Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Coming Out PUD. Yeah, we are
Speaker 1: recording this Friday morning. I had mentioned at the end
Speaker 1: of the last episode that I wanted to do a
Speaker 1: post election episode. That's what's happening now. I wanted to
Speaker 1: let you know that we're recording Friday, so that if
Speaker 1: anything wacky happens over the weekend or on Monday, it
Speaker 1: won't be we won't be able to speak to that.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to do an episode as close to
Speaker 1: the release date as possible so we know the results.
Speaker 1: They're not great, and that's one of the things where
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. I'm really I'm very excited
Speaker 1: about my guest, who I will introduce momentarily. I had
Speaker 1: I had a guest in mind to discussed not only
Speaker 1: her coming out story, but sort of speak to the
Speaker 1: election results. I had hoped that they would be favorable
Speaker 1: and that we could have sort of upbeat discussion about them.
Speaker 1: But as you guys know, if you've listened all these years,
Speaker 1: I am nothing if not a realist. So I was
Speaker 1: prepared for a not great outcome, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: choose a guest to who I felt I could have
Speaker 1: a good conversation with about what's going on, So we
Speaker 1: will get into all of that, but just uh yeah,
Speaker 1: sending everybody a lot of love and compassion and this podcast,
Speaker 1: no matter what is going on around us, I will
Speaker 1: always start with a queer route shout out and today
Speaker 1: is no different. So today's queer root shout out comes
Speaker 1: from a listener. This listener is named Nicki. Nicki wrote
Speaker 1: in and asked to sh if I would shout out
Speaker 1: her one of her queer roots. So shout out to
Speaker 1: you if your queer root is Hailey Hudson in the
Speaker 1: movie Freaky Friday. I am speaking of the more recent
Speaker 1: Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lowan and Jamie Lee Curtis. I
Speaker 1: scandalously have never seen this movie, so I had to
Speaker 1: look this up. Hailey Hudson plays a character named Peg
Speaker 1: who is in Lindsay Lohan's band. She's like the cool
Speaker 1: emo guitar or possibly bass player, and Nicky says I
Speaker 1: had seen a meme that was like, if you still
Speaker 1: remember the song they perform in Freaky Friday, it's because
Speaker 1: you're by and boy were they right, So shout out
Speaker 1: to Hailey Hudson. They are in fact doing another Freaky
Speaker 1: Friday this coming year, Freakier Friday, and I checked and
Speaker 1: Hailey Hudson will be in that movie as Peg, so
Speaker 1: maybe she'll be able to, you know, be a queer
Speaker 1: root for a whole new generation of baby gays. But
Speaker 1: thank you for sending that one in, Niki, and so
Speaker 1: without further ado, we will hop into this episode. My
Speaker 1: guest today is mary Ellen Kpik. Hi.
Speaker 2: Mary Ellen, Hi, Lauren, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm so appreciative to you for doing this. Mary Ellen
Speaker 1: is in New Mexico and recently had a storm where
Speaker 1: the electricity went out. It dropped down to I think
Speaker 1: you said twenty seven, but it's all come back. The
Speaker 1: snow has stopped, so we are I'm so glad we're
Speaker 1: able to do the episode as planned. Mary Ellen has
Speaker 1: had an unbelievably rich and full life. So I'll say
Speaker 1: that the kind of impetus for you being on the
Speaker 1: podcast is a book of poetry you wrote that is
Speaker 1: going to be coming out at the time that this
Speaker 1: episode airs. It'll be out the end of the week.
Speaker 1: It'll be out very shortly. Do you know the exact
Speaker 1: what's the exact date.
Speaker 2: That the November fifteenth, November fifteenth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, excellent, And at the end of this episode we
Speaker 1: will well it's available on all platforms, but I will
Speaker 1: I'll put all the links and we will get into that.
Speaker 1: Mary Ellen is also going to read some poetry from
Speaker 1: that book. But Mary Ellen is not just a poet.
Speaker 1: She has authored other books as well as she she
Speaker 1: has been a professor, she has been on committee, she
Speaker 1: has a very long resume. So we will we will
Speaker 1: get to those things as they come up in the story.
Speaker 1: But I'm so so thrilled to have you here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just thank you, thank you for doing this. I'm really appreciative.
Speaker 2: It's a pleasure to be here. And I really look
Speaker 2: forward to talking about with the election what happened, because
Speaker 2: I've been doing a lot of thinking about it, both
Speaker 2: as an activist, as a writer and or as a
Speaker 2: writer activist and trying to sort out directions from here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hear that Mary Allen was saying she actually
Speaker 1: woke up this morning at five am and had so much,
Speaker 1: you know, going on in her head that she wrote
Speaker 1: she wrote a piece that, uh, just kind of about
Speaker 1: the current moment. Yeah. Just I'm really looking forward to
Speaker 1: speaking to you about all all of the horrors. But
Speaker 1: before that, we're going to talk about you, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about your life experiences and your journey
Speaker 1: and and sort of, yeah, let's have some joy before
Speaker 1: we kind of get into all of the the less
Speaker 1: joyful stuff. Mary Ellen, how do you identify in terms
Speaker 1: of the words you like to use for yourself?
Speaker 2: Human being? First, beautiful? I'm a relapsed Methodist and I'm
Speaker 2: an an aging Methodist. Of that, you could put that
Speaker 2: in any order you want.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's incredible. Okay, okay, relapsed slash aging Methodist.
Speaker 1: I love that. Are do you do you want to?
Speaker 1: I live in La so you never ask a lady
Speaker 1: her age, But do you want to?
Speaker 2: Sure? I am proud of it. I'm eighty two. I'll
Speaker 2: be eighty three in December.
Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing. Yeah. Yeah, And that's again why I'm so
Speaker 1: thrilled to speak to you, because it's like you, gosh,
Speaker 1: you've lived through some terrible administrations. We can yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I barely remember Reagan. I was very young, but like,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's that's where I tap out knowledge wise,
Speaker 1: So oh my goodness. But yeah, but I said, I
Speaker 1: said we were going to get to all that later.
Speaker 1: So I want to keep my promise. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about you. Uh yeah, Where where does it begin?
Speaker 1: What do you consider your coming out story?
Speaker 2: And you can start, let me just give a little background.
Speaker 2: In fact, what I would love to do is just
Speaker 2: read the first time you want a book.
Speaker 1: That would be fantastic, because that kind of.
Speaker 2: Sets the scene for everything else I've struggled with the
Speaker 2: whole rest.
Speaker 1: Of my life.
Speaker 2: And the name of the poem is called Dancing Class.
Speaker 2: And I'll just start out and read it and we
Speaker 2: can talk about it afterwards if you want. But we
Speaker 2: danced in the school basement. Strauss Waltz is mingled with
Speaker 2: the smells of chocolate milk and stale peanut butter sandwiches,
Speaker 2: bits of wonderbread like paste, wax smeared across the floor.
Speaker 2: We ducked bare bulbs that swung too low, making awkward
Speaker 2: shadows on the posts. Steam in the pipes beat its
Speaker 2: own dance tunes. I dreaded Tuesday afternoons. Boys choose partners,
Speaker 2: red faced and nervous. They eyed us from across the room,
Speaker 2: then jostled for the few girls wearing bras The rest
Speaker 2: of us lined the wall and waited to be touched
Speaker 2: or paired by some five eleven in my socks and
Speaker 2: flat chested, I was never chosen. I danced with our
Speaker 2: teacher or Bert as fat as I was tall, who
Speaker 2: later did time and raw way for running down an
Speaker 2: old lady in his forty eight Dodge convertible. Elaine was
Speaker 2: always picked. She wore thirty four b in the sixth grade,
Speaker 2: was fast, Jewish and my best friend. For her, I
Speaker 2: stepped on cracks and once on a dare farted in class.
Speaker 2: Her father, a widower, hired housekeepers with carrot hare, who
Speaker 2: told us dirty stories. One sang to herself, don't ever
Speaker 2: let them get you in bed until you've been to town.
Speaker 2: Elaine once told me scared boys only fuck you when
Speaker 2: you bleed, or was it the other way around. I
Speaker 2: ran home from school one day in tears a shame, screaming, shit,
Speaker 2: you shit, you bitch. Across the street. Elaine had let
Speaker 2: a chorse che that afternoon. Mary Ella has no fella,
Speaker 2: tiny tits and giant feet. Boys take the lead one
Speaker 2: and two and dip and no she dips, burt, not you.
Speaker 2: The needles of their laughter stuck and warped. Our moves
Speaker 2: chosen or not chosen. We measured time by twos, and
Speaker 2: that to me kind of sums up this whole forced
Speaker 2: heterosexuality that we all of us were raised up in.
Speaker 2: And you know, my story, so to speak, really builds
Speaker 2: from that. I met my husband in graduate school and
Speaker 2: it was a good marriage. We fell in love and
Speaker 2: I deeply loved and respected him. We were married for
Speaker 2: over a decade and we divorced mainly because we were
Speaker 2: we had different kinds of things we wanted to be doing,
Speaker 2: how we wanted to live our lives, not because of
Speaker 2: my sexuality. We worked very hard to stay connected, not
Speaker 2: least because of his kids, whom I loved and who
Speaker 2: are still in our lives and my partners in my life.
Speaker 2: And so was Mike. I for years have called him
Speaker 2: my husband and our husband, and he and Sue have
Speaker 2: gotten to be over the years good friends. In fact,
Speaker 2: he really cares a great deal about her soon as
Speaker 2: your part and I feel very proud that we've been
Speaker 2: able to have that kind of connection that we build
Speaker 2: onto it. I had different relationships after the divorce, including
Speaker 2: my first lesbian lover that I was so immersed in
Speaker 2: my work at that point, I was helping to start
Speaker 2: a national coalition of research, policy and activist centers in
Speaker 2: acteen eighty one, the National Council for Research and Women.
Speaker 2: And you know, I'd gone from teaching in a community
Speaker 2: college in Newark to Princeton, where I was asked to
Speaker 2: run the Continuing End program. I thought, I was, you know,
Speaker 2: the culture shock, I mean, good grief. Went from a
Speaker 2: world of open door admission black and Hispanic students to
Speaker 2: elite white, mostly white students, and it was it was
Speaker 2: just culture shock. I guess it's the easiest way to
Speaker 2: say it. Even though I was living in Princeton, my
Speaker 2: husband was then on the faculty English department, and I
Speaker 2: knew the university to some extent, But that experience at
Speaker 2: Princeton really taught me so much about dysfunctional organizations and
Speaker 2: this all the stuff you shouldn't talk about. In fact,
Speaker 2: my next book, that hopefully will be my last book,
Speaker 2: is called The Power of Naming, and it's try to
Speaker 2: get at why is it that there's stuff in an
Speaker 2: institution or organization that everybody in the organization knows janitor
Speaker 2: to the CEO yep, but nobody wants to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the open. I mean, I feel like open secrets
Speaker 1: is just a theme throughout America all queer people. Like
Speaker 1: the concept of open secrets is such a nefarious part
Speaker 1: of like our culture and our existence. And I know
Speaker 1: we're trying to chip away at that, but god, it
Speaker 1: is so ingrained in every I don't know if it's
Speaker 1: an American thing or in global thing, but good god
Speaker 1: it is. I want, okay, I want to I want
Speaker 1: to go back and first say that poem is this
Speaker 1: is your first book of poetry. I mean, you've been
Speaker 1: writing for a long time, but I'm just like, I
Speaker 1: can't believe that's You're just like, let me read my
Speaker 1: first poem. It's just really really beautiful and just like,
Speaker 1: who really capture? I had to take dance in school
Speaker 1: when I was little, and thank god, we moved right
Speaker 1: before I went to an all girls' school. I went
Speaker 1: to Chapin If you know Chapin from Coach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I went there and we had dance class. I
Speaker 1: think it was on Tuesdays. Ironically it was once a week.
Speaker 1: But I moved the year before we were going to
Speaker 1: start having dances with the boys, so I really lucked out.
Speaker 1: But just the dance class in general was so awful
Speaker 1: and stressful, and like, I just hated. I hated being
Speaker 1: like anything where I have to pay attention to my body,
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, thank you. So hearing all of that
Speaker 1: and then imagining boys in the equation is like a
Speaker 1: million times worse. When did you write that poem? Because
Speaker 1: obviously it's about when you're quite young, but when when ish.
Speaker 2: I made the mistake of not dating these carefully when
Speaker 2: I wrote them, I would say it's likely probably probably
Speaker 2: in the early eighties, sometime around in there. You know,
Speaker 2: after Mike and I divorced, I had more time on
Speaker 2: my hands, not a lot, but and I was trying
Speaker 2: to work my way through understanding what I was going
Speaker 2: through and what we had been through, what I was
Speaker 2: putting him through, and some of that was a way
Speaker 2: some of the poetry writing at that point was a
Speaker 2: way of kind of come to grips with all of that.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was an amazing human It still is.
Speaker 2: And he was never anything but supportive of my work
Speaker 2: and me, and he was very much a loving human being.
Speaker 2: And I very much respect him and always will. And
Speaker 2: the whole process of that divorce was incredible difficult is
Speaker 2: obviously any breakup of any relationship is. But I think
Speaker 2: we did it well, and I think we both felt
Speaker 2: good about it relatively speaking, after the fact, and we
Speaker 2: really worked hard to stay in touch. We still do.
Speaker 1: I think that's proof that you did it well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's not easy. You know, the whole
Speaker 2: experience of getting a divorce and then trying to figure out, okay,
Speaker 2: where do I go now? You know that was right
Speaker 2: about the same time we started the council, that Mike
Speaker 2: and I had separated and moving into that work was
Speaker 2: all consuming. I mean, that's what I did twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven for you know, fifteen years straight with nothing
Speaker 2: else in the middle of it. But I shouldn't say
Speaker 2: nothing else, because that's the whole point of this interview.
Speaker 1: But and in terms of your own awareness of your
Speaker 1: sexuality or attraction, I mean, listening to that poem was
Speaker 1: a Laine like, so she's a best friend. Is she
Speaker 1: also someone who either at the time or looking back,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this was an early crush or like
Speaker 1: something that. No, No, so she's just a friend.
Speaker 2: No. I had one childhood friend that there was some
Speaker 2: sense of you know, connection to that was a little
Speaker 2: bit more. I wouldn't even call it sexual because we
Speaker 2: were really.
Speaker 1: No when you're young. Yeah, it's at that point, exactly exactly. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know that. In the I think it's on
Speaker 1: the back of your book. It talks a lot about
Speaker 1: not having the language for things that that you're feeling,
Speaker 1: which I think now we're a lot better, but there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of things that we don't have language for.
Speaker 1: And yet when you're that young, and this is what
Speaker 1: I don't think people on the right, et cetera, understand
Speaker 1: like these things aren't sexual, Like there, you're young, you don't.
Speaker 1: It's just like it's oh, it's so frustrating that the
Speaker 1: people can look at like a little boy and be
Speaker 1: like he's going to be a lady killer, and they
Speaker 1: under like that's not sexual. But then if there's the
Speaker 1: same sex like crush or anything that gets called sexual,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, there is, there's no idea of
Speaker 1: that when you're that young, Like it's just responding honestly to.
Speaker 2: Fu Currently that's what's driving my response to this election,
Speaker 2: because you know, at some level, we really are living
Speaker 2: in the dying patriarchy. Oh yeah, and the patriarchy gets
Speaker 2: set from the time a baby is born pink, pink
Speaker 2: or blue, and you know, Bose and you know, that
Speaker 2: just gets that's it, and it's like the whole culture,
Speaker 2: for whatever crazy reasons we do it, The whole culture
Speaker 2: moves toward slotting kids into male female when in reality,
Speaker 2: and I love Audrey and rich is spectrum idea. It's
Speaker 2: really a whole sexuality spectrum, personality spectrum. Any of us
Speaker 2: can if we you know, are comfortable with ourselves, can
Speaker 2: fall anywhere in any place on lae that spectrum. And
Speaker 2: I think sometimes, I mean, I got a number of
Speaker 2: gay male friends, and they have always talked about it
Speaker 2: being much more explicitly, they being much more explicitly aware
Speaker 2: from a very young age they were gay and especially
Speaker 2: countering the work that you know, the world they were
Speaker 2: trying to move into. But you know, I think for
Speaker 2: women it's even more nuanced sometimes.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely yeah, because we're we are allowed quote unquote
Speaker 1: to show and experience emotions in a way that is
Speaker 1: like really discouraged and voys. So those lines, That's why
Speaker 1: I was asking about Elaine, because those lines between friendship
Speaker 1: love and like attraction love can get blurred sometimes, which
Speaker 1: is very confusing for many of us, and especially for
Speaker 1: folks who who are for women who are bisexual, because
Speaker 1: it's like, then what do you do with that? If
Speaker 1: you're feeling these things? But it's like, does everybody feel
Speaker 1: these things? I also feel these things for boys, like
Speaker 1: but I feel them for girls. But is it different
Speaker 1: with girls? Because it's it's like there's just so much
Speaker 1: to parse.
Speaker 2: Out in our culture.
Speaker 1: Does not make it easy, Oh god, no, it actively
Speaker 1: discourages it and tells you to be afraid of it.
Speaker 1: So that's not that's not a great setup for success.
Speaker 1: But in terms of your own kind of awareness of
Speaker 1: these feelings that would you would later understand as sexuality.
Speaker 1: But again, when you're younger, we don't have that word.
Speaker 1: It isn't even necessarily sexual. Do you do you remember
Speaker 1: like when ish it started to occur to you, was
Speaker 1: it immediately like I'm not sure what this is, but
Speaker 1: I know I need to hide it? Like what kind
Speaker 1: of I've.
Speaker 2: Never feeled I needed to hide it anything in my
Speaker 2: whole life. And you know, I attribute my mother to
Speaker 2: you know, for really helping me to get that way.
Speaker 2: The reality is I've had a big mouth, my whole life,
Speaker 2: and I've always said what I've thought. It got me
Speaker 2: in a lot of trouble when I was younger.
Speaker 1: It's called sassy.
Speaker 2: You're being You're sassying me perennial complaint about Mary Ellen. Right.
Speaker 2: But as as I after my divorce and moving into
Speaker 2: that work, I got to know a lot of really
Speaker 2: wonderful women of all varieties of sexuality. And I got
Speaker 2: for a while at least I was sort of the hope,
Speaker 2: the token heterosexual.
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, And a lot of Christmas.
Speaker 2: Parties that were most not all, but mostly lesbians, and
Speaker 2: I beloved lesbian elder now and she's older than I am.
Speaker 2: Once said to me, we used to, you know, she
Speaker 2: was the coolest person I'd ever met. She her name
Speaker 2: was Kate Stimpson. She founded Signs, which is a journal,
Speaker 2: one of the first feminist journals in the country, still
Speaker 2: going strong. And she came to Princeton when I was
Speaker 2: there as a visiting hot shot for a couple of days,
Speaker 2: and I heard her give a talk and I thought, huh,
Speaker 2: I can do that. We connected, We got to know
Speaker 2: each other. I watched her in action. She charmed the
Speaker 2: president of the university very quickly. At a party after that,
Speaker 2: and I was like, holy shit, I mean this woman
Speaker 2: was really interesting. Anyway, she lived in New York on
Speaker 2: the Bowery right, which was like the coolest place in
Speaker 2: the world back then, before that was really CD back
Speaker 2: then it was literally you know, where a lot of
Speaker 2: drunk spent most of their time. Kate had a loft
Speaker 2: in the Bowery and she was partners with an Australian
Speaker 2: woman who left her marriage in Australia and had four kids.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know that at the time that she
Speaker 2: was involved with Kate, but I figured she was a
Speaker 2: lesbian and we really you know, bonded, and she invited
Speaker 2: me to well, let me back up. I drove her
Speaker 2: into the city. She invited me up to see her loft,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, this is so cool. This
Speaker 2: is you know, I was living in Princeton in an
Speaker 2: ordinary apartment and here she's sophisticated you. Anyway, she at
Speaker 2: that point that I have got to introduce you to
Speaker 2: my partner, Liniz, who was running a continuing education program
Speaker 2: at Brooklyn College at the same time. So you know, anything,
Speaker 2: one thing lets you another. We got to be very
Speaker 2: close friends, and Kate ultimately went on to become the
Speaker 2: dean of the Graduates school at NYU. She was a
Speaker 2: dean at Rutgers. I mean, she really had an illustrious career.
Speaker 2: But she at one of the Christmas parties shortly after
Speaker 2: all this, after we met, she looked at me. She said,
Speaker 2: you are just such a hopeless heterosexual, maurieal Wow.
Speaker 1: She didn't you didn't ping her radar.
Speaker 2: It was so funny. And anyway, at that point I
Speaker 2: probably was. You know, I was involved in a number
Speaker 2: of relationships with men, and you know, some of them
Speaker 2: were all of the all of the guys I was
Speaker 2: with were quite interesting, and most of them were intellectuals.
Speaker 2: In most of them, you know, it was like, really
Speaker 2: do I need this? You know, no, no, no. So
Speaker 2: the bottom line was, from there I got an invitation
Speaker 2: to another mutual friend's the fiftieth birthday party at britn
Speaker 2: Mar College, where they were lovely, and so I went
Speaker 2: and that's where I met Sue. And that's perfect. They
Speaker 2: had rented the whole Graduate of State. It was it
Speaker 2: was the former few estate at britt Mark. They had
Speaker 2: rented the whole estate for Adrian's fiftieth birthday party, and uh,
Speaker 2: Sue to this day says I was the strangest person
Speaker 2: she ever met. Curly afro kind of hair, and I
Speaker 2: was wearing a purple jump suit and had a blue
Speaker 2: clip in my hair because I just washed it. And
Speaker 2: I was leaping down the hall when I first saw Adrian,
Speaker 2: and Sue was talking to her, and it was like,
Speaker 2: who is this weird person? Anyway, the birthday party was mixed,
Speaker 2: both hetero and you know, gay women and any number
Speaker 2: of other people in between. Some kids were there. A
Speaker 2: few of our friends had had babies by then. Anyway,
Speaker 2: the friend who was partners with Adrian had organized a
Speaker 2: trip in the Tetons, hiking Women's Hike in the Tetons,
Speaker 2: and Sue and I discovered that we were both signed
Speaker 2: up to go on that, and Sue rolled her eyes, thinking,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, is this really what we're going to
Speaker 2: be in for. It was we went on the hike,
Speaker 2: It was I think about a ten day hike.
Speaker 1: Wow, good god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sixty pound backpacks. We all prepped ahead of time
Speaker 2: for it, so it was the cool thing.
Speaker 1: Very lesbian coated.
Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't all lesbian. It was a mixed group.
Speaker 1: But lesbian planned it like ten day, sixty pound bags
Speaker 1: like that sounds like a lastbian planned.
Speaker 2: Well, the irony of it was the gal. The gal
Speaker 2: who planned it ended up because she was celebrating getting
Speaker 2: through breast cancer treatment and she wasn't quite as strong
Speaker 2: as she thought she was, so she and Adrian ended
Speaker 2: up spending that time at a dude ranch somewhere in Jacksonville.
Speaker 1: Okay, good, that sounds a lot more relaxed.
Speaker 2: Well, the rest of us were, you know, holding our
Speaker 2: packs up. Anyway, it was it was a transformative experience
Speaker 2: for me. I mean, I loved the hike that we
Speaker 2: were in wilderness and it was just absolutely wonderful. And
Speaker 2: turns out Sue is a terrific builder of fires WOA
Speaker 2: and which we used yesterday here when the electricity.
Speaker 1: Went, Oh my god, look at that. Wow.
Speaker 2: She made a beautiful fire and it kept us warm
Speaker 2: all day. Any of it, that was just the whole thing.
Speaker 2: She was very buttoned up, That's the most kind thing
Speaker 2: to say. I was not. We would come to a
Speaker 2: you know, stream of freezing cold water that was running
Speaker 2: over the rocks and I'd tear off my clothes and
Speaker 2: go jump in. Oh my god, and everybody she would
Speaker 2: look the other direction. But from there, you know, it
Speaker 2: just we had a wonderful time. The good news was
Speaker 2: we all laughed like crazy, We all had wonderful senses
Speaker 2: of humor, and we talked a lot about all kinds
Speaker 2: of things, you know. I remember Sue saying we were
Speaker 2: having a conversation over a campfire one night about virginity
Speaker 2: and some of us. She looked at me and she said, well,
Speaker 2: some of us have never lost it, meaning virginity, and
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, right, yeah, huh. And you know, the
Speaker 2: whole time we were there was just really very special
Speaker 2: and full of fun and we had it was just
Speaker 2: a lovely, you know time, and you know, you get
Speaker 2: into these conversations like, well, wave a magic one. What
Speaker 2: would you do with the rest of your life if
Speaker 2: you could have anything you wanted? She said, I would
Speaker 2: write a book, and I said I have an attic.
Speaker 1: Ah, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: That was that. So end of hike they take us,
Speaker 2: they bust us to. I guess it was natural springs
Speaker 2: of some kind where we could clean up, because we
Speaker 2: were really pretty filthy. And I tried to hold her
Speaker 2: hand on that bus ride, and she was having none
Speaker 2: of it. She did let me borrow her razors though
Speaker 2: to shave my legs.
Speaker 1: That's into that intimate.
Speaker 2: Anyway. That was that, and we, you know, we went
Speaker 2: back to the place we were staying before we went
Speaker 2: on the hike and slept the night, and the next
Speaker 2: day headed back and she headed to the airport, and
Speaker 2: I drove back to Jackson Hole or well Jackson Hole,
Speaker 2: but to drop her at the airport with a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of other people. And then I drove back with
Speaker 2: other friends to my friends in Denver, where Centi and
Speaker 2: Adrian and were staying. And that was that. So I thought,
Speaker 2: oh god, what am I going to do she? You know,
Speaker 2: I didn't think that I could get her contact information.
Speaker 2: I knew I could, but I just didn't feel very
Speaker 2: comfortable or hopeful.
Speaker 1: Well did you think at that point, like did you
Speaker 1: already were you already thinking like I have feelings? Like
Speaker 1: what was your not just awareness level, but like acceptance
Speaker 1: level of what you were Like, was this the first
Speaker 1: time I want to kind of place it in history
Speaker 1: for like where you were at with your own journey
Speaker 1: with this. Was this the first time you were like
Speaker 1: I have feelings for this woman that are romantic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I trusted it totally. I have feelings for this
Speaker 2: woman and I really loved liked her enormously. We resonated
Speaker 2: it on all kinds of levels. Yeh, well, we were camping.
Speaker 2: Was very funny. One night, one of the routines was
Speaker 2: we'd all sit around the campfire talking, right, and one
Speaker 2: night everybody eventually peeled off go to go back to
Speaker 2: the tents except suing me. And we sat there talking
Speaker 2: and talking and talking and talking. And She's somebody I
Speaker 2: could talk to, and that's like, that's the biggest you know,
Speaker 2: turn on in the world, buddy, that can listen to
Speaker 2: you and be interested in what you're thinking and saying,
Speaker 2: and who has interesting responses and you know, back at
Speaker 2: you like that. So it was just a whole wonderful experience.
Speaker 2: I arrived in Denver. They dropped me off at my
Speaker 2: friends in Denver who'd organized it and was back from
Speaker 2: the Dude Ranch. And she greeted me and she said, huh,
Speaker 2: who is it? Who is it? And I said what, said, Oh,
Speaker 2: come on, I know you. She said who is it?
Speaker 2: And I said, it's Sue shod Oh that's good because
Speaker 2: she just called God.
Speaker 1: This is incredible. Wow. But how you entered that trip
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, thinking that you were heterosexual,
Speaker 1: or like, where are have any You didn't, it didn't.
Speaker 2: Bother wasn't I hate labels? I've always hated.
Speaker 1: I love that answer. That's increable. I am someone who
Speaker 1: unfortunately I'm very Type A, and so I am kind
Speaker 1: of obsessed with self categorizing and stuff, even though I
Speaker 1: push against it. But I love that you were just
Speaker 1: like I hadn't really thought about it, because then when
Speaker 1: you're open like that, when you do realize you're having
Speaker 1: feelings for someone, you don't have to re shift your
Speaker 1: whole paradigm of what you thought you weren't blah, You
Speaker 1: just like avoid so much drama.
Speaker 2: Well you know, the labels are imposed by the exact hichy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even if you think you're giving them to yourself,
Speaker 1: it's like you're under such influence that they're really being
Speaker 1: imposed upon you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love that. So you didn't have to deal with
Speaker 1: it sounds like a lot of like internal struggle or
Speaker 1: torment or anything, because you were just like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is what I feel now, and oh god.
Speaker 2: That's I just felt like this was just one of
Speaker 2: the more interesting and lucky things that have ever happened
Speaker 2: in and you know, she she whatever her when we
Speaker 2: parted in Jackson Hall, she said, oh, you know, give
Speaker 2: me a call when you get home, and you know whatever, Well,
Speaker 2: let's whatever, and so you know, but it wasn't any
Speaker 2: kind of you know, promise of anything.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: So when I got home, I called her and she said, so,
Speaker 2: I'm glad you got home safely. And you know, that
Speaker 2: was an interesting trip, and YadA, YadA, YadA YadA. She
Speaker 2: said we should get together and I said, how about tomorrow?
Speaker 1: Oh god, this is perfect lessbean, timeline is just immediately.
Speaker 1: How about tomorrow? Wow?
Speaker 2: And so you know, there was and I ended up
Speaker 2: falling asleep and having hard trouble sleeping because I was
Speaker 2: so excited. I woke up early, which I have a
Speaker 2: tendency to do anyway, and got in the car early
Speaker 2: and started driving. She was living in Saratoga Springs at
Speaker 2: that point, and that was, you know, maybe a couple
Speaker 2: hours drive from Princey and I arrived maybe three hours
Speaker 2: before she thought I was going to show up.
Speaker 1: Oh god, this is so cute.
Speaker 2: And there she was vacuuming when I got there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, wow, yeah, so yeah, it sounds like
Speaker 1: you both knew kind of right away, I mean.
Speaker 2: Pretty good, yeah, pretty much. So yeah, and so that
Speaker 2: was been August of eighty seven, and by February of
Speaker 2: eighty eight she moved into Princeton with me. Oh and
Speaker 2: she had taken a leave from her job. She ultimately
Speaker 2: got a transfer to New York City, another position. She
Speaker 2: was working for State University of New York at that point,
Speaker 2: and she was able to move to a different campus,
Speaker 2: and you know, she started writing.
Speaker 1: Wow, oh god, and she's.
Speaker 2: Now a mystery writer. Get out. Yeah, she's got she is.
Speaker 2: She had when we met, the book that she mentioned
Speaker 2: she would like to write around the campfire when we
Speaker 2: were talking, she said she was doing she was very
Speaker 2: interested in Willa Cather. You know, it was an American novelist,
Speaker 2: and Kather lived with her partner of forty years in
Speaker 2: New York City. But Catherine was way you know, she
Speaker 2: couldn't possibly be a lesbian because she was too invested
Speaker 2: in her art. And Sue was interested in writing about
Speaker 2: Edith because Edith Lewis was her partner, and she had
Speaker 2: become basically written out of that whole history of Cather
Speaker 2: and Cather Land at that point, as we called it,
Speaker 2: based in Red Cloud, Nebraska, was really homophobic that there
Speaker 2: wasn't any way Cather could possibly be a lesbian. So
Speaker 2: Sue was reading the novels, and you know she's got
Speaker 2: she's a very sensitive, nuanced reader, and she was writing
Speaker 2: articles about this, and she wasn't getting anywhere with publishing them.
Speaker 2: And I finally said, look, you know you're old enough,
Speaker 2: you don't need publications at this stage. How about taking
Speaker 2: all that knowledge you've got, because she really is scholar
Speaker 2: much more than I am. She's got a lot more
Speaker 2: patience than I do. And she said, take all of
Speaker 2: that knowledge and write a mystery. And she just like what,
Speaker 2: And well, she had never even read mysteries before. I've
Speaker 2: always been a mystery lover. And that very time was
Speaker 2: the first fundraiser we ever did for the council. We
Speaker 2: partnered with Sisters in Crime, which is a coalition of
Speaker 2: women mystery writers, and we held it at St. Bart's
Speaker 2: Cathedral on Park Avenue and we had like forty women
Speaker 2: mystery writers scattered all around the uh Cathedral reading and Sue,
Speaker 2: being a good scholar, read every single one history and
Speaker 2: she thought, I can do this that's as Yeah, and
Speaker 2: she did.
Speaker 1: God, that's incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So she's done too now and she's got a
Speaker 2: third coming out. Now, she's got a third about maybe
Speaker 2: a quarter of the way through, but.
Speaker 1: She's You're a two author household now, I mean you
Speaker 1: you always were, but now but now with more actually bears.
Speaker 1: That is absolutely incredible. And so in terms of so meeting,
Speaker 1: falling in love, then you're living together by February, did
Speaker 1: you feel you had to quote unquote come out to
Speaker 1: the people in your life at that point, because I imagine
Speaker 1: some of them were like, this is expected information if
Speaker 1: they knew you was, you know, married ten years and
Speaker 1: presumably heterosexual, Like what was?
Speaker 2: I think it surprised some people, but I had experienced
Speaker 2: no pushback, and I was very fortunate to have my
Speaker 2: father at that point had remarried. My mother died young,
Speaker 2: as you probably realized from the poem in there about that,
Speaker 2: and he remarried a lovely woman and they moved to Florida.
Speaker 2: And so before Sue moved in, I called to tell
Speaker 2: them that I had met this lovely woman and that
Speaker 2: she was going to move in with me, And that
Speaker 2: probably meant I was a lesbian too, and I love.
Speaker 2: My father's first reaction was, oh, I hope financially she's okay.
Speaker 1: Oh that's such a great dad reaction. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: financial situation, right.
Speaker 2: I said, don't worry, Pops, she's got her dowry. I
Speaker 2: mean she had, you know, she had her own house
Speaker 2: that she had sold before she moved to Saratoga, and
Speaker 2: you know, and anyway, I said, that's not the issue.
Speaker 2: My stepmother gets on the phone. Her response is, oh,
Speaker 2: that's interesting, dear. You haven't had much luck with men lately.
Speaker 2: That's good to try something different for her change.
Speaker 1: This isn't for late eighties. These are great reactions. I
Speaker 1: feel like, yeah, these.
Speaker 2: Are two old older Methodists. My dad started the church
Speaker 2: I grew up in, and he helped to start the
Speaker 2: church down in Florida where they were living, you know,
Speaker 2: and they were wonderfully loving and accepting. Thought. Sue was wonderful.
Speaker 1: I'm so.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm lucky in that sense that I didn't
Speaker 2: have to struggle. And you know, anybody that had a
Speaker 2: problem with it, they knew me well enough at that
Speaker 2: point not to you know, have much to say other
Speaker 2: than oh, that's interesting. Yep.
Speaker 1: Sure, that's a perfectly fine response if you've got nothing
Speaker 1: else to say. Yeah, Well, and telling your your ex
Speaker 1: husband who you were still were you still close with
Speaker 1: at that time? There was never a period, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: never were not So that's incredible. Yeah, I'm curious what
Speaker 1: was his was he like oh, or was he totally
Speaker 1: shocked or like what was his response to someone who
Speaker 1: had been married?
Speaker 2: Figure is that he he was very accepting and and
Speaker 2: support I mean he he was into his own world
Speaker 2: at that point, and he had a he has a
Speaker 2: third had a third marriage, a wonderful marriage that has
Speaker 2: lasted a long time. And uh, he's unfortunately he's in
Speaker 2: a nursing home now. He's has Parkinson's disease, so he's
Speaker 2: really in terrible shape. But she's been loyal and wonderful
Speaker 2: wife to him, and you know, he's been nothing but supportive.
Speaker 2: And he loved Sue the last time. You know, they
Speaker 2: used to talk on the phone sometimes even when if
Speaker 2: I wasn't there. You know, it was just it's the
Speaker 2: whole thing was really very good.
Speaker 1: I am so glad that was your experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I got really lucky. I got lucky because
Speaker 2: I know a lot of other friends that had very
Speaker 2: different experiences, and I mean, I just to me, the
Speaker 2: most important thing is being confident in who you are
Speaker 2: and the choices you're making. And you know, you care
Speaker 2: about other people's responses, but not enough to make that
Speaker 2: controlling factor in how you're going to live your life
Speaker 2: altely and know when to set boundaries and to cut people,
Speaker 2: you know, not to cut people off, but say no distance.
Speaker 1: Yeah I'm not.
Speaker 2: Going to go go there. You're going to have to
Speaker 2: deal with who I am, and if you don't like it,
Speaker 2: then we're not going to be friends anymore. So you know, anyway,
Speaker 2: it's just I feel very lucky that I have had
Speaker 2: the privilege to live the way I've lived and.
Speaker 1: Just living through seeing how far Queerness has come culturally,
Speaker 1: because I mean, look, we're at this incredibly divided time
Speaker 1: where it's like, on the one hand, we are more
Speaker 1: progressive than we've ever been. It's like kids today know
Speaker 1: who they are or feel free to explore who they
Speaker 1: are at such a young age, and like we have
Speaker 1: so much more representation just in media and all that.
Speaker 1: So that's the one side of things, and then the
Speaker 1: other side of things is who we reelected the other day.
Speaker 1: So it's like we are no doubt divided. But in
Speaker 1: terms of queerness, it has not only become accept did
Speaker 1: and widespread in this the safer, more progressive areas of
Speaker 1: our country, but it's even become it's become like sheep,
Speaker 1: it's become tread chic. That is the exact word. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I'm just so curious as someone who has lived
Speaker 1: through decades a very different uh uh takes on queerness.
Speaker 1: How does that how does that feel like? What is
Speaker 1: that like? Living through that evolution? Yeah, that's such a
Speaker 1: broad question.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a hard treat. It's a hard thing, is Laura.
Speaker 2: I Mean, what I would say fundamentally is that I've
Speaker 2: always been comfortable in my own socks. Yes, I've always
Speaker 2: There have been times when I've really lacked confidence, when
Speaker 2: I worry a lot about you know, how this should
Speaker 2: go or how does that go or whatever. But the
Speaker 2: bottom line is that I've always been pretty comfortable with
Speaker 2: who I am and I've never tried to be somebody
Speaker 2: that I wasn't. And that's a real gift from my parents,
Speaker 2: I think from early days as far as being a
Speaker 2: part of a community I live in, we live in
Speaker 2: a place, this small village just outside of Albuquerque, and
Speaker 2: I have long ago stopped being on boards and committees
Speaker 2: because my big mouth has always gotten me in trouble
Speaker 2: and I say things I regret. And one of the
Speaker 2: things I've always been able to do well is email.
Speaker 2: So I've always been an inveterate collector of contact information.
Speaker 2: I had a big Rolodex when i was running the council,
Speaker 2: and I've now got a large list of contacts in
Speaker 2: my Apple Contacts. And I started years ago on our
Speaker 2: street doing an email list of the everybody that lived
Speaker 2: on our street, just the neighbors, and so that's what
Speaker 2: started it, and then I expanded that. So I've now
Speaker 2: got quite a few emails of other neighbors and residents
Speaker 2: of our little village and elsewhere throughout the state. But
Speaker 2: you know, some people call me the town crier, oh
Speaker 2: of Correlousy, And you know, I feel that's a real
Speaker 2: honor because it's the one thing I'm good at. People
Speaker 2: are always asking me to share information, so it's a
Speaker 2: way of helping to bind a community together. And I
Speaker 2: think over the years i've seen our little village, we thought, oh,
Speaker 2: when we first moved here, we had a party that
Speaker 2: we thought would be just for a few lesbians, and
Speaker 2: we ended up with like eighty from our little village.
Speaker 2: I mean, who knew. God, incredible new and you know,
Speaker 2: it's a very welcoming community. And you know, we live
Speaker 2: on a street where there are or at least two
Speaker 2: or three different lesbian couples.
Speaker 1: God, that'sable.
Speaker 2: Some gay the wonderful gay friends were up the up
Speaker 2: the road a little bit. And you know, we're very lucky.
Speaker 2: And we have a wonderful other straight neighbors. I mean
Speaker 2: the neighbor who loaned me my earphones for this.
Speaker 1: For this.
Speaker 2: You know, Uh, they're real, real, wonderful neighbors and we
Speaker 2: have It's just been an incredible, incredible sense of landing
Speaker 2: in the right place at the right time when we
Speaker 2: moved here. Yeah, and very accepting.
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, in a way if you are so, it's
Speaker 1: so obvious, like you say, you've always been comfortable in
Speaker 1: your own skin or your own socks. That is obvious
Speaker 1: from minute, from just a few minutes of speaking to you.
Speaker 1: I I got that impression, do you. I mean, is
Speaker 1: it kind of like the country as catching up to
Speaker 1: you in terms of like as someone who's always been accepting,
Speaker 1: and not just of yourself but of others like.
Speaker 2: I don't know either. I mean, what I have struggled
Speaker 2: to understand is how we end up in a world
Speaker 2: moving forward when we really need each other. We all
Speaker 2: need to be together as much as we can be,
Speaker 2: and somehow building community helps that. And at least personally,
Speaker 2: that's the one thing I know how to do, and
Speaker 2: I can. I do it because I feel I'm a
Speaker 2: good Methodist, even though I'm a lapsed Methodist. You know,
Speaker 2: you have a responsibility to help make things better than
Speaker 2: being responsible. So that's at least part of the motivation
Speaker 2: I realized is that a few years ago that's what
Speaker 2: I do. I also realized with the poetry, it's very interesting.
Speaker 2: It's just hit me last week one of there, somebody
Speaker 2: mentioned that, you know, I've got I must have a
Speaker 2: real toolbox of stuff from my training in poetry, and
Speaker 2: I said, clueless about you know, iamic, pentameter and scams
Speaker 2: and all of that. It's never it's always again, it's labels,
Speaker 2: it's form. It's stuff that I've always found, you know,
Speaker 2: boring and two constraining straight jackets, but I have a
Speaker 2: good ear, and the ear comes from Methodist jims. Wow,
Speaker 2: I grew up in a church that I loved to sing,
Speaker 2: and I have, you know the factor a few times
Speaker 2: here even we've had hymn sing. I can't carry a
Speaker 2: tune in a bucket, but I love just and I
Speaker 2: realize and thinking about it, that some of the rhythm
Speaker 2: and the rhyme and just the whole sense of the
Speaker 2: beauty of language comes from that early exposure to a
Speaker 2: lot of beautiful language. Really, absolutely, it's a very interesting
Speaker 2: insight to have.
Speaker 1: I love that. I have always said similarly, I love
Speaker 1: Eminem the rapper Eminem because I am a huge Stephen
Speaker 1: Sondheim fan and was raised on Sondheim. And so when
Speaker 1: I first heard Eminem, I was like, this is like Sondheim,
Speaker 1: but way more angry and was swearing. But it was
Speaker 1: that same idea of like growing up on like patter
Speaker 1: songs and stuff that then when I grew up and
Speaker 1: heard rap, I was like, Oh, that's kind of what
Speaker 1: It's like, very funny. How yeah, how those things can
Speaker 1: kind of translate? Do now, I know you want to
Speaker 1: read some more poems. We can also sort of we're
Speaker 1: already kind of doing it, but move into talking about
Speaker 1: I don't know, just kind of processing what we're feeling
Speaker 1: about this this current moment. But yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: leave it open if you if you want to read
Speaker 1: something else, let me read.
Speaker 2: A poem that I wrote about suit, which I think,
Speaker 2: oh god, I would love that. It's a short poem.
Speaker 2: It's very short, I would love.
Speaker 1: Do you know do you remember when ISSUE wrote this?
Speaker 2: Probably you know, nineteen eighty eight, seven, eight eighty oh,
Speaker 2: so shortly.
Speaker 1: After a yeah, and I should mention this poetry book
Speaker 1: spans fifty years. Yeah, it's nineteen seventy three to twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: That is incredible.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a slim book, I might add, because I
Speaker 2: was very fussy in what I picked from.
Speaker 1: My Well, you also had a lot going on in
Speaker 1: those fifty years.
Speaker 2: Anyway. This is called Susie plunged again into loving. I
Speaker 2: worry about your cough, that word on your thumb, your
Speaker 2: cigarettes and bed zinuses you shimmer in the early morning
Speaker 2: light and ruffle my feathers. My heart's in my throat.
Speaker 2: Even a weeze threatens. I fear losing the sheer joy
Speaker 2: of you. Panic. This is the way I imagined i'd
Speaker 2: feel gazing at the crib of the baby never born,
Speaker 2: A fierce protection for the fragileness, the miraculous energy of
Speaker 2: such life force. It's the same helpless, longing limbed those
Speaker 2: summers I sang ed asleep on his narrow boy's bed
Speaker 2: for the moment, cool and curled, and his growing aching legs. Ah,
Speaker 2: disloving the wonder of it all, all my senses jangling,
Speaker 2: blurred with memories of those who mattered most and shaped
Speaker 2: the part of me. I trust the least. You're a trip.
Speaker 2: I fooled you into loving me.
Speaker 1: Oh God, God is beautiful. That last line that I
Speaker 1: fooled you into lovery is so relatable, just that feeling
Speaker 1: where it's like, how the hell did.
Speaker 2: I did I pull that off?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2: Okay. Those are the last one asylums and very much
Speaker 2: a pertinent to what's happening. Yeah today, it's the last
Speaker 2: poem in the book. The Maya of the Yucatan invented
Speaker 2: writing calendars in a number system that counted in the millions,
Speaker 2: made tools in poetry, sang songs, built ball courts, pyramids,
Speaker 2: and temples, created public plazas with monumental columns that told
Speaker 2: their history. Third century AD, the Aztec in the Valley
Speaker 2: of Mexico built warrior statues to guard their temples. They
Speaker 2: too made calendars, one like ours, the other sacred, with
Speaker 2: symbols marking sounds or words. They left books with rich
Speaker 2: depictions of their daily lives, their legends, their beliefs. Thirteenth
Speaker 2: and fourteenth centuries, the Inca in Peru built an empire
Speaker 2: sixteen million people in fourteen hundreds AD. They used knots
Speaker 2: and chords for numbers, intricate skill recording myths and history.
Speaker 2: These kipus language of animals, strung textured chords commanding ninety
Speaker 2: five syllables of color, touch and direction. Let that sink
Speaker 2: in touch. As well as site makers, readers had to
Speaker 2: know the different feel of vaikuna alpaca, Others that lent
Speaker 2: their coats to different chords of meaning. Syllabic systems like
Speaker 2: our own marks that set our speech count syllables in
Speaker 2: a similar range. But the Inca used touch, touch, ninety
Speaker 2: five locks of color, touch and direction. I wake up
Speaker 2: thinking about this. These are ancestors Americans, people of Central
Speaker 2: and South America's descendants seek asylum in our borders. Instead
Speaker 2: of safety, we aim tear gas, separate children from parents,
Speaker 2: call them alien criminal. These noble people who had their
Speaker 2: history stolen, seeking refuse from their country's wars, are people
Speaker 2: started some seekers, blood mixed for centuries with their conquerors.
Speaker 2: Are likely people of the touch, who used intricate knots
Speaker 2: and textured cores to share their daily lives and myths.
Speaker 2: People who understood the language of animals. I ache to
Speaker 2: welcome them. Three dimensions, starting at our fingertips, I touch
Speaker 2: your cheek, imagining a different world. And that kind of
Speaker 2: sums up my politics. Oh and I have no idea
Speaker 2: how we're going to make it through the next four years,
Speaker 2: but we got it and we've got to be activists
Speaker 2: as much as we can do. Yeah, because it's going
Speaker 2: to be a rough ride. Fast in your Seatkils.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think what you were speaking to in terms
Speaker 1: of community and you being someone who it sounds like
Speaker 1: is just a natural connector of people that is really
Speaker 1: going to be what we need to rely on. The
Speaker 1: difference I'm feeling now as opposed to twenty sixteen is
Speaker 1: that people are exhausted, They're burned out, so there's not
Speaker 1: the same fervor or enthusiasm for I mean, I remember
Speaker 1: by this time last year, not last year. I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: by this time in twenty sixteen. You know, that Thursday
Speaker 1: night I had already gone to a meeting at somebody's
Speaker 1: house where we were trying to raise money for a
Speaker 1: guy who was a dreamer DACA. That Saturday, I went
Speaker 1: to a march in LA like later I went to
Speaker 1: die and Feinstein's office that were just like all these things,
Speaker 1: and now it's just kind of everyone is like so tired,
Speaker 1: and I think that the community building on a local level,
Speaker 1: like like you're saying in your neighborhood, It's like it's
Speaker 1: feeling to me, a person who has no background in
Speaker 1: politics and doesn't know what she's talking about, it's feeling
Speaker 1: to me less like women's march in DC, like everybody
Speaker 1: like this is a and more like smaller pockets of
Speaker 1: your local community band together support each other. It's feeling
Speaker 1: more subdued and small and local than it is like
Speaker 1: these grandiose I don't know. That's my initial impression on
Speaker 1: just how it's feeling different from when he was elected
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen. And honestly, I think a reason for
Speaker 1: that is the popular vote situation. I think it's like
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen, we felt this is not what the
Speaker 1: majority of us wanted. So we are united as a country.
Speaker 1: We're going to have these big you know, the women's march,
Speaker 1: Like every city did a women's march, Like LA did
Speaker 1: its own women's march. Obviously the big one was in DC,
Speaker 1: but every city was doing it because we were like,
Speaker 1: there's more of us than them. Most of us didn't
Speaker 1: want this, And now it's feeling like a lot more disheartening.
Speaker 1: Not to be a bummer, you know, I'm a realist,
Speaker 1: it is feeling more like, oh, this is what most
Speaker 1: people wanted, So to me personally, it's feeling more find
Speaker 1: your people locally banned with them, know your neighbors, like
Speaker 1: you're saying your local LGBT centers, grassroots organizations. I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's my instinct, just musing on it the past forty
Speaker 1: eight hours or so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I mean, you live, you live in a
Speaker 2: state that has a governor that just yesterday said that
Speaker 2: he's going to keep California as a fortress against Trump.
Speaker 1: I live in a state very lucky.
Speaker 2: I live in a state what the governors do, hopefully
Speaker 2: we'll do the same thing we elected in our little village,
Speaker 2: our first DACA state senator, just and the work has
Speaker 2: got to be in the states, and we've got to
Speaker 2: build in the states where we can. I do not believe,
Speaker 2: for one New York second that the popular vote describes
Speaker 2: what this nation really is about, because there has been
Speaker 2: so many, so many lies, so much, so much, so
Speaker 2: much misinformation, disinformation, you name it. People you know, if
Speaker 2: they have been the people from what I've seen, and
Speaker 2: I haven't studied it by any means, but the people
Speaker 2: who voted for Trump, or white women from the suburbs
Speaker 2: who have a lot to lose if the patriarchy collapses
Speaker 2: because they've been a bit from it, and a lot
Speaker 2: of blue collar mostly men, some women, but mostly white,
Speaker 2: not all, a lot of Latinas. I don't know how
Speaker 2: to compute all of that, but the bottom line for
Speaker 2: me is that they were fed a whole lot of
Speaker 2: shit from Fox News, from Twitter. I mean, Twitter is
Speaker 2: a joke, you know. Elon Musk deleted it all mentions
Speaker 2: to Harris on Twitter on x ye. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: been already censorship that has made it very difficult to
Speaker 2: kind of get traction. And yes, you know, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of so much misinformation out there. I don't for
Speaker 2: a minute believe that this is really what this country's about.
Speaker 2: And that's what I was trying to write about when
Speaker 2: that thing I sent you, was just trying to understand
Speaker 2: it and the work. Somehow we got to figure out
Speaker 2: how to keep our energy up. Yes, you know, I
Speaker 2: had gone through all kinds of stages since Tuesday, and
Speaker 2: I've finally resolved I'm not going to let that son
Speaker 2: of a bitch, you know, steal my joy. It's not
Speaker 2: going to happen, you know. Yeah, And I mean we
Speaker 2: two days ago, I was ready to move to Canada
Speaker 2: and Mexico or Ireland. I mean I could move back
Speaker 2: to Ireland and get an Irish passport because my grandmother,
Speaker 2: you know that emigrated from Northern Ireland, so I'm still
Speaker 2: eligible for a passport. And I just had you know, no,
Speaker 2: I had a long hall with a gal who taught
Speaker 2: me how to lobby here, who's now living in Port
Speaker 2: Washington Port Towns in Washington State, and you know, she said,
Speaker 2: no way, you are embedded in your community this is
Speaker 2: where you belong. Yeah, and you know, we'll figure out
Speaker 2: how to make it work. And I think that's it.
Speaker 2: It is in community, and that's the only way we're
Speaker 2: ever going to get this done. And you know, Martin
Speaker 2: Luther King said it years and years ago. The arc
Speaker 2: of justice, you know, is long. But what is it
Speaker 2: the arc I'm going to gobble the quote now, but
Speaker 2: the arc of history ultimately it moves toward justice, yes,
Speaker 2: and it does. And you know, we will eventually figure
Speaker 2: this out. It's not going to be easy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, what you're saying about keeping the energy
Speaker 1: up is is essential? Like that is what I'm feeling now,
Speaker 1: is like just like I said, the sheer exhaustion that
Speaker 1: people are feeling is it is exhausting. Tough, Yeah, exhausting,
Speaker 1: It's tough. Yeah.
Speaker 2: How you take care of yourself, you know, yes, and
Speaker 2: the people you love in the midst of all of that,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I do think that's essential. And I not
Speaker 1: to be cheesy or like speaking platitudes, but the idea
Speaker 1: of like filling your cup, I think is so important.
Speaker 1: And I and it's not just I think that sometimes
Speaker 1: or I've heard activists say sometimes it's like feeling like, well,
Speaker 1: when these atrocities are going on, like how can we
Speaker 1: have you know, a dance party or like a movie
Speaker 1: night or something like when these things are going on,
Speaker 1: and it's like those things are not just they're not
Speaker 1: disregarding what is happening, but like you need to build
Speaker 1: some joy in your life to be able to do
Speaker 1: good work. It's the old thing where you're on the
Speaker 1: plane and you have to put the oxygen mask on
Speaker 1: you before you put it on your child. That's the
Speaker 1: great instinct is going to be to put it on
Speaker 1: your child immediately you are you can serve them better.
Speaker 1: If you, an adult who requires more oxygen, gets that
Speaker 1: mask on you first, then you can serve them betterment
Speaker 1: and yeah, I think we have to really be mindful
Speaker 1: of sustainability in terms of our own abilities to fight
Speaker 1: this exhaustion and burnout and me personally, sense of humor
Speaker 1: is a huge part of that. I think there needs
Speaker 1: to be some levity and some humor because that is
Speaker 1: I think a huge contributing factor to how you keep
Speaker 1: going in these in these times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, the other piece that has really
Speaker 2: gotten to be apparent to me is that it's very
Speaker 2: essential to kind of take a look around and see, Okay,
Speaker 2: can I fix this? If so, how and here's what
Speaker 2: I'm going to do if I can't let it go.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: And that's especially for me. It's been a very hard
Speaker 2: lesson to learn because I want to fix everything right.
Speaker 1: Yes, I got that quality too. Yeah, I hear that.
Speaker 2: I hear that. And Sue and I have gotten to
Speaker 2: the point where we say to each other, Okay, why
Speaker 2: are you telling me this? Do you want me to
Speaker 2: fix it? Or do you want me to just listen?
Speaker 1: That's what Oh my god. My ex girlfriend would who
Speaker 1: we're still very close friends. She would always say that
Speaker 1: to me because I would she'd be, you know, telling
Speaker 1: me this thing about her day, and I'd go into
Speaker 1: that mode where I'm like, well have you tried, and
Speaker 1: she'd be like, Lauren, I'm I just want you to listen, Like,
Speaker 1: don't solve it, just listen to her?
Speaker 2: Exactly right, And that's an important lesson to learn, and
Speaker 2: it'll startless I'm not sure we ever really learn it
Speaker 2: if you trying to fix things and feel that responsibility.
Speaker 2: But that's also one way to burn out very quickly.
Speaker 1: Exactly. This is the sustainability thing I'm talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're so smart. It's you have to the first step
Speaker 1: has to be identifying can I fix this? Can I
Speaker 1: not fix this? If I can't fix this, let me
Speaker 1: not spend the limited reserves of energy I have running
Speaker 1: into a wall on it. That's just not productive. And
Speaker 1: it is hard to fight that instinct. We want to
Speaker 1: run into the biggest wall. It's the biggest wall. You
Speaker 1: don't want to run into a smaller wall. That's less impressive. Right,
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is good to hear. Yeah, I need
Speaker 1: to be reminded of this because yeah, I really am.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're all also eight years older than
Speaker 1: we were in twenty sixteen. But I just keep thinking,
Speaker 1: like God, all the stuff I was doing in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Like I don't feel that. I don't feel like I
Speaker 1: have that in me anymore. And so it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do I have in me?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: How can I then? What do I do?
Speaker 2: Like that's the inventory that you do. Yeah, that's essential.
Speaker 1: Yeah, God, that's smart.
Speaker 2: I do think before I justly this whole idea. The
Speaker 2: other piece of this for me has been to understand
Speaker 2: more about our history. I have gotten to be good
Speaker 2: friends with Native Americans artists here. I've known black people
Speaker 2: all my life who have helped me understand their history
Speaker 2: a lot better. Out here in New Mexico, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of Hispanic culture. Same thing. We need to listen
Speaker 2: to people who are not white. If you're white, especially
Speaker 2: listen to people who are not white to what their
Speaker 2: elders told them, because the reality is this country has
Speaker 2: always been filled with greed, land grabs, racism.
Speaker 1: Built on it literally, you.
Speaker 2: Know, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, you name it. The history of
Speaker 2: this country is not pretty and it's been whitewashed. At
Speaker 2: least it was for me.
Speaker 1: Oh it was for me too, Yeah, absolutely, in high
Speaker 1: school learning totally even just the Civil War, right, like
Speaker 1: this was about economics. I fully was taught that, right what.
Speaker 2: I have learned so much from my friend. Actually, she's
Speaker 2: the one who told me about those kipoos. She sent
Speaker 2: me an article about it. The uh, she's Native American,
Speaker 2: grew up on a very complicated history, but from an
Speaker 2: ultimately a reservation in Montana and where she was born.
Speaker 2: That the reality is, you know her understanding of her history,
Speaker 2: and she shows in her art. She she's just she's
Speaker 2: got a very different awareness of her of our quote
Speaker 2: unquote American history. Yes, and I have learned so much
Speaker 2: from her and respect what she's trying to do. Her
Speaker 2: name is Jean quick to See Smith. She had an
Speaker 2: exhibit at the Whitney with Retrospective last year and it
Speaker 2: was wonderful. I mean, she's really an impressive artist. She
Speaker 2: finally is hitting her getting the recognition she's deserved. I
Speaker 2: think that the point I'm making is how important it
Speaker 2: is to understand that history of our nation. We are
Speaker 2: not We should not be in mourning for where our
Speaker 2: country went, because our country has always been problematic, to
Speaker 2: say the least. But the work is in the States,
Speaker 2: in our communities and in the States, and we all
Speaker 2: need to pitch in and keep at it. We can't
Speaker 2: afford to be depressed. I can honor the feelings of despair,
Speaker 2: just believe fears, you know, thinking oh, we should just
Speaker 2: get out of here because it's not safe. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, especially for gays and lesbians. Are we safe?
Speaker 2: Are we safe on our street? But the fear is real,
Speaker 2: you know, And we got to not focus on the fear.
Speaker 2: We got to focus on what we can do. To
Speaker 2: prevent it, and the way to prevent it at least.
Speaker 2: The one thing that makes sense to me is, you know,
Speaker 2: work on our states. Make sure the states are strong,
Speaker 2: like New Mexico and California and you know the other
Speaker 2: blue states that can build barriers against some of this
Speaker 2: terror that's coming. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's really smart. I think like if you
Speaker 1: don't already know about you know, your low local orgs,
Speaker 1: like yeah, everybody knows, like hrc ACLU, like we all
Speaker 1: know those. We're talking now about your smaller ones, your
Speaker 1: local ones. Where are they in your city? Like, get
Speaker 1: to know? Those are the ones that I think you
Speaker 1: put your your efforts towards at the moment. I think
Speaker 1: the whole thing globally act locally has never been more
Speaker 1: kind of important than currently.
Speaker 2: And you can you can accomplish a lot exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Most important to me here is that we don't get
Speaker 2: discouraged and we find whatever joy and comfort we can
Speaker 2: in ourselves and in our family and our friends, our neighbors,
Speaker 2: and we you know, do what we can to make
Speaker 2: change and keep these country safe. And what's going to
Speaker 2: be a real onslaught of scary stuff for a long time.
Speaker 2: I don't have any idea how to do that beyond organizing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know what we've done in the past,
Speaker 2: and New Mexico was not always a totally blue state.
Speaker 2: We've had so you know, we had some really good
Speaker 2: people helping to make that happen. But I learned a
Speaker 2: lobby so we could pass you know, human rights amendment
Speaker 2: in the state in the early two thousands. And I
Speaker 2: was good at it. I never knew I could, but
Speaker 2: somebody taught me how to do it.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: But and you know, it discovered I have a lot
Speaker 2: of talent because I could cry in a drop of
Speaker 2: a hat.
Speaker 1: That is a talent.
Speaker 2: They used to call me narrow weep up in the
Speaker 2: least I could. I could. I was a good lobbyist
Speaker 2: because I could make everybody very uncomfortable if they started
Speaker 2: pulling too much shit.
Speaker 1: God, yes, that is such a skill. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: really is underrated talent.
Speaker 2: Yeah right. And the bottom line is, you know, we
Speaker 2: passed marriage equality here in twenty thirteen, long before you
Speaker 2: know it became a national mandate. You know, we need
Speaker 2: to do what we know how to do. The other
Speaker 2: thing I knew how to do back then at least
Speaker 2: was organized, and I was on the board of Coalition
Speaker 2: for Equality for New Mexico, which was founded in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety three, and by two thousand and three it was
Speaker 2: clear we needed to merge the C three with the
Speaker 2: C four in the pack because we were all working
Speaker 2: at cross purposes and everybody was, you know, really understood
Speaker 2: and worked okay with each other, but there was tension.
Speaker 2: And you know, I was just serraphy enough to be
Speaker 2: able to kind of help pull and I didn't do
Speaker 2: it by myself by any stretch, but I was able
Speaker 2: to work with some people who could help pull that together,
Speaker 2: and we did, and we now have Equality New Mexico,
Speaker 2: which was is a functioning, healthy organization, and you know,
Speaker 2: that's the kind of work we need to do, and
Speaker 2: they have been remarkably important. They partnered with ACLU back
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, twenty eleven, twenty twelve to try to
Speaker 2: get marriage equality here and it was Equality to Mexico
Speaker 2: and ACLU New Mexico that pulled that off. And you
Speaker 2: know the point being that you decide what you do
Speaker 2: know how to do, and then you figure out what
Speaker 2: you can do and do it.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, I love everything you just said, I
Speaker 1: knowing what your particular skill set is I think is
Speaker 1: really important. It also, again we keep saying, it prevents
Speaker 1: burnout and it increases sustainability because if you are someone
Speaker 1: who hates doing the calls where that's like call your
Speaker 1: senator and it's like, oh, I have to do this,
Speaker 1: but I hate it so much, You're gonna burn out
Speaker 1: on that quickly. Find the reason why I facilitate. The
Speaker 1: reason why I facilitate groups for the Center is because shocker,
Speaker 1: I love to talk. I love to listen to people
Speaker 1: and I love to talk. So that is something that
Speaker 1: I do that It not to be cheesy again, but
Speaker 1: it fills my cup to facilitate these groups and I
Speaker 1: see a direct result of how I'm helping people because
Speaker 1: I can make them laugh and for these two hours
Speaker 1: on Zoom, I make them feel a little better and
Speaker 1: we all end the night feeling better. And that's why
Speaker 1: I've been able to do that every Monday night for
Speaker 1: the past what is it now, like six years or
Speaker 1: something like that. But I pick that because that, again,
Speaker 1: that is sustainable for me because I like it, like
Speaker 1: I get something out of it too. It's almost like
Speaker 1: stand up comedy for me, So find the thing that
Speaker 1: rather than you're dreading doing it. And if you are
Speaker 1: someone who hates crowds, marches are not for you, like
Speaker 1: that's not gonna make you feel good. So find the
Speaker 1: thing that feeds you that also does good. Like we
Speaker 1: can all fit in to these to these different we
Speaker 1: can all serve different areas of need, and I think
Speaker 1: finding what works for you, like those who've listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast for a really long time, No, that Nicole
Speaker 1: and I have very differentes. Nicole's my former co host.
Speaker 1: We have very different skill sets, and so she will,
Speaker 1: you know, be more comfortable doing these sort of like
Speaker 1: town hall type things, and I'm like, just put me
Speaker 1: on zoom with a bunch of people who want to
Speaker 1: like laugh and feel better. Like that's what I do
Speaker 1: versus what she does, And those are both valid. And
Speaker 1: I think finding the thing like you're saying that that
Speaker 1: you're good at, I think that's key to keeping our
Speaker 1: energy it is. Yeah, yeah, is there anything else before
Speaker 1: we sort of wrap up? No, I really I think
Speaker 1: we red. This is a long one too. We Yeah,
Speaker 1: we ran again. I'm so so grateful to you really
Speaker 1: just having a conversation like this again just seventy two
Speaker 1: or forty eight whatever hours it is post election. I'm
Speaker 1: really grateful that you were down to do that, and
Speaker 1: your own story is just so uplifting and tender and beautiful,
Speaker 1: and I just thank you so much. This is this
Speaker 1: is what I feel like, this is needed right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I appreciate it. I enjoy talking to you, and
Speaker 2: I think what you're doing is fascinating.
Speaker 1: Well, that's an I did this podcast for the same reason.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I like talking. I like hearing people's stories.
Speaker 1: So that's how I feel like I can help, is
Speaker 1: like we create a podcast of people sharing their stories.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and that's one of the better ways. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's one of the things they found out. The National
Speaker 2: group Freedom to Marry lot of good legwork to get
Speaker 2: marriage equality here in the country, and one of the
Speaker 2: things they discovered early on was that what makes the
Speaker 2: most difference in changing people's minds about marriage equality is
Speaker 2: personal stories. It is getting people to talk about their
Speaker 2: lives and their loves and how they met and how
Speaker 2: they connected and why that's important. And it makes us
Speaker 2: more relatable to people who are intimidated or you know,
Speaker 2: don't understand what to say to you know, there at
Speaker 2: least some of our neighbors when we first moved in,
Speaker 2: I knew were really kind. They left us gifts and
Speaker 2: welcome presence when we built our own home here, and
Speaker 2: you know, another neighbor left you Potter left the series
Speaker 2: four Cups on our front stoop. It's just really very welcoming.
Speaker 2: But they didn't quite know how to talk to us.
Speaker 2: And I think we were afraid some of them. We're
Speaker 2: just afraid of saying the wrong thing or not using
Speaker 2: the right language or whatever. Yeah, you know, so there
Speaker 2: was awkwardness and a lot of that is stuff we
Speaker 2: can make easier for people just by being who we
Speaker 2: are and laughing a lot, and yes, welcoming questions and
Speaker 2: you know, ask me anything you want, well within reason,
Speaker 2: but you know, ask me what you want. And I
Speaker 2: think it's made a huge difference. And we you know,
Speaker 2: it helps, but it takes a while. It's not overnight,
Speaker 2: it's not something you can do, you know immediately, it's
Speaker 2: just got to you're in there for the long haul. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And that's how I feel about everything else right now.
Speaker 2: With the politics. Absolutely agree, but we cannot get discouraged.
Speaker 2: We cannot. We have got to keep this vision in
Speaker 2: our heads of the world we want to live in.
Speaker 1: Oh really, well said yes, and I'll say it again
Speaker 1: for the billions of times this episode. That is why
Speaker 1: it is equally important to put the oxygen mask on
Speaker 1: yourself first and to make sure that you are creating
Speaker 1: an environment within you as a person that can continue
Speaker 1: to do good work. Don't burn yourself out, because then
Speaker 1: you are you are not useful to the revolution, or
Speaker 1: however you want to phrase it, if you are too
Speaker 1: spent or too angry to do anything. There's so much
Speaker 1: anger right now. I've talked about anger so much on
Speaker 1: this podcast as someone who has struggled with it and
Speaker 1: who is on anxiety mass for it. But yeah, anger
Speaker 1: is not it's not it's not a bad thing. But
Speaker 1: let's not let that Let's let that anger fuel us
Speaker 1: as opposed to drain us. And that's why to me,
Speaker 1: comedy and humor is so important to mitigate that that rage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Mary Ellen, where can people I know they can
Speaker 1: purchase the book everywhere, but if you want to, yeah,
Speaker 1: if there's a specific pick place, or if there's a
Speaker 1: way they can keep up with you and follow you.
Speaker 1: I don't know. If you do any social media or
Speaker 1: have a website or any anything like that.
Speaker 2: I'm on Facebook, okay, yeah, and everything I post is public,
Speaker 2: so to find me, Okay. I have a website, Mary
Speaker 2: ellenkpic dot com.
Speaker 1: Okay, and.
Speaker 2: You know that's that's it's about it. I'm easily reachable.
Speaker 1: Oh good, good, Thank you for being. Yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: for being.
Speaker 2: And I enjoyed this a lot talking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, y'all, that's what that's what we've got
Speaker 1: for you today. Again, sending a lot of love and
Speaker 1: compassion and strength. Take care of yourselves, fine, joy, read
Speaker 1: beautiful poetry. I watched Bottoms on Amazon Prime the other day.
Speaker 1: That fills me with joy for anyone who hasn't seen
Speaker 1: Very Queer, a funny movie. But yeah, very allah, thank
Speaker 1: you so so much. You all know where to find me.
Speaker 1: I'm at Lauren Flans on Twitter and blue Sky, which
Speaker 1: I think people are migrating to. God. I would love
Speaker 1: Twitter to go away. I'm too addicted to have the
Speaker 1: self discipline to get off it, but I hope it
Speaker 1: just crashes and burns so that that's the only way
Speaker 1: I'll be off that site. But blue Sky find me
Speaker 1: on blue Sky. Lauren Underscore Flans on Instagram. The podcast
Speaker 1: is at Coming Out pod everywhere. Yeah, you can give
Speaker 1: a rating iTunes, Spotify. I want to click five stars.
Speaker 1: Maybe that fills your cup. I don't know your life.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you again,
Speaker 1: Mary Ellen. Everybody hang in there and I will talk
Speaker 1: to you soon.
Speaker 2: Five