IN MEMORY OF SAILOR

Our dearest friends are going through one of the hardest things I can imagine: not just losing your best canine friend, but also having had to make the decision of when it was best for him to go. And our hearts are with them.

Sailor was an amazingly sweet and beautiful dog, especially because it was clear he had such a hard life before he was lucky enough to be adopted by, and Dena and Russell were lucky enough to find him six years ago.

Two years ago, their vet told them the unimaginable: that Sailor was very sick and probably only had weeks or months to live. And yet, two years later he was still here in body and spirit . But it was clear he was incredibly frail, his quality of life was gone, and almost all of things he enjoyed in life were in the past. And Dena and Russell had to decide to say goodbye out of love and compassion. He had blossomed and loved living with them, but it was so clear that they made the right decision at the right time.

I am so grateful to them and him to have been included in his life, and that we got to see him happy after his move north and recently to say goodbye.

Some of the sweet and funny ways I will always remember Sailor:


Breathing heavily from playing fetch and fighting off sleepy eyes...


On alert for strange human behavior...


Doleful...


And sleeping soundly on the floor (and on the sofa, and on the bed...)

Waiting for Gay Marriage

Please click through and scroll down for an added multi-media feature to this post...

Okay, I couldn't resist the "Waiting for Godot" allusion, even though I prefer to use the terms "marriage equality" and "equal marriage rights."

So a great number of queer people, people who care about queer people, and people who just care about civil rights in our society--in California and elsewhere--are holding their breaths. Waiting. Trying to think positively. Because while the highest court in our state has until June to decide the validity of putting civil rights up to a popular vote, the scuttlebutt is that the decision on Prop 8 may come down as soon as this coming Thursday.

And this is something--as a queer Californian who very much would like to be able to legally marry my partner, and who believes that I should have the opportunity to those rights and responsibilities as part of being a Californian protected by our state constitution--this is something about which I care a great deal. It's personal and political, and it's about relationships and civil rights.

I guess I'm coming out...as a Unitarian Universalist--this is from the wedding of our Reverend Greg and his spouse Stillman in San Francisco last summer--and as engaged--David and me at Coastanoa when we decided.

I have been trying to stay positive, even when the scene that unfolded in court seemed so negative earlier this year. And as the incredibly amazing news keeps flowing westward from Iowa (Iowa!) and Vermont and now even Maine and New Hampshire, along with strong efforts in New York and DC and other states, I feel myself believing that our court has to do the right thing. And trying not to be afraid of believing that. And I know for a fact that so many other people, leaders and activists and allies and everyday folks are feeling and/or trying to focus on the same thing.

The purple--appropriately--is where marriage equality is now the law.

I know this is incredibly Californian of me, but I'm asking you to join me in visualizing our court doing the right thing and adding our home state to the list of places that says that queer people are not second-class citizens and queer committed relationships should be legally sanctioned, valued, and protected.

I completely understand the feelings, the preparations, and the call those who are working to plan events in response to the court upholding Prop 8 are making. I just think it's important for me to believe that justice will prevail.

Here's the added multi-media feature in this post: In January, David and I sat for a Storycorps interview in San Francisco. My dear friend Dena had passed along the call to participate because she knew I'm a huge fan of Storycorps and oral history, and because she knew I had been trying to figure out a way to process how I was feeling and seeing in our community in reaction to Prop 8 passing. It was a powerful experience, and helped us clarify how we've--together and individually--come to feel about wanting to be married and wanting everyone to have the right to marry. I'm including our interview in this post to give you a little more background on why I feel the way I do.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO AN MP3 OF OUR INTERVIEW

I hope you enjoy it and please comment and let me know what you think of it, and please be kind about the editing--I cut it down from forty minutes and I've just been teaching myself how to use sound-editing software.

P.S. David bought me the great Storycorps book, Listening Is An Act Of Love, this past Valentine's Day; the interviews are incredible and moving and I highly recommend it.

Reminding Me of Another Inspirational City Hall event: Del Martin's Memorial Service

Being in City Hall Monday evening for the Goldman Prize reception reminded me about another event held at City Hall that I still think about (I realize that some of my posts are going to be about past events that I would have blogged about had I been blogging): Del Martin's memorial service last October. 

Del Martin's City Hall Memorial Service: banners of Del and Phyl, Glide choir with City honor guard at top of stairs, the halls and balconies filled with people celebrating Del's life.

My dear friend, Dena, especially since she sadly moved to 'Gene, OR, always reminds me about important events in the SF LGBT community when they cross her screen at work, and I'm glad she didn't let me forget about this celebration of Del's life.

Three main themes that day especially moved me: thinking again about Del and her achievements, the nature and feel of the ceremony itself, and the words spoken by Del's daughter toward its close.

Cover of the Program for Del Martin's Civic Celebration

Del and Phyl Lyon became a couple and starting working on queer issues in 1950 (!) and they stayed focused on both of those things together until Del died in August of last year.  Del was truly a steward and icon of the queer movement; Del and Phyl started the Daughters of Bilitis, The Ladder, the Council on Religion and the Homosexual, the Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club and so much more.  And I know I wasn't alone when I cried both times Del and Phyl got married in City Hall.  But that day it really hit home again how brave both of them had been to start this work when they did.

Program text and photos

Sitting in the Rotunda that afternoon as the service started, it struck me that we don't only live in 'the bubble," we are a separate country, and I felt very proud that it felt like a 'state funeral' that led off with an honor guard of uniformed police, fire, emergency, and parks staff carrying the U.S., California, San Francisco, and gay pride flags; our mayor spoke, as did our gay assemblymember, and our congressperson sent word from DC; all of the heads of city departments, our city supervisors, and so many SF queer, civic, progressive, and religious leaders from different generations filled the Rotunda that day.  To hear and see the arc of modern queer history and gay rights in that space, from official police intimidation to our police chief sitting in the front row, was extremely powerful.  And I know we were all keenly aware of us gathering together four months after our highest state court granted marriage equality and one month before that right was being put to a popular vote (more blogging on this too, I'm sure).

And I was truly inspired by something Del's and Phyl's daughter Kendra said to close her words:

"...Mom was not an extraordinary person, but rather a person who accomplished extraordinary things. This is important because each of us is needed to continue her work - - our work. It would be a shame if you left today, thinking that Mom was somehow bigger or bolder than you could ever be. In my view, what was extraordinary about what Mom did, and what Mom and Phyllis did together, is that they had clarity of purpose, set seemingly impossible goals and then just never quit...

Two other notes: Holly Near sang a beautiful song, "All That There Is;" I haven't been able to find a clip, recording, or lyrics anywhere, but will share it if I do--please let me know if anyone else has any info.  And Jim Hormel cited this John Wesley quote when he spoke, and it really made it so clear to me what we all do need to do to move queer rights forward:

"Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can." 

Goldman Environmental Prize

Yesterday, on a rare balmy evening in San Francisco, David and I attended the 20th Goldman Environmental Prize Awards at our beautiful, but unfortunately-named War Memorial Opera House. And I was finally propelled (and freed?) to post my first blog entry because this event --and the awardees' stories--never fails to inspire me and move me to tears, and this year was no exception. I flash back often to something one of last year's awardees said from the stage, "We are in grave environmental danger and have so much hard work to do, but we have to remember that Martin Luther King changed the world not by scaring us, but by making us see how that changed world could look..."

War Memorial Opera House: Stage and Chandelier

This year's awards were especially glam: Christiane Amanpour emceed, Al Gore gave the keynote, Robert Redford spoke in person in addition to his regular narration of the video on the awardees, and Tracy Chapman performed. Christiane didn't look up much from the prompter, but she was still her amazingly crisply-spoken and telegenic self. Part-time SFer Al started off in his Professor Gore persona, shvitzing like mad in the heat, and he did an odd shout-out to his biz partner in the audience, but he finally hit his "Inconvenient Truth" stride. Redford was disarmingly unrehearsed and craggily handsome (David: "He's so short in person!"); I knew his very smart and generous ex-wife Lola in New York. And it was a treat to hear local resident Tracy's live versions of "Talking 'Bout a Revolution" and "Big Yellow Taxi" since she performs so rarely; she joked that it had been hard to find upbeat environmental songs. I understand there's a big debate on whether she's sapphic, but when I see her on Valencia in The Mish, I certainly think so...

Goldman Prize Awards Program: Christiane Amanpour, Al Gore, Robert Redford, and Tracy Chapman

But I digress, because the point of the awards and this post is the awardees and their amazing stories. Each year, the Goldman Prize gives an award to one grassroots environmentalist in each of six areas of the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, Island Nations, and North and South America. This year's awards highlighted work in Gabon to stop mining in newly-created national parks, in Bangladesh to halt the dumping of toxic freighters, in Russia to focus attention on chemical waste, in Bali to build safe water and trash/recycle/re-use infrastructure, in West Virginia to stop mountain-top removal coal mining, and in Suriname to prevent deforestation of tribal common lands. I always am inspired and amazed because these are truly grassroots efforts of individuals with few resources or connections who build movements and take on major issues, often facing hostile governments or well-funded corporations who put their lives at risk through intimidation, violence, and imprisonment--the awardee from Gabon alluded to how grateful he was to be allowed to leave the country to accept the award. And I don't think it is a coincidence that they are overwhelmingly upbeat, modest, and that many of them are women. As I watch and hear their stories and hear them speak in person I realize again what each of us is capable of--large and small.

Several notes: most of the awardees used the phrase "our territory" in their speeches, and I found myself wondering and hoping that they didn't intend to use those specific words with their specific connotations in English, but something more like "our home," or "where we live" since English was the primary language of only one awardee. I wish the organizers had used a lectern that could be lifted and lowered, rather than take out a mini lectern for the one awardee in a wheelchair. I sometimes wonder about the awards' hagiographic tone toward the Goldmans, but then they have done incredible things and put vast resources toward awareness around grassroots environmental efforts ($150,000 award x 6 awardees x 20 years = $18m). And I can never figure out where the award attendees are from: overwhelmingly well-off, well-dressed, older, straight, white people who I don't recognize.

The reception at City Hall that followed was again a generous and warm event overflowing with well-crafted, beautiful, and delish food and drink, and following the green theme it was a completely S.O.L.E. food gala that filled the North and South Light Courts, the Rotunda and stairs, and the balconies above. I love being in and attending events at our City Hall--it's a beautiful building that has been well-restored. And while it has some sad memories for San Franciscans, it is also has all the good memories of brave politicians and seminal legislation, gay weddings and gay pride, and other protests, movements, and memorials. I can never resist climbing the stairs and walking the halls, and I dragged David by the offices of the Gav and our Supes.

City Hall: Staircase and Main Hall

We also got to take a closer look at the cool/wild/slightly scary Patrick Dougherty willow sculptures woven into the London plane (Platanus × acerifolia) trees in Civic Center Plaza.

Patrick Dougherty artwork: toward City Hall and toward the Federal Building