This blog post is also available on my Facebook page to make sharing it with friends and family easy for you to do.
Dear Friends,
So much happens.
So much doesn’t happen.
These past months have blown open fault lines that have masked
The inequities,
The inequalities…
The deep
Painful
Wrongs,
The brokenness
Of our culture,
Of our systems.
We have been sent to our rooms.
To consider.
To ponder.
What was?
What the heck just happened?
What is?
Where am I now?
What might be?
What is it that I choose?
The things we have seen,
The things we have discovered
About ourselves
Cannot possibly
Be unseen,
Reversed,
Or
Erased.
We cannot return to
What was.
It is time to open a-new,
Not to re-open ourselves
Not to return back,
But to re-invent
To re-weave
To re-build
The structures
The systems
That hold
Our lives
In place.
The systems
Inside ourselves
And
Outside
Ourselves.
~~~
WHAT WAS:
I was born a lesbian. I just didn’t have the name, the concept, the possibility for two-and-a-half decades. I was pretty darn sure I was the only one, that what I was wanting (everlasting happiness with Natalie Wood) was W-R-O-N-G.
There were no images, no representations of possibilities,
Of women loving women
Anywhere
In the 50’s
In the 60’s
For me.
Absolutely zero.
None.
I couldn’t simply love Natalie Wood from afar.
I had to pretend I was Tab Hunter.
And hate myself.
I existed nowhere
Outside myself.
I hide so carefully from you,
For so very long
That
I became lost
Deeply lost
To myself.
~~~
When I came out in NYC in 1973 into the arms of the lesbian separatist movement, parts of me emerged that I never had met.
Alcohol and drugs carried me forward in those early years.
I would not get sober for years.
There was much pain.
Yet there existed a taste of possibility,
A taste of freedom
That comes
From meeting
Our authentic selves
for the first times.
It changed.
It took forever
But happened
Instantly.
Most magically, the first lesbian album I bought was by Alex Dobkin. Released in 1973, the year I came out, Alex and this following song spoke so deeply to parts of me that I had never quite met in the light of day.
Alex was the first image I saw; she showed me who I might and could be. I want to share her with you.
Here’s the first lesbian song I ever heard, circa 1973, by Alix Dobkin.
A Woman’s Love
~~~
I came out with a smash and a bang and many a drunken night into the arms of the Women’s Movement.
How can I best explain that decade of my coming out?
How to explain those years?
With Alex’s music leading the way,
I discovered womyn-only spaces,
Womyn-only music,
Womyn-only dances,
Groups,
Consciousness-raising
Circles.
Perhaps this will shine some light on the times. Here is Alex Dobkin’s obituary from the NY Times. She died in 2020 at the age of 80. Please do check it out.
Obituary
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/arts/music/alix-dobkin-dead.html
~~
Meanwhile, as time unfolded, my brilliant and dear friend, Adam Mastoon, a man of heart and sharp mind and brilliant eye—photographer extraordinaire, created his book, The Shared Heart, Portraits, and Stories Celebrating Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Young People in 1997. His first paragraph of the introduction says it all:
Looking back, I cannot recall a single image or role model that mirrored my experience as a gay young man. Without external reflections to validate my internal experience, I felt alienated and alone. I imagined that there was something terribly wrong with me. My sexual orientation because a secret sorrow rather than a celebration of love. If only I’d seen and heard other kids who were experiencing similar feelings……As a gay man and a photographer, I wanted to make visible the images that I so longed for when I was young.
You can see some of Adam’s photographs here. Please check them out—they continue to live on in their power and beauty.
https://www.adammastoon.com/thesharedheart
~~~
WHAT IS:
And now, it is now.
Broadway opened
With a flourish,
A rush,
A vibrating pulse
Of energy.
Here are images of Now—Broadway-style, September 2021.
This video has been graciously given to us by Marc Delacruz, star of Hamilton.
Thank you, Marc, to Marc for letting us see you.
Thank you, Terri S., for passing on the gift of this touching video.
~~~
WHAT MIGHT BE:
Give us the courage and the willingness
To see—
Not just those who look like us,
To hear
Not just those
Who sound like us,
But all of us.
Give us the courage and the willingness
To be seen—
In our differences,
In our unique presentations of life.
And as we do,
May
The
Great
Unity
Emerge.
Stay blessed,
Aruni