Face the Music and Dance

I spent a good chunk of today at a surprise party. My co-worker, D, threw the shindig for her parents, who are celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary. 200 invitations went out, 170 people R.S.V.P.'d affirmatively, and no one told! The surprise was utter. It was fabulous.

There was one sour note. No, sour isn't the right word... What adjective applies to a creeping yet incidental sense of suffocation? "Parambuloasphyxiation?" (I'm open to suggestions from the audience.)

D, like me, is gay. She and her partner, J, have been together for several years and live together, sharing their lives completely. They are partners in life, love, and business. And... they weren't comfortable enough in their own town, at a party they hosted, to dance together. So, they just didn't.

Huh? It made me feel sick and dizzy. They wouldn't dance together for fear of what? Negative repercussions to business and personal relationships? Because D's parents might have been embarrassed? Something else? They didn't quite say. They said, "This is a small community and so we just decided not to and, besides, the party isn't about us," etc. I say, "blah, blah, blah." I mean, they have Pride license plate tags, pictures of themselves up at work holding D's grandchild (whom they are raising). They are not exactly closeted. But, apparently, dancing takes it over the top. That kind of public display of affection is too much.

I knew moving here that I would miss the ocean and a singular pug dog who resides in my heart. I knew that it was a strange choice to leave the only state in the country that has legal same-sex marriage. I knew that I would miss my friends, K & P. I did not know I was moving to a place quite so backwards as this. Not dance together? Not dance together?

Here is an irony: D's father and his longtime friend, E, danced together. As a joke, of course. We all laughed; they were funny. I was laughing because they are two semi-stand-offish guys who were expressing their affection for each other in a comical way, by doing something they would never do seriously and feeling safe enough with each other and those around them to be silly together. I think that's part of why most people laughed, though I'm certain that plenty of folks mostly thought it was funny because two men were touching each other, for heaven's sake!

How sad is a world in which two people in love and blessed with the good fortune to be in the same vacinity as a live big band would hesitate to dance together? How sad and how foreign? It's certainly not the world that I inhabit.

I love my folks and I know my mom wants me to stay local for good. There are things about that idea that appeal. And yet I know that if I was in a relationship right now, I'd have danced with my partner at that party. And if that means that, ultimately, I can't stay here, so be it. Life is too short to worry about who may be scandalized by watching two women dance together. I know for sure that the world will not be enhanced by my tapping my toes under the table, instead.


~M

Copyright 2004 Seasmoke All rights reserved

Stress?

In my Human Growth & Development class on Monday night, we each had to take a small self-test to determine our stressful life events/health impact ratio. There were about sixty statements and each was assigned a point value. We were to circle any statements that applied to the last twelve months of our lives.

I cruised through the list chuckling to myself because it seemed that I'd have a shorter go of it if I circled the does-not-apply answers instead. I wondered whether I should multiply the points associated with items that I experienced more than once. In the end, I added up the sums and my total was a respectable 1035. I figured that this would land me in the high-moderate range.

I noticed that the woman to my right had a total of 51.

The instructor put the scoring key on the overhead projector. The first range was "0-149" and the health impact was "none". I thought, "They must have lots of sublevels." She uncovered the rest of the sheet and I noticed that there were only three levels:
0-149
150-299
300+, at which point the health impact risk was >80%

My astonishment was utter. I said, "But, I could easily argue that I'm the healthiest I've been in many years, maybe ever, if you factor in emotional health."

She said, "And that is the next point I was going to make. Stress and life events are largely unavoidable. What makes us healthy or unhealthy is how we well we cope. Coping skills change throughout life and are a function of inherent qualities, learned behaviors, and acquired knowledge. Evidently, you are doing pretty well in all three categories."

OK. I'll roll with that. And I'll also now let myself off the hook for wanting more rest than normal. I guess being a bit tired is to be expected when one's score exceeds the author's limit by three-plus times. I never did add multiples for the items that occurred more than once...

~M

Copyright 2004 Seasmoke All rights reserved