I have been thinking about this date almost daily for months. Last July I wrote, When hundreds of Brown and Black LGBT people went to a nightclub in Orlando last month to celebrate Pride, graduations, new jobs, new loves, recent successes, the weekend, and old times, they had already been taking the pulse of many other…
Our generations Us, right here. This is the year Not next or last. We are the people Flawed, intact. We can do this Powerfully. Go. Solidarity and joy to you in work well done in 2017.
We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience. ― John Dewey The past eight years with my President have been really good. Mr. Obama is a brilliant man who shows himself again and again and again. Unlike many others who extol his praises in social media, I do not consider him…
Like many children raised by same-sex parents in the U.S., Jesus was raised by an adoptive parent who had no legal standing. Joseph’s child bride got pregnant after she heard some archaic form of the too familiar expression, “Baby, I wanna get with you.” What with the hurried visit to aging relatives, fast betrothal, and…
I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. – Simone de Beauvoir Three children. Two miscarriages, at least. A shaky marriage. A will born for survival in an adolescent girl, now a woman who would not be controlled. She needed to work to…
My late husband Paul was an artist. When we were alone, I sometimes sang to him these lyrics that Joni Mitchell penned sometime before 1970: Oh I am a lonely painter I live in a box of paints I’m frightened by the devil And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid I remember that…
Prayer for a New Mother The things she knew, let her forget again- The voices in the sky, the fear, the cold, The gaping shepherds, and the queer old men Piling their clumsy gifts of foreign gold. Let her have laughter with her little one; Teach her the endless, tuneless songs to sing, Grant her…
I am a big fan of giving thanks, specific appreciations, and expressing delight. I set up meetings so that their last five minutes or so are devoted to creating the opportunity to say what we learned from each other or what we appreciated. I find that my work is best when I wrap my mind…
My students are familiar with my comments and jokes about my not being easy. I expect, for example, that they challenge themselves to identify as students in contrast to merely being “in school” (identity vs location). I expect them to interact with the 40 other people in the room. Shy? Me, too! Tough. Get to…
For the past few weeks I have not written blog posts or meatier items on Facebook. I reasoned that anything besides kittens and kids would gain little traction (after all, we do need some respite from The Donald) or was being covered elsewhere by people more articulate than I (or at least wearing pants suits). Further,…
Creating Community for Everyone 