Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1999 13:51:13 -0400
Subject: THE FINAL ROBERTS' RULES

ROBERTS' RULES

by

Shelly Roberts



SAY GOODNIGHT, GRACEFULLY.




Dear Editors and Friends,

"There comes a time, the walrus said . . ."

Sometime back in 1995 or 1996, (it's been a busy decade, and when you've
been doing this for ten years, all the details and some of the dates can
blur) a phenomenon occurred. A gay organization, convened to tackle a
particular and specific problem, succeeded. And disbanded.

It was such an unusual occurrence in our lives as glbt activists that I
remember commenting on it then. Our habit has been, for the most part,
otherwise. Particularly if we are successful. When we find, it seems, a
niche and an accepting circle, a small piece of importance in our
like-minded community, so long isolated, so long shunned, we are loath to
dispossess ourselves. So as a result we have a proliferation of
self-important organizations and persona who require the personal prominence
in spite of evaporating purpose.

Ten years and nearly two hundred and sixty columns ago, in a time when, if
you were us, being ashamed and isolated was an expectation, I read one more
publication of ours too many, too full of badly written angst. Full of guilt
induction and index-finger pointing at my nose. Full of depressing
self-continuing oppression. So I undertook to offer my own do-something
opinions, tempered with humor, and my conviction that we suffered
desperately from four thousand years of very bad PR. I knew then that I was
no one's abomination. And I was pretty clear back then that you weren't
either.

That was a million readers ago.

It was a lot easier to write that way when most of us were hidden. When
forty-year olds lived in terror of ex-communication from families, when we
lost any election with our name in it, when the AMA and the APA agreed with
the AFA that we were all sick puppies in need of a cure. I wanted you, in
case you didn't remember, to recall your own goodness, no matter what the
papers, or your relatives may have called you. And I wanted you to know that
you weren't alone. I wanted you to join me in the sun, so that all those
dank closets could stop isolating us from each other. I did it every other
week for just a few months shy of a decade. And you know what? It looks like
I've succeeded.

So this will be my last Roberts' Rules column.

I hope I made a tiny difference in your life with something I said, or
thought, or quoted. I hope I made you laugh somewhere along the timeline at
something you used to take so deadly serious. And in that laughter, made a
hairline crack in the rigidity of your fear. I hope that even once I made
you gasp, or cry at yet another overwhelming immorality against us, and in
that air vent, or weep, a dam of indignation inside you burst. I hope I made
you stop and see your personal plight as something bigger, and ever so much
more than just your own damn fault or problem.

I have met and made some wonderful friends along this 116-month journey.
Some I've yet to shake hands with, and some as close as family who have
stood beside me in the stead of my blood relations' own indifference or
hostility.

But lately I find that I'm bi-weekly beginning to repeat myself all over
again in the hunt for universal truths. Or am searching too hard for tragedy
to exaggerate in the face of waning indignation. So I think it's a perfect
place to call a halt. Now. Before I find myself merely carping and
complaining at our dissolution, as our goals are further more accomplished.
To continue, only so that I could "shout my name the livelong day to an
admiring bog." is beyond my purpose, and beside my intention.

Oh, I won't quit writing forever about us. There's a book of lesbian baby
pictures, called Baby Dykes, due from Alyson next year. And still plenty of
articles that will spontaneously combust. I'll just quit trying to do it
every other Tuesday.

And I won't quit working on our behalf. There was a heart-wrenching letter a
bit ago from the brilliant writer, Victoria Brownsworth, outlining her
illness, abandonment, and destitution that I don't think I'd have had the
guts to write, even if I'd found myself in similar circumstances. Brava,
Victoria. You touched a hotwire nerve, a worst-nightmare fear, in all of us
about our aging. I've begun discussions with some of the wonderful
companions I've acquired in this jaunt about what we can do to change that
for all of us. I'll pay attention there.

And I will join Soulforces with Mel White in a Jerry Falwell visitation that
is searching for another means to settle our life-destroying differences. On
the way to there, I will study Gandhi and Martin Luther King again. And
re-read Sun-Tu, about the art of war, and, no doubt draw some new
conclusions. So I won't disappear entirely from your radar screen. Just
biweekly.

If you find you need a friendly fix of Roberts' Rules, and the addiction
withdrawal overwhelms, log on. (www.qrd.com). You'll find nearly the entire
archive of the decade's chronicle at the Queer Resources Directory.

Before I go, did I remember to say thank you enough? For all you did? We
each did the work in our own way. Something you did saved my life. And I am
forever in your debt. I hope in some small way I returned the favor. It's
been, for me, indeed the Gayest Nineties. And one hell of a ride.

Until we meet again, thank you. I love you. And good-night.

____________________________________
(C) 1999. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved. Must be reprinted only in its
entirety with or without permission.

Shelly Roberts takes email at pollyana@mindspring.com