The hybrid society

 

   Here are two recent columns that I wrote for the Claremont Courier. 

   The first, which was published in late January, is about the rebirth of a P-FLAG chapter here in Claremont.  Meetings are now taking place on Zoom.  The second column explores the hopes and fears – yes, fears – of the pandemic ending. 

   I hear more and more talk of hybrid.  For example, Quaker meetings, including mine, are now figuring out how to have hybrid meetings – that is, meeting simultaneously in person at the meetinghouse and on Zoom.  There is, of course, much talk of students returning to hybrid classes, and some movies are now being released in theaters and online.  I think that this is a good thing, allowing people to feel safe in the short run and, in the long run, providing another more accessible, economical and environmentally friendly option for taking part.

   Meanwhile, enjoy these two columns. 

           FLYING THE P-FLAG IN CLAREMONT AGAIN

   I like to say that Karen Vance is even more gay than I am. 

   I thought I was pretty much out of the closet, way out so to speak.  I proudly strut my rainbow colors whenever I go out.  I even wrote a column years ago saying I am gay. 

   But Karen has marched in more gay pride parades than I have attended as a spectator. I have never manned a booth at a gay pride festival, but she has manned several, including on one of the hottest days of the year.  She has spoken on numerous panels regarding awareness and education of LGBT issues, whereas I can’t say I’ve participated on any. 

   Karen was instrumental in organizing the same-sex marriage contingent, involving many faith communities, in Claremont’s Fourth of July parade for some years until such marriages were declared legal.  And she got me to join in, riding down the parade route (it’s surprisingly long) with a sign attached to my wheelchair, instead of just cheering from the side.

   I have known Karen since long before she and her husband, Paul Wood, moved to the Hillcrest retirement community two years ago after living in Claremont for years.  They actually moved there before retiring.  Karen has just recently retired from teaching kindergarten in Pomona, but Paul still works in the human resources office at U.C Riverside and likes to joke that he’s old at work (at least before he began working from home during the pandemic) and a youngster where he lives. 

   That’s right.  Karen is happily married to Paul, has been for 40 years.  But she and Paul have a son who is now living and working in Northern California and who is transgender and also gay. Karen and Paul came to be very supportive in his transitioning and coming-out process and are delighted that he has a partner who he lives with.  Out of this experience, involving much patience, empathy and learning,  Karen became quite an active and strong, even fierce, ally of and advocate for those in the transgender community. 

   Not only has Karen marched in parades, manned booths, spoken on panels and organized events. She has coordinated and prepared holiday meals for the transgender community.  She has been involved in planning services commemorating those who were killed because they were transgender.  She has served as an advocate for transgender persons, including the undocumented, in prison. In all of this, Paul has been quite supportive (and has done lots of leg work).

   Like I say, Karen is more gay than I am, leaving me in the dust, at least in terms of being an activist. 

   Now Karen has been involved in setting up a P-FLAG chapter here in Claremont.  That is, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. And actually, this won’t be the first Claremont P-FLAG chapter.

   P-FLAG has been around for years, started by parents who wanted to be supportive of their gay and lesbian children and of parents who were trying to come to terms with having gay and lesbian children and how to be supportive of them.  This was needed, difficult work in a society that wasn’t very supportive of gay men and lesbians and families with gay and lesbian members.  Over time, friends and allies became involved, and so did lesbians and gay men themselves, as well as bisexual and, more recently, transgender and non-binary (they/them) people.  In P-FLAG, they all found a place where they could find support and be of support and where, supporting one another, they could speak out and educate and advocate (marching in gay pride parades, speaking on panels at schools, churches, etc.).

   This all also happened here, with a Claremont P-FLAG chapter.  It met once a month, on Tuesday evening, in the round building behind the Claremont Methodist Church.  As I understood it, the chapter was started by a woman – I think her name was Lois Seifort – who attended the church. For some years after her death, the chapter continued to be active, even helping to organize a gay pride festival, which went on each October for several years in Claremont (remarkably, the first was in Memorial Park!).

   I know all this, because I attended the chapter meetings, starting in 1999 or 2000, shortly after I came out. I was very happy to discover this group here, especially as the nearest other chapter was in Pasadena.  (It was not unlike being able to see independent and foreign films here at the Laemmle Cinema here instead of having to drive to Pasadena to see them.) 

   I was indeed very happy to learn about this group meeting here, where I was safely able to be who I was discovering myself to be.  I was glad to have this place, where I felt supported and encouraged in this discovering who I now was.  Through going to these meetings, I felt encouraged to come out to more and more people, including my siblings and eventually my parents. And it was great that I could be dropped off at the church and then head home in my wheelchair (this was long before my spinal surgery, back when I was able to be more independent and go further distances in my chair).

   This encouragement came from seeing parents talk about how they loved and supported their gay and lesbian children.  I felt encouraged when I heard some of these parents talk about speaking out and advocating for their gay and lesbian children.  I was moved and encouraged when I saw these parents counsel other parents who came distraught to learn they had a gay or lesbian child (often, it was only one parent, with the other not knowing about or refusing to accept their child’s homosexuality).

   The encouragement also came when I heard gay men and lessons talk about their experiences.  Sometimes, these were special speakers (one that I particularly remember after all these years was a young man who went to Christian colleges and universities, offering support to gay students); most often, they, like me, were just taking part and finding support in the meetings.   

   I was perhaps most encouraged and moved – and envious! – when I saw very young gay folks – much younger than I was - including high school students, come to the meetings, often without one or both parents knowing.  There were two boys in high school who often came, and they were clearly very much in love, and I will never forget the evening when a 13-year-old boy, in junior high school, came, clearly excited to be there, to be gay and about coming out to his mother. 

   But, even as I was excited and encouraged with all this, I saw that there were fewer and fewer people coming to meetings.  I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when I went to one meeting, and only my friend Marty Carson, who was always there, was there, and she told me there would be no more meetings. But as I headed home, I was sad that I would no longer have this local, comfortable place for support. 

   I told myself later that groups like P-FLAG weren’t so needed when LGBTQ folks are more and more accepted, when same-sex marriage is the law of the land.  But are things really okay when transgender women are regularly murdered and when non-binary children say they don’t feel they can be themselves or feel safe at home? And, particularly at this time of isolation and division, any community and support are welcome. 

   Therefore, I was happy when Karen told me about the new Claremont P-FLAG chapter and its first virtual meeting on January 19 from 6:30 to 8:30. For further information and registration, visit www.pflagclsremont.com.         

   ANXIETY – AND HOPE – IN – AND OUT OF – THE PANDEMIC

   “I’m bored,” I announced, appropo of nothing, as I entered the room. 

   “Sounds like a you problem,” my friend responded, at least half in jest, I hoped. 

   “Everyday is the same.” I was trying to get some sympathy, yes. 

   “Ah – that’s a universal problem.”

    There was the sympathy, the sympathy we all needed.  It was something like March 12, and it had been a year since life as we all knew it screeched to a halt.  It had been a year since the county was put on lock-down and then the whole state was told to shelter in place and the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic because of COVID-19.

   I really didn’t know what this meant.  Pandemic?  Wasn’t that some sci-fi thing?  A thought another friend was over-reacting when, some time earlier, he told me that “this is going to be very bad” and left early in a hurry to drive back to his home in Vermont “before the state borders close.” (If only our president had had a bit of this reaction – things might have gotten so bad.) 

  I didn’t know I had seen my last movie at the Laemmle – or any – theater the very afternoon before everything shut down. I didn’t know

Ophelia’s Jump’s fine production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?, which I’d recently seen, would be my last live theater outing and that I wouldn’t be seeing anymore concerts in Memorial Park and around the Village or at the colleges (which suddenly weren’t colleges). I didn’t know there would be no beloved Claremont Fourth of July celebration, no Pilgrim Place Festival and no proms and graduations, let alone that school would be online for more than a year. 

   There were also the hundreds and then thousands and then hundreds of thousands of deaths due to COVID-19. Over half a million Americans have now died. More than 50 Claremonters have died. Many, many more have gotten sick.

   And there was the economic disaster, with so many people out of work and with small businesses – cherished here in Claremont – struggling to get by. More than a few, including favorite restaurants, have closed permanently or are in danger of doing so. (It was noted in these pages last Spring that the Laemmle Cinema here was up for sale – news I really took hard – but it turns out that, for now at least, only the lobby has been rented out while the cinema was closed.)

   Yes, we have all been bored for now over a year, but it has been so much more than being bored.  I now joke that I understand a woman saying last Spring that she was tired of Netflix – how can anyone ever get tired of Netflix, I wondered back then – but this is not something to joke about. 

  And “back then?” That could be yesterday or a lifetime ago, never mind last Spring.  With every day being the same, with weekends being the same as weekdays, with tomorrow pretty much likely to be like today and yesterday, we are outside the realm of time. Time is meaningless, has gone out the window. 

  For me, all this was particularly, even more devastating – and all the more so when it became clear this wouldn’t be over in a few weeks – as I was just getting back in the swing of going out more and being more active after my spinal surgery, leaving me far more disabled and in considerable pain, three years, now four years, ago, in February, 2017. It was like I was suddenly back in convalescent mode, except I wasn’t stuck in my bed in the living room. I’ve also feared that the virus would be more dangerous for me and have done everything to avoid getting it and to avoid going to the hospital as frequently as I had been.

   Even so, I’m not sure if I yet grasp what a horrendous and historic year this has been.  I hear it said that we’ll tell our grandkids about how we survived this year, like our grandparents talking about World War II, the Great Depression or the 1918-19 Spanish Flu Pandemic, but it’s hard to admit it while it’s happening.  Unfortunately, there are those, including our president last year, who have flat-out denied that the virus is more than just a flu, who have not worn masks, who have continued to attend gatherings, making this worse than it should have been. 

   What’s even worse, to prevent the spread of COVID-19, we can’t even be with each other, to hold hands and comfort each other, to hug.  Thousands have been dying alone in hospitals, without their families present, and families and friends haven’t been able to gather to mourn the loss of their loved ones.      

   Yes, we have Zoom – thank God for Zoom, allowing us to visit, to hold meetings, to continue to work and attend school, to attend lectures at the colleges and even see plays – but plenty of us are zooming out, frustrated and exhausted by living on screen. 

  But now there is perhaps more than a glimmer of hope, a light at the end of the tunnel.  COVID-19 cases are down, as are hospitalizations and, thankfully, deaths, at least overall and relatively speaking.  More and more people are getting vaccinated, although the roll-out has been bumpy in several ways, and there’s literally a race to stay ahead of the variants that are popping up.  (I got my second Pfiser shot last week!) Although it may be too early to say so, the pandemic may be finally coming to an end.  One can practically hear a huge, general sigh of relief. 

   And yet. 

   When there was recently a story in these pages about a live, in-person music festival scheduled at a local brewery, I realized I didn’t want to go – and not just because I wasn’t familiar with the bands and it wasn’t warm enough for me to sit outside.  I wasn’t ready to be with a crowd of people.  It didn’t feel right and felt too early. 

   I wonder when it won’t feel too early, when it won’t feel too early to go out to a concert, to a movie at the Laemmle Cinema, even if I’m vaccinated.  

   I’m also not so sure that we want to return to “normal,” to the way things were.  There are valuable things that have been learned during this time, and I hope we don’t forget them. I hope we don’t go back to our go-go-go, energy-draining normality.  I hope we remember the value of having some quiet time, some down time, and some time alone and just with our loved ones.  I hope some of us continue to work from home and even have some online gatherings, resulting in less traffic and pollution.

   What’s perhaps hardest for me is that I worry that when the pandemic is over, when things go back to normal, I will be left behind. With everyone having to stay at or close to home for the most part, I’ve had the sense that everyone has been in the same boat that I now find myself in since my spinal surgery.  I hate it that we haven’t been able to go to movies, concerts and plays, but it is now hard for me to get out and do these things, although I was, and, to be perfectly frank, it has been much easier not to go out.  It has been nice to watch movies on my television or plays online or even on Zoom – and all the more so when I’m lying in bed! Yes, I’ve gotten lazy, and I’ve liked it that it’s been okay for me to be lazy.  I’m anxious that the time is coming when it won’t be okay for me to be lazy.

   I keep thinking of Julian of Norwich, an English anchorite who lived in a one-room cell for years in the 1300’s.  It was a time of war and plague.  She wrote, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thinge shall be well.” It helps.