I watched Oprah today while on the treadmill.  As Oprah bows out of her 25 year stint, she is returning to old stories, finding out what happened to some of the people she featured ...Wednesday’s show was a re-visit to Williamson, West Virginia, where in 1987, a man known to have AIDS swam in the city’s public swimming pool. His swim (indeed, his being in the town while having AIDS) stirred up loud and vocal public reactions. Not much of it was positive. Watching today, I was thrown back to the time when I first encountered AIDS.

San Francisco, 1987

I’ve had my little black convertible for two weeks and I love it. I am convinced that Northern California is the best place in the world to have a convertible.  I downshift as I turn into Hunter’s Point, a ‘project’ south of San Francisco.  What I know about projects is pretty much limited to the knowledge that people who are poor live in them.

I am not poor. I am going to visit my first AIDS patient. I am his support counselor, the person upon whom he can lean, the person he with whom he can talk about his disease, the person from whom he can ask for help to find resources.  He is black and I am white.

*****************************************

The training to become a support counselor is intense. Four weekends are consumed. Weekly evening meetings are an adjunct to the weekends.  At my first meeting I see that I am one of two females in a group of 50. Frankly, I am not sure why I am here. What I wanted was to do something of value, to volunteer my time and find some meaning in my own hollow life.  AIDS was a hot topic at the time and, although I did not know anyone with AIDS, the tragedy of this disease in San Francisco would not be overlooked. So I called The Shanti Project, and now, I am here, in a big room with a group of men who are largely ambivalent about women.

One of the first exercises in to imagine we are sick in the hospital, that we know we are dying. After this exercise, we are to plan our funeral.  I am aware of how much I hide from the people in my life even if I cannot do anything about it.  Here, in this room of strangers, however,I sob and reveal just how lonely I am. I cry as I imagine myself in the hospital, knowing that I am dying, but telling people that I will be fine.  In a fetal position, tears stream as I see people wonder aloud, “Why didn’t she tell us?”. I cry for my lack of connection, for my fear of rejection that guides my actions, and I cry because I want to feel more.  I find that my crying realizes something deep inside of me: a yearning to be connected, to love regardless of risks, to be wholly myself with another person.

I find Andy during my training. Andy is the Ken to my Barbie. We finish each other’s sentences. We laugh at things we don’t say and endlessly annoy the others in our small training group. Andy and I are soul-seeking missiles who discover an 'other' that speaks our native language. We heal each other because now I am his sister who no longer rejects him and he is a man who is interested in what I think not the size of my breasts.

Andy has his arms araound me during a training in which the facilitator says, “Raise your hand if you are HIV + or you have AIDS”.   Andy lets go of me and raises his hand. More than half the men in the training raise their hands. I am suddenly without breath. I cannot breathe. My eyes race from person to person as my fear mouths, ‘you are going to die from AIDS too’. I realize I want to pull my hand away from Andy and I feel shame. I feel shame because I want to flee from this room and I want to pretend I know nothing about any of this information, these people, or myself.

I stop and put the top of my convertible up. Noticing the looks I am getting from the people I pass, it finally occurs to me how out of place I appear. Shame covers me as I take in what others see: a blonde white girl coming in to do good in the mostly black project in her cute little convertible.  I feel a parody of myself. In that moment of realization I feel such burning disgrace that I want to drive away, change my name, never return to my old life.

TO BE CONTINUED...