Queer to you, but also familiar
When we arrived at the Ambassador’s house, his housekeeper greeted us to open the big wrought iron gates. She was confused at first and said to us in perfect Spanish, “There is only one bed?” and we said “Great!” Till that moment we had been sleeping in the typical European king which is two twins pushed together and a crack the size of the Grand Canyon in between. In Lisbon, the front desk clerk had said in Portuguese, “Duos camas?” – and I said no, one bed. But what she meant was a king is two beds and that is what we had.
I was walking this morning in this marvelous weather we are having in New Orleans right now – a welcome cool front – through City Park looking around, enchanted by the moss on the trees. Grooving to the light and feel of being back home. Keeping my eye on Loca who had been at super sonic energy speed since I went to see Mom first at 6AM and Loca had to wait an hour for me to come back.
I kept saying over and over, “A rose by any other name is still a rose.”
I don’t know why I was saying this but I was thinking about how people react to seeing two women together. The rasta bartender in Bairro Alto in Lisbon whose name was Ruir kept telling us over and over how many lesbian friends he had and how happy he was we were in his bar and how nice looking we both are – he was being genuine and not creepy. We went into the bar near midnight, he was just unlocking it; all the other places were packed with people spilling into the streets; it was his Cuban Afro music that drew us in. We sat near the entrance in cool modern white chairs and people kept cruising by and looking in at us and doing a double take. One guy stopped and asked if he could take a photograph of us. We smiled for him and raised our glasses in a toast.
Love by any other name – lesbian, homosexual, same-sex – is still love.