Putting down the stone

Mag reading

I sat behind this lovely assistance dog who was looking soulfully at her/his person

Nicky was on merchandise duty

Another one of Mag at the podium

Today was the first day of the Feast Festival here in Adelaide, and I went to a book-reading in the city by Mag Merrilees, whose warm and funny book Fables Queer and Familiar has featured here before. It was a really enjoyable afternoon, with some readings from the book and others from what will hopefully be the second instalment. Mag highlighted reflections on marriage – pertinent as we come up this week to the result of the postal survey on marriage equality. There was the hilarious section in Fables where poor James, the grandson, gets totally discombobulated at the thought of the grannies potentially having an ‘illegal’ wedding and worries himself sick at the thought of them being in trouble with the police. And where his dad has to try to explain why he and James’s mother haven’t got married and don’t intend to, but that Julia and Anne should be able to if they want to. Later, though, in the reading from newer work, one of the characters speaks of ‘carrying a stone’ (I think that was the phrase), an internal stone, of pain about lack of acceptance, and the hope, the yearning for this (acceptance I mean) that is part of the push for marriage equality. This made so much sense to me – marriage not being something that I particularly care about as such – but the importance of acceptance for all of us, especially those of us (probably most of us if we could really know) who feel outside of the main stream of society in some way or another. In particular this week, those in the LGBTQI communities. Hooray for Lesbians I say! Hooray for all LGBTQI-ers!