About Me — Sydney Longfellow
A writer and artist in the autumn of her life
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you know!
How dreary — to be — Somebody!
How public — like a Frog –
To tell one’s name — the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
~Emily Dickinson~
Perhaps I would like to be a frog, I don’t know until I try it.
Who am I? I’m in my early sixties and have already lived several lives: actress, barmaid, bouncer, cook, farmer, antique dealer, web designer, dungeon master (in no particular order). Finally, I am a visual artist and a writer. I’m a mother of an adult son. I’ve had two long term relationships of the romantic kind, one with a man and one with a woman but now live alone with my small neurotic dog, Dilly Bean. Thanks to my nomadic mother I was raised all over, from Marin to New York to London to Bristol to Vermont. I have deep roots and attachments to Marin, Vermont, and Bristol, in particular. I live in Marin County, California where I was also born, and where my DNA is. My adorable warrior of a sister lives in England and my son lives in Vermont.
My mother was and is the author Ki Longfellow, originally Pamela Longfellow. She wrote a number of exceptional novels, particularly The Secret Magdalene. She hailed from Larkspur in Marin but preferred to identify as a New Yorker. She was married several times, but the love of her life was her British husband Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, or just Bonzo Dog if you’re into the whole brevity thing. He was also known for Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, some beer ads, and being the MC for Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, as well as all sorts of famous chums. Together my mother and Vivian wrote and produced Stinkfoot: A Comic Opera. My mother, with some help from various interesting characters, brought The Thekla from Sunderland in the north of England into Bristol in the south, a floating music venue that just turned 40 years-old this year. We called it The Old Profanity Showboat after one of Vivian’s drawings (which I have framed on my wall) and included cabaret and theater in our offerings. For much of her life I was along for the ride. She had me when she was 19 years-old so we basically grew up together. Talking about myself, for much of my life, is also to talk about my mother. When she died in 2022 it ripped out my heart.
Currently I am working full time in natural foods to pay the bills and feel like I’m making a difference, albeit very small. In my not-so-copious spare time I paint in pastels, am working on a memoir, working on getting my mother’s final novel published, and writing the very occasional Medium article.
