Between a hummingbird and a bull lizard
Two summers ago, while spending a pleasant afternoon at Farmington Lake, I began to sketch out a column. It was a lovely column. I was most likely stoned and feeling extra. It began with something about the clouds overhead being pregnant with rain, and how the seagulls that follow the river to the lake transported me, with my eyes closed, to the Jersey Shore.
I intended to pull that column up – as it was never published – and use it for this month’s entry. Apparently, I didn’t save it in my iNotes or Google Drive. So, the following is not as poetic.
June is, of course, Pride Month; even if the federal government isn’t honoring it this year, we and our allies certainly are celebrating. Fight, fight, fight. But, it’s also the month in which we celebrate Father’s Day, and my parents’ wedding anniversary. If you’re following my columns, my maternal grandparents adopted me.
Next year: Their June 21st wedding date means they would have been married for 80 years, as they married in 1947. They made it to 52 years, but even in 1998, my father’s death at 74 was considered far too young.
I find it curious that Gay Pride often falls – in some communities – on Father’s Day. Was this intentional? Did Father’s Day coincide with Pride celebrations so that queer people would have something to celebrate if they were cut out of their fathers’ lives? I don’t think it’s too far-fetched an idea. Also, I know it relates to the Stonewall Uprising, but … and that’s it, but.
In the early days of Pride events, I can just hear a gay man scream to his friends over cocktails, “If dad doesn’t want me at Father’s Day or in his life, hell yeah, I’m gonna party my ass off at the Pride parade! And, I’ll be wearing not much more than a Speedo and a smile! I’ll even find a daddy for the day…and night!”
However, for my generation, in which many of us are more accepted by family, it may mean deciding whether to skip the parade or time with dad. Of course, today, some dads do go to Pride with their kids. So, that’s a win-win for some families.
At the office the next day, “What did you do for Father’s Day?”
“It was Gay Pride. I went to the festival with my son and his husband. Two-dollar beers and three-dollar vodka sodas. A drag performance where the queen told me I was cute. And the burgers at the gay bar? Made with local beef and hand-cut fries. We had a blast!”
“Damn, nice! I wish my son were gay. I grilled burgers, and I got another tie. I don’t even wear ties anymore. My youngest does cook and likes musical theatre, and … so I’m hoping. He made the burger mix. He added a roasted garlic confit to it. Genius!”
But, I digress. A few days before this gathering of some of my husband’s colleagues at the lake, I was at work. It was June 21st, the solstice, of course. A Navajo man came in to shop with me. He didn’t buy anything. But I was very taken with his jewelry. On the right side of his blazer lapel, there were two brooches. OK, he may have called them “pins,” but when you have been around antiques and vintage goodies as long as I have, they were brooches.
One was a hummingbird. The other was a horned toad. He would explain its meaning. In retail, a good icebreaker is to discuss what a customer is wearing.
“Your pins* are beautiful,” I said. “I think the hummingbird means grandmother.”
(*I decided not to call them brooches in the wild.)
He explained to me that the hummingbird is considered to be a messenger in Navajo culture, related to a deceased grandmother or mother figure. I did not know the meaning of the bull toad symbol.
“And this one, the bull toad, represents my grandfather.”
The word in Navajo for the bull toad is “Cheii.” I learned early on in New Mexico that a common sobriquet for grandfather is “Cheii.” THAT is easy for me to remember. In the Sicilian dialect of my maternal side, when someone is pulling your leg, they say, “Che,” like, “What? Really, are you serious?”
My late father was one to spin the occasional tall tale. My mother would roll her eyes and say, “Che,” pronounced more like “cheeeh.” A universally fun fact about grandfathers, from Rome to Rio de Janeiro, from New York to Naples, and lastly from Philly to New Mexico, is that they love joking around with what we might call “dad jokes,” just elevated to “granddad humor.”
For instance, Daddy once told me about his exploits in the army during WWII in the European theater. To which my mother said, “Che, don’t lie to the boy. You were stationed at Virginia Beach. The closest thing you saw to the enemy was Nazi submarines. And that was through binoculars.”
Meeting this would-be customer with his beautiful brooches on my parents’ wedding anniversary was pure validation — that my grandfather-father watches over me, that my grandmother-mother checks in on me. Mommy and I loved old movies and foreign films. When I’m watching a classic or foreign film, she’s with me spiritually. She laughs and says, “Oh, I love this!”
Daddy’s way of spiritually saying hello is different. He doesn’t watch movies with me. His favorite number was 417. It was the address of the house in New Jersey where he and Mom moved after her father bought the house as a wedding gift. Many times a week, my eyes fall upon the clock at 4:17. My cousin’s house at the Jersey Shore? The address is 417. The local gas station we frequent? It’s also 417. It reminds me how unconditionally I was – and still am – loved from the afterlife.
As I am now an orphan, with no living mother and father of the spiritual sort – my biological parents are still alive – having gay Pride on Father’s Day makes perfect sense to me. The hummingbirds in our garden recall my mother, who was perhaps as feisty as one of these small, strong, busy beauties.
And, well, daddy loved a good joke, pulling legs, and entertaining at the dinner table. He also loved the time he spent in the Southwest when he was a (lied about his age) member of the CCCs, or Civilian Conservation Corps.
Did he ever see a horned toad? I don’t know. But, certainly, he would have renamed it a “horny toad.” I can hear my mother saying, “Che,” and shaking her head in a smiling, mock-disapproving way.
Happy Pride, everyone. And, Happy Heavenly Anniversary to my Cheii and my Hummingbird.
