Congratulations!

I'm doubly excited by the news this evening that Illinois has approved same-sex marriage because we lived there in those first golden years of our relationship and knew so many couples who can now be legally wed.

We've been pretty nostalgic for Chicago recently, especially after our date night Saturday which included a delicious Ethiopian meal and then a concert by those "troubadours of peace," Libana, a women's a capella group that focuses on music by women from around the world.  I have long known their CDs and songs because Artemis Singers, the lesbian chorus I sang with in Chicago, was often inspired by their arrangements.  It was a great evening of voices, percussion, other instruments (hammered dulcimer and guitar and clarinet), and dance, with selections from Albania, Sephardic Morocco, the Amazigh (the preferred term for the Berber people of North Africa), Gujarat in India, Malaysia, indigenous people in the Andes (I couldn't help but giggle because it sounded just like Peruvian street musicians in NYC!), new songs by women composers including the Peace Prayer Mandala, and others, including a chant-a-long.  It was a wonderful armchair journey, which took me not only to those places, but back to Chicago and practices with the chorus as well as (albeit very different) musical performances at Mountain Moving Coffeehouse.  Lovely memories, a lovely night.