My pro-active family

I may sit daily in meditation, but make no mistake, I come from a family of "doers." My parents are in their early 70's but they are always hiking, taking dance classes, playing racquet sports, golfing, and bowling. Last year, my dad, a former all-state athlete in 3 sports and minor league baseball player, rode over 6ooo miles on his bike. My mom is the doyenne of the aerobics, yoga and country western classes in her retirement community. They have their aches and pains, but still dive into life with both feet. My brother who lives in LA (and also happens to be gay) loves his rigorous morning hike with his husband as well. Yoga, biking and weights are my main loves now, while I have ran, swam, played baseball and football in the recent past.

Given that my parents were progressive Democrats and about 10 years younger than JFK and RFK, they adopted the Kennedy ideas about community service, too. My mom helped launch Head Start in our community and was elementary school teacher for 10 years, while my dad served as the head of the PTA. Throughout their years, they have been active in all sorts of civic and business organizations, trying to, in small ways, make this world a better place. My brother has mentored gay youth and is active in the arts community as a supporter, collector and a published art critic. He also writes for several gay publications. Frank started and ran an alternative music club, for over 10 years in LA, where people like Rufus Wainwright got their start.

My parents raised me to take responsibility for my experience of life. If I did not like something, I must work to change it. That has been my mantra. Since coming out, for example, I started counseling program in college for gay students, was the head of the LGBT awareness week in graduate school, created an annual gay adventure trip (i.e. Montana dude ranch, river rafting in CA), worked with gay runaway kids in LA, led a large gay social group, helped LGBT business groups organize nationally, raised money for LGBT candidates, participated in several AIDS rides, spoken to over 200 high school classes on what it is like to be gay, and raised $50K to battle Prop 8. And starting when I was 8-years-old, by handing out Bobby Kennedy pamphlets at my local Safeway, I have been active in political change, working on the Carter, Clinton, Kerry and Obama campaigns in a variety of ways.

This energy seems to flow naturally in our blood. It it how we operate, experience and see the world. Sometimes I laugh at my family, saying to them that my great-grandfather from Spain would be proud of us. He was forced to leave Spain at gunpoint because he kept organizing the coal miners in his country. We like to, as Tim Gunn from Project Runway says, "make it happen."