The Ritual of Marriage
Clyde Yoshida and Dave Andrews
Sunday, June 29, 2008

THE CEREMONY

TO THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS: This morning all of us here have the privilege of participating in the marriage of Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida. Dave and Clyde have made clear to me the importance of your participation in their ceremony of marriage. You are more than witnesses. You will be asked to pledge to give your assent to and your support of the marriage that will be established today, a marriage that was forbidden by law until a couple of weeks ago. Today, then, is an historic celebration. All of us here, and thousands of other couples who are getting married in the next few months are making history. A domestic partnership is one thing...actually, a good thing; but it is not marriage. Domestic partnership is separate from, and not equal to marriage. What we are doing here today is marriage. The ritual that we are enacting together this morning is a serious and sacred ceremony. Cultures from the earliest times in the history of mankind have performed rituals of marriage to strengthen and support relationships between two people, joining two families. The community is made stronger and better for it. It is expected that this marriage will make stronger and better both the community and the household of Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida. So, Let’s begin.

Richard Bach, in The Bridge Across Forever, has a statement that sums up beautifully why commitment and marriage are important.

“A soul mate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can e loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we’re two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we’ve found the right person. Our soul mate is the one who makes life come to life.”

TO THE FAMILY AND FRIENDS: Years ago Dave and Clyde became partners, established a home together. They weren’t allowed to be married. Today that changes. They are about to become legally wedded spouses. We have agreed that the ritual of marriage should begin with a saying of vows. We are privileged to listen as Clyde and Dave exchange their vows. Years ago they exchanged rings, but today is a recommitment, so I’m asking them now to give back, just for the moment, the rings they exchanged. These are precious rings, the perfect symbols of their unending love.

TO CLYDE AND DAVE: Clyde, you will end your statement of vows with the words with, “Dave, I give you back this ring today as a token of my unending love for you,” and you will place the ring on his finger. And, Dave, after you have said your vows, you will make the same statement to Clyde and place the ring on his finger.

Clyde: Dave,

You are my teacher. You’ve taught me to be less materialistic and to stand up for myself. You’ve taught me that we can use the example of our commitment to each other to teach the skeptical that love is an enduring force. It is prevalent, grand and defies a narrow definition. Love is not a commodity to be owned by a few and limited by hate or ignorance.

You are my clown. You make me laugh. You protect the inner child in me. I can be silly, a goof and moody—I can be myself around you with absolutely no judgment. I love to look into those beautiful, innocent and wise Aquarius eyes and in return, you see me, love me and take me with you on this life adventure. You are also always full of surprise.

You are my joy. Combined with chocolate, you give me so much happiness that I am bursting at the seams. I love the morning. Waking with you and sharing all that is between the sunrise and the next sunrise. I will always be there for you. We are, since we have in the beginning, entwined in life together just as the ribbons connect our friends and family today.

You are ours. You give yourself to others and they are richer for it too. I am willing to share because the joy that abounds creates a loving cradle for our infant souls to thrive.

Dave: Clyde. I love you.

You prove to me every single day how lucky I am to share my life with you. Thank you so much.

During the 15 years we have already shared, you have filled my life with an almost overwhelming sense of joy and happiness. We have enjoyed a storybook love affair that begins a new chapter today.

How many people, for example, tell their sweet one they will be missed even during the shortest absence? When we are apart, I can’t wait to be together again. And when we are together, I think my heart beats a little stronger.

I’m very proud of all we have accomplished together. We have a wonderful network of friends and family. Our home is full of whimsy, happiness, peace, and love.

I respect and admire you and am improved by your presence in my life. Your kindness makes me kinder. Your creativity makes me more creative. As you achieve wonderful things in your profession, you inspire me to grow in mine.

You inspire me to believe in hope and peace. Because of you I look for and find the best in other people.

I love being part of you and knowing that you are part of me. You are the best partner in life that anybody could ask for. You are my love, and my heart will be yours always.

Thank you for marrying me today and for sharing your world with me. I love you.

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Commitment: If you truly commit to each other you will answer, “I do.”

Dave, Do you take Clyde to be your lawfully wedded spouse for all the days of your life; to love him more today than you did yesterday, yet less today than you will tomorrow; to nurture your marriage for as long as you both shall live?

Clyde, Do you take Dave to be your lawfully wedded spouse for all the days of your life; to love him more today than you did yesterday, yet less today than you will tomorrow; to nurture your marriage for as long as you both shall live?


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TO THE GUESTS:

This is your part, besides being witnesses to this marriage: Do you, friends and family, promise to stand by these two with your support and encouragement, to celebrate with them the good times and to be ready always with compassion and help in challenging times, for as long as you are able?

Answer: We Will.

We have done together everything that is necessary for Dave Andrews and Clyde Yoshida to become a lawfully married couple. All that’s left to do is for me to make the familiar official pronouncement.

Ladies and Gentlemen, by the authority vested in me by the State of California, it is now my honor and privilege to declare that you are married, that you are now lawfully wedded spouses.

Congratulations... You should now signal with a kiss the beginning of your married life together and the beginning of our after-the-wedding celebration.

IMBI
On the back of the picture in a school girl's neat handwriting: Malestusers Ellenile Imbilt

Going through Imbi's earthly belonging, I came across a small photograph of her when she was fifteen-years-old, the year before her parents were taken out of their home in the middle of the night by Stalin's KGB operatives and shot. In the last week of her life, I kept trying to picture her as a young girl with her Grandmother's rug fleeing first to Finland and then to Germany and finally to Canada. This studio portrait shows exactly the beautiful girl that I imagined. I look at it and try to see if there is even the tiniest hint in her eyes and in her expression of the tragedy and the harrowing escape that she would experience in little more than a year from the time she sat for the photographer. What I see is what I have seen in hundreds of young people whom I have had the privilege of knowing in my school-teacher's lifetime. Thank goodness we cannot see the future. Thank goodness we can know only what is and what was. Knowing what will be might make moving into the future unbearable.

Below is the photo that I took a couple of weeks ago as she lay dying. It is the same photo that I posted in black and white earlier this month. I didn't know about the existence of the studio portrait of the young Imbi with her braid when I made the picture mostly of her beautiful hair a few days before she died.THE WOOL, HAND-MADE RUG IS A HEAVY 10 ft. by 12 ft.

JULIAN GOT A HAIRCUT TODAY. IT'S AMAZING HOW MUCH TALLER HE LOOKS. HE SEEMS A FOOT TALLER WITHOUT THE LONG, CURLY HAIR... AND OLDER. HE AND HIS DAD AND I WENT TO A PARK SO HE COULD RUN AND PLAY. IT WAS CLEAR THAT HIS DAD WAS GRIEVING A LITTLE AT THE "LOSS" OF SOMETHING, AND I DON'T THINK IT WAS THE HAIR. IT'S AS IF ERIC, NOT JULIAN, HAD GIVEN UP SOMETHING THAT HE WOULD LIKE TO HAVE KEPT. LATER AFTER THEY HAD GONE HOME, I GOT TO THINKING ABOUT HOW HARD IT IS TO GIVE UP THINGS, EVEN THINGS THAT YOU DON'T NEED, THINGS WITH NO VALUE THAT CAN BE QUANTIFIED.

WHAT IS IT, DO YOU THINK, THAT IS SO APPEALING TO ME ABOUT OLD SHIRTS AND PANTS THAT ARE STILL HANGING IN MY CLOSET AFTER YEARS OF NOT BEING WORN AT ALL? WHY DO I WANT TO HANG ON TO THAT STUFF?

Can’t you pose a harder question? That one is too easy. At times lately you’ve been preoccupied with the fact of your advancing age. All that talk when you were in you fifties and sixties about how you’d have no problem getting older, that moving into seventies and eighties, which you avoided calling old age, how that would be just part of the adventure of living, how being an older person should be a matter of being at least a little wiser... Maybe it was just talk to cover unease. Perhaps the deaths of friends is having an unexpected effect. Lynn’s death a good many years ago you simply crossed off as premature, as unexpected. When Stanley died last year, you were in Europe and couldn’t come back to California for the funeral, but I could see that you were very much affected by the news that he had died, even though it had been expected for months; but he was four years older than you. Imbi was eighty-three. Ten summers from now you will be eighty-three.

MAYBE YOU’RE RIGHT... BUT MAYBE I JUST LIKE THE FEEL OF SOFT, WORN, FAMILIAR CLOTHES. I KNOW I HATE TO GIVE UP A PAIR OF SHOES WHEN IT HAS BECOME OBVIOUS THAT I CAN’T HAVE THEM RE-SOLED ONE MORE TIME. AND I DON’T LIKE THE WAY NEW SHOES LOOK OR THE WAY THEY FEEL. I’VE NEVER LIKED SHOPPING FOR SHOES; EVEN WHEN I WAS A YOUNG MAN, I DIDN’T LIKE IT. I’VE GOT SHOES I HAVEN’T WORN IN YEARS, BUT THEY’RE STILL WEARABLE. I SHOULD GIVE THOSE UP.

MARGARET FINALLY INSISTED THAT I GET RID OF SOME THINGS. WE LIVE IN AN APARTMENT. “THERE’S A LIMIT,” SHE SAID. AND SHE’S RIGHT. SO I SPENT SOME TIME SORTING THROUGH ALL MY SHIRTS AND PANTS. I DIDN’T COUNT THEM, BUT I GUESS THERE WERE MORE THAN FIFTY T-SHIRTS: “BIKE TO WORK DAY” T-SHIRTS FROM 1944 AND 1945 AND 1948 AND 1950; A T-SHIRT THE KIDS AT GOMPERS HAD MADE WHEN THEY DID “LITTLE NELL,” THE MELODRAMA, FOURTEEN YEARS AGO; T-SHIRT FROM ALL THOSE TIMES I DONATED BLOOD AT THE SAN DIEGO BLOOD BANK; T-SHIRTS FROM ISLANDS IN THE CARIBBEAN; AND T-SHIRTS I’VE NEVER WORN WITH LOGOS OF PRODUCTS I’VE NEVER USED. THE T-SHIRT I ESPECIALLY LIKE AND WON'T GIVE UP IS ONE THAT DAVID GAVE ME THAT PROCLAIMS, "ALL WHO WANDER ARE NOT LOST." SHAKESPEARE SAID, "IT'S A WISE FATHER WHO KNOWS HIS OWN SON." IN THIS CASE IT'S A WISE SON WHO KNOWS HIS OWN FATHER.

AND PANTS: WELL WORN JEANS AND HARDLY WORN TROUSERS THAT I MUST HAVE THOUGHT ONCE I NEEDED BUT NOW CAN’T REMEMBER WHY I THOUGHT IT OR EVEN WHERE I BOUGHT THEM. BY THE TIME I WAS FINISHED I HAD THREE BIG BOXES OF CLOTHES TO TAKE TO GOODWILL. OH, I FORGOT TO INCLUDE THE SHOES.

You should have long ago given those once-good wool sweaters to someone before the moths got to them. There are plenty of people who could have used them on cold nights. Even in San Diego you could have cruised the streets and parks downtown and found people who would have been glad to have a warm sweater. You’re fooling yourself when you hang on to stuff just because you say you may one day need it. A few years ago you said you intended to go up into the Sierras some winter to take pictures and you’d need heavier clothing. You made that trip to Russia a couple of years ago and spent two months in Northern Europe, and you dug out that old parka with the fur-lined hood; you took only a couple of sweaters and a two pairs of corduroy pants.

YOU KNOW I COULDN’T TAKE MUCH ON THAT TRIP. PART OF THE TIME I WAS MOVING AROUND EUROPE ON TRAINS. EVEN IN SMOLENSK I DIDN’T WANT TO BURDEN MY HOSTS. SO I TRAVELED LIGHT.

That’s not the point, is it? I'm wondering if you feel younger when you wear a sweater you’ve had since you were forty-something?

MAYBE THAT’S THE PROBLEM. I USUALLY DON’T “FEEL” ANYTHING AT SEVENTY-THREE THAT I WASN’T FEELING WHEN I WAS FORTY-THREEE OR THIRTY-THREE. IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT I’M WEARING. BUT I DO KNOW THAT BEFORE I LEAVE THE HOUSE ON A COOL JANUARY DAY, I REACH WITHOUT THINKING FOR THAT OLD BROWN WOOL CAP THAT I GOT IN ENGLAND A SO LONG AGO THAT I CAN’T REMEMBER WHEN IT WAS... MAYBE IN 1971; OR WAS IT 1983? I KNOW I GOT IT MANY, MANY YEARS BEFORE LAST AUTUMN WHEN I VISITED WORDSWORTH’S COTTAGE AND ACTUALLY THOUGHT ABOUT THE CAP, WHICH WAS BACK HOME IN SAN DIEGO, AND WISHED I HAD IT ON MY HEAD EVEN THOUGH IT WAS A WARM DAY. MY THINKING ABOUT THE CAP THAT DAY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH FEELING “OLD.” I WAS IN A MOOD, A SPECIAL, VERY GOOD MOOD; AND I THINK I WANTED THAT GOOD MOOD TO LAST. MAYBE I THOUGHT THE CAP WOULD HELP.

For a man who fell in love a long time ago with Thoreau, especially with the idea of living simply, you’d have a hard time convincing anybody that you have a simple life. And spending a quiet hour every morning with yoga doesn’t mean you're living simply. Do you have any idea how many people there are in the world who don’t have the luxury of time to do yoga in the morning? You’re damned lucky to have a pad to put on the carpeted floor in the room where your digital sound system can transport you to a jungle with birds and crickets and waterfalls. No. Your life is not simple. You don’t keep and wear your old clothes as a way of living simply. Think about.

---Conversation with Myself---

IN OUR LAST CONVERSATION I MADE THE POINT THAT YOU AND I ARE OLD. THAT FACT WAS MADE CLEAR AGAIN TODAY WHEN I MET KRISTIAN WHITE WHILE I WAS LOOKING AT THE FLOWERS IN THE BOTANICAL BUILDING IN BALBOA PARK. HE WAS OBVIOUSLY ENJOYING THE FLOWERS AS MUCH AS I WAS. WHAT ATTRACTED MY ATTENTION FIRST WAS HIS HAT. I LIKED THAT HAT AND WISHED I HAD ONE LIKE IT. HE WAS FACING AWAY FROM ME LOOKING AT ORCHIDS. THEN HE TURNED AROUND; AND SEEING HIS BACK SIDE HADN’T PREPARED ME FOR SEEING THE FRONT OF HIM. I THOUGHT IMMEDIATELY ABOUT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTOGRAPHS OF TATTOOED MAORIS IN NEW ZEALAND. REMEMBER HOW WE LOVED THOSE MAGAZINES WHEN WE WERE KIDS? STILL DO.

WELL, BEFORE I LOST MY NERVE, I WENT UP TO HIM AND ASKED IF I COULD TAKE HIS PICTURE. I TOLD HIM I’D UNDERSTAND IF HE SAID NO, AND THEN I TOLD HIM ABOUT MY PHOTO-DU-JOUR PRACTICE. WITH NO HESITATION HE SAID I COULD. I GOT THE PICTURES, AND AFTER A SHORT CONVERSATION IN WHICH WE EXCHANGED EMAIL ADDRESSES, WE WENT OUR SEPARATE WAYS.

ALL DAY I COULDN’T GET HIM OUT OF MY MIND.

Lots of people are getting lots of tattoos, and not just girlfriends names or a heart with an arrow through it. And not just sailors who may have had a little too much to drink before coming across a tattoo parlor in Hong Kong.

YEAH, BUT KRISTIAN IS DIFFERENT. IT’S NOT JUST THAT HIS TATTOOS ARE DIFFERENT. HE IS DIFFERENT.

How do you know that? You spend only a few minutes with him. What makes you so certain he’s different from the other people with lots of tattoos?

WELL, FOR ONE THING, HIS DESIGNS WERE VERY THOUGHTFULLY CHOSEN AND VERY WELL DONE. AND ONE OF THE DESIGNS COVERS HALF OF HIS FACE. THIS IS A MAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO COMMIT, AND HOW TO PUT HIS MONEY WHERE HIS MOUTH IS.

Hey, man. You’ve been married for over fifty years. You stayed with a career in education for nearly fifty years. You know where your children are. You obviously know how to commit.

MAYBE. BUT I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING I’VE EVER DONE THAT COULDN’T BE UNDONE. THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE POSSIBILITY THAT I COULD CHANGE MY MIND EVEN AFTER THE DEED WAS DONE. I COULD HAVE LEFT TEACHING AND SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION ANY TIME I WANTED TO GET OUT. I DIDN’T BECAUSE I LIKED WHAT I WAS DOING. IT’S EASY TO BACK OUT OF MARRIAGE IN SPITE OF THOSE VOWS AND PROMISES. I HAVEN'T BACKED OUT BECAUSE I LOVE MARGARET.

Maybe Kristian got the tattoos without thinking it through, without really facing the fact that he couldn’t erase them. Perhaps he was like so many other people in so many other situations; maybe by the time he thought about it, it was too late... there were so many of them and in places that couldn’t be hidden with clothing.

NO. I DON’T THINK THAT’S HOW IT HAPPENED. EVEN THOUGH WE TALKED FOR ONLY A LITTLE WHILE, I GOT THE IMPRESSION THAT KRISTIAN WHITE IS A THOUGHTFUL, HONORABLE MAN, A MAN WHO KNOWS HOW TO COMMIT, A MAN WHO DID A LOT OF THINKING ABOUT IT BEFORE HE DECIDED WHAT HE WOULD DO.

What about your mustache? You’ve kept that for as long as I remember. Oh, I remember... there was that time during the war when we were in Saigon and you shaved it off. You couldn’t wait to grow it back again. And you haven’t been without it since.

BUT THAT’S DIFFERENT. MY FATHER HAD A MUSTACHE. AND SO DID HIS FATHER...AND HIS FATHER’S FATHER. AND AS YOU SAID, I DID GET RID OF IT FOR THAT FEW MONTHS FORTY YEARS AGO. I COULD GO IN NOW AND SHAVE IT OFF TONIGHT IF I WANTED TO BE RID OF IT. IT’S A VERY DIFFERENT THING. KRISTIAN CAN’T SHAVE OFF THAT TATTOO.

Maybe you like him because he gave you an opportunity for a good picture.

WELL, I DO LIKE THE PICTURE. BUT IT’S MORE THAN THAT. MOST OF US ARE TOO MUCH LIKE SHEEP. WE LOOK TOO MUCH ALIKE. WE’RE COMFORTABLE BLENDING IN. KRISTIAN MADE A DECISION NOT TO BLEND IN, TO LIVE ON THE EDGE IN A WAY THAT CAN DO ABSOLUTELY NO HARM TO ANYONE. I VERY MUCH LIKE THAT.

CONVERSATIONS WITH MYSELF
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LET’S FACE IT. I’M OLD. I STILL PREFER ‘OLDER” BECAUSE IT SUGGESTS A CONNECTION WITH MY YOUNGER SELF. BUT ‘OLD’ IS WHAT I AM. THIS IS MY SEVENTY-THIRD SUMMER. THREE SCORE AND TEN PLUS THREE.

SO IT WON’T COME AS A SURPRISE TO ANYONE THAT I’VE BEGUN TO TALK TO MYSELF. IT’S EXPECTED... AND NOT JUST BECAUSE SOME OF MY FRIENDS HAVE DIED ALREADY AND ARE NO LONGER AROUND FOR COFFEE AND CONVERSATION.

A LONG TIME AGO WHEN I WAS A MERE FIFTY-SOMETHING, MY JOURNAL FOR ALMOST A YEAR WAS A DIALOGUE. I IMAGINED AND PRETENDED THAT I WAS TWO PERSONS IN ONE BODY, AND I WROTE CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO. I CAME ACROSS THAT JOURNAL THE OTHER DAY ON A SHELF IN THE GARAGE, AND I DECIDED IT MIGHT BE FUN AGAIN. MAYBE IT’S TIME FOR ME TO RECONNECT... WITH MYSELF... FOR US TO TALK.

ARE YOU THERE?

Yeah, you know I’m here. I’m always here. I’ve always been here. It’s been a long time since we’ve done this in any kind of orderly way. And you’ve turned your journal into a blog and your blog into a public forum. If I remember correctly, twenty years ago when we did this, we talked about things you and I might not like the world to know about us. Isn’t a public conversation risky?

REMEMBER I STARTED THIS CONVERSATION BY REMINDING YOU THAT WE ARE OLD NOW... BOTH OF US. THERE’S NO HIDING THAT FACT... SO WHY HIDE ANYTHING?

I can think of a thousand things that probably should be kept just between you and me... and you know very well what they are.

DON’T GET CARRIED AWAY. OF COURSE, SOME THINGS ABOUT US NOBODY WANTS TO KNOW ANYWAY. BESIDES DISCRETION AND DECEIT AREN’T THE SAME. WE’LL BE DISCRETE.

Can we talk abut things like politics, and can I say out loud what I really think about George Bush; or do we have to stick with books and the weather? What about religion? And sex?

LET’S NOT START WITH RULES... NOT EVEN GUIDELINES.

O.K., then. Let’s start with sex.

I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT GO THERE.

Well, I remember you had that discussion... no, you had that argument, yesterday with the man outside the country administration building. You started that argument, in fact. He was just standing there minding his own business, watching couples come out of the administration building with their marriage licenses. You saw he was wearing that T-shirt with the angry elephant on it, and he was carrying a little American flag. And he was fisting what looked like a Bible. You asked him, “What’s going on?” You knew very well what was happening. It’s the reason you were there. You went looking to pick a fight.

THAT’S NOT EXACTLY FAIR. THAT DISCUSSION DIDN’T GO ALL THE WAY TO ARGUMENT, MUCH LESS A FIGHT. I RODE THE BIKE DOWN THERE BECAUSE I WAS CURIOUS TO SEE IF THERE MIGHT BE TROUBLE. I THOUGHT I MIGHT GET A GOOD PICTURE. MEN DETERMINED TO MARRY MEN AND WOMEN WANTING TO MARRY WOMEN WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE. I HAD SEEN IN THE PAPER THAT A GROUP CALLING THEMSELVES THE SAN DIEGO COUNTY REPUBLICAN WOMEN WERE GOING TO DO SOME SORT OF SIT-IN, A PROTEST; AND THE NEWSPAPER SAID THERE WOULD BE SOME SORT OF RALLY OR STATEMENT BY PEOPLE WHO ARE IN FAVOR OF MARRIAGE BEING EXTENDED TO PEOPLE OF THE SAME SEX. HISTORY WAS BEING MADE. I WANTED TO BE IN ON IT.

Give me a break. You wanted a fight. You set that guy up. You knew.

WELL, I COULDN’T TELL IF HE WAS CONNECTED IN SOME WAY TO THE WOMEN HOLDING THE PRAYER MEETING ON THE EAST STEPS OF THE BUILDING, THE ONES WITH THE BANNER THAT IDENTIFIED THEM AS “THE REPUBLICAN WOMEN OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY.” OR MAYBE HE WAS THERE FOR THE THREE WOMEN WHO WERE HUDDLED TOGETHER SAYING THE ROSARY.

Well, what did you say to the guy?

I SAID, “WHAT DO YOU THINK?

And he said?

HE JUST SHOOK HIS HEAD AND SAID SOMETHING ABOUT THIS BEING THE END OF CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT.

And?

I SAID, “YOU THINK IT’S THAT BAD? DO YOU MEAN THE PUBLIC PRAYER MEETINGS OR SAME SEX MARRIAGE?"

And?

HE FINALLY TURNED TO LOOK AT ME AND AFTER HE STUDIED ME FOR A MINUTE HE SAID, “SEE THE WOMAN IN THE BLUE DRESS, THE ONE OVER THERE BY STEPS? THAT’S MY WIFE. SEE THOSE TWO GUYS WITH THE ROSE BUDS? THEY’RE FAGS WHO JUST GOT MARRIAGE LICENSES, OR MAYBE THEY JUST GOT MARRIED. NOW, WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY GOING TO CALL EACH OTHER? THAT WOMAN OVER THERE IS MY WIFE. THERE’S A NAME FOR WHAT SHE IS. WHAT WOULD IT BE IF IT WAS A GUY? HUSBAND OR WIFE? NO GUY I’VE EVER MET WOULD WANT TO BE A WIFE, AND YOU CAN’T HAVE TWO HUSBANDS. IT’S BULLSHIT."

Is that what he thought was wrong with it? Words? Is that what it’s about? What did you say?

I TOOK OFF MY SUNGLASSES SO HE COULD SEE MY EYES, AND I SAID I THOUGHT IT WAS ABOUT LOVE, NOT ABOUT WHAT PEOPLE CALL EACH OTHER.

THE GUY STILL DIDN’T SEE WHERE THE CONVERSATION WAS HEADED. HE HELD UP THE BOOK AND SAID, “THE BIBLE SAYS MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN. THE LAW CAN’T CHANGE THAT. THE BIBLE SAYS IT. GOD SAYS IT. THE LAW CAN’T CHANGE THAT.”

Yeah. It may be in the Bible somewhere. He was probably right about what the Bible says. I don’t remember ever seeing that exact language.

ANYWAY, I SAID THAT MAYBE WHOEVER WROTE THE BIBLE GOT IT WRONG. HE LOOKED AT ME AND SHOOK HIS HEAD.

“IT ISN’T WRONG,” HE SAID. “IT CAN’T BE WRONG. IF IT’S IN THE BIBLE IT HAS TO BE TRUE.”

AND I ASKED WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE TRUE. AND HE SAID, “BECAUSE GOD WROTE THE BIBLE."

I SAID THAT I DIDN’T KNOW THAT. I THOUGHT IT WAS WRITTEN BY SOME PEOPLE A LONG TIME AGO, A BUNCH OF MEN PROBABLY WITHOUT ANY WOMEN DOING ANY OF THE WRITING.

AND THEN I ASKED HIM IF IT WAS THE SAME GOD WHOSE OTHER NAME IS LOVE. HE STOPPED AWHILE AND JUST LOOKED AT ME.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” HE ASKED. “GOD DOESN’T HAVE BUT ONE NAME,” HE SAID. “GOD! GOD! GOD! THAT’S HIS NAME.”

I ASKED IF THAT WAS HIS NAME IN SPANISH AND FRENCH AND RUSSIAN. HE LOOKED AT ME HARD AGAIN AND TURNED AND LOOKED AWAY.

I SAID I REMEMBERED READING THAT JESUS SAID GOD IS LOVE.

What happened then?

WELL, THERE WERE POLICE OFFICERS ALL OVER THE PLACE, AND TWO OF THEM EASED OVER TO WHERE WE WERE STANDING. I GUESS THEY HAD SEEN THE GUY HOLD THE BIBLE IN FRONT OF MY FACE. THEY MUST HAVE NOTICED THAT HE WAS GETTING LOUDER. HONESTLY, I WASN’T SHOUTING.

I’ve heard you argue. I’ll bet your voice got at least a little louder.

WELL, I DID SAY ONE MORE THING. I THOUGHT I WAS JUST SAYING IT WITH FEELING, BUT MAYBE MY VOICE DID COME UP A LITTLE. I TOLD HIM THAT MY SON IS GAY, AND THAT THERE IS NO FINER MAN ON THIS EARTH THAN MY DAVID IS AND THAT I WOULD RECOGNIZE HOW GOOD HE IS EVEN IF HE WERE NOT MY SON. I WANTED TO TELL HIM THAT I WOULDN’T CHANGE ONE SINGLE THING ABOUT MY SON EVEN IF I COULD.

I ADMIT THAT I WANTED TO TELL HIM THAT HE WAS FULL OF SHIT, BUT HONESTLY, I DIDN’T. I SWALLOWED MY INDIGNATION AND RODE AWAY ON MY BICYCLE.

Yeah, right. We’ll talk some more.

UPDATE: MONDAY, JUNE 16

Imbi died at 6:35 in the early evening. I had been sitting in her living room writing, occasionally getting up to go to the door to her room to see if she was still breathing. Instead of going back to my writing, for some reason I decided to sit for a minute in the chair beside her bed . Almost at the moment I sat down, her breathing changed: a very short inhalation followed by half a minute of nothing... then another short breath, and I knew the time had come. I took her hand and almost imperceptibly her head moved, and then it was over. I felt her already faint pulse grow fainter and slower until there was nothing. Until that moment I had not liked the term "passed away." I had considered it an unnecessary euphemism. I had thought we should boldly say "died." Now I know. "Passed away" describes exactly what happened. Imbi passed away in an instant... out of existence, gone.

I made the necessary phone call; and while I waited for the Hospice nurse to come, I went back and read what I had written only a few minutes before Imbi died.

"Where in this tiny, withered, dying frailness is the young girl who defied pogroms, invasions, and a major war while hanging on to a rug her grandmother had made? How remarkable that she didn't just give it up, leave it accidently on purpose at a military check-point or a ferry boarding dock or a train station. How much easier it would have been for the frightened teenager to let the rug go and to let the black swastikas on their blood-red field persuade her, take her, use her, discard her. She told me once that there was a time in Germany during the war when she moved every two weeks to keep the Nazis from catching her and putting her to work in a war factory. I don't know how she managed to go to school in a country at war, a country that wasn't hers. Perhaps it was that she spoke German, French and English in addition to her native Estonian. She was blond and pretty. She was Lutheran. She was very bright. She was determined and brave."

I left the building around eleven o'clock after the Hospice nurse had come and officially pronounced Imbi dead and the mortuary person had come for the "transfer of remains." I walked out into full moon light. I felt incredibly honored... privileged... blessed.

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY with the OLYMPUS C-7000 Point-and-Shoot:

Just before dusk a few days ago I was waiting on Harbor Island to make an early evening Airport pick-up, and I used the only camera I had with me to take a few shots of the San Diego skyline. I didn't expect much because daylight was low and the lights in city buildings were just beginning to come on. With an ISO setting of 400, I shot wide open at f2.8. I hand-held the camera, steadying it on a rock. I was probably half a mile away from the embarcadero. I was surprised at the clarity of the images. That we can get such definition under low light conditions is a credit to the engineers who are designing digital cameras these days.

IMBI TELEPHONED MARGARET ON SATURDAY TO SAY SHE IS DYING THIS WEEK. She is in the final painful days of breast cancer, a condition that had been in remission until a year ago. Staying in her own apartment, she has been a Hospice patient for several months. On Friday she made the decision to stop taking nourishment, including water. She is heroic in death as she was in life. She is one of those persons whom we like to describe by saying they are survivors; but, of course, her condition now and her death in the next few days are reminders that none of us are ultimately survivors.

Imbi, the only child of Vello Simre and Minna Perlas, was born in 1925 in Tartu, a mid-sized, peaceful Estonian college town before the Soviet invasion of the Baltic States. The invasion came when she was fourteen. When she was sixteen her parents, who were university professors, were taken out of their home in the middle of the night and shot to death in a field with a number of other Estonian intellectuals. Her grandmother scrapped together all the money she had and helped the teenager escape to Finland. The only thing besides a few clothes that she took away from her homeland was a rug her grandmother had made. The rug hangs today on a wall in the apartment where she is dying.

From Finland Imbi managed to get to Germany just as the Nazis were dragging that country and the rest of Europe into World War II. The bright, pretty sixteen-year-old managed to stay alive during the awful years of war. She was enrolled in medical school when the war ended. Because she was not German and was a certifiable refugee from Stalin’s Soviet Union, she was accepted as an immigrant to Canada. At McGill University in Montreal she continued her medical studies and became a physician. She practiced medicine in Canada and in the United States. She outlived three husbands but had no children. The world is taking no notice whatsoever of her dying. Elaine, her friend and neighbor for the past thirty years, is staying close. Imbi has asked Elaine to be with her when she dies. Other than that, she is asking very little of the world in this last week of her life.

UPDATE: MONDAY, JUNE 16

Imbi died at 6:35 in the early evening. I had been sitting in her living room writing, occasionally getting up to go to the door to her room to see if she was still breathing. Instead of going back to my writing, for some reason I decided to sit for a minute in the chair beside her bed . Almost at the moment I sat down, her breathing changed: a very short inhalation followed by half a minute of nothing... then another short breath, and I knew the time had come. I took her hand and almost imperceptibly her head moved, and then it was over. I felt her already faint pulse grow fainter and slower until there was nothing. Until that moment I had not liked the term "passed away." I had considered it an unnecessary euphemism. I had thought we should boldly say "died." Now I know. "Passed away" describes exactly what happened. Imbi passed away in an instant... out of existence, gone.

I left the building around eleven o'clock after the Hospice nurse had come and officially pronounced her dead and the mortuary person had come for the "transfer of remains." I walked out into full moon light. I felt incredibly honored... privileged... blessed.

CANNA LILIES AND JIMSON WEEDCanna lilies proliferate in San Diego, and the wild jimson weed can be found everywhere. I took the jimson weed trumpet flowers photos at the edge of Huntington Beach, and the canna lilies are in the Davids' backyard on Montclair Street in San Diego . Southern California's climate is just right. Sometimes the canna lily colors are so intense it's difficult to see these flowers clearly. I especially like Georgia O'Keefe's paintings and drawings of flowers because she usually isolates a part of the plant for a close look. She made several paintings of canna lilies and the white trumpet flowers of the jimson weed. I can't look at the beautiful, poisonous jimson weed flower without thinking of her.

A WORLD OF MADE...
Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) didn't need a computer to remake the world to suit himself. A vision started in his head; and using his skills as a painter and a writer, he created new beings and new worlds. I'm guessing he saw things in leaves and flowers and animals that most people don't see. In the process of making worlds he was constantly remaking himself.

MOTHER EARTH’S SCARSWe have injured the Earth. Some wounds heal; some never will. The scars are everywhere. When I wrote in an earlier post that lumber companies reforest the hillsides where they have scraped away the trees, my friend Alan Thomas reminded me that it’s not just the trees that are removed when logging is done, but practically everything else is destroyed. Whole ecosystems disappear and there is nothing the logging companies can do to restore them. Large urban areas are another sorrow. Riding into and then out of the Los Angeles sprawl on my bicycle, I was stunned by how dismal and hopeless much of the region has become. Where is the hope in Torrence, the miserably poor little city sandwiched between the three beach cities south of the airport and the industrial suburb and port of Long Beach. Ugly is the only word for the string of strip malls that line both sides of The Pacific Coast Highway in Torrence. What a grand sounding name for a road. What a pitiful place. What a scar.