Bill Konigsberg's Blog, page 2

Revisionist History

When I was growing up, it was hard to find a movie in which the word faggot didn’t play at least a minor role.

Truly. Watch 80s movies. You’ll be surprised how often that word comes out.

It was totally acceptable. Everyone said that word. At school, I heard it all the time. I even used it a time or two. Had to fit in, after all!

I had Eddie Murphy’s debut album. This was 1982. I was 11. On it was a bit called “Faggots.”

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“Faggot ass faggot,” Murphy shouted, and the crowd howled.

So did I.

So did my friends. They used to do the bit all the time. Or the one where he lisped like a gay guy allegedly would, when he was getting beat up for being gay. “Stop bothering me,” he lisped, and that, too, was hilarious.

I don’t know if I got it, back then. If I knew that I was laughing at myself. I think soon after, if not right away, I did know, and I think it was just part of what I had to do. I had to compartmentalize. My feelings and what I put out into the world. My private self, my public self.

It was just what you did in the 1980s.

Privately I believed I was a piece of dirt not worthy of being stuck on the underside of someone’s shoe. Publicly I soldiered on.

We’re different today. For some of us, at least. If you are, like me, a cisgender, gay white male, it’s a zillion percent better. My life has been normalized, and it’s okay in most places for me to be open about the fact that I have a husband.

But another thing that has happened along the way is an erasure of history.

It all just changed with the “faggot” thing. That went from a totally acceptable word–seriously, it was, I had teachers who used it in class–to a forbidden word, an unacceptable, horrid slur that, if spoken, could make someone lose their job.

What occurs to me, though, is that we’ve never really had that societal conversation about this. It just … happened. And we pretend that it’s always been this way, when it really isn’t. My history has been washed away. Like we have this agreement: if you agree not to bring up how shitty it was all those years ago, you can have a piece of the pie. You can have a place at our table. My trainer recently said, “Name one way in which gay people have been discriminated against.”

I was like, “Do you have an hour? A week? A year?”

He really believes this. That being gay in this society is and was no different than being straight.

What is with this revisionist history?

I’ll tell you the truth: I’d like an apology.

I’d like to be apologized to for having been acceptable collateral damage in the world for the first 40 or so years of my life, before it all changed. I’d like it to be acknowledged. My experience. Because while yes, today, my life is so much better, that didn’t just “happen.” I spent years being shit on along with all my LGBTQ brothers and sisters. I spent years watching AIDS happen to gay men and the world truly not giving two shits.

And now we fight for the rights of LGBTQ people of color and trans people, so that they, too, can have this experience, so that they, too, can have a moment where history is revised, and society forgets that there was a time when they were treated like garbage as well.

The Bridge!

Let’s take a quick break from what’s on the docket (THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS) to look a little further into the future! Because in the future, you will be able to read my sixth novel, THE BRIDGE!

Here’s the announcement from Publisher’s Weekly:

Nick Thomas at Scholastic/Levine has bought Lambda, Stonewall, and PEN Center USA Literary Award-winning author Bill Konigsberg‘s new YA novel, The Bridge. The book is about two suicidal teens who meet atop the George Washington Bridge, disrupting each other’s plans and literally splitting the universe into three storylines with dramatically different consequences. Publication is scheduled for 2020; Linda Epstein at Emerald City Literary Agency brokered the deal for world English rights; the Taryn Fagerness Agency is handling translation rights.

I’m writing it now, and…man. This is a challenging one! The three “what if” scenarios are challenging enough, but on top of that, writing about depression and suicide really takes a toll on me. I have to go into a pretty sad, lonely, dark place.

But I’m doing it. And the reason I’m doing it is because I know these feelings, and I know a lot of teens know these feelings, and I want to focus on the repercussions of that very permanent decision. The consequences of our actions on not only ourselves, but others, because the split-second decisions these characters make do, in fact, change the world.

I’m still, as I write it, figuring out how. But what I do know, already, is that every life matters. My life matters and impacts the world, and even if you don’t believe it now, yours does, too.

So that’s what I’m working on now. Much, much more about that next year. But for now, you can expect the posts on this blog to focus on THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS, and, potentially, hopefully, some forthcoming news about OPENLY STRAIGHT that will make me (and some of my readers, I’m quite sure) dance in the streets.

The Music of What Happens!

So I can finally share it… the cover of THE MUSIC OF WHAT HAPPENS!

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I am so, so, so in love with this cover. Great kudos to the artist, Patrick Leger, and to the designer, Nina Goffi. Nina has been involved in my covers for OPENLY STRAIGHT, THE PORCUPINE OF TRUTH, and HONESTLY BEN, so this was a real shift in direction.

I can’t wait to tell you more about this book, and I can’t wait for you to read it. For now, here’s the jacket copy:

Max: Chill. Sports. Video games. Gay and not a big deal, not to him, not to his mom, not to his buddies. And a secret: An encounter with an older kid that makes it hard to breathe, one that he doesn’t want to think about, ever.

Jordan: The opposite of chill. Poetry. His “wives” and the Chandler Mall. Never been kissed and searching for Mr. Right, who probably won’t like him anyway. And a secret: A spiraling out of control mother, and the knowledge that he’s the only one who can keep the family from falling apart.

Throw in a rickety, 1980s-era food truck called Coq Au Vinny. Add in prickly pears, cloud eggs, and a murky idea of what’s considered locally sourced and organic. Place it all in Mesa, Arizona, in June, where the temp regularly hits 114. And top it off with a touch of undeniable chemistry between utter opposites.

Over the course of one summer, two boys will have to face their biggest fears and decide what they’re willing to risk — to get the thing they want the most.

The book comes out Jan. 29, 2019. Or 0129/2019 for those of you who like numbers.

No Place Like Home, Er, Openly Straight

We are consolidating at our house right now. Which means that I come across things, like  long-expired gift certificates to Barnes & Noble from 2006, and mix CDs I made in 2004 (we no longer have a CD player). Also zip drives.

Zip drives are great because you can never be sure what you’ll find on them. And what I found today was a treasure trove of old creative writing stuff.

I found the first story I wrote in my first creative writing class in grad school (terrible!). I found the first draft of Audibles, which became OUT OF THE POCKET. And I found the very first words I wrote for the book that became OPENLY STRAIGHT!

It was called, at the time, NO PLACE LIKE HOME. And yeah, I’ve made this joke before, but it was going to be like The Wizard of Oz, but gayer.

I wrote the very first words in the very first draft of that book  on April 8, 2009.

It looked like this:

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This makes me so happy. As you can see, Rafe wasn’t quite Rafe yet. I was playing with an idea. The notion was to turn a coming out story into a going in story, which is what I did. But almost everything else is off, voice especially.

I’m interested that I got Claire Olivia’s name right away. Her name, I had always thought, came from Claire Olivia Casey, or Claire O. Casey, or Claro Que Si, which means “Of course” in Spanish. But apparently I either already knew that, or the joke came organically from the name choice. I don’t know.

The parasol story relates to my nephew, who used to dance around our kitchen with a parasol. And what followed that was a story my friend Bob told me about coming home from kindergarten after his first day. His parents asked how the first day was, and he said, “They have nice curtains.”

Neither of those stories made the novel, but the lesson here is don’t tell me stories or do stuff in front of me. It WILL wind up in a book.

Other People’s Pain

A few weeks ago I went to a conference called Men2Men. It was co-sponsored by the Men’s Ministry of the Historic Chapel AME Church and Arizona State University’s Project Humanities, and it was held at a church in downtown Phoenix. It was billed as “an opportunity for men across the Phoenix to have intergenerational, interdenominational, and meaningful, critical conversations about pressing issues directly related to men’s lives.” 

There were seminars about all sorts of issues, from sexual harassment, to dealing with law enforcement, to youth bullying and self harm.

What an experience. And in a session on race-based stress, I had an epiphany of sorts. As one of perhaps two white men in a room of African-American men, I realized something both simple and complicated:

I will never, ever, be able to experience what it’s like to be an African-American man living in the United States.

I can have great empathy for those who are living that experience, but I cannot have it. The closest I understand is not all that close; as a gay white male, any time I want to pass, any time I want to get away from the sometimes exhausting experience of being “the other,” I can pass. I can choose to show up visibly as a gay man, or not, depending.

As I said, simple and complicated. Because of course I can’t. But the truth is that as a person who has great empathy, I sometimes think I get it. But what I took not so much from the words but from the anger exhibited in that powerful session, I realized that no, that’s outside of my realm of experience.

It made me think about one of the reigning issues in Young Adult Literature: the We Need Diverse Books movement, and the #ownvoices movement.

Both of which I whole-heartedly support. The numbers bear it out. We desperately need more books that showcase the experience of diverse characters, whether that means race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. I know from my own experience that reading a book in which I got to spend time with a character who was struggling with his sexual orientation saved my life as a teen, and I know that this can be true for all under-represented people. Moreover, having titles written by people from those under-represented communities is vital.

So I come to this article from a place of support. And I want to talk about writing across those barriers. And probably the area I ought to focus on is my own. So I’d like to focus on those who identify as straight writing LGBTQ characters. From there, I’d like to expand the question to other areas.

I see things. I don’t always comment, but I see what’s going on online. And after Becky Albertalli’s great novel, Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda became a terrific movie (Love, Simon), one thing I saw was discussion–sometimes heated–about a woman who identifies as heterosexual writing a gay male protagonist.

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It should be said that overwhelmingly people seem to support Albertalli, and for that I’m glad. But some of the comments I saw made it clear that the support is far from unanimous.

“If you aren’t comfortable with straight women writing about gay teenagers, I would avoid this book,” one blogger writes.

One reviewer on Amazon wrote: “So a straight adult female thinks she can write a gay male’s coming of age story? Presumably she thinks she has special insight just because she studied clinical psychology or perhaps she’s recounting patients’ experiences? Either way, arrogant and creepy. That kind of arrogance causes damage. Just keep moving, nothing to see here.”

This hurts my heart. And at the same time, I get it. Coming out is an experience that can’t really be approximated. Having to tell my biological family that I was different than them in a way that was disappointing to them remains one of the most challenging experiences I’ve ever had. So yeah, I get it.

But mostly it makes my heart hurt. Because I don’t agree that as human beings we can’t sit with other people’s pain, and feel it. And it takes more than empathy to do so, yes. It takes research, and courage, and a willingness to venture into your own rabbit hole of pain (worst metaphor ever) and sit there, and let it wash over you.

Which is why I feel this way about straight people writing LGBTQ characters:

You are welcome to my pain and my experience, so long as you are willing to go there in your own way.

So long as you are willing to find that personal bridge and sit there with that feeling, and write it, you are welcome to try. Yes, you will be under more scrutiny. Yes, haters will be waiting and watching for you to make a mistake, and they will pounce. That’s why I said it takes courage.

That said, if you are writing an LGBTQ character because you want to seem “woke” or you see it as a trend, then no, you are not welcome to my experience. That’s called appropriation. You don’t get to sit from your comfortable place and wear my pain as a badge of honor.

To me, it all comes down to whether you are willing to do the very hard work. To make the bridge. Which is a function of art.

Does that make sense?

As I said earlier, my expertise is limited to this one area. I cannot speak with authority on writing across ethnicity. As a white person, I am in a precarious position, and I don’t speak for anyone other than me. And as it turns out, I have recently ventured down my own rabbit hole. One of the two protagonists in my next novel, The Music of What Happens, is half Mexican, half Irish.

I did this not because I want to seem “woke.” I did it with open eyes, knowing I may be skewered for attemptiing to write across ethnicity. The reason I did it is because I visited the high school where the book is set, and I sat in a classroom for several days. And what I saw was a room basically devoid of white faces. This is where I live. This is what’s going on in the world in which I live. To have two white boys fall in love at this particular high school would have been whitewashing the true experience of the place.

So Max was born. And in writing across ethnicity, I sat in Max’s pain to the best of my ability. I searched and searched for my own bridge to what it feels like to grow up half-Mexican, half-Irish in suburban Phoenix. And where my own bridge failed to reach, I researched. And then, when I was done, my publisher hired sensitivity readers to take a look. That was a very helpful experience.

I say this not to cover my ass. I don’t think that’s possible, anyway. Regardless of what I write, there are going to be people who don’t like what I do. As a white man writing a non-white character, I recognize that there is always the possibility that I can’t access a feeling or experience that I think I can access. That’s hard for me to write, but I know it’s true.

My sincere hope is that my books help kids, and entertain kids, and adults, too. My fear is that something I write might do damage. But in the end, all I can do is write the best book I can, and that’s what I did.

Where do you stand on writing across race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability?

 

Is Ben Physically Attracted to Rafe?

I get emails. Great emails. I respond to them all (I should say I strive to, in case I accidentally missed yours), though it often takes me some time to get to them.

I got a bunch of great emails in the last couple weeks that put me in a good mood this morning. One of them included a question that I thought would be of interest to a lot of my readers.

Here goes, courtesy of Anissa:

Did you consciously choose to have Ben never mention being physically attracted to Rafe?

I’ve gone through the book (HONESTLY BEN) for the second time and it stuck out to me that while Ben goes into extensive detail about what he finds physically attractive about Hannah, he never mentions how he feels about Rafe’s physical characteristics or appeal.  He only says Rafe is very fit.

 Did you intentionally structure it so that Ben  focused solely on their emotional connection?

 It seems odd to me since they were physically involved. I wondered if it was another way for Ben to buffer himself from the realization that he was attracted to a boy.

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Great question! This is what I wrote back:

A lot of times, what comes out on the page is instinctual for me. Meaning that I sit in the chair of the character and I look for their truth. The only way I can answer your very smart question is to say that I think the amount of time Ben spends thinking about Rafe physically is authentic for him. It may be a sort of buffer as he is not fully comfortable being attracted to a boy, and it might be that he’s attracted to Rafe in a more holistic way. My gut feeling is that it’s a combination of both.

—

This question made me think, even after I sent that answer. How does that work? How do we, as writers, pull off not just sitting in the chair of a character, but getting into that subconscious place where we make the right decisions for them? Because I believe to my innermost self that had I had Ben wax poetic about Rafe’s legs, it would have been inauthentic. And I don’t fully know why, as I say above. I just know, instinctually, that it’s not right. For me as a writer. Which is only half the equation!

And this is why books are alive. Because a reader’s understanding of a book’s truth is actually just as alive, just as important, as the writer’s intention in writing it. I think.

I mean, if a reader decides that Ben is buffering himself from his true feelings for Rafe’s physicality, who am I to say that’s wrong?

Thoughts? Why doesn’t Ben focus on Rafe’s body? What’s your understanding, from your reading? Does it differ from my explanation?

Sexual Harassment in the YA Community

We just watched “Sixteen Candles” this weekend, and we were awed by the outrageous racism, homophobia, and the fact that Anthony Michael Hall’s character blatantly sexually harasses Molly Ringwald’s character, and he’s seen as the good guy. There’s a scene in which Hall goes in for a kiss, Ringwald pushes him away, and then, when he comes in for another one, she laughs and says it’s okay. Let’s not even talk about when Jake “gives” Hall’s character his drunken girlfriend. Ugh.


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Truth: When I saw this movie as a teenager, I didn’t see sexual harassment. I just … didn’t. It wasn’t part of my perspective. Was this the case for other viewers, or just me?


Similarly, we watched Ruthless People on Friday night. Oh my God. Funny movie, by the way, but what’s the deal with Sandy Kessler (Helen Slater), wife of Ken (Judge Reinhold)? She’s an infant. Ken has to explain every simple thing to Sandy, who even then seems not to understand anything about the world.

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I wondered if it had been written by a man, and indeed, of course it was.



Our cultural awareness of “isms” and of of sexual harassment has changed significantly in 30 years. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing that movies nowadays don’t generally have characters like Long Duck Dong, who is interchangeably Chinese and Japanese and whose onscreen appearance is always greeted with a gong. And that if such a character were to be created today, it would be called out immediately on social media. Similarly, Molly Ringwald’s character in 2018 probably wouldn’t call Hall’s character a “fag.” And if that happened, there would be an outcry.


So we’ve moved forward, but there’s more work to be done. Obviously.

 


When I woke up Saturday morning to the story about sexual harassment claims in the YA community, I felt heartbroken. For the women (and men) who have been harassed. For the safety of this bubble that (I thought) we’d created. Yeah, I thought we were better than this, but the reality is we’re the same as everyone else, and these messy, unpleasant and entirely necessary conversations need to happen here, too.


I stand with those who have been victimized. And yes, I believe you.

Also, I call out the behavior of the men who have acted as predators. These behaviors are not okay, and it is time for us men–gay or straight–to recognize and act upon what we’re being told. That when we are in positions of power, or can be seen as being in a position of power, it is NOT OKAY to solicit sex from someone over whom we may wield power.

Got it, men? A rule of thumb: if you have power over a woman’s (or man’s) career, we need to put away our penises. In fact, if you’re in a professional setting, just go ahead and put your penis away. This is 2018, not 1988, and we know better now. We’ve been told. If you can adversely impact someone’s career, you simply cannot have sex with them. The end.

I hope we will work on policing ourselves better, and help each other when we see something happening that shouldn’t be happening. We must be upstanders, not bystanders.


As painful as it is, I’m glad the conversations are happening. And I hope we can eradicate predatory behavior from our industry. I’ll be here to do my part.

Confessions of a “Like” Whore

It’s hard for me to remember what life was like before Social Media changed everything.

Before MySpace. Before Facebook took over. Before any of us ever announced what we’d just had for dinner, or made a snarky comment about an actor, or decided that everyone needed to hear our exceedingly valuable opinions about politics, or allowed the number of “Likes” on a post to dictate our mood.

What did we do with all that time?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, because I feel like I’m hitting a Social Media wall. I don’t know if it’s exhaustion or disinterest or a combination of both, but what used to be a fun sideshow has become to central to my life, and I think it’s time to change that. Which is going to be really hard.

I went back this morning and looked over my Facebook history, and it filled me with all sorts of feelings.

These were my first posts, back when I thought one’s name was the first part of any status update.

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I can’t recall whether I actually got no “Likes” or comments on these important shares, or if they’ve disappeared over time. I did notice looking back that “Likes” and comments do seem to disappear. For what reason, I do not know.

Leave it to a “Like” whore to feel the need to explain a lack of Likes.

Looking through my history, what I found was in some ways a history of my last ten years, and in some ways totally not a history of it. Because, of course, unlike a diary or a journal, we don’t generally share every thought we have on social media. And if we do, it’s called oversharing. And if we don’t, we are not being, perhaps, our truest selves, or we are showing the world only the good stuff, which is normal but not so authentic.

When something good happens in my life, my gut reaction today is to share the news on Facebook. I don’t like what this says about me. Am I really living in the moment if part of every experience is sharing it with 2,560 “friends” on Facebook, some of whom care, most of whom don’t, many of whom are probably judging me harshly for wanting or needing to share it?

Am I the only person who is exhausted, thinking about all this?

Am I alone in wondering if I might be better off not having my mood impacted by how many “Likes” I get on a certain post?

Looking back at the past ten years, starting at the beginning and scanning forward, these are some of the things I’ve learned about me:

I’m not as funny as I think I am, though I am often kinda funny.
Not every thought that I have is as important as I think it is in the moment. It might be okay to let some of them go.
I am kind. Except when I’m not. Probably like most people.
Moods come and go. If I’m struggling, I can rest assured good times are ahead. And vice versa.

I’ve broken up with social media in the past. It hasn’t stuck. It’s hard to do, and honestly I have mixed feelings about it. I have enjoyed connecting with people from my past, or friends with whom I might otherwise not have connected. But I do think it’s time for a change of priorities. And I’ve already started to make that change. I’m posting a lot less these days. I expect, in the future, to continue to de-escalate my posts. Perhaps share important milestones, but not daily updates.

So it’s not a breakup, but it’s a de-escalation. I’m going to try and teach myself how to exist as I did in 2007 and before that. Via phone, email, and in person. Back when I might run into an acquaintance in a bar and not hear, “I feel like I know what’s been going on in your life from Facebook.” And not think, “Yeah, I feel like I just saw you an hour ago.” And realize that we’ve been connected, but not really. Not in the truest sense of the word.

 

On Coming Out, On Being LGBTQ

A young fan asked to interview me about LGBTQ issues. Following is that Q&A. Thanks to Caitlyn for the questions!

1. How do you feel about people who use “gay” as a derogatory term? What would you tell them?

I’ve been hearing people use “gay” as a derogatory term so long, and I’ve been fighting that usage so long, that I’m amazed when I meet people who still don’t understand why that’s not okay. I mean, who wants their label to be used to mean “bad”? It doesn’t make sense. I would tell those who still do that to substitute any other label and see whether they still think it’s fine. “That’s so Irish”? “That’s so black”? “That’s so cheerleader”? No group likes to be denigrated.

2. Have you been personally discriminated for your sexual orientation or gender identity? What does discrimination mean to you?

I have been personally discriminated against for my sexual orientation ever since I was very young. So many examples come to mind, and what they have in common is that I have been treated differently–worse–because of my sexual orientation. For instance, I remember moving to Billings, Montana, and our neighbor coming out and saying a friendly hello when we arrived. I could see him figuring out that we were a gay couple as we talked, and that was the last time we ever spoke. He actively ignored us after that, and he even made his children come inside the house whenever we were out in the backyard.

3. What would you say to people who are closeted and fear coming out?  To people who are open and want to “recloset” themselves as Rafe did in Openly Straight?

To those who are closeted and fear coming out, I’d say I understand. Coming out is scary, because you can be rejected for being open about who you are, and that hurts. A lot. To those considering coming out, I would say to make sure to put safety first. If someone is living at home with parents who might throw them out for being gay, I’d suggest knowing what they’ll do if their parents do that. Your safety is always the number one concern, and while most people aren’t treated that way, some people, sadly, are. Finally, I’d say to find a base of support, whether that is friends or a counselor or teacher at school or at church, or wherever. Support is crucial for all of us when we come out.

To those who are open and want to re-closet themselves like Rafe, I’d say that I get it, but that in the end it’s likely to make things worse rather than better. There’s just about no chance that not being open and authentic is really going to serve a person moving forward in their life.

4. Why did you come out? Why should others?

I came out because when I wasn’t out, it felt like I was being dishonest by withholding part of my identity. It was hard to come out, but life certainly got better when I felt like I didn’t have to hide anymore. And that’s exactly why others should come out. So that they can feel free.

5. Do you know any other people apart of the lgbtq+ community besides yourself and your husband? If so how would you describe them?

I know many, many people in the LGBTQ community, and I can’t describe them as a whole, because they are all as varied as individuals as people who are not in that community. We humans are all the same in so many ways, and we are all totally different, too, and defy categorization. I’d like to say LGBTQ people are more sensitive in general, or something like that, but I don’t actually think that’s true. We run the gamut, just like all groups of people!

6. What would you say to homophobic people?

To homophobic people, I would say, “Get to know an LGBTQ person.” It’s really hard to hate up close. Much easier to hate a group of people when you don’t know anyone from that group. LGBTQ people can end homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, etc., by being open about who they are. Because when a homophobe, for example, makes a heart connection with someone who is gay, they learn the truth, which is that hating someone for being gay is illogical, cruel, and shortsighted. It’s not that different than hating yourself. And in many cases, it’s exactly the same thing.

Look for the Helpers

Earlier this year, I sat in a classroom of 8th and 9th graders in Washington State. A boy started crying. He was so afraid because North Korea had just put out a video threatening to nuke an American city. The boy’s sister lives in Seattle, and he was so scared that his sister would die in a nuclear attack.


 


It reminded me of being 12 and watching the movie THE DAY AFTER, and not being able to sleep for a week. To this day, even seeing a screenshot of that movie scares the shit out of me.


Notice I’m not putting a nuclear cloud up here. I’m not doing it because it’s terror porn. And you know what? The world is scary enough without terror porn. I don’t want to see a nuclear explosion, and you don’t, either. I linked the above article because it talks about how it terrified a generation of kids, not because I wish to terrify anyone else.

 


I didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. It is scary. And to say, “Yeah, it’s scary, but it was scary when I was a kid, too, and nothing happened, so don’t worry,” is the kind of bullshit that gets kids to not listen to adults in their lives.


 


I watched the news this morning about the newest North Korean missile launch and yeah, it’s scary. I’m not alone in lacking confidence about the man in the White House, and his ability to be an adult in the face of difficult decisions. I hope he will be, but his immaturity scares me. A lot.

And thinking about how to comfort myself and how to comfort any young people who are scared made me think of what Mr. Rogers would say. Because no one has ever been more comforting to me than Mr. Rogers.


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For those of you who didn’t grow up with Fred Rogers, he had a show on PBS called Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. He had a voice like strawberry yogurt, and his manner was as gentle as a down comforter.

In chaotic times for me as a kid–and there were, unfortunately, lots of them–I’d watch and he’d bring things back to their simplest, and we’d focus on him gently taking off his sweater, sitting in a comfortable chair, and drinking a cup of tea, and that always made me feel better. Always.


And in this situation, what he’d say would be, “Look for the helpers.” He’d say, when we see scary things on the news, look for the people who are helping, because they offer hope.


 


It’s hard to find helpers these days. I know we have lots of people yelling, and I don’t see a lot of people speaking calmly, like adults. Those people are, to me, the biggest helpers. I’d say look for those people. 


If you look closely at your life, I bet some people will come to mind.

A few people in my life stand out as Big Time Helpers.

People like my friend Doug Bland, who runs an organization called Arizona Interfaith Power and Light, which is a religious response to global warming. He sees a threat to our planet, and he is dealing with it powerfully and actively and with love.

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I think of Brian McNaught, who is the most Mr. Rogers person I know. Brian wrote a book called On Being Gay that saved my life when I was a kid. It showed me I wasn’t alone when I was pretty sure that I was. I’m going to visit with Brian next week, and I’m so excited to have a chance to spend some more time with him.

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And I think of my dear friend Kriste Peoples, who founded the Black Women’s Alliance in Denver and co-founded a group called Outdoor Afro Colorado. Kriste is sunshine and warmth to me. She helps herself and other people to find joy in a world that can often feel so cold.

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I don’t know that any of these people, Mr. Rogers included, can stop tragic things from happening. But I do know that they help. They help restore faith that the world is more good than not good. That people can make a difference. And I love them deeply for that.