A Different Life

by Patricia I.

We didn't kiss each other goodbye at
the airport. A long, tight hug, then attention
focused on each other's eyes for a moment.
Tears came to mine..."Be careful, remem-
ber how close I always am..."

More tears came as I drove away and
she walked into the airport, headed for aday
in the city and then halfway across the
world. While I drove back to the mountain
and my day of work, I saw so many signs of
it being just an "ordinary" day...faces in
cars rushing past me, joggers on city walks,
a black cat hunting in a field, the dark green
com 12'' high, a bank of black-eyed Susans
glowing in the early morning light,
crowded parking lots at the Bagel Bakery
and breakfast haunts...just an ordinary
day...just an ordinary moment of two
people parting at an airport started this rise
of feeling, this too-clear awareness that
even in ordinary moments our lives are
different (at least on the outside, and on the
inside as we try to live with the outside).

Had I been with my sister or my
cousin, I would have kissed her and never
hesitated, but this was my partner, my clos-
est friend - in some people's terms my
spouse, my lover. (We don't even have a
name that feels right for who we are to-
gether. How often do married partners use
"husband" or "wife" to refer to each other,
never having to stop, think, choose a word,
often determined not by the relationship but
by who will hear it?) In that moment, with-
out even realizing fully what we were
doing, my partner and I chose not to express
our love in a public place. From outside our
reluctance may seem extreme (and a reflec-
tion of our own self-oppression), but con-
sider the ease with which a man and a
woman may hold hands on the street, reach

over and touch each other in a restaurant, sit
close to each other at a picnic or on the
beach.

We feel those same impulses and
needs to be affectionate, but risk with their
expression anything from disapproval to
physical harm. And so, most of the time, we
don't. But all the same, holding back and
hiding take energy even when they become
a way of being.

Now, in my mid-forties and having
spent my life so far carefully navigating the
waters of social acceptance and cultural
propriety, I'm noticing a change, a subtle
yet powerful "shifting wind." It tempts me
to put pictures of my loved one on the desk
(beside my nieces and nephews, who others
presume are my children). It urges me to
bring my partner when man-and-woman
couples have been invited as a pair. It
moves me to sadness and anger when I
realize that I can't or don't let my voice or
eyes or hands express my real feelings
because someone else may hear or see. It
whispers to me in an increasingly louder
voice: "It's time they did see and hear - that
it's love and care and concern we share,
something too precious to hide, too beauti-
ful to smother."

In a life where there is never enough
love to go around or perhaps, more accu-
rately, a life too short to adequately express
the love we need to feel and share, none of
us can afford to keep from each other - or
from ourselves - the most important gift we
have to give.

It is risky to let the wind of change fill
our sails, and we need to steer a course with
strong hands and hearts...but this wind
holds the promise of taking us in a whole
new direction.

 

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September 1990

 

 

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