New York, New York

I usually do not write about political events here, but last night's vote to legalize same sex marriage in New York transcends mere politics. On Andrew Sullivan's emotional live-blog of the vote, he says that “what equality really meant [was] the right to marry.” The vote wasn't about petty politics but about deeper values: equality and dignity.

The inclusion of equality is obvious; the state privileged heterosexual relationships over homosexual relationships. Now the law treats both relationships equally so heterosexuals and homosexuals are equal under the law. However, legal equality is intrinsically tied to dignity.

Dignity is derived from Latin (dignitas) through French. In everyday life, it means respect and status. This is what this vote was about, and why it was so important. In New York, along with Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Iowa, gay couples are now afforded the same respect and status as their heterosexual peers. The state and, by extension, the public, views them as full citizens, with all the rights and privileges afforded by such citizenship.

Gov. Cuomo deserves a huge amount of credit for his leadership. During a speech to state Republicans, he supposedly said (reported from someone who heard the speech), “Their love is worth the same as your love. Their partnership is worth the same as your partnership. And they are equal in your eyes to you. That is the driving issue.”

This is about equality. This is about dignity. This is about gays being accepted by their fellow citizens and by their government as complete people, worthy of respect and status. This is about their love being seen as true, their relationships as full and rich.

Now, at least in six states, this is true.

Parokhet

This poem, which you can find under the poetry tab at the top of the page, began where all great poems begin: Wikipedia. Sara and I had spent the morning, as we usually do, talking about anything that pops into our heads. This particular morning, she referenced folic acid deficiencies in passing. Later that day, I had a few free minutes and decided to look into its specific effects.

Some lines of what later became “Parokhet” came from this research. The lines were:

“Folic acid

too little

and we die of rot

too much

and we burn”

They were cut in the second draft because they are awful. However, they led to more interesting places, specifically the section about our in utero heroine.

I couldn't think of a way to start the poem, though. It seemed a bit abrupt to start in media res with the scene about the child, God, and Devil. There had to be a decent beginning, a frame for the trinity.

As the opening lines implies, it started with the sky. Thunder tore me from sleep and I lay awake while a storm wrapped around Sara's small house. It was dark, the profound dark that comes when electricity leaves. It was then, while a storm cried its first, angry breaths, that I realized what the poem was really about.

Sidenote: If you are interested in some of the references in the poem, a good place to start is “The Book of Nightmares” by Galway Kinnell, specifically the poem “Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight”. You can find it online here.

Waiting Redux

There is an answer, of sorts: wait-listed. This amounts to rejection, although with the usual “it's not you, it's me!” appended. This is not untrue; the economy has many victims and the arts is among them. Several prominent programs severely cut funding and, in some cases, acceptances. A few suspended their programs for a year, letting the fields lie fallow and hoping for better weather.

I was hurt at first. Well, that's not quite true. I was hurt for a while (thus the delay in posts). If there is a graceful way to handle rejection, I have not mastered it.

For the first few days after receiving the dreaded small envelope, I sulked while insisting to everyone who would listen that I was definitely not sulking. Sara bought me peanut butter M&Ms and patiently listened to my non-complaining complaints. Then, I went through a brief bout of dreams in which the New School took me from the wait list, offered me a scholarship, and bought me a brontosaurus to ride to class.

Unfortunately, none of those dreams came true.

My nascent adult instincts intervened a few weeks ago and shook me from my malaise. I accepted a full-time position with my employer and made plans for the upcoming year. If waiting will happen, then it will happen on my terms.

So far, I have submitted a poem to a literary magazine and have been writing more frequently than usual. It is a good start. This summer, there will be no harvest. There will be the hard work of tilling fields that will only yield when the work is done.

I will post a version of the poem, “Parokhet,” tomorrow. Expect to see more work in the near future.

Waiting

I am still waiting to hear from the New School's admission department, and the lack of communication, the emptiness of not knowing, has manifested in variations.  Sometimes, it is sand in clockwork; the seconds drag one after the next, a weary procession of defeated soldiers.  Last night, it was a needle poised a breath before sleep.  My limbs ached and rain washed the stones.  But just as the last thought sighed its end, lightning slapped the skies.  And then I waited restlessly in the dark.

This morning, I woke late, edited a friend's essay, and tutored.  After the student left, I dawdled at the office because the mailbox sat, Sphinx-like, at journey's end.  Eventually, I gathered the remnants of my nerve and drove home.

The constant chatter of email has done little to lessen the muteness of the unopened mailbox.  When I check Gmail, the sender and subject are first and foremost; there is usually no unwrapping, no mystery to unearth, just the efficient transmission of information.  The New School does not send its decisions over email or phone.  The simplest packet of information, the yes/no on which all computing is based, is in their opinion fit only for the formality of the physical letter.

There is poetry in this decision; after all, writers aspire for their words to live in ink.  Pixels lack romance.  But I desire neither poetry nor romance.  Over these last weeks, I have ached for brutality, for directness, for bleeding in black and white.  1/0.  Win/lose.  Yes/no.

It is night now; there will be no mail until morning.  And so I will wait as the seconds grind one into the next until I face the mailbox once more.

Living Right Now

It's a gorgeous, sunny afternoon at the Bakehouse and I am happily digesting a tuna melt and mac & cheese.  The place is packed; a group of Chinese mothers are chatting while their infants stare at the strange sights.  At a window table, a young couple is eating lunch.

When the couple first entered, they seemed very much in love.  They sat down holding hands and made silly faces at the babies.  They shared soda out of same glass, Norman Rockwell style.  Their faces were joyful, their voices clear.  I felt their happiness and perhaps even a touch of jealousy.

The moment fully enveloped them.  They were engaged with, and engaged by, where they were right now, what they were doing right now.  This is a rare thing, rarer than it should be.

As a child, it was so easy to be present, to embrace the moment.  I remember one summer day when I, all of 10 years old, realized that inter-dimensional invisible dinosaurs were trying to destroy the universe.  No one else saw them; the responsibility of defeating their nefarious schemes fell on my shoulders alone.  My weapon?  A hockey stick.  Two hours later, I banished them to their nether realm and fell sweaty and blissful into the grass.

The young couple isn't saving the world from possible catastrophe, but that's the domain of children.  Their food arrives: a reuben with chips and a pickle for him, a lettuce, tomato, and mozzarella panini for her.  They grasp their sandwiches and lean in for a kiss.

Before their lips meet, he jumps as if waking from a dream.  His hand digs the phone out of his pant pocket and raises it to his face.  Her face goes blank; she leans back and takes a bite of her sandwich.  It doesn't taste as good as she had hoped.

His fingers flick across the screen, sending information out into the endless ether.  He apologizes and puts the phone away.  She accepts his apology.  They speak as they eat but their sentences stumble together.  When the food is gone, they don't linger.

As they leave, his hand twitches towards hers, then falls to his side.  They drive off and my jealousy disappears.