I remember striped glitter tube socks worn with platform shoes 6 big sparkly bracelets on each arm, walking arm in arm with a woman in pike place market not caring if people saw, even daring them to see. I remember my silver satin pants, the pink sequin shirt.
Multicolored hair, six inch platform boots, hanging on to one another as we traversed the cobblestones of Pioneer Square, so we didn’t fall.

Going to the 107 Club until 4am; The Trojan Shield for the drag shows, applied our red lipstick looking in the mirror at the end of that long single counter of the all night diner in-between.

Dancing at the Golden Crown, since I couldn’t get into the Silver Slipper (no fake ID, and that bar checked because it was all women), I don’t know if I ever made it in to that bar!
I remember the posters for the Double Header advertising Zee Whizz Kidz in their peacock capes. Glitter Rock and Gay bars. My life every weekend hitchhiking to Seattle after I came out in the 70’s.
And on my wall at home the open inside cover of Alladin Sane.

My fan girl crush and my hero, the first person who I ever knew was bisexual other than me.

I would gaze at your image. Androgynous and beautiful, otherworldly and amazing. You represented so much to me, gave me courage in your visibility to ask the hard question of myself and finally find the answer at such a young age; as I bounced back and forth between acceptance and terror.

There you were giving it all a name just by being, making it shiny and worthwhile giving me something to lean against and point to, a belonging.

You moved through the years with me, always there to check in with on the state of music and culture. Reminding me of where I came from.

There aren’t many of us left from my days on Occidental, it’s all changed.

I will always love you, and today it feels like I have lost a part of myself, makes my journey from that teenage girl to the woman no one would recognize as being the same if seen from a distance, (age making its alterations) all that more real.

And I wonder who I am, who I have become; once again asking the hard questions with you as my guide even now…am I being true to my own muse as you were so very true to yours? No. I think perhaps not. And then … what do I want to do about it.

RIP my lovely starlit man. Keep me company in spirit until I too find my way to where you have gone.

Aloha and Blessings,

Erika