June has been a chaotic month for the U.S. and the world. The overturning of Roe v. Wade is a blow to many—not just cis women—and I and many people are terrified for the future, perhaps more than we have felt for a while.
Nevertheless, there have been several positive developments in my life that I am very happy about.
Early this month, I attended my middle/high school’s graduation for the first time in nearly a decade, and my heart was warmed seeing a few longtime faculty who are still there and others who are retired. The school is now in a far superior building with air conditioning, and that made a big difference in the substantially larger gymnasium. The recipient of the Distinguished Alumni award gave a stirring, fantastic speech about her experience in the Army and as a television writer and journalist.
I saw a teacher who remembered working with me to get a good score on an Advanced Placement Biology exam in 2006—it was a sweet victory when I did—and she said, “I’ve always been proud of you.” She also said she knows I’m a good tutor now at work because I know what it’s like to struggle and not get writing and other subjects. That meant so much to me.
The next day was the awards ceremony—the first in person since 2019—for the Illinois Woman’s Press Association’s High School and Professional Communications Contests. I Chaired the High School contest and was honored to meet winners and their families. Especially with Illinois students snagging five of the First Place awards in the proceeding national contest from the National Federation of Press Women, I was very proud of the students, judges, and their dedication and hard work. I also picked up several awards in the Professional Contest, including four First Place awards.
Later in the month, I ran into someone from high school with whom I really didn’t get along and whom I hadn’t seen since graduation in 2006. Sixteen years later, he is very successful at what he does, and we are friends. We’ve both done a lot of healing work, and it was great to catch up.
Work is going well, though it is generally calm and low key for the summer; I have been planning workshops and continuing to do embedded tutoring (basically being a teaching assistant) in an ESL class at different colleges in Chicago. I also signed up for an Artist’s Way class starting June 29 (tomorrow). And I’m going on dates and seeing what comes from that.
I also got two essays published, from The Good Men Project and The Daring, one on what Pride has become and the other a personal exploration of one of my favorite folk music recordings. Both of those are posted in previous blog entries.
And I rejoined CHIRP Radio, the noncommercial community radio station in Chicago—broadcast online at chirpradio.org and the CHIRP Radio app and on the north side of Chicago at 107.1 FM—as a DJ, with a show starting the first week of July, Wednesdays at 9am-12pm CST. I am looking forward to playing a wide variety of music for CHIRP’s eclectic format once again—I last volunteered as a DJ there in 2018.
This past Saturday, it was announced that I received three awards in the National Federation of Press Women’s Professional contest: Second Place for Headlines and two Honorable Mentions: one for Essay, Chapter, or Section in a Book and the other for Columns, Personal Opinion for two Substack pieces (you can read those here and here).
And finally, last night I reconnected with someone who is very important to me, but from whom I had separated myself for a period. It was one of the most healing conversations I think I’ve ever had.
Hopefully more great things are ahead in the coming months. I will try to keep my eye on the horizon, as my high school’s Distinguished Alumni spoke of in her speech.
Then again, being hyper-literal, I don’t really know what that means, but I will do my best nonetheless.