel blog that is going to talk about being gone for months at a time (although I do have a level of envy for those who have that ability- go all of you who live that!).

 
Let’s start with the blog name, The Wandering Goth.  Since high school (and really a little before, if I’m being honest), I was (and still am) that gothy, punkish person you knew.  It’s where I have always been the most comfortable.  I tend to lean to the darker side of things and have a taste for the macabre.  Before you ask, the primary color in my wardrobe is, in fact, black.   I tend to be a pretty happy goth; think like Abby from NCIS.  I thought that it might be fun to share things from my perspective, finding things that are a little odd or unique as I travel through different places.

Let’s look at the biggest fact that sets me apart from many of the travel bloggers out there.  I work a full time job.  With a desk and an office that I have to go into every day I am scheduled to work.  I am only given a certain amount of days off every year.  I am lucky in the fact that I essentially get 24 vacation days off a year since I have been with my company for over 8 years.  Caveat:  this also has to cover me for the events that I work when I need to take a day or two off for them and a day for my anniversary (which always gets a dedicated day off every year with my sweetie) so realistically, I get about 10-15 days off that I can use for my travel.  Ideally, I travel for a week at a time and leverage holidays and weekends when I can.  That helps extend out my vacation days as my company doesn’t do unpaid vacation time.  All in all, it’s not too bad and for me, part of the fun of traveling is the research and planning so even if I’m not jet setting to faraway lands, I am still immersing myself in the travel experience.  That works for me so until my current situation changes, I don’t mind this arrangement.

My traveling history….

I am so very, very privileged to have had a passport since the age of five.  My dad’s side of the family is all from Malta (I’m 2^nd generation here in the US) and grew up periodically traveling to there as a child.  In fact, the first time I went to Malta was right before I started kindergarten.  One of my projects early in the school year was to make a poster of something that made me unique and I painted a picture of me swimming in water using the bluest paint I could find.  My unique fact about myself was that I had swam in the Mediterranean.  Even at that young age, I saw that travel was something special I had done.  During the times we went to Malta as a family during my childhood, I also got to spend some time in London, which, to this day, is one of my favorite places in the world.  Growing up, my mom knew I would settle and make my home in either London or Florida.  I live in Florida but mainly due to the fact it was cheaper and easier to move to the Sunshine state than London.

 

(Me in Malta – May 2010)

One of the most defining moments in my life for me was my chance to study abroad in my junior year of high school in Hamburg, Germany.  I had no German language instruction and was at the height of some severe health issues (multiple food allergies that result in anaphylaxis).  I was 16 (I turned 17 while I was there) and had never really been out on my own and away from the safety of not only my family but familiar surroundings in conjunction. My mom almost didn’t want me to go due to the health issues but my high school mentor, who was also one of the teachers heading up the exchange program, went to bat for me and worked out an arrangement so that one of my host parents was a doctor and,  if worst came to worst, could help navigate the German medical system for me. Off I went for a semester, to a country I didn’t speak a word of and to be honest, never really considered going to until the opportunity arose. I came home conversational in German, savvy in their public transportation and better for the time I spent immersing myself in the German culture.  My love for travel and new experiences was solidified from this.

(Me in Hamburg, Germany -Spring 2001)

My adult life hasn’t had as much voluntary travel in it as I would have liked.  I go back and forth to Michigan, where I grew up but that’s usually about it.  I have had the chance to go home to Malta once and a couple of trips to San Francisco (which I will talk about in separate posts).  This year marks the year that I will take two trips of my choosing and I plan on doing more.  That’s where this blog comes in.  I want to document and share the process and excitement of planning these trips as well as the glorious execution of them, for better or worse.  I hope that you find some little tidbits of things here and there that either interest you, entertain you or help you be more confident in your traveling.

(Me in San Francisco – April 2016)

Blissful travels!

~Voss

The Wandering Goth