Who is Moondancer? That's quite a complicated question. I've been many people throughout my life, in fact my moods and aspects change like the seasons. My taste in music and movies is as eclectic as my taste in literature. Some say having Pisces as a sun sign and Gemini as a moon sign had a great deal to do with my mutability, I don't know about that. It's who I am and I've been that way as far back as anyone I know can remember. I supposed considering the life I've led being able to adjust easily is a useful gift to have. It's allowed me to face the demons I had to face, and most of the time, come out on top. Amazons have many battles to fight, and today's society is one of the toughest enemies.

We can start where many stories start, at the beginning. I was born in Fairmont, West Virginia in February of the year 1969. No, I never went to Woodstock, my family were displaced country folk and didn't go in for that sort of thing. My Cherokee grandfather was a coal miner, and my best friend even as a very little girl. No matter how hard he worked, my granddaddy always had a smile for me, and a treasure hidden in his pockets. He was quite the storyteller. Far from historic, his tales were full of impossible things happening and I bought each and every word. I never would have guessed the hard life he'd lead, because he never let on. Maybe my granddaddy is where I got my taste for writing fiction.

I learned quickly that life was simple and safer if you kept your mouth closed and your eyes closed tighter. Trouble was, I was never good at closing my eyes to things around me that seemed wrong, and what my eyes saw my mouth often commented on. This habit taught me my next valuable lesson. Life is pain to anyone unwilling to swallow their pride and pocket their convictions. Needless to say, I learned to live with the pain, and keep fighting. Injustice was everywhere and I was going to make a difference, I guess I still am trying to keep that promise to myself.

My biological father was absentee, but I was fortunate enough to have a very loving step father for a few years. He was a heavy Sci Fi reader, one of his favorites was Heinlein. He had a taste for satirical and silly novelty songs and was likely the person who influenced my addiction to the Dr. Demento show later on in life. He also showed me that I was special, by teaching me with a wondrous amount of patience and understanding. Because of his dedication, at the ago of seven I became the youngest female Ham Radio operator in the world.

I also developed a deep love of theatrical rock and roll around that time. It was the seventies and bands like Kiss, Ozzy Osborne, and Alice Cooper were on the lips and radios of the teens in my neighborhood. I was much younger than most of the fans I knew, but I was a comic book lover and to me, bands like these were musical super heroes. I didn't have the money to get all the memorabilia that the other kids had. Fortunately, the teens thought the little kid singing  Rock and Roll All Nite and Cold Ethyl was entertaining enough I often got the LP's and eight tracks they were done with or could get off their friends. I listened to these songs obsessively, and I think the musical escapade helped me make it over the emotional speed bumps of the next decade or so.

That comfortable bubble that was my family life proved to be short lived. My mother left us to pursue training in the military, and I remained in the care of my stepfather. After several months of my mother being away, I learned my parents were getting a divorce and I was to go live with my mother in Wisconsin. The city was so big and the southern accent I'd picked up from being around my Tennessean grandfather pegged me as just not like anyone else at school. My friends get a chuckle even now when I am excited or angry because I slip right back into that accent without even realizing it. I was never what you could call popular. I was classified special ed because of my learning disabilities (at that time unidentified). 

I can’t say I had a passion for writing then, but the need to read was very strong. Even with undiagnosed ADD and Dyslexia, I ate books by the armload, even spending much of my summers at the library while the other kids went out and got into trouble. When I think back on it now, I don't think being an outcast was all that bad. I learned so much from the books I devoured, and in the end it made me the writer I am today. The kids I did know, the outcasts like me, I've learned more from them than I could have from any of the 'normal' kids.

When I was ten or eleven I learned my mother was a lesbian and that’s why she left my stepfather. Considering I had spent years blaming myself for their divorce, that news was a great relief. Soon after however, I found myself lost in a system that had little use for ‘juvenile delinquents’, which mean anyone in the foster care and groups home, no matter the reason for them being displaced. I learned a great deal about survival during that time, about who to trust and listening to my instincts. I didn’t always make the best choices along the way. The abuse I suffered while in the “Children Protective Services” system left me with scars I still today struggle to work past. These were hard lessons for a teenager, we are girls are often taught to do what were are told, and it left many of us targeted as victims very early in our lives. But in the end of it all, I still survived. I had at least one special friend and in the end we all have our reasons to keep going no matter how bad it gets.

I went to the High School of the Arts in Milwaukee and for a time at least my days held some hope of the future. I became very interested in poetry around then, and even had pieces published in the school literary magazine. The poetry was dark and morbid, but then, so was I. The trouble was the foster home I was placed in not long after I started MHSA  saw things like theatre and dance (my majors at the school) the work of carnie and lay abouts, and not part of the Christian life they were "training" me for.

The best time was the summer that I was an apprentice at the Melody Top, and arena theatre in Milwaukee that had since been torn down. That was the bright spot on my teen years, and one of the last for a long time. I met so many amazing people there, and to this day the things I saw there have stuck with me.           

I struggled to keep up with my school work and get involved in the performances as much as I could, but my life in the hole was draining me until there seemed like there was little hope let. My own stubborn warrior's spirit and the faith of my friends were to only thing that made me able to break the chains of that place and leave. I gave up a lot for that freedom, and the risk I took were not small, but in the end I think running away from that home may have just saved my life.    

A friend from my band	Friends from MHSA

Not long before I turned eighteen I was forced to leave school. Social Services would no longer be responsible for me and I had to find a way to make it on my own. That was a wild time. I had a lot off odd jobs, nothing of any note. It was all mostly minimum wage jobs, but the freedom was like nothing I had even known before. For the first time was living on my own rules, and the possibilities were endless.      

It was the mid eighties and on my eighteen birthday a friend took me to my first showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was like a rebirth. I saw things I never imagined seeing, felt things I didn't knew were possible, and thrived on every bit of it. I spent several years playing different parts in casts all over Wisconsin and Illinois, and had the joy of being one of the best known female Frank n' Furters in Chicago. During that time I also did a good deal of work at the drag shows in Milwaukee, plus working the back stage and security for the Pagan Pride events. If you've ever had to face down some of the bible thumpers that ride around in the hearses with all the graffiti and the megaphone, you'll see where I got some of the inspiration for the Imperium. No point in discussing things rationally with some of them. Quote scripture at them to prove their logic is skewed and they go all talking' in tongues on you. Not a pretty sight believe me. We always seemed to get the best of them though.

I had more friends than I ever had before, and the coolest thing was; we were all outcasts and the audience loved us for it. For the first time in my life I was sexy, and beautiful, and it was a disorienting feeling in a lot of ways. I just wasn't used to people noticing me. We all worked very hard to get everything just right from the lines and actions of the movie itself, to the freeform preshows. It was a blast and I miss it at times.

Among all those new friend ships were hard times and heartaches, but even so, the closeness of a community was there. This was the first time I could ever remember even getting a glimpse of such a thing. Weird as we were, as often as we fought, we were still family. We didn't always eat well, and we crashed in the oddest places, but in we looked after each other. At least, most of us did. There are always the trolls under the surface that want to destroy anything good that they can't control. And unfortunately this time, the trolls eventually won.

                  to be continued...