December 28, 2010 | 6:05 pm

The “Girl Crush”

Posted by Chanel Dubofsky

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On the train coming home last night, I started reading Aryn Kyle’s new story collection, Boys and Girls Like You and Me. It is less than 24 hours later and I’m surprised I was able to close the book, walk down to this coffee shop and type these sentences. It’s so painful and delicious and beautiful, I can’t stop reading. In spite of what one might think, I’m actually a seriously picky reader. I have tons of books, but I need to find the right one that needs to be read at the right time. It’s kind of like having a homing pigeon in my brain that only works for literature.

In one of the stories, “A Lot like Fun,” is the line: “Everything true would become false, if only you waited long enough.” The sadness in the story is actually visceral for me, still, in the way that I keep going back and looking at it and feeling it, weirdly, but today I thought about that line in a much different way, in the sense of friendships that are something and then become something else.

Recently, I had dinner with Ms. S, a recent Barnard grad. She is a firecracker, and I’m glad it seems like our relationship will transcend the bubble of her college career and my job. We always have good talks that leave me with a busy brain. This installation featured a discussion on girls or women becoming enraptured with another girl or woman, or for lack of a better term, being in deep like.

S and I talked about ours, which mainly involved teachers and mentors, but also certain folk musicians and friends who we couldn’t believe thought we were cool enough to hang out with them. Sometimes it was about physical beauty, but mostly, we were just in awe of their brilliance, their sense of humor, the way they moved through the world. The question, S and I pondered, was, what did they say about our sexuality? Now, of course, we know and believe that sexuality exists on a spectrum, and we identify accordingly, but what about then?

The geniuses who brought and continue to bring us the Media depict female relationships in three ways: Catty and Competitive (women can’t be friends), Sexualized (one version of this is the Slumber Party, where we prance around in our underwear and hit each other with pillows before descending into an orgy), and About Men, which inevitably leads back to competition for men.

In short, there are few realistic, healthy, or nuanced depictions of women’s relationships, and therefore, unless you happen to be tremendously lucky in both your communication with your progressive and understanding parents and peers, having a crush on a girl probably send you into a spiral of shame and despair. You probably, like me and S, wondered if those feeling were normal, and what the hell normal even meant. You were especially afraid to talk about those feelings, because as we all know, queer shaming and homophobia starts early.

The point here is that whether or not your crush was/is about platonic adoration, revelatory sexual feelings, or both, but that we live in a culture where relationships between women are suspicious, commodified and suffice it to say,derided. It is a feminist act, a way of accessing and concentrating our power, to have positive, enduring female relationships, and feelings towards other women, to pursue them, to talk openly about them, and most importantly, not to be afraid of them.

originally posted at Diverge (www.idiverge.wordpress.com)

December 23, 2010 | 10:21 pm

It Takes A Chasm to Emerge in the Inner Circle

Posted by Tera Greene

“It Takes A Chasm to Emerge in the Inner Circle”
*

2010 started off
ab
so
lute
ly

shirtty.

With the absence of the ‘r’,
the year unclothed me,
-exposed me -
to the true nature of people,
those with my best intentions,
and those just looking to leverage me
-and my generous energy…
Those opportunists! (even unintentionally)
With trust in relationships that to my Light were dimmers
-oh how 2010 was the year of the Break Up for so many in a permutation of occasions and situations-
Selfish people loomed, and I found myself drained.

Ho hum. Lesson one: People come and go.
The people who call you best friend, will usually just be using words of convenience.
As the truest of best friends become family, by way of words of love and in their actions.
Go figure.

Go: Action!
Lesson two: Don’t take it personally.  Smile! Take control of what you can - yourself. Your life!

So I decided to shed.
A-ha!
So…
I could get back to filling my well to the place it once was,
to rekindle my soul and focus on healing the chasms

dug deep, dug to a swell.

Lesson three: Deep breathing. Taking. It. All. In.

The silence.

There was a heavy swell that was emerging inside of me.
Waves, un-breaking, steadily shapeshifting,
I called in to my Higher Self and said,
“Patching up, dusting off,
back to Intending and Manifesting.”

I.A.M.

Lesson four: Now.

If you can think it, it’s already yours.  Else, how would the imagination know to think it in the first place?

Lesson five: Confidence! 

I have met with the Mayor of Sderot and sat with innovators,
Applied to a Fellowship and voila! - wish was granted.
Interpreted the V’ahavta - inspired with My V’ahavta.
Sarah Silverman on my 27th birthday taught me the value of the Treat,
Kalil Cohen and Janelle Eagle, fellow bloggers, that truly this year,

Inspired Upheld Encouraged

and reminded me again
How to Believe.
Opened for Kelis, that chameleon like I.
I Went through 8 weeks of Shedding to Emerge on the other side…
...with original music showcased at the [Inside] the Ford Theatre,
An essay accepted into a Young and Jewish Anthology
out of Spertus University,
and my Individuality accepted into an Intensive Producer’s Program to learn to the depth of my honing.

Ideas unfolding,
Found myself no longer sullied,
but within
Inner Circles of Excellence
being mentored by the Best of the Best.
Surrounded by a Class in an Act of our Own, Healing the World, one Creation after the Next.

2011 already booked through November.
Can’t wait to be Keynote Speaker at that day school in February.
January - DJ of Honor at a Wedding,
Full throttle… Lord, willing:
“Congratulations, kid.  You came out sturdier than ever.”

Today: “Has anyone ever told you you look like Michelle?”

As in, Obama.

I guess I am smiling a lot these days.
I feel so supported, loved. Brand new.

I suppose I can say it was worth the start.
Lessons learned, time will tell, thoughts of joy, focused and clear.

#Happy Phreakin’ New Year!
#woohoo

Thank you for reading my contributions to “Oy Gay” in its inaugural season of posts. 
Mind yourselves, value your time and remain fearless.

****
Tera Greene*
www.djnovajade.com
Synchronistically, as I hit save to post this entry, Britney Spears’ “Stronger” played on my playlist…

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December 19, 2010 | 7:43 am

Shabbat in Nepal

Posted by Janelle Eagle

As a documentary filmmaker, I sometimes get to go to exotic places and have experiences that are quite difficult to capture and describe. Currently, I am on one of those journeys; I am traveling in Nepal to film two documentaries about poverty-stricken children and the hope they bring to many. As it turns out, almost everyone I am traveling with is Jewish. Three of us are also gay- and everyone, including the young children we are working with, are enthusiastically in support of us.

A special moment happened during our first week here when Helen Nightengale, the founder of the Heartbeats Foundation decided that we should celebrate shabbat. How appropriate that it happened to be one of the clearest days on record in Bhaktapur and that we found ourselves on a rooftop overlooking a view of the setting sun reflecting off the Himalayas. We decided to say the blessings over the candles and then I suggested we throw in a Shechiyanu because it was our first Shabbat in Nepal. We then sang “Salam/One Love” and stood in a circle, sharing our traditions with the peaceful people of Nepal.

Shabbat is amazing on it’s own, but this was a particularly meaningful and special one.

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