The World is a Better Place

My high-school sweet-heart just got married.

Richard and I went to the prom together, and hung out and dated until I moved to the LA area in 1978.

We were two days apart in age. We used to joke that we would get married on the day between our 30th birthdays.

At his sister's wedding, I danced with his father who indicated he would be very happy if Richard and I married. I replied, "We're too good of friends to mess it up with marriage."

My father told me, "Richard's a very nice boy, but just remember, he's [ethnicity]" Yes, my father was a bigot.

My mother told me, "Richard's a very nice boy, but remember, he's [religion]" My mother was a religious bigot. (I got back at her by marrying a jack Mormon)

What my parents didn't know (and at that time, Richard's parents didn't know either) was that Richard is gay. He came out to me the summer after our second year of college. We had dated the first year, broken up when I went to school abroad, and re-connected when I came back to the States. His coming out to me made our friendship that much deeper. We enjoyed each other's company. We went to plays, to movies, to gay bars, we had FUN. I was his cover. That was when we came up with the idea of marriage between our 30th's. Clearly, if neither of us had found a man we wanted to spend the rest of our life with, we would spend it together.

Then Richard met John. John and Richard were like two halves of a whole. They FIT together. They were an ideal couple. My female roommate and I were their "dates" when straight social situations arose. After all, this was the late 1970's. Gays were beginning to flex their power, but middle-class social norms were still honored.

Two years later, I got married.

Richard and John have been together all this time. The world around us has changed in many ways. They no longer have to "pretend" on social occasions. But still, although they were a couple, they could not marry.

Today, they got married.

I am SO happy. Their love has held them together for over 30 years. Now, legally the relationship between them is equal to what I have with my husband.

Happy, happy wedding day, Richard and John. Your love has stood the test of time and prejudice. May you have many, many years of wedded bliss.

RAIN!

What you're raised with seems natural. What may be natural elsewhere seems strange if you weren't raised with it.

I was born and raised in Southern California. So were my siblings, and unusually enough, my parents. My mother was born in 1917, my father in 1922. They're both gone now, but their childhood experiences were similar to mine, in the way that we were molded by our environment.

Like children everywhere, especially ones who do not travel much, I thought that what I grew up with was the normal pattern of the world.

The thing most people who do not live there do not understand about Southern California is that Winter is the rainy season. Rain may start as early as October, but usually there is little measurable rain until November. After March, rain is not the norm, although there are occasionally some April showers.

After that, IT DOES NOT RAIN IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. For a period of six to seven months, there will usually be less than one inch of measurable precipitation.

That was the weather pattern my parents grew up with. That was the weather pattern I grew up with. That was what I understood to be normal.

Rain does not fall in the summertime.

After I married, my husband began taking me to other parts of the country. If our trips occurred in the Summer-time, my first purchase was usually an umbrella.

I don't understand Summer rain. In Southern California, thunderheads would sometimes build up over the mountains, but rain did not fall in the valleys. If I heard thunder once a summer, that was an event.

Rain, the rain I knew, fell in the winter, and was generally cold. You bundled up, not only against the wet, but also against the cold of the winter moisture.

Now, I often run out to feel the rain in the summertime. I watch it in a sort of awe. Here, now, the rain comes in showers, short, sometimes hard bursts that may last only five minutes. The long, drizzling soaks of my childhood don't happen with the rain here. Summer rain is different. The sky can cloud up in a brief span of time, bring a measurable amount of rain, and then clear.

And lightening! And thunder! Not an occasional very distant rumble, but big flashes and big, loud bursts and claps.

I have a childlike awe and appreciation of the summer rain. It is (to me) something so totally new and different from anything I experienced before.

It still doesn't seem natural, though.