Another Year of Change

As we move into 2023, and as I approach the last-third of my 63rd year, I reflect on how much my life has changed since my first trip to Paris with the then love of my life at the age of 19, the good hippie MD/Ph.D not even 26. I never could have imagined that I would become a professor and therapist specializing in queer-activist psychoanalysis nor waited for decades to être rentré en France, the place of my regularly reoccurring dreams

I thought I would take the opportunity to share a bit about the last year, and make the “resolution” to write like my heroes Luis Alfaro and Joan Lipkin on a more daily basis here to this warm circle about some of the topics below.

My eager writing energies, which had been dammed up by getting too single-minded in certain pursuits related to Gay Liberation Psychology (yes, I have that "ideological" tendency, I would have been an annoying Marxist-Feminist, or, oops, I once was, haha), have opened up into a variety of interesting literary projects. As I simply cannot only write only in isolation, I have enlisted a wonderful editorial team with Michael Wolfe and Bronwen Clarke.

I will have a proposal finished soon on a hopefully lyrical book about how to synthesize existing psychological theories for the diverse members of our queer community about re-authoring and re-empowering their lives.

But there is angst. How painful it is to stand up against those internal voices that criticize my belatedness as an author. They say mean things about my having lost my way and resemble some of my harshest previous authority figures. But let’s also ensconce the voice of the “good enough mother”: “How fascinating that this writing daimon remains so unrelenting for you, and, if so, why have you been forced by life into fashioning different priorities? Let’s take a look at that?”

Speaking of kinder “good enough presences.” I recently enjoyed the documentary Jonah Hill made about his therapist, Phil Stutz. This engaging profile showed the self-proclaimed “shrink” as both an important innovator and someone who is still learning and growing—and with the help of his analysand in a kind of therapy we may call “relational” or “interpersonal”—thank you Harry Stack Sullivan, you homo, you. Stutz has much to say and is fighting time like all of us but in his case he has Parkinsons. Unlike me, he marched to his own drummer from the jump.

If you think about your life with a measure of critical thinking and “good enoughness” (as if you could do therapy on yourself) you can figure your shit out.

I am creating a most unusual “family-of-choice.” Alex, who was my “Ex,” what a strange clause, “who was my “Ex,” in other words, what is he now? We went to Europe together this past summer. What a wonderful experience to have all the pluses of a very seasoned connection and to be able to set better limits on what didn’t work because one has learned some hard-earned lessons about codependency, jealousy, possessiveness and so on. I am not sure if he did go on Grindr when we went to Lisbon, but it would have been absolutely fine. We were walking in Porto, and I was missing gay people, and we just bumped into a massive Gay Pride Parade. It felt coincidental. It also felt so liberating that we then went our separate ways after Week #1. He went to visit another Ex in Germany and I went to Paris to meet up with a perhaps too-romantic French “mec” who hailed from Cameroon.

Also, Erik Villapando, a 27-year-old Latino dear companion, who just graduated with a Master’s in Social Work, has moved into the house,

Some of you know that I have become a kind of quasi-parent-friend-figure to a once-wild, now-wise young man over the last four-plus years. We possess different sexual orientations (we call each other “bro”) and different racial and ethnic backgrounds (Jewish/black). I was one of those Gay Liberation activists who felt, as Roland and I discussed, that our job was more to “create” than “procreate.” But anyone who knows me that I have very strong parenting tendencies. I will always make you food, give you supplements, and make you text me when you get home. This year proved difficult but created a watershed in learning how to listen better for Payton and me.

This year, I also retired from Antioch as a full-time professor. I will still teach but let’s leave the administration to younger people.

I sent to Guadalajara with a group of gay Latino friends. Dr. Enrique Lopez, who now helps to run Colors, opened his family to us. I will write a blog about Mexico, the Revolution, the Art and our journey to the rural area where is creating an Eco-Village.

I think I'd like to end by sharing some thoughts about my mother. Her name is Penny, but my cousin Michele affectionately called her Pearl. Pearl is a rare, precious gem. She was raised by Jewish refugees and grew up during the Great Depression. She was also married to a difficult man who drank to cope with his emotions, which sometimes made her overbearing. As a Jewish mother, she treated her eldest son like a Messiah, which wasn't always easy for him as he was queer. However, she and my father were probably more "fluid" in their thinking than they may have realized (that's a story for another time). Pearl would sometimes refer to herself as a "witch," like the superstitious ones you read about in Isaac Bashevis Singer short stories. She had a habit of putting red bendels under my pillow when she suspected that my trips to Manhattan were not just to visit the MET. Despite these quirks, she had a heart of gold and I could always talk to her. She never let us go to bed angry and insisted we do no chores (she'd say, "go study" or shoo us outside to play). Our only job was to be good (which is a challenge in itself, but no one is perfect).

In August, Pearl turned 92. During a visit with my brother Dan for Rosh Hashanah, she fell and broke her hip. Despite the pain and inconvenience, she remained stoic and even offered a cheerful "Happy New Year" while we waited in the hospital lobby. Her age and confinement had affected her mind, but she seemed to have achieved a state of "radical acceptance." All the hardships she faced in life, including the loss of five siblings (leaving only her and her younger brother Eli), had given her the Yiddish word "sechel," meaning wisdom.

However, in her declining years, she had forgotten this word. I recently received the good news that after two months of rehabilitation, Pearl will be released to the Bristal assisted living facility, as she can now walk on her own. I’ll go back in January to see her. It will be cold, but it will be good to see her walk on her own. I am her eldest.

It’s not that coherent, necessarily, but a few interesting reflections.

Happy New Year