Doesn't Anyone Understand?

We toured Toledo today. The city is very beautiful, very old but very very beautiful. We saw the oldest synogogue in Western Europe. It's no longer a working synogogue, but now more of a museum. For a long time in Toledo there were three groups, Jews, Christians and Muslims. The three groups lived in relative peace and harmony, as far as any records can tell.

Then Queen Isabella came and ruined it all and had all the synogogues torn down and all the jews basically converted or killed. Very unpleasant times indeed.

The Spanish didn't take part in WWII (from what I recall from high school history lessons), because they were dealing with their own civil war at the time. Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator of Spain from the 30's until relatively recently, being a facist, let Hitler use his country and his people for target practice for testing out bombs and weapons of destruction. That's where Picasso's famous "Guernica" comes in (I'm seeing it tomorrow, I hope I don't weep). Joan Miro, my most favourite artist, has some very insightful pieces reflecting on the civil war and the years of tumolt for Spain. We went to the Miro museum in Barcelona, which was such an astonishing experience for me. The first time I saw a Miro first hand was in Hartford in 2004, I believe, at the Athenium (if you're from Connecticut you've probably been at one time or another, it's very small but it's a cute museum and I believe it's the oldest public art museum in the United States, but I could be mistaken). He is a contemporary artist, and most of his works seem very primitive and unrealistic, but what you really must do is look beyond the figures, the paint, the frame, the palet, and make the painting something for you. I like art that becomes whatever you want it to become.

But this wasn't meant to be a rant about Miro.

In Toledo today, I noticed there to be a lot of graffiti of swastikas. I don't understand how anyone, particularly someone in Europe, particularly someone whose country suffered under a fascist dictator for decades, could possibly promote the fascist way. Don't they know how their parents and grandparents suffered? Don't they know how all the people of Europe suffered? Fleeing from bombs falling here and there, shrapnal everywhere, air raids, no food, never knowing if you'd live to see tomorrow or if your children would live to see the end of the war. Or worse, if you were one of the direct victims of the fascists, if they stuck you in a ghetto and then huddled you into a cramped box car and sent you off to never be seen or heard from again. Spain is a Catholic nation, don't they know what the Nazis did to the Catholics? Don't they know, don't they understand? How can anyone draw the swastika without silently killing their soul?

Sadly those aren't the first swastikas I've seen in Europe. There is a little shrine, with candles and swastikas in chalk on a stoop near my school in London (in one of the most affluent neighbourhoods in London, might I add). I got so angry and sad when I saw it, that I blew both the candles out, and I don't even care if CCTV saw me do it. They're English, the Nazis tried to wipe London off the map of the world, don't they understand?

On a MUCH happier note, I just got word that Obama signed the Hate Crimes Bill into LAW! How awesome is that?

Perhaps there is hope after all. Yes, I'd say there is a lot of hope. Things are getting better all the time :)

http://www.hrc.org/13699.htm


Miro, 1973, "The Smile of a Tear" very appropriate for today

Eleven Months

We are in Madrid this lovely warm evening. It's been a very long day of traveling and touring and eventually eating, so now we are resting for the night.

Today is my eleven month anniversary with Hillary, and it is sad that we have to spend our anniversary apart.

However, we'll be together next month for our one year anniversary. We'll be in Paris then, it will be que romantico.

I can't believe it's been eleven months, it feels like just yesterday we were driving home from Ani, got hungry for Wendy's and spent the better part of an hour sitting in a dark parking lot eating and talking about life, silently telling each other that we couldn't put on this facade anymore.

Love happens and it knocks you right off your feet. It's the best, most stupifying feeling in the world, to be sure. Perhaps numbing is a better word for it. I don't know if I like the feeling of numbness, or fluttering about, but I do love being in love with a wonderful person and I am very glad that we found each other in this big scary world.

There is no one out there who would climb mountains with me on a whim, who would stand by my side from 3,000 miles away, who would so thoroughly entertain me while simultaneously captivating me. I fall in love with every pretty face I see, but I have never been so completely in love with not only a pretty face, but a wonderful mind and a beautiful soul.

Here's to Madrid and eleven months with Mogli.

Barcelona

Welcome to Barcelona!

This city is AMAZING! I wish I had come here to study abroad instead of crumby old London. There is so much here, and the weather is beautiful and there are palm trees everywhere.

And the food... magnificent.

Tonight at dinner we shared our meal with a little black cat who was walking amongst the tables. She was a skinny little cat so I dropped her some of my salmon. But she wouldn't eat any of my salmon, which was curious because she looked hungry. Then she disappeared. A little while later she returned, followed closely by a kitten, who proceeded to consume all of the salmon I had dropped for his mother. I stroked the cat while she watched her kitten eat, and I swear she was smiling at me. I fed her some salmon so I was certain she had eaten, and she ate every last drop. Then another kitten came, and it all got too crazy and we were leaving the restaurant but it broke my heart to part with the cat, she was such a sweet cat, and she knew exactly how to make me fall in love with her (it's probably because I miss my Kitty).

Earlier this evening, we were walking down to the beach so my mother could put her feet in the Mediterranean Sea, when we came across a man on a bike. Not just any man on a bike, though, a man on a bike wearing... only a bike. He was completely nude!

I got pictures. It'll take me a while to figure out whether Americans are sexually repressed (in that we giggle at nudity and think it's obscene) or if Europeans are too sexually liberal.

Barcelona is amazing, we've walked all over the city so far. This morning we went to Monserrat, which is this really interesting old Monastery in the mountains outside of Barcelona, but it's more like Disneyland in the mountains, with music and dancing and food and liquor. It was awesome.

My internet isn't working (I'm writing this on my friend's laptop right now) so I will upload pictures when I get back to Londontown or if the internet in Madrid works after Tuesday :)

Mr. Obama and the Human Rights Campaign

I watched this for the first time tonight.

Despite my feelings regarding the president at the current time (call it disillusionment, all the hype from the election turned into a huge post-election let down, but everyone can identify with that, within and without the LGBT community), I think the man did a good job. Whether he did a good job of pulling the wool over our eyes or whether he sincerely meant what he said, it doesn't really matter.

The fact of the matter is, there is progress. It is slow. Much slower than it should be. Much slower, I think, than anyone expected it would be. Perhaps even in my lifetime there will still be mountains to climb.

But as a hiker, I suppose, I have to admit that the unclimbed mountains are far more alluring than those which are climbed daily. The unchartered waves are more daring than the warm bay waters. The forest is more tempting than the field.

We can all feel this movement heating up, swelling around us, becoming bigger with every pulse in every vein in every crowd at every rally.

And in the end, we know that love wins. Love always wins. Love wins in Revelations, oh you who would quote God's word. Love wins in every story ever written. And if you would argue that no, love does not always win, I would tell you to read between the lines, and perhaps then you would see that yes, in fact, love does win.

This is about the pinnacle. The peak. Triumphing over hate. The journey there is long and arduous. Dangerous, perilous, often sorrowful. But some day, in some sleepy little down in America, a little child is going to read in their history books about how LGBT individuals were persecuted, and with the hard work, dedication and compassion of LGBT individuals, leaders and supporters, they overcame and are now treated as equals.

And that little child won't be afraid to be who they are,

because love always wins in the end.

Everyone Deserves a Chance to Fly

I saw Wicked the other day here in London Town.

It was absofreakinlutely phenomenal. I love love loved it. It made me kind of sad and nostalgic, though, because (although it was my first time seeing the musical) my friends from school and I (my best friends at school) would after get together at night and sit around and sing songs for Wicked. I remember sitting in my car, my baby Rhonda, blasting Defying Gravity, my friends all around me shouting the words and trying to keep up with Idina Menzel and just laughing and laughing and having a wonderful time just being together and being utterly silly.

I wish I weren't a grown up, almost constantly.

Yesterday we walked around Camden Market. The place reeks of incense, in fact the smell still lingers on the clothes I wore yesterday. Incense reminds me of high school, coming home after a long day and lighting a stick of incense and just relaxing.

Tomorrow I have to get up super early to meet my professor at the train to go to Cambridge for an out of class field trip. I like to sleep in on Fridays (or travel), but it will be nice to get outside of London for a bit.

Then next Friday we leave for Spain where we'll meet up with the Madre and have a wonderful time, to be sure. I'm excited to see my mom, I've missed her. I wish my sister and the kids could come visit, but I know that's impossible. I feel terrible that my baby niece will be five months old, almost six, by the time I get home; and about 10 days after I get home my oldest niece is turning seven! Where does the time go?

I also feel pretty bad that the thing I am looking forward to the most out of this whole trip is seeing Hillary. I've been trying to convince myself that I don't miss her, that I'm fine without her and that four months isn't that long to go, but it truly is. I can't wait for her to get here so I can show her how amazing London is, walk her along the lake at Hyde Park and take her into the little used book shops near the British Museum. I'm looking forward to Paris, too, eating good food (hopefully!) and drinking great wine. But mostly I'm excited to see Hillary, and I might not even care if we did anything the whole time that she is here (besides the fact that I want to show her around and for her to see as much as she possibly can in the short time that she is here).

It's strange, I never thought I'd be in love. I certainly never thought I'd find anyone like Hillary, she's perfect for me.

But no more of that mushy stuff. Hope everyone has a productive Friday and a wonderful weekend :)

How Do You Cope?

No one has ever asked me that question before, until last night.

Basically my story starts out with a bunch of twenty-year olds drinking and having nothing to do. But the drinking and nothing to do part is unimportant. The debauchery was only the bridge from polite conversation to indepth conversation.

We started the night out with five of us, sitting in our dorm room, drinking and talking. By the time we left the room we were all feeling good. We went to a bar and I had a few drinks, and by the time we left the bar I was almost too drunk to walk, but I did all right. I can still remember everything clearly, and that's all that matters.

We went back to our room, five of us had become six by this point (we ran into one of our friends in the dorm lounge). We all went back to the room and listened to music and talked (loudly) into the wee hours of the morning. I was trying to stay awake to talk to Hillary at 2:30 am my time this morning anyway (9:30 pm her time), so it was nice to have some company while I waited. We never got to talk anyway, but staying up late was worth it.

Eventually the numbers dwindled and six became four. We were all sitting around in true college fashion, drunk and wrapped in blankets to keep warm in these chilly London nights. We were also playing truth or dare, and since we are all too lazy to accept any dares we all chose truth. The main topic was, naturally, sex, because what else is there to talk about after all?

So it is understandable that I was very taken aback when my friend (a new friend, might I add, who I only just met a month ago) asked me how I cope with my father's death. Thankfully I was sober enough to not cry in emotional drunken sadness, but too drunk to give her a concise answer.

So I rambled on for the better part of fifteen minutes about how people who didn't watch their parent literally waste away and die before their eight year old eyes are clueless as to how I feel, and that it is an incredibly lonely place to be. I have so much pressure on me to be the best, to never cry, to never show weakness because I'm my mother's rock, I'm her one constant. And she's my one constant, so she feels compelled to be strong for me. We have to be srong for each other and neither of us can ever cry or ever grieve or ever shout out in fear and sorrow and anger.

But I mess up, I'm human, and sometimes I'm not constant and sometimes I'm weak. All the time I'm messing up and I am disappointing someone because I can't be what everyone wants me to be.

The hardest part of having to cope with my father's death is that my father was my best friend. The strongest love I've ever felt for another living thing in this life I felt for him. He was amazing, one of the greatest people God ever put on this Earth, and I'm not just saying that because I'm sprung from his loins. He was truly amazing, and a definite blessing to everyone he met. No one on this Earth can compare to my father, my love for other people can't compare to the love I still have for my twelve-year dead dad.

The saddest part of his dying is that his grandchildren never got the chance to meet this man. This man who would have loved them so much.

I don't really cope with it. I don't cry about it and I don't talk about it (unless someone directly brings it up, ordinarly). I still feel like a trapped eight year old, lost and alone searching for her daddy everywhere and never finding him because he is long gone. I guess I'll always feel like an eight year old, lonely and heartbroken and wishing God would have taken me instead of smashing my heart into tiny pieces of jagged glass that can never be repaired.

And that's what I told them, in a long drawn out soliloquy of no tears and no other noise besides the hum of my soul coming out of my mouth.

I don't know if they heard me, or if they know how sad I am and how fragile I am. But I do know it felt so so so good to be asked how I feel about my father's death. No one has ever asked me that in twelve years. No one has ever wanted to know how I feel before. And finally someone asked, and it was the most relieving experience I've ever had. Finally someone cared about me and my ability to handle something no eight year old should ever have to handle. I just felt so good.

HRC Gala on Saturday

Can I just say that I am sooo GLAD that the gays are going to be picketing the HRC gala on Saturday in DC.

I wish I could be there to fight the good fight with them.

I've got some choise words for Barack Obama, he's just about my least favourite politician right now. At least the Conservatives don't SAY that they are going to do a damn thing for our rights. But Mr. Obama, you lied. I'd rather gouge my eyes out with hot pokers than vote for a Republican, but you can rest assured I won't be voting for Mr. Obama again. Fool me once...

So, to everyone who will be picketing the Gala, I salute you, and wish I could be among your ranks. Godspeed, maybe Obama will get the message that we're here, we're queer, and we vote and pay taxes too.