| Transcript |
OUR HISTORY (CONT]
Individual panels. Whether or not
people were looking for particular
names, there was a kind of reverent
compulsion to pause in tribute
before each panel. One needed time
to study Its design, to puzzle out
what it meant for Individual lives, to
relate to the loving care of those
who commemorate and celebrate In
this way the life of some person
worthy of love and remembrance.
A Donelan cartoon on one of the
NAMES Project postered shows a
gay man making a panel on his
sewing machine, while another gay
face with angel's wings whispers
over his shoulder "And
sequins...lots of sequins." There
were Indeed lots of sequins, lots of
denim, lots of creel work, lots of
color and life. There were chefs
caps and teddy bears, college
Insignia and photographs, rainbows
ana stars. One man is
commemorated. God bless him.
with a swirling green taffeta ball
gown and a pair of black pumps.
One panel reads "She Died in
Prison; We Cannot Say Her Name."
There Is one "For My Brother."
whose parents will not permit even
his first name to be used. Boston
AIDS Action created a striking panel
showing a map of the state
inscribed "We Will Remember Your
Names."
I thought 1 could handle it. I
knew only a few of those
commemorated; I'd gone to their
memorial services (plus a few
others); I'd done my grieving. Or so
I thought. Until I came to the panel
for a Deautiful. talented man I'd
known who died on Memorial Day,
1987, at age thirty, two weeks after
being diagnosed. Then it hit me like
running into a brick wall, or like the
sharp chest pain the Boston
Marathon runner encounters on
"Heartbreak Hill."
NATIONAL AIDS NETWORK
SKILLS BUILDING
October 20-23.1988
Hotel Inter-Continental New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
For more information or to receive a Skills Building Conference
registration package, write to:
The National AIDS Network
1012 14th Street, N.W. Suite 601, Washington, DC 20005, Attn: Skills Conference
Your New Friends on the Block
Blue Goose
919 E. Paisano
at St. Vrain
(Block east of the OP)
open Wednesday - Sunday
5pm - 2am
Now You Have a Choice
The organizers seemed to be
everywhere at all times, and I
cannot fathom how they did It. We
volunteers, who mosUy worked four
or five hours at a stretch, were on
enough of an emotional roller-
coaster as It was. But we found we
could put our own feelings aside
most of the time as we helped
someone find a particular panel, or
talked quietly about the NAMES
Project and what it meant with
someone waiting In theline. I did
much of my private grieving in the
depths of the night, waking up
aroung three A.M.. thinking about
what I'd seen on the previous day's
stint, wondering where I was going
to get the strength for the next one.
Or dampening my pillow with
healing tears over the beauty and
love emenatlng from the quilt itself;
or with tears of rage and frustration;
or some nameless deep sorrow
which comes when a human
situation Is unbearable, yet has to
be borne.
During the last five hours of the
exhibit, on Sunday afternoon, I
roamed the floor of the Plaza Castle,
walkie-talkie In hand, as the "quilt
captain" for half the display. My Job
was to encourage, support, and
relieve the wonderful, caring women
and men who carried one of the
roughest emotional burden,
monitoring a quilt section. I
frequently Joined them in handing
out paper tissues and supportive
hugs to those overcome witn grief.
Most of us volunteers had never met
before, but we worked together in
love, knowing that this experience
would both teach us and transform
us.
The quilt Is not going to cure
AIDS or end discrimination or
change .the world; we have to do
that ourselves. But It Is the single
most effective educational device
toward humanizing the effect of the
epidemic that I have so far seen. In
its very awesomeness. its beauty,
and the collective human
investment It represents. It teaches
us a variant of Cajnus' famous
dictum. That is. the task for our
day, and through the sad times to
come, is to love and to create. In the
very midst of the desert. For what I
learned as a NAMES Project
volunteer is that love can overcome
even the sharpness of death, can
successfully challenge death's
dominion. The quilt teaches that
love is ultimately stronger than
death itself, and we have to hold
onto that.
Through this experience also I
have been enabled to enter more
deeply into the pain of younger gay
men In their twenties and thirties,
who have buried more of their
friends in the last few years tha
their grandmothers have, who fear
their own risks, who have lived
more closely with IADS than I ever
will. The quilt experience has
strengthened my belief that we
never really lose those whom we
have loved, that they are in some
sense still there for us. Through the
NAMES Project we not only come to
know their names, but in some
sense we are all able to be there for
them still. At seven P.M. on Sunday
night, as those of us still In the
building Joined hands around the
quilt and observed a moment of
reverent silence, we knew that we
had to keep being there for them,
and for all those living with AIDS,
and for each other.
The reporter had the sequence
wrong. First you write your story.
Then you cry your eyes out.
Gay pulse
PUBLISHER
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Belinda Renteria
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Curtis Bryant Crawford
CONTRIBUTORS
Rose Qulntana
Steve Warren
ADVERTISING
Advertising space should be
reserved by the 10th ofthe
month prior to publication.
Ad copy Is due by the 15th.
Advertising rates and data are
available by calling
915/833-1878
SUBSCRIPTIONS
$10 for 12 issues. Send check
or money order with name.
address, city, state and
ZIP code lo:
Gaypulse Subscriptions
P.O. Box 13280
El Paso. TX 79913
GAYPULSE is published monthly by PULSE PUBLISHING al El Paso. Publication of the name,
photograph, or advertisement, of any person or or
ganization in articles or advertising in GAYPULSE
is not necessarily an indication ol sexual onentalion
or endorsement ol GAYPULSE and its readers.
Opinions expressed by writers are riot necessarily
those of the publisher. We reserve the right to edit
or reject all material and it becomes the property ot
GAYPULSE Anonymous letters or statements will
not be published. Names will he withheld, if
requested. All copy, text display, photo8 and lllus-
trations in advertisements are published with the
understanding that the advertiser is fully authorized and has secured proper written consent for
the use of names, pictures, o' testimonials of any
living person, and GAYPULSE may lawfully publish,
and the advertiser agrees by submitting said ads to
indemnify and save Wameles; the publisher from any
liability, loss, or expense ol any nature arising out of
such publication or any error ,tiar may be contained
in said ad GAYPULSE does not accept responsibility for any claims made by advertisers The.entire
contents of each issue of GAYPULSE are protected under the Federal Copyright Act, and may not be
reproduced without express written permission
©1987 Printed in the USA.
Member: Gay & Usblan Press Association
GAYPULSE / August 1988
|
