partner

about two years and four months ago, i married someone. nathan, to be exact. we had already known each other for 8 years, dated for a total of about 4 years in that time and decided we would make the commitment of getting married. it sounds so passive, like "getting caught" or "getting sick"- like it just happens to you. which is why, after two years and four months, i made another decision. i went on facebook a few weeks ago and changed our relationship status to "domestic partnership." i know. facebook, really? who cares? it's just facebook. and i'm sure there are plenty of our friends who didn't even notice the change. a few did and actually commented on it with questions or with encouragement. but i didn't really care who noticed, because i made this very insignificant gesture out of a very significant personal realization. for a while now i have felt like this marriage thing did just happen to me. like i didn't choose this kind of life, but that it just bombarded me. what started innocently and happily enough in a super-cute white jessica mcclintock dress has become this uncomfortable and unrelenting assault on my life. . . .

i didn't choose marriage. i chose nathan. the term "marriage" is just that-- a term. it means different things to different people and, at the end of it all, it is a document. to me, marriage had meant romance, happiness, a few trials, but only of the major kind like cancer or car accidents or one of us in a wheel chair. the kind of trials that you see in the most romantic of nicholas sparks movies. and, even though i was thirty years old when i married, i had a child's understanding of what it meant. which is why i have chosen to think of things as they truly are. and for some people, this is highly confusing and very UNromantic. the word "marriage" is defined as "a social institution," "the state of union," and "a blending or matching of elements." those things are all going on in this relationship i have with nathan. but, more importantly, the thing that is going to keep us together through the many big and little crap storms that have already come and will continue to come, is the constant realization that we are partners. we didn't just "get married." we each chose a partner for the rest of our lives. it didn't just happen to us, but we made the choice and have to keep making it every second of every day. a partner is defined in these ways- "people associated in a joint venture, sharing in its risks and profits; a player on the same side or team as another; two people who dance together. . . ." so, yeah. i choose to have nathan as my partner. it saddens me to think that there are people who want, more than anything, to marry their boyfriend or girlfriend, but legally can't. for that reason as well i choose to honor the truth and the strength of partnership. lots of people can get themselves married and divorced. i just believe it takes a real strength to choose someone, commit to the venture, sharing in all the loss and the profits and be forever on his or her team. and, of course, dance together. and i think that's pretty romantic.

thanks for being my partner, nate.

song

my mom told me that when i was 5 or 6 years old i had four copies of "electric avenue" on record. i had four because i would listen to each one over and over again until it failed to play. it's funny to think you can wear a song down to nothing by simply loving it too much, but i guess that's what i did. i don't know why i chose that song. more to the point, i don't know why that song chose me, but maybe somewhere eddie grant thought, "there's a sad and scared but hopeful little girl over in the bronx who needs a very bubbly friend..." and, voila, over skipped his song. i do not remember playing each record til it cracked or even how very much i loved that song. i do remember, as vividly as i see this computer screen, how that song made me feel back then. over 25 years ago, and i still have the feeling in my self of listening to that music and knowing, for 3 minutes, what it was to be free and real and something very much alive. i listen to it now and hear so much more of the meaning- the intended meaning- than i ever could have understood at 5 years old. but, oddly enough, it didn't matter then. i just loved that song....

i don't know what it is about songs and about music that is so all-encompassing, but i think it is amazing. maybe it's the simple truth that people move and breath because of energy and rhythm and music is energy and rhythm. at its best, it's all the energy and rhythm of being human expressed in its fullness- it's elation or heartache or anxiousness or bliss, but it is sincere. i think that's the word. sincere. the songs that remain my closest of friends are not pretentious or overwrought, but so sincere. i listen to jose gonzalez's "hand on your heart" or phil collin's "in too deep", bon iver's "skinny love" or michael jackson's "human nature" -- that is just to name a few-- and it's the same feeling i get when i am in the company of a good friend having the kind of conversation where you feel nothing but loved and understood and they feel the same. . . . all is right in the world. . . . for at least a few minutes. . . .


thanks to the following for helping me through. . . .and thanks for following me. . . .
-all songs mentioned above
-nu shooz "i can't wait"
-fleetwood mac "everywhere"
-peter gabriel "solsbury hill"
-paul simon "call me al"
-shanice "i love your smile"
-lisa loeb "stay"
-nirvana "lithium"
-thao "bag of hammers"
-joanna newsom "en gallop"
-kimya dawson "tire swing"
-phil collins "throwing it all away"
-ccr "looking out my back door"
-melanie "brand new key" (thanks for that one, mom)

small town blues pt. 1

so, i sometimes imagine this birds-eye view of my life's geography- i can see where i've been so far and my eyes dart across from place to place remembering who i was when i was there. . . . this little me in the south bronx and staten island, then down a little ways to the adolescent me in philadelphia. i shoot over to good old indiana, pa through college (which was awesome, by the way, and rife with papa john's pizza) and then into pittsburgh for a time before heading down to nashville. there were so many other little stops in between for things like job trainings and my visits with jeff in california (awesomely rife with burritos and "buffy the vampire slayer"). i really love seeing my days this way. it doesn't make me feel well-traveled or anything as much as it reminds me that i am a sojourner in this world, and that wherever i go there is something there for me to do and something there for me to take with me.

well. that sounded very enlightened. and i believed it all as i was typing it. for real. but now i sit here in a small town called grove city, pennsylvania. my first week here i heard the word, "nigger" twice and was privy to at least three homophobic "jokes" by the end of the first month. as is my habit when living or visiting a new city, i google (or bing, as it were) the name of the town with the word "gay" in order to get a sense of the lgbt community there. for example, when i moved to nashville, i googled "gay nashville" and was met with a resplendent list of community services, a few bookstores, some lgbt-friendly churches and, even more blissfully, play dance bar and its many queens. thank you, google. and thank you, nashville. and so. my first week in grove city i googled- you guessed it- "gay grove city, pa.". . . . .

i was not aware- but i am now- that there was a grove city college student who was expelled for working in the porn industry to put himself through school. i am aware of this in great detail because my google search resulted in 2 pages of articles on this subject. i also found a therapist specializing in gay stuff, and by "gay stuff" i mean helping people who are "struggling with homosexuality." and it's not like i don't believe that it is a struggle for some people. i struggled for several years with coming to terms with my own sexual identity, but i guess, given the first two pages of articles i saw, i assume this therapist is aiming her clients toward the straight is great path in life. i could be totally wrong. i hope i am.

i also found a link to urbandictionary.com in my search and this was what sealed the deal for me being officially freaked out. . . . apparently, the town of grove city, pa has made a name for itself in the slang world, folks. it's true. allow me to illustrate. say you're visiting, i don't know, a small town in western pennsylvania and you, being a friendly person, strike up a conversation with the lady in front of you at the gas station. she asks you where you're headed and you say you're going to a big old gay wedding and just needed to refuel and grab some corn nuts for the road. she scoffs and says something like, "oh, those homos are ruining this country," to which you reply, "girl, don't be so grove city about it!" yep. grove city is not only a noun but can also be used as an adjective to describe something or someone who displays homophobic and/or racist leanings. now, i realize that urbandictionary.com is not the benchmark of sociological truths, but that slang term didn't derive from nothing, ya know what i mean?

if i sound like a metropolitan bitch right now, i really don't mean to. i have met some cool people here and have seen some amazing things happening in this community. there is a real sense of kindness in many people and it is kind of nice to be able to walk to the park with my son or to the library right across the street. and when there are only about four traffic lights in our immediate area, it makes driving anywhere a nice, smooth jazz of an experience. and still.

i asked a co-worker last week whether she'd ever live in the city. her ultimate answer was "i'd love to visit, but living in a rural area is what i know." she was very open to an experience other than the one she had lived her whole life, but, as she said, she is a "country girl." she is also one of the funniest, most bad-ass and sarcastic people i have ever met. she's still be that person living in the middle of chicago, but i also think there's a big part of her that is connected to and rooted in what it means to be a "country girl." she loves rodeos and open spaces and quiet nights and living on acres of land. she'd be the same girl inside, but all those outside connections would be gone. and i guess that's where i stand right now. i realize that geography can't minimize who i am. but it can really minimize the ways i express who i am. what it will not do, however, is minimize my ability to strap on my new wedge heels, apply some eye glitter and sashay my way through this new territory intact and with the expectation that i am here to give what i can and learn what i need to. so, hooray for purpose. and face glitter.