Uniting, Not Silencing...

It was a gay club.

It was an American club.

It was a human club.

These are not competing statements; or, rather, they should not be.  They are each true and they each carry weight that needs to be acknowledged and respected.

First, and perhaps foremost, the events in Orlando hold special significance to an often persecuted group – a community that often struggles with acceptance from the world around them, including their families and friends.  It was a direct attack on a group of people who – despite recent legal advancements and social acceptance – struggle every single day to feel safe and accepted.  A group that cannot show affection for a loved one in public for fear of becoming a target.  A group that loses so many of its members to violence and to suicide.  Victims of bullies and hate-mongers, conservatives and busy-bodies, people who use their God as a reason to judge and degrade.  This group has a claim on the violence that erupted in Orlando and they have a right to cry out in anguish and fear and anger.  In a sacred place where they should have been safe to be themselves, safe and comfortable and secure in their own skin, free to love and be loved, they were gunned down.  So yes, they will raise their fists and plant their rainbow flags and demand answers.  That is their right, because it is THEIR club.

But that same event in Orlando holds special significance to Americans.  It is the worst mass shooting to take place on American soil.  I do not say that lightly, because although I acknowledge the atrocity of Wounded Knee (which I have seen connected to Orlando as a correction), that moment in history was a whole other ugly and violent beast.  It did not technically happen on United States soil and it was not a lone shooter.   It was something else – something equally horrifying and something that deserves acknowledgement as a chapter in our history of which we should be ashamed and aware.  But this shooting – this moment in Orlando – belongs in a different category.  The category of events where one single American decided that others must die for reasons that are beyond the understanding of good-hearted people.  Those who died were Americans.  They were doing what Americans do – celebrating time away from work, listening to music, dancing, and fellowshipping with others.  They were enjoying a night out on the town, letting go of obligations and responsibilities.  They were spending hard earned money, laughing and dancing and being alive.  And they were gunned down.  Torn from life, torn from those who loved them, robbed of what is promised every American – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.   And so, yes, I will cry and raise the stars and stripes and plant it next to their rainbow flag.  I will demand answers.  That is my right, because as an American, it is OUR club.

And that same event in Orlando holds special significance to humans around the world in our global community.  The same people who wept for the bombings in Paris will now weep for the shooting in Orlando.  They will shine the lights on their buildings, hold their signs, and pray that we, as a race of beings, can find a way to stop killing each other, stop hating each other, stop blaming everyone else for whatever ails us. 

That same event in Orlando holds significance for Muslims, American and foreign.  It holds significance for the Latino community because of the special event at Pulse that night.  It holds special significance for the first responders and investigators who tried to do their work while blocking out the desperate, unrelenting sounds of cell phones that would never be answered. It holds special significance for those who are still – and always will be – reeling from Sandy Hook, from Virginia Tech, from the theater in Colorado, from the church in South Carolina.  It holds significance for those who will never hear the voices of their loved ones or erase the images of violence and destruction from their minds.  It holds significance for the people of Orlando, who now join the ranks of cities and communities that have seen the blood and tears run in their streets and feel helpless to respond, react, or recover.  It matters to all of us, for a thousand reasons, some of which we cannot voice.

We do not need to take away from one another’s claims to plant our flags with theirs.  We do not need to erase one community when we declare membership in another.  By saying, it’s an AMERICAN club, we should not say it is NOT a gay club.  It is both.  The intent is admirable – to claim the LGBQT+ community as part of US….but we cannot do so in a way that silences the unique struggle that this particular community goes through every single day in a thousand ways, each more painful than the last.  They are our brothers and sisters, but their struggle is one that we can only imagine and while we can unite, we cannot silence even as we try to combat.

It is a significant event for all of these people, for all of these communities, for all of these reasons.  Not one should silence the others.  Not one needs to be or should be forgotten.  They all wish for the same thing – an end to the violence, an end to the hatred, an end to the suffering.  Let our flags fly together and let our voices unite.  Protect the LGBTQ+ community, protect Americans, protect humans.  Protect us all, and let us all be who we are.  Let voices be heard.  Tolerance is not enough - we must listen, respect, accept, and love.  Love.

The Fourth House...

I love my job.  There are aspects that I could do without, of course; and even the best of jobs has the worst of days.  Sometimes it is frustrating, often it is stressful, it is almost never completed, and it is always tiring.  All in all, however, I truly enjoy teaching classes, connecting with students, and generally trying to make the world a better place in my own small corner of it.  I may not like starting my day when it is dark and ending when it is dark, but the exhilaration – or ‘teacher’s high’ – after that last class is undeniable.

This is not a blog about my job, though.

Some time ago, I made the choice to live in the moment as much as I could.  I’ve refined it to live in the day.  By this I mean that if there is something undesirable coming towards me, I will simply enjoy all the desirable moments in between.  By not letting these dreaded moments rule my life, I’ve come to enjoy the intervening moments all that much more and the interruption of undesired necessity is that much easier to endure.  This means that every evening spent at home I am really, truly, at home.  I’m not thinking about the dentist or that visit from the realtor, or the nine thousand errands I have to run.  I may be grading or thinking about the next school day, but only in terms of preparation.

But this is not a blog about changing my daily perspective.

I only want it understood that the following is not about finally getting free of a job that I don’t like or simply the relief that comes from leaving a necessary, but unwelcome, place.  It’s not about letting go of dread or not taking the moments of my life for granted.  I have a very good life and my workplace is filled with some of the funniest, kindest, and supportive people I know.  No, this blog is not about letting go of worry or about getting away from something, but rather it is very much about returning to something.

One of the best parts of my day is the moment I get close enough to my driveway to see that my husband’s car is already there (and not because it is a nice car, though he’d tell you that it is if you asked him).  That car sitting there means that there are lights on inside, there’s a hug waiting for me, and there’s someone to talk to.  Sometimes it even means that dinner will already be cooking.  It’s walking in the door and instantly feeling that I’m home.

Home is where I am a side of me that I only touch on at work.  It’s when I relax and can be silly, I can wear my frumpiest clothes and feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet.  I can make immature jokes and act like an idiot and it will be met in kind and with laughter.  I spend most of my evenings being reminded that I can be silly and that life is too short to be too serious for too long and too full of love to be wallowing in fear or worry about the wider world.  That part of me is always there, but there’s something about him that makes it that much more likely to thrive.  Our lives are not complicated or enriched by children – though we have three cats and a dog that keep us on our toes in various ways.  For a large part of our existence these days, it is just him and I.

Him and I.

We’ve had some upheavals of late and though they don’t really belong here, it is enough to say that we’ve both made colossal mistakes, we’ve both found our worlds suddenly a little smaller, and we both rediscovered what it means to be in love.  My world is both bigger and smaller, both deeper and lighter, both sillier and more emotional.  I have new dreams and plans to get there.  Not worrying about the future has gotten so much easier because my present feels content and reinforced.  This is where I want to be.

Here.  With him.

He is the light to my darkness – laughing when I try so hard to be serious.  He is the dark to my lightness – keeping my idealism closer to earth with a healthy dose of realism.  He is the confidence to my insecurities.  His height gives him a perspective that I don’t have and yet he doesn’t look over me or overlook me.  We work together well and though we have our troubles, like all couples, we are suddenly becoming much more adept at working through them together.

Together.

A thousand clichés talk about marrying one’s best friend and the importance communication, and a thousand clichés can’t be wholly wrong.  I am more content now than I have been in a long time, though I see the world around us and worry that the End Times are upon us.  I am content because my immediate world is beautiful in all its oddity.  

One of the greatest feelings in the world is my hand in his.  Or the warmth of him next to me as I lie awake at night and slowly will my aching back to ease up enough for sleep.  There is something comforting about the warm weight of a loved one nearby – be it cat or dog or human.  My house is one full of love and it’s a love that extends to the houses of my parents and my siblings.  The world spins around us, and yet I have so much love in my life to support me as I try not to let the emotions and the craziness crush me.   I’m not afraid or ashamed to talk about the love I have for my parents, my siblings, my sibling’s spouses and children.  I am proud and humbled that there are three houses I can go to that are filled with love and where I am accepted for who I am – for all my quirks and mistakes, my talents and abilities.  I am loved for who I am.  And, at the end of the day, the fourth house is the one I call home.  It is my home and my heart, my soul and my life because he is there.

Him and I.

Home.

Together.

Us.

Just Breathe...

The following is a transcript of some free writing I did this afternoon.  I don't often hand write things because I find that my hand cannot keep up with my brain in any meaningful, legible way.  There are times, however, where I make an exception for some reason.  Today was one of those times...I did not overthink it much, I did not take the time to edit or craft it.  I just put it from paper to screen.

I'm sitting in the Arboretum as I write this.  It is probably my favorite place to be of late, especially near to home.  My summer was full of turmoil - much of it of my own making - and I often retreated here for solace and to escape the noise of the whirlwind around me.  Numerous visits for several months brought me from late spring through summer and now into fall.  This has afforded me the opportunity to see the change from the growth of spring to the vibrancy of summer and now the slow decay of autumn as Mother Earth prepares herself for the long winter to come.  It is hard to stay lost in man-made desperation and chaos when each step rattles the world -- a chipmunk darts across the path ahead, while a turtle slips into the waters to one side and something rustles in the dry leaves on the other.  There is silence, but it is folded into the scurrying of unseen creatures, the call of the bullfrog, the song of hidden birds.  From visit to visit, the swamp would rise and fall according to the will of the rain, and a single leaf falls or countless cascade around me at the will of the wind.  Not a single care I bring with me can stop this ebb and flow of nature's endless cycle.  I have watched the brook near to bursting from spring's powerful torrents and cautiously stepped around fallen logs and bending branches which were not there the walk before.  I have startled wildlife, sat in the sunlight, been drench in a sudden downpour.  I have wiped sweat from my eyes as I peered into a tree where two herons perched and crept as quiet as may be towards sunbathing turtles, hoping to capture them in frozen image before they slipped away.  I have peered fruitlessly into the trees trying to see what rustled in the undergrowth or hopped from branch to branch.  I have had camera on hand in exactly the right moment to capture snakes, crawdads, a rainbow of birds and flowers, dragonflies and bees, a fawn and a snapping turtle.  All allowed me to step into their world and, for a time, live there in respectful distance, my errands no less important than theirs.  My survival differently but equally dependent on what I found there.  

I have sat for hours on the board walk, on a log, on a patch of leaves, on a grassy hill above the wetlands, searching for peace and coming closer to it than I dared hope.  Immersing myself in nature is profoundly moving in seemingly contradictory ways - I feel at once alone and yet in tune with the vibrant life around me.  I feel insignificant but somehow an intricate part of something powerful at the same time.  I am equally enamored of a bug skimming the surface of the water as I am of the trees pushing their way towards the bluest of skies.  Each remind me of the strength and grace that nature gives both her largest and smallest creatures.  Each intricate leaf, each unnamed plant, each unrecognized flower, each sound I cannot place is part of me and I of it.  I owe my soul and my heart to the hours I've spent listening to my own footsteps, hearing my own heartbeat, feeling the air fill my own lungs, and taking in each minute beautiful detail of the world with my own eyes.  This is peace  - I come seeking it, outwardly, and find it within.  Tranquility in endless movement and chaotic rhythms.  Finding beauty in a submerged log, a fallen leaf, browned grasses pushing through a stump half drowning in swampy waters.  No matter what ails me, what troubles I found or made, life will go on.  Birth from death, renewal from decay, the promise of a greater tomorrow. And even in the crumpled leaf and the broken twig, there is hope and beauty and promise.  Serenity.


There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
—Lord Byron, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”