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One Voice by Sherri Lewis
Never having been to Phoenix, Arizona, I was happy to be making a trip there to speak at We Dare to Dream, Arizona’s first statewide retreat for women living with or affected by HIV. I arrived late afternoon, checked into my room, and plopped myself down to enjoy the escape of being in a hotel. As I lay on my comfy bed with my eyes closed I could hear a woman singing, her music was sailing into my window. I thought someone must be having a party! So I followed the sounds of music out to the courtyard and found my contact, Jackie Jones, sitting with an array of women being entertained by the music of R.J. Shannon, a singer/musician and HIV community activist. I had landed in the conference!
I was soon introduced to Ronnie Berger from Body Positive, a nurse practitioner and educational coordinator for the retreat. Body Positive is one of several agencies that made this retreat possible. I spoke with Ronnie, who was enthusiastic about the retreat and the history of this remarkable agency. Body Positive, Inc., began in 1990 when a group of infected and affected men, concerned about their community became proactive and set out to find services. By 1992, Body Positive was created and the floodgates opened. Those men were the founding board members, several of whom are still serving on the board today. By 1993, they received their first Ryan White grant; in 1996, they were awarded the Agency of the Year, providing a valuable resource to the community with 900 active clients, both men and women. By 2004, Logan’s Playground and children’s programs provided childcare for clients and care for positive children. A positive woman, whose son it was named after, created the program now connected to Body Positive.
After a night of singing, I headed up to my room to get some sleep. I am on the schedule for 8:45 a.m. as the opening speaker but I jump back for some more coffee talk when I see my friend River Huston, who is tomorrow’s luncheon speaker. Now I know this isn’t going to be a PowerPoint presentation!
If you don’t know who River Huston is, I’ll resist saying you should. River is an extraordinary woman who is a writer, comedian, poet, activist, and performance educator. River has a B.A. in music and health education; she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Albright College and lectures around the country on sex, body image, AIDS, and alcohol.
My first introduction to River was through a book she wrote entitled, A Positive Life: Portraits of Women Living with HIV. The stories and photographs (by Mary Berridge) are beautiful and give women like myself a connection to other women’s stories. When I was viewing the book I came across a childhood friend of mine from sleep-away camp. Those carefree summer days of canoeing, raiding the boys’ bunks and sneaking cigarettes and joints! Like me, Robin’s days went on a lot longer than summer camp, long enough to get infected with HIV.
River’s accomplishments include two books of poetry and a third book of poetry entitled, ...In Which I Lost a 1000 Lbs, which will be available soon. To give you a picture of a presentation by River Huston, just imagine it from the title of her one-woman show, Sex, Cellulite and Large Farm Equipment: One Girl’s Guide to Living and Dying. How a girl like that can live in a small town in Pennsylvania I’m not sure, but I guess that’s what the farm equipment is about! Anyway, with a dog named Buddy, who travels with River on her engagements, you can’t go wrong.
As an AIDS educator whose roots were as an entertainer I rarely meet another HIV/AIDS educator who entertains and educates. I found my soul sister in River. We make each other laugh and, given the opportunity, we allow each other to cry. We have formed a mutual admiration for each other, always delighted when we are able to get to spend time together.
I’ve heard it said that if you stick around long enough you will find someone you can identify with in more ways than being HIV-positive. The key is to stick around, join women’s support groups, seek out organizations like Body Positive where you can have fun and be proactive. The retreat provided workshops on Life and Relationship Coaching, Women & Sexuality, Yoga, Poetry and Body Drawing. It embraced women and their specific challenges while living with HIV. The first woman friend of mine who died of AIDS, referred to as “rare cancer” in 1986, was a graduate of the University of Arizona. There is no drier desert than one that lacks information and services for HIV. But the River has flowed and Phoenix is rising.
Sherri Lewis, aka Beachfront, is an HIV-positive actress/singer, writer, and nationally known AIDS educator. Along with her one-woman show Life Is a Beach, she is a public speaker for UCLA AIDS Institute and Being Alive, and serves on Women At Risk’s board of directors and as the organization’s Outreach Coordinator. Reach her by e-mail at SlewisWAR@aol.com.
May 2006
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