LesbianPrideNewsletter_v7.no8.2002.08.pdf
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- LesbianPrideNewsletter_v7.no8.2002.08.pdf
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Newuetter
Good, n.ew~7'014"'1.Ni!/
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VOLUMN VII, ISSUE 8, August 2002
©2002 MAKAW
Victory for local advocates
in Massachusetts
- US Newswire
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force joined with
local Massachusetts activists last month to celebrate their joint
success in defeating a right wing effort to pass an anti-gay constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage in the
state.
"The defeat of this anti-gay, anti-family amendment
shows how national organizations can effectively partner with
local activists to stand up for full equality for all gay, lesbian
bisexual and transgender people," said Lorri L. Jean, the Task
Force executive director. "No one, whether an agent of the government or of the radical religious right, should be in the business of punishing millions of same-sex partners for how they
choose to organize their own families. A government 'for the
people, by the people, and of the people' ought to serve everyone, and that means respecting and valuing our families
equally.
In July, a Constitutional Convention was held where a
joint session of the Massachusetts House and Senate voted 13753 to adjourn immediately without taking a vote on the controversial issue. The Constitutional Convention was called after
right wing groups collected the 130,000 signatures needed to
initiate the process of passing a constitutional amendment. To
appear on the ballot in November 2004, the ballot question
needed to be approved by 50 of the 200 elected representatives
2
and senators in the Massachusetts legislature before the twoyear legislative session ended July 31, and again during the
2003-2004session. If passed, the amendment would have made
same-sex marriages unconstitutional in Massachusetts and accord marriage benefits only to unions between one man and
one woman.
As an active member of MassEquality.org, a coalition of
local, statewide and some national organizations formed to defeat the amendment, The Task Force was significantly involved
from the outset of the campaign to defeat the question. In addition to providing ongoing support and technical assistance, the
Task Force:
- Trained 30 state activists in critical campaign strategy
and management. Many of these 30 later took on leadership roles in the campaign;
- By mobilizing its membership base in Massachusetts,
generated thousands of letters to Massachusetts state
legislators, urging them to vote against bringing the
question to the voters;
- Provided MassEquality.org with a cash contribution of
$18,000,making it one of the largest single donations
to the campaign.
"From Day one The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
has supported our effort to defeat this homophobic and misguided amendment," said Joshua Friedes, a board member of
MassEquality.org and political director of EqualMarriage.org,
one of the coalition's member organizations. ''They gave us the
skills to set up and run an effective campaign, they gave us
funding to help the campaign get off the ground, and they provided us with ongoing support and advice throughout the campaign."A
Foundedin 1973,the NationalGayand LesbianTaskForce
worksto eliminateprejudice,
violenceandinjusticeagainstgay, lesbian,bisexualand transgender
peopleat thelocal,stateandnational
level.As partofa broader
soda.Ijusticemovement
forfreedom,justice
andequality,NGLTFis creatinga worldthatrespectsandcelebrates
the diversityof humanexpression
andidentitywhereall peoplemay
fully participate
in society.
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9999W999W999W999W9999
GOLDENTHREADS
is a worldwide netw<Jrkdesigned to end tonelines.1
and isolation among mid.Ii&and Older Lesbians.
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Jfy dreams release new energy
into the world
I have the right to dream. I won't let the diffirulty of the
struggle for my cilil rights and acceptanoe of my sexual orientation make me settle for less than I deseroe. When I feel
1wpeless, I remind mysel.f that no one can t.ake away my
dreams. I nurturemy capacityto envision the world I want
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Today I imagine the person I long to be - perhops in a
different ooreer, behaving differently in my rel,ati.onshi.ps,doing what is really important to me. I see the "me" in my vision
as no 'better than w1w I am right rww, but as long as I am
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I fantasize about the world in which I want to live where I can walk safely after darli; where people smile at. me
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Go only as fast
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-RobynPosin
Rememberlngs and Celebrations
www.forlhelittleonesinside.com
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Dear Savvy Sappho - While visiting my local zoo, I noticed a woman
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DearQuizzical- Yes,unfortunatelythisis stealing.Pilferingseeds
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Dear Savvy Sappho - My girlfriend is always late for everything!
How can I get her to be more punctual? - Stewing In My Juices
DearStewing - Maybeyou'reearly!Slowyourselfdownby mentallyplacinganyappointment
witha latepersona halfan hourlater.
Or maybean hourlater,just toseehowtheyliketo bekeptwaiting...
- ss
This month's Sswy Sapphic Suggestionsfor Successful
Lesbian Uving by and C Stacy Chandler.If you have a question,
send it to SS % Makaw,PO Box 130, Tehachapi,CA 93561
LEO, July 23 - August 22
Come on out little cubby...
Frolic and play all about;
Hiding in your den
won't help your psyche out.
Warm yourself in the lime light Time to strut your clout/*
*BE WARNED - THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ABOVE DO NOT
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~h-t~il
by Lee Lynch
The Reluctant Gardener
I thought I bought a house, but what I really got was a
place to collapse after tending the two gardens that came with
it. I wanted a no-muss, no-fuss, no-maintenance home where
every week I could concentrate on getting my job out of the
way and get back to writing. There would be no lawn to mow,
no trees to gum up rain gutters with discarded leaves, no
hordes of flowers to deadhead. When I bought in mid-winter,
knowing nothing about gardens, I thought I was getting what I
wanted. Guess again.
How could I know that the previous owner was an urban
A woman who planted flowers that
gardener extraordinaire?
would bloom for most of the year, who knew how to get maximum growth out of soil laid atop plastic sheeting on a small
plot of land. "Ohl" the realtor and my friends exclaimed, "an
easy care gard,enl"Given that all I saw was a mess of dead stuff,
I believed them.
Naturally, this is the driest summer we're had here on the
coast in years. I search weather reports for a sign that rain is on
the horizon, but usually it's only me on the horizon, hose in
hand. I can't let the poor little roses die, can I? Or the galloping
fuchsia, or the out-of-controlpatches of lavender and sage.
I bought a hose. I went back to the store and bought a
sprinkler to attach to my hose. Then I went back to the store
and got washers to fix the leaky connections.Every other night
when I go out to water (I refuse to give in to the African daisies'
demand for nightly watering) I'm ambushed. Either I don't accurately anticipate the arcs of water it throws, or this yellow
grinning sprinkler-demon changes direction at sight of me. I'm
going to start keeping towels out there so the neighbors will
think this is how I prefer to shower - fully clothed, glasses
dripping, Birkssloshing.
One of the~ttractions of the coast for me has always been
the profusion of vegetation. I'd never seen anything so gloriously lush. Leaves the size of kayaks, bushes and vines that
with no suppression would crowd out western civilization in
8
weeks. Now that I have to hack through them to take out the
trash, I'm not quite as charmed.
A gardener must be ruthless here, stripping the fence of
ivy before the ivy rots the fence and yanking out new fernlets
that will steal sunlight from delicate columbine. I'm told I'll
have to - quote - cut the shit out of - unquote - the boisterous rock rose that threatens to take over the garage door. Because the Martha Stewart of gardeners somehow got me to pay
her for the privilege of taking on her work also trained the rhododendron into a sturdy tree, I'll have to saw off its extraneous
limbs come fall (It's probably growing Godzilla-sized roots
under my foundation as I write this).
I'm one of those suckers who escorts spiders outside
rather than kill them. If the violets get rowdy enough to impinge on the primroses I'll have to find it in my heart to weed
some out or give them away or move them.
Weed? Do I dare to write the word? Weeds spring up
literally overnight and grow an inch a day. It's a full-time job
distinguishing them from planned plants, then rooting them
out. When I can find their roots. I am not my grandmother,
who devoted a good part of her retirement ridding her lawn of
crab grass; even she could not have subdued this local bindweed. It's puny and spineless, coiling itself around anything it
can find - other plants, stalks of grass, even itself - and races
to the top, sending off trailers to smother innoomt asters and
sharp holly leaves, proclaiming itself victorious with its morning glory-likewhite bloom at the top of the flowering quince.
And that's just the front garden. In back are a butterfly
bush that chokes me with a powdery substance, garlic plants
lined up like a troop of aliens staring in my windows, strawberries so appealing to hungry bugs that I'm forced to share, poppies that won't bloom, and more weeds that do nothing but.
Caring friends have deaned up, pruned, weeded, uncovered. Grateful as I am, I heard them teaching me as they did so
because in the end, this is not a community garden, but dam it,
my garden, and I'll have to fend for myself...and for all my new
dependents: the hosta, the calla lilies, the tarragon, the violas,
impatiens, snapdragon;, geraniums, iris, tulips, daff-Odils,
beach rose, pinks, verbena, rosemary and the unidentified surprises yet to arrive, all determined to get my hands into their
e 2002IM
Lyndl2002
soil and to root me right alongside them.
9
Beautiful_Battlefields
Sunset rolls across the stage of the backyard and sprays a
flaxen wash of light across the bean field and the soft face of a young
womon sitting on the top step of the old veranda. She is silent and sad
and we are just sitting. There is nothing to do but rock. There is nothing for this pain she is experiencing but time. She cannot drink, she
cannot find a pill, she cannot find a way out of what's before her except for the letting of a few tears when it becomes overwhelming.
Other than that there is nothing for her but to go right down the middle of this thing and see if, with the help of some old friends, she can
get by. Rooster crows and Mr. Duck nibbles at her sandal buckle. A
kitten crawls in her lap. She weeps.
She's young and she's inexperienced in the ways of the romantic world and the tribulations that lie inside it. She no more saw this
coming than a baby bird saw the cat, or the cat saw the car or the car
saw the train. She just got smashed into one day. She didn't recognize
the signs. That takes time and experience. She's having her very first
heart break and the back porch is the trauma unit.
A million metaphors come to mind to describe her devastation:
train wrecks, falls, drownings, burns, illness, cancer, heart break, fever. There isn't a human ailment that doesn't apply here and we laugh
a little as I point that out to her and then try and give her a few clues
about what to expect. I'm not a doctor, but I know this place and I've
been through the middle and out the backside many times. I'm not a
victim or a fool or a bad person. Neither is my young friend. Dysfunctional, unhealthy, codependent? Oh, I don't know. Maybe, but I like
to refer to ourselves as warriors. It's more positive, more hopeful.
Warriors occasionally beat the odds and triumph.
It's been a long time since I had to see the face of devastation,
look into the sad eyes of romantic despair. She's so young sitting
there with her back against a post resting on the top step looking at
her hands, sniffing back the congestion from her distressed sinuses. I
feel a strong desire to help this pup of a kid, but what can I do?
Reaching back in my memory I try to recall what I used to do
when I was in a break up. Actually I remember developing a list of
do's and don'ts. I could give her those though she's not really in a
thoughtful mood. Maybe I could make a list and she could read it
later. First off I'd put at the top of the list You Must Not See Her Anymore. That's essential, basic stuff, and one of the major stumbling
12
blocks in the beginning. It's also one of the reasons this little dummy
is having such a tough old time tonight. She keeps going back in, calling, trying to see if they can work things out. And it's so over; the
object of her affection has made this clear. I think to myself, "It took
you days to get where you were and you blew it in one phone call." I
guess she'll repeat that pattern several more times until the part of her
more interested in living overrides the part of her more interested in
loving. Once she gets in touch with that part, real healing can begin.
Second thing I'd tell her is to make sure to get plenty of rest to
help avoid those wrenching crashes. She needs to build upon the centered, even-keel moments she has. There's a chemistry in the body for
every mood and she should build upon the moments she's feeling
okay. Every time this kid gets to feeling okay she reaches for the
phone or drives by the ex's house. That's so self destructive, but that's
what you do when you're young and don't know better.
And she doesn't need to cry every day. Yesterday it made her
feel better so she thought she'd try and cry it all out today, but it backfired and just left her exhausted and raw. Sometimes crying can be a
tricky business. You cry at first, you're amazed at the relief. Next
time you cry, you're amazed at the pain.
The right music can help, too. She needs to find herself a good
song to play over and over in her head as her own personal recovery
anthem. I used to use Steve Earle's Fearless Heart. It goes: I got me a
fearless heart/Strong enough to get you through the scary parts/It's
been broken many times before/A fearless heart just comes back for
more ... Or Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive: I will survive/As long as J
know how to love I know I'll stay alive ...
These are the kind of songs she ought to be playing in her head,
NOT Roy Orbison and K.D. Lang singing Crying. Not Paul
McCartney singing Yesterday. She shouldn't go anywhere near Unchained Melody or Samuel Barber's Adagio For Strings, Sinead
O'Connor's Nothing Compares To You. She needs music to heal by.
Music that bolsters her heart instead of pummels it. Warrior songs.
And then somehow, some way, she needs to find a way to
laugh. She won't believe me when I tell her this. She'll want to
wretch, but honestly, if she could actively seek out a funny video, or
visit a comedy club, get herself around a little kitten that chases its
tail, or a little puppy that falls over its paws, she could hasten her recovery tenfold. Laughter is the yoga of good mental health. It massages the psyche, clears out stuffy motor neuron pathways, makes the
synapses fire white-hot. It's amazing the physical effect that laughter
can have on a body.
The worst advice I'll give her is to get another girlfriend as
soon as humanly possible. You know that stuff they tell you about er
13
~i
1
how love on the rebound is bad and how you ought to wait until
you're healed or figured out what went wrong? Well don't. Don't
wait. My goodness if I bad waited until I had healed from all my relationships I got myself in as a kid, I'd still be waiting. Sure, a little
time alone, a period of self reflection is good, but years offl It was
when I was engaged with others, trying to live with them in the form
of romantic relationships that I learned some of the most valuable
lessons about myself. Living with people makes for great challenges.
Romance can be an opportunity to develop healthier behaviors. I got
to know a lot of things about myself and other people. And boy oh
boy did I learn how to break up and make a list of do's and don'ts for
recovering from a broken heart.
But unfortunately with all my experience in the area of heartbreak, I have to admit that every single time it happened it was still
miserable. There is no magic pill, silver bullet, or correct way to hold
the mouth. You still have to wait for the requisite passage of time
before you feel good again - no matter what you do. The other stuff
just helps a little.
And now she rises to leave and I take her in my arms in a big
hug, and then hold her out at arms length and chide her, "So you got
your heart broken. My goodness me, aren't you something? And think
about itl You were very brave. No sitting on the sidelines for you. No!
You were out there on the battlefield of love, engaged in this life, gettin' after it You took the risks, bad trials by fire, ascended great
mountains, crossed the desserts, lost your way - for a little while,
maybe. But that's okay. You'll make it You will feel better againone day. And one day, I bate to tell you this-you will love again."
At this she winces and we laugh there together as the sun
shines down and tinges everything with gold upon our beautiful battlefield. ~ ~
0 2002LesterMcGtrl
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