Celebration by Dolores Maggiore

May seems to scream out Celebration. (Portland Literary Arts) Incite: Queer Writers Read borrowed the word as its theme for the May meeting. My birthday landed on May 2, the same day as the meeting, and I’ve just celebrated a surprise birthday girl, Jana, in the country. Yes, we do celebrate!

But something keeps pulling me back to March with its theme of community. Maybe it’s all Renee MacKenzie’s doing, blogging about her sense of community in Naples, Florida. She shooed that bee right into my bonnet and inspired my article about Borrego Springs, CA and small communities. The buzz was still with me as I drove back from another communal experience in the other country spot I call home: the land and people around Parkdale, Oregon.

     So what’s the stuff? Ya know, the stuff that our “communities” in the city often lack? Ya know, no glue, no adhesion, the splintering off along…age lines, party lines, lipstick lines, waistlines, gender lines, class lines, bus lines, ethnic lines, and racial lines. Oh, I did leave out clotheslines.

     So I stood last night in the small Parkdale pub, Solera, and celebrated Jana’s birthday. And I looked around at all the hugging and clapping on backs of diverse peoples and groups. What was the glue, the gum, the sticky stuff that bonded us all?

     So I reminisced. Jana once lived in my house with Denny, who hit the Oregon music scene at age 65+ from LA. Jana welcomes everyone to her garden and her soul at their own place now as Denny brings in the hordes to make music with him at the local pubs.

     And there was Leila, also glad-handing and cheek-kissing the multitudes. She too had lived in the house before helping to reopen the barbeque restaurant Apple Valley. She and her partner Justin serve up some kick-ass ribs and love and good juju to all: young, old, homeless, helpless (I speak of myself at times…), challenged--in one of those ways rural life throws at you--from Hood River and White Salmon and all the hamlets in between.

     And then there’s a tapping at my shoulder, and a face from my earlier workdays in Hood River beams at me. Another is pumping my wife Terrie’s hand, telling her she remembers us buying a nightgown in her shop. And over there in the corner is the lawyer, who drew up my house contract, and on that stool, the woman, who helped me dig the trench for utilities.

     I scanned the packed room again, recognizing and being spotted by numerous smiles. We were many colors, many ages, some queer, most not, in this once former logging area, once conservative, once staunchly Christian, rural community.

     So what’s the glue that’s running out or dried up in the big city? The open-armed embrace of all who come to be nourished at Justin and Leila’s (and Sandi’s) restaurant? The tenderhearted smile and bouquet offered for sampling by Jana? Or could it just be the embrace of all, that sense of one-for-all and all-for-one, remembering kindnesses past, open houses, and a place to call home?

     And Happy Birthday Jana!

Dolore Maggiore is the author of the YA series, Pina and Kate. Her second book, Love and Lechery at Albert Academy is available for pre-order now.