CommuniKate

Here in gorgeous Provincetown, three days after the summer solstice, I walk out the jetty at the far west end of town. I have started many walks here in all kinds of weather, often with a burdened mind. Most days by the return, I cannot imagine what bothered me. It is as if I have left the problem for an outgoing tide.

Everyone has her healing place. I find faith in the changing sameness of the tides. Who could believe that old bleached, beached rowboat will float in a few hours? And then be beached again? It was not until two weeks after 9.11, one late September afternoon, when I swam in the warm shallow pools at the end of the jetty, that I felt some relief, a chance that I might return to my body.

Despite this glorious day, I am troubled. I take a breath and step out onto the first huge uneven rocks warmed from the day, lichen-covered. The chlorophyll in the reeds is in overdrive. I think I can hear it. The sun on the water blinds. The gulls and ducks dive and bob. The swallows skim for bugs. The breeze kicks up. The tadpoles dart in the rippled shadows. The crabs scurry diagonally against the tide.

But this day as I return with one final sigh off my rocky walk, I still carry my worry with me. I feel for the Gulf residents watching their beloved coast, their healing place – birds, water, reeds – get tarred and choked. I cannot imagine their sadness.

This summer I walk this glorious tumble of rocks for them.

I was trolling an LGBT online news service. It used to be if something gay happened in the news, it was pretty much a one-off and you clung to as if it were a life preserver in a sea of heterosexuality. Now there are several LGBT news clipping services. Pinch me.

I saw the headline, “Lesbian Death Bed.” That can’t be right, I thought. I have bizarre word dyslexia too, but I call them jokes. It was a story about a sexual therapist who had written a book with tips for lesbians to keep the excitement in their sex life. Tip: don’t go to bed with Charlie Rose. Nothing about lesbians luring unsuspecting, unprosecuted perpetrators to their futons and offing them. It was a typo.

The next headline that caught my eye was, “Kids with Lesbian Parents Do Just Fine.” It described the results of a longitudinal study of kids raised in lesbian families. Researchers expected to find no big difference in psychological adjustment tests between the lesbian-raised kids and kids in matching control groups. They were surprised to find that kids from lesbian families did better on certain measures than kids raised in heterosexual families.

The next headline was, “Kids with lesbian parents may do better than their peers.” Wow things were looking up. The researchers speculated that lesbians are actively engaged in parenting. They also prepare their kids for discrimination and stigmatization in reaction to their particular family structure, so parents discuss complicated issues of diversity, tolerance and sexuality. The discussions help to make the kids more confident and able to deal with social differences as they mature. Their dinner table discussions are awesome but they go to bed very tired, after putting away the laundry.

That and the news that a new Gallup Poll found that just over 50% of Americans perceive gay and lesbian relationships as morally acceptable is cheering midst oil spills, teabaggers, DADT non-repeal and casino capitalism. Unfortunately that same 50% is still icked out by what we do in bed, but don’t be blaming that on lesbian moms.