WHO is on your Mind ... Why?

[CherylNYC]

My good friend Woody. She was an amazing, awe inspiring person, and a role model for butches everywhere. She was so tremendously supportive of me and my own losses, even while she was battling her own illness. I so wish she were still here with us, but she told me at the end that she had done everything in her life that she really wanted to, and that she had no regrets. I hope I can say the same when my time comes.

Woody did so many interesting things during her lifetime. She was a biker and inveterate world traveller, a builder, a chimney sweep, she drove a limo and taught English in China. (I can't help but laugh thinking of all those Chinese people who must 'pahk the cah' the way they do in 'Baaston'.) She was an archeologist, and worked on international digs, she smuggled gold in Thailand, and she raised huge amounts of money and awareness for women's issues with just as much energy and commitment as she directed towards the art installations she built.

Woody and her rainbow mohawk were iconic riding down 5th Ave in the NYC Pride Parade. Everyone looked for her, and everyone needed to get their picture taken with her. A photo of Woody at NYC Pride even illustrates the Wikipedia definition of 'dyke'. Woody passed on the morning of her home Pride Parade in Boston in 2009. Two weeks later NYC Pride was led by a huge double sided poster of Woody with her birth and death dates, festooned with rainbow feather boas. Some spectators burst into tears when they saw it.

Sometimes Woody is on my mind, and today is one of those days.