i gotta write about someone. i ment to early in the morning, but i got side tracked. and it seems logical that i put this after a piece on lesbian separatism..

izzie harbaugh
i got lucky, i got to eugene in august of 1998. the first week of august of 1998. the only thing i knew about the feminist bookstore (Mother Kalis) was that there was one.

and there was izzie. and izzie was there everytime i went in there. so i got lucky, though we didn't get to be good friends, i still got to know her.

she was a constant in those first few months, as i moved 3 times, wasn't sure i'd have a permanent job, didn't know anything except that this is where i was *now* (and that i did *not* want to leave (i still don't)). and the place to go for familiarity on this strange place was the feminist bookstore, where izzie was.

izzie died on february 12, 1999. a sudden stroke. i got the email at work. i cried. it wasn't till after her death that i learned all that she did, how important she was, and in someway what a mystery she was, even to her partner of 20 years.

izzie helped out the street kids who hung out in front of the store. izzie helped to facilitate conversations between the different political and social communities. izzie worked for free at the store, managing it essientally, for a number of years.

but her partner, she released turquoise balloons at the huge memorial for izzie, not because she knew that was her favorite color, but because she assumed it was because she wore it a lot.

on the program from the memorial it says:
She loved... dogs, chickens, strays, animal and human, organic gardening, Virginia Woolf, running, women, books, the soft voices of women working, the Oregon coast, her back yard, the Little Store.

And under the last picture ever taken of her (which I could scan in, but i don't have a scanner) are some quotes:

"No, I am not Mother Kali"

"My anger saved my life. I'm not giving it up until I find something better."

"I am an old lesbian. Not "older," not "senior," not "feisty." Old."

"All women? I can get 15 different opinions just from the women on Blair Boulevard (where Mother Kali's was first located)."

"Virginia Woolf's The Waves is the greatest work of fiction in the English Language."

"We were working against the war with war-llike methods. There has to be a better way."

"If you're in favor of free speech, support independent bookstores and small presses."

"Here those who wish us well. All the rest can go to hell."

izzie is still at Mother Kali's. there is a picture of her up at the counter, a set of memorial pictures that were put together sitting beside jane (an 8 foot tall red woman) and a notebook of memories. but, even in the short time that i knew her, if those things weren't there, she'd still be there.

posted by brooke at July 27, 2002 07:35:54 PM