Warning: melancholy ahead

It’s Labor Day weekend and so far I haven’t been out of my house or my jammies. “Ernesto” has been too busy blowing and raining for me to feel ambitious about much of anything. And I am depressed. Deeply depressed.

I have spent most of the day reading and remembering my first love. Strangely, the two are connected. One of the books I was reading is Lisa See’s novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. It is the story of two women in early nineteenth century China; a fascinating portrayal of the role of women in that time period and an insightful tale of the female psyche.

(Stay with me now, there is a point—or at least I see a relevance.) Society at that time was strictly patriarchal, as most societies have always been. Women had no value except as the vehicle through which the male heirs would come into the world. Women’s feet were bound as a sign of beauty and made them more marketable for a good marriage. A woman’s standing as a new wife was nothing until she had a boy baby; girl babies were just unwanted mouths to feed. They had no choices, no power, no voice. A woman’s lot was suffering. Period.

Then into this world came secret ways to survive it. A life-long contract could exist between two women who were called “old sames.” These were women that were somehow assessed to be compatible and who would love and support each other through all the hardness that life was. By communicating through a secret written language on a fan that would travel back and forth between their two homes, these women were more married to each other than to their husbands. Their bond was not physical; society had no allowance for such a thing. But their love and commitment was so very much like the way we lesbians partner with each other in the 21st century.

And now we get to my point: I could not help but think that it was so very ironic that in the myriad ways societies have evolved (pick any culture you like) that there are still things that we cling to that no longer have meaning. Women are no longer dependent on men—in some parts of the world—for survival. They can earn their own money, make their own choices, and now have a voice. Our power does not equal the male’s but it is more than it was. Most of us do not have to marry or have children or fit a certain pattern unless we want to. Some of us have had the courage to say, “that is not me” and “I love differently.”

Imagine if all of us, men and women, could be true to who and what we are. Imagine instead of dominating and controlling each other we tried to lift up those who are weaker and downtrodden. Imagine not fearing anything except that we might not become ourselves. Imagine a world where everyone was valued equally. Even the most homogeneous of groups experience diversity whether they realize it or not. When did we decide that our sameness is achieved through the destruction of diversity? Such foolishness.

I grieve for those who will never be who they were created to be; for those who live in fear; for those who do not dream of and will not fight for a better, evolving, more equal world; for those who think life is about conformity. I grieve for my lost love.