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Put the head phones on and wow. Here I am. The message-focused, issue-automaton that I become falls away and its just me here at the computer on the floor listening to Taj Mahal, Tracy Chapman and Concrete Blonde. I’ve literally been too busy spinning here between committee and balcony, key board and sleep to dig out the ear phones and listen to music here since weeks back in February.
We are far from there now. Today I went to the press conference which some of Boise’s stalwart Human Rights organizations had pulled together, there out on the lawn as the rain turned to white snow. We discussed Senate Bill 1323… a bill saying I, as a gay person, am human. I matter. Saying that this state agrees that harm against me is not OK. Saying that firing me or throwing me out of my apartment for no other reason than that I’m gay is not O.K. What state or nation would not up hold that value?
Odd day today. Full of odd moments. I’ve written so much e-mail that my brain now naturally streams bill phrases, numbers, consequences, debate. The music here in the head phones reminds me that I can survive anything, even as good bills go down and bad ones creep ever forward. If it all gets to me for a day or two each session, I’m doing pretty well. I have a well of strength from many places. Carol’s brilliant humor, my years in the wilds, having seen a world where I know never to pity myself too much. I’ve seen lives people live elsewhere in the world. I can survive anything here.
Here’s one I will share……. Having walked alone for hours following foot prints, through deep snow at first, and then downhill for miles along the winding dirt road out of a Tibetan mountain town through forest, toward the boarder with Nepal. An army jeep stopped and I took a ride with a group of Chinese military men in uniform. It was a ride that I know from the faces and voices there in the cramped seats very nearly went wrong. I speak no Chinese only some Nepali and when I insisted on getting out, I was on a huge hill side above the boarder gate. Rocks fell constantly across the road from high up in the rain and I threaded my way down huge switchbacks until a voice below the road called out. An old man sat there under a low piece of corrugated metal. He invited me in with hand gestures. Leaning over a little fire, he made Tibetan tea for me, a kind of salty yellow soup made with yack butter. He showed me how to dip little dough balls made from tsampa flour into the warm broth and I sat with him, communicating with gestures and smiles there in his shelter of tin by the road side where he had pulled me out of the rain to share with me what food he had.