Kvelling on Pride Weekend

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

GLBT Pride and More

This month's theme and celebration inspires me to list what I'm proud of:

• Pat and I have a positive, long-lasting relationship -- 18 years next month
  
• Two summers ago, I agreed to adopt sister-cats, Phoebe and Toonces, not having grown up with pets, and apparently, they love us and are happy in our home
  
• Our nephews and niece are fond of me
  
• My mother, sisters and I are close, and mostly, we let one another be ourselves
  
• My work and most recent schooling is dedicated to helping people learn
  
• I've earned a 4.0 so far, and am two-thirds of the way through a Master's program at Columbia University's Teachers College while working full time...when I didn't even believe I'd be admitted
  
• I am relatively athletic and fit
  
• I blog and am able to express myself openly
  
• Even if it's droll more often than I'd like, I have a good sense of humor
  
• You can count on my honesty
  
• I have color- and style-sense
  
• Healthy eating has been a 20-year commitment so far
  
• Even when my opinions or beliefs are not popular, typically, I speak up
  
• Creativity, enthusiasm and bravery fuel my sense of possibility, which leads to a willingness to experiment and take risks
  
• Pat and I have made a nice home together, which I enjoy living in and walking around.
  

Flickering Lights

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

Lending Urgency to My Blogging Desire

Will we have a power failure during this first bit of 2009 snow? Will I be able to complete my blog-entry before the lights and network shut off?

Will I have enough time to write about how a friend feels that I can help him achieve immortality?

And how sisterly and overwhelming at the same time it felt to go to a Korean spa with my two sisters last weekend, being naked in front of one another for the first time ever in one case and in another, for the first time, since childhood, and also in front of a number of gorgeous strangers?

Will I be able to write about my sadness at my mother's transition to car-less-ness? Even as I know it's safer? And even as I consider what a big change it is for someone like her, who has been such a free spirit historically?

Will I manage to express the pleasure I felt, reading about Meredith Baxter in "People" magazine, including the sweet pix with her partner and children? Will I be able to explain why the pleasure is a mix of team-spirit pride and desire? Will I be able to describe how she was a vague object of childhood attraction for me, ever since "Bridget Loves Bernie?"

Will I have time to express the depth of my nostalgia for the neighbors who were my childhood friends, their parents, pets and lovely nanny? All prompted by a Facebook exchange earlier today with the friend who is my age and who also recalled our winter-time fun together?

How can I blog about all of that before the lights go out and the network goes down? Or before my appetite for dinner distracts me too much to continue...which it is now doing?

NYC Pride Parade

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

Near 14th Street in the Village, I saw a woman sobbing as she looked at our synagogue's parade banner and the huge contingent of us, marching along with the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). She was shaking and tears streamed down her face. Her mascara was getting wrecked.

She was in her early-20s and pretty, with long, wavy, sandy-blond hair. There was a taller, attractive woman, standing behind her, holding her. If I had passed her in, say, the Short Hills Mall, I wouldn't have picked her as a member of the LGBT community, though probably wouldn't have been surprised that she was Jewish. She reminded me of a late-adolescent version of my niece's female classmates.

Excusing myself from my fellow-marchers, including Pat, I walked back over to her. Not yet knowing what I would say to comfort her, I just held out my hand to shake hers.

My sunglasses shaded my eyes and I wished I had removed them, so that we would have made full eye-contact. Still, I found something to say: "I went to a [Modern Orthodox Jewish] day school [and I imagine you must have done so, too]."

"I *teach* at a day school," she said.

Oy, no wonder she was in pain. She was at the parade with her girlfriend, but likely was not able to be herself in all her humanity at the day school because perhaps she feared losing her job if she were.

I held her hand for long enough to feel that mine was warmer from the heat of marching, and that she was glad to have the contact from someone who was openly lesbian and openly Jewish at once.

It's my hope that my face had a compassionate expression when I shook her hand further and said, "Be well. Zay gezunt (Be healthy)."

It would be wonderful if she were moved to say the Shehecheyanu prayer in honor of today, and ultimately could feel peace.

One of the terrific songs that both of our choruses sang together as we marched down Fifth Avenue was, "Od yavo shalom aleinu...v'al kulam (Peace will yet come to us...and to everyone)."

This year, we marched together with MCC, as our rabbi and MCC's reverend both were chosen to be grand marshalls of the parade. The crowd loved our unity. My ears still hear their cheering.

How have you reconciled, or how are you reconciling, elements of your complex identity?