14 May 2011

It was a beautiful breezy day today. I went and sat outside with my dog, trying to figure out the new Nevada Culture Grants Online site, and discovered the grant proposal I'm writing is due sooner than I thought.

I took a brief afternoon nap with the wind blowing the tree against the house, which is a bit disconcerting although I've heard it so often. I think afternoon naps or rest time are what I'll remember most about this house--the afternoon sun coming in through the white blinds, making my room practically glow. Today is was more dappled and shaded with the blowing locust tree branches, and the room stayed cooler.

When I have time to lie and ponder things, I can feel stressed by all there is hanging over my head with this house. The thought occurred to me, as it often does, that I'm not really where I want to be, this isn't how I thought life would be. Simultaneously with this thought, usually, is remembering the hopefulness of youth when I knew I wasn't where I wanted to be, but there was always so much potential. So today I almost immediately asked myself where did I think I'd be at this point, and why, and why would I think I'm not in that place? I wanted to be married with children and a career, and here I am with at least part of that, right? I have a 13 year old and an 8 year old, they are doing well in school, I have a dog now to occupy my time, I have many volunteer opportunities, and I keep practicing my music.

The fantasies I had I still have, and they are for fun, they weren't any kind of life plan, honestly. I watched the series finale of Desperate Housewives last night, then I watched the last videos of my mom's time on earth. One of the characters mentioned that what is said about middle age is that your dreams for the future become your memories of the past. I had never heard that before. I've always lived with nostalgia for the past as well as dreams for the future. I'm not sure either one really has much bearing on reality, other than the reality of how I exist in my brain.

I had another thought yesterday, which is that people enjoy things that aren't pretty. When I think of the discordancy and noise of the music people find powerful and meaningful, beauty isn't a priority. Maybe that's why people do actually like me, although I am not beautiful.

10 May 2012

A friend just posted on facebook about how someone called her a breeder. I was thinking of all the responses one could give to that, some of which are quite offensive. I'm capable of being quite offensive, I just try not to be most of the time.

Breeder!
Why yes I am...and you? -or-
Thanks! Sterile? -or-
Why bless your heart, sugar, did God curse your womb with barrenness?

this one could potentially lead to: I made a choice to to have children which you could follow up with I made a choice not to be an asshole, but we might have different priorities.

Breeder!
ohmygosh, Jack Russells, how did you know?!? squeal Are you a potential client? Do you want my business card?

Breeder!
with a disgusted air: You anti-choice zealots make me sick!

Breeder!
Yep. As were your parents. Did they make the right decision?

Breeder!
Yes, like many biological entities, I am capable of reproducing. Thanks for noticing something so obvious, I like remembering just how statistically normal I am.

Breeder!
Yep, and I breastfeed too--ask my about my reduced cancer risk, I can't wait to tell you all about it!

Breeder!
Thanks, but we prefer the term GIVER AND SUSTAINER OF LIFE!

My friend's response was that she is proud to be raising children who already have more class than she ever will.

9 May 2012

I'm a Christian, let's get that clear right off the bat. I was baptized in the Presbyterian Church when I was 5 and 1/2. I was confirmed as a teen, and I've made a number of choices over the years to stick with Christ. I do love Jesus, so you can have my Christ when you pry him out of my cold, dead hands. But I'm the kind of Christian that feels like the Bible is too obviously influenced by humans, mostly males; the books that didn't make it in and did make it in influenced by humans, also mostly males. I tried reading the Bible as a child, and I always gave up. My husband read the Bible twice, first the King James and then the New International Version. He's not a believer, he's pretty much an atheist--maybe that's what reading the Bible through on your own gets you. He believes people can benefit from religious practice, as do I. And we both believe that religion can, has and will continue to kill. Religion is like anything other forms of humans attempting to organize, which is to say easily corrupted. The religion you have is almost always the product of your own cultural and tribal influences, or the result of trying to get away from those and being drawn to something that speaks to you internally.

I have core values, I know what I believe, and it *is* very important to me. And still I say I'm a Christian. People don't think I'm the right religion, so they tell me the good news of their own belief system. There are atheists doing atheist evangelism, telling me that if I don't believe everything the way it is written in the specific version of the Bible they quote, that I'm not a Christian. That I should give up the madness. There are other Christians telling me the same, but that I should repent and follow their truth. I've had LDS missionaries coming to my house for awhile, asking me to be baptized in their church, asking me to pray and God would show me the truth. I went to their church, it was nice, but when I prayed ll that happened was I dreamed that LDS missionaries were breaking into my house and coming in through my windows to try and kill me. It was a manifestation of the stress I felt, so I asked them to stop coming. I had Jehovah's Witnesses coming to my home for 2 years--that was how long it took me to get through the first book about what the Bible really teaches. I thought that by the end of it, I would either convert or become an atheist. But here I am, still a Presbyterian, understanding finally why the JW's have a problem with me.

So gay marriage: I wasn't raised knowing what being gay was. I amazingly didn't find out until I was in middle school, and kids were using it as a slur. I went home and asked my dad what being gay meant. He told me that it was when a man loved another man and or when a woman loved another woman. He said it in a way that I didn't mention sex, but left no question in my mind that he meant in a marrying way (although I didn't know it at the time, my father believed that if two people were living together and were having sex, they were married). I'm not sure I said anything other than I didn't know that existed. He didn't offer any further commentary. I have at least one friend who said he was raised knowing that being gay was wrong because of what it said in the Bible. Because he was gay, it was harmful to him as a kid. I told him I never picked up on the fact that the Bible said it was wrong.

Hadn't I read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, yes, many times. I never knew it had anything to do with same sex sex. In fact, this was the part of the Bible where I often gave up. Lot offers up his virgin daughters to the rampaging crowd. Then later his wife gets turned into a pillar of salt? What the heck? And if a woman is raped in town, she gets stoned to death. That was where I actually threw the Bible down on the floor in a huff. I was about 12 at the time. Yes, I read Sodom and Gomorrah a bunch of times, and the fact that the men wanted to have relations with the angels didn't seem strange to me. And from the Jehovah's Witnesses, I found out that angels did have sex with human women, and that's where the Nephilim came from, and God prohibited that from happening again. So the fact that humans and angels would have sex was a big no no however you sliced it.

As a teen, I still knew nothing about homosexuality, other than I knew I didn't want to be that way and was thankful that I wasn't, especially as a fat teen who felt completely exposed and hated. I was somewhat sympathetic to people who were, because I didn't see it as their fault, but I only thought there were 2 guys I knew who fit that description. AIDS became big news in the mid-80's, and network news magazine type shows did segments on flamboyant queers who had sex openly in parks. I was not impressed, I didn't get the need for anyone to flaunt any sexual activity.

In my second semester of college, 1985, I had to do a research paper for a writing class. I ended up doing it on gay rights. The material in the Alderman stacks was somewhat dated, but I learned a lot of things I hadn't know neverthelss. I read about the Stonewall Inn riot and the Rev. Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church. He went around marrying gay couples within that church. At that point I decided that if people can have religious commitment ceremonies tying them together, then there was no reason to deny them the legal right to do this. Our civil law shouldn't follow one particular set of religious beliefs, especially if they were discriminatory. And that's really how simple it was for me. I wasn't even sure I liked a lot of the people I was reading about. The last thing I read was a poem where the author wished the reader was gay so we could see what it was like to crave the flesh of our own sex. Annoyed, I shut the book with finality and returned them all to the library, wrote my paper where I basically came down in favor of gay rights including marriage.

Later I went home and asked my sister if she supported gay rights, and we talked about it. We had never talked about gay issues before, but we decided we should raise our kids knowing that some people are gay and that's not a problem. And that's what we've done. I've never tried to assume that heterosexuality is the only option for them, even though the majority of human beings are. I became active in gay rights protesting in school, and mainstreaming was my thing. It often wasn't for my gay friends. Gay marriage wasn't usually the leading point, although the clear evidence that same sex couples lacked basic human rights because of not having something like marriage.

Nowaday gay marriage is a big issue, and many people aren't afraid to come out in favor of it, at least on the Internet. Meanwhile the rest of the people are busy passing amendments to state constitutions trying to ban it. And because of that, our President said that he is in favor of it. Ultimately it's a good sign, it's a sign of change happening that people don't like, and people pulling out last gasp efforts to keep things the way they were. But eventually, those of us who raised their children to believe being gay isn't a moral failing will have a bigger and bigger influence, and the unthinkable will become possible. I'm just sorry it won't help the people who need it now.

2 May 2012

This day was my elder daughter's 13th birthday. I was driving to the hospital for a breastfeeding coalition meeting, wondering if the hospital had any bulletin boards where I could post a flyer for her choir concert. I was thinking of the power the choir has to make me cry, not necessarily because of the subject matter, although that is part of it, but because of the sweetness of their voices working together. The fact that they come together every week to practice, and they work at it, and learn their song, and learn their parts, and cooperate with one another, and blend their voices, and make something beautiful that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. And, for the most part, my daughter doesn't even have an awareness of this. She often doesn't like going to choir rehearsal. She feels annoyed if people do a part incorrectly. She doesn't like the dress, she's not necessarily a performer. But she interprets the songs with the facial expressions she thinks are proper. She doesn't cry when she sings the songs, she thinks about what she's doing along with the other children, and then those who are lucky enough to be listening can hear the totality of it. I wish more of Reno could value hearing them.

29 December 2011

Today I was thinking, as I often do, about how I never update this blog. And I never will, I'll never be a blogger. Really, I'll never be that much of anything, I prefer to be a little bit of many things and some activities require too much depth of entry. I'd like to be a writer, but I doubt I'll ever even finish my one novel. I'd like to be a musician, possibly a music teacher, but I suppose that will never happen either. So here we are, the end of another year, with my only other entry from 2011 being almost a year ago. Nothing like a Christmas holiday and end-of-the-year sentimentality to drag something out of a person.

In Reno news, the weather is humid and warmish, temperatures in the 60s, it rained last night. This is the first snowless December since 1883, or so I've heard somewhere...NBC news, actually.

5 January 2011

Yesterday was overcast, the heavy, monotonous kind that completely covers the sky. But walking back from the school to my car, I noticed over the Carson range a piece of blue sky surrounded by white; in that break in the clouds, I saw the sun shining on the top of the peak. It gave me this strange hope, as if it was a secret I had just discovered. As I was walking the dog around my neighborhood a few minutes later, I noticed there was more and more blue appearing, and the heavy cover was breaking up. By mid-morning there was sun out my window.

This morning when I looked out from my bedroom upon rising from bed, things looked white. It took me a second or two to realize that it was fog. It was a light fog, driving was no problem, but the mountains looked hazy, and the sun shining through made things rather lovely. But it was cold. Not that I felt any colder inside my fleece jacket, but my exposed skin felt almost stinging with the cold. I figured it was the humidity, although I noticed the temperature in the car said it was 23˚ out, which is colder than usual, I think.

I went grocery shopping right after that, instead of coming home first. Trader Joe's was practically empty, and I could actually stop and consider the things I wanted to buy instead of pushing my cart in the queue of all the other shoppers, and grabbing what I could when I saw something that caught my attention. I actually could look at things and see all there was and think about what we might eat. But it felt almost overwhelming, so I grabbed my usual things quickly, and picked up a few new things. That's pretty much what I usually do, although I bought more vegetables this time, and no alcohol. I ended up spending less money. I did get a gingerbread house kit for 99 cents.

The mountains looked really interesting coming out of the store, but today's overcast has been breaking up as well, and now the sky is blue and sunny. My sister wants to move to New Mexico where there is a lot of sun, but I told her that they count the days of sun by whether or not there was sun that day. If it later snows, the morning sunshine still counts towards the daily total. It might not be what she thinks it is.

December 6, 2010

Today I went shopping for groceries at Trader Joe's. When I came out of the store and was exiting the parking lot, I saw a white commercial airplane climbing at an angle against the blue sky with the bright wisps of cloud. Then I turned the other way. As I drove out of the parking lot towards the street, I passed the panhandling man who now works this part of the lot. He is physically disabled in some way, and stands leaning on his cane, holding a sign in the other hand. He was sitting for awhile, but stood up when he saw cars coming. He was wearing a bright red jacket that looked like it would keep him warm. I've had this dollar in my pocket that keeps falling out, so I leaned over and passed it out the window towards him. I wondered, not for the first time, what happened to the older bald man in a wheelchair who used to frequent this space. Did he get put into a assisted care facility? Did some of his children take him home to live with them. Did he die? I'll never know.

From this direction, I could see the mountains in the southwestern sky of Reno, the same mountains I've been seeing for years. The landscape of Reno is more familiar to me now than almost any landscape, save Azeroth perhaps, but that's not real. I feel like I've been seeing these mountains forever, these buildings, these tree trunks, all of it, for a very long time. I am 43 right now, what will I think of this in 20 years. How will I remember this point in my life. Will I yearn to return to it, the way I now wish I could go back about 10 years and live those years over. What would I do if I could? Nothing different, I'm sure, but maybe I could savor them more.

I can remember southern California, actually, some of the spaces I loved there. Virginia seems so hazy to me, the most familiar things being those I've seen in photos, but a recollection of what things looked like out of the back of my first house. There were no developments behind us at the time, and we looked out onto empty land, a gully of sorts, there was a large water pipe in the distance and the red clay of the undeveloped soil. And there were a few houses we could see far off. I always wondered where exactly those homes were, what streets was I seeing. Now, I'm sure, it's all built up.

I drove past the convention center, past the Atlantis casino hotel. The sky was blue with some white wispy clouds. The sun was golden at this time of afternoon in winter, which has the effect of making the tree trunks look even darker. The temperature was cool at 55 but not cold. Up ahead on my drive I could see the pointy crowns of very tall pines, the sequoia pines that don't naturally grow here or even thrive here according to the tree experts. But someone must have thought they belonged her at some point when southwestern Reno was being developed, because a number were planted. Looking up at them on a ridge, standing in a row, they look like giants. The can obscure the mountains right in front. But they aren't any taller than some of the oaks we have. I guess they need time to get really big.

The street is like the streets where I first grew up, patched blacktop, rolling hills in places. There is one part of Reno that reminds me every fall and winter of the street where I grew up, for reasons that have less to do with actual physical resemblance and more to do with the feeling it evokes in me...every time I see it at a certain point in the year, with the sun shining on the street and against some of the buildings, I'm reminded of Fairmont Avenue, of that kind of sunny but cold leafless time of year, with Green Bay Packers football on tv. The sun on the brick and siding of the small homes, some of which looked like little boxes with roofs and no eaves. The wires of roof antennas and the dark look of the telephone poles with their wires--it all stood out in the cold, golden sun of late fall. I think there is a photograph that looks down my street, and the light is similar to the light I often see on Arlington as I pass the golf course. But, of course, the cars are newer. And there is a Starbucks.