Honored

Thank you @nycaidsmemorial. I’m honored to be remembered and the fight continues.

Shhhh

We’re less than two months into 2023 and the 2024 elections are already upon us, attracting candidates and crying out for donors. I have at least one friend in the race, and I expect more may follow. In the struggle for Democrats to hold the Senate, I plan to be quietly supportive. I do not want to be caught up in the maelstrom. As the primaries appear and Democratic candidates wage war against each other, I hate the sound of good people eating their own. I retreat into a safe silence.

Looking back, there was little room for a silent retreat by the time I took the dais in Houston at the 1992 Republican National Convention. By then, the most combative issue in America was the virus that I had contracted: HIV.

Beginning in July 1981 with what were described as “strange cancers” or, in some quarters, “gay cancer,” HIV/AIDS had become the most deadly scourge ever to impact America’s gay men and hemophiliac children. What made the issue combative wasn’t actually the virus; it was the reality that in America, unlike most other issues, HIV/AIDS had broken out first among gay men. The virus raced through the gay community with lethal speed. And as it did its work, shrinking the bodies of young men and strewing the damage in every direction, most of America’s “leaders” looked the other direction. Some clucked about sex. Some thought “they’re getting what they deserve.” A few knew compassion.

The word “gay” was enough to generate beliefs and behaviors rooted in nothing but discrimination. Parents of gay sons wrote obituaries that identified cancer as the cause of death; AIDS would have been a cause of shame. The brutalities and ignorance were so profound that in some cities we could not find a mortuary to handle AIDS victims. For the entirety of his term in office, as tens of thousands died, Ronald Reagan refused to say “AIDS.” In the community I was soon (1991) to join, his was a thundering silence.

The hush of death in those days was challenged by the screams of ACT-UP, founded by my friend Larry Kramer. In parades and conference rooms, on the streets and in healthcare conferences, Larry and his compatriots identified silence as the enemy. Those who heard the cries and turned a deaf ear included families, congregations, and political leaders. By their silence, said the activists – among whom I was numbered – were giving their consent.

When I spoke in ’92, I resented that silence. Even my keynote’s title, “A Whisper of AIDS,” evoked the sound of silence. I reminded all who would listen that millions of innocent people had been herded into the Nazi’s camps and chambers, and we did not protest. Black children were excluded from decent schools and public swimming pools, and we did not object. And now it was gay men – sick and dying – who looked to America’s leaders for some comfort only to be treated to silence.

Watching the debacle known as DeSantis in Florida evokes another kind of silence. What do I have to say to his shameless pandering to Trump’s fickle base? How does one characterize the burning of books and the politicization of school boards without reference to Hitler’s Germany?

If I’m silent while watching the newscasts of my ex-home (Florida) it’s because, as I’ve said here before, I don’t know what to say against such hypocrisy and stupidity. I shake my head, mutter “WTF,” and pick up my knitting. My silence is shock, not complicity.

This week I learned that a book was recently published in which there’s a passing recollection of me at age 18. It was not a handsome period of my life, and the book’s description isn’t handsome either. I don’t intend to sue. I’m planning no fight with the author or regret about who once I may have been. I intend to shrug my shoulders, let some silence shroud the painful memories of those days, and invite my grandchildren to climb onto my lap for a snuggle. It’s what might be termed “strategic silence.”

I sometimes worry about President Biden’s 80 years of age; I love what he’s done, think he’s not given the credit that’s due, and still I worry. When I read about the President’s courageous trip into Ukraine, riding a slow locomotive through a long night in the barren, war-savaged countryside, I was in awe of him. I sat in the silence that awe deserves. I took it in.

This past week hosted Ash Wednesday, a holiday of sorts that follows the raucous bacchanalia of Mardi Gras. For many of our Christian friends, it’s a time for reflection on the cadence of life and death. Their foreheads bear the mark that reminds them, and us, that dust we are, and to dust we shall return. In the face of our own mortality, silence does seem like the right place to go.

Maybe my growing ambivalence about silence comes with age. The vast majority of my years are behind me. I’ve lived longer than imagined possible 30 years ago. It doesn’t make me sad or depressed. But it does summon me to moments of quiet conversation with friends and family. I wrap up lots of days in quiet hours of reflection.

I’m convinced that, In the face of throbbing evil, silence is still the enemy. But in the place of awe, gratitude for life and those with whom I share it, reflecting on the miracle of grandchildren who love us without inhibitions – when such moments rise, silence isn’t cowardice or the endorsement of something vicious. Not at all. In such moments, my silence is the sound of gratitude and love. It’s a very, very blessed quiet.

Making a Little Difference

I’ve been reflecting lately on how I approach life’s challenges. It’s probably the sort of thing people do who’ve reached my age.

During the active years of the COVID pandemic, when I was mostly confined to home, I think I became more observer than participant in life. I got up in the morning with a sigh, a sense of resignation that “here’s another day.” I watched TV or, if I didn’t watch, I kept it on to see other people and hear some sounds besides my breathing. I saw crises that weren’t mine. I watched as politics unfolded more-or-less as expected. I observed it all and sank a little deeper into my sense of dissatisfaction with life.

Okay, there were occasional bright spots. Calls and notes came from friends, which I appreciated. A few creative times in my studio were hopeful. And the most convincing reason to break out of my self-imposed solitude were my grandchildren. I celebrated first hugs, first steps, first words. I was temporarily buoyed by the sense of obsessive affection that comes with grandmothering.

I didn’t just sit out life for the 2-year COVID stretch. I did some work, posted some essays,  perhaps even did some good for someone. But I also – and sometimes mostly – watched. I noticed. I sighed. And I filled the role of disappointed observer.

What kept me observing and not participating was the sense that I couldn’t make a real difference anyway so why try? I couldn’t change the hearts of MAGA Republicans or repair what they were breaking. I saw millions of Americans suffering lack of housing and food, unable to keep up with inflation, and I didn’t have the resources to care for them. Perhaps the worst was that I couldn’t keep Black men alive in a world where they are seen more as targets than as persons.

And it’s true: I can’t fix most of what’s broken. But the fact that I can’t fix everything doesn’t need to mean I can’t fix anything, or the reality that I can’t make all the difference should keep me from making some difference.

I credit First Lady Betty Ford with convincing me that making a difference in life is like tossing a pebble into a pond and watching the ripples form. If we can make a small difference, that small difference could spawn a larger difference as the ripples of our action move out. It’s like “the butterfly effect” that the flap of a butterfly’s wing in Brazil can spur the formation of a tornado in Texas.

My first step toward getting out of my observer funk is convincing myself that I don’t need to do everything; I only need to do something.

There may be another factor. When I’m down on myself, I tend to withdraw from real participation in the life of others. I isolate and paralyze myself with the notion that I’ve not done enough, not been enough. I should have achieved more in a long lifetime. It supports the “why try anyway” feeling that calls me back to bed for the day.

When, even for a minute, I can feel some sense of satisfaction with what I’ve achieved in life, I start thinking about getting up and doing something useful.

It happens when a high school senior sends an email saying she read my 1992 speech to the Republican National Convention. She says it changed her life and she’s going to perform it in her state’s forensics contest next week.

It happened last week when a man said he’d kept my book by his bedside for decades, reading from it regularly. Really? Wow….

It happens when, holding one of my grandchildren, they look up at me, touch my cheek and gurgle some unknown language of love. This child has come from one of my sons, of whom I am proud, and he has a brother of whom I’m equally proud. Somewhere over the years, I must have done something right as a mother.

When I believe that I have some value and acknowledge that I don’t need to do everything in order to do something, I come back to life. I can’t fix the Republicans but I can give a dollar to a candidate who will try. I can’t repair homelessness but I can support a local effort to develop affordable housing. I can’t eliminate food insecurity or hunger but I can join the board of Project Angel Food that delivered more than a million meals in Los Angeles County last year.

I still need to be careful about exposure to COVID. I want not to become so busy that I have no time for my children and grandchildren. But I’m ready to let go of my role as nothing-but-an-observer. With the resources and time I have left, I want to join you in participating fully in this life.