What Will We Do When We're No Longer Outsiders?

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Death and Art Propel Big Questions This Weekend

At the funeral of our neighbor Megan of blessed memory earlier today, bookmarks-as-mementos sat next to the guestbook. One of them featured a girlhood photo of Megan and a quote: "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." -- Wayne Dyer

The quotation reminded me of some insights shared with me earlier this weekend, and how I might change the way I look at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) identity.

Last night, with our friends David & Gerard, I attended a lecture by Jonathan Katz, the co-curator of Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture. Most of the works he featured in his slideshow included metaphors and symbols and codes that were dense and tense and rich for eyes that could recognize the homosexual subtext of them; in a number of cases, Jonathan Katz decoded them for us, as a number of them were subtle.

As I watched and listened, I was touched by the artists' ability to make visible to any degree a segment of society that between 1898 and 1991, and even still, today, depending on where in the world we live, typically was marginalized, stigmatized or at the very least, in the shadows.

During the Q&A afterward, I asked, "What happens when LGBT artists are no longer outsiders?"

Jonathan Katz said, "Other differences will emerge....It will not be central to their themes."

I was shaken by this answer. And I told David and Gerard so after walking through the exhibit together.

Gerard: "He was saying something hopeful, I thought, like that even heterosexual artists might include us as subjects and we'd just be more visible."

Me: "Maybe I'm too literal, but I don't ever want to be lesbian just incidentally. It's part of my core identity."

David: "I'm literal, too, but maybe assimilation's not so bad. I mean, isn't it nice being married now?" (He meant, he to Gerard and me, to Pat.)

"Yes, *so* nice. Your use of the word 'assimilation' helps me a bit because it reminds me of some alarmist Jews in my community who say that Jews will disappear if we assimilate too much, and yet, we've been here for 3,000+ years. I don't really think we're gonna disappear, since we've hung on for this long."

Dance? No, Lurk Around the Margins.

We said goodbye, since I was ready to go home, while they wanted to linger at the exhibit a bit longer. Making my way toward the exit, I found a free dance party on the third floor of the museum.

Oh, the music was so good with Rhianna's voice bouncing off the paintings in the nice and dim, cavernous room. I was nearly ready to enter the dance floor and move alone among the crowd, which likely would have been fine had I not been too shy.

I wished that Pat were with me, so that I'd have a partner. It struck me that no one would even notice us; in fact, we might stand out more so for being older than most of the crowd, rather than for being a same-sex couple -- to Jonathan Katz's earlier point. After "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics played, I slunk away to my car in the parking lot. When that song was first popular, I was most of the dancers' ages, and I just owned a bicycle and a subway pass, and a radio/tape-deck I got as a premium for opening a bank account.

Driving home, I thought, Oh, no! Have I become like the lesbian separatists who used to alienate me when I was first getting involved in the gay community in the late-'80s? Who thought that "womyn"-only spaces were supreme while I thought they were unappealing and even obsolete as a group due to their insularity?

There's an analogy, right? AIDS and other societal realities made lesbian separatism untenable back then, just like today, staunchly gay, lesbian, bi or transpeople were misguided whenever we ghetto-ized ourselves, smothering ourselves with an insecurity blanket; more and more polls showed that younger people weren't half as discriminatory as previous generations, so why did any of us hang on so fiercely to separateness and outsider status?

Still, the chip on my shoulder had become comfy after all these years of hauling it and the prospect of heeding Wayne Dyer's/Megan's advice to change my thinking was scary. Earlier today, I spoke with a heterosexual relative, to tell her of my new confusion around my identity, and of my fear of losing my minority status and as usual, she had great on-the-spot wisdom in response:

Sarah, you don't have to be ghetto-ized or Marrano-like anymore [in this area of the world]. And compared to Jews, I think there's less of a chance of LGBT assimilation causing the end of LGBT people, since you won't intermarry.... And in any case, don't worry that you'll lose your identity when people stop being hateful, as there will always be hateful people; there are persistent taboos in every stripe, like unwed mothers. There's always someone who will make sex dirty.... Sex is the engine for intrigue and betrayal and murder and art and politics.... Your sort of desire won't disappear just because it's more so accepted. It will simply be less underground, which should be good, right?

We Are All Outsiders.

In 1998, two years after Pat & I moved in to our neighborhood, Megan, Steve and their young son Ben moved in three houses down from us. I never brought them a house-warming gift, or any food or drink. Never invited them over. Promptly forgot their names as soon as Megan introduced her family and herself to us one day in the street. Thereafter, Megan would drive by us while we were raking leaves or gardening and would always wave. Whenever she had her car-window down, she'd address us by name, and I always felt bad that I had to try to stretch "Hi" into a multi-syllable word, since I was too embarrassed to ask Megan to tell me her name again.

Every time she passed us, she smiled whole-heartedly at us, but after all, what did we have in common with a woman who had a husband and a young kid? So why bother to be friendlier and learn more about her by talking with her? When other neighbors with whom we've been friendly since we've moved in, called to tell us of Megan's sudden death from a massive heart attack the other night, first, I was relieved and ashamed finally to know her name, but then realized that I'd lost the chance of ever being friendlier with her.

What did we have in common? Through loving eulogies from her husband, son, brother and best friends, I learned what I never bothered to find out from her while she was alive: One of only two other families in the neighborhood (that I know of), Megan's family and she were Jewishly-affiliated, attending High Holiday services and bar mitzah'ing their son, who was now 18 -- our nephew and niece's age...like Pat & me, originally, Meg & Steve spotted each other across a room...like part of Pat's heritage, Meg's was French-Canadian...and volunteered from the early days, helping PWA's (People with AIDS), and so likely saw a number of friends die over the early years, like we did. And probably, we'll never discover how much more we might have had in common. It's just ironic, and tragic, how I was so busy, being shy of a stereotypically nuclear family, that I didn't stop to consider that Megan and her family felt like outsiders in the neighborhood initially, which we could have softened by being friendlier.

The other bookmark-as-memento that sat next to Megan's funeral-guestbook had an adult photo of Megan, smiling the smile I recognized, and the quote associated with it came from the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke: "This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess."

Embarrassed!

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

And It's Personal!

A few weeks ago, my partner Pat and I saw Debra Winger and her husband Arliss Howard, having a conversation on stage about her memoir. It looked nearly effortless. Afterwards, Pat and I approached Arliss Howard because he's the older brother of one of my friends and colleagues from IBM, Joy.

Tonight, I had an experience that reminded me of the same shyness that Joy's brother seemed to exhibit when we said hello to him, following the program; I might understand that "shyness" a bit now, or maybe he didn't feel at all like what I'm about to describe:

My hands were shaking, my voice was stuck in my throat along with tears that made my Adam's apple feel like it could burst. I careened into a wall in the ladies room. I was spent, totally drained. I looked in the mirror. My hair looked better than it had all day. My face, prettier. Still, I was shaken.

Arts Support Group?

Recently, I joined a support group for artists, where we're all there to encourage one another unconditionally, to be exclusively positive. Tonight, all of us were eligible to bring any of our art -- singing, writing, painting, playing an instrument, a short film... -- for 10-15 minutes of display and discussion each.

I brought the blog-posting I wrote on the 23rd, last week, and a painting I did of my father, which I wrote about here a few weeks ago. It was my first time, displaying my art with human beings physically present.

Afterwards, I felt wildly shy. My voice was strong as I read, though I hardly looked up at anyone for the five-minute duration -- and just before I began, the women I knew the best and who were among the artists I respected most all announced they needed to leave right after I spoke, to relieve their babysitters...so there'd be no feedback from any of them. Oh well, too late. I had to go ahead and do my demo. Maybe somebody else would be kind.

In fact, one guy was amazing because he told me how he related -- that he appreciated my honesty about my first kiss, and how he could identify with what I wrote, and also could identify with the painting I did of my father; it reminded him of unresolved stuff with his dad, about how his dad died in poor health, too. I thought, Phew! Someone else who's gay in the room, and who has a dad whose loss he can't get over, too.

And then he sang an original song with his guitar, a really lusty song, about a woman with whom he wanted to be intimate. And I was thrown. And afterwards, another artist with whom I feel especially akin told me he marveled at how I could chronicle my life. "If you ever forget anything, you can just go back to your blog and look it up."

I smiled like I was about to cry and said, "Yeah, I'll be all set if I ever get amnesia."

He said, seeing I was sad, I think, "Well, I better let you go have dinner before you keel over," as a few minutes prior, I had registered my hunger and that I needed to go home and eat dinner.

Descending the stairs, I was full of self-pity, asking myself, Why does my stuff have to be so very personal? Why does the appeal have to be so limited? Why can't I write a best-seller, something that people would delight in, or be utterly moved by.

What if it it's raining? That'll be the finale! How would I get the painting to the car without damaging it?

When I opened the door to the church, it wasn't raining. It was simply getting dark. It was hot and late-twilight and I walked myself to my car, panting a bit, willing the sobbing to come, but it was stuck.

And then I came home and Pat had made gorgeous scallops and we watched a taped episode of "Mad Men," my favorite TV show, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the headline about how much money "Bat Man" took in and thought about this show with its genius writing that I was watching, and again, asked myself the stairway questions.

"It's so personal, and honest," said the lusty singer about my art. I want it to be more than honest. I want it to be appealing. What if the art is the honesty, though? What if that's my differentiator? Why can't I just allow myself to give the gifts I have, rather than wishing I had other gifts?

Please, God, let me appreciate what I contribute to the world and not wish to contribute something fundamentally different. It is good enough, and special in its own way.

"The Bliss of Struggle"

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Learning to Welcome It

"That's what's so great about friends, who have known you for a long time," said my sister Deb, "They can compare you with the you of years ago."

She was referring to the conversation I'd had at dinner last night with Riva Lehrer, a friend with whom I had a romance, pre-Pat, 17 years ago, and a preeminent artist in the disability culture, who said to me before getting out of my car, "I haven't seen you for a decade and you've accomplished so much in that time, and yet you sound the same as back then -- so self-dissatisfied."

"My mother's always telling me, 'Sarah, why don't you let yourself live?'"

My friend made a disapproving face and said, "I don't mean that you should change, but rather that you should make art out of those feelings....It's the bliss of struggle."

"The bliss of struggle! I love that. Did you make it up?"

"I think so."

"I do try to channel it into my writing, but I've also felt ashamed of the struggle, too. Pat has a T-shirt that I wear; it features a quote from Frederick Douglass, 'Without struggle, there is no progress.'"

"I read something that appealed to me that said, 'An artist has to be at home with embarrassment,' [so that the shame is usable, rather than paralyzing]."