One of the benefits of getting older is perspective; there are many other benefits, among the many or few pitfalls that come with, all of which depend so much on an individual’s temperament, health, luck, ability to financially plan, natural resilience, etc., etc. The gift of perspective is one that endows a broader and more sweeping understanding of your entire life, and – hopefully, knock wood – includes a full dose of acceptance, acceptance of what is, and what was.
A few weeks ago, I was mentioning to my acupuncturist (yes, I have an acupuncturist, and not for the first time in my life, bro’fos!) that I was very grateful, whatever my occasional aches and pains, for my basic good health, my working limbs, good teeth, and strong heart. So many of my friends and classmates I said to her, are already dead, a chunk of them for decades. I lost half my college class before I was thirty-five. She responded, ‘Wow. Lots of hard living, then?’
Oh, the blissful, blessed ignorance of youth, of not having lived through it; she is about forty, maybe a little less, maybe a little more. No, I said, AIDs. AIDs. That other pandemic of my lifetime. Hers too, perhaps, except she wasn’t old enough, or in a place where it would have impacted her as it did me, my generation and older peeps, but especially those in certain arenas and areas, working or living in or among specific places and communities. In college I was a theatre major; my dying or dead friends were actors, directors, and dancers, who, like me, worked in NYC in theatres and supper or night clubs in the 80s and 90s. And in restaurants. All places traditionally more welcoming to LGBTQ humans in the eras before marriage equality, increased visibility, acceptance, and decency, before the cultural milestones of The Birdcage, Will and Grace, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
What a shit-show it was, back in the day (not unlike the C19 shit-show), when that other pandemic raged. It was good preparation for Covid, if you survived and learned your lessons: follow the public health guidelines, and listen to experts. It’s not that fucking hard; follow the accepted scientific wisdom, and you’ll be fine. Maybe it helped enlighten me in that I did see and experience it, up close and personal. If you were engaging in risky behaviors, if you were in a high-risk population (gay men and intravenous drug users), use protection and caution. The AIDs quilt, the many AIDs walks, GMHC (founded 1982) where I volunteered, God’s Love We Deliver (founded 1985) Broadway Cares, Equity Fights AIDs (founded 1992) where I also volunteered, all of these are still going strong thirty-five or forty-plus years later, most of the organizations working on social issues around AIDs for longer than my acupuncturist has been alive.
Because AIDs struck, initially, marginalized (and in many corners reviled) minorities in this country, it did not have the impact on public policy Covid has the potential to create (knock-wood: healthcare equity, including equity of access), but that pandemic did have positives, not enough to outweigh the negatives, yet it did help create change. Awareness in families and communities of how close we all were to persons in the LGBTQ community, to the community of women and men who were given blood containing the virus, to drug users who had been hiding in plain sight. When was the first time I heard the term ‘functional addict’? I’m not entirely sure, but it was the 1980s, I bet. Uncles, aunts, friends, siblings, cousins, neighbors. People you worked with were using heroin (my waitress friend, LuLu) or snorting coke (Cesar, my karate and judo instructor) daily, and while I can’t say they were doing fine, or as fine as a pregnant waitress not using heroin daily, they were functioning, and I had never known, or – I didn’t know at first, and for a long time.
The AIDs pandemic exposed how we as a society treated and felt about gay people, sick people, the poor, drug users – we, this great, wealthy ‘Christian’ nation. Similarly, the abuse of ‘essential workers’ during Covid, the painfully high death rates from the disease in black, brown and indigenous communities, the callousness shown by certain legislators who should have known and done better regarding the most vulnerable: the elderly, the obese, diabetics and others with pre-existing conditions. The selfishness. The indifference to other peoples’ lives in the face of blind political ambition. When will we ever learn? Truth is, pandemics expose the heights and depths of human nature, including human fear and ignorance at its worst.
Acceptance. Doing your part, trying not to judge others for their humanness (heavy lifting, some days), making your point of view known without beating anyone up (also heavy lifting, many days), and knowing that – hoping that – at the other end of this current shit-show (C19 and politics what with Orange Nero running again), we will collectively do better, make better policy, use what was learned to improve the next big thing coming down the pike. Acceptance. Knowing and accepting that I have now lived twice as long as a handful of my former classmates. One of my college friends, now in a wheelchair, has lived with AIDs since he was diagnosed in 1987 or ’88. He has had almost every form of disease you could possibly imagine. Still fighting. Still alive. So, you think I’m gonna complain about my bullshit little aches and pains? Nope. Well, at least not often. Gratitude and acceptance working together are mighty powerful tools.
I meant to write about the perks of aging, and acceptance. Oh well! Another time.
Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, two chest beating boomer boys and I got into a debate – an argument – over their bullshit posted on social media. One “will never support the ‘Scouts’ Again!!” This stance taken because the Boys Scouts are now the Scouts, for a number of reasons not the least of which is that girls have been able to become Scouts, having been admitted to the former boys’ club since 2020 or ’21 – so, um, not just boys anymore, name change to be more inclusive, makes sense to me but nope – total outrage!!!
These boomer boys are such fucking babies. In the over 50 years since he participated as a scout himself, a lot has changed. And, the Boy Scouts – having done what the Catholic Church did – protect and move around sexual predators in their ranks for decades, badly needed to reorganize and update their brand. They declared bankruptcy in 2020 due to payouts to victims of that abuse; over 60 thousand accusations were made, and made credibly – although I would argue that these accounts of abuse were considered credible because men were making them, men being so believable and credible and just better people, n’all, than women and girls. Not. After all, it was men doing the abusing, just like in the Catholic Church. Deep breaths. But yes, a brand update was badly needed.
Adding insult to injury, at least in my view, Mr. No ‘Scouts’ for me responded to another woman saying, ‘hey, friend, they changed the name because of the huge number of sexual abuse cases’ with the following: that never happened to me, my experiences were all positive. WTAF. This is a form of selfish denialism, cruelly dismissing other people’s pain in a way I find unacceptable. When I told a former friend (we’re still ‘friendly’, y’know what I mean?) I had been assaulted by two of my high school teachers her response was similar and equally unacceptable: ‘Well, that’s not my experience of them’, and, ‘I don’t know that about them’. Hello. I didn’t ask about your experience, I am telling you about mine. JHFC. I have never felt the same about her in the years since; she considers herself a feminist, but in truth, when it comes to her age peers (those two teachers are her age, baby-boomers born in the 1940s), it’s excuses, excuses, excuses…deep breaths.
One of Mr. No Mas Scouts for Me pals chimed in that he had stopped sending donations of any kind to his Alma Mater, Clarkson, due to their having a commencement speaker in 2021 or ’22 who was affiliated with Black Lives Matter. Oh no!! He went on to say that Martin Luther King would be rolling over in his grave at the way in which his movement has been taken over. WTAF? When I said he shouldn’t presume to know – as a white male – what MLK would think about BLM (or anything else, I could have added), his feelings were hurt, because I was getting personal, and I knew nothing about him. Well, honey, I know you’re a white guy in his seventies. I also know that Clarkson has less than 4% POC in its current student body or alumni. The Boy Scout asshole chimed in, what’s POC – People Who Cook – hahahahaha – not. And, by the way, speaking of hurt feelings, he’s beginning to feel like a minority. JHFC. The entitled blindness of these fucking men.
Is it worth my even commenting, arguing, with these guys? Well, yes and no. I cannot sit here and read their bullshit without wanting to at least challenge their POV (people who vent? hahahahaha. ugh). Silence is, after all, generally regarded as a form of consent, and I was silent – and silenced – for a long time in my life, certainly during childhood, and long after childhood was done. No mas. If I don’t at least say, hey, here’s a PBS segment about why the Scouts name change was made, here are the enrollment stats on Clarkson, then I am consenting to their publicly stated bullshit positions. Hey, guys, maybe Clarkson was simply trying to be more inclusive in inviting a BLM affiliated speaker, acknowledging thereby that the overwhelmingly white (and male) student body and alums of Clarkson create a challenging environment presently and historically for POC, including whether to even apply to the school.
Deep breaths. It matters to me that these bubble dwellers of white male privilege at least get popped a little bitty bit by someone, me, saying, not so fast, buddy. Not. So. Fast. My first impression – you spoilt brotherfuckers. I did say, ultimately, mid-debate, that given Clarkson remains overwhelmingly white and male, the new, chest-beating non-donor should consider chilling out, as his people are doing fine, and are very well-represented, as they are in general in our culture. White men continue to control the majority of the wealth in this country, as well as holding 70% of all local and federal legislative positions.
It’s not pie, I reminded my friend, as many before me have said. More rights or opportunities for others does not diminish your opportunities, or those (given these dudes are both in their mid-70s) of your grandchildren. What I didn’t say was grow up. Grow TF up. I will no longer stay silent in the face of your spoiled fucking privilege and petty stupidity. But, no. Instead all I said was that the world is changing, and I for one, am glad of it. Hell, Al Haig (remember that prick) spoke at my graduation, and some of us stood and gave him our backs. He wouldn’t be invited today, and that, surely, is a good thing, or at least – a sign of some change? Some progress, even if, without the longer lens of history in place, we can’t all see it? Sigh. One step at a time.
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward progress, said Martin Luther King. Yup. I could just wait for these old men to die off but – I am way too impatient for that level of long gaming it all. LOL.
*Given that the RNC and the majority of Republican voters have returned Don the Con to the top of the Republican Party – how about a few inspiring quotes to uplift or perhaps contextualize this insane moment in our politics. Why? Because I said so, also – it truly is insane right now. I mean – a brain worm? Mercury Poisoning? A porn star testifying to being coerced into sex by a former President while his pregnant wife was at home in another state? The GOP nominating a multiply indicted convicted sex offender?!! Are you getting residuals from your porn flicks? I thought Nixon was a weird AF creep, but his transgressions pale in light of our current crazy.
And then there’s Katie Britt – who we had hoped had disappeared into the woods – or wherever – of Alabama, never to return. Senator Britt has introduced legislation – co-sponsored by Little Marco Rubio of Florida and some guy I’ve never heard of – Senator Kevin Cramer of No. Dakota – that is truly insane: the “More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed bill (MOMS, and that sounds you hear is me gagging) – which would a create a federal database to collect all kinds of fascinating and helpful (to whom, exactly) stats and data on pregnant people.Oh hell no.The MOMS website would direct women and girls to enter their personal contact and other pertinent information; page three of the bill states that users can “take an assessment through the website and provide consent to use the user’s contact information”, which government officials may use “to conduct outreach via phone or email to follow up with users on additional resources that would be helpful for the users to review”.Oh hell NO.The bill (yes, there’s more) would also direct user to “pregnancy support centers” which are basically fronts for evangelical or Catholic pro-lifers giving women and girls mis- and disinformation, all to try and persuade pregnant people from seeking or obtaining abortions. The bill would also provide grants to anti-abortion non-profit organizations.
MAKE IT STOP, PLEASE
Deep breaths.I find little snippets of other people’s words comforting, inspiring, good, and – they often remind me of what really matters, nudging me toward a truth I already know but need to excavate, throw sunshine on once more. The first one, however, simply sums up the GOP’s POTUS nominee – for me – in a few short lines, and – well – nuff said. #VoteBlue ~ we’re not perfect but they’re nuts. And by the way, RFK Jr’s using the diminished capacity claims due to mercury poisoning and a brain worm to get out of paying larger support to his soon-to-be ex-wife during his divorce – is such a dick move. INSANE. Deep breaths.
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” – Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.” – RFK, Sr.
“Bush invited his constituency to be blind to the world’s real problems, and leftists often do the opposite, gazing so fixedly at those problems that they cannot see beyond them. Thus it is that the world often seems divided between false hope and gratuitous despair. Despair demands less of us, it’s more predictable, and in a sad way safer. Authentic hope requires clarity–seeing the troubles in this world–and imagination, seeing what might lie beyond these situations that are perhaps not inevitable and immutable.” – Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark
“Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.” – Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark
“When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” — Rep. John Lewis on seeking truth, justice, and equality, during the impeachment trial for US President Donald Trump
“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.”– Rep. John Lewis on what he learned from movement building in Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America
“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” – Nelson Mandela
“A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. The press must be free from state interference. It must have the economic strength to stand up to the blandishments of government officials. It must have sufficient independence from vested interests to be bold and inquiring without fear or favour. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens.” – Nelson Mandela
“A little integrity is better than any career.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
*from the archive and oh maybe the early 2000s? who knows at this point, but, in increments I will share and, knock wood, you will enjoy, this old-ish story. Mildred Jensen was an actual math teacher I had in middle school, she was tall and leggy, but everything else is entirely fictional here. I really liked her, a lot, even if – at the end of her career when I had her as an instructor – she was showing not only her age but the age of some of her ideas (boys are better at measuring things, for one).
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A friend, an acquaintance really, whose family bought eggs and milk from Mildred’s father, offered to drive her to the college, which his son was also attending, about to begin his second year. Her parents accepted the ride for their daughter gratefully; her mother helped her clean and pack one of the old bags they kept in the attic, which her belongings barely filled, even with the new dress, shoes and notebooks she had saved all year to buy. As the small college bound party pulled out of the dirt road that led to her home, Mildred was gripped with terror at the all that was ahead of her, all that would change because she was leaving her family, the farm, and all she had ever known, in this good place. She said little on the drive while her host and his son, a boy she barely knew, chattered gaily about the passing scenery and how the boy looked forward to seeing his college friends once more. Would she be as carefree and confident the following year? Would she make good, as she must?
Mildred boarded on campus in a small room she shared with two other girls like her, on scholarship, in a house where they would help serve breakfast and dinner to girls unlike themselves, girls who were paying full price for, as they joked, an MRS degree. It took Mildred more than a week to figure that out, feeling naïve and stupid when she did so, an unusual feeling for the smartest girl ever to come out of Gilberton. Yet she knew how lucky she was, dismissing those girls, and kept her head, listening in the dark while one of her roommates cried herself to sleep every night until abruptly she disappeared, going home for the weekend of Columbus Day never to return. The thought of giving up a scholarship, of abandoning one’s path, was appalling to Mildred, but then, unlike so many of the women she observed, she knew she was strong, she felt strong, inside and out, despite the terror of that first day, that first week, in this new place and her new life. And she was having fun; classes were large, larger than any she had ever taken before, the pace was faster, too, and yet all of it, all of it, was like a buffet of the very best kind, a buffet for the mind and spirit, the image of this, coming to her as she remembered church suppers back home, made her smile.
Over time she became friends with several other girls like herself, smart, strong, determined young women, determined to be teachers, to educate a nation. They had an important mission and they knew it; it was all part of the hushed anxiety of a time leading up to the war. Hitler, it was said, was hoping to outdo, outperform and out-invent the scientists and mathematicians of other western countries, especially England, France and the U.S. The message was clear, they all felt it, compete or die. She listened to the news on a small radio, belonging to the girl who had replaced the student who left, when, dishes and other chores done, they retreated to their room to read and do their homework. She’d always believed there was no point in worrying over what was coming, especially if you couldn’t do anything to stop it, although sometimes, crossing the campus, her heart broke just a little looking at the young men gathered here and there, laughing, trying to be as carefree as they could, knowing what might come.
Would her brother, as her father did for the Great War, leave the farm to serve? How could he not, if he were needed? And would he survive? Her younger brothers were both still in high school; surely all three boys would not, could not, be called up? Everyone – the boys and men in those groups, along with the editorials she occasionally read – said the war, if and when their turn to fight came, would soon be over, but one of her professors told the class ‘they always say that’; his son had died in the First World War, she later learned. His heartache over what was coming was palpable, and she dreaded what might be, what might happen, to those she loved, back home in the valley, her classmates new and old, and her silly young brothers. She rigorously said her nightly prayers, resolutely vowing to turn her eyes and mind back to something she could control: math and her other studies.
Graduating with honors, Mildred began her career in the fall of 1940, at a small rural central school in a town less than twenty miles from her childhood home, only ten miles from the county seat of Delville. She couldn’t believe, in those first weeks, that she was to be paid, and paid so much, to do the work she loved. This elation went away eventually, but she continued to feel very lucky, inspired and blessed, and blessed too that the building was new, well run, well kept, and filled with unfamiliar faces to know and, perhaps, befriend. And every day, she felt this, was an opportunity to make a difference, and if she sometimes grew impatient with some of the children, the ones who really and truly seemed to just not want to learn, she simply did what her mother had taught her all those years before, while churning butter or mixing soap from ashes and lye: take a deep breath and keep on ‘til it’s done.
*a poem by Alice Walker from 2011. Walkeris an activist, writer, poet, and all around powerhouse of a human being who came from nowhere – both of her parents were sharecropper in rural Georgia – and almost nothing to the pinnacle(s!!) of her profession. Best known for The Color Purple, her activism on many issues is also at the heart of who she is and how she views the world. I have linked her wiki page below. Enjoy, thanks for visiting, and happy Sunday…
My desire is always the same; wherever Life deposits me: I want to stick my toe & soon my whole body into the water. I want to shake out a fat broom & sweep dried leaves bruised blossoms dead insects & dust. I want to grow something. It seems impossible that desire can sometimes transform into devotion; but this has happened. And that is how I’ve survived: how the hole I carefully tended in the garden of my heart grew a heart to fill it.
