I’ll Stand By You, Too
On the streets of Amsterdam, circa 2005
What is it like to work with me in my MIRRORS OF THE SOUL coaching program?
It’s like the lyrics to The Pretenders song I’ll Stand By You:
“Oh, why you look so sad? Tears are in your eyes. Come on and come to me now. Don’t be ashamed to cry, let me see you through. ‘Cause I’ve seen the dark side too. When the night falls on you, and you don’t know what to do, nothing you confess could make me love you less. I’ll stand by you.”
When I was on Study Abroad as a junior in college, living in Budapest, Hungary for five months, I stayed up all night reading John Irving’s latest novel, Until I Find You. I had bought it at a bookstore off of the Red Light District in Amsterdam while visiting family friends for the fall break, and I was so riveted by it. The storyline, the semi-autobiographical content, the tattoos, the lesbianism. I knew I had to get a tattoo after reading it, so I went to get one the following week at a tattoo parlor where they didn’t speak English, and my mediocre Hungarian was not enough to describe what I wanted: a peace sign with I’ll Stand By You underneath in my own handwriting. So, I jotted it down on a piece of paper, and they put it on the back of my sacrum, and it wasn’t until later when I got back to the dorms and was looking online that I realized I had forgotten the extra line in my peace sign. Rather than considering it a Mercedes symbol, I decided to think of it as the Kelsay peace sign because that’s what it is. It’s my own personal symbol to celebrate my lesbian identity, the idea of love, what I stand for and what I value.
I’ve been a fangirl my whole life. One of my first memories is of watching Finola Hughes as Anna Devane on General Hospital in 1988 when I was 4 years old and falling in love—whatever that meant for my 4 year old self. And I fell in love again when reading that novel in Budapest, and I wanted to mark the occasion for myself, so I did. I look for myself less and less in other people’s stories, in other people’s music, and in ideas that are fragmented from my heart and my body, but I still see mirrors for what I stand for and what I value in all of those things and more. The difference is in the way that I hold and go about it. I have more awareness and intentionality now. I don’t get lost in the fangirling. I hold myself at the center of the experience.
And this is what it’s like to work with me in the Tamalpa Life/Art Process. I’ll stand by you, too and bring that deep-seated fascination and curiosity that I used to have about women like Finola Hughes and Chrissie Hynde to you. I become you’re fangirl and a reflection for your own deep-seated curiosity about yourself and what fascinates you. I’ll guide you in that exploration and be right by your side if you get sad, or mad because I’ve seen the dark side too and come through it. And, I’ll hold space for your process of writing, drawing and moving the symbols that are personal for you, that you want to remake in your own image and that you can add your personal mark to.
