summer
weekly reflection, updates & good stuff 6.23.2021
Friends,
I hated summer as a kid. If I wasn’t in camp, I was alone. One summer, I made my way through the World Book Encyclopedia that had been on the shelf in my parents’ den since Rhodesia was a thing. I copied over the Phoenician alphabet, learned the capitals of the world (well, at least the capitals of the early 1970s), and collected tidbits of information that still serve me well when watching Jeopardy!, but otherwise I was alone.
Summers in high school were a little better - I worked in coffee shops and in the tech office of a company (yeah, I worked in a tech office...but it was the early 90s, so 90% of problems were solved with turning the machine off and on again, The IT Crowd-style), so I got to intersect more people and make a few friends along the way. Unlike most of elementary school, too, I actually had friends to hang out with, so the encyclopedia started to collect dust.
In college, I spent my summers on the river in Chicago, first as boat crew and later as a docent for historical and architectural tours of the city. Suddenly, each summer day included a flood of people and an attempt to deliver as much trivia, as many tidbits, as many relevant details that would help illuminate the development of the city and its styles. I spent a lot of time during those summers just watching - people, buildings, streets - and paying attention, especially to things I’d never seen before.
The first time I read “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver, I didn’t know that her words would so succinctly capture and challenge the life I’d led. While Oliver contemplated the tics and nuances of “this grasshopper,” I studied the ways people talked and moved, how they leaned into or away from each other, how they took up space or were toppled within it. Almost daily, I watched straight people freely throw an arm around their partners or steal a kiss without as much as a blink from tourists around them. Once, I watched a gay couple sit shoulder to shoulder and strain not to look at each other or hint at any drop of publicly-floated affection. I watched two people get up from their seats behind the gay couple and move to a different spot and a woman two empty-chairs down shift her chair one more inch away with a stern and disgusted look toward the couple.
Every day, I watched, I paid attention to double standards in action, and noticing the ways that queer people, even swimming through a crowd of tourists, subtly and conscientiously navigated the mines of strangers’ prejudice. I started paying attention to the ways that White women clutched their purses when a Black person was near, that White men took up the space that might otherwise be filled by a small family, that people with obviously-expensive effects brushed past others or talked derisively to the boat’s crew.
We’re approaching the anniversary of Stonewall, the riot that catapulted the movement for LGBTQ rights into public consciousness. Since then, rights have been established, but laws and judicial opinions don’t change hearts and minds - relationships do. Maybe it’s because queer people took the bold step to engage others who sneered or snickered or hurled hate and objects at them and to reveal their humanity to the haters, but nowadays I see people go out of their way to be kind and welcoming to people who are different from them. Churches and corporations advertise queer friendliness and seek to bring in the people their not-so-distant ancestors shunned. Still, when I’m confronted with that hate, or even the suggestion of hate (what Claude Steele coined as “stereotype threat”) I’m once again that little kid flipping through the encyclopedia, clinging to the aged and dusty pages and avoiding one more opportunity for someone to belittle me, to mock me, to make me feel less-than.
As an adult, summer has been mostly occupied with travel (the only time school educators really have to go far afield) and Pride. For me, Pride celebrations are political - ridiculously so. I mean, we have to march in the streets for others to say, “Ok, they’re human”? But it’s also intensely personal. With each float in a parade, each flag hanging from a church, each message of “Happy Pride!” from friends and strangers, I feel safer in this world and closer to an answer to Oliver’s question, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
UPCOMING
Guided Meditations | Mondays, 4:00pm PST & Thursdays, 9am PST via Zoom
UPDATES
If you follow me on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you’ve seen my almost-daily posts in observance of Pride. Throughout the month of June, I’m posting reflections on the people, experiences, and events that shaped my story. It’s been an interesting exercise. Since I’ve been thinking about these things for a long time, identifying topics to write about and summoning connected memories has been easier than I thought it would be...but paring down the many branches that come with each memory (and if you’ve ever heard me try to tell a story, you know that each comes with a variety of tangents) and distilling its essence, its impact, or its lesson has been more challenging than I anticipated. Overall, it’s been my own kind of joyful celebration of meaningful experiences (some happy, some, well, complicated), and I’ve loved the responses they’ve prompted via email and on social media. Interested? Here’s the journey so far:
I’m also thrilled that the series has been picked up by An Injustice!, a new intersectional publication on Medium, geared toward voices, values, and identities, that seeks and promotes minority voices. Not on Medium much? Follow the magazine on Instagram to see the wide variety of topics and voices coming together in this virtual space.
Guided meditations via Zoom continue on Mondays at 4:00pm PST and on Thursdays at 9:00am PST! If you or someone you know could use a 20-30 minute dose of peace and quiet on Mondays or Thursdays, visit the meditation page on my site to sign up!
Looking for meaningful conversation without having to prove, disprove, or accomplish anything? Join a Symposium! Symposia bring people together to explore a topic from different angles. Check out my website for more information and to sign up. Symposia are limited to 10 participants and need 4 to run. Upcoming Symposia:
Good Stuff: talking about listening, seeing, feeling, and other ings. Good Stuff VI (Wednesdays: July 14, 21, 28 & August 4); Good Stuff VII (Wednesdays, August 11, 18, 25 & September 1; Good Stuff VIII (Wednesdays: August 8, 15, 22 & 29)
Rituals, ceremonies, traditions: starting points for understanding, engaging, and constructing ritual life (Thursdays: July 15, July 22, July 29, August 5)
Madonna: a case study in religion & pop culture (Thursdays: August 12, 19, 26 & September 2)
Miss Jean Brodie is past her prime: teachers in film (Thursdays: September 9, 16, 23 & 30)
GOOD STUFF
Celebrate
My favorite Pride-anthem of the year is Alaska Thunderfuck’s “ROY G BIV BBT.” Who is Alaska, you ask? Only the legendary drag performer and winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 2 and maker of hits like “Your Makeup Is Terrible.” Still nothing?
Alaska’s drag is an edgy and forward-looking blend of comedy, art, and politics, and “ROY G BIV BBT” is perhaps her smartest and catchiest song yet. Perhaps you recognize the ROYGBIV part of the title (a mnemonic for the color spectrum), but Alaska adds BBT (reflecting Daniel Quasar’s Progress Pride Flag that explicitly represents trans people and people of color) to the name of her new friend Roy, a Pride flag come-to-life. Often times, queer art has to explain itself - to non-queer people. Alaska’s message, though, seems to be directed to people who identify as LGBTQIA, in particular the Ls and G's who haven’t recognized the racism and sexism in “the queer community.” Explicitly and adamantly prioritizing the voices of the marginalized among the marginalized is core to Alaska’s work these days, emerging in big productions like “ROY G BIV BBT” and more subtle efforts like casual conversations on podcasts. The evolution of the flag is a welcome pressure point for an embarrassingly slow evolution among queer people in recognizing and addressing the -isms that we perpetuate, but instead of hitting us over the head with her message, Alaska gives us a dance beat, a catchy hook, and a way forward.
The video also features scenes in West Hollywood and LA that have been safe spaces for queer people and performers, most of which struggled to reopen as pandemic restrictions receded. Watch it for the subtle politics, watch it for the art, or just watch it because you want to delight in queer performance.
Listen
What’s your “shower song”? You know, the song you sing along with in the shower when no one is home, the song with all the money notes and belts? The song that you sing through your heart, from the bottom of your soles? For me, it’s Rufus Wainwright’s “Beautiful Child”. It’s a bright and upbeat song with poetic, almost esoteric lyrics that look to a time beyond boundaries and limits and the wonder and joy that come with it.
And when there’s nothing to gain
Or bring me pain or pin the blame
On you or myself
And when they finally fall
These wailing walls and burdened crosses
God’s twilights and all...
Oh, how I’ll feel like a beautiful child
Such a beautiful child again
In the shower, driving with the windows down, or just walking down the street, the song is an immediate mood-elevator for me, and watching Wainwright sing it live is a reminder how well he captures and conveys a moment, a feeling, or a dream.
If you stream music on Spotify, I’ve started a playlist called“Bill’s Good Stuff,” including music I’ve loved for a long time as well as things I’ve come across more recently. Feel free to add the playlist to your favorites!Bill’s Good Stuff Spotify Playlist
Read
Is it really summer if you haven’t read Mary Oliver’s most famous words? For this week’s meditation, I used “The Summer Day.”
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean—
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
