Monday, July 14, 2008
Pride and the nature of community
This time of year is when Pride celebrations happen at various times around North America, starting late June, and wrapping up around beginning of August. It gets me thinking about visibility and community, and I needed to share some observations and thoughts on the topic.
Last weekend I went to Victoria, where E and I had intended to take in the Pride Parade. Who knew it was so short that by the time we wandered down to the street where it was to take place, the parade would be over? That we missed the parade isn’t the point of the post, however; it’s what happened peripherally to the event, and has become an all-too-familiar pattern.
When we got to the street where the parade was supposed to be passing by, and didn’t see signs of it, I deduced that we were either too early or too late, so I thought I’d ask someone. Across the street, I spied two women who looked like they might be a couple - definitely members of the tribe, anyways - and would ask whether we’d missed the parade. They were friendly enough with their answers, and proceeded to explain what a Pride Parade was, and about the demographic who participated in it. And as I stood there with my wife a mere few paces away, I wondered why I was so invisible to her as a fellow member of the tribe, so to speak? Granted, it was easy for my gaydar to go off - they both had very short hair with what could be called “dykey” haircuts, comfortable clothing, and carted a tie-dye carry bag. If that’s not a profile from the Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip, I don’t know what is. But I didn’t think I was so “straight-looking”. Clad in belted shorts and a plain scoop-neck shirt, ASICS runners, sans purse and a phone clamped to my belt, the only difference was a bit of eyeliner and a good haircut.
But there’s something about me that seems to bring down a straight-jacket exterior (pun intended); wherever I go, I’m taken for the fag hag or the PFLAG mom instead of my inner lipstick lesbian. A number of years ago, I was walking towards the annual Dyke March and Festival on Commercial Drive, pushing my infant grandson in a stroller. As I caught the eye of a lesbian couple holding hands, walking in the opposite direction and smiled appreciatively at their delight in one other, one turned to me and spat out, “Yes, we are everywhere!” Yes, we are, but it seems that some of us are just more myopic than others. Similar scenes have taken place over the years, to the point where I don’t acknowledge fellow (fella?) lesbians, because they generally think I’m a straight person getting my jollies gawking at them. In fact, at this point, if a fellow community member were to give me “the look”, I think I’d be so shocked, I wouldn’t know what to do. Look away? Turn around to see who they’re really looking at? Stare back, incredulous?
On the other hand, being invisible has probably kept me out of trouble. It’s allowed me to be spared the drama that many of my friends and acquaintances have gotten drawn into, over the years. Instead of getting hit on, I’ve been left in peace to work on my personal growth, build my business, and take care of my family. And fittingly, the community I’ve found has been through those venues, where business and personal and friendships meet. My community has a great mix to it, including wonderful people from demographics that are sometimes undeservedly stereotyped as homophobic, where my sexuality is simply not an issue. My circle of friends includes engineers and musicians, software developers and photographers, marketing consultants and technical writers, UX professionals and content management types, artists and executives, teachers and project managers. A few of them share my sexual orientation; most of them don’t, or, I assume they don’t; a few of them share my spiritual beliefs; most of them don’t, or I assume they don’t. What we share is often different but what boils down to having a good core, and I think it’s made me a more balanced person in the end. So in the spirit of Pride, here’s to being proud of all aspects of my life, from my family - right from wife down to my precious grandchildren - to the friends support me, whether they be near or far, and my community that surrounds me.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Say No to Bullying day
Yesterday I wore the one pink shirt in my wardrobe for Say No to Bullying day. Though I’ve never been a big fan of Christy Clark (remember the statistically impossible “all our children should be above average” remark?), this is one of her initiatives I can get behind. I have no reason to divulge this, at least not often, but I was bullied terribly from grade 5 to grade 11. For me, that was age 8 to 14, more or less. Being younger, shorter, and different in a lot of other ways from the rest of the kids made me a walking target. My parents were no help. My mother, a fundamentalist Christian, counseled me with the “turn the other cheek” line - today that would probably get me killed; back then, it just got me tormented. My emotionally absent father was ... well, he had his share of bully in him, as well, so it took me into my adult years to stare him down, let alone ask for his help.
What I think did me in, though, was being smart, in a geeky kind of way. I lived a pretty isolated life - on a farm, away from other kids, not encouraged to socialize with the non-believers. It was a rural school - we were all bussed in from our farms and villages - but the social situation was the same as in the city. No one explained to me that girls aren’t supposed to flaunt their brains after grade 4. But being younger and weaker, I couldn’t run as fast as the rest of my classmates, or reach as tall as them, or get permission to do the things they did (I couldn’t even get a driver’s license until my graduating year of high school!), but I did seem to absorb information without trying, and being ostracized meant that I could speed read a book a day, and went through the school library pretty fast. Which probably made things worse, in retrospect. Smart, geeky, and my mom drove the school bus. As much as I loved school, I hated the school yard, and would do anything to get out of field trips, group work, team sports, and anything involving hanging out in the school yard. Hallelujah for library club.
OK, it’s forty years later, and the schools are just getting around to recognizing bullying as a phenomenon that needs some attention. Better late than never. Count me in - I’m there for my grandchildren.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
It’s not just the break-ins you’ve got to worry about
I had a bad technology day the other day. The kind where everything mechanical or electrical goes slightly wrong. Kind of like the planetary alignment that makes communication go wrong when Mercury goes retrograde. Anyhow, I drive into a parkade in a part of town where touristy meets dodgy, put down my window, take the little ticket, drive up the ramp, push the button to put up my window, and ... my window jams. Goes crooked, then goes right off the track entirely. I can’t very well leave the car in the lot like that - it’s like an invitation to vandalize - so I take the car out of the lot (their credit card machine is broken so I have to dig around for cash) and call my mechanic (but get voice mail) so take the car to the house of family, where we call BCAA (but the line is busy), so I leave my car there and take our other car, which had been stuck in front of their house for a week in a snowbank, and head downtown again. Time lost? Three billable hours.
The next day, I was ill - maybe from driving around with an open window? - and went to see my mechanic, who took the door apart and started running his thumb along the door frame. He told me that it was likely that someone tried to pry open the car door to steal the car, and in the process, bent the frame just enough that the window slipped when I put it down. Why? I asked. It’s an old car - why do you think I drive an old car? I don’t want to drive anything that’s desirable to car thieves. Doesn’t matter; it’s still a BMW, Henry says. Look, he says, the frame is bent here, and here. I wouldn’t have known if it hadn’t been for the window. There were no parts to be replaced, but I did pay for labour. So this was an expensive lesson for me. I have a security device called a Club, and I tend to use it when I’m parking in a dodgy or unfamiliar area of town. But I get lazy when I’m going home or to a friend’s house, and I don’t always put it on. Chances are that if I’d used the Club, I wouldn’t have had this happen because the car would not have been driveable even if entry had been successful. Boy, did I learn my lesson the hard way on this one.