Class Comfort Level Persists

My father was a salesman who worked on commission only, my mother temped as a secretary throughout my childhood. My sister and I would spend every weekend at our immigrant grandparent’s apartment because parenting was not on the to-do list of either of my folks. In both environments, the kids I hung out with were from what we all considered “regular” families but now recognize to have been mostly from the socio-economic class that lies between the poor and the middle class.

My mother was always quite vocal about my father’s irresponsible financial behavior which consisted mainsly of going deeply into debt in order to project a middle-class image. She often called him Willie Loman, in reference to Arthur Miller’s character in “Death of a Salesman.” Both of them were Jewish and college-educated so, in some ways, they were atypical of the "white" working-class. And, in those days, Jews were not really considered white, anyway. 

In spite of my parents' educational achievements, they fell far short of the material prosperity held out by their socio-economic aspirations. None of us possessed the mannerisms of that desirable group. Kids in my school seemed to know instinctively that I was not one of them and treated me accordingly. Was I too outgoing? Too open? I couldn't figure it out. But the friends I made then were all from similar class backgrounds. We just had so much in common that I never considered befriending one of the “rich kids.” Like the weather it was just a given, a reality too obvious to be questioned or discussed.

At Ohio State University, I was introduced to a broader vision of the world. Now, if I so desired, I could be friends with students who wouldn’t have had anything to do with me before. And, sometimes, I chose to pursue these very people. It was to prove my worth, as though their privilege might rub off on me and allow me to rewrite my past. Sometimes making them like me was simply a way to extract a sort of revenge.

But as college years faded into real life, my path diverged sharply from that of the factory-owners’ daughters and the trust-fund babies. Economic struggle is not just theoretical when there is no family safety net waiting to catch you if you fall.

To this day, I find myself gravitating instinctively toward people from similar circumstances. Instead of diminishing, this tendency seems to be increase with age. I can’t put my finger on the exact cues of this shared oppression but, considering my automatic selection process, the indicators must be quite blatant and obvious to all.

Evidently, the people who can best put up with me, are those who have made their way without a lot of financial and emotional support. It has nothing to do with concious intention or some form of reverse snobbery. It just happens.

Day of the Dead vs Halloween

Octavio Paz described Mexican culture as being “seduced by death.” Sugared skulls, and the skeletal figurines (colacas) of humans in every conceivable clothing style and occupation seem to confirm this sentiment. Day of the Dead is primarily a celebration of the ancestors. Unlike Halloween, the goal of the flowers, altars, candy and skeletal array is to pay respects in the more creative, fanciful style of the people who brought us magical realism.

America’s Halloween differs from Day of the Dead in many ways. Number one is that Halloween is scary. In American culture death is not a natural occurence common to all life, but a fearful, traumatic end. When the dead come back, they are not pleased. They haunt and frighten us by making spooky sounds and rattling bones. Like the ever-so-popular vampire and zombie legends, the moral is always that it is preferable for all if the dead remain buried. Our culture gives a high priority to everyone staying in their designated place.

In Dia de Los Muertos, the dead are revered, not as superhuman, but with all the frailties and imperfection of the lives they lived. Altars, the tributes to the departed, often include whiskey bottles and cartons of cigarettes. These are not the trappings of saints. It is a time of memory and celebration. If these deceased returned for a visit, it seems that their friends and families would rejoice not cower.

When my mother was dying of ovarian cancer, the primary emotions she expressed were fear and, more puzzling, shame Fear seems a natural response to the unknown but her shame was trickier to comprehend. In retrospect, I believe it was about relinquishing control in front of her children. Being invulnerable was a necessary part of that definition.

Of course control is also a primary part of our philosophy of rugged individualism. “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,” was a quote often repeated by my father. To be so ill that you can no longer steer your own ship is not only considered tragic, it is a disgrace.

If my mother had openly acknowledged how sick she was it would have been a relief to all of us. We could have begun initiating closure much sooner; expressing emotion and saying all the things that need to be said.

I don’t know how her death would translate in Mexico. But, on her altar, I would place a copy of Simone De Beauvoir’s, “Second Sex,” a bottle of scotch, and one of Sanka, a can of tomato juice and one of asparagus spears, a slice of rye toast, a pack of Kent cigarettes, a copy of the New Yorker, a steno pad, a credit card and an old typewriter.

Invisibility and Lesbian Experience

The Invisible Lesbian

I read an interesting article in the NYTimes Magazine a couple of weeks ago. It concerned the ways that women are actively discouraged from pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, what they called the STEM subject group. Unfortunately, a large portion of the article focused on how majoring in STEM  fields frightened off potential male suitors. But one sentence in the article indicated that there was a different point of view expressed by a minority of the interview subjects. The sentence is framed in parentheses and reads as follows: "The lesbian scientists with whom I spoke, at the tea and elsewhere, reported differing reactions to the gender dynamic of the classroom and the lab, but voiced many of the same concerns as the straight women."

Huh? What does this mean? How many lesbian scientists were questioned? How does their experience differ? I was left with these unanswered questions as this sentence contained the only reference to lesbians in the entire piece. Clearly the writers and editors were only concerned with the experiences of genuine women, i.e.: the heterosexual variety.

Recently a poem of mine was included in an anthology about women's experience in the sixties and seventies. My entry was openly queer and dealt with unrequited lesbian love. Reading through the numerous poetry and stories included in the book, I have found only one other out lesbian. 

This is what it means to be part of a minority culture. Your experience is tokenized or erased, your pespective deleted. In capitalist publishing this is just mainstream vs niche market politics. But genuinely good writing should transcend these categories. It seems obvious that inclusion of ethnic and gender minority voices would only improve both the sales and credibility of an article, journal, film or anthology.
   
But now, at least, they are giving us a little nod. That means we have successfully been a thorn in their side long enough to make them aware of our existence. There is a small hole in the fence that has segregated our experience from that of real women. To make that opening larger, we must all pour through it en masse. Lesbian history is women's history and we are the only ones who can write it. Our experience is an indespensible and necessary component of the liberation of all women, and yes, all people.

The Medical Marijuana Subculture

I've lived in California for forty years and if you had told me when I arrived in 1973 that, one day, I'd be a married lesbian and have access to legal marijuana I'd have assumed you were either delusional or quite stoned. But today, both these things are true and yet the earth keeps revolving and the sky remains in place.

I've never been a much of a pothead. Truthfully, back in those hippie days, cocaine and quaaludes were my drugs of choice with an occasional acid trip thrown in for perspective. I hate smoke and the very thought of smoking anything makes my throat ache. But recent eye problems caused me to visit an opthomologist who diagnosed me with high-intraocular pressure, a possilble symptom of, or precursor to, glaucoma.

Of course, as soon as I get a new diagnosis, I do what everyone in the digital age does, that is head straight to my computer for more information. I expected to find health guidelines like cut down on sugar or salt or caffeine but instead, I found the most mentioned folk rememedy was cannabis. In fact, glaucoma was the disease that first propelled the medical marijuana movement into existence.

Armed with a letter from my long-time doctor, who admittedly partakes a bit herself, I ventured toward one of the several dispensaries near my home. The fact is that Berkeley has one pot dispensary for every 28,000 residents, a record number in the world of legalized weed.

To enter the place, I had to pass muster with the security guard, an African-American woman who examined my letter and complimented me on my t-shirt and earrings. After being registered in the waiting room, I proceeded into the purchasing area full of display cases of grass with names like "blueberry haze" and "tangerine dream." I was magically transported back to the days of windowpane and orange sunshine.

After explaining to the counter guy that I wanted something that would help me sleep and last through the night, he introduced me to the world of edibles. There were several choices that encompassed my requirements: capsules, bars, carmel-like chewy things; my mind was boggled. I settled on a chew, a professionally wrapped indica morsel, the sleep inducing variety. The sativa strain is more for those speedy highs that made me so anxious and paranoid many years ago. Because it was my first visit, I was also given a lighter and a free sample of mint chocolate for an entirely different type of high.

It cost twelve dollars and was only supposed to provide four doses. I took about a twentieth of it, instead of a fourth and, after nearly an hour, I became pleasantly tired. I did drifted off to sleep without my usual ambien and was still a bit stoned eight hours later when I awoke.With my super-sensitivity to drugs, this stuff can last me for quite a while.

A couple of days later I tried again to estimate the right amount. But that night I had to take my prescription pill along with the edible. I realized that dispensing with my ambien was proving harder than I'd hoped. And Blue Shield pays for sleeping pills but due to federal law, I cant' use my insurance to buy marijuana.

I will check out a couple more dispensaries and keep trying for the perfect sleep-inducing, ocular-pressure-reducing mix. I feel a bit like Alice now. I've passed through the looking glass but am a bit flummoxed by the wide-array of mind-altering substances here to choose from.

Aging and Breaking Boundaries

Now that I'm 62, the government officially classifies me as old for purposes of Social Security.While I realize that I could be old for, say thirty more years, my initial response to aging is one of disappointment. Where is the wisdom that is supposed to come with experience? Where are the young folks gathered to hear about the tumultuous era we boomers instigated in our adolescence? Instead the main thing I'm finding in my sixth decade is that the abyss between my generation and society seems to grow wider and deeper with each passing year.

Coping with medical problems increases individual isolation. I always knew that aging came with wrinkles and new rolls of fat, but somehow no-one warned me that getting old is like trying to keep a much-used car in running condition. The carburetor gets clogged, the engine begins to sputter, there are too many dents to bother with body work and decorative pieces of the interior begin to fall off.

I see fewer and fewer reflections of who I am in the media. I get tired of seeing twenty or thirty-somethings doing whatever with no hint that others exist. Racism, heterosexism, and just plain sexism were always problematic in media depictions of society, but now even young LGBT folks see me as their mom or granny and society encourages this behavior.

What does aging really mean? I just had an intake interview for a therapy group around transitioning into retirement. The two facilitators are late thirties/early forties women. That shocked me. In the old women's community we would never use people from outside an oppressed group to facilitate it. When I expressed this sentiment to my interviewer she claimed that she understood aging issues. If she had rolled in in a wheelchair or was missing an arm, perhaps I could buy this. But it's strange that she is dealing with something she has never experienced. I have been her age, but the reverse is not true. 

So what doesn't she feel? Invisibility would be the main thing. This is not always a negative. The fly on the wall gets to witness life happening minus the self-conscious obsessiveness of the elephant in the room. But, beyond the circus element here, we all desire to be full participants up until the moment we expire.

The granny syndrome is something that seems to happen only to aging women and it is a major factor in this invisibility. I rarely read a "human interest" article about a sixty-plus woman that doesn't refer to her as a grandmother. This is because the main socially-sanctioned pursuit of women's lives is still reproduction. So, what becomes of us non-breeder broads after we pass through menopause. The answer is that, in the eyes of mainstream consumer-culture, we disappear.

So families become the default refuge of the old although, just as with the young, not necessarily a safe one.  Unfortunately for us childless types, the rugged individualism and capitalist mystique that we were weaned on takes its toll as well. Competitiveness separates us from each other. It often seems that we can no longer connect with compassion and without animosity and suspicion. Our years have scarred us. Thus, as people age, their worlds are in danger of getting smaller and smaller.

The best remedy for a shrinking personal universe is to think outside of preconceived boundaries. Activists and artists who embrace a larger focus have the right idea. We can build an alternative elderly community just as we built the social movements and non-traditional communities of our youth that changed the world. As long as we live, we have to age but we don't have to settle for the same old routine, the same obsolete stereotypes. My hope is that we can age in unique and unprecedented ways, just as we have done in every other stage of our lives.

The Lost Art of Conversation

I am a person who truly enjoys conversation. I like it one on one and I also enjoy it in a group. When I was searching for a partner utilizing dating ads, I described myself as a "conversexual." Good ones open me up and turn me on in a sense much broader than sexuality alone. I cherish conversations that include exchange of ideas, playing with humor and language and building emotional intimacy. It makes me wonder if the passion and skills required for good conversation is, in fact.  disappearing.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old. Perhaps it's just due to rampant technology and the creation of "social media." It feels like actual conversation is being replaced by what I refer to as the "drunks at a bar" phenomenon. This involves two or more individuals doing run-on monologues about the issues in their lives without the slightest regard for what the other person is saying. The biggest missing piece here is listening. There is no back and forth, give and take, no, what they call in support groups, "cross-talk." To me, this feels like a hollow, empty exercise devoid of support or caring. It's an each person for themselves dog and pony show.

I have to assume that this level of self-obsession emanates from alienation, loneliness and despair so I don't blame the victims. When it happens in the peer support group co-facilitate, I try to ask more questions, to initiate and back and forth. When it happens, one on one with a new acquaintance, I don't know how to proceed. I would try to turn it around if only I could get a word in edgewise!

Listening is a large part of the battle. Therapists are paid to do it. My cat, Luna, is a great listener but I wouldn't say she is a conversationalist. She does speak a bit, but her subject choice seems to be limited to one dead, Chinese leader. But, therapists and pets aside, listening is a good starting point.

A conversation is a real-time, living, breathing entity. Having an idea of what you want to talk about and attempting to steer it on one course, destroys it. That's why some of the best conversations in college were had in groups of the substance impaired. Being just a tad high helps with spontaneity.

I'm sure some really great talkers are out there still hoping to build a bridge of words that will not only span the distance between our lives, but get us actively thinking about ways in which to improve them. I am already looking forward to our future conversations.

Why Jews Wander...

A Shtetl in Poland circa 1900

Jews have always been wanderers. I'm inclined to believe that a large part of the reason is that often we have not been full citizens of the  of countries where we have resided. Jews have been merchants bringing back spices and products, money lenders, scholars and, most frequently, refugees running from genocide.

Traveling brings up painful truths for those of us who long for a genuine history that immigrants from other countries take for granted.Yes, some folks settled in Israel, displaced the population living there and revived an ancient, unspoken language to call their own and pass on to their children. The real history of the way Jews lived in countries all over the world has been obliterated. Aside from the obvious suspects who brought us the Cossacks and the Holocaust, Jews have been systematically expelled from many other countries including Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. 

As I travel, I hear folks tell stories of homecoming: finally arriving in a place where the people look like you, hearing the language of your parents or grandparents come alive, seeing the town your ancestors called home and meeting long, lost relatives. For Jews, these places no longer exist. Our ancestors live only on paper and in the memories of a generation that is now dead or dying.

There are no actual Russian shtetls or Polish villages for me to visit. No new immigrants bringing the language and customs of my people. As a group we are alone, making our way without the wisdom of the past to guide us. I feel I have more in common with Native Americans than with Greeks or Belgians. There will never be a living window into either of our societies. Both groups have been deprived of the historical experience of our people.

The world that nurtured Geronimo and Isaac Bashevis Singer cannot be retreived. We can read about it or listen to tales passed down by those who remember. But we have been deprived of a vast legacy that cannot be replicated, reconstructed or replaced. It is just gone, a loss I grieve deeply.