proteanme

It continues to snow. In fact, it’s snowing here like nobody’s business. And dark. Dark as all get out. I walked around for a good chunk of the afternoon out in the elements. Trudged is maybe a better word for certain stretches. But I had good company, so it didn’t seem like trudgery. On the way home the flakes were big and thick and about half way here, the sun set on me. Walking in the in the middle of the road in twilight, with snow piled up everywhere I turned, it felt like it really meant something to just get home. May be it always does; it’s just today I noticed.

One of the things I love about Portland is that it is possible to have a walking life and a walking life opens up the door to reflection and contemplation, to negotiation with the elements, to the possibility of more human contact, and the chance to notice the details of landscape. A walking life opens up the door on isolation, even if it’s only making eye contact with the guy coming the other way across the street. A walking life has really saved me these last two years.

More snow. Feels like home. Without the amenities of salt and snow trucks. I was out walking around for a while. Maybe I’ll go out again later and take some pictures.

I realized today that I am deeply sad about the Warren invitation. And in my exchange with Amos, I realized how I’ve tamped down my emotions to cope with the anger and sadness I’ve felt for a long, long time about what it’s like live life as a second class citizen. What’s it’s like to have spent all of my adulthood being considered less than. To always be in constant negotiation with the outside. Because legally, I am an outsider in the US and it is ok to discriminate against me and it is ok to publically deride me.

Obama is a strategic and shrewd politician. Including Warren is symbolic just like excluding Jeremiah Wright was symbolic. Warren has called homosexuality a sin. Compared it to incest and pedophilia. For me, this isn’t just about Warren’s opposition to gay marriage. It’s about chipping away at the humanity of all of us who are queer. Because when Warren uses that kind of language it’s dehumanizing. And if you can make me a little less human, then it’s a little easier to treat me me a little less than human.

I cried today thinking about it.  I’m tired.

2008 in photographs (part 2 of 3) – The Big Picture – Boston.com

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I believe in reaching across the aisle. I believe in dialogue and common ground. I really do. I was close to a guy at work who prayed for my queer ass. But I’m not psyched about Rev. Warren giving the invocation. Why him? I just wanna say to Obama, hey didn’t gays give up enough supporting you even though you don’t support our right to full citizenship. C’mon give something back, dude. Reach out to the all the queers who worked their ass off to help get you where you are. Seriously. I’m tired. You know as well as I do, we’re not gonna wait forever.

Snowing. Again. I predict the whole town will shut down soon. It does seem like a proper winter though, romantic notions of a “blanket of white” aside. The cold, the hassle, the cars sliding around — they mark the season for me. With all this external stimuli, I finally have something concrete with which to identify winter in the long stretch of rain that usually accompanies this time of year. I feel like ten years later I’m finally at a place where I can miss things from home. That’s it’s not going to kill me to feel the longing for friends or family or other familiarities. And right now I miss the rhythm of seasons.

Thanks to Susie Bright, MG gets on one of the most popular blogs around.

I don’t know if the flakes are bigger or I’ve just forgotten what they look like, but it’s snowing here. A once or twice yearly occurrence. Last time I remember snow like this was last year at Christmas. If it keeps up all of Portland will shut done except for the people that don’t know how to drive in the snow; and they will speed around way too fast thinking that the chains or studs on their tires give them have special super snow powers. My cat doesn’t know what to make  of it. He keeps looking out the window, his head following the flakes from sky to ground. It’s pretty. I think I will go for a walk and be out in it.

I love twilight. In a nearly clear sky.

I’m lucky in that one side of my cube is almost all windows, extending from side to side and then up three feet. This way I get to notice the sky. Today I sat for a few minutes and looked at dusk and thought to myself, wow, this is what liminal looks like. This is liminality done up nuanced and stunning at the same time.

The interior landscape. Now that’s a tricky one. I wish I could keep it from getting over run with nay sayers. It’s funny how much I’ve externalized nay saying. Unconsciously, I think. It’s like a sixth sense the way I gravitate to the “no can do” in a crowd. Not that there aren’t some really wonderful and supportive exceptions. Lucky for me, there have always been; say for instance, the terrific friends who read my blog. But I swear to god sometimes I feel safer with the cynics and critics; I have a lot more experience negotiating with dismissiveness and disdain. For those of you who feel comfortable doing so, feel free to give me a gentle nduge away from the rut of familiarity.

I’ve been watching myself these last couple days, riding a baby roller coaster of small successes and defeats. Good practice I think — to observe it all.  And the stakes are pretty low, but details count. I keep thinking of Churchill saying “life is one damn thing after another” and how that doesn’t have to be condemnation or an echo of defeat. It could be an invitation to embrace the damn things. What else are you gonna do, work against it all?!

Landscape. It’s impossible not to have a relationship with it. Impossible to escape its imprint, even if its only in the imagination. When I was in Paris I wondered what it would be like to grow up and inhabit a space so immersed in history. Here in the U.S. history is an event or a place one goes to visit. It’s not an every day occurrence. But in France 200,000 families live in houses dating back to Henry IV (1589-1610); 500,000 families live in houses of the Louis XIII period (1610-43); and 1,250,000 families live in houses of the Louis XV period (1715-74). Home is a historical landscape. And in walking through one’s neighborhood, there is the possibility to mark one’s steps along a time line connecting the now to the the past. The times that came before are right there. And they’ll be right there for the next generation too.