photo credit(note: photo NOT of actual subjects)
Years ago, I became friends with two lovely young girls who worked on the night cleaning crew at my old job. We introduced ourselves with shy smiles over an emptied trash can and over time, something just clicked. We began to share stories (as best as we could through broken Spanish and English) and our talks turned from language lessons into a kind of sisterhood.
They welcomed me into their home, cooked wonderful meals like homemade flan and chicken mole and surrounded me with the kindness, warmth and generosity so characteristic of Mexican culture.
This story is about a mortifyingly embarrassing incident that happened when I helped them move into their new home.
They rented a basement apartment in a home full of other college students. On move-in day, I tried to explain in terribly broken Spanish that they might want to keep their bedroom door closed so no one would "think the wrong thing" if they saw the single tiny, obviously shared, bed. I didn't care that they slept together but I worried they might be treated harshly by homophobic roommates.
It took a long time for me to communicate this.
In my earnestness to protect them from possible prejudice, I pantomimed sex with my hands as stick figures, motioning towards the bed and then pointing out the lack of privacy (since anyone could walk through anytime).
They looked at me blankly, their beautiful dark eyes wide with innocence and eagerness to understand.
I kept working over the motions. Over and over again, the stick figures tangled together in unspeakably graphic acts (for stick figures) while other stick figures walked in on the scene, shocked.
Eventually one of them cocked her head. "Ah," she said, "I understand."
Satisfied, I smiled and relaxed, feeling the warmth that comes with connection and philanthropy, and drove home.
Then I found out they were lesbians.
Already familiar with the obstacles in society gay people face, they had told me they were related when we first met. And I never thought otherwise.
Frak.
I had just instructed two lovers NOT to sleep together.
I probably sounded like the exact homophobe I'd been railing against. I was horrified! Me, with my firm belief in equality, that love should be celebrated, that all people are equal and deserve to pursue happiness. My stick figures hung their heads in shame.
CRINGE.
Growing up Jewish, I have some sensitivity to what it's like to be an outsider.
It can be easier to be a minority if what makes you different doesn't stand out. (Although once in line at a supermarket, a woman in front of me gestured angrily at the slow cashier and remarked, "Those Italians? Almost as bad as them Jews!" (Incidentally, insulting both my nationality [or at least one of them] AND my religion.) But any judgment passed from one human being to another saddens me. And these two sweet girls were not immune.
When my Mexican friends turned to me, hurt at the cold shoulders and unfriendly attitudes of their peers, I didn't have words to explain this harsh aspect of human nature. "It's ignorance," I said gently, wishing the world were kinder. "Ah," they replied, nodding. "Ignorancia."
And that's how our lessons often went.
This story ends well. I cringed. They laughed at me affectionately and forgave me for my own ignorancia. And innocence. And all was right with the world.
But that's the last time I butt into anyone's sleeping arrangements! ;)
__________________
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