A 20th Century Birth Story

The year was 1977. My parents were three years into their marriage and I was their first kid. 

At one point, while in labor, my mom said she thought she was going to die. Her friend responded, "No one said this would be easy."  

When I came into the world, my mother was struck by how fully present I was and my father cried when he held me for the first time.

I was driven home from Mt. Zion Hospital in my grandmother's 1955 red and white Buick special. 

When they pulled up to the curb outside our house on 22nd Street in San Francisco, my mom faced a slew of steps to the front door. Daunted, she reasoned aloud that women gave birth in fields and went right back to work all the time. To which her mother added, "And those women die like flies!" 

My mom remembers being so exhausted in those first months that she slept through my crying one night and awoke to my dad holding me on his forearm, soothing me back to sleep by talking to me like a New York taxi driver.

As I grew older, I grew intrepid and she would find me toddling off to visit Fraz in his carpentry shop across the street or she would turn to see me carrying my newborn brother down the stairs, a big sister at the age of three.

One of the advantages of having time alone with my mom --a few weeks to just hang out and enjoy each other's company-- is that these details from the past resurface in conversation. 

My mom has always been the storyteller in our family and through her we have come to appreciate the power of narrative. We, her children, are now engaged in discovering and creating our own stories. 

And we value our source material. 

FLOTUS

In the dumpster fire that is American politics, Michelle Obama gleams...

...and her partner (our president) rightly urges us to vote rather than boo. 

So when it comes to binge watching catastrophe, I choose this one:

And You KNOW I Have Opinions On This

It is rare that I am in agreement on matters Austin, but Rebecca Pahle and I are of a mind...

1.

2.

3.

...with only the slightest bone of contention (namely how awesome Paul Rudd was in Clueless). 

In spirit, we are sisters.

Confidence

I can do anything good...

Ultra spiritual...

Swagger wagon...

Can't help but notice they're all white...

The Imperative Call Of Life

A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

by Jack Gilbert

I believe poetry captures the full richness of life in a spare, shimmering creation. It is simplicity on the other side of complexity. I believe that what is beautiful is true and holy, and as such makes us feel more alive and whole in its presence. I believe that delight, wonder, humor, amazement and interest are the lubricant, fluid and cartilage of our experience. They allow us movement, give and grace.

I believe that all is one and divine. The health and wellbeing of an ecosystem are measured by its levels of biodiversity and interconnection. Each piece has innate value and affects the whole. I believe that matter is neither created nor destroyed and that the only constant is change, a recycling of material. Everything has been or will become what is currently the other. I believe there is power in choosing love over fear and investigation over ignorance.

Tikkun Olam

In the beginning there was only the holy darkness, the Ein Sof, the source of life. In the course of history, at a moment in time, this world, the world of a thousand thousand things, emerged from the heart of the holy darkness as a great ray of light. And then, perhaps because this is a 14th century Jewish story, there was an accident, and the vessels containing the light of the world, the wholeness of the world, broke. The wholeness of the world, the light of the world, was scattered into a thousand thousand fragments of light. And they fell into all events and all people, where they remain deeply hidden to this very day. We are born with the capacity to find the hidden light in all events and all people, to lift it up and make it visible once again and thereby to restore the innate wholeness of the world. Our collective task is to repair and heal the world. Our individual province is local, with global implications.

as told by Rachel Naomi Remen

I believe in faith embodied. We physically absorb all manner of trauma and yet our bodies are constantly striving to repair and heal to the best of their abilities. I believe our senses root us in the sacred loam of life and we draw sustenance from that source. Living and moving in wild places, leaning into home spaces, confirm for me my part in creation, at once integral and yet utterly dwarfed by the heft and majesty of the whole.

I believe that establishing boundaries can create space for soulful being rather than mindless doing. That pausing to pay homage to our breath stills our survival instincts and reactions so that we may relax into our innate wisdom and responsiveness. I believe that each moment is a possible threshold in life that invites our curiosity and creativity to transform the mundane into something revelatory.

I believe that the tales we tell ourselves and others frame and define our experience. I am touched and moved by stories. Thank you, Krista Tippet and Chris Fischer, for inspiring me with yours.

I believe in dedicating my days to love, beauty and wholeness. And so I grope my way forward...

Lamentation

"The flagrancy of public murder exacts an exponential toll on the black life that survives; it renders the power of witness moot. The reminder isn't that we are alive. It's that we have yet to die." -Doreen St. Félix

Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Eric Garner, Kajieme Powell...

"Are we not of interest to each other?" asks Elizabeth Alexander.

Too many names. May they count.

Lander Pride

Let's be clear. Lander's pride and joy is 4th of July. That said, our small town of 7,000 in Wyoming also rocks PRIDE. As in, we come out in (relative) droves to celebrate and love on our courageous, queer community in June.

We've been lucky enough to pull off a Pride Picnic in City Park for three years running now. Each year we reach out to the sheriff's office, local churches, and community leaders to make sure they've got our back and then we commence to rally --large and in charge-- with croquet matches, fashion shows, bike gangs, AIDS testing, grillables and the like. 

Truth is I have missed it each and every year until now. So when I say "we", I mean so many people I love. I am glad to have finally become a contributing member of the "we" this year. 

We decided to launch a film festival to build momentum towards June 26th...

Our local movie theater tends to show shabby films for long stretches of time, so it's the internet or bust in these parts when it comes to movies-- which effectively rules out most new releases. In other words, coming together to share a cinematic experience is something special in Lander. 

We determined pretty quickly that we wanted the following line-up:

First off, a visual feast of a film about a real life transgender pioneer in Scandinavia. Sumptuous. High profile. Focus Films wouldn't give us the time of day as we tried to secure screening rights. Then we reached out to my wonderful cousin who is a casting director in Hollywood and she called her wonderful friend who helped produce the film and in five minutes flat we had the wonderful film, The Danish Girl, inbound with no strings attached. SAY WHAT?! That is some powerful Pride juju in action. 

Second, a festive and fun movie about how the LGBTQ community in London supported striking Welsh miners in the 1990s. Wild to see a historical example of how a culture clash was transformed through love and courage into a potent force for positive change. Relevant for our landscape of gas fields and gays here in Wyoming. 

And last but not least, a sweet and tender love story about teenagers in São Paulo, one of whom is blind. Who can resist a well told coming of age story? Not I. We couldn't afford the screening rights to this film, even with the discount the studio gave us, and the library couldn't cover them either given recent budget cuts. It looked like it was going to fall through and then someone stepped up, not asking for any recognition, and gifted our community access to this film. Out of the blue. Just like that. SAY WHAT?! Magic abounds. 

The process of mounting the Gay Ray Film Festival was a series of moments like these where it appeared we were tanking and then rescue appeared in the form of generous, like-minded individuals. The obstacle of designing posters appeared insurmountable. Then a brother of a friend in some far off city burned the midnight oil to create our lure. At the eleventh hour, I found out I couldn't attend two out of the three screenings. Friends stepped in with grace and humor to welcome folks to the theater in my absence.

We said we wouldn't do the film festival if it wasn't fun and easy. We promised to aim off perfection and strive for good enough. We said that if we could bring one person through the door who was touched by these films, it was all worthwhile. 

A gentleman from a reservation to the north was passing through town and dropped in for The Danish Girl. His family includes a transgender sibling and other assorted queer folk. He stayed and talked after the film, over popcorn and through tears. 

More magic added to the heaping pile of magic that the Gay Ray Film Festival seemed to attract. Perhaps the most important magic.