I met my friend Mikaya Heart at a convention of the Golden Crown Literary Society. Golden Crown, the national lesbian literary society, nominated both Heart’s and my books for an annual award – and hers won!
These days Heart travels regularly between the US, UK, and Australia. She doesn’t much like the word “spiritual,” but describes her work as “coaching in the art of being fully alive” – an art that includes kite-surfing.
A long-lived lesbian and an award-winning author, she writes on subjects as varied as orgasm, shamanism, sports, and politics.
Her newest book, due October 2014, is Life, Lies and Sex: A User’s Guide to Being in a Body.
How do you feel about being a long-lived lesbian?
I’m 62, and recently a friend told that I am the youngest person she knows. It was a Facebook thing – I love Facebook. Lots of people send you birthday greetings, and one woman sent me a greeting saying “you’re the youngest person I know.”
I’ve done quite a lot of work for her, including one of my favorite things, tree-trimming, which involves climbing a tree with a chain saw. It’s not something a lot of older people do, but I like doing it.
Why do you think she said that?
I think it was that she feels too old to do many of the things she sees me doing. But that “feels too old” – I don’t really know — what does that mean? I mean, I don’t feel old; I just feel like me.
I think they mean it would hurt them, or they’re too tired.
Or they’re afraid of it. People do say to me that they’re afraid of doing things now that they didn’t think twice about when they are younger. But one thing about me: I became very familiar with fear at a very young age because I was molested. When I look back on that, I feel okay about that because I feel the lessons I learned from it were so valuable. One lesson was not allowing fear to limit me.
I don’t seem to have many the same concepts as others do about limitations of age…I do what I want to do, and my body is kind enough to be in a good partnership with me.