I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Lesbian Literary

  • Dear Edie Windsor


    Dear Edie Windsor,

    Today is the 13th. day of the new regime in the oval office that is apparently now the cesspool from whence both tweets and executive orders spew forth with reckless abandon and no regard for the rights of the citizens of the republic which they were elected to serve.

    As the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants, you must be particularly saddened at the sights and sounds of the past few days in our nation’s airports where innocent travelers’ lives were interrupted, families were separated and our American values of welcome and acceptance to those trusting us for safe harbor were randomly impugned. Shame on this administration and shame on us if we don’t fight them like you fought your entire life for the causes of social justice and equality for all.

    But today I want to give you some good news that is my way of saying thank you for the journey you took for marriage equality in the LGBT community. The Supreme Court ruling in June, 2013 for your case the United States v. Windsor has been described as “the most influential legal precedent in the struggle for LGBT marriage equality.” The dominoes of discrimination against us began to topple and fall after that ruling and before you could say two shakes of a lamb’s tail, my partner Teresa and I were the first same-sex couple to be granted our marriage license in November, 2014 in Richland County, South Carolina – the 35th. state to recognize equality.

    I can’t tell you the number of LGBT marriages that have taken place in our state since then, but I regularly see pictures of weddings via social media and personal messages of young people and older ones, too, tying the proverbial knot, as our straight friends have always said. It’s a good thing.

    Yet, this weekend, in the midst of an unbelievable national wave of hatefulness and exclusion, my wife and I went to a shower for two young lesbians who are getting married next month – a natural next step in their belief for the pursuit of happiness as they see it. It was a festive fun evening with the usual “games” for the brides-to-be, great southern barbecue with all the trimmings, a special Signature Cocktail (which I can personally endorse) and champagne for everyone.

    What made this particular shower different, however, was that the hosts were eleven straight couples with a plus one…all of them friends of the parents of one of the brides-to-be. The parents of both brides were there, and everyone celebrated the upcoming nuptials. As I mingled and talked with our friends who were the hosts, I felt I was in a different universe from the one where I didn’t dare to dream about marrying another girl when I was growing up in rural southeast Texas in the 1950s. It was if a magic carpet had transported me from a land of ignorance to a place of enlightenment. Truly remarkable.

    And so I wanted to share this joyful time with you, Edie, because you are one of the major reasons these two young women have the same hopes and dreams for their family that their straight friends do.

    Believe me when I say you were there in spirit. They may not even realize who you are and what you have done for them, but I want to simply say “I do,” and I’m forever indebted.

    Warmest wishes,

    Sheila Morris

    (reprinted with permission of Auntie Bellum magazine: http://auntiebellum.org/mag/ )

  • I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto the Hills – A Final Farewell to the Obama Presidency


    Last night Pretty and I watched and listened to President Barack Obama as he delivered his final address to the nation, and I confess we both shed tears during the speech. I feel a deep sense of personal loss today – like I have lost a member of my family because the Obama family has, indeed, made me feel welcome to be a part of their lives in the White House for the past eight years. That’s a long time.

    Webster’s Thesaurus describes the word eloquent as follows: “persuasive, forceful, striking, stirring, moving, spirited, emphatic, articulate, passionate, impassioned, vivid, poetic.” Pause and let that sink in.

    The President’s final address in Chicago was as eloquent as his first speech there eight years ago and remarkably reminiscent of the first one in his themes of hope and confidence for future generations of Americans. That hope and confidence is a true leap of faith at the end of two terms of the most contentious, bitter years of partisanship in our political process as I’ve witnessed in my seventy years as a citizen.

    His belief in the necessity of compromise and cooperation to accomplish his goals of peace and prosperity for the American people and our allies has been both his strength and unbelievably, also his weakness. His legacy will be debated by historians for the next hundred years, but his successes and failures are already in the books.

    Obama…statesman…humanitarian…peacemaker… orator…father…husband…sports fan…a person of integrity with a good sense of humor…decent human being. These are my impressions of the man I’ve grown to know and love.

    But the most indelible impressions I have of Barack Obama are in his role as the compassionate comforter to a nation plagued by multiple shootings sprinkled throughout his presidency. Binghamton, New York. Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson, Arizona. Aurora, Colorado movie theater. Fort Hood two times. Washington Navy Yard. Oak, Wisconsin. Chattanooga, Tennessee. San Bernadino, California. Jewish synagogue in Kansas City. Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Oregon community college. Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of 2012.

    Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina on June 18, 2015.

    “Michelle and I know several members of Emanuel AME Church. We knew their pastor, the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, who, along with eight others, gathered in prayer and fellowship and was murdered last night. And to say our thoughts and prayers are with them and their families, and their community doesn’t say enough to convey the heartache and the sadness and the anger that we feel. Any death of this sort is a tragedy. Any shooting involving multiple victims is a tragedy. There is something particularly heartbreaking about the death happening in a place in which we seek solace and we seek peace, in a place of worship.” (June 18, 2015)

    All in all, there were 15 multiple shootings during President Obama’s two terms, and I turned to him for some degree of reasoning and yes, comfort, in the aftermath of those horrific acts. Each time, he carried the weight of our collective grief and sorrow on his shoulders and somehow brought a compassionate comfort to our troubled republic.

    Almost exactly a year after the Mother Emanuel tragedy in my home state, another terrorist attack or hate crime or whatever you want to call it took place at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on June 12, 2016. It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in our country’s history and the largest attack launched since 09-11, 2001.

    There were 49 people killed and 53 wounded.

    “Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder — a horrific massacre — of dozens of innocent people.  We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts. We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city…

    This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.  The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live.  The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. 

    So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation — is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.  And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans…

    Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history.  The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle.  This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.  And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.  And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.

    As we go together, we will draw inspiration from heroic and selfless acts — friends who helped friends, took care of each other and saved lives.  In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another.  We will not give in to fear or turn against each other.  Instead, we will stand united, as Americans, to protect our people, and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.    

    May God bless the Americans we lost this morning.  May He comfort their families.  May God continue to watch over this country that we love.  Thank you.”

    I will miss this President Obama whose accomplishments at the international and national levels were many including a Nobel Peace Prize but whose presidency for me was essentially a personal one.

    For some reason his exit triggers a memory of my father’s last words to me as he was being rolled away on a hospital bed to a surgery that would change our family’s lives forever: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from which cometh my help…

    I will leave it there.

     

     

     

  • Benghazi – Revisiting the Obama Presidency


    On September 11, 2012 one of the most notorious events of the Obama presidency took place at the American Embassy in Benghazi, Libya when our ambassador was killed in a raid which was originally described by the administration as a possible retaliation for an anti-Muslim video filmed in the United States. My post was written six days later on the 17th. Interesting.

    Second Chances

    Our lecture for today, O cyberspace class, is the epistemology of the second chance. (Sometimes I just throw in a big word to see if anybody’s paying attention.) Frankly, I don’t remember  much about epistemology from my scholarly life except that I heard it used in my undergraduate philosophy classes and my graduate studies in theology.

    To refresh my memory, I looked up the definition and found the word epistemology involves knowledge and the justification of knowledge; but then the dictionary wandered off into a question of what is knowledge and how can it be justified and I immediately remembered why I dropped out of seminary. Way too much digression and iffiness and grey areas for a 23-year-old CPA who dealt in absolute numbers before answering a “call” to the ministry that was surely a wrong number.

    I gave up absolutes many years ago, however, about the same time the numbers became images on a computer screen and lacked any connection to reality. Who knew if 2 + 2 equaled 4 any more and who cared?

    So I’ve grown accustomed to vague responses and half-truths and tried to blend in with a landscape camouflaged by degrees of knowledge  that are justified with competing strident voices blasting away at each other from polarized positions of territorial absolutes. Wow. Now there’s a mouthful to chew on.

    Yep, nothing like trying to convince people you own a piece of knowledge when they don’t agree with you. You just can’t justify it to them no matter how hard you try and how loud you get. Because, see, they own a piece of knowledge, too, and it happens to be totally different from yours. And there’s the rub.

    A good example is the current turmoil over an anti-Muslim video that was Made in the USA. The American President has denounced it, the American Secretary of State has apologized for the fact that it was filmed in California where they film every possible video you could ever think up without anybody checking to see if it’s inflammatory because that would require an army of Video Checkers; and the justification of the knowledge of the situation is irrelevant to a Muslim world that owns a different enlightenment which doesn’t include the concept of second chances.

    That’s how it all goes downhill and the histrionics aren’t far behind.  I’m wondering how many Muslims are golfers?  If they were golfers, they would know about Mulligans.   Mulligans are second chances.

    If you hit a shot with your driver off the tee on the first hole and the little white golf ball vanishes mysteriously in deep woods closer to the fairway for the third hole than they are to the first hole and you know you’ll never be able to find it, you can say Mulligan and have a second chance to locate your own fairway again.

    You may hit a beautiful shot for your Mulligan or you may not, but the important thing is you have a new opportunity. The American government asked for a Mulligan from a partner who doesn’t play the game the same way it does. The game is over before it even starts.

    In our personal lives second chances are sometimes painfully obvious and at other times so subtle we may miss them.   Lesson Number One: Be open and available and alert and don’t think you won’t ever need one.  You will.

    Lesson Number Two:  When you get a second chance, try not to think of it as an opportunity to repeat mistakes. Mistakes are hard to take back so don’t blow the Mulligan.

    Lesson Number Three:  Be sure to tell your friends about your second chance. It may give them hope and inspire them to offer one or accept one. Honestly, can there be too many second chances going around?

    Lesson Number Four:  Your second chance may be your last chance. Seriously? Seriously.

    Lesson Number Five: Never be afraid to take a second chance when you have one. As Franklin Roosevelt famously said when the Hounds of the Baskervilles were closing in around him, We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

    And so, O cyberspace class, the lecture concludes with a little bit of knowledge mixed with a bunch of justification that adds up to the epistemology of the second chance as seen from the eyes of a 66-year-old who has had her own share of second chances and has, at various times in her life, blown them, needed a third or fourth, and had some of them bring incredible joy and happiness.

    Be generous to those you love and even to those whose knowledge is different from yours. Ouch. Is that really necessary?  Absolutely.

     

  • A Different Kind of Thanksgiving


    For the first time ever in our sixteen year history, Teresa and I had the Thanksgiving dinner at our home last night. It was a different kind of Thanksgiving for me.

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    My memories of Thanksgiving during my childhood and teenage years involve food – lots of it – and family…anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five members getting together for lunch at one of my grandmother’s houses in Richards. It really didn’t matter to me which one because the houses were right across the dirt road from each other in the tiny rural southeastern Texas town; and both grandmothers always had tables overflowing with turkey and cornbread dressing and the vegetables, rolls, desserts, tea and coffee that were served as complements to the unpardoned bird.

    I never sat at the “adult” table in my entire life. My cousins and I sat at the “children’s” table in the kitchen even after they were married and had their own children and I had graduated from college. I would like to say I remember my last Thanksgiving meals at my grandmothers’ houses, but I don’t. I moved away from Texas when I was in my early twenties and tried to call to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving from wherever I was on that day, but I was always late in the afternoon or early evening and everyone had gone home by then.

    Gradually through the years the generation that roasted the turkey and made the cornbread dressing has died off and with them the tradition that was Thanksgiving as I knew it died, too. Now I have a few cousins in Texas who call or text to say Happy Thanksgiving and we promise to see each other before the next year is out, but those visits are far and few between, as my cousin Martin says. We have no central figure to draw us together – and so we drift mostly apart.

    Pretty’s family, on the other hand, is much larger and she has many living aunts, uncles and cousins scattered around the country – most still located in the upstate of South Carolina, though. They usually gather for an early evening meal in the fellowship hall of the First Baptist Church of Fingerville, but the gathering has lost steam through the last years as individual families within the larger family have opted for their own forms of celebration. The tradition came to a screeching halt this year when Pretty’s family Thanksgiving was cancelled due to lack of interest and the aging of the aunts who organized it. Pretty’s sister asked her if we would have the dinner at Casa de Canterbury, and she said of course.

    And so Pretty’s father, sister, brother-in-law, son and daughter-in-law came to our house last night around 7 o’clock just in time to watch the second half of the Cowboys/Redskins football game while we stuffed ourselves with ham and turkey and the other delicious side dishes that were very familiar to me since they were the same side dishes I remembered from my childhood. We might be eating later than I was used to, but we definitely ate the same food groups. The football game was also reminiscent of our Texas traditions, although we had of course, rooted for the Cowboys at our house and Pretty’s family was a Washington Redskins super fan base.

    The food and football were comfortable topics like a pair of old bedroom slippers slightly worn, but whoa! Nellie, the after-dinner political discussion was something else. Pretty and her sister are renowned for their opinions on books, religion (or the lack thereof), interesting people, family gossip and last, but not least, politics with the recent presidential election providing more than its usual share of discussion.

    The sisters come by their political passion naturally because their father is the original Free Thinker/Liberal Philosopher who sparked that interest. This is a man whose family came from the poorest region of Appalachia, a man who managed to get a college degree somehow and then became what he admired most, a teacher. This is a man whose roots were the ultra-conservative teachings of Southern Baptist churches but he looked beyond the church to embrace his lifelong pursuit of helping the underprivileged in the only way he knew how: to educate them.

    Needless to say, the sisters and their father held center stage as they vociferously dissected the failures of the Democratic Party to elect Hillary Clinton and their amazement and fear generated by the new president-elect. These people do not have inside voices. I added an appropriate comment when I could get a word in, but mostly I sat back and enjoyed.

    The highlight of the evening for me, though, came when Pretty’s son joined the fray. Should Bernie have been the candidate? Was the alignment with immigration support a wise one for Clinton? What happened to the Obama voters who didn’t show up?  Why did 47% of the qualified voters not exercise their right to vote? Here was a millennial couple with their own opinions, and it turns out Pretty’s son is as political as she and her sister are. The grandfather must have been so pleased with the dialogue at this family Thanksgiving meal.

    Pretty was happy for the first time in weeks; she was able to air out her feelings with people who shared them, and this Thanksgiving was a tonic for everyone who came. Love and what it means to be family can be found really any day of the year and at every meal, but somehow for me Thanksgiving reminds me of my connection to the past and my hope for the future.

    A different kind of Thanksgiving for sure…but one I’ll take again next year.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Try a Little Kindness


    Our household at Casa de Canterbury has suffered a post-Election Day Depression that has cast a pall on our happiness in the past week. Charly and Spike and I have tried to rally to lift her spirits, but Pretty has wrestled with her grief and discouragement and basic lack of faith in the goodness of the American people. We are a political household – actually activists in the LGBTQ movement for 30 years – and so have lost battles in our lives to bigotry and bullying rhetoric before, but I think we had wrongly believed we had as a nation moved past the hateful and harmful to the more harmonious.

    In the midst of this overwhelming gathering of dark clouds of despair, we heard a knock at our door this afternoon. Pretty went to the door and saw a younger friend of ours named Travis who stood outside the door holding a gift bag and purple flowers. Attached to the gift bag was a wonderful letter, and I wanted to offer a portion of his letter as a perfect example of what is meant by trying a little kindness.

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    Hello my friends,

    I have been thinking of you. While I have seen a lot of craziness posted on Facebook and through other media over the results of the Presidential Election, I wanted to spread hope and comfort. So, that is why this Democrat Care package has landed on your stoop…

    Purple flowers – look at the beauty of these fine gifts of our Earth…today I want you to see how beautiful the purple is when red and blue come together…

    Chocolate…lifesavers…a nice pen…you know the pen is mightier than the sword. Use it and your voice to protect reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, criminal reform, healthcare reform…

    …if the chocolate does not work, ditch the flowers, wash the glass and pour a big glass of your favorite drink (wine, bourbon and Diet Coke all count). Drink that one glass and during that drink allow for anger, self-pity and worry, BUT never despair! When you are done reach out to me and let’s see how we can make a difference!

    All my love,

    Travis

    Pretty and I were both moved by the letter, flowers, gift bag goodies and a card that all combined to make a Care package we will never forget. As he left, I looked at the sky and thought I detected a few rays of sunlight piercing the darkness that had been hovering over the gigantic oaks in our front yard. I think Pretty saw them, too.

    Kindness really matters to everyone. Pass it on.