Welcome June

To quote Rogers and Hammerstein’s lyric from Carousel, “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over”. Historically, the month of June commemorates two important “bustin’ out” events with the Juneteenth celebration of the 1865 emancipation for the enslaved in Texas, the last state within the Confederacy with institutional slavery. As Pride Month, June is also “bustin’ out” with the LGBTQIA2+’s commemoration of the 1969 watershed event with its demonstrations at Stonewall Inn and throughout Greenwich Village.

It is with the greatest respect that we need, not only to celebrate, but also to learn courage from these historical moments of resistance and start “bustin’ out” of our own culturally-imposed limitations. Each of us has an authentic identity that extends beyond static categories race, gender, or class. Authentic identity adapts and changes in response to our life experiences. None of us are WHO we were 10 years ago because our personal history, as well as our body chemistry, has changed. A friend once told me that she was “a better grandmother than she was a mother.” Most grandmas I know are next to perfect because they endured at least 20 years of intense parental mistake-making training that is now bustin’ out as grace, wisdom, gray hair, and quite a few more pounds. We are whoever we are in this moment of time and your life history has brought you this far in your journey. June is bustin’ out all over celebrating history and challenging you to be YOU!