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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1990)
___ Home for the holiday Time has a way of putting light on foolish ideas and softening up the most rigid resolve do. When I visit Philadelphia, and sometimes even here in Portland, I shave my legs. From used to have a dilemma every time I the knees down, anyway. "My concession to headed home to Philadelphia for the polite society,” I tell my mother. And she holidays. Not what to pack, but what to leave laughs weakly. behind. The earring in the shape of a women’s symbol that I wore in my double-pierced left Thanksgiving Day ear? The photos of me and my lover on a trip Some traditions, thankfully, can be broken. to the Yucatan? Copies of this newspaper? In a deft unilateral move, I strike swcet- Even after I came out to my parents during potato-and-mini-marshmallow casserole from a traumatic, tear-streaked May weekend in the menu and offer to make pumpkin strudel, 1987,1 continued to separate pieces of my a traditional recipe of Greek Jews, instead. identity the way some people sort their My mother teases me that they don’t really laundry. Patched blue-jeans, unshaven legs know I’m home until they find tofu in the and lesbian consciousness on the west coast. refrigerator. Dutifully, I buy some and set it Pantyhose, Jewish holidays and family bonds afloat in a Comingware dish. on the east. At dinner, I talk with my cousins Milt, Once, over lunch in a white-tablecloth Laura and Debbie, ages 25, 16 and 10, about restaurant in suburban Philadelphia, I told my what it’s like to be Jewish in Oregon. I tell mother that, if asked to define myself in a them that I once had to draw “kosher” in a series of one-word descriptions, my list would game of Pictionary, and no one even had a read: “writer/woman/Jewish/daughter/ clue. Across the room, my relatives pore lesbian.” through old photo albums and laugh I managed to convince both of us not only hysterically about the gray-haired, smiling that “lesbian” ranked a weak fifth, but that man who appears at every party. No one these aspects of my identity were separate, knows his name; they refer to him only as interchangeable, kind of like daisy-wheels on “The Uncle.” an electric typewriter. Everyone talks at once, teasing, bantering, Well, time has a way of putting light on yelling across the room, telling stupid jokes. foolish ideas and softening up the most rigid Mild chaos is traditional in my family. For 20 resolve. This last trip, I overpacked because I people, we have an enormous turkey, five wanted to bring a little of everything — pounds of string beans, several side dishes photocopies of my recent Just Out articles, (everyone likes the pumpkin strudel) and four pictures from the women writers’ workshop I desserts. Much too much food — also a attended last summer, fabric for a dress I family tradition. planned to make. And my journal. To take I look around the room, at the heads of notes on how it all fit together. dark hair, the faces that resemble mine. Food and stories bind us to each other, to The Uncle Tuesday, November 21 who came to every party, to the others, long At dinner tonight, my mother confesses dead, in these yellowed albums. Jewish/ that she was prepared not to like the new daughter/lcsbian/cousin/woman/writer. I feel haircut I had described to her on the phone. I absolutely at home. think she was prepared, as usual, for the worst — a bristly short cut with pink highlights and Saturday, November 25 a braided rat-tail at the nape of the neck. She My parents and I go to a matinee of Lily is relieved, as usual, to Find that despite my Tomlin’s brilliant one-woman show. The black high-tops and men’s overcoat, I still Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the look like a girl from the neck up. Universe. Playwright Jane Wagner suggests that our hope as people lies in our Wednesday, November 22 connectedness, that we’re all mixed up I drag my old sewing machine out of the together in this wonderful human soup. laundry room, oil it and show my grandfather I cast sidelong glances at my parents the fabric I brought to make a dress. “New during the show, to see if they squirm at dress.. .got a new boyfriend?” he says, Tomlin’s references to labia-shaped candles winking. I tell him the truth. Well, part of the and turkey-baster babies. They’re fine, laughing riotously along with everyone else. truth. On the way home, I take the liberty of “Nope, this dress is just for me.” coming out for Lily. "I kind of thought so,” Later, I remember one springtime visit my mother says. My father just drives. home, when I wore almost nothing but a single pair of faded, four-year-old blue jeans. Lesbian/writcr/Philadelphian/Jewish/daughter. In the back seat, I hold my souvenir Lily I tucked my parents’ house keys into the right Tomlin t-shirt and feel giddily triumphant rear pocket. They thought I was making a Later, my parents go out. I play my dad’s statement. Really, I was asking a question — records, mostly jazz vocalists like Mel Torme is this me? — against the bone-deep backdrop and Diane Schuur, and cook tofu with Indian of home and family. vegetables for a highschool friend. After I These days, my mother and I have reached hear the latest update on the man she had an a bemused truce about my clothes. I don’t affair with, we talk about French feminist wear make-up. She no longer suggests that I BY I A N N D E E HOCHMAN theory and patriarchal language until after midnight. Tuesday, November 28 Over drinks, my mother tells me she has been discussing lesbianism with Mario, her hair stylist. Oh? Apparently, Mario says there are two types of lesbians — the ones who know from the time they’re very young and the ones who have lousy husbands and leave them to run off with women. I take some pains to explode this stereotype, and my mother listens. I suggest that Mario is not Philadelphia’s most encyclopedic resource on lesbian behavior. But at least she’s talking about it, I think. To somebody. Later in this conversation my mother confides her real fear about my life. “I just don’t want you to be alone,” she says. She tells me it makes her sad that she won’t get a chance to plan my wedding, a celebration that her friends and family can support and understand. I talk to her about alternative rituals, other ways to bring people together and rejoice in each other’s lives. Then I tell her it makes me sad too, sometimes. And suddenly, we are not on opposite sides of this old issue, but standing together, both of us hurt and angry at a world that squeezes joy into such tiny prescribed slots. Wednesday, November 29 My last night in Philadelphia. To celebrate that, and my mother’s birthday, we go out to a fancy restaurant on the 18th floor of the Bellevue Hotel, where my parents met 30 years ago. A trio plays Broadway show tunes and mellow jazz, and my parents show off their recent ballroom-dancing lessons. I wear the dress I just finished making. The lighted skyline of Philadelphia spins by on two sides while my grandfather waltzes me counter-clockwise, around and around. My father leads me in his own idiosyncratic brand of foxtrot. When the band plays swing, he sits down and I dance with my mother. We are the only two women in the crowded restaurant who dance together the entire evening. While we do an energetic jitterbug, I sense chilly stares from other diners. My mother seems not to notice. I tap her on the left hip. She twirls out and back in again. We do a fancy grapevine step the dance teacher taught her just the other day. We hug each other when the dance ends. When we sit back down, my father and grandfather applaud us. We are more flushed than is fashionable in this place. All four of us grin as if we have just broken a ridiculous rule. “You know what Emma Goldman said,” I tell my family. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” Revolutionary/feminist/writer/lesbian/ Jewish/daughtcr/dancer. Whose list is this, anyway? Who said identity was a list? I look at my family sitting at this table, and I begin to think identity is more like soup, all the flavors swimming around together, mixing and mellowing with time. “Well, I’m with Emma Goldman,” my mother says, and everybody laughs. LADD7 EDITIOfl/ B O O K / T O R E Now corrying: Christopher Street The Advocate O UT'LO O K ▼ MON-SflT 11 -7 SUN 12-5 ▼ 1864 S€ HAWTHORNE BlVD. PORTLAND, OR 97214 (503) 236-4628 Legal Alternatives Divorce: $65.00 Save up to 50% on Filing Fees, no court appearances, no extra charge for children or property. W ills: $45 Business Incorporation: $75 Bankruptcy: $75 Complete preparation o f all legal documents. Thousands successfully prepared. Legal Alternatives ( 503 ) 255-7435 Use our personal classifieds to send messages to your loved ones for Valentine’s Day. just out T 13 Y January 1990