"I guess I'd shut my mouth and rethink a minute--but I can't shut it now because there's something in it." -- Ani DiFranco
Could there be a better song for that first flash of lesbian attraction than Ani DiFranco's driving Shameless? This song takes me back to high school and the first fumbling explorations that were marked as much by fear as by excitement--and by the excitement of fear and transgression.
One night, a girl put her head in my lap and I stroked her hair for hours, wanting her but not quite sure what to do about it. She mentioned this song to me right before she left, and I went immediately to the record store to buy the album so I could decode her meaning (ah, the times before the Internet!). I'll never forget the thrill I got when I realized what she had to have meant by it.
I was clumsy about everything back then--emotions as much as bodies. I'm afraid I didn't really know how to love when I was a teenager, but who does? My fear kept me from being with this girl more than furtively, but I remember her fondly, and I always will.
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