Divisible-by-3 day!!

12:17 p.m.

Ah...only geeks like myself would think about something like this. Today is March 9, 2006. Or 09/03/06. All divisible by 3. Or, if you prefer, zero day (since 09 minus 03 minus 06 is zero). Or whatever. Point is, I had to put a title on this post and this is the only thing I can think of.

So Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes and his 25-year-long partner John Sproules finally tied the knot on March 7, 2006. There was media coverage by City TV, Global, CTV, CBC....but it was rarely a splash when Marc and I rushed home to see if anything had come up. Only a little ticker text on Pulse 24, and a segment from Global TV (yey, we could see the top of our heads!). But nothing else. Today, I did a google and sure enough, there was an article in the National Post.

I guess it was just as well. Perhaps equality had come far enough where this is really just one of the many weddings that happen now? Or maybe the media was hoping for something really out of the ordinary to happen...something newsworthy? Well, from where I was sitting, all I saw was two people who have loved each other all these years, and finally celebrated it with move love, laughter, and the support of the community which had almost filled the church that evening. There was wonderful music (hey, can you expect nothing less?) and words of wisdom that were both funny and yet so full of truth. It was wonderful to see Brent go through the same things a lot of us did, but mostly to see him hand over the wheels to someone else. We backseat drivers know how that feels.

Should it have been more newsworthy? Should Brokeback Mountain have won the Oscar? While we as rainbow people certainly think that it should be front and centre in a lot of cases, perhaps we should just appreciate the significance of how far we have come. After all, these were things that would've been swept under the carpet not so long ago. While we are not the centrepiece of the universe, we have certainly earned the right to have a seat at the table.

On another note entirely......

Today's news says that the Lord of the Rings musical is now ready for its worldwide premiere. Reviewers are now welcome to critique, praise, deconstruct, do what it is they do. Apparently the show has now been shortened and tightened up, and that triple-interlocking turntable in the centre has been working glitch-free.

Personally, I felt like I was watching the whole movie trilogy on the stage (yes, there were three acts and two intermissions...although we had an unscheduled third intermission when said turntable got stuck). The songs were kinda few and far between; there was music where it made sense, but there didn't seem to be any catchy ones. Hopefully by tightening up the pace it would make it seem more of a musical. The elf queen song is the one to watch out for, though. That, and the big-ass dragon that pops out at the end of Act One.

And on another note again (if I don't watch it, I will wind up going up a whole scale):

Another highlight in our European tour was our visit to the Pantheon. We were fortunate enough to be there when a German mass was being celebrated, and there was a choir. I tell you, the acoustics of the place was so incredible...closing my eyes while listening to the choir transported me to another place and time. I have no words to describe the feeling. Naturally, I thought about the MCC Choir and wondered how we'd sound like in there. Of course, I haven't seen pigs flying past my window yet, so.....

This memory came about when we had dinner with Mike last night, where he talked about his trip with Jean to San Fo and other places with other people. Invariably our conversation turned toward life and death and what it all really means. It is said that coming into life and leaving it are certainly hard, but it's the transition in between that is the hardest. But what is it we fear when we are close to the end? Do we fear loneliness? Certainly, for folks like us, we will only have our partners and friends to care for us and remember us in the end. True, some people say that there will be relatives to help out....personally, though, as much as I would like them to visit me on my birthday and such, I cannot imagine asking the next generation to care for me. They will have their own lives, and of course they will have their own parents to worry about. Certainly I cannot expect them to tend for me since I have not been there for their whole lives to do the same for them. So treasure your partners, and never call your friends "just friends", because really all we will have is each other as time goes by.

What do I fear? Is it the unknown? I think back to the time when I came close to thinking about my own mortality when I was facing down someone at knifepoint. Granted, my mind then had taken over my emotions, trying to see how I can get out of the situation. But I do remember more defiance than fear - I did not want anything to get in the way of living my life. There were things that I still needed to do, things that need to be said....and I was not willing to take it lying down.

What if I was faced with a similar situation today? Granted, I will still face the unknown, and it scares me a little. But I take comfort in the fact that people I loved have gone ahead - friends and family - and I have hope that they will be there to give me the guided tour once I cross over. But what scares me the most is the loss of opportunity - I simply am not ready to go. I still have things to do, things to say, people to love. And I am afraid of leaving without people knowing what all these things are. Perhaps that is why I yearn to be bigger than what I am - I fear being forgotten, of people not knowing who I am, of them knowing why I am the way I am. I yearn to be understood even after I am gone, so that people will not ask questions and fill in the blanks with wrong answers. I am afraid of being remembered the wrong way.

What does it matter if I'm gone, you may ask? I guess it matters to the people I will leave behind, and they matter to me a lot. Always have. Just think, if there is truly nothing after death, if death is truly final, then all we have are the stories that we leave behind for other people to tell. We fear the loss of our immortality...and perhaps that is why a lot of us choose to belive in life after death.

I'm sure there is. I'm just not sure how.


2:50 p.m.

Now that the choir has sung "Seasons of Love", here's another song that I wish we would sing. I heard this twice on the radio already, and it's very uplifting. I might actually buy the album :)
http://www.lyricstop.com/albums/natashabedingfield/unwritten.html