1
s lesbians, we have passion for each other,
but we also have passion for place.
Author Hawk Madrone knows this
I well. “We walked a little of the 40 acres
that day, drinking her in, seeing her more obvi
ous charms, even looking for possible flaws,”
she reflects in her book.
This yearning could be for a newly found
lover, but it is the piece of land named Fly
Away Home that has stolen her heart. The
story of this intense, 25-year relationship is told
eloquently in Weeding at Dawn: A Lesbian
Country Life.
It all began in 1975, when Madrone and
her lover, Bethroot, bought land together in
remote southern Oregon. They were part of the
dyke back-to-the-land movement of the time.
“We wanted to join the tribe, the wide net
work of lesbians who were rooting their spiritu
ality in the soil,-the cycles of the earth, intent
upon separating ourselves as much as possible
from the world the men have made.” And so
they did. Although no longer lovers, they both
still live on the land.
Becoming a country dyke was a dramatic
change from Madrone s former life. She was a
philosophy professor for 10 years in Washing
ton, D.C., and San Francisco.
A self-described radical, she always was
fighting to keep her job. “I was successful as a
teacher," she laughs, “and at alienating the
administration.”
Her next career move was auto mechanics.
“I had been in academia all my life,” she
explains. “I needed a balance of mental worker
with physical worker. So I became an auto
mechanic for a while, then ended upon the
land.” It was a natural evolution, as her roots
lie in a small working-class country town.
Madrone was inspired to write her book by
the Southern Oregon Women Writers’ Group,
the Gourmet Eating Society and Chorus. This
group, which has been meeting for 20 years,
gave her the encouragement necessary to under
take the arduous task of writing about her life.
She previously had published stories of her
experiences in anthologies and magazines such
as Maize, a Lesbian Country Magazine and Com
mon Lives/Lesbian Lives. She hopes women,
through reading her book, vicariously will share
her experiences.
And her stark, detailed stories of everyday
country life should accomplish that goal.
There’s the dilemma of the skunk in the hen
house, the joy and anticipation of her cat giv
ing birth, the wracking pain over a dead wren
and the bone-weary satisfaction from building a
cellar or chopping wood. Country dykes will
relate to and appreciate these experiences;
urban dykes might yearn for them.
The uniqueness of these stories lies in her
Home is where her heart is
Passion, love and hard work—25 years
in the life of a country dyke
by
N atalie S h a p ir o
detailed, passionate observations of
nature. She begins to understand
that her own life mirrors the quirks
of nature. She learns this especially
from the trees on her land.
A
One spring day, Madrone visits
a locust tree near her bam; weak
ened from wood rot, it has been
toppled by a large snowstorm. She
notes in her book that it originally
had two separate trunks growing
from one base:
“As I studied the locust, I
. m-
thought about the falling apart
that happened to my mate and me
11 years ago.... Now I stroked the
wet rough bark and my hands easi
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ly remembered the loving my
mate and I made together, the
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mostly good and vibrant life we
shared for over five years. But just
as those two trunks could stand for
only so long on what gave them
their beginning, my love and I
could stay together only so long as
what we were creating was good
for both of us, and that had come
to an end.”
She also relates to the
resilience and adaptive abilities of
nature. Studying a madrone tree, a
survivor of a chain-sawed girdle
intended to kill it, she writes:
“This survivor has been an inspir
ing companion for me these many
years.... This living tree whose
name I share makes mockery of
my despair, and 1 too find a pas
sageway to my roots, and keep on growing.”
The resiliency and versatility of the
madrone trees on her land also inspired her to
take their name as her own. "Madrone became
my second name, as it was my second nature.”
O f course, dyke readers will want to know
about love, and Madrone gives a different per
spective from what they might expect. One
spring, she decides to camp alone, although she
has reservations: “Some yearning lingered for
just simply another woman to be with me,
someone to love the scenery with me, someone
to love me.”
A few days later, nestled by a white cliff
graced with the pink of blooming rhododen
YOeediHf at *773 aw n
Lesbian C ountry Life,
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drons, she is content. “I lacked no lover in this
scene: She was present everywhere. I was com
plete, and content.”
Although Madrone possesses the rare ability
to be content alone with nature and her ani
mal friends, still, what about the people in her
life? Who is her community in this beautiful
yet isolated area? It depends, she muses.
“There’s the land dyke community, the dif
ferent women’s lands. I have known these for
almost 25 years; we have been doing all this
land stuff together for all these years, sharing
the country culture. Community is not just
social. Women are there for you when there’s a
need; we help each other with projects.”
However, her community is broader than
that, including lesbians in the Roseburg area.
Even if she doesn’t personally know these les
bians, her life is richer simply because they are
there. “They may never set foot on Fly Away
Home and I may never visit them, but there’s a
sense of community because we are lesbians.”
So what are the risks being a
dyke living in a rural, conservative
setting? Has she experienced anti
gay sentiments?
Madrone thinks about it briefly,
then recalls only two incidents in
the past 25 years. The first was
when they just had moved there.
Two men walked up the road
with beer cans, looking for someone
who lived there previously. “I got
mad, told them to leave— 1 knew
they were gawking at us.”
And they left. Another time,
someone wrote on the mailbox,
“Lezzies get out.”
The locals know about Madrone
and Bethroot, she says. Some friends
once stopped at the gas station in
the nearest town for help in finding
the land.
The attendant gave them direc
tions. “I don’t know how I feel about
that,” Madrone laughs, “a complete
stranger.” But overall, people leave
them alone, perhaps because of the
live-and-let-live values of country
living.
And sticking it out for 25 years
certainly earns them respect from
others. W hen she and Bethroot
moved there, one neighbor gave
them two months. “We outlasted
him!” she smirks.
Certainly, thriving on the chal
lenges of country living is one reason
she has lasted for 25 years. Her work
list includes keeping ditches cleared,
keeping landslides out of her water
tank, keeping a steady supply of wood for heat
and building a home. She writes, “The challenges,
and the work they require, keep me busy, keep me
learning, keep me accomplishing.
"in
W e e d in g a t D a w n : A L e s b ia n C o u n t r y
is fmblished by Harrington Park Press; soft-
cover is $14.95, hardcover is $39.95. Madrone
will read 7 p.m. Dec. 2 at Grassroots in Corvallis
and will give a reading for women only Dec. 17 in
Ashland. Call 541'512-0369 for details.
L ife
NATALIE S hafiro is a former country dyke
who now is trying to adjust to her new identity as
an urban dyke.
L e t s G e t T o g e t h e r !!
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