Of Butterflies and Buses

At one level I do not see too much difference between waiting for one’s basic human rights to be granted and waiting for a bus. Both are made up of everyday moments which are no less precious for the fact that they must be lived in a state of limbo. Of course thankfully people are not required to wait for a bus for eight years (the length of time my American same-sex partner and I have been waiting for the right to live together in America as a bi-national couple) and if they were most of course would simply walk away from the bus stop and seek other means of transport to their destination. Or perhaps another destination.
There might be some however who, knowing only this bus could take them where they wanted to go, would defiantly stay the course and perhaps to begin with they would march in circles around the bus-stop waving banners that protested loudly their right to ride that particular bus to that particular place. Maybe some would stand upon the seat in the bus-stop and loudly address passers by , urging them to see the injustice they were facing.
In time these defiant ones, having stayed at the bus stop secure in the knowledge that one day their bus would come, might find that they were becoming very tired from walking in circles carrying flags and banners for years and that their voices were hoarse from crying out for their rights to a public who seemed barely to notice. Around that time they might begin to notice the intense colour of the blades of grass that pushed their way up from between cracks in the pavement. They may catch sight of the grace with which a butterfly alighted upon the bus-stop railing. They may notice that such seemingly irrelevant everyday moments were beginning to sustain and strengthen their resolve to hold on. The focus from that moment on might shift to ensuring that when their bus finally arrived (as they knew it would) they were not enraged, embittered or worn down by the struggle but so vital and beautiful of soul that they could truly relish and give thanks for, that long awaited ride!

The Great Love Of My Life & Me

Gay Pride New York City 2001

Freedom

Following September 11th 2001 I frequently heard the comment from prominent Americans "They (the perpetrators of this horror) want to hurt us because we are free!"

Freedom is relative of course and many in the world might rightly consider my American partner free. But when I turn to wave to her one last time at the airport as I reluctantly leave America and I see her tear-stained face nothing will convince me that she is free!

Love is All I Know in New York City

Below is an excerpt from my journal recorded in the days that followed 9-11-2001

"There is no place to hide from this pain. From here in New Zealand I watch televised images of New Yorkers pleading for news of lost loved ones. How is it possible to respond to such horror? I search desperately for something to hold firm to and find it there in a sea of tiny flickering candles resting in hands cupped in gentle repose. How else can any of us hope to repel this unseen enemy than with the greatest weapon of all. Love.

Love is all I know in New York city.

Just weeks before horror ripped through this vibrant city I flew home to New Zealand from New York. As I left this city of tall slender spires that beamed with a burnished pride before the morning sunlight the ache of separation forced on us as a same-sex couple by American immigration law weighted me down into my seat and enveloped my heart in a fog of grief. A year earlier I had met for the first time the handsome and eccentric New Yorker who was to change the shape of my future irrevocably. This woman swept me up into an unchoreographed dance that traversed the depths and heights of New York city, acquainting me intimately with a face of this metropolis that tourists never see. And with romance New York style!

We had snowball fights late at night as we stepped out to buy coffee icecream, our delighted laughter echoing through the streets and drawing knowing smiles of approval from onlookers. New Yorkers, it seemed to me, love a lover. We embraced freely on pavements rendered silent by a delicate flurry of snowflakes that melted as they settled on the warmth of our lips. She presented me proudly with a huge bouquet of fresh (if somewhat bedraggled!) flowers which she had found atop the piles of garbage that lined the city streets that night and proclaimed “Don’t say I never give you flowers!!!“ We ate black bean ice cream at 3am as we drove from Chinatown to the caverns of Wall Street and she proudly introduced me to her old stamping ground ... the area that now lies in smouldering ruins. We walked the pavements of this metropolis as if they were our playground. We made it ours as New York has, through the decades, implored all lovers to do.

Months later, when eventually we emerged from the chrysalis that is new love, we began to become aware of an immoveable wall that existed beween us; American immigration law. Together again briefly in summer we defiantly held aloft the flags of our dual nations as we marched 65 blocks through Manhattan in the Gay Pride march, beneath the bright yellow banner imprinted with the words "Stop deporting our partners!".

Today I sit here alone in New Zealand, the phone in my hand. Far away in New York city she sleeps with her phone next to her on the pillow. The only comfort I am free to offer her is to listen to the sounds of her sleeping. I am prevented from returning to her by that immoveable wall and like all New Yorkers she is now locked in a daily battle against fear. The threat of further terrorist attacks looms ever larger. But behind that battle which she shares with so many others is a battle which she fights alone. A battle for that most basic of human rights; the right to stand beside the one you love at a time of immense collective grief. I am reduced to watching CNN from ten thousand miles away, desperately hoping for even the briefest glimpse of her face amongst the crowds.

Neither of us knows when I will be able to return to her. The likelihood of America’s borders now becoming even more difficult to penetrate looms ever larger, even for those such as myself, who come bearing only love. Yet we are aware too that we have much to be thankful for. Ours is but one story and New York is today the city of thousands of stories of lovers cruelly torn apart. As a couple who abandoned themselves to the love story that is New York city we cry for that scarred cityscape where our own joyful laughter will forever linger. And we cry desperately for those couples whose separation will span not just months, as ours does, but fully into eternity. "

Katherine

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.”

Katherine Mansfield