Another Tuesday, another evening of Assembly testimony. I haven’t even yet been able to write about or hardly even gather my thoughts about the testimony of last week. Two days of it, no less.
It’s the way of things, sometimes. Life transposes.
Maybe you thought I was going to say Life interferes. Actually, so did I. But the word that came to mind was transposes. In fact, it fits.
To transpose:
- To reverse or transfer the order or place of; interchange.
- To put into a different place or order: transpose the words of a sentence.
- Etc.
This makes more sense, actually, than to say Life interferes, which gives the false indication that life is some kind of obstacle getting in the way of — what? Other life. Particular things one wants to accomplish. Something like that. But better, for me, to think of it as transposition, rather than interference: it’s simply switching the order of things. Words in a sentence (something I do all the time when writing: ordering the words one way is sometimes rhetorically more effective than ordering them another way), actions in life. It’s not necessarily bad. It’s not necessarily interference.
This past week the transposition I’ve primarily had is: I need to sleep my way out of this exhaustion before I can think sensibly enough to write a damn thing. Secondarily, it would be good to have reasonable food in the house, & a kitchen reasonably sorted out to fix it in. Thirdly, my friendships are important to me, & must be maintained.
Over the past several days, these are the things I’ve been doing instead of writing. After all, thanks to the decisions of Assembly Chair Debbie Ossiander, the repetitive testimony of the small if loudmouthed Christianist faction of the Anchorage (& Mat-Su) public will continue to drone on for quite awhile. Plenty of time to write about that. But sleep, food, friends — well, hey. Those aren’t interference. Those are what keep my life alive.
More, then, to come. Just in a different order.
Meanwhile, I did finally manage last night to get my PrideFest 2009 photos uploaded to my Flickr photostream. Enjoy.
I always thought of “life intrudes” — and that it was intruding upon “happiness”. All of the heartache, all of the random punches taken — that feels like mysterious life and I hate it when it intrudes upon the other existence I’ve tried to create, the one called happiness. I really can be simple minded!
No kidding, sometimes stuff feel like intrusion on happiness all right… & I’ve had plenty of that this past year.
This time though — getting enough sleep, doing a bit of vegging out by myself or with friends, making sure my fridge & cupboards are stocked with good healthy food — that felt more like the good stuff. It’s this concerted Christianist attack on equal rights that’s the intrusion.
Maybe you’ve helped me identify one of those “leading indicators” — like durable goods sales as a sign of recession. Except this one works thusly: when life is the random negativity that intrudes, I’m trending downward. When life and perceived happiness are congruent, I’m trending upward or holding steady. There might be something to this!
Good sleep, good eats, good quiet, good friends = good stuff. Let that be life.
Mel, sorry we’re not there with all of you. I think you’ll understand why if you go to this blog and see the comments to my a post I sent him a few days ago. “Anchorage as an abusive parent”
http://whatdoino-steve.blogspot.com
Yep. I have a lot of those same feelings about the homophobia in Montana too (the state in which I was born & raised). And in this current fight, I reckon that my exhaustion & need for R&R over the weekend was as much about feeling like I’m being continually pummeled, as that I just needed more sleep. It’s like what I wrote in comments to my friend John’s post about last Wednesday’s testimony, Day Three, Red Sea Rising: I don’t think I could have taken listening to all that you listened to, not last night, not on top of exhaustion. It’s the same stuff from December 1992 that made me want to curl up into a tiny ball & hide… palpable hatred that doesn’t recognize its own hatefulness, & willful ignorance that can’t bear to seek anything outside the echo chamber.
Right now, today, I feel a sense of dread growing in me as the hour of 5:00 PM approaches, when my workday ends & I hop on the bus to the Loussac Library for more testimony. It’s not good stuff to hear or see — all that smug self-congratulation of the souls who don’t question, but can only rebroadcast the false answer that have been handed down to them from the bully pulpit. And I mean bully. But it’s my part now to stand in the path of that ongoing harm to bear witness. Thank gods for the many friends who standing with me & us to bear witness with me.
Your resilience is remarkable and being able to catch that the “transposition” was causing problems and address it is a testimony to that. I wish I had the stamina and intensity to be part of the active group at the Library again this time–like in 1992. But for me, at present, being involved that way is not possible; so, letters and prayers and phone calls will be what I can contribute. Thanks to you and to all of you working on this and putting yourselves literally in the line of fire– I remember their faces and eyes.
That’s what will make the difference as in any effort to change the world–people who will challenge as the hurt and those who will join them as their friends and family. It’s the only way the circle grows larger and it looks like that it happening in Anchorage.
A story that Gene and I must tell some day is how we felt that day the Alaska Supreme Court mooted our appeal on same-sex marriage because we had no legal standing–it was argued that because we had not experienced any specific harm in the law we had no recourse to bring our case against a legal impediment that barred our right to marry.
I heard this at court while listening to first arguments for the Carter et al ACLU case. No one was there to give me comfort. We didn’t know the ruling was coming out that day. I just wandered back to Gene at Out North and cried with him. It didn’t warrant a story. It didn’t cause a ripple.
That was in 2001 and that was when we knew we had to leave. Be well.