"I'm here, I'm here"

After composting old paradigms, the unexpected can occur

In the fall of 1987, I ran into an old college friend in the local gym’s locker room. She had just started a psychotherapy practice in the area, and we got to chatting about my recent break up. She recommended that I make an appointment with a therapist friend of hers, and thus, I began to work on some long-lingering trauma and the poor choices I was making in the relationship arena. Taking on this task, after finally getting a steady paycheck and with my art practice moving at a pace I could manage, made sense. Little did I know how much work this would take.

After learning some of my family and relationship history, my new therapist persuaded me that I needed to slow down and learn how to date. ARGH! Dating not only sounded like a recipe for misery, but it also sounded like something from a previous era. My counter-culture cohort did not date. We met up at social events or meetings, flowed into each other’s arms looking for adventure and healing, learned a few things, bumped up against each other’s traumas, got bruised, and moved on. But I realized that she might have some wisdom in her suggestion, so I took on the challenge.

This new journey was pre-internet, pre-dating apps, but it still had some of the yucky residue of consumer culture that has only grown more intense due to the apps of smart phones. Even back in those “olden days,” the process of looking for Mr. or Ms. Right (and just that concept alone needed some deep interrogation) felt a little like reading ingredients on any potential “package” to see if they would provide proper nutrition plus a little spark. Objectifying a mate or partner is deeply problematic; it’s one of the sorry side effects of capitalism combined with patriarchy. All of this was a lot to navigate, especially in the culture of southern California where superficial appearances amplified by the Hollywood industry were paramount (ugh, bad pun).

Photo by Cassandra Hooper who was my student at CSULB at the time (she’s been a professor of art at SUNY New Paltz for many years now).In 1987, she wanted to do a portrait series of me and had me dress up for several days of shooting. I’m not sure now whether these were taken in the midst of my dating escapades or before I started that ordeal.

Taking on this project while I was working full-time as a professor and artist was no easy feat; when was I going to have time to seek out dates? Ultimately, the tools that I used to find dates, recommended by well-meaning friends, were all problematic. Getting 90 responses to a personal ad in the LA weekly meant that I wrote really good copy. It also meant that I had to do a lot of homework. My friends came to help me sort through the responses that had been stuffed into my mailbox filled with head shots, VHS tapes, cassette tapes, and long letters, some typed, some handwritten. For a very brief moment, I thought about keeping them all for a future art piece, but it wasn’t really my style to make art about the perils and rewards of romance. I am typically more private about this part of my life, but here I am writing about it publicly now. I’m doing this because I want to get a better understanding of this chapter in relation to patriarchy. In this moment, I can reflect more deeply about the whole escapade with more coherence and hope that whatever insights I offer may be of use to others.

We chose 15 men (yes, at the time I was not out as bi). This group included people affiliated with the Hollywood industry (cameramen, actors, lawyers, etc) as well as other professional types. The whole thing was only memorable because it taught me a lot about expectations, assumptions, the pool of available men who were interested in answering personal ads, and my own self-esteem. My first big learning moment (I wish it had only been “a moment”) was to never go out to eat with someone you only know only slightly on paper and a phone call. It’s a recipe for real misery, especially if one is too shy and inexperienced to say, “I’m not interested in listening to your racism, so I will say “good-bye” now.” He was a northern Italian physicist-inventor carrying on about his distaste for southern Italians; ugly racism is sadly everywhere.

After that misadventure, my future dates were simple, a drink or a coffee. I met a mix of professional men who were too busy to meet people in other ways. I also learned that the ingredients listed on “the package” had little to do with their nutritional value. I’m sure that at least one or two of them were disappointed in how my ad’s self-description did not match their projections about me.

One of the headshots, ahhhhh Hollywood, taken in 1988. It still feels like I’ve cast myself as an object for others to inspect and approve of or reject. I’m amazed by how vulnerable and sweet I appear. I used a similar photo in a photo/text piece in 1995 that I will share in a future post.

All of these dates took several months to coordinate and act upon, and by the end I was burnt out. It was not the way that I wanted to meet people. The whole process felt too self-conscious and misaligned with my values. I tried some other dating strategies; one was a penpal club for socially engaged singles run by the Nation Magazine. The latter turned out to be the place where one could meet up with psychopaths, sociopaths, and undercover agents. Not what I had in mind for potential relationships, and ultimately this last experience was traumatic enough to put me completely off the “merry world of dating.”

Instead, I realized that it was time to find some activist friends, so I visited the feminist & gay bookstore in my Long Beach neighborhood. I had been going there regularly for months, and had become friendly with the guy behind the counter named Michael. He was a handsome fellow in his twenties who with his long brown hair and sensitive eyes looked a bit like some renditions of a white Jesus Christ. He told me that he was working with a local group trying to educate the public about the local nuclear weapons base. I asked him if he could recommend other folks working on local environmental and social justice issues because I was looking to get involved. He gave me a short list of names and numbers. I thanked him for his kindness and invited him over for dinner. I was no longer shy after so many dates.

During our dinner together, he said that one of the people on the list he had given me was someone that he felt I would have a lot in common with. He said that his friend lived in a Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Long Beach, was getting his Master’s in Social Ecology, had just come back from an activist mission in Nicaragua, and many other things. I looked at Michael skeptically and said, “I am no longer dating men, but thanks for the suggestion.” He looked disappointed, but I assured him that I would be fine without a date or a mate, and that I had so many deadlines for exhibitions coming up that I needed to focus on my work. If I made time to go back into the world of dating, I planned to visit the local lesbian bar with my next-door neighbor.

My 35th birthday was coming up (9/29/1988), and I decided to mark that auspicious day by marrying myself. As far as I knew, marrying oneself was not a common practice in that time; at least, there was no social media apparatus at that point to make this ritual viral. I went to a local craft fair and carefully picked out a silver ring of inlaid turquoise and coral with which I could wed myself. I wrote a poetic speech to read out loud that declared that I was committing myself to self-care, love, and a network of loving friends. For the ceremony itself, I chose a gentle peak of a mountain trail in the Armstrong Redwood Reserve of northern California. It was important for me to be looking out at a gorgeous vista while being witnessed by old growth trees. I invited a new friend who was going through a divorce to take the hike with me, but during the actual ceremony, he planned to take a nap. As far as I was concerned, that was an excellent arrangement.

I no longer remember many of the details of that day, but I do remember it was perfect weather and that it felt like the luscious landscape was embracing me. My friend went out of sight to take his nap, while I gazed into the distance, recited my speech, gave myself a ring, took a swig of water, and sat in a private revery for a little while until my friend awakened from his nap. Then we went back down the mountain. I felt complete, and liberated, as if I had eluded a patriarchal trap and that I could, in fact, be whole and powerful by nourishing a deep connection to friends and community.

Less than two weeks later, Michael called me and asked if I would want to come to a benefit for Guatemalan refugees and would I be willing drive some folks there. It was happening at a church in Santa Monica on the night of October 15th. He said that some of his friends were in the band playing for the benefit and that there would be dancing. How could I resist? I did not know that Michael had another motive for this invitation.

One of the passengers in the backseat of my car was the fellow that Michael had mentioned at our dinner together. I listened to the conversations that my passengers were having with interest. This guy had just led a meditation retreat at the Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Long Beach and was doing some political organizing. I recall him saying that he was very tired, but somehow his conversation was animated enough to share that he had been a member of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) while at Yale and thought, is this guy showing off or what? And what does a Yale degree mean, pretentiousness, class privilege or being adequately educated? I was put off, but he was just another guy, so I let my questions and judgment evaporate. After we parked and walked into the church, I noticed that this guy was warmly shaking hands and laughing with lots of people. My first thought was, “whoah, is this a big macher (Yiddish for a “big shot”) or what?” My second thought was, he’s just another guy, and your job is to have fun tonight. I danced to the band and met some of Michael’s friends.

By the end of the evening, I found myself in a side room of the church, talking to this guy. His name was Bob. He had a lovely, warm voice, told me he was a poet, studying for a Master’s in social ecology, training as a massage therapist, and working as an administrative assistant for a local community college. He lived in the Vietnamese Buddhist temple, and in exchange for helping the head monk, he received free room and board. He was certainly wearing many hats and had an unusual lifestyle. As we continued our conversation, I discovered that we had many things in common, especially our passion for envisioning a different future for the world through cultural work, radical education, and working in community. We excitedly shared that we had both worked with Joanna Macy and spoke of the profound impact her work had had on us.

As our conversation continued, it felt like the roof of the church opened up and light was pouring in, illuminating us both. He said later that it felt like a neon sign was over my head, with an arrow pointing down at me saying, “it’s her, stupid!”

I had a dream that night in which we were both rolling around in a grassy meadow, filled with wildflowers and sweet-smelling grass that cushioned us. We were fully clothed and hugging each other tenderly. Bob gently whispered in my ear, saying “I’m here, I’m here.” And I said, with a bit of a snide NYC attitude, “what took you so long?”

There are lot more synchronicities and romantic asides to this tale, but out of regard for my own privacy, and to cut the violin serenade short, I’ll just say that five weeks later, we were engaged and by the following May we were married, determined to redefine partnership outside of the patriarchal configurations of the latter. So much for slowing down.

At first, my therapist was quite worried by the speed of our romance, but when she came to our wedding in a small park, overlooking the tide pools in San Pedro, CA, she said, “I see that you are good mirrors for each other. ” With all the dating experiences that she had encouraged, I had more confidence to trust my instincts and make good choices. It was easy to discern that Bob was someone who would support my work and my passions; someone who would make my mind stretch into realms as yet unknown. Our unconventional partnership, multiple collaborations, and adventures lasted 34 plus years until Bob’s death from an aggressive melanoma this past April 2023. Bob often did 75% of the parenting and 75% of the housework. In recent years, he did 95% of the parenting due to our son’s struggles with mental health. I would not have had the success I had with my teaching and art making, healed from my environmental illness and cancer, without his deep and loving support. To learn more about Bob’s life and work, you might appreciate reading the obituary that I wrote for him.

As this fractured memoir, punctuated with stories of creative emergent strategies continues to evolve, I will write more about the gifts that this relationship offered me, many of which continue to fuel my creative work, activism, and spiritual life today.

The day after Bob proposed to me via a poem he wrote. He gave the poem to me on Thanksgiving at my brother’s home in San Francisco, 1988. This photo was taken by stranger at Point Lobos, CA where we stopped en route to Long Beach. We had just spent the night in a tent on Mount Tamalpais, freezing with only one sleeping bag between us, but it did not matter because we were so blissed out.

There are days when my grief is like a tsunami, threatening to drown me, but Bob would want me to continue our work, so I ground myself in daily rituals, remember how much he encouraged my writing, and how he reframed my catastrophic thinking with an enthusiastic invitation to reimagine the world.

Here’s Bob’s “proposal poem” in the book I published for Bob’s 70th birthday, NOT JUST WORDS: A 30-YEAR EXHORTATION TO LOVE AND RESISTANCE. I selected 70 of the poems that Bob had written to me over the then 30 years of our marriage and made images in response to each one. There are many more poems, not only because we continued to have 4+ years together after his 70th bday, but because they were my favorite gift to receive for bdays, anniversaries, solstices, etc. This October 15th will be the 35th anniversary of the night we met.

I will close this post with some questions to ponder about my initial query: Is it necessary for humans to have monogamous and committed partners in order to feel stable, whole, and successful in life or is that a myth promoted by our patriarchal system? What would be necessary to have in place in our communities so that folks who are single by choice or circumstances would still have the support to function well and contribute their gifts? How does the need for a partner become an essential issue in light of the loneliness epidemic and the lack of deep commitment in communities, particularly in white-dominated North America?