two by two

Last summer's tomatoes were ridiculously beautiful. Heirloom varieties whose labels and lineages I've forgotten. They were planted in my garden by the tiny house renter living on our property. The appeal was their vibrancy and uniqueness. Each a surprise in flavor; the outsides didn't always match the insides in the most remarkable ways. With just the right amount of overwatering, they overflowed the vines to the point of madness. So I boxed them up and took them to the gym that my youngest child trains in. 

The place we grew up together.

The box was empty instantly, so I brought in more to share. I had requests for seeds and offers to trade or even buy more. Had they been perfectly round and store shelf red, I suspect the result wouldn't have been the same.  

I don't like tomatoes. I wish I did. But not preferring to encounter them between a thin slice of salty ham and a crips piece of butter lettuce on a sandwich doesn't stop me from appreciating them. I grow them in my garden and care for them the same as I do the plants I love to eat.

One year ago today, our youngest daughter, the gymnast, posted on social media a heartfelt proclamation of love for her girlfriend; and out into the world their love went. What she didn't know was that her dad had already outed her. We were 161 miles away in Wells, Nevada. Drinking whiskey with strangers under a wide-open blue sky in Bishop Hot Springs. Otherwise known as 12-Mile Hot Springs.

The strangers were gold miners. Rough men paid to crawl into the belly of the earth to disembowel her. Suddenly I heard my partner, who is always unpredictable, with his big work-worn hand out of the bottle say, "my daughter's girlfriend.... yeah, my daughter has a girlfriend." I was surprised and a little nervous, anticipating the reaction of such men, but the conversation continued. So did the whiskey and the hot water and the endless Nevada sky.

It's hard to imagine people hating someone because of how and who they love. It's hard for me to understand that there are people who believe it's their right to judge and punish. That organized religions have lined their God up to hate the variety that blooms in "his" garden. 

What the fuck are you thinking? You may not pick who you love, but you choose who to hate. 

And they argue that God doesn't hate "them"; he simply doesn't condone their love and beauty. That they could choose to deny themselves all joy and happiness in trade for the hairshirt of shame, and that would make God truly happy. 

This is the trouble with a God made of glass; he is marked by the flaws and shortcomings of his creators.      

Today is the anniversary of us, her proud parents, being out. I word it that way because I have yet to find anyone under twenty who was shocked or even cared she was gay. 

When I'm out shopping, and the sales clerks are glaring at me, wondering what I'm doing in PacSun or Urban, I'll return from staring at the discards of my 1980s closet to my daughter and her girlfriend for credibility. See, it's okay, I have lesbians.  

Then there is the other side of the aisle, where I have to stand ready to defend the sweetest love between two of the most outstanding young people. It's done mostly on tiptoe with a pair of scissors, snipping at strings. The blade will either unbind the minds and hearts of those who judge or cut us free of them. Because this is my child. 

"Be careful who you hate; they might be someone you love."

It feels like a giant wave is rolling over the earth. It's dividing the old from the new, a flood of biblical proportion. Those who choose kindness and hope will get on a magical boat large enough to hold all the different species of love and life the world has to offer. Those who refuse to listen, the ones too busy mocking the boatbuilders to hear the change in the wind, will drown in the water of darkness and hate. 

It's an old story for a new time, and if you've never read it yourself >spoiler alert< it ends with a big ass rainbow. If we're lucky again this summer, the rain will help provide the water for the varieties we plant in the soil and once again fill our garden with tomatoes.