Coming to the mat

bookends blog coming to the mat 1

My morning began today with about 50 other yogis gathered mat-to-mat in our yoga teacher’s new studio space. She opened the doors this morning to her first yoga class, and we all gathered to set positive intentions for the space.

Before we began our practice, she shared a few words about her journey to this point, and like any journey, there were a few bumps in the road. She promised not to cry, and yet couldn’t help but let a few tears fall. I felt my throat tighten as she spoke because the end and beginning of a journey can be emotional. You are saying goodbye to what was, and embracing what is. This new studio is another new beginning for her, and, also for us, her yogis, who continue to come along with her on the journey. Something has led each of us to her studio—an injury, a divorce, a death, whatever it may be—we all come to our mats for a reason, she said. Two years ago, I returned to my yoga mat after a hiatus of a few years and embarked on a journey I had never anticipated.

I came back to yoga to cultivate more peace in my life. I am inherently a stressful person, and I thought returning to yoga would help me cope better with my stress. I also came to the mat because I was trying to get pregnant, and I had read and heard from friends that yoga was a good way to support fertility. Going into it, I had no way of knowing that yoga would be a factor not only in helping me get pregnant, but also in healing from my miscarriage.

I remember my first prenatal yoga class. I was only five weeks pregnant. It was a cold January evening. I remember standing barefoot at the top of my mat and looking at all the women around me in their different stages of their pregnancies. Twelve weeks, 21 weeks, 33 weeks. Some had rounded bellies as big as a beach ball, others were just starting to show. I was both excited and scared and a bit in disbelief imagining myself where they were in their pregnancies. Even before I was pregnant, I longed for a big pregnant belly, and I would stuff clothes under my shirt and turn to the side in the mirror to reveal my bulging profile. I couldn’t wait to feel our baby growing inside of me, wear cute little maternity dresses, and eat ice cream all the time.

We stood in tree pose as we went around the room introducing ourselves—name, how many weeks, how many babies you’ve had. I remember women sharing that this was their second or third baby, and then they’d add this was their second “angel” baby or third “angel” baby. There were a lot of angel babies in that room. I never would have thought my baby would turn into an angel baby or that this would be my first and last prenatal yoga class.

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It was because of my yoga teacher, Andrea, that I stopped thinking of yoga in terms of just physical fitness, and started looking at it to nurture my mind, body and spirit. Yoga helped me grieve, and let go of all the emotions I tried to stuff down deep inside out of fear of how they would emerge. What would it look like? What would it feel like? I shed countless tears on my mat in the year that followed. Nearly every time I got on my mat, something in me would release, and the tears would fall. In the beginning, I would be afraid to go to class because I didn’t want to cry in front of others, but Andrea made her studio feel like home, and I never felt self conscious about crying yet again in class. It became a safe place for me to be me. It hurt too much not to.

Yoga helped me face my grief and also forgive my body for what I felt like was a betrayal. In the aftermath of my miscarriage, I carried a lot of shame even though logically I knew that what happened was not my fault or anything that I could have caused or avoided. Yoga helped me connect with my body and mind and heart, and focus on the present so that I wouldn’t stay rooted in the past, crippled by my grief. Yoga helped me let go and allow. Even today, when I do yoga, I feel liberated from everything. Judgment. Sadness. Pain. Stress. Yoga opens me up and makes me feel free, like rolling down all the windows in your car and singing at the top of your lungs.

At the end of class today, before we sealed our practice with a collective chorus of “Om,” Andrea turned to all of us and said something along the lines of: “You’re home.” I smiled and thought to myself, “Yes, I am home.” This new studio is my home. Just like the previous space, this is where the journey continues, where I can be myself, let go of whatever I need to release on my mat, and know that no matter what happens in life I can always come home to my practice to ground me and remind me that I have the power to heal myself and that we’re not alone in this journey.

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Final drafts

Lenten Roses. Photo by Anne Cassity.

“None of this was supposed to happen.” Nina Riggs

Nina Riggs

Modern Love has long been my favorite weekly read in The New York Times. For the uninitiated, it is a series of essays submitted by readers that focus on all aspects of contemporary relationships. Some of them are funny but most of them crack my heart wide open and a few of them simply gut me.

Such was the case with two essays written by Nina Riggs and Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Nina’s piece appeared in September of last year and Amy’s was published just a few weeks ago. I don’t know if these two writers knew each other – Nina lived in Greensboro, NC and Amy was a longtime resident of Chicago. I do know that their lives are inextricably connected by the most morbid of coincidences.

You see, Amy died on Monday from ovarian cancer – the same day as Nina’s memorial service. Nina died on February 26th, after a two-year Armageddon with breast cancer.

I never met either of these women yet I am haunted by their deaths. Amy was 51 and Nina was 39.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal

“So many plans instantly went poof.” ~ Amy Krouse Rosenthal

I have reread both of their Modern Love columns several times in the last couple of days and beyond the unfathomable reality of dying at such hideously young ages, I am fixated on how much these two women would have liked each other.

They are both mothers – and I am deliberate in using that tense. My own mother has been gone for almost 15 years now but I am still aware of her mothering. I am still a daughter and I still need to be mothered. No, I can’t take her to brunch on Mother’s Day but I do strongly feel her presence in my life.

I desperately hope that the children Nina and Amy leave behind feel that, too. Nina has two boys – ages 10 and 7. Amy has three children – 20, 22 and 24 years old. I can only quote my wise friend Jennifer once again, “Cancer is an asshole.”

These children still have their fathers – who from the cheap seats appear to be kind and good men who share the blessing of marrying well. They are also well-loved by their wives.

“I have been married to the most extraordinary man for 26 years. I was planning on at least another 26 together.” ~ Amy

Amy’s Modern Love essay was about, of all things, trying to find a new wife for her husband. It was, in essence, one last love letter to her husband written with humor and grace and a blindingly bright love. And it pretty much broke the internet.

Oh, and she finished the essay on Valentine’s Day. It was published 10 days before she died. I bet even Amy would think that plot was overwritten. Real life is like that I guess.

“Within 10 minutes of meeting John at a summer job at 21, I had already mentally signed on for life – although I waited at least a week to tell him that.” ~ Nina

Nina’s essay was about a couch – if a couch was a metaphor for life and family and home. She is desperately searching online for the perfect couch for her family – “An expansive bench that fits all of us. Something that will hold us through everything that lies ahead – the loving, collapsing and nuzzling. The dying, the grieving.”

I don’t know if she ever found her couch but she certainly found her voice – a voice brimming with emotional clarity and lyrical humor as she lived until she died. Her memoir, The Bright Hour, will be published posthumously in June by Simon & Schuster.

I know, I know. If it were a movie you’d say it was too over the top.

I pre-ordered Nina’s book on Amazon the day I learned that she had entered Hospice care. It felt like the only hopeful thing to do.

I’m grateful that Nina and Amy’s words are just a click away for eternity for it is only through their writing that I know them.

And I want more.

This was one of Nina’s final posts on Facebook – a few days before she died:

Dispatch from Hospice: they have morphine, open doors, a Cook Out down the road, allow dogs. John’s playing Springsteen. It’s gonna be ok.

Her post reads like a great short story to me – or better yet, a prayer for the living.

May it be so.

book cover

What dogs and salmon can teach us about resilience

The Angel Oak Tree in Johns Island, S.C. is estimated to be more than 400 years old. Photo by Carla Kucinski.

It’s been an unusually warm weekend for February in North Carolina. There’s an expression here: If you don’t like the weather, wait a few days and it will change. How true that is about NC’s climate, but also about life in general and the ever-changing shifts we experience in our own lives.

We opened the windows today and let in the spring-like air. What is it about opening windows that seems to help us breathe a little easier? Opening a window after weeks or months of being sealed from winter’s cold is strangely cathartic. There’s a release, a letting go that comes with such a simple action.

All weekend the sound of the chimes on our balcony have been tinkling. The sound is what I would imagine Tinker Bell would make, waving her wand and sprinkling fairy dust. The chimes are light and delicate with three small beaded Jade stones strung together and anchoring the center of the chimes. They’re so dainty that it’s rare they actually sway in the breeze and produce a sound that’s even audible. But for the last few days they’ve been constantly ringing, their sound following me as I roam throughout the house doing chores. Friends of mine from work gave them to me last year around this time actually. They came with a Bonsai tree that has sat neglected on my porch, its leaves dried and shriveled and transformed to a burgundy color. I tried in the beginning to care for it, but I was barely getting by taking care of myself during that time.

I’ve been thinking a lot these past few days about resilience, not just my own but of others close to me. Last year I began to understand that the bad things that happen to us almost always turn out to be gifts. The tough experiences I’ve been through taught me that. Because of those experiences and all that I had to overcome, it’s taught me how to reset and find my way back to center, my baseline, even after the worst traumas.

I thought of resilience last night as I was lying on the floor with my dog Molly. She is the toughest dog I’ve ever owned and has gone through so much in her almost 8 years of life on this earth. My husband and I were out of town for the night on Friday and got a call from the kennel in the morning that Molly’s eye was leaking some kind of green goop. By the time we had picked her up, her eye was red and swollen and she seemed to be in pain. At urgent care, they told us she had a faint scratch on her cornea, but that she’d be fine and her eye would heal on its own. Still, I felt so bad that she had to go through all of this. And now I have to squeeze ointment into her eye twice a day, but she is the best girl and trusts me to spread open her sensitive eye and squirt this stuff into her sore eye. Last night, as I held her face in my hands and kissed her snout, I told her how resilient she is and she thumped her tail in agreement. In the last five years, she’s had four surgeries—all of which were pretty extensive procedures and recoveries. She’s had two teeth extracted and also underwent emergency surgery after a stick punctured her belly while she was running through the woods. And then this past December she had a lump removed from her chest that had a smaller second growth on it that turned out to be cancerous. I guess that now makes her a cancer survivor. And yet she is still smiling, laughing, thumping her tail, handing out kisses and walking around with an inflatable doughnut around her head as if it’s the next hot thing in doggy fashion ware. My Molly is a fighter. I guess I am, too.

My smiley girl.

I thought this past week I would certainly fall apart. It was the anniversary of my miscarriage a year ago, and leading up to it, I honestly wasn’t sure how I would feel when the day would arrive. To my surprise, I didn’t fall apart after all. There were a few tears here and there last week and a sadness underneath the regular day-to-day minutiae, but like Molly, I smiled through it for the most part. I had two social engagements with friends that I came close to bailing on, but I’m so glad I didn’t. My girlfriends Monday night were my solace, and Tuesday night at a friend’s going away party, I laughed so much my face literally hurt. I kept reminding myself of my intention for this year: choose joy. So Wednesday night I asked my husband to be spontaneous with me and get out of town for a night, and so we did. During our overnight trip to Raleigh, I didn’t care that we got stuck in traffic or that the Chinese food we had that night was terrible, I was just happy to be with Andrew.

My girls always making me laugh. This is them in downtown Greensboro exchanging freezer meals out of the trunks of their cars. Don’t ask. (Photo by Carla Kucinski)

Saturday morning, we walked to the nearest coffee shop and grabbed two wooden stools by the window that looked out to the street. It just felt good to be somewhere else. As I sat there sipping my tea and he his coffee, a young family with a dog sat on the bench outside in front of us. They were kind of a mess. The husband tried tying the dog’s leash to a pole, while the wife tried to console their toddler in the stroller who was looking pretty hangry and on the verge of a meltdown.

“That kid’s about to lose it,” my husband Andrew remarked.

We both laughed and then talked about how cute the dog was and watched him for the next 10 minutes. He was a black puppy, possibly German Shepherd, with pointy ears and one that flopped.

“I like how we’re more interested in the dog than the baby,” I said.

“Well, yeah,” Andrew answered.

A year ago, even six months ago, I would have sat in that window and started to cry seeing that family. But that moment became further proof that I really have returned to center. I really am resilient.

Salmon are regarded as one of the most resilient species. Over the span of five years, they’ll swim upstream 7,000 miles in order to return to where they began so they can reproduce and then die. Despite hurdles like waterfalls and bears that threaten their life, they still persist. Like humans, we push on when faced with adversity because we too are fighting for our lives and fighting to return “home” to ourselves.

When we came back from our trip the following day, the chimes continued to tinkle. I can still hear them now as I type this. Those chimes were a gift in the early days of my grief. They used to make me tear up when I’d hear them, especially in the beginning, but lately, they bring me a kind of peace. I’ve come back from losing what felt like everything. My journey has come full circle, and I’m finally home.

Tickled pink

Truth.

Would you like almonds or pistachios?

When you overhear a question like that, you know you are most likely in the company of women. And that’s exactly where I found myself at 3 AM last Saturday morning – on a bus with 49 other nasty women headed to the Women’s March on Washington.

I love women. We are nesters and that was ever so evident as I watched folks getting on our bus. Everyone carried at least two bags or a tote and a cooler. We brought pillows and blankets and enough food and water to last until Valentine’s Day. There was no room in the overhead bins. And this was a day trip.

Protesting requires protein and a lot of chocolate and we were prepared. I imagined the same scenario if it had been a bus of all men and I giggled out loud. I asked my seat mate and best friend Carla what her husband would have brought for the trip. She laughed and said, “His wallet.”

Irony never ceases to amuse me.

I initially had no intention of being on this bus. I was absolutely gutted by Hillary Clinton’s defeat (See Electoral College flunks out) and marching felt futile. And then the slow drip of disturbing post-election information came out – FBI Director Comey’s overreach, the verification of Russian interference and a general array of suspicious shenanigans.

In short, I got mad as hell and decided I needed to go to the march to rant and rave.

Cue the irony. I did go but I did not march and I did not rant. Instead, I stood in place, literally, with 500,000 of my new best friends at the biggest, most gentle block party protest in our nation’s history.

I’ll return to irony in a bit but let me go back to the bus for now. Carla was on board for the march from day one and only had second thoughts on inauguration day when she saw some scenes of windows being broken in DC. She called me on her lunch hour and in an only half kidding voice said, “I’m scared.”

I told her not to worry because this was a march for women organized by women and that it would be peaceful. Turns out I was more right than I had imagined. I just love it when that happens. DC police reported not one*arrest on Saturday. *not an alternative fact

When Carla spotted me on the bus on Saturday she practically squealed with delight and we hugged like two 13 year-olds away from our parents for a groovy field trip. I love Carla’s enthusiasm for everything – life, love and food. And she brought some good food. Breakfast was butternut squash pancakes with almond butter. The men’s bus would have had Pop-Tarts. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

We sat behind my dear friends Lori and Sue. They are globetrotters and are the kind of travel partners you want – easy going, fun and resourceful. And they are really good with directions – the kind of couple who would do really well on The Amazing Race.

The only drag about a bus full of women is that when you make a stop for the rest room well, you’re going to be there a while. And we were – but it was okay because almost everyone else in line was heading to the same place we were. And everyone was surprisingly cheerful and energetic for 5 AM. We were nasty women on a mission.

We went from bus to Metro train as we headed to L’Enfant Plaza and the start of the march. Saturday was the second largest recorded ridership in Metro history – over a million trips, second only to Barrack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009. I found myself nostril to nostril with a lovely woman from Canada. She was in her mid-60’s and told me she and her husband had come down from Toronto on Thursday to be a part of the march. I was humbled by how much she knew about US politics. I thanked her for coming and she said, quite solemnly, “What happens in your country affects the whole world.”

O Canada.

Only one way to go.

One of the most moving moments of the day was when we reached our final destination, riding the long escalator up to ground level and turning to see the sea of humanity. It was breathtaking and I forgot all about the fact that I wouldn’t pee again for seven hours. Democracy requires some sacrifice.

Back to irony. We didn’t march because no one really did. There simply was no room. There was one point early on in the day when we tried to get close to a monitor to watch the celebrity speakers that we literally could not move – not even a toe. That’s when Carla popped one of the Xanax she had brought for the trip. It was a good call and she probably could have gotten big bucks for the other two she had in her pocket.

Sidebar: Carla was the best march buddy. She brought two of everything – one for her, one for me. Peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, granola bars and fingerless gloves. We were on the Protest Ark.

I’ve got all my sisters with me. Me, Hillary, Carla, Lori, Sydney and Sue. (Left to right.)

So we gave up on getting close to the main stage and slinked our way back to an area that was a wee bit more open. We looked like kindergarteners crossing the street in a rope line – we held hands and went single file. Our pixie friend Sydney was with us and she makes Hobbits look tall so we really had to keep a close handle on her. It was actually kind of sweet – most folks were ambulating this way – holding on to each other for dear life.

Yes, that was a metaphor – literally and figuratively.

Pinkapalooza, there were posses of pussyhats! Everyone was wearing them – women, for sure, but lots of men and lots of children. Oh my God, there were baby pussyhats! Sadly, I had several offers from friends to make me one but my head is bigger than Oprah’s – true story – and I would have looked like I was wearing a pink duffel bag on my head.

I know there has been a lot of negative chatter about the pussyhats and the conversational use of the word ‘pussy’. Really? I mean, really? For some reason I keep hearing Billy Joel in my head.

We didn’t start the fire
It was always burning since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it

Nope. You don’t get to play the role of the offended because women are now wielding the same words that the president has used. I will take it upon myself to speak for the Nasty Nation and say, “We ain’t got time for that.”

The Pussyhat Project began in Los Angeles shortly after Trump’s victory when two friends decided that women needed a platform to make their voices heard. As Jayna Zweiman, one of the women behind the project explained, “It’s reappropriating the word ‘pussy’ in a positive way. It’s a pussyhat – one word. This is a project about women supporting women.”

An aerial view of the march. That’s a lot of pussyhats.

The impact of the hats was even greater when I saw the amazing aerial views the next day when I watched clips from the march online. We grabbed back and it was spectacular!

To compensate for no pussyhat, I brought along my “pocket” Hillary – the pantsuited action figure my sister gave me for my birthday last August. She was my constant companion for the weeks leading up to the election. I took her everywhere – out to dinner, to the Chicago Marathon, you name it. And I couldn’t bear to pack her away after the election – I even put her out with my collection of Santas for Christmas.

I’m still with her.

There was no way in hell I was going to that march without Hillary. I tucked her in my shirt pocket and I can’t tell you how many people noticed her and even asked to take a picture with her. In the mob at our first stop, I didn’t realize that she had fallen out of my pocket. A young African-American woman leaned into me and said sweetly, “You dropped your Hillary.” That was the kind of day it was. People just being kind to each other.

So we never really heard the A list speakers but we did get to take in all of the fantastic signs. They were so freaking clever! I really do hope that someone puts together a coffee table book of some of the signs as a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood or the ACLU. I would buy one in a hot minute. And I was thrilled to read the other day that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History sent curatorial teams out to collect signs and art post-march in Washington.

I’m not going to lie to you – there were a lot of vagina signs. Wow. Some people are really good artists and/or gynecologists. “I am not Ovary-reacting” and “Viva la Vulva” were a couple of my favorites in this genre. There were numerous tributes to Hillary which I found quite touching. And there were many just flat-out hilarious signs like “Melania, Blink Twice if You Need Help” and “We Shall Overcomb”.

In short, the signs were as unique and diverse as all the beautiful people who were there.

The message was delivered. Loud and clear.

That about covers it.

That’s what she said.

Hillary was everywhere.

I think I was most moved by the number of older women I saw at the march. Women in their late 70s and even older. These women thought that they would finally see a woman elected president in their lifetime. Their dream dashed, they came out to be heard and seen. And I’m here to tell you – attending a big march like that is not easy. It’s not like a cocktail party where you can just drop in for an hour or so. There is no drive by democracy. Our group was on a bus for 12 hours, on our feet for about seven and oh yeah, the not peeing thing. It’s not a day to be comfortable and that’s the point.

Mad props to these goddesses.

Anyway, I wanted to gently pet each and every one of these wise owls as they passed by me.

Cell service was obliterated by the massive usage so we were out of the loop with what was happening all around the country and the world. When we made it back to our metro stop for our bus pickup, we were all on our phones looking at the marches in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, New Zealand and are you kidding me Antarctica? I had no idea that this would be a global day of protest and that’s when it hit me – the world is watching.

Women’s March, Frozen Edition. Fairbanks, Alaska.

Oh, and I never got to rant either. I was too damn happy and exhilarated to be with so many good folks. It was the best I had felt since November 8th and I left DC with a big basket of hope.

Do you hear the people sing?

The bus ride home was very quiet. We were nasty tired. Carla slept for a good bit of the trip, her head resting on my shoulder. I’m old enough to be her mother but she never makes me feel that way. She is a thoroughly modern and independent woman and this was her first real foray into political protest. I know it won’t be her last and it was very special to share the day with her.

I couldn’t sleep and I really didn’t want to. I love the odd but gentle intimacy of being with strangers at a time they are usually home in bed sleeping. There is a vulnerability in the darkness that is almost palpable. I heard breathing and snoring and a few whispered conversations. I felt like the night watchwoman, protective of these women, many of whom I had never met until this march. I wanted them to remain well long after this day was done.

I’ve always taken comfort in the adage “safety in numbers” and if that hypothesis holds true, judging by last Saturday, we’re going to be okay.

You can bet your sweet pussyhat on it.

The future is female.

bus-group-photo

My badass bus mates. We’ve still got a lot of fight left in us!

Making waves

January 20th, 2017. What could go wrong?

The Impossible is an absolutely gripping film from 2012 about one family’s experience in the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. One minute they are enjoying a Christmas vacation at a lush resort, the next they are literally swept away into total chaos and destruction.

I thought about this film in the middle of the night when I could not sleep – 24 hours before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Probably just a coincidence.

Wrong!

Last night as I was stone cold awake, I had a physical sensation that felt very familiar to me but I couldn’t quite nail it. Then it came to me – that feeling you have in the middle of the night before you or a loved one are having surgery. You know – that anxious feeling where you tell yourself that there is nothing to worry about and everything will be okay. And then somehow it is 4 AM and you still haven’t gone to sleep.

The devastation of November 8^th feels far away from me today. It is no longer unfathomable to me that Hillary Clinton was not elected president. You’ve all seen the various autopsies and any combination of causes – FBI Director Comey, Russian hacking, fake news, misogyny, patriarchy, a flawed campaign and high unfavorability ratings – can explain her defeat.

Don’t get me wrong – I will mourn Hillary’s loss for the rest of my life but today it’s a fresh pink scar and not an open wound as it was for those first awful weeks. A fearful dread now hangs over me (and approximately 65,844,953 others) as we feel the rumbles of the electoral tsunami creeping ever closer.

I started watching some news again the first of the year. My dear wife likes to watch the Today show as she’s getting ready for work. We have developed some new safety protocols – the main one being that if Kellyanne Conway appears on-screen, she is to hit the off button immediately. For the record, we have that same rule in effect when Sarah McLachlan’s Arms of the Angels PSA comes on, too. No Kellyanne. No sick kittens. The human spirit can only absorb so much pain.

Just say no!

I find myself crying more easily and more often these days. The Obamas, damn them, certainly haven’t helped matters. It seems as if every day one of them gives us another reason to weep but their grace, humanity and humility have helped make me believe for a little while that everything really will be okay.

My biggest breakdown to date came right before Thanksgiving when I was still deep in the throes of my election depression and avoiding all media. I just happened to be surfing for Sex and the City reruns (they always make me feel better) when I caught the White House ceremony when President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 21 recipients, including Ellen DeGeneres.

Twitter continues to save me on a daily basis.

It was the faces that killed me. Obama’s face – so genuine and respectful – and the faces of the recipients – all of them superstars in their fields – but so absolutely gobsmacked by receiving this award from this president. Tom Hanks, Robert DeNiro, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Bruce Freaking Springsteen – all of them with enough hardware to fill an armory – all deeply moved by the honor. Ellen flat-out ugly cried, bless her heart. And I ugly cried right along with her when President Obama told us that we should never forget how much courage was required for her to come out on the most public of stages almost 20 years ago, noting that she “pushed our country in the direction of justice.”

I pray there’s no turning back now.

Ellen’s award-winning ugly cry.

The White House released a YouTube video recently in which many famous and not so famous folks share how they have been inspired by the Obamas. In the video, noted feminist Gloria Steinem says, “It was the first time in my life when I felt like the White House belonged to everyone.” I know that feeling, too. In 2011, I was invited to the White House for a LGBT reception in celebration of PRIDE month. I don’t care how cool you think you are, being a guest at the White House is a pretty heady experience.

I’ll always regret that the most qualified Clinton never made it to the Oval. That’s me in the White House, 2011.

I remember going to D.C. for the March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation in the spring of 1993. It was an empowering and life changing event for me as I heard speaker after speaker talk about taking our place at the table. It was too much for me to imagine back then that table would one day include one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I cried again the week before Christmas when my friend Gina posted a picture of her partner Marco becoming an American citizen. Marco is a handsome and charming Italian (redundant) and my wife and I both fell madly in love with him when we met him at my best friend Carla’s (Gina’s sister) wedding four years ago.

Marco and Gina are both brilliant mathematicians – those rare folks who actually used algebra after high school. They are that groovy couple who do the unimaginable and make math look hot. Anyway, I knew Marco had been studying for his citizenship exam but when I saw his sweet mug on Facebook with Gina’s caption, “One of our newest citizens!” – well, I lost it.

I told her that I wanted our country to be deserving of Marco’s beautiful smile. It’s like that bumper sticker says: I want to be the person my dog thinks I am.

Marco. Making America more beautiful.

His beaming face and the special red, white and blue tie he had purchased for the occasion just gutted me. I thought about so many people joking – sort of – about moving to Canada post-election. Such a disconnect from how gleeful Marco looks in Gina’s photograph. The Obamas made me feel like our country was deserving of that smile.

I’ll be back in our nation’s capital this weekend for another historic march – this time the Women’s March on Washington, the day after the inauguration. A lot has happened in those 24 years since my last march, especially in terms of LGBT rights. I’m legally married to the person I love and entitled to all the rights associated with that piece of paper.

Back then, I was still anxious about being completely out. This march, I’m most anxious about finding a Don’s Johns that isn’t completely gross.

And I’m not just marching for myself this time.

I’m marching for a thousand and one important reasons. Correction – make that 1002, counting Marco.

Ciao, Bellas! Ciao, Obamas!

The First Family. I’ll even miss their dogs.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.