Love is Love.

Dear Daphne,

I rolled out of bed on a chilly October morning in 1995 and planted my cold feet on the industrial dorm room carpet of my little corner of the Mudge B Basement, lamenting having let my mother talk me into taking The History of Psychoactive Drug Use in America.

(A tip for the future, Daffodil: Take interesting classes. Just not the ones that start at 8:30 a.m.)

My eyes, goopy with sleep, blinked sluggishly at the pile of clothes on the floor of my barely-closeable closet. I pulled on my favorite hoodie (green plaid with a bright red Elmo embroidered on the front—I didn’t come by any fashion sense until a few years later), squeezed into my button-fly Levis, and sank onto my desk chair to pull on a pair of fluffy wool socks.

I was just about to grab my sneakers when I happened to glance at the wrinkled flyer sitting next to my keyboard. My stomach sank. I consulted the clock. Ten after eight. I was going to be late for class, but I had to change clothes. I simply could not leave the dorm like this. The idea of walking across campus, passing other students, risking them thinking—no. It was unacceptable.

I changed in record time and practically sprinted across The Cut, my backpack bouncing off my pea coat, my brown corduroys whisk-whisking with every step.

And so went my first Gay Jeans Day.

The only explanation I can offer for my actions that day is that I was a freshman living north of the Mason Dixon line for the first time in my conscious memory. Growing up in Texas, I didn’t know anything about homosexuality. My only experience with A Gay was one time, sophomore year, when a kid named Jim in my Creative Writing class passed me a note detailing a dirty dream he’d had the night before about my boyfriend and me. I’d been so disgusted, I ratted him out to my boyfriend, who wanted to sic the football team on him, then ratted him out to my mother, who marched me into the principal’s office, after which Jim was expelled for three days. Jim was our grade’s token open bisexual, and while he probably shouldn’t have written that note, looking back, he certainly didn’t need the shit storm that came his way after I went whining to the administration.

At college, there were gay people everywhere. They walked across campus holding hands. They kissed in public. They didn’t even seem to mind if people knew they were gay. And, they tricked straight kids into wearing jeans, so they’d look gay too! What kind of crazy place had I landed myself?!?

Gay Jeans Day was pretty brilliant. It made straight people think about how others would react to their choice of clothing in relation to their perceived sexual orientation, and it allowed them to experience having to change their normal behavior in order to avoid being perceived as gay. More importantly, it made people like me deliberately wear another piece of clothing, effectively forcing me to do something to actively engage in homophobia. And believe me when I tell you that I thought all day long about the choice I’d made that morning.

Sitting in class, I looked around at my peers. That guy I had a crush on? The one with the really hot girlfriend? Jeans. The three sorority girls who sat behind me every day, boobs popping out of tight v-neck Kappa Alpha Theta t-shirts? Jeans. Except for a couple of fashionable girls in short skirts and knee-high boots, and a geeky guy wearing hunter green Wal-Mart chinos and white sneakers, all of my classmates were wearing jeans. Were they gay? Straight? Was I the only one who cared?

By the end of the semester, I’d made the first gay friends I’d ever had, and when Gay Jeans Day rolled around each successive semester, I didn’t think twice about donning my favorite pair in support of my friends. But I always wondered about the people who didn’t wear jeans. Had they done it on purpose? Were they homophobes? Did they have the good grace to be embarrassed?

It is November of 2009 as I type this letter. Last month, President Obama signed into law what, for the last ten years or so, has been casually known as the Matthew Shepard Act, making it a federal offense to do violence against another human being because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender or political affiliation. I can’t believe it has taken so long.

Sometime after midnight on October 7, 1998, a 21-year-old kid named Matthew Shepard met two guys in a bar. They offered him a ride in their car, then robbed him, beat him, tortured him, and tied him to a fence where they left him to die. He was discovered there eighteen hours later, alive but comatose, by a man who, at first, thought he was a scarecrow. Matthew had fractures in the back of his skull, and in front of his right ear. His brain stem was damaged, so his body could not regulate his heart rate or temperature. Doctors could not operate to save his life, because his injuries were too severe, and on October 12, he was pronounced dead. All because a couple of dipshit rednecks found his attraction to other men repulsive.

This morning, I woke to the news that the people of Maine voted to reject a state law that would have allowed same-sex couples to get married. This breaks my heart. Can you imagine how sad you would feel if someone told you that you couldn’t marry the person you love, because your love doesn’t count the same as other people’s? In all of the United States, only five states allow gay couples the right to marry: Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Vermont perform and recognize gay marriages today, and New Hampshire will join civilized people in rejecting bigotry starting in January 2010. I very much hope that one day soon, the people of the state of Pennsylvania, and the rest of the United States of America will follow suit, choosing to embrace love instead of turning it away when it’s “different”.

A few months ago, I asked some of my gay friends to tell me about their love lives, so that I could use their experiences to teach my daughter about love in all its forms. I want you to understand that it doesn’t matter who you love, only that you love. I am saving their responses for you to read, but I thought I would share some of their thoughts here.

From Amy, a gorgeous, smart, creative defender of justice in Ohio:

“I’m gay because, just like everyone else, I want to make a home full of love, and I have love.”

“I believe that the best way to instill, and secure, a foundation of pure love for our fellow sisters and brothers is found in the way we carry ourselves. Preaching is not the answer. Our highest moments of intellectual persuasion do not, and should not, apply in this context. There is no room for argument. There is only room for unadulterated love, and in its most rudimentary manifestation.”

“Getting people to stop hating, and to start loving, is an art form. It is manipulation. Arguments do not win arguments; the refusal to argue, however, and to remain steadfast in your presentation of self, is what you want to remember when you wake up in the morning. This is the art, the manipulation to create Good.”

“Love begets love.”

From Mike, one of your father’s fraternity brothers who has a fearless determination to be exactly who he is:

“I can’t really explain to you why I’m a man and I love another man and want to spend the rest of my life with him, the way your Mom and Dad love each other and live together as a family with you. All kinds of doctors and scientists have been trying to figure out why sometimes men love men and women love women and they haven’t done a very good job of answering the question, so I don’t feel too bad about not being able to answer the question either. You see, it doesn’t really matter why it happens. All that matters is that you remember that everyone has a right to be happy in this world, to love who they want to love, sing what they want to sing, wear what they want to wear.”

“Don’t force anyone to think or act like you, and don’t let anyone else change what you think is the right way. If, when you’re a bit older, you think you want to marry a boy, you go right ahead. If you think you want to marry a girl, then that’s the path you should follow. Just follow your heart, because I can tell you that it always seems to know the right way to go.”

“When you can look inside people, you will know that we are all much more alike than different.”

As I know I’ve mentioned before, one of my greatest hopes for you is that you have love in your life. That love can come in so many different ways, and I wish with all I’ve got that you know how to recognize it in all its forms, and that you don’t turn it away out of fear or apprehension. Take love when it comes to you, and encourage others to do the same. Do not judge, or attempt to measure the worth of the love in your life or the lives of other people. Just be happy it’s there at all.

I look forward to witnessing all the love I know you’ll have in your heart.

Love,
Mom

One Year

Dear Daphne,

One year ago today, your father and I stood in front of our friends and family and promised each other respect, friendship and love for the rest of our lives. So far, so good.

It was hotter that day than we expected it to be, and of course Dad was wearing a black wool tuxedo. We were both trying to listen to the Reverend Sutton talk about marriage being a spiritual enterprise, and how the highest spiritual purpose is the embodiment of—yeah. That wasn’t happening. Your dad’s hands were starting to fidget, and his already squinty brown eyes were nearly closed from the effort of trying to keep a pea-sized bead of sweat from dripping off his eyebrow. My dress was sleeveless, and I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable he must have been wearing two layers of long sleeves.

Daphne, if ever you see someone you love suffering with discomfort, large or small, and you can do something to help, then help. Completely without thinking, I reached up to wipe the sweat from dad’s brow. Sure, our wedding guests chuckled a little. But of all of the photos taken that day, this is one of my favorites.

Your father and I hope for so many things for you. At the top of that list is someone to love. Someone who loves you back. A sidekick, a partner in crime, a best friend. Someone who loves you when you’re grumpy, when you’re sad, when you’re lazy, when you have gas and fart so much the whole room smells like a summer camp outhouse.

Someone who will wear two layers of wool for you in eighty degree heat. Someone who will keep the sweat from stinging your eyes.

Today marks the first anniversary of the best thing I’ve ever done, and I hope with all of my heart that your dad feels the same way. I can’t imagine my life without him. In a lot of ways, I feel like you and I already know each other. You’ve been living inside me for 35 weeks now. You know what I feel like, how I sound when I’m happy, and sad, and angry and tired. I can’t wait for you to meet your father, Daphne. He’s one of the greatest men I’ve ever known.

Love,
Mom

Play anything, just play it loud!

Dear Daphne,

One of the coolest things that you can learn to do is play a musical instrument. If you choose wisely, it is a hobby that will stay with you all of your life and can be a great outlet. I learned to play the viola starting at a fairly young age, and it was a really rewarding experience. Not only did I learn to make music, but it gave me the opportunity to do some traveling when I got a little older and joined a competitive orchestra. I was in an orchestra that played in colonial Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, and several other neat locations. It was a fantastic way to make friends from other areas and it looked great on a college application.

But the fun didn’t stop there; I also played in my high school orchestra. Naturally this led to more trips for adjudication, but perhaps more importantly, our orchestra accompanied the high school musicals. This was doubly fun, because not only did we have a great time hanging around during rehearsals and generally being a nuisance to the theatre director, but we got to perform for the entire community. Most people (parents notwithstanding) don’t take the time to come and watch the high school orchestra play, but everyone goes to the musicals. It was a great way to show off our skill, without being front and center like the drama students were.

As much fun as I had playing the viola, I have to recommend that you pick a cooler instrument. The secret is in choosing one that has appeal other than in academic circles. Maybe you will want to play in the marching band. The atmosphere they create at football games is lots of fun and since your will be your mother and father’s daughter, we can assume you will love football. And the marching band always had good seats for the game.

Or better yet, maybe you will want to play in a rock band. One of my closest friends when I was younger played guitar in several garage bands and also played in the high school orchestra, which gave him the best of both worlds. My cousin Bradley (you know him as Uncle Brad) was also quite an accomplished guitarist. His band was pretty popular and they played shows all over Pittsburgh. Going to watch his band play was always really fun and the bottom line is that he looked really cool doing it. As an added bonus, he asked if he can be responsible for your musical education, so start bugging him about that as soon as you read this!

Guitar is not the only instrument with this double appeal. You could take up the drums (and since I will have to live with you as you learn, I can not believe that I am recommending this) or the bass guitar, which has a counterpart in the upright bass for the orchestra. But ultimately, it is up to you, and your mom and I will always be in the audience to watch you play (but if you choose the flute, I am so buying noise canceling headphones).

Love,
Dad

Pittsburgh

Dear Daphne,

I grew up staring with pop-eyed adoration at a photograph hanging in my parents’ bathroom. You can tell when a photograph is old, because the colors change. Sometimes they fade, or turn brown or yellow, and shudder with a rippley sort of warp, like they’ve been stored in a hot house. This photograph was blue. Two indigo rivers converged at the point of an azure park, where a turquoise fountain spat frothy water like the skin on top of a pitcher of Berry Blue Kool-Aid. Rigid, navy buildings stood like sentinels around the grassy park. To my Texas-kid imagination, it was the mythical “big city” of my birth. Pittsburgh. I always knew I’d eventually go back.

My dad and I made the twenty-six hour drive from Houston to Pittsburgh in two days, listening to a mix tape my friend Scott made for the trip. I lost it sometime after arriving at college, and I can’t remember all the songs, but I’ll never forget listening to American Pie over and over again, hitting pause once in a while so Dad could explain the meaning behind the lyrics. He told me about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper that snow-stormy February night in 1959, and how, when everyone found out the next morning, that day became known as “the day the music died.” I never hear that song without thinking about that road trip with my dad, and when they played it at my wedding reception, I stood arm in arm with him, swaying with the music, both of us singing at the top of our voices.

I felt so alone when my dad left me at Carnegie Mellon. So many nights, I just wanted to go home. I kept telling myself that if I could make it to Christmas Break, finish my first semester, I didn’t have to go back. Sure, the leaves went Technicolor around October, and that was cool, walking to class, kicking up a flurry of crimson, copper, caramel. But my roommates were prettier than me, more sophisticated, more self-assured, just . . . more. I was their geeky pet virgin, trying too hard, always trying. Never quite succeeding at what they achieved so effortlessly. I dashed off a missive about college life, about being a lonely girl a long way from home, and e-mailed it to some friends. They e-mailed it to some friends, who e-mailed it to some friends, and soon I started to get e-mails from other lonely college kids, all over the world. I started to feel a little less isolated, stabbing away at my keyboard late at night, talking to a Johns Hopkins student, Dan, from Pittsburgh. Perhaps I’ll tell you about him when you’re older. He gave me my first (and as of today, my only) Terrible Towel and taught me how to love Pittsburgh.

Dan took me to the top of Mt. Washington, and showed me the view of the skyline through the eyes of a homesick young man who wanted nothing more than to live in the city he loved. He took me to the South Side, where we drank Iron City in a bar called McCann’s, even though we were just eighteen. We ate a basketful of greasy fries from the O, gorged ourselves on candy from a shop in Market Square. He taught me about Pittsburghese, and about Myron Cope, and about the Steelers. And about One for the Thumb.

The Steelers broke my heart for the first time in Super Bowl XXX. I sat in cross-legged, lip-chewing anticipation in a TV room in Mudge House, alone, clutching my Terrible Towel in sweating fists. We were halfway through the third quarter, trailing 13-7 when Larry Brown intercepted a Neil O’Donnell pass that wasn’t even close to the nearest Steelers receiver, and everything went downhill from there. The Steelers lost, 27-17. We didn’t get another shot at a ring until 2006.

It was worth the wait, because that year, we won. It had been a disappointing season, to say the least. We finished the regular season with an 11-5 record, and I didn’t think we had a snowball’s chance in hell of making it through our first playoff game. Every time we won and advanced to the next round, I walked around all the next day dumbfounded, like someone had hit me in the head with a shovel and I was just getting around to wondering why it hurt. On Super Bowl Sunday, your dad and I watched the first half of the game at home, not expecting much. But by halftime, when it looked like we might actually pull this off, we decided to relocate to the South Side. We drank and screamed our way through the second half, and when the clock wound down, we launched ourselves out the front door of the Hkan and ran howling into East Carson Street. Along with half the city. Snow had begun to fall about halfway through the fourth quarter, and thousands of Steelers fans, drunk on Yuengling and long-sought vindication, slipped and slid their way down the asphalt, waving Terrible Towels in a cacophony of black and gold exuberance.

Then, two years later, we did it again. And four months after that, the Penguins beat Detroit on their ice to end the NHL playoffs. When you get older and people ask you when you were born, we hope you’ll tell them with lots of Pittsburgh pride, “I was born in 2009, the year Pittsburgh won the Super Bowl AND the Stanley Cup.” We especially encourage you to say this to people from Arizona and Detroit. Or really, to anyone who will listen.

The way I see it, Pittsburgh gave me everything I have today. Would I be me if I’d been conceived on another day, in another city? Or would I have been some other girl (or boy?!?) with slightly different features or a different color hair? If my parents hadn’t had that old photograph of Pittsburgh hanging on the bathroom wall, I probably wouldn’t have even thought about Carnegie Mellon when it was time to choose a college. And without Carnegie Mellon, I would never have found the Kappa Delta Rho house (a whole other set of stories that I’ll leave to your father), or met some of the best friends I’ve ever had. Most importantly, I never would have met your Dad. And without him, there can’t really be a you, can there? Without Pittsburgh, none of us would be here. So love your city as much we do, for giving us our life together.

Love,
Mom

Mommy Sucks.

Dear Daphne,

Please remind me that I should never be too busy to write you a letter, or play with you, or read to you, or whatever. Work is not THAT important. I've been thinking a lot about what to write to you, and I promise I'll do it this week.

Love,
Mom

On Being Bookish

Dear Daphne,

As you grow up in whatever homes our family inhabits, you will no doubt encounter the stacks upon stacks of books that your mother and I have collected over the years. The collection has grown year by year since before you were born, and will doubtless continue long after you have children of your own to read with. Frequently our book purchases outstrip our purchasing of bookshelves and the collection runs two rows deep. I like to think that we are hiding buried treasure for those brave enough to peruse the overstocked shelves. Ultimately, there is a very simple reason for the abundance of books in our life: reading is one of the most fantastic lifelong hobbies that a person can develop.

Your mother and I have loved books across genres innumerable. Modern literature, fantasy, science fiction, revisionist history, mythology, children’s literature, the classics, the works of the beat generation; we have called all of these friends, and always made room for more within the walls of our home. I think that might be part of the allure that books have always held for me. You can travel to the world of ancient Greece to fight alongside Perseus one afternoon, and be traveling across the stars with Zaphod Beeblebrox by the next morning. I strongly encourage you to read something from every genre. Being a well rounded reader makes it easier to find your way through the world and relate to new things in your own life.

I can say with certainty that by the time you read this, your love of books will have developed to the point where you are silently nodding to yourself as you read this thinking “thank god Dad gets it!” Well, I am proud to say that dear old Dad (and Mom too) aren’t the only ones who get it. Love of reading is almost a genetic assurance given your ancestry. My own mother once said to me that “a book is like an old friend and coming back to reread them is like visiting.” This statement really hit home with me, and I think of it frequently when I get nostalgic for books that I have not seen in many years.

But Grandma Collins is not the only other avid reader you know. Both of your grandparents on your mom’s side, as well as your Aunt Amanda and Uncle Paul have a love of books. My Dad reads more and more as the years go by and my grandparents helped instill a love of reading in me at a young age. Lots of our close family friends are voracious readers and we have all helped to introduce new books to each other’s lives. Each of us has slightly different tastes and you will be able get valuable guidance on your favorites from these family and friends. As you visit their homes, always be sure to browse their bookshelves. This is something I always do in the homes of my friends. You never know when you will discover something that you and a friend didn’t know you had in common. Perhaps even more importantly, you may find a new close friend among those vertically stacked spines lining the bookshelf.

Basically Daphne dearest, this entire lesson can be boiled down to one simple sentence, and I hope that the truth of it is as apparent to you as it has always been to me. “It doesn’t matter what you read, only that you do.”

Love,

Dad

Be Yourself. Trite, But True.

Dear Daphne,

Don't ever let anyone make you feel like you're not good enough. You are awesome, and they are wrong. When I was younger, I always tried to make myself into what other people wanted me to be. I wanted to be what other people thought was cool, what other people thought was pretty, and what other people thought was smart. I didn't realize until I got older that most other people didn't know any more about cool, pretty or smart than I did.

Surround yourself with people who think you're great, and who think they're great, too. People who don't like themselves will usually try to make you dislike yourself. You don't have time for people like that.

Mean kids might make fun of your name. They may tease you because you share a name with a girl from Scooby Doo, an old cartoon from when I was a kid. Try not to let this bother you. Instead, smile and remind those ass hats that Daphne was the coolest chick on the show.

Be smart. One day, you're going to meet someone, maybe several someones, who try to tell you that smart girls aren't attractive. This is a lie. I have never met a guy (or a girl, if that's how you turn out) worth a damn who didn't think that smart girls were the hottest thing going. If you have to get glasses, wear them with pride. But pick a cute pair. Being a nerd doesn't mean you can't look your best.

Remember that there is nothing wrong with being a nerd. Some of the coolest things in life are nerdy: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Dollhouse, The Wheel of Time series, Wired Magazine, The History Channel, video games, Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, anime, manga, The Discovery Channel, Carnegie Mellon, Buggy, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog and Weezer all kick serious ass.

Speaking of Weezer, there's a song that sums all of this up nicely. The chorus goes like this:

I'mma do the things that I wanna do
I ain't got a thing to prove to you
I'll eat my candy with the pork and beans
Excuse my manners if I make a scene
I ain't gonna wear the clothes that you like
I'm fine and dandy with the me inside
One look in the mirror
And I'm tickled pink
I don't give a hoot about what you think


I'm so proud to be your mother, and I think you're the greatest kid on the planet.

Love,
Mom

P.S. It is also perfectly acceptable to your father and me if you decide that you're NOT a nerd. You can be whatever you want to be. Except a Mean Girl. More on those later.