To Wake Up

Life’s Work

“Life’s work is to wake up,” wrote Pema Chodron. This is a Buddhist sentiment. “Waking up” is a modern way of stating the goal of enlightenment, the state of knowing that the whole universe is connected, and that we are part of this whole. Knowing that all beings are made of the same star stuff. Knowing that the way we treat others affects us, and that the way we treat ourselves affects others, because we are all connected.

We get into trouble when we think of ourselves as separate from others, as separate from the universe. We can wind up acting selfishly, treating ourselves as more important than others. Or we can lose sight of our own worth, treating others better than we do ourselves.

I have fallen into both errors over the years. I grew up in the middle class. I expected to go to college and earn a decent living. When I decided against the careers that my music degree qualified me for, I had the means to complete law school without having to get a job or a loan.

I was doing worthwhile work as a lawyer, but felt unworthy of the privileges life had bestowed on me.

I had also been feeling bad about my lesbian nature as sinful. But then I met gay Christians and studied the context of the Biblical proscriptions against homosexual conduct. I also came to wonder why same-sex coupling was seen as so much more sinful than other Biblically proscribed conduct, like wearing blended fabrics or eating shellfish.

I learned about periods in history when gay pairings were affirmed, and other times when gays were beaten to death or burned, and how many were medically tortured in efforts to change their sexual orientation.

That was when I woke up to that fact that I was part of a misunderstood and oppressed minority. I came to believe that I would help myself and many others by working to end that oppression.

Nowadays, when I am tempted to believe myself separate from others, I can remember that I am part of the LGBT community, am a human being like other human beings, and am made of the same star stuff as the rest of the universe.

My Committee

My Committee

There’s a committee in my head. The loudest member at any time usually controls my behavior. There are probably more members than I’ve noticed and named, but here are the ones I know.

My inner child is a lazy brat. When I find some pending chore or event to be onerous or somehow threatening, she cocks a snook and goes: “Nyah, nyah! You can’t make me.” She takes great pleasure every second she keeps me immobile. Her grasp on my controls fades only when the penalty for failing to act outweighs the pleasure of inaction or when there is more relief to be had from doing whatever it was than in avoiding it.

A more responsible member of my committee is the good soldier. When I was moved in my teens from Harrisburg to Berkeley to Santa Monica, my soldier accepted her orders and adjusted. When she was in control, I either forgot or suppressed memories of my last home so I wouldn’t be immobilized by grieving what I’d lost. Instead, I’d turn my energies to getting familiar with my new home.

A wise philosopher makes an occasional appearance on my committee. She looks at the lemons in my life and makes lemonade. When some plan falls through, or seems like it might do so, she figures out how to salvage the situation, find some alternative treat, or get something else accomplished.

My inner mother isn’t always wise or nurturing. When something goes wrong, she’s equally liable to blame me for it as to say ‘There, there; it’s not your fault.” Sometimes she counsels distracting myself with a book until I calm down a bit, and sometimes her advice is to punish myself with sarcasm until I’m ready to move on.

What my committee really needs is a chairwoman, someone who stands apart from the reflexive reactions and has the perspective to know that each member is only a part of the whole. Someone who can stand up to the loudest voice and say, “Thank you for your contribution. I’d like to hear what the other committee members have to say.” Someone who can lay all the points of view on the table and examine them with kindly curiosity. Someone who won’t be paralyzed by incompatible choices or perfectionism. Someone who can come to a good enough resolution, knowing that it doesn’t have to last forever, just long enough for a good try.

Wait a second. If I can imagine this person, how much harder can it be to imagine her onto my committee? Oh, the real problem will be remembering to summon her when the need arises. We’ll see how that goes.

Grandpa Lou

Grandpa Lou

I have mostly fond memories of Grandpa Lou, my father’s father. When my brother and I came to live with him and Grandma Fan in Harrisburg, he was about 58 years old and I was a toddler.  I lived with him until I was 11 years old.

He was named Leib Winokur when he was born in Ukraine in 1898. He came to America in 1906 with his family, and became known as Louis. Sometime before he married Grandma Fan, he changed his last name to Vinicoff. Maybe at her request.

He owned Vinicoff Electric Company, which sold electrical supplies. He drove a red pickup truck with the company name on the side.

I don’t think I ever saw his office or shop. It’s probably just as well that I didn’t. One evening he came to pick me up at a friend’s house wearing a gauze eye patch, because a dangling wire in the shop had scratched his eye.

One time I was cleaning Grandpa’s plastic eyeglasses for him, and broke the frame. I was mortified, but he was very kind about it, telling me that they were old and ready to be replaced. I mostly have chosen metal-framed glasses for myself ever since.

Grandpa and Grandma belonged to the Jewish country club, where she played golf and he presumably smoked cigars and drank with his buddies. To this day, if I catch a whiff of cigar smoke, I smile and think of Grandpa, even while my friends express their disgust.

I can picture him reading the newspaper in an armchair in the living room. Mother told me that I learned to read from Grandpa while we read the newspaper together. Which might explain why I could already read by the time I started first grade.

Once Grandpa gave me a square purple cough drop from his jacket pocket. It was delicious, and may have contained codeine. Many times thereafter, I looked in his pockets, in hopes that another luscious morsel had found its way there.

Grandpa liked to be comfortable in his clothes. When too hot, he removed a layer, regardless of style. That was a problem when he visited Southern California one summer. He removed his shoes and socks for a walk of a couple blocks, and burned his feet rather badly. Not one to learn from others’ mistakes, I did the same thing to myself decades later. I took off my shoes and socks at a Mime Troupe performance in Dolores Park in July, and got second-degree burns on the tops of my feet.

We had a rumpus room in the basement, which had a bar at one end. I wanted to use the bar for writing, and Grandpa installed an overhead light for me. I remember writing there a Nancy Drew-like story that involved the neighborhood department store. I am grateful for his efforts to support my writing so long ago. And I hope he would be proud of me.

  

Childhood Hideaways

Childhood Hideaways

As a child, I had my own bedroom. My platform rocker and a new Nancy Drew mystery were all the hideaway I needed for myself.

I had a girlfriend who lived a few blocks away, though.  We played together in an attic above her family garage. It had retractable stairs that we could pull up after us, but her mother could pull them down whenever she wanted to. Since our physical explorations of each other could be interrupted with little warning, we had to be able to get decently clothed at a moment’s notice.

No other actual hideaways come to mind. The trees in our yard weren’t big enough to support a tree house, but I climbed them every so often anyway.

One summer’s day, I was swimming with friends at the country club. I decided that we should have a tea party on the bottom of the pool, where it was still and quiet. So we breathed deeply, exhaled enough to sink down, and sat in a circle passing pieces of pretend cake and sipping from pretend tea cups. That’s how a sci fi fan plays house. Since we had to surface for air every minute or two, the party lacked continuity, and our frustration soon broke it up.

I was a little sprite of a kid, and sometimes just had to see if I could fit myself into some small space. The Jewish Community Center playground had a cement turtle that formed a rough hemisphere with a diameter of about four feet. The shell was maybe six inches thick, and it cleared the ground by about a foot. I could crawl under the edge of the shell, and sit cross-legged inside it. Away from the shouting and running of the more active day-campers, my introverted self enjoyed the quiet, calm, and safety of my borrowed shell.

I continued to like tucking myself into small places, if only to prove that I could fit. I was in a high school physiology class when I just had to get inside the wheeled cabinet housing our skeleton. The class had not yet started, and the cabinet’s door faced the edge of the classroom, so few kids saw me step in and pull the door closed. The teacher, however, did see me enter, but dear Mr. Lucas shared my playful spirit. He wheeled the cabinet around so the door faced the class and he stood next to it. I stepped out of the cabinet with a proud “ta daa!” to my startled classmates.

The last time I tucked myself into a small space, I was in college. I got it into my head that I could get my body into a clothes dryer. I did get myself in there, but the space was so uncomfortably confining that I immediately backed out. Thank goodness my roommate was too civilized to close the door on me or, even worse, turn the machine on.

Since leaving college, I have lived alone, and my home has been my hideaway. It gives me all the privacy and security and, usually, quiet that I need.

Wild Weather at Wildwood

Wild Weather at Wildwood

My lover Sarah and I were at Wildwood Resort for a yoga retreat. Wildwood is a rustic place on top of the hills above the Russian River. We had met there at another retreat a few years earlier. We had driven there from the Bay Area, blissfully unaware that there could be any problem with the weather. We were enjoying the views, the yoga and meditation sessions, mealtimes, and each other when soaking rainstorms parked themselves overhead.

I don’t remember which happened first, but the power went out and the buildings started leaking. The increasing cold, darkness, and wet made our stay less and less comfortable. We went to bed early to preserve power in the flashlights. Then the lack of refrigeration began to impair the quality of the food. Finally, we heard on the radio that flooding was expected along the Russian River, and we would need to leave for home a day early or we would be stuck there for several days until the waters subsided.

I panicked at the thought of being confined in increasingly unpleasant circumstances, and we fled as soon as we could. My intense need to leave rendered me deaf to all planning and advice. We were supposed to drive together as a caravan, but I pulled out as soon as we were packed. We were supposed to make a different turn at the bottom of the hill, but I forgot – until a passing Highway Patrol officer redirected us. I made another unwise turn that brought us into flooding on River Road, but I drove ahead despite the sign. As the water rose up the tires and the car started to lose traction on the roadway, I clenched the steering wheel and alternately prayed for help and urged the car forward.

My trusty car kept going, and we drove through drenching rain and heavy winds, on the largely deserted roads where we had been directed by another officer.

It seemed like hours, but we finally reached Santa Rosa, a bastion of civilization that had electricity and solid roofs. We settled into a restaurant for a hot meal, relaxed, and rejoiced.

Introvert-ish

Introvert-ish

I bill myself as an introvert. I’m usually quiet when in a group of people. When we’re eating, I chew my food so thoroughly that there are few times when my mouth is not full. So, unless I’m with people who also talk through food, I’m limited to comments I can come up with that fit into the conversation between bites. I’m happy listening to others while I chew, though, so that works out.

My definition of introvert focuses on my energy being drained when I spend time with two or more others. After an hour or two, I start looking for ways to make a graceful exit. If I need to stay with a group for an extended time, say at a party, the worst situation for me is to be standing with a small group of people. Eventually the others tire of our conversation and move towards other folks, and I am left alone, like a fish beached by the ebbing tide.

I do best at parties when I find a comfy place to sit and interesting people who stay seated near me. If they get up and go away, I’m OK if there’s something interesting to look at. My favorite party was a Bay Cruise celebrating our company’s 100^th anniversary. After we ate lunch, I toured the bridge and was allowed to steer the boat for a while Then I found a place on the foredeck and spent the rest of the cruise just watching the Bay go by.

On the other hand, I’m also a show-off. Given a script to read or sing from, I’m quite content to stand up in front of a large group of people. I’ve always been like this, from acting in children’s theater, delivering my high school valedictory address and competing in a televised quiz show, to performing in musical theater as an adult and delivering a Perspective on KQED radio. I may have a little stage fright, but I get up there and do it. What can I say? I like the sound of my own voice, and am happy to share it with the world.

Homosexuality

Homosexuality: nature or nurture?

Yes; both of them.

Why do we need to know what causes homosexuality? It matters because prevailing beliefs affect our lives. People who believe that homosexuality is not a choice are more likely to enact laws to protect gays’ civil rights. People who believe that homosexuality is chosen tend to favor criminal penalties and conversion therapy.

I believe gayness is a naturally occurring biological variation. This is backed up by research finding that same-sex pairings occur in similar amounts in all societies and all times. And they’re not limited to humans. Same-sex couplings have been observed throughout the animal kingdom: there are gay rams and lesbian monkeys.

I think gayness is like handedness. Both account for a small percentage of the population and run in families. You’re more likely to be left-handed if your parents were left-handed, but heredity does not explain everything. Both my parents were lefties, yet my brother and I are right-handed. This may be in part because we were mostly raised by a right-handed couple. My brother was a year and a half older when we came to live with them, so his right-handedness is more shallowly rooted than mine. He had trouble identifying his right hand as a child.

As to our sexuality. We may learn how to interact as a couple from our parents, but their example doesn’t seem to determine whom we as adults find attractive. Straight parents have gay kids and vice versa. Our father was gay, despite his marriage to our mother. My brother is straight, and I am gay. But any influence our father had on our sexuality must have been genetic; we never knew him to be gay while he was alive and we never lived with any gay couple.

Some researchers have thought that hormonal and other factors during gestation can affect one’s sexual orientation. For example, there’s a theory that a boy’s chance of being homosexual increases with each older brother he has. (See The Atlantic, How Older Brothers Influence Homosexuality, Olga Khazan, April 27, 2016) But that research is not very convincing, and has nothing to say about lesbians.

As to whether homosexuality is a choice. In a very few cases, maybe. Especially when there is no one of the opposite sex available or a person has been damaged by interactions with them. But in a culture where heterosexual bliss is held up as the supreme happiness, why would anyone choose to be part of a misunderstood and oppressed minority? And we have it really good in the United States. Gays are still likely to be beaten up, imprisoned, or killed in much of the world.

Having crushes on girls seemed natural when I was a girl. Falling into bed with my college roommate also felt right. When I converted to Christianity, though, their unwavering disapproval drove me away from her and into trying to be what the church expected of me. That didn’t work. So when I finally met gay Christians and other religious folk, I heaved a sigh of relief and gave up trying to be straight. I am proud to know who I am and I no longer try to be anything else.