Month: September 2014

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Boredom by Gillian

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity ? 

Dorothy Parker 

Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is ….. not interested in their surroundings.
Wikipedia

I thought of simply copying the first part of last week’s story, Forbidden Fruits, replacing the words bigotry and prejudice with the word boredom, because I can no more relate to boredom than to bigotry, and I’m sure that in great part I have my parents to thank for it. They were never bored, I’m sure, and naturally it rubbed off on me. They were never bored because they reveled in tiny insignificant things. When I came across the above quotations, I wondered if it was all about curiosity, but I think not, at least not with Mum and Dad. It was simply, with them, more the Wiki way. They indeed had an intense interest in their surroundings: whatever, wherever.

I’m not claiming that nothing is ever boring; but you don’t have to become it’s victim and be bored. There are endless cures available.

“Look at that!” said my dad, in awe.

A tiny ant labored over the muddy lumps of clay at Dad’s feet, carrying an upright blade of grass as if shouldering a gun, except to be in scale a man would have to march with a rifle about 300 feet long.

“Oh, look!” breathed my delighted mother, “A Red Admiral!” One of Britain’s more common butterflies so not a great discovery, but a thing of beauty nonetheless. “Oh, those colors!”

She would stop whatever she was doing and watch every move the creature made until it flew off, just as Dad studied the progress of the ant.

It wasn’t that they were simply lovers of nature. I see them, looking back, yes, possibly through rose-colored glasses, as lovers of everything. (Except, sadly, of each other, but that’s yet another story.)

Dad would study a newly-purchased car part, or Mum a new batch of wool, in every detail; running their hands over it, caressing it, getting to know it. Appreciating it. My dad would listen to the sounds of the engine in the old tractor driven by our neighboring farmer, as intently as my mom would listen to the sounds of her pupils playing beneath her classroom window.

During, and for several years after, World War II, gas was severely rationed and our old car rested on blocks behind the house. Dad looked after it as if we were off in it on Sunday to see the Queen.

“It’s still here,” he told me one day, answering an unasked question, apparently with little regret. I understood, then, that the value of something was that it was there: to be appreciated, loved, revered; from an ant to an automobile.

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. 
Ellen Parr

An aunt put the icing on this particular cake for me. Perhaps, coming from my parents, I might have rejected, if only subconsciously, this love for the detail that was now, as children so often fail to respond positively to their parent’s values. But I spent several much-loved summer holidays with my aunt and uncle in the north of England. My uncle was at work most of the time and he was, incredibly, even more silent than my father, so he did not loom large in my life. But my aunt, she held me in the palm of her hand. Anything, with her, was an adventure. We roamed the moors, a la Wuthering Heights, although neither of us was on any search for Mr. Heathcliff.

Who needed anyone or anything? Everything was at our fingertips.

We wandered beside streams, sitting on the grassy banks to examine the flowers fluttering there; never to pick them, just to look. We had a tiny brass-rimmed magnifying glass through which we peered, sometimes with great difficulty in the wind and rain. My aunt would never permit any adventure to be missed or even curtailed by the mere fact of atrocious weather. On sunny days we’d lie on the spongy moss-covered hillsides, listening to birds sing while watching others glide on the thermals above us. It was my aunt who first inspired my fascination with geology. She had taught herself some of the basics, and would scoop a handful of rounded, shiny, wet pebbles from a stream-bed and sift them through her fingers, searching for anything from a kind of rock or fossil she could maybe identify, simply to one that looked like a frog, or a cow, or my uncle! Waiting in the cold and rain for an overdue bus, she would examine in detail the grain of the wood making up the bench we stood beside, it being much too soggy to actually sit on. Or she made up silly names and acronyms from the license plates of passing cars, the same way my mother did. Looking back at it now, I suppose they must have once done this together, as little girls growing up at the time of the first appearance of cars on the country roads.

Looking back to thank the older generations for what they gave me, I’m forced to wonder about today’s youngsters. With that multiplicity of gadgets they should never be bored, but I’m not so sure. With their multi-tasking high-speed lives, do they ever have the time, or indeed the inclination, to sit silently and listen to the breeze? And yet, perhaps it doesn’t matter. Every generation has its own way of embracing life, and come to that, each person deals with it in a unique way. However it’s accomplished, my sincerest wish for everyone is that they may never ever be bored. It has to be the greatest possible waste of the privilege we are given, to inhabit, albeit for a fleeting moment, this beautiful, incredible, planet.

And as a postscript, I stumbled upon this quote, so it looks as if no one in this room need ever be bored, at least according to William S. Burroughs, who proclaims,

In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or die of boredom.

May, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Drifting by Will Stanton

This presentation is going to be very short and un-sweet. I’ll be succinct and not belabor what I have to say. Saying too much would be, as the old adage goes, “like beating a dead horse.”

Our parents often have high expectations of us. Our society has certain expectations, too. To be supposedly a worthy member of society and (quote) “successful,” we should know very early on what we want to do in our lives and what we want to be. In our society, apparently that means making a lot of money and being envied, like a Wall-Street banker, football quarterback, TV star, rock singer – – or perhaps being a professional, whatever that is – – doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.

Much of what determines how we turn out is what we have learned in childhood. If a child has a good parental roll model, that’s helpful. Maximum opportunity to learn, to experiment, to gain experience are good, too. Having a strong sense of identity is essential. Without it, we may end up drifting. Sometimes, as in my case, I did not have a good parental roll model, a father or even a mother I could identify with, to wish to be like, to wish to do the same job. I was pretty much on my own in that department.

What we have inherited from our genes has a strong influence upon our personalities, too. Significantly in those relatively unenlightened times of my childhood, too little was understood about children’s personalities and what difficulties there might be. The early version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory had been around since 1943, but researchers and school-counselors seemed to be more focused upon how rapidly individuals could learn. They seemed to regard comparative points and percentiles as as the tell-all, the end-all, like how much money one had in the bank.

I attended a university-run elementary school, and I seemed to be able to answer questions quickly. As a result, a pair of university researchers singled me out for an extended interview. They said that they just want to know “what made me tick.” They concluded the session by stating (and I’ll never forget this) that (quote) “I could be anything I want to be.” I suppose that meant “doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.”

Apparently, they did not consider “self-actualized and happy” as being essential to a good life. What they did not take into account was my confusion and preoccupation with who I might be that interfered, yes, even stymied, my focusing upon choosing a career path that would result in my becoming a (quote) “universally admired, well-healed professional, happily married as expected, and a contented family man.” They did not take into account my orientation. Even if they had, they would not have understood the impact such confusion and preoccupation would have upon my thinking and actions. My uniformed and Puritanical parents would not have understood, either, let alone accepted my orientation.

As a consequence, I have spent most of my life drifting. Yes, I did manage to sporadically concentrate upon making a life of sorts, but it was likely not what it might have been had I not been incumbered with the endless searching and emotional confusion that dominated my life. Like a leaf floating upon a stream, I have drifted wherever circumstances have taken me. I never was a powerboat, capable of going in any direction I wished to go.

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life
stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me
particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at
times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived
pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some
thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Magic by Ricky

No matter how hard we wish or dream or day-dream about the concept, “magic” does not exist. This is assuredly a very good thing because who among us is perfect enough to use such power wisely and judiciously. Certainly no one I know of or heard of. All people have thoughts and ideas of what they would do with the ability to utilize “magical” power. Some would attempt to do good deeds, some altruistic deeds, or to meet personal needs and to meet the needs of others. But also there would be those who abuse the potential magic offers by enriching themselves at the expense of others or to commit crimes against others or society at large. What if the Nazis, Stalin, homophobes, or even homosexuals had such power? Or worst yet religious leaders. How would you like to be a Methodist one minute and a Catholic (or some other religion) the next, always changing at random intervals as some religious fanatic uses his “magic”?  The result is chaos. Only in story books like Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, is there a “happy ending,” but still with the loss of “free will.”

No! No one can be trusted to wield such power. It would destroy our ability to choose our own destiny. I am the most perfect person I know, but I cannot even trust myself. If I cannot be trusted with such power, then no one should.

Stage magicians don’t have magic. They know only the “secrets” of sleight-of-hand, smoke, mirrors, and misdirection. They are the masters of illusion only.

Religious magic is usually referred to as “miracles”. While some reported miraculous events may be very hard, if not impossible, to believe, others are not so easily dismissed out of hand. While scientific analysis using knowledge gained over the centuries may explain the cause-and-effect relationship to certain mystical or miraculous occurrences which follow the laws of nature, there still remains the issue of the timing/occurrence of the miraculous event matching the recorded need at the precise moment. Undoubtedly, even those “coincidences” will be “scientifically” explained someday.

Too many coincidences indicate that some not understood “force” is at work. As the fictional character, Sherlock Holmes, said in Chapter Six of The Sign of Four, “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” The problem for us today is to determine exactly “what is impossible.” If it is true that “whatever man can imagine, he can do,” then ultimately, is anything really impossible?

Perhaps there is some reality to the “power of belief” that has yet to be scientifically proven as legitimate and fact.

There is one area where “magic” is real—within the usage of language and music to convey a specific aura or feeling. One can describe a sunrise or sunset using words which accurately and literally express the scene being viewed with a dry and boring text. But alter the words used just a little and add music and the word “magical” describing how it made you feel — and the impact does indeed swell within one’s breast.

This then is the real realm of magic; taking common everyday occurrences in nature or life and giving them the power to influence our lives for better or worse.

© 26 August 2013

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Mirror Image by Phillip Hoyle

I want to see myself as I really am and present that in my stories, memoirs, and fictions. 

(My reaction to a line in Stendhal’s The Red and the Black)

A distortion is always present when I assess myself. It’s easiest to see when I gaze in the mirror where the part in my hair on the left appears to be on the right. For the truth of me, I might as well be looking at my image in a carnival mirror. Then the distortion would be maximized. My head might look huge, my legs extra long, and my middle skinny, or in the mirror next to it my head might look like a pin, my torso nearly missing, my legs fat as watermelons, my feet tiny as a baby’s. What’s the truth in these images? Only something to be made fun of. I suppose as a male I could keep moving from mirror to mirror in the side show until I find the one that would maximize my hips and their appendage, turning me into the world’s most hung man. But of course I would not be deluded into believing what I saw there. I’d easily recognize the truth and falsehood of that image. So, what’s the truth in the mirror? It seems an important question. 

I know the question was important in my childhood and teen years for in the bathroom mirror I gauged my growing and maturing. Like a critic I evaluated my changes, comparing them occasionally with the photos from school that provided rather accurate annual points of comparison. I looked for changes but usually noticed the pimples or how skinny I seemed or how my muscles had little shape except for those that defined my legs. I looked closely and proudly at my few new hairs and wondered how furry I might become. I turned this way and that searching for new profiles of my fast-changing body. I watched and thought and wondered at the new feelings, the complications of relationships, and the essence of me. 
I recall the day in my mid-twenties when I looked at myself in the mirror all dressed ready to go to work. That day I realized that I dressed so much like my father as to be scary. That day I also reaffirmed my dedication never to let fat gather beneath my beltline, and I meant it. But in my mid-fifties, I realized I had lost my dedication to that goal or had lost my ability to keep it. I was just too much like my dad. I wonder if the emerging imago of a cicada ever looks back at its drying shell there on the bark of the elm tree it has climbed. 
I still look in the mirror these many years later. I think I could forego the experience if it weren’t for my need to shave. Sometimes I don’t especially like what I see: smaller muscle size, sagging skin, and the like. But often as a teenager I didn’t like what I saw. Perhaps in this way I haven’t changed. I still observe myself, my development. I still study my life and the way I look in it and the way I look at it. 
So I wonder. If the image in a mirror can be so misleading, how inaccurate is any other assessment? Am I prone to believe what others tell me, others who may have something to gain in fooling me? Am I too much like the king in his new clothes, unready for the truth-telling of the uninitiated child who loudly said that the king had no clothes? It’s really not difficult to become so self-deluded. After all even the physical mirror image is inaccurate. As a result I wonder, beyond looks, whose image do I most reflect?
I am somewhat like my father in that I have been crazy about music and deeply dedicated to the church. Eventually I dressed similarly to him—neat but not manipulated by fads or being fancy. Like him I developed a great tolerance of people and openness to them. I too have a heart for the disadvantaged and grew to be at least modestly visually artistic. Like him I seem over-ready to volunteer, even when I know better.
I am somewhat like my mother in that I became a creative planner of educational process, see humor easily, and love to laugh. We both displayed an odd sense of logic and a great tolerance for difference. Like her I too came to think in terms of others’ needs before my own and displayed a high sense of self-confidence.
Seeing young teenaged me in a cowboy hat, one man said I looked just like one of my grandfathers, the one who wore a Stetson. I wondered if his observation was true or simply the impact of seeing me in the hat! Perhaps the assessor had recognized a facial expression he had appreciated in my grandfather. Who knows? I wasn’t an actor and so hadn’t looked at my mood-related expressions. Still I was pleased to be identified with my then-deceased grandpa who had let me ride with him on the tractor, made me gifts, and took me fishing and hunting. I was pleased to be developing somewhat in his image! 
For the past thirteen years I have been working on my image, not to improve it, not to believe it, not to change it, but rather to describe it through memoir and fiction. I’ve run through many notebooks and thrown away many expended ballpoint pens in that task and am still at a loss to grasp so many of my truths. I realize that my perspective is distorted. To find the truth of my life seems impossible. Still I tell my stories hoping that at least someone will be entertained, someone else may gain insight into his or her own experience, yet another may be encouraged to keep living with hope. Memory after distorted memory, story after inaccurate story, experience after not-yet-understood experience I write, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Slowly I am gaining shreds of insight, but I’m most pleased that my stories entertain me! Perhaps they will cause my grand kids to laugh or to wonder or to look lovingly at their own lives.

Denver, 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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Shopping and Drinking by Pat Gourley

If by drinking we were referring to alcohol with this topic selection I was never much of an over-the-top imbiber despite my Irish heritage but I did enjoy a frequent vodka tonic and often found the buzz very enjoyable. It also made the company of some others in my social life much more tolerable when alcohol was part of the mix. Oh and of course would gay bar cruising have been at all feasible or at least remotely enjoyable without a few drinks under one’s belt?

Not being particularly adept at the art of semi-inebriated cruising is the reason I suppose I was attracted to the bathes. Though I would certainly on occasion go to the tubs having partaken of some hallucinogen or the other in the 1970’s my preference was to be totally sober. A state I found much more facilitating for lining up a good fuck or two.

I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in the past five or so years related to my pancreatic issues. These problems seemed to have started with several renegade gallstones that found their way into my main pancreatic duct. If you have never experienced it pancreatitis is something to be avoided at all costs. I have a niece who has experienced both several natural childbirths and bouts of pancreatitis and she is adamant that she would always take the childbirth over the pancreatitis if given the choice.

Having my gallbladder removed seemed to only partially address the issue, so blame stared to fall on the years of HIV meds I have been on. The choice there is pretty clear – learn to live with and adjust the meds or slowly cash it in. Since alcohol is the greatest of all pancreatic irritants that seemed a small sacrifice to make.

Two things about my lack of alcohol consumption though have surprised me. The first is how little I seem to miss it especially the further in the past it is. The second is I have come to realize how very little sense others are making after a few drinks. When I am around friends and they are drinking, and I am not, the whole scene often becomes nearly unbearable after a few hours. Were the conversations when I was drinking as boring and banal as these discussions now seem to be by about 9 PM and a couple bottles of wine later? What is pronounced with great gusto as profound after having had a couple drinks really isn’t as erudite as it might seem sober!

When it comes to shopping this falls into the category of “didn’t get that gay gene either” for me, sort of like Opera I guess. When I think of shopping I know that can apply to all sorts of stuff but clothes come to mind. I have never been much of a clothes’ horse as any one who knows me can attest and in part I blame the fact that I am really quite colorblind. Oh and I am quite a lazy fuck really and spending time searching for clothing that matches and in fashion falls into the category of watching paint dry.

These days comfort takes preference always and that means loose fitting shirts and pants with an elastic waistband. I haven’t worn a belt in years. My work life can happen in scrubs, the greatest medical invention of all time. I really only wear scrub pants everywhere, that is except when sleeping. I have slept nude since college. I learned the freedom and joy of nude sleeping from a straight college roommate my first year in the dorms when he would most mornings wake up having kicked off his covers and sporting a delightfully erect penis – good morning indeed.

Again thanks to years of HIV meds and the resulting metabolic syndrome I have an inordinate amount of belly fat. Before you say just put down the Ben and Jerry’s I would gladly point out my skinny face, extremities and less than bubbly butt. I am not really overweight at all it is just a distribution nightmare.

In an attempt to try and further weave in the element of impermanence to this piece I am going to delve into what was truly an existential crisis I had last week after reading a piece on global warming a Buddhist writer named Zhiwa Woodbury had posted on a great site called ECOBUDDHISM : http://www.ecobuddhism.org
Despite the snow in Denver in the middle of May, not a particularly unusual occurrence actually, a long list of really unassailable facts presented by Woodbury results in his final conclusion, which is that “the great anthropocentric dying is upon us – and our condition is terminal.”

After reading his piece I was nearly overcome with a sense of hopelessness. A very unusual feeling for me since I have been at least partially successful at incorporating that whole Buddhist theme that we really need to focus on the moment and that pondering the future or even sillier the past is really just a recipe for suffering.

I have for quite sometime believed that the human race is going to be a short lived evolutionary digression but that Gaia, life in some form, would persist until perhaps the sun burns itself out in a few more billion years. Part of what bummed me out so about the ECOBUDDHISM piece was his strong case for the whole show unraveling in just a few short decades perhaps while I am still alive. Again, still a strange reaction on my part especially in light of the fact that I have lived with HIV for more than 30 years now and much of the past 25 year spent working in an AIDS clinic. I have looked death in the face more times than I have cared to and somehow managed to keep my head above water throughout it all. I need to explore and write on this further so you can expect more tortured and twisted topic manipulation on my part as a form of psychotherapy at Story Telling.

I guess I just find it incredibly sad that this beautiful planet and our incredibly unlikely existence on it are so being disrespected. Perhaps that is the inescapable nature of being human at this stage of our evolution: if we only had a few more millennia to get our act together. There is plenty of blame to go around and I’ll accept my share. My personal, really rather pathetic response to the impending sixth great extinction seems to be turning down the thermostat, driving a fuel efficient car, walking whenever I can, recycling, oh, and of course less shopping.

May, 2014

About the Author

I was born in La Porte,
Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of
my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse,
gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an
extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.
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Cavafy – Gay Poet by Louis Brown

Prompt: Poetry

Consider the following:
(1) Constantine P. Cavafy, 20th Century gay Greek poet
(2) Alexander the Great
(3) New York City Civic Center: poetry reading of Constantine P. Cavafy poetry
(4) Our golden age in ancient Greece.
(5) Sappho, ancient Greek Lesbian poet; the Amazons
(6) Modern Era Lesbian poet was Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American writer of novels, poetry and plays.
(7) Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud; in the American ‘60’s, Alan Ginsbergh.

When I was at SAGE New York, I looked at the Community Bulletin Board, and I noticed that there was going to be a public reading of the poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy. I guess over the years we have heard some mention of gay poets, Alan Ginsbergh, and in 19th Century France, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. I wonder if Sylvester Stallone knows that his character Rambo has the same last name a gay French poet?

When I saw the ad for the reading of Cavafy’s poetry, I said to myself that an insightful gay libber did a good deed in trying to popularize Constantine Cavafy’s poetry. Right now for our community, he is the most interesting gay poet, the hottest potato, for several reasons. Like the work of 19th century homophile writers John Addington Symonds in America, Magnus Hirschfield in Germany, Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis in England, Cavafy’s poetry has a specific reference to ancient gay history.

Briefly, ancient Greece was our golden age. To read between the lines, the deal back then was heterosexual men and women got a “deferment” from military service. They stayed home, made babies and took care of them. Gay men were expected to become soldiers. They ran the military both in Athens and Sparta. As a result, gay men also ran the original Olympic games, they were in charge of the academies and all the sacred temples. Same sex love was considered a more refined, a more noble form of love-making. It was public policy. My guess is this all came about because of Alexander the Great (whose military boyfriend was Haephestus). Also much was made of women becoming warriors, remember the Amazons. The most noted ancient Lesbian poetess was of course Sappho. That was the other side of the coin.

When the Italian Renaissance came along in the 16th Century, thanks in part to liberal Pope Julius V, there was a renewed interest in Graeco-Roman history. Remember Leonardo DaVinci, Michaelangelo Buonaroti, Sandro Botticelli, I think it is safe to assume that same sex love in antiquity was an important contributing factor to the interest of the patrons of the très gay Italian Renaissance.

Constantine P. Cavafy; [1] also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes; Greek:  April 29 (April 17, OS), 1863 – April 29, 1933) was a Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday.

He wrote in Greek; scholars will have to vie to become the best translator of his work.

“Ithaca”

When you set sail for Ithaca, 
wish for the road to be long, 
full of adventures, full of knowledge. 
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclopes, 
an angry Poseidon — do not fear. 
You will never find such on your path, 
if your thoughts remain lofty, and your spirit 
and body are touched by a fine emotion. 
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclopes, 
a savage Poseidon you will not encounter, 
if you do not carry them within your spirit, 
if your spirit does not place them before you. 
Wish for the road to be long. 
Many the summer mornings to be when 
with what pleasure, what joy 
you will enter ports seen for the first time. 
Stop at Phoenician markets, 
and purchase the fine goods, 
nacre and coral, amber and ebony, 
and exquisite perfumes of all sorts,
the most delicate fragrances you can find.
 To many Egyptian cities you must go,
 to learn and learn from the cultivated. 
Always keep Ithaca in your mind. 
To arrive there is your final destination. 
But do not hurry the voyage at all. 
It is better for it to last many years, 
and when old to rest in the island, 
rich with all you have gained on the way, 
not expecting Ithaca to offer you wealth. 
Ithaca has given you the beautiful journey. 
Without her you would not have set out on the road. 
Nothing more does she have to give you. 
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. 
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
 you must already have understood what Ithaca means.

Historical Poems 
These poems are mainly inspired by the Hellenistic era with Alexandria at primary focus. Other poems originate from Helleno-romaic antiquity and the Byzantine era. Mythological references are also present. The periods chosen are mostly of decline and decadence (e.g. Trojans); his heroes facing the final end.

Sensual Poems
The sensual poems are filled with the lyricism and emotion of same-sex love; inspired by recollection and remembrance. The past and former actions, sometimes along with the vision for the future underlie the muse of Cavafy in writing these poems.

Philosophical Poems
Also called instructive poems they are divided into poems with consultations to poets and poems that deal with other situations such as closure (for example, “The walls”), debt (for example, “Thermopylae”), and human dignity (for example, “The God Abandons Antony”).

If only our community could get its act together and promote lesbian and gay cultural history in more depth and popularize it; that would be progress.

30 June 2014

About the Author

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
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Stories of GLBT Organizations

My thirty-year career at Ford Motor Company reached its culmination at the end of the last century, coincident with the last of my 26 years of being in a straight marriage and the birth of the GLBT organization that has played the largest part in my personal journey toward wholeness. That organization is Ford GLOBE.

GLOBE is an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Employees. It was hatched in the minds of two Ford employees, a woman and a man, in Dearborn, MI, in July of 1994. By September, they had composed a letter to the Vice President of Employee Relations–with a copy to Ford CEO, Alex Trotman–expressing a desire to begin a dialogue with top management on workplace issues of concern to Ford’s gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. They were invited to meet with the VP of Employee Relations in November.

In 1995, the group, now flying in full view of corporate radar and growing, elected a five-member board, adopted its formal name of Ford GLOBE; designed their logo; adopted mission, vision, and objective statements; and adopted bylaws. The fresh-faced Board was invited to meet with the staff of the newly-created corporate Diversity Office. Soon after, “sexual orientation” was incorporated into Ford’s Global Diversity Initiative. Members of Ford GLOBE participated in the filming of two company videos on workplace diversity. Also that year, Ford was a sponsor of the world-premier on NBC of Serving in Silence, starring Glenn Close as Army Reserve Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer. By September of 1996, Ford GLOBE chapters were forming in Great Britain and Germany.

In March of 1996, Ford GLOBE submitted to upper management the coming-out stories of 23 members in hope of putting a human face on what had been an invisible minority. Along with the stories came a formal request for Ford’s non-discrimination policy to be rewritten to include sexual orientation. At the time, only Ford of Britain had such a policy.

Ford GLOBE was beginning to network with similar interest groups at General Motors and Chrysler, including sharing a table at the 1996 Pridefest and walking together in the Michigan Pride Parade in Lansing. After two years of discussion between Ford GLOBE and top management, on November 14, 1996, Ford CEO, Alex Trotman, issued Revised Corporate Policy Letter # 2, adding “sexual orientation” to the company’s official non-discrimination policy. To this day, some of our largest and most profitable corporations, including Exxon Mobile, have refused to do the same.

My involvement with Ford GLOBE began sometime in 1997. For that reason and the fact that I have scrapped many of my records of this period, I have relied heavily on Ford GLOBE’s website for the dates and particulars of these events.

In February of 1998, I attended a “Gay Issues in the Workplace” Workshop, led by Brian McNaught, at Ford World Headquarters, jointed sponsored by GLOBE and the Ford Diversity Office. I remember a Ford Vice President taking the podium at that event. He was a white man of considerable social cachet and I assumed that the privilege that normally goes with that status would have shielded him from any brushes with discrimination. In fact, he told a story of riding a public transit bus with his mother at the height of World War II. His family was German. His mother had warned him sternly not to speak German while riding the bus. Thus, he, too, had known the fear of being outed because of who he was. The experience had made him into an unlikely ally of GLOBE members over 50 years later.

In 1999, Ford GLOBE amended its by-laws to make it their mission to include transgendered employees in Ford’s non-discrimination policy and gender identity in Ford’s diversity training. Ford Motor Company was the first and only U.S. automotive company listed on the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Values Index of top 100 companies working on gay issues, an achievement noted by Ford CEO Jac Nasser. It was about this time that retired Ford Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Alan Gilmore came out as gay. The Advocate named Ford Motor Company to its list of 25 companies that provide good environments for gay employees in its Oct. 26 edition.

Having earlier written the contract bargaining teams for Ford Motor Company, United Auto Workers, and Canadian Auto Workers requesting specific changes in the upcoming union contracts, Ford GLOBE was pleased to see that the resulting Ford/CAW union contract included provision for same-sex domestic partners to be treated as common law spouses in Canada, for sexual orientation to be added to the nondiscrimination statement of the Ford/UAW contract, and that Ford and the UAW agreed to investigate implementation of same-sex domestic partner benefits during the current four-year union contract.

The year 2000 was not only the year that I became Board Chair of Ford GLOBE but also the year that marked a momentous event in automotive history as Ford, General Motors, and the Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler issued a joint press release with the United Auto Workers announcing same-sex health care benefits for the Big Three auto companies’ salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. As the first-ever industry-wide joint announcement of domestic partner benefits and largest ever workforce of 465,000 U.S. employees eligible in one stroke, the historic announcement made headlines across the nation. It was truly a proud moment for all of us in the Ford GLOBE organization.

On January 1 of 2001, my last year with the company, Ford expanded its benefits program for the spouses of gay employees to include financial planning, legal services, the personal protection plan, vehicle programs, and the vision plan.

Since my departure from the company, Ford and GLOBE have continued to advance the cause of GLBT equality and fairness both within the corporation and without. I am fortunate to have been supported in my own coming out process by my associates within the company, both gay and straight, and to Ford GLOBE in particular for the bonds of friendship honed in the common struggle toward a better and freer world.

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way. 

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All My Exes Live in Texas by Gillian

George Strait’s rendition of this hit was at the top of the Country charts in the summer of 1987. It seems like last week that I danced many a night away to that song, but it doesn’t take higher math to figure out that it was actually over twenty-five years ago. It was also the year I came out, at the age of forty-five, and began dancing with women, and one woman in particular, which is doubtless the main reason I remember this particular track with such fondness. It was the year I met my beautiful Betsy. All in all, 1987 was just a bloody good year!

I was living alone in Lyons then, working at IBM in Boulder. I was prompted to come out to the world in a letter to the Boulder Camera newspaper on the subject of the upcoming referendum to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The referendum passed that November, the first one in this country and quite a trail-blazer. It was only the year before, after all, that our trusty U.S. Supreme Court had declared that the right to privacy did not extend to homosexuals. How far we have come in the last quarter century.

In 1987, Charlie’s was further East on Colfax than it is now. That location became Ms C’s when Charlie’s moved, but before that there were few places for lesbians to dance, so every Thursday night Charlie’s was turned over to the women.

Oh how I loved those wonderful Thursday nights!

I had to practice up for them, though. I mean, if you plan to indulge in same-sex dancing, you need to be at ease either leading or following. So I practiced, leading an imaginary, very sexy, partner around my basement and, yes, often to the accompaniment of “All My Exes …. ”

I carpooled with a Lyons/Estes Park group. Katie, the leader of the pack, had a passenger van and in piled five or six of us every Thursday night, come rain or shine, come gale or snow. Women came from all over Colorado. I danced with lesbians from Grand Junction to Pueblo to Julesburg, and at least once during any Thursday night, we would two-step with much gusto to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

Many were boycotting Coors at the time for their anti-gay bigotry, and Katie had a unique way of introducing herself to Coors-supping strangers. She bought another beer brand, took it over to the Coors-drinker, and wordlessly replaced the Coors with her preferred brand. Needless to say that engendered many interesting conversations!

When Charlie’s closed at two in the morning, the carpool group went to the White Spot for breakfast, accompanied by endless cups of caffeine stimulant, and an analysis of the night’s events. Then it was back to Lyons, a quick shower and change, and off to work.

Just the thought of it exhausts me, now! But how I enjoy those memories.

The beautiful, energetic, funny, Katie, now nearing ninety and lost to dementia, can no longer enjoy hers. The only other remaining member of our car-pool group lost her home to last year’s Estes Park fire. Yes, a lot has changed over twenty-five years; not all good.

And the moral of that story is; make your memories while you can, and enjoy them while you may, for who knows what the future may bring?

Sometime in ’87, a new women’s dance-bar called Divine Madness opened up, so the carpool extended to two nights a week, but thankfully we could go to DM on the weekend without work the next day looming over us, while of course we kept up our Thursdays at Charlie’s. And so we doubled the frequency of trying to pick up a good woman while dancing to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

One Friday night in November 1987, I spotted Betsy across the floor at Divine Madness and asked her for a dance. This is where, obviously, I should say that the tune we danced to was “All My Exes Live in Texas,” but it was not, it was Ann Murray singing, “Could I Have This Dance,” a beautiful waltz. I returned to my car-pool group after that dance and announced, “I’m going to marry that woman!”

Of course I didn’t dream, at that time, that some day I would be able to make that statement literally become true. Oh, yes, a lot has changed since then; and some things have stayed the same. With sincere apologies to a great dance tune, I cannot say that “All My Exes … ” offers much in the way of romance: rather the opposite! But for me, “Could I Have This Dance,” is every bit as meaningful today as it was that November night in 1987.

I’ll always remember,
the song they were playing,
The first time we danced and I knew
As we swayed to the music,
and held to each other,
I fell in love with you.

Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life,
Could you be my partner
every night,
when we’re together
it feels so right,
Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life?

January, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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A Revolution of Priorities by Carlos

Decades ago, it was probably apparent to the patrons at the Diamond Lil Bar, the only gay bar in El Paso at the time, that it was my first time crossing the threshold into a gay bar. Because it was in a basement of a 1920’s-vintage building that had seen better days, I had to descend down the stairs into the bar. It took me a moment to get my bearings in the darkness, but the aroma of stale beer and acrid cigarette smoke immediately validated what I had heard about gay bars, that they were dens of gratuitous, sensory depravity. I pondered whether this was the venue for me, since it seemed like such an alien world. Nevertheless, I hungered to be around my own in spite of the fact that they terrified me. After all, the only images of gay men I had ever encountered were the eerily unsettling gay stereotypes depicted in films like Boys in the Band or Cabaret. I had been weaned on rumors of men who frequented public restrooms at Greyhound terminals or lurked in parks in search of quick encounters. If only I had had positive role models, but my potential mentors were generally closeted men living unobtrusive, invisible lives. For years, I realized that I wanted to be with a man, but I failed to act on my inclinations, cloistering myself in a monastery of self-denial. The only man I had ever touched, in fact, was when I worked briefly as a dishwasher following my freshman year in high school. At the end of the second day, when the cook and I were alone, he approached me and guided my hand toward his erect self. Though I touched him with anticipation, momentarily I panicked and stormed out of the restaurant. I walked for hours tormented by my sin, asking God for forgiveness. The next morning, the cook fired me and because I was ashamed, I cataloged the experience neatly in my repertoire of painful memories, always conflicted by my desire to touch him, yet repulsed by the act. Now, I found myself walking down into a dark dungeon at the Diamond Lil, devoured by ambivalent confusion. On the one hand, all my senses were heightened and repulsed by sensory overload. On the other hand, I recognized that what I longed for might be waiting for me just on the other side of the shadows to which I was descending. I walked around nervously. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was horrified. The men I saw were effeminate men who laughed too loud and flittered around the bar like damselflies strutting atop a mirrored lake. The women, on the other hand, wore black leather, sported short-cropped hair and glared like birds of prey in search of victims. In retrospect, I wonder how much of what I remember was a fabrication of my own fears, a sepia cinematic scene from my reel of expectations. I thundered out of the bar in a state of stupor. If this is what awaited me as a gay man, I wanted no part of it. I had sore knees from kneeling before the crucified statue of a moribund Christ at church as I prayed that my curse be lifted. I had always believed that Spirit always answers all prayers with a “Yes, a Not Yet, or an I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you” response. I walked home from the Diamond Lil conflicted by personal and theological implications. I didn’t want to be a husk of my former self, like the pod people who are possessed by alien-prodding, no pun intended, in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Based on the propaganda I had heard all my life, I nevertheless feared becoming a depressed, angry, lost soul lurking in the dark shadows like the roaches that proliferated on the steamy streets and dark alleyways. I feared a life of hurried sex acts behind greasy dumpsters and anonymous glory holes reeking of pungent ammonia. I longed to be held tenderly in the arms of one who would cradle me in his arms and assure me he would love me, yes love me, in spite of my fears that as a gay man I was undeserving. I hated that world where like Shakespeare’s Ophelia, God gave me one face and I made myself another. I lived a life in quiet desperation resulting from the insidious indoctrination from misguided propaganda. Although I wanted to be a good boy, with a relationship modeled after an unrealistic hetero romance movie-of-the-week fantasy, I also wanted dirty sex, and the dirtier, the better. And there lay my quandary. After all, while my inclinations dominated me, I was conflicted by my labeled offenses against nature, against family and community, and against God. I concluded that since I was unable to change the situation, I had to confront the challenge to change myself.

I decided that like Lucifer, I would have to rebel against the status quo and take the plunge into a new realm, hoping I would find myself not in pandemonium, but in some gay kingdom where I could eat my bread in gladness and where I could finally realize Spirit’s I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you agenda. Only later did I realize that my act of rebellion, in fact, would materialize into my act of redemption. In years to come, I would embrace my gay and lesbian kin, as well as myself, as masterworks of creation. I would realize that although we are disparaged by the world, when we embrace our own core and honor our mystic journey, we reclaim our perfect selves.

Making changes is never easy. It took time and courage to know what I wanted and to give myself permission to direct myself toward those goals. There was a time when I felt I was not entitled to be happy because I preferred a man’s touch, a man’s affection, a man’s love. There was a time when like so many in our community, I felt that I was destined never to celebrate a healthy adult relationship, one in which he loved me regardless of my frailties, my fears, my challenges, and vice versa. More importantly, I acknowledged that I could be whole, whether in a relationship with another or not, as long as I honored the relationship with myself. When I walked into the Diamond Lil, it became a rewarding and life-altering experience. I walked in a frightened, vulnerable, defensive child, but I walked out a frightened, vulnerable, defensive adult. That evening, I discovered that I am lovable, and as such, I deserve a life in which I remove my armor and discover gratefulness and joy.

Demanding our rightful place in this world can be challenging and at times even dangerous. In spite of the many triumphs our community has won in the last few years, right-wing Republican bureaucrats and hate-mongering evangelical theocrats continue to advocate policies of hate, insisting being gay can never be affirmed or affirming. I, we, don’t need permission or approval to celebrate the milestones in our lives. For too much of my life, I was a victim of distorted, misguided lies leveled against me. It took me a lifetime to recognize that when I finally let go of the past, something better comes along. Spirit may not have changed me as I attempted to storm the gates of heaven, but before I called, Spirit did, in fact, answer.

© Denver, August 2014

About the Author

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

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Right Now by Betsy

If there is nothing else that I have learned over the years, I have learned this: be present and focus on the moment, the RIGHT NOW, because it really is all there is. It is all that we have in reality. The past is made up of memories, and memories are, after all, a product of one’s mind. As for the future: it is unknown and thoughts of the future are also a product of the mind.

We have a whole lot of ”right nows” happening all the time in succession. By the time I read this, what I am doing right now will be a memory; that is, a vision I create in my mind.

Right now is the most important time of my life. When I contemplate this I realize that right now IS all that is real. So why not make the most of it.

In a recent Monday afternoon story called My Favorite Place I wrote: my favorite place is wherever I am at the moment. Right now my favorite place is here, trying to sort out my thoughts and put them down on paper so you all can get some understanding of what I am trying to say.

Have you ever been in a place where you wanted desperately to capture the moment and make it last forever, such as a place of indescribable beauty and awe such as the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. Today’s cameras help to do that and make it possible to take home a reminder of that place. But what I cannot take home with me is how it FELT to experience the incredible beauty of the canyon and that awesome power of the falls. The memory is not the same as the experience itself. EkhartTolle speaks of being at one with the universe. Surrounded by incredible natural beauty and power and really taking in the feeling and the peace that it engenders is perhaps the closest I will ever be in my current human form to that connection. This can only happen in the right now.

How many of us have ever completely tormented ourselves over something that happened in the past–a few minutes ago or long ago. Or something bad happens a few minutes ago or long ago and we cannot let go of it. We go over and over and over it in our minds. Both past and future are constructs of the mind, says Tolle. Only the now is real. I like the concept. But yet being human I am flawed. My fragile ego was injured, for example, when I was inadvertently left off a groups’ luncheon e-mail list. A group of which I am a long time member. Did someone deliberately forget me. So I started in with the tapes going round and round in my head. “Why was I ignored? Who did it? Does someone hate me? Why does she hate me? Oh! For Heaven’s sake, Betsy, let it go. It was a simple mistake.” Focusing on the right now has helped me to better manage my vulnerability in such situations. Keeps me grounded in reality.

We all have known people who “live” in the past or “live”” in the future. I can understand how a person could fall into this behavior. When I retired from my job, for an instant I panicked. “ Who will I be? Maybe I will no longer have an identity. I’ll be a nothing,” etc. etc. Fortunately that thought was only fleeting. I immediately shifted gears, found other activities and interests, and established a new identity as an active retired person–a sports enthusiast, a community volunteer, etc. So for me, adjustment to retirement took only a week or so.

Coming out of the closet I had many moments of doubt about what I was doing at the time. I had left a very comfortable marriage and entered a world of insecurities and unfamiliar territory. I had never really lived alone. At the time it was not easy to find, much less join, a community of which I knew little; and on occasion finding members of that community with whom I could hardly relate. This produced moments of anxiety when I longed for my old familiar, comfortable situation I had left–my old, familiar past. But right now, I then said to myself, I know that past was intolerable and that is why I am doing this. I struggled but coached myself to stay grounded in the present.

During the months and years when I was in that marriage but starting to question whether I should be there, I started living in the future. Talk about having your head in the clouds–imagining what it would be like to be in a relationship with a woman and envisioning life as a lesbian. It seems clear that we all need to plan and to dream at times in our lives. But living one’s life and identifying with the future all the time can be dangerous. Would it not be terrifying to wake up one day and realize you’ve missed out on all the right nows and there are none left.

We do get ourselves into trouble, and we do ourselves a disservice when we anticipate not only that a certain something will happen in the future, but also we envision how we will feel about it. We may be setting ourselves up for disappointment or disillusionment.

When I first came out I had much to learn about life and about people. And that is not because I was young. Well, compared to now I was young. But I was not a youngster. I was in my late forties. Yet I had lots to learn. So I experienced a couple of stormy years and stormy relationships and had many moments of doubt about the steps I had taken to change my life. Yes, I was a lesbian, but was this the life I wanted? At first I had many moments of disillusionment with my new life.

The future is not right now. What we think about the future is a contrivance of our thinking mind and not a reality. Does the future therefore deserve any of our energy in the form of anxiety, concern, worry, trepidation. Or on the positive side does it deserve premature visions of happiness, joy, calm, peace, etc. I do believe it does to some extent. Half the fun of a trip, or a party is the planning of it, right? For me it is. And planning for the future is a necessity, no doubt about it. But planning is a useful action done, when? In the right now. What does not deserve our time and energy is wasted worry and anxiety about the future.

In my dotage I am learning that life requires adjustments, sometimes just fine tuning, other times big changes all along the way. I have recently learned that I am having to cut back on many activities that I don’t want to cut back on. Some fine tuning is necessary. If I stick to the right nows, I should be able to make that adjustment easily and positively. I’m finding that being and staying in the right now helps me to do that. No doubt about it. The NOW is a good place to be.
So, what am I doing right now? I am getting ready for another right now.

December 16, 2013

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.