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Weekend bonus shot, 03.31.13

By on March 31, 2013 in From the vault, Mostly a picture, Pops, Weekend bonus shot

PopsJune12-2
Pops, Berkeley, CA.

Dad, not quite a year ago, in the Easter bonnet I got him. OK not bonnet, but that’s how we jokingly referred to it.  Tried to get it on Easter, and the hat shop was closed (duh), so we went the next time he was in town with me. Hats like these are made for gents like my dad.

Thinking a lot about him today.  He is more gone than here, more out than in. Thus, the heightened value of stolen moments like this one, showing me him and his love, utterly present.

He would never ordinarily feel this unselfconscious in front of a camera–would always stiffen and pose uncomfortably, the ineffable essence of himself evaporating in a puff.  This image exists because I held the camera against my chest, and–yes, I’ll admit it–took three or four pictures stealth. He was looking into my eyes, not at the camera’s lens.

We sat under a shade on a sunny June afternoon; he’d just finished watching his youngest nephew “graduate” preschool in a ceremony the school held in our backyard with all the other kids;  he hadn’t tired yet. We had been talking about something or another which I totally forget now. Something that made him smile like this, mostly with his eyes, which have been capable of reflecting and inspiring so much mirth for so many decades.  And there he was. Being him.

 

 

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On our way

By on March 27, 2013 in From the vault, Mostly a picture

enroute
En route to San Francisco City Hall demo (May 26, 2009: CA Supreme Court ruling to uphold Prop 8).

 

A blast from the past. This has been such a long, tiring journey. Which of course is basically par for the course when the job at hand is to wrestle institutionalized and codified discrimination out of law. Thus “civl rights battle.” For more scenes from this day nearly four years ago, a slide show:

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Thought that counts

By on December 20, 2012 in From the vault, Mostly a picture

keepcalm-2
Worthwhile placebo, Berkeley, CA.

 

I posted this self-same picture almost a year ago, soon after I took it. His knee is bigger now, and he no longer fits those shoes. But he still believes kisses and Band-Aids contain some kind of inherent analgesic power, and until that belief is shaken, I’m not contradicting it. Though if I were to amend the WWII-era British admonition, I’d say, “Keep heart as open as can be, always leave the door open to hope and magic, and then do your best to carry on. Taking comfort in the knowledge that others are treading similar paths somewhere in the world, and that love, no matter what the plot of the story, is always its last word.”

 

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Back to School, LGBT parent version (2012 edition)

By on August 23, 2012 in From the vault, School work

IMG_4140A week from tonight, our family will be on the other side of a ginormous milestone: both kids’ first day of school at the actual same school.  So whilst I’m on vacation, otherwise blithely posting pictures of our leisure hours at nearby mountain lakes, I need to update and re-post  last year’s Back to School round-up.  Broke links fixed, some of last year’s references are trimmed out, and a few new notes sprinkled in.

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LD All-Purpose Parenting Resources Page o’ Links

Last year I combed through and updated all twenty-some-odd links on the LGBT Parenting Resources page I list here at LD.  If you haven’t perused that page, please do. Or if you have a friend who is hunting down a compendium of resources, by all means send ‘em there. And let me know if you think I should add more.

A Dozen Really Helpful School-Specific Resources

Below, a compendium of some of my favorite resources, with accompanying commentary. The first several listed can help inform your conversations with your child’s teacher or school administrator, or provide book lists for your school’s librarian or a teacher looking to supplement reading for units throughout the year. The Groundspark documentaries can be screened for a PTA or a school committee or (in the case of That’s a Family!) a classroom.  And the Welcoming Schools resources really form a broad-based family diversity (and anti-bullying and gender diversity) curriculum that could be reviewed and implemented anywhere from the level of a single classroom lesson plan to a whole school or school district’s supplementary curriculum. Because my kids are elementary school-aged (aaak! both of them now!), most of those listed below are primarily K-6 resources.

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Seven years today

By on March 25, 2012 in From the vault, Seraphim/dakini

E.U.P. February 27, 1995 — March 24, 2005.

Above: my nephew and me, a very long time ago.

Cancer; glioblastoma multiform; brain, spinal cord.

About nine months from diagnosis to death.

Survived by his parents and his younger brother, who at the time was the age my daughter is now. Survived also by two grandfathers, two aunts, an uncle, several cousins, and dozens of friends, teachers, coaches, parents of friends and, collateral of the last nine months of his life, a great many doctors and nurses, mostly at Children’s Hospital, Oakland, who came to know and love his spirit, bravery, and generosity.

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Christmas Lullaby

By on December 24, 2011 in Baba familias, From the vault, Moving pictures

“Christmas Lullaby,” by Jason Robert Brown, eavesdropped after dinner early December last year. [Ed note: Once you start the video, double-clicking the image expands it to full screen, a decidedly mixed blessing since then you get more jostled by my improv'ed lo-tech iPhone cinematography.]

I couldn’t help but re-run this sweet gem which I first posted a year ago. Still sweet, still–with the exception of the diapers on the boy–true.  Love to all who reads and listens here.

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A brief gender-nonconforming kid resource roundup

By on November 2, 2011 in Anima animus, From the vault, Go hetero ally go!, Moving pictures, NaBloPoMo, Re: the lil' peanut

lastyearsprincess

Halloween trick-or-treating peanut, Berkeley, CA (2010).

Visual coda to yesterday’s post, in which I mentioned our boy’s Halloween costume choice of last year. I wrote a few words about it at the time, here.  If I were to have to guess now, I’d say there’ll be a long gap ’til the next such outfit makes a Halloween appearance, though of course I could be wrong. In the intervening year, his haberdashery pace car has shifted from Big Sister to Main Boy Chum at Preschool.  For all the complex reasons that are behind such evolving self-understandings. Advancing years, increased exposure to peer groups, push of culture, pull of self, survival instinct; you name it.

The costume  above met a glowing reception throughout the neighborhood last year, though, and not just because there were blinky red lights underneath the tulle (yes there were).  I mean, really. The kid looks better in that outfit than I ever could.  Also? At least the grown-ups in our neighborhood love kids unconditionally and clearly share our conviction that the best thing we can do for them is clear the runway ahead and help them take flight.

Re: clearing the runway and helping kids take flight (into a world they’re in the process of making) – below, I’ve collected a smattering of nifty resources by and for parents of gender nonconforming kids. Halloween’s pretty much the primo occasion for this, since it’s the one day of the year kids have a wide(r) berth to explore performing different identities.

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Weekend bonus shot, 06.27.11 (Monday edition)

By on June 27, 2011 in From the vault, Mostly a picture, Weekend bonus shot

pridebrunchtoast

Pride brunch toast, Berkeley, CA.

Not a Bloody Mary to be seen. This here is Pride, the parents-of-young-children version. Coffee for the grown-ups, hot chocolate with marshmallows (it’s Pride, after all!) for the younger set. Can you make out the weathered rainbow flag down there as our table cloth?

This year, for the first time in over 25 years of Prides, (that number sounds appalling but it is indeed accurate), I didn’t march, rabble-rouse, party, boogie, or even stroll. The beloved had a bum ankle from a backfired dance move demo she’d delivered to one of her theater kids (JC Superstar: not for wimps!), and our own kids were so-so about the Parade (“It’s fun but it’s too hot and noisy,” said the girlie, pretty much nailing the characterization).

We had long planned a Post-Pride-Potluck-Picnic-Party chez nous, and this year we leaned heavily upon it for our mellowed-out dose of queer (family) love.  A baker’s dozen friends, old and new, each with a kid or two in tow, came to chillax in the back yard, swing on the swing, bounce on the trampoline, and wag the jumbo “Go Marriage Equality” foam hand one of them brought back from Pride (what will they think up next?).

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