Laurie says:

I was planning to blog about something completely different, but last night I dreamed about Tee. She died three years ago in August and she’s been on my mind.

I dreamed that she was still alive but quite ill and I was going to visit her.  I did visit her in Oregon several times when she was ill and very much alive.  Usually when I dream about people I love who are dead, they are alive and present in my dream and I usually awake feeling good.  Tee wasn’t present in this dream (I was going to visit her) and I woke up missing her terribly.

As many of the people who read this blog know she is best remembered as a lesbian erotic photographer who did marvelous work.

But she did other work that is less familiar.  These portraits come from a series called Lesbian Muse: The Women Behind the Words (1990).

Valerie Taylor, author

Doris Davenport, poet

Judy Grahn, poet

And she was a writer and a poet.  The making of books was one of her many passions. She self-published a remarkable number of books of writings, poetry and images.

This poem of hers speaks to me, particularly today.

THE RESTAURANT
OR
ALL YOU CAN EAT

My old college roommate,
great love of my early years,
sent the menu of a restaurant near our school:

Catfish, all you can eat.
Fried shrimp dinner.
Fried shrimp dinner all you can eat.
Fresh Froglegs. Froglegs, all you can eat.
Fresh Gatortail.
Fresh boiled shrimp.
Fresh turtle.

These times will never come again.

Fresh combination: Turtle, Froglegs & catfish.
Combination (Catfish & Shrimp).
Half Southern fried chicken.
(Please allow 30 minutes).
Chopped steak (with or without onions).

Plain food. Screens on the windows,
a deck outside where
you can watch the river pass.
Mosquitos. Gnats.

Sirloin strip. Large choice T-bone.
All dinners include:
French Fries or Hash Browns,
Tossed Salad or Cole Slaw,
Hush Puppies or Rolls.

Hot days and warm nights.
The sweat always under your arms,
between your legs.

Swamp Cabbage,
$1.95 a bowl,
95¢ a dish.

It’s true
we can’t go back again,
but vividly, I remember
in my body and my dreams.