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Midnight Koalas

  Midnight Koalas  Somehow, I never really realized how close together the anniversary of Kate’s death and Father’s Day are. This year though, hip deep in the icy swamp of grief, they feel like successive blows slamming into me one after another. Today was an odd confluence of events.  We held our Pride party for the clients full of bright rainbows and happy chatter as the young people ate their way through double the fried chicken we’d ordered (thanks to the generosity of Charles’ Pan Fried). And at the same time there was the quiet sadness of the ancient photo on  my laptop, Dad’s muscled arms lifting my baby self way up to see the leaves on a tree in Central Park. Layered on top of that was my worry about Connor, who did not show up for breakfast this morning, and was still nowhere to be seen when I left for the day. I knew he was probably napping in the closet, but when a senior cat with cancer changes his routine, it can be a bad sign.  Tonight I h...
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Community Psychoanalysis

        I woke up this morning and said to Sapphire, who was lounging near my shoulder waiting for me to wake up and fill the bowls, “What the hell kind of dream was that?” The entire dream was a close up of pressing an elevator button. It was     just a round silver button, no indication of up or down, which might have given it a bit more significance.      Picking up some things the cats had been bowling off the shelves, I found myself holding a framed picture of myself as a toddler that Kate had found, rescued from the basement, and kept on her bureau, and the grief hit me hard and fast like a summer storm.  There was no point in looking for an awning to hide under, I have learned that you just have to let it pour until the sun breaks through.     The list of mindless chores was especially long today because I went into the office despite being off on Wednesday.  I had been invited to ...
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The Fight

        After another night of broken sleep, I spent the morning groggily making my way through the endless list of chores – dishes, cat litter, weeding.     As my hands completed familiar tasks, my unhelpful mind, still focused on these three days - her death, a day of not knowing, and then finding her. It kept trying to drift back through the years and I kept having to yank it back like a poorly trained dog on a short leash.      I was on the D train, hurtling over the Manhattan bridge, when I started to doze off and the memories broke through, as sharp and clear as ever. The movie projector in my mind kept playing clips- her neighbor saying on the phone as I rushed across Brooklyn, “I don’t think she’s breathing”, the outstretched dark blue arm of the cop as he said “you don’t want to go in there”, the medical examiner showing me a photo of her tattoo, saying “her face is unrecognizable”.  And the blood on the floo...
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2:30am

    I am not someone who’s prone to panicking. In fact, a large part of my job is remaining calm in the midst of other people’s chaos, but last night I woke up suddenly twice, shaking with my heart beating as though I had been running for miles ,and then struggled to calm down. The cats, being opportunists, used it as an opportunity to extort more food rather than                 soothe me and the ambien I rarely take had wandered off somewhere.      The air blowing in through the window, shockingly cold after days of sizzling heat, helped my waking mind clear and I realized that, without looking at the date, my mind was repeating a too-late warning: ten years ago tomorrow evening your life will be irretrievably shattered, like the bedroom windowpane giving way to her fist, which then withdrew, bleeding, before she ran out into the night.     She survived that, and she survived the night they called me f...
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Poetry Speaks to Memory

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        After getting too much sun at the AIDS Memorial yesterday, I decided to sit out the Flag Day action – the NYPL steps at midday is another blazing-sun situation.     Instead, I headed to the LGBT Center to hear Ray read his poetry at the Bureau, a small queer bookstore.     The room was full of mostly familiar faces from ACT UP and Rise and Resist.     Ben was moderating in an informal way.     The first poems were about his boyhood in the early 70s, before I was born, since he is 13 years older.  I was struck by how similar some of the experiences are to what my clients describe to me now about their childhoods in the 1990s.  Twenty years later, queer kids are still growing up isolated, being shamed and punished for non gender conforming choices, like when Ray chose Madeline from the book mobile.  And they are still discovering the rush of freedom of arriving in NYC. ...
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Iris

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        Making my way to the AIDS Memorial on this bright, cloudless day I found myself thinking about all the people we have gathered there to remember. – Kathy, Joyce, and so many others.    Today we are remembering Dr. Iris Long yet another ever-present member of ACT UP.  Paraphrasing Jim Eigo, Iris did not have to concern herself with AIDS at all.  She was a straight woman, at least 20 years older than most of ACT UP, and more than 40 years older than I am.  She was a scientist, a chemist, and when she first read about AZT, she realized that her particular specialty could help fight HIV.  So she showed up at GMHC, never having knowingly met a gay person, and volunteered.  That wasn’t a good fit – they needed buddies and hotline volunteers, not scientists.     When she got to ACT UP, shortly after it was founded, she had found her place in the movement.  She he...
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Shiva

  Shiva     The first week back after surgery was hectic with a lot to catch up on. Our new social worker started, I had a couple of medical appointments, and some of our many June fundraising events made for late evenings.  I could not fit Natalie’s wednesday funeral in among all that, so I  decided to go to the shiva thursday after work.     Usually when I go to Newark I take the train, but since the bus station is so close to my office I figured that would be most efficient.  Entering the bus station I cut through every day, my tired body wanted to follow the  usual route home, but instead I stopped in the bathroom to see if some cold water would wake me up.  Dodging a woman mopping, I nearly collided with an adult woman who was roller blading on the wet tile floor while talking to her young daughter (not on rollerblades) who was in a stall.      The bus was old and...
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