TDay is a hard one for me. I don’t celebrate it for plethora reasons. Family is one of them. Today commemorates my break-up with the born again Christian missionary contingency of my family when I was 15 in an incredibly humiliating and painful scene — a family which still (to my perspective) refuses to speak with me because I ask questions, do not adhere to religious authority, and live my life as authentically as I know how. My marriage to someone of the same sex years ago was an issue, I’m sure my gender is one, I’ll bet being a kink writer and sexuality educator etc. counts. I know that calling out hurtful behavior and asking for a conversation a number of years ago broke the camel’s back and has resulted in radio silence since. I usually spend this day alone, and feel the freedom and weightlessness of quiet resilience when I do. I’ve had the experience of being deeply triggered in the past — thankfully I think I’m past that intensity of emotions.

I’m not telling you this so you can feel sorry for me. I’m sharing my experience because this day is a complex one. It’s a day of celebration and family gathering, and it’s also a day of genocide, betrayal, and much pain. It’s a day defined by the political spin machine which persists in its lies to this day. It’s a day in a week of advertised over-consumption between food and things (no coincidence that consumption is both nourishing and self-soothing — what stories are we nourishing, what fears and pain are we self-soothing?). I believe that until we can speak with one another about our differences, our pasts, our pains, and try to navigate through acknowledgement and acceptance of each person’s roots, until we learn to have hard conversations and take manageable steps toward peaceful coexistence with those who we do not understand (even sometimes those who have mistreated us), we will never celebrate anything as the family, the Nation, we could be. The American dream is not a picture perfect reality bought with dollars and social graces. My American dream is living in acceptance and celebration of the richness of diversity this land contains. No one of us deserves this land, it is not ours. We belong to the places we set down our feet and dreams, and we owe that land commune-ity. We will create and become the dirt of this place after death, which is a powerful acknowledgement, yet life was meant for the living — the beautiful, vibrant, multicultural, mutiperspective reality of our autonomous brains and bodies coming together to create better life and more life before the finality of each body’s return to earth. Love each other. Rise above pain. Be uncomfortable on someone else’s behalf instead of superior and steadfast in your resolve. Clay is malleable, as are our minds and bodies…

Back to my family for a moment… my cousin, the one my age, had a baby this morning. I heard about it from my siblings instead of directly from my aunt who no longer speaks to me. I still texted her congratulating her on being a grandmother and asked for my cousin’s number. I still wished her a happy thanksgiving. I’m pretty sure those things mean something to her, and though there is a hole in my heart from her silence from all these years, I prefer not to play into it or be victimized. I don’t know if she’ll respond. That’s ok. It’s funny that this day, of all days, I should reach out… appropriate I guess. Our lives are built in circles.

To a thoughtful day however you do or do not observe its gravity. We are all expected to reflect, today, on the meaning of where we come from. Perhaps this will lead each of us to more clearly know who we are and who we can still strive to be. Much love to you and yours.

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