I’m a huge WNBA supporter. I am a supa triple quadruple fervent Diana Taurasi fan. I’m also a Minnesota Lynx enthusiast. And several times a summer those three delicious things intersect. May through August, when the Phoenix Mercury, Diana’s team, come to Minneapolis (and it isn’t a pandemic) I purchase tickets. The match-up is guaranteed raucous fun.
Diana brings it every place she plays and Minnesotans, in a culturally uncharacteristic, not so Minnesota-nice manner, don’t hold back when she’s on their court. I hear them scream out “Show Boat!”, boo when she makes a shot, and heckle her when she misses free throws (which rarely happens). Celebrated as the GOAT (greatest of all time) everywhere else, ironically, Midwesterners try to castrate her at every game on our turf.
I “come out” as I take my seat. “Hi I’m Erin. Yes, I love the Lynx annnNNNnnnNnnnd I adore Diana Taurasi.” After huffing and puffing and trying to blow my treasonous self down, they acclimate to my ability to whoop, holler, and scream for Diana while also enthusiastically chanting and cheering for our hometown team.
Tonight, at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis, I’m acutely tuned in to the sensory experience of a live game. Extroverted parts of me, underfed and ignored during this pandemic, are talking. I feel both elated to be there amongst fans, staff, and athletes with similar values, and immensely saddened by the reality of two plus years of COVID induced isolation. I’ve missed these contests more than I allowed myself to admit.
Being in Lynx community is a needed nutrient of my Minnesota life. The WNBA prioritizes racial justice, is a queer connector, and lifts up gender equity (June 23rd 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Title IX and we are celebrating in style- free capes at the door that say “Trusting in Women Since 1973” and powerfully done segments on the big screen about the history and influencers of said important legislation).
So while I sit and revel in the feminist sportiness of my night, I also grieve. And in that space, I recognize how this experience of Lynx meets Diana magic has, over twenty years, strengthened who I am. Especially as a polySolo queer. I clearly see my ability to not only love multiples but also hold that in-between space of polyamorous emotions- nuanced, intimate, and strong.
During half-time, I recollect the closing segment of Ben Shattuck’s Six Walks: In the Footsteps of Henry David Thoreau. He writes this about liminal space, specifically a New England salt marsh,
“I’ve been told the salt marsh is a fragile habitat. That it takes thousands of years to make the right spongy mud, seed the right grasses. But in my thirty plus years of looking out at this same half acre of marshland, it seems anything but fragile. It is a lawn that ends as cleanly at the edge of the forest as it does on the ocean side, barring all other plants. It resists everything but itself. An untended, unbreachable swath of grass, alive with crabholes, ready for two hightides a day, and thickly green. I’ve seen three hurricanes overwhelm it and then recede. I mean, what seems fragile, what is known as rare, is far stronger- drowned then parched, drowned then parched. The in-between space. Once, a therapist told me that it’s strange that people want to get through grief quickly, because grief is the in-between time, a period of fragility that brings your emotions closest to the surface. All stories are about passages, she said.”
There are multiple parts of attending Lynx games, especially Lynx vs Mercury matches, that are passages. This night is both the same and different; beyond, a new beginning, a return to my strong and vulnerable selves.
Also Pride weekend in the Twin Cities, the WNBA doesn’t shy away from celebrating all aspects of folx on the margins. As a polySolo queer with fandom spread across two teams, I see the wildness in loving more than one, loving outside the dominant paradigm, trusting self and body enough to shout yes and yes- for four quarters.
Pausing to assess this part of my life, present again after an absence and weathering of a great storm, I tune into the the queering of sport, physicality, community. Yes tonight we celebrate our history (engineered fifty years ago to allow women to play, be seen, receive ovation) and these athletes in front of us on the court. Recently asked to write about my twenty-year process of defining, identifying, and practicing polySolo love, I note the overlap and queer intimacy with place. Diana arrived in the league early 2004. I moved to Minnesota mid 2001 and became a Lynx fan late 2005.
Diana and our Lynx dynasty thank you for lighting me up in sporty, consistent, multitudinous ways. Teaching me to loudly proclaim love as plurality. I appreciate, as in wildly lobbed half court shots, assist after assist, and clean through the net three point precision, your talent, fire, big emotion, dedication, and fierce strength. You have allowed me to polySolo up my life and play in many seemingly fragile, yet inherently strong, moments+places.
Diana your fire reminds me to take up space. Minnesota your steadiness entices me to grow compassion over and over again. Thank you!