How much is too much?

 

   This week, I attended three evening lectures on three conservative nights at one of the colleges here.  The venue is fairly unique, hosting dinners and talks nearly every evening, Monday through Thursdays, as well as luncheons followed by talks on some days, during most of the school year.  I just go for the talks, not the meals, and, in recent years, I’ve been extra picky about which talks I attend.  It just happened that this week there were three talks in a row that piqued my interest. 

   I enjoyed getting out to the talks – it was fun and reminded me of the old days – but it was sort of exhausting.  It got me thinking indeed about “the old days” – before my spinal surgery in 2017, which I think of more and more as my other life.  At that time, I attended pretty much all of the evening talks, as well as some of the noontime ones (I also got home on my own in my wheelchair instead of having my attendant pick me up in my van). 

   That was on top of all the other things I was doing.  I think I do a lot now – people always tell me I do – but, before my surgery, I was doing more, way, way more.  When I think about all the things I was doing, I’m amazed – people at that time marveled at how much I did – and I sometimes think that that’s why I got the illness or whatever I had that lead to my needing the emergency spinal surgery. 

   I haven’t said this out loud, but I really wonder if it’s true:  It feels like it was my body saying, “Okay, John, that’s it – time maybe not to die but to definitely calm down,” I did feel extra stressed in the months leading up to the illness or whatever it was, and some friends have agreed that it was like I aged very quickly and got old really fast when I had my surgery. I suddenly had much less energy and was able to do way, way less. 

   But I’m still going out and doing lots of things, sometimes quite a lot of things I tend to stick around town – I haven’t gone to L.A in over a year – but there are weekends when I find myself attending three, even four performance, in addition to going to meeting on Sunday mornings and maybe a movie.  Or there was this week when I attended lectures on three conservative evenings.  I like it, but it’s kind of exhausting.  To be honest, I look forward to the weeks, like when the colleges are on break, when there are fewer or no events. 

   I don’t like it that I feel this way, and it bugs me.  It’s like I have an addiction, a bad case of FOMO – fear of missing out.  It’s not a bad, injurious addiction, like drinking or gambling, but I do wonder: How will I know when I can’t do these things or so many of them?  If I have to choose some or a few, how will I know which to choose?  And how will I feel about it, deal with it? 

   I hope it doesn’t take another catastrophic event for me to find out.  Or don’t I?  Would that make it easier?

Keep showing up

 

   The holidays are sort of a rough time for me anyway, and being hospitalized for 5 days between Christmas and New Year’s Day this time, in addition to a separate visit to the ER on Christmas Day, because of a bad, painful UTI didn’t help. So, early in the new year, I decided to gift myself and bought three pairs of overalls. 

   Those who know me or have read my posts probably won’t be surprised at my buying overalls (even 3 of them!), but these weren’t your regular, everyday bib overalls.  Definitely not!  One is black-and-white checkered, a la Bob’s Big Boy or NASCAR flags – actually a replacement for a pair I had outgrown.  Another has a patchwork of very random and very bold patterns.  And the third – my favorite – is a pair, advertised with a man wearing them (shirtless), that is blue covered with big, bright yellow and pink flowers and green leaves. Super gay! (Actually, I bought 3 pairs. I bought another of the flowered ones, because I think they’ll be cool to wear shirtless as cut-offs.)

   These overalls – bibs, as I call them – were probably made for special or unique occasions, like football games (the checkered ones), concerts, music festivals, raves, clubbing.  Cool.  But I wear them like any other bibs. They are just my regular everyday clothes, just my everyday “streetwear.” I like wearing them when I go out around the neighborhood, when I go to the market, to Quaker meeting, to the bank, to doctor’s appointments, to therapy sessions, to the movies, to concerts and performances. I get a kick out of it.   

   But I soon realized that this is about more than cheering myself up after a tough month and in a tough time.  It is about much more.  It is about showing up.  I am showing up. 

   I am showing up.  When I go out in these and my other bibs in my wheelchair, I am saying, “I am here.  I am here and disabled and queer, super queer.  And I’m not going anywhere, dammit!”

   I am showing up and sticking it, in a peaceful and fun way, to Trump and the others who would rather not see me, who would rather I wasn’t here. 

   I get to protests – in my bibs – when I can, but wearing these bibs is my way of showing up, my way of protesting. It is small, yes, tiny, but it’s what I can do, along with writing posts and articles and sharing articles I read.  Some may say that it’s too small, that it’s not enough, not enough of a risk and danger.  But they don’t know how hard and scary, perhaps even dangerous, it is to come out, to come out over and over to everyone, let alone how hard and exhausting it is to get around with a severe disability in a society that barely accommodates us and often is disabling, making it harder to live with a disability.

   This is what we all need to do. Show up.  We all need to show up.  We all need to stick it to Trump and his minions and followers who want a society where we and others don’t fit in or should just be quiet and perhaps not seen. (Remember, Trump once made fun of a reporter with a disability.)

   Well, I’m not going to not be seen and heard!  I’m going to be seen and heard.  I’m going to show up.  And I’m going to have a bit of joy in it – like what I mentioned in my last post about George Fox saying to “walk” – roll, in my case – “over the earth, answering that of God in everyone” and James Naylor saying that “There is a spirit that delights to do no evil.” Both were early Quakers writing in a time of great strife and turmoil and, in Naylor’s case, imprisonment and torture (a nail driven through his tongue). 

   Yes, I am sad and angry, I am enraged, about what is happening in our country, the cruelty, danger and senselessness of it.  I am exhausted and depressed and scared.  But I refuse to sit there, overwhelmed, and not do anything.  I’m going to show up, as scary and hard as it is.  And I refuse not to have joy, not to be cheerful and to delight. 

   A big part of my joy is seeing and knowing that there are many others, and more and more, who feel the same way and who are showing up.  I take joy in being not alone in showing up.  We may each show up in our own, often small ways, but we are all showing up – together.  It makes it a bit less hard, a bit less scary. 

   We can take joy and strength in seeing the thousands in Minneapolis show up and find each other, find community, as they stand and protest on the frigid icy streets in memory of Renee Nicholle Good and Alex Pretti who were shot and killed and all the others snatched and disappeared by Trump’s henchmen.  We can take joy and strength in seeing all the cyclists riding all over, mostly in the cold, together, in community in memory of Pretti, a fellow cyclist.        

 Let’s take this joy and strength to keep showing up, each in our small, peaceful, even joyous way.  I will.

Remembering to breathe

 

   “Electronics,” my attendant, who is considerably younger than I am and that much more familiar with electronic gadgets, said, “are weird.”

   I forget what it was that time.  I forget if my computer was frozen and I wasn’t able to click on anything.  Or if the mouse on my speech device was going haywire, perhaps with the sun hitting it at a certain angle.  Or if the joystick on my wheelchair was jammed. Or if the smart T.V was suddenly acting dumb and not doing anything. 

   As I panicked, wondering when I could get it fixed and how much it would cost, my attendant once again, and again being familiar with “weird” electronics, suggested turning it off, waiting a few seconds, and turning it back on.  Like taking a deep breath. 

   What do you know?  My attendant, with that knowledge of younger years, was right – again!  Sometimes – or most times – just flipping the switch on and then on again does the trick and is all that is needed. With just the flip of the on/off switch, my computer was working fine, like nothing had been wrong.  The mouse on my speech device moved along as it should.  The joystick on my chair was operable, and the T.V was smart again.

   If only the rest of life was that simple, that “weird.” If only we were able to turn off when things go wrong or are a mess and then turn back on with everything okay, back to normal. Or at least with a new perspective on the situation.    

   Maybe it is possible to turn off and turn on, to flip the switch and start anew.  With a change of scenery.  With some time away.  With a conversation.  With a good night’s sleep.  With, yes, a deep breath.

   Is life that simple, that “weird?” Do we just have to remember that?  Is that the hard part?   

Why i keep being gay like that

 

   The other night, I watched the Golden Globes. 

   Yeah, I’m gay like that! 

   It figures.  For pretty much all my life, when other guys were watching football and baseball, I was into award shows, especially for movies – even the stupid ones like the Golden Globes, which are voted on by something like 83 foreign reporters in Hollywood.  (For some reason, they got to be a big deal, with an annual telecast, even after a corruption scandal a few years ago.  Frankly, the show isn’t nearly as entertaining as it used to be when everyone got drunk and especially when Ricky Grevais was the host with the scathing mocking most.)

   It’s not that I’m a red carpet fan, although I do take note at some of the more notable outfits, and not just on the ladies – like the bright, canary yellow suit worn by Timothee Chalomet at last year’s Academy Awards.  I just like movies and like knowing which ones are hot, so to speak, since I can only watch so many. I usually make a point of seeing pretty much all the nominated films before the awards are given out, and I’m frustrated that I’m behind on this due to being waylaid with a pressure sore for much of the Fall when the films came out (I’m trying to catch them online).

   Yeah, that’s how gay I am. 

   But, isn’t all this just silly and stupid right now?  Really.  At a time when the president’s ICE minions are killing US citizens and we’re being told that not what we see on all the videos, when trans people I know feel like they’re in danger even here in blue California, when the president is literally commandeering other countries and playing chicken with Iran and also our own legal system, when we learn of other such horrors nearly everyday, how can I watch, how can I care about a dumb, meaningless awards show? 

   Look, I get it.  I know things are bad, things are scary.  I’m scared.  I’m horrified.  In fact, I can barely function this January.  On top of, or under, the administration’s cruel swings since the new year, I am not only dealing with my usual ridiculous post-holiday funk (I don’t really like the holidays but am always sad when they are over), I am getting over being in the hospital with a bad urinary tract infection over the holidays after three ER visits, including on Christmas Day.  Ugh!  Plus, several friends had messed-up holidays, primarily due to illness or health threats.  Double ugh! 

   You’d think I’d be glad the holidays were over.  But, no, I was back to being sad that they were over – and sad that I missed them this time. 

   I had/have to get out of this post-holiday funk.  And I can’t just sit here terrified by what’s going on. 

   That’s what they want, you know.  Trump and his troopers want to overwhelm us into a stupor so that we give up and don’t do anything about what’s going on and they can take over. 

   I have to take action, even if it is tiny, like hanging up a strand of my Christmas tree lights over the front window bay (to remind me of the light that overcomes the darkness, as George Fox, the first Quaker, spoke of) and buying some crazy, colorful overalls (so I can keep up my spirit and, to paraphrase Fox, keep rolling cheerfully over the earth, answering that of God in everyone) and watching award shows where artists congratulate each other for telling different stories and championing diversity.  I had to do something, like write this and watch clips of Jimmy Kimmel continuing to skewer Trump even after Trump almost successfully had him banned (clips of Saturday Night Live cold opens and weekend updates also help).

   A trans friend tells me that it’s hard to find anything funny about what’s happening.  I hear her.  But I can’t just sit here and whine and cry. I have to do something – again, however tiny.  I have to take action and get out there, show up, be present.  I hope to keep hope alive and to help spread it. I have to share the light. 

   This is what I’m doing these dark, challenging days and what I recommend doing:

-As devastating and demoralizing as it is, keep up with the news.  It is critical to know what’s going on and, yes, to be outraged.  That way, we don’t get complacent and let things happen – or the worst happen – as occurred in Nazi Germany and the like. 

-Take that outrage (or, even more so, depression and despair) and use it to take action, spread hope, share the light.  It doesn’t have to be big.  Take small steps.  Wear your tie-dye.  Keep flying your rainbow flag.  Join a peaceful protest – and help to keep it peaceful.  Write blog posts and letters to the local paper.  Help deliver groceries to people who are afraid to go out and perhaps take them to doctor appointments.  Support those who bravely speak out.  Vote. 

   If enough of us do these things, we can get through these dark times and save our country, our democracy. It is easy to feel depressed and hopeless – believe me, I know – but we have to do these things, do them like our life depends on it.   Because it does.   

The light we need

 

   There was an article several weeks ago in the Los Angeles Times about “opening night” on Christmas Tree Lane in Altadena, the night that the lights on the trees along the street were turned on for the first time for the holiday season.  It was particularly special and poignant this year, because it was the first such gathering since the fires in January in which thousands of homes and other buildings were destroyed, many others were damaged and some two dozen people were killed. The trees and houses along the street were left intact while most of the surrounding town was destroyed or heavily damaged.

   A few days later, a woman spoke in (Quaker) meeting about having gone to the opening. She had lived in the area for years in the past and said that the evening was a very special, moving reunion after a trauma like the Eaton fire 11 months ago. 

   I was intrigued – intrigued and inspired. I had heard about Christmas Tree Lane, saw the sign on the freeway, for years.  I decided to check it out.  (Since the fire, a part of me wanted to see the area, but that seemed ghoulish, like disaster porn, like slowing down to see an accident on the freeway.  Seeing Christmas Tree Lane was an excuse.)

   I went a few evenings later and found it striking in a muted way.  The lane itself – several blocks of a residential street – is quite special in a quiet, homey way, with the tall pine trees lining both sides of the street draped with old-fashioned, colored lights.  The lights were donated by the Disney Company – sixty of its employees lost their homes in the fire – but there was nothing commercial about the scene.  The “Altadena Strong” signs and other hand-made sentiments added a poignant, timely note to this unique happening in this community known as a quiet community with a notable diversity and populated with a surprising number of artists. 

   What was most striking, though, is the way it stood out in the area.  I’m sure this unusual alignment of pines garlanded with Christmas lights always stands out.  But, after driving through the area with large darkened swaths in sight, left ravaged by the Eaton fire, it really stands out. 

   It is sad to see all this darkness, all this destruction, in the next blocks over.  You could say that Christmas Tree Lane, with its lights shining out, makes it all the sadder.  Yes, it is sad – it is tragic – but Christmas Tree Lane this year is a striking, powerful reminder that, as we need to remember in these sad, darkened times and to paraphrase Quaker founder George Fox, the light always overcomes the darkness.