SUMMER CAMP AT 30?

BY HEATHER MARLETTE

                I know I promised to return to normal after my last more personal and kinda preachy (I can admit it…) blog. This is nowhere near that level, but I do need to take a moment to get out some personal joy I experienced this past weekend and there is no better way to do that than to write it down right? Trust me, there isn’t. Sometimes you can’t think of the words to express the great things you have seen or heard or learned, but personally I can’t always think of the words to SAY them to people, I can to write them. SO here it goes.

                        I am not a nature type person. I have always hated pretty much all things that have to do with nature, like sweating from the heat, being hot, being cold, and rocks in my shoes, insects, arachnoids, and animals of all types, mold, fungus, trees, and leaves. Well, not all things – there was a time when mud puddles were some of my favorite toys, but I am Heather and these things happen. I NOW hate mud puddles as they make my feet wet, and that could make me cold and that sucks. So needless to say, though I did enjoy playing outside when I was a kid, I liked to do it on pavement, in very populated areas. Other then my excursions to the county fair for 4-H things, I didn’t want to do wilderness or camping and I didn’t. This is important to bear in mind because the place that literally made me happier than happy can be was a camp. Like a real camp. For a woman whose catch phrase is “I don’t BELIEVE in nature” this is strange, right? It could be, and the decision to go was not one I made lightly.

I got an e-mail from the Pride Center of the Capital Region that if I was interested, they were looking for counselors for their first ever summer Leadership Day Camp for LGBTQA Youth. I love the work I do with my Youth Group kids, and I knew a few of them were going. Also, the Pride Center of the Capital Region is staffed by people who are very good at their jobs, but more than that by people who every day go out and try to make a difference through their professional and personal lives. These are people who astound me every day, who do what so few are willing to do and do it publically. They are honestly amazing people who I love to work with and learn from literally every time I see them or work with them. Then there are the kids. Going into this I only knew a quarter of the kids going to the camp, but the ones I did know, they are amazing. They are these kids who stand up and say no, we aren’t normal and we won’t bend to the pressure of society to try and make us normal. We aren’t going to lie down and date people of the opposite sex until we get to college to make you happy. These kids, anyone who meets them could never believe the things you hear about kids today. They aren’t the mean little cliques who exclude anyone outside of the bubble they have made for themselves. They are the kids who stand back, look around to see who is being excluded and then walks over and sits down with them. I could write blogs and blogs, and books full of the greatness of these kids, just the ones I knew going in. Now that I went and met the rest of them – well, neither my talent is good enough or my life long enough to write the praises of the kids I was privileged enough to meet this weekend.

Anyway – I got this e-mail and at first was like UM yeah, is that gonna be in a Hotel or Nature, because I think we are having a definition issue here – camping for me is where it’s not my sheets on the nice actual bed and it’s not my preferred brand of toilet paper. Then I realized it was a day camp, so there was a pause in my immediate NO. I have been behind this idea since the start. A camp where LGBTQ youth and their allied friends can come and relate to each other in a completely safe environment - that is an idea I can completely get behind! So, despite my loathing and chosen methodology of not believing in nature I said Yes – sign me up Scottie…more accurately sign me up James, but I digress. So I signed up. Now, I did this in typical Heather fashion, so the week before I was out until late each night leading up to and running around to get ready. We went, and I have never done anything like a leadership camp before, as a youth or adult and it was a little nerve wrecking. What happened in actual detail that is for the youth and adults that were there. I can say that at the end, looking at these kids sitting in a circle debriefing the first year, begging for it to go longer, I was very emotional. I don’t like to cry in front of people, and managed not to, but these kids and this staff, and my fellow volunteer AC’s, and the EMT/nurse/tech who also came as a volunteer…words cannot describe the bond I feel with them all. If any of you have seen a new saying on twitter #hotterthanhot, and if it is annoying you, e-mail me, I will do the whole cheer for you and you can blame my partner in crime, fellow crew AC and new platonic life partner/soul mate for it.

In all seriousness I saw that future LGBTQA youth isn’t waiting to take up the fight when we are gone, they are already joining in. The best feedback I heard from a camper was that he woke up for it on Saturday morning going oh yeah, going to gay camp – but left after the whirlwind two days just having gone to camp. There were specific workshops geared towards LGBTQ issues of course, and it was a constant conversation topic. However, many of the kids don’t see this as anything special, because they are members of the LGBTQA community, and they don’t see it as weird to talk about it or learn about it. So these kids signed up for a LGBTQA Leader Ship Day Camp, and really just got a Leader Ship Day Camp. There were some issues here and there, things we could do different, maybe even better. But every single kid learned, had fun, made a friend, and felt like they final had a place where they were free to be them, that it was okay to like who they like, identify however they identify and know that there is honestly no judgment and no fear. That my friends was a beautiful beautiful thing, and unless you have seen something like it, you may understand what I am saying, but it may seem cheesy to you, because you do not get it. Watching them, I kept having this quote from my all time writing mentor Superstar Joss Whedon (told you, will almost ALWAYS bring it back to him) in an introduction video in 2011, he said “…I want to make some noise. I want to make a joyful noise, I want to make too much noise. I want the neighbors to complain. I’m tired of being polite about something that matters.” Yes I do Mr. Whedon, and so I have been and what I learned this weekend is so do this amazing adults and youth, and so we have and so we will.

Now, I would say I promise next time will be a normal sarcastic/sassy blog, but apparently I was wrong last time so I make no promises. Thank you for indulging!

AN OPEN PLEA TO FUTURE GENERATIONS ON HIV/AIDS

BY HEATHER MARLETTE

                        This is an issue that I care very deeply about. It is not one that directly affects me, but I have felt deeply about it since child hood, and more so since my tenure at UAlbany. There I meet some of what I truly believe to be the kindest people around, and one of them was named Jamal. Jamal and I became fast friends, and he said it was because I liked to listen and he liked to talk, so we were made to be friends. Jamal is not someone that I ever really broadcasted our friendship, or that I felt needed to be connected with at all times, neither one of us were that people. Every morning before class and every day between our classes, if we weren’t with other people we migrated towards the fountain. We always met up at the same picnic table in nice weather, and near the same vending machines in bad. Jamal was an older guy, a returning student who had had life take some nasty turns on him and who was trying to accomplish some goals in his life so he could make peace with his past before he died. 

              See, Jamal was a very sick guy, had been sick for many years. It was the third or fourth time we were talking over cigarettes (yes, I smoked, deal) when he let me know that he was infected with the AIDS virus, not HIV, he made it very clear that he was one of the unfortunate ones that had progressed to the full blown virus. I remember him watching my face very closely as he told me, and I also remember controlling myself. Not for the reasons why he was watching me, but for my own. He was sure that this was the end of yet another blossoming friendship, as the stigmatism and fear of HIV/AIDS still controls society whether they want admit it or not when it is presented to people’s faces. NO, I was controlling my emotions, because if Jamal could see that I truly didn’t care that way about his diagnoses, I also didn’t want him to see my fear not of him but for him.

                        I looked at him, said Okay and went back to talking about how annoying it was that you couldn’t sit at the tables next to the fountain without getting sprayed. He got a little choked up, smiled and moved on as well. The flood gates seemed to open from that day forward however, and I learned that no matter the advancements, no matter the treatments, HIV and AIDS are still horrible diseases that tear at your body, mind and soul. I learned that part of what had advanced the disease in him was HIV drug resistance that causes the cocktails to become less and less effective, and allows the system to be more susceptible to the AIDS virus once more. I listened to the fact that even when they work, the drugs often make a person just as sick if not even worse than the virus itself. I realized over time that yes, it is a treatable disease – then in the early 2000’s, even more now. However, it is still one of the worst diseases that can attack a human being. More so then ever Jonathan Larson’s haunting lyrics in RENT hit home as you listen to the stories of throwing up, crying, wishing it were all over – will they lose their dignity? Will anybody care?

                        One day late in the first semester of my senior year, as I always knew would happen, Jamal let me know he was pulling out the next semester. Sporadically we e-mailed back and forth, but slowly the e-mails were shorter, some were even confusing. Then they stopped. I don’t have the confirmation on it, but in my heart, I know they only stopped because his body gave out, and he finally got to lie down and stop fighting. When I said earlier understand, he was not an older guy where he had white hair and could have had grand babies. He was in his mid-thirties when we met, about a dozen years older than me.  I know that he, as many were in the 1980’s, early 1990’s was a promiscuous gay youth who did not believe he was anything other than invincible and therefore did not feel the need to practice safe sex. Though the HIV/AIDS crisis was in full gear, he was a stupid kid that felt it could never happen to him. Here is where my plea comes into play. I work with LGBTQA youth regularly. I facilitate youth groups, and I am involved in the first ever LGBTQA camp this summer in the Upstate NY Capital Region. What terrifies me is the attitude they have towards HIV/AIDS. Sadly, it is the same attitude I see in most of today’s youth and even young adult generations. That this is a thing of the past, that the fight has been fought and that they are safe. THIS IS NOT TRUE. If you look at the numbers, due to these attitudes and people straying from safe sex and regular testing, infections are again on the rise.

 DO NOT FORGET HISTORY – when they say those who forget it are doomed to repeat it, it’s true. Trust me, I was a history major and you can see the truth of that statement in all of the books. If we for one second forget the beginning of HIV/AIDS in this country in the 1980’s we will have another one. We CAN NOT let that happen. This is a NON-DISCRIMINATORY disease people. It attacks first, and NEVER asks questions. Left untreated, it escalates quickly and unforgivingly. Please educate yourselves. Please practice safe sex. Please remember every time you sleep with someone, as much as you roll your eyes or think we are old for saying – YOU ARE SLEEPING WITH EVERYONE THEY HAVE EVER SLEPT WITH. We must restart the fight against HIV/AIDS. Yes, Mr. Larson, sadly many of them will lose their dignity – but I also answer YES – I will care. About every one of them. Every time. And even if it is just me, I will be fighting the fight, and letting them know that someone cares. Please, join me. Click below, donate even a dollar, or walk, or fund raise yourself. Please, REMEMBER

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 http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/heathermarlette/AIDSWalk2013CapitalRegion