Madonna is 49 Today

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"Hey You; Jump; Holiday"

I love Radio Indigo, which during my commute home, played these three songs in celebration of Madonna's birthday. Madonna is inspirational. I have to design some leadership development content for an upcoming program and I'll try to channel her creativity.

During my freshman year of college, in 1983, my older sister Deb tried to get me to pay attention to Madonna, giving me an album and telling me that she thought Madonna would be big, but the album cover was too girly and I didn't even listen to the music till it hit the radio.

After the Madonna tribute Radio Indigo played a beautiful song I'd never heard in the States, but which was a hit elsewhere in 1994 by a singer I love, Neneh Cherry, "Seven Seconds;" she collaborated on it with a French singer I had never before heard of.

At moments like that, when I'm exposed to exquisite cultural treats that I've not been in the United States, I'm especially grateful to be on this assignment.

Surpassing Literally Kindred Spirits

I heard one more song I'd never heard before and just tried to trace it on Google. It was by Alanis Morrisette and included the lyrics, "We'll fast-forward to a few years later; No one knows except the both of us; I have only your request for silence; And you've washed your hands clean of this...." The words I thought I heard during the song also included, "You're so pretty when you're all done up," and so I thought, How great. A song about a woman, loving another woman, even if it's a secret....I'll take what I can get.

I know I kvetch/complain about feeling isolated from a lesbian community while we're in India and I must admit it's self-imposed, as it turns out that since Pat is with me this time, it's not basic on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs for me to re-connect with or to find lesbians with whom to hang out.

"Pat, wouldn't it be great if there were another lesbian couple here at Palm Meadows?" I asked her as we left the pool yesterday, "Like Ale[jandra] and Barb, when we lived in St. Charles [Illinois]?"

"Don't count on it."

Recently, we saw a woman here, running for exercise, who looked like she could be lesbian, whatever that means, but....

Maybe I wrote about this already, but I think that that's the properly stretching part of being Jewish and lesbian in India. It's like having been western in India before western radio, TV and Web media and programming were available insofar as we are more likely to learn from non-Jewish, non-gay, -lesbian -bi or -transgender people because they're more readily available, like westerners were more likely to experience Indian cultural entertainment before any other sort was available in parallel.

Several weeks ago, I met a Jew here. I spoke to him because he was wearing a kippah/yalmulke. I was so excited to see his kippah, and then it was anticlimactic; I didn't feel we had much in common, other than that he had friends whose kids had gone to the same Jewish day school as I had, growing up.

I feel so much closer and more kindred with a number of Indian friends and colleagues here. And that's an important reminder: Just because someone affiliates with my particular religion or sexual orientation or culture or country does not mean we have much more than that in common.