Month: February 2015

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Artistic by Lewis

[To my
audience:  Please be forewarned that what
you are about to hear may be infused with more than a soupcon (süp- sän) of “artistic
license”.]

When
I was about eleven and on the cusp of discovering that there was something
about me that was likely to relegate me to the margins of society, I began to
explore the ways in which American popular culture might open up avenues of
expression to me that would help me to wrap my arms around who I was and, more
importantly, how I might fit in. 
It
was 1957 and there were circles of American society wherein people leaving the
movie theater or concert hall might be heard to say things like, “You may
have noticed that [take your pick] Liberace/Sal
Mineo/Anthony Perkins/Montgomery Clift is a bit on the ‘artistic’ side.”
As
people who say such things often were prone to doing so in soft voices, I
mistakenly heard them to say that the actor at issue was “a bit autistic”.  I thought it appalling that a loving god
would see fit to bestow two such strikes upon a child from the moment of their
birth but I counted my blessings in that I seemed to have been passed over for
the autism part and moved on.
Knowing
little about autism and anxious to avoid drawing attention to my own proclivities
when it comes to members of the male gender, I, thenceforth, associated being “autistic”
with anyone exhibiting a combination of three or more of the characteristics of
the classical homosexual persona.  That
is–as Wikipedia describes Franklin
Pangborn, surely one of the most “artistic actors” in Hollywood
history–“fussy…, polite, elegant, and highly energetic, often
officious, fastidious, somewhat nervous, prone to becoming flustered but
essentially upbeat, and with an immediately recognizable high-speed patter-type
speech pattern.”
I
thought I had stumbled upon a fool-proof guide as to how to behave so as not to
elicit any suspicion whatsoever that I might be “queer”.  I set about to find the movie personality who
embodied every antithetical quality so I could emulate him.  He had to be stoic, insensitive, blunt,
laid-back, modest (even falsely so), unflappable but downbeat, slow-spoken and
have nerves of steel.  In a matter of seconds,
it came to me–Rock Hudson.  We all know
how that turned out.
© 8 September 2014 

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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Pets by Gillian

My mother was
a great one for pets. She had pet peeves, pet grievances, pet projects, pet
phrases, and, being a school teacher, even teacher’s pets! She herself used
these expressions.
“Oh, you know
that’s one of my pet peeves,” she’d say as a hand projected from a
passing car to deposit unsightly fish-and-chip wrapping in the flowering
hedgerow. Split infinitives was another. Star Trek was after her time, but I
cannot hear that phrase, to boldly go, without imagining how she would
have given a sharp intake of breath, shaken her head sadly, and told the TV,
admonishingly, “It’s either boldly to go, or to go boldly,
NOT to boldly go!”  Split
infinitives, she always stated, set her teeth on edge. Fortunately for her,
being a teacher, fingernails on the blackboard did not!
I, also, have
pet peeves; people who, chatting on their cellphones, crash their grocery carts
into my ankles. Or almost crash their car into my car. Or shout into their
cellphones at the table next to mine in a restaurant, or in line at the
supermarket. Or those who, speaking of the supermarket line, react in
astonishment when the clerk implies that they need actually to pay (see, no
split infinitive!) for their groceries, and begin an endless hunt, in a
bottomless purse, for their checkbook.
Mom’s pet
grievances, and they were many, were all sub-titles. They related, mostly
directly, occasionally indirectly, to the the Grand Category of Grievances: my
father. What he had ever done to deserve this, I never could ascertain; but I
have written about this before so will not repeat myself. Suffice it to say
that I loved my dad, and never truly understood Mom’s animosity.
When I say I
loved him, I don’t mean that he was my dad so of course I loved him in spite of
all his faults and wrong-doings. I mean that I loved him because of who he was,
not despite it.
I have my own
grievances, but most of mine, or so I like to think, are general rather than
personal.  “A feeling of resentment
over something believed to be wrong or unfair,” says the online
dictionary.  Given that definition, yes,
I grieve every war and every youth sacrificed to it. I grieve every starving
person with no food to eat, and every thirsty person with no water to drink. I
grieve man’s inhumanity to man, but then you’ve heard all that before, too. In
the last couple of years or so I find myself forced to grieve for young black
people killed, no, let’s use the right word here, murdered, for no
reason other than the color of their skin, by angry bigoted white men.
My mother’s
pet projects, in the sense of those which go on, year after year, were writing,
both poetry and prose, and pressing flowers. I do my best with writing, and
truly love doing it, but the pressed flowers somehow passed me by. I do love to
photograph them, though, so perhaps that’s some kind of higher-tech equivalent.
My latest pet project is organizing my photos into a series of theme books.
And so to pet
phrases!
Do as you
would be done by. If the whole world lives by
those few words, what a wonderful world it would be!
If you can’t
say something nice, don’t say anything at all. We, as a society, definitely have abandoned that one!
Oh dear! What
will people think? Mom, a product of an age when
appearances greatly mattered, said that quite frequently to both me and my dad,
neither of us great respecters of neighbors’ judgments.  
This one was
somewhat at odds with another pet phrase of Mom’s.
“Just be
comfortable,” she’d respond, in any discussion of what to wear, but then
proceed to “what will people think?” when I arrived in slacks or my
dad without a tie. Mom was not without her inconsistencies, but we learned
easily enough how to deal with them and my mother was, on the whole,
considerate, sweet, and kind. As with my dad, I loved her very much, simply for
who she was.
My mother had,
quite literally, generations of teacher’s pets. She began teaching in the local
two-room school in 1928 and retired in the early 1970’s, so, except for few
years out in the 40’s, she taught in the same room for about forty years. At
the end she was teaching some whose grandparents she had taught.  
“Oh that
little Johnny Batchett!” she’d exclaim. She never denied having favorites
but she would never have treated them as the classic teachers’ pets. She would
have taken great care never to show any hint of favoritism.
“He’s got
that same little cheeky smile as his granddad! He’s got his mother’s dimples
though. The girls are going to be round him like bees around the honey! Of
course, his dad was just the same. All ‘love them and leave them’ young Tom
was, till those dimples hooked him fair and square ….. ” and off she’d
go.
” ……
but that Yvonne Atkins! What a little madam! Still, what can you expect? Her
mum and dad, both such discipline problems at that age. I’ll never forget the
time …….”  My dad would give me
his covert wink, and we’d settle down to listen, or at least pretend we were.
Recalling
Mom’s pet thises and thats reminds me, once again, how the world has changed
over the course of my life. Not too many people these days are taught by the
same person who taught their grandparents, or even their parents. Or even, come
to that, an older sibling.
Most of us
care little what anyone thinks of the way we look, or often even the way we
act.  Those old admonitions such as the
Golden Rule, once painstakingly embroidered and hung on the wall, have more or
less disappeared; I’m quite sure they aren’t about to go viral any time soon.
I’m not suggesting we abided by such things in our day, but at least we were
aware of the concept; perhaps we tried.
Yes, I am
being an old curmudgeon. My own pet peeves and grievances grow apace.  Well why not? There is much of this Brave New
World I do not like.  But there would, I
suspect, be more to dislike, knowing what I now know, if I returned to that
rose-colored past, than there is in the reality of the present. Why would I
want to return to a world where homosexuality was illegal? A woman having a
baby was forced to quit her job, and for this reason could not get a loan to
buy a house or car in her own name, no matter how well paid she was. And even
after the birth control pill gave women much better control over their own
reproductive rights, it was illegal to provide [or] prescribe them for an
unmarried woman.  No. I really want np
part of it.
As for the
future, who knows?
As Jay Asher
says, in his novel Thirteen Reasons Why –
“You can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
… is to press play.”
So as I’m not
yet quite ready to press the stop button, and certainly not the eject, I guess
I’d better do just that!
© 18 August 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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Camping by Will Stanton

I am one of those fortunate
people who grew up in an era that was not overwhelmed, as we appear to be
now-days, with digital technology.  We
found ways of entertaining ourselves and choosing enjoyable activities that
were more natural.  Camping was one of
those.
My mother and father thought
that camping was a good way to spend summer vacations.  Part of that stemmed from the fact that we
did not have much money and were not well-healed enough to take world cruises,
go to luxury resorts, or stay in fancy hotels. 
My father was able to pick up some army-surplus camping supplies, all of
it rather primitive by today’s camping standards.  He bought a heavy-canvas tent, big enough to
stand up in and to hold the five of us. 
He bought five army cots made of heavy oak supports and canvas.  We had a gas Coleman lantern that, when lit,
hissed and provided us with plenty  of
light.  We had a plywood icebox that he
made, lined with Celotex for insulation.
So for several summers, we
traveled in our station wagon to various states in central, north, and eastern
U.S., setting up camp in preselected campsites. 
Undoubtedly, these travels sparked my love of nature that has lasted all
my life.
Unlike many other boys who
found enjoyable experiences camping through joining the Cub Scouts, Boys
Scouts, or (as portrayed in the movie “Moonlight Kingdom”) the Khaki Scouts, my
brief participation in the scouts included almost no camping trips.  I don’t recall whether our local troops just
did not offer that many trips, or if my mother just did not bother to sign me
up.  As a consequence, I missed out on
some scouting experiences, enjoyable or less so, that many other boys have had.
I do recall that one of the
older boys, seventeen-year-old Bruce, apparently was very proud of his
developing masculinity, which was expressed in his being the hairiest
individual I ever had seen, to that date, outside of a zoo.  Between his questionable personality, very
chunky build, rather common features, and a mat of black hair covering almost
the entirety of his body, I did not find him to be a particularly attractive
person.
Bruce was noted for two
exceptional habits while on camping trips. 
One was that he prided himself on carrying with him a battery-pack and
electric razor to mow each morning the inevitable black stubble on his
face.  The other habit, which to this day
I have not been able to explain, was that he liked to spend the night in his
sleeping bag nude.  Boys being boys,
neither of these facts went unobserved.  And
boys being who they are, they decided to play a practical joke on Bruce.  All they had to do was hook up his electric
razor to his battery-pack, slip it down into his sleeping back, turn it on, and
then shout, “Snake!  Snake!” 
Bruce, waking up to the
warning shouts, along with the buzz and vibration down in his sleeping bag,
naturally panicked.  Terrified, and
struggling to extricate himself from the sleeping bag, Bruce quickly wiggled
out of the bag, stood up, and without stopping to further assess the situation,
took off running into the woods.  It took
a while for the boys to coax Bruce back into the camp.  He was relieved but also irritated to find
that there never was a snake in his sleeping bag.  He was even more irritated with the new
Indian name that the boys assigned to him, “Running Bare.”
© 23
January 2014    
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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Feeling Loved by Ricky

In
hindsight, I am sure my parents sort of loved me.  Early photographs clearly show me smiling, especially
on my birthdays, Halloweens, and Christmases. 
I did not feel loved during my frequent spankings for being
disobedient.  I am fairly sure that my
dad did not like spanking me but felt that he had to; the old “spare the rod
and spoil the child” philosophy.
It is
rather ironic how our brains tend to be very selective about which memories it
chooses to give us access.  For example,
I get glimpses or figments of some happy or pleasing moments, but not a lengthy
detailed viewing.  I know I was cared for
and nourished, except for those darned stewed tomatoes, and yet I have no
memories of being hugged or kissed.  I am
sure I got hugs and kisses or I would be a complete basket case by now; I just
don’t remember any.
My
maternal grandparents loved me but were not demonstrative in showing it with
hugs or kisses.  Instead my grandfather
pulled a trick on me by pre-filling my lunch drinking glass with yogurt-like
“liquid” accurately named “long milk”, as it was thick like honey or molasses
but lacked a decent flavor.  That he, my
“hero” surrogate father, would do such a thing really hurt my feelings and I
definitely did not feel loved at that point.
At the end
of my first summer with them on their farm in Minnesota (June thru August
1956), my mother called me on the phone and talked me into staying there for my
3rd grade school year.  I
didn’t know about the divorce proceedings yet, but I still did not feel loved
by her.  When she came out later that
year to attend her sister’s wedding, I thought I would be returning to
California with her.  It did not happen
and I felt unloved again.
When I did
not get to go home at the end of that school year and had to stay for the 4th
grade too, I began to wonder why can’t I go home but no one would tell me
anything truthful.  I was loved, but
didn’t feel loved.
When my
dad came to visit at Christmas in 1957, I finally was told the important part
of the truth and why I could not go home with him.  I know he wanted to take me home but was
constrained by the law.  Nonetheless,
when he left I began to feel that I was unlovable.  At the end of May 1958, my mother came to the
farm with my infant twin brother and sister and my new step-father to introduce
him and them to her parents and to take me back to California.  I still did not feel loved, but I was very
happy to go back to a new home.
While
living at Lake Tahoe, we had three different residences but all felt like some
kind of home.  The last place is the one
I refer to as “home” during conversations. 
It was while living in that particular house, I began to feel loved
again, but not by people.  Of course my
baby siblings grew to love me of a sort since I was practically their parent
until I left for college, but the love I am referring to came from our pet
female dog, Peewee.  She was a lap-dog,
with long shaggy fur; a mixed breed of ¾ Oriental Poodle and ¼ Pomeranian. 
Peewee’s
previous owner was a woman who was moving and could not take her pet to the new
location, so my mother brought the dog home. 
Being a small dog, she was shaking with fear when she arrived and ran
under the couch to keep away from me (13) and the little-ones (both 3) whom all
wanted to touch and hold her.  After the
twins went to bed, I was still lying on the floor with my hand under the front
of the couch, while watching the television. 
After a while, I felt the dog licking my fingers.  I slowly pulled my hand back and she followed
and then walked to my side and cuddled with me. 
At that moment, we bonded and from then on, I was her’s and she was
mine.  That dog loved me and I loved her
back.  We both felt loved for many years
until I left for college and then the military. 
I was stationed in Florida when I learned that she had passed away.  In spite of my traumatized emotions, I
grieved for the loss of my first love, the one who was always there and never
made demands.  Since then, I have always
had deep affection for my pets.
When I was
11, 12, 13, and 14, my paternal grandmother babysat a Downs Syndrome pre-teen
girl named, Jackie.  When my dad took me
over to visit my grandmother, I also got to meet Jackie who always remembered
me after our first meeting and who also greeted me with a huge smile and strong
hug.  That was the way she greeted every
one, with pure innocent happiness and radiant love.  I have often wondered if Jesus would welcome
me like that someday.
Eventually,
I met my soul-mate and we were married. 
I felt loved again.  With each
child we both felt an increase in love. 
Naturally, a child’s love for his parents fluctuates with the pangs of
growing-up, but eventually equilibrium is obtained and love makes its presence
known again, unless the parent or child has done something to destroy it along
the way.
After my
wife passed away, I thought love was gone from this life.  The love of my children is there but just is
not the same.  Since attending the SAGE
Telling Your Story group sessions, I am receiving the love of friends, both
close and casual when I am around them. 
I feel loved but not the kind that lasts.  This kind of love needs frequent refreshing
just as if we were all partners or married and living together.
To close
with a borrowed quote from two movies, The Boy with Green Hair and Moulin Rouge, I leave you with, “The greatest
thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.”
© 21 October 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 9-11-2001
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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The Wisdom of an LGBT Identity by Phillip Hoyle

Cecelia started it when she told me about a book she wanted me to teach. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron was no ordinary book but, rather, a spiritual process of self-examination, exercises, and disciplines to help the reader overcome barriers to self-expression as an artist. The content and activities were meant for writers, visual artists, performers, and just about anyone who wanted to explore his or her own artistic bent. I was skeptical, but Cecelia was persistent. Agreeing to share the task of facilitating the thirteen sessions, we settled on an approach that seemed well balanced.

A group of writers, poets, painters, illustrators, sculptors, musicians, and educators—all members of the church where I worked—assembled that first night. They received their copies of the book and listened patiently as we explained the process for both the group and the individual participants. The work focused daily on the infamous “Morning Pages,” periodically on completing short writing and art exercises, and weekly on “Artist Dates.” Oh, we read the book, too, and met each week to share our work, objections, pains, elation, pasts, and dreams.

What Cecelia knew and I hoped would happen did occur. We changed our views of ourselves, our appreciation of one another, and our ability to engage in creative work. Due to our weeks together, our lives have continued to change to this day.

For example, some seventeen years later I am still writing my three hand-written, first-thing-in-the-morning pages. I have been writing and painting on a regular basis. I know others have as well. Since that time I have led several other groups through Cameron’s process, often sharing the leadership with others as Cecelia taught me. People are still changing. But the most unexpected change occurred in me, and it wasn’t directly related to seeing myself as an artist.

The child, the inner child, a concept with which I was familiar, showed up prominently in The Artist’s Way. I had always been slightly put off by the concept, not because it made no sense, but because I heard it used so trivially so often. I read Cameron critically and did not find her explications very enlightening, but I did respond to her process. As a teacher I had pledged myself to engage fully in the process the book proffered. I answered all the questions the author posed, made all the lists she asked for, and on Artist Dates took my inner child to the museums, through parks, down streets of mansions, to mountain meadows, streams and caves, into paper shops, hardware stores and artist supply companies just like the writer instructed. During our times together I recalled many childhood scenes. Somehow Cameron showed me that my inner child is not just some kind of memory of past events but that I am still all that I have ever been at whatever age: confident or afraid, victorious or at a loss, praised or put down.

So I got reacquainted with my inner child’s hurt even though the idea seemed corny. Then I wrote about my fifth grade teacher who derided my Purple Cow illustration but offered me no help with my drawing. I was embarrassed and convinced I couldn’t draw. Two years later I enrolled in seventh grade woodshop instead of the art class I really wanted. But in shop I discovered I couldn’t do the projects very well not being strong enough to control the awkward tools I had to use. My only really fine work that year was the design I burned in the wooden bookends I made. I wrote about these things in the exercises and in my Morning Pages and grew more and more to love my hurt inner artist child.

The more Artist Dates I went on the more artistic and the more gay I got! That’s when I remembered the comment a gay friend of mine said about my work in religious education. “It’s more like art than education,” he observed. I trusted the judgment of this fellow minister, educator, and artist but felt confused. Looking critically into my own experience I finally I realized what was right about his analysis, that my play with religious ideas, symbols, and characters was enacted through art forms. And then I started to wonder if my fifth grade teacher was wrong. I quit planning art processes for children and began doing them for myself.

Cameron’s process expanded. She wanted us to costume on our Artist Dates wearing artsy clothes—surely black outfits with berets and scarves. She encouraged us to hang around with other artists. She suggested we introduce ourselves as artists. In so doing, she opened my imagination by encouraging an identity. In my response I discovered that not only was the artist child wounded in me but the gay child as well.

Then the goofy New Age intruded. Cameron wanted us to make affirmations, to write over and over certain sentences. I did so even though I hated doing it. But how else does one learn? I still write one of these sentences, still slightly irritated because, I’m sure, I hear a writing teacher telling me not to write in the first person and because to me the affirmation seems exaggerated, not exactly true. Stifling my objections I write: “I, Phillip Hoyle, am a brilliant and prolific artist.” The first time I encountered it, I simply filled in the blank with my name, first and last, just as she instructed. Then I started writing it at the end of the Morning Pages sometimes as an additional page of mantra-like affirmations, at other times to fill out the third page when I felt like I was running out of time or ideas to write.

What I learned through identifying myself as an artist transformed me. I sought out other artists. I laughed when I dressed in black like our church organist. I continued the artist dates long after the thirteen weeks ended. I continued to write the Morning Pages. And the more I did all these exercises, I found my artistic intertwined with my gay. I was doubly identified. My hurt artist child was always an artist and was always gay. That’s me. 


My mantra now included this: I am Phillip Hoyle. I am an artist. AND I am gay. I was always an artist, and I was always gay.

The advantage of this identity? I was able to change my life knowing a community of acceptance, understanding, and living. A way to see myself. A structure of self-acceptance and understanding. A way to find friends. The wisdom of LGBTQA coalition identity. Something more than politics. Rather the creation of a world-view of inclusion, tolerance, acceptance, relationship, and growth within diversity.

© Denver, 2012




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.com

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Clothes by Lewis

[I
would like to begin by looking back at what happened last week with the topic
being “The Person I Fall in Love with Should Be…”.  As we were leaving, I was feeling
disheartened for two reasons:  1) I
realized that the topic I had been responsible for was not inclusive of those
in the group who are in a committed relationship.  It essentially left them with almost nothing
to say.  I apologize for that and will
not allow that to happen again.  2) One
of our participants made it very clear that they were not at all happy with the
word “should” and made quite a point of saying that
“should” is a word that should never be used as part of a topic.  I wonder if we want to engage in such
disparagement of a topic, especially if, as was the case last week, the originator
of that topic is present.
One
more comment:  We have been very clear
that no one is required to write on the “topic of the week”.  However, I think that it is conducive to the
creative process to make those deviations the exception, rather than the rule.
Hearing diverse perspectives on the same topic is what makes for a stimulating
hour-and-a-half and also forces us to channel our creative forces in
constructive ways.  ‘Nuff said about
process.]
Clothes are worn for
many purposes:  style, status, and
modesty for three.  I’m going to talk
about a fourth:  body image.  People tend to model what they think is going
to “surprise and delight” the casual observer or, perhaps,
significant other.  Popular opinion has a
way of letting someone know when they have stepped over the line of decorum
and/or vogue.  As a repressed
exhibitionist with an eroticized libido, I have been an avid follower of these taboos
for most of my life.  There exists in
modern American society a very distinct double-standard when it comes to the
line between dress that titillates and that which commits sensory
trespass. 
I would like to share
with you a letter written to Annie’s
Mailbox advice column that was published in the Denver Post on June 29, 2003, along with the response from the
columnists, Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, 
[Read
letter from photocopy.]
The key to
understanding the present state of our society is in the first paragraph of the
response: 
“Most
14-year-old boys would not be willing to put up with the teasing that Jonah is
getting from his peers. Stylish or not, they would stop wearing the
swimsuits.  Either Jonah has
tremendous self-assurance or he is enjoying these bikinis on an entirely
different level.”
I have to wonder–what
level would that be?  The same level upon
which girls of that age might enjoy wearing a bikini?  I don’t think that is what is meant at all.  As the responders also write, “Bikinis and thongs usually indicate something more sensual.  Exhibitionism and cross-dressing are
possibilities but they aren’t the only ones.”  What, exactly might the others be?  Homosexuality?  Pedophilia? 
Has anyone ever asked models for the Sports
Illustrated swim suit issue if they are exhibitionists?  And to even suggest that “Jonah”
might be a cross-dresser is to imply that thongs and bikinis are the sole
province of the female gender, which is begging the very question that I am
asking:  Isn’t what is good for the
gander also good for the goose?
When I was about 10
years old, I took a swimming class at the Hutchinson, KS, YMCA.  The rules were that swimming suits were not
allowed in the pool, as they might carry germs. 
We had to shower before we got into the pool, as well as after.  I was terrified but soon got comfortable with
letting it all hang out.  By the time my
own children were about that age, boys did not even take their swimming suits
off to shower after swimming.  Why the
vast difference?  I would welcome any and
all ideas on this.
In 1990, my wife, kids
and I set out for Disney World in Orlando. 
Wanting to appear “with it”, I bought my first pair of “surfer-style”
swim trunks just for the occasion.  When
we went to the water park, the first thing on the kids’ agenda was the huge,
serpentine water slide.  Not wanting to
appear skittish or square, I enthusiastically joined them.  Just one problem:  about 6 feet down the slide, my ridiculously
bulky “trunks” grabbed hold of the slide and held on for dear
life.  I had to “scoot” down
the remaining three stories of slide while trying not to get “rear-ended”
by an unsuspecting kiddie.  I have worn
nothing but trusty Speedos ever since. 
Yes, sometimes I do feel a little “over-exposed” but at least
I don’t carry a gallon of water with me whenever I get out of the pool.
[As
an illustration of the fact that America’s discomfort with the male form is not
universal, I am passing around a copy of Down Under:  To glorify the Australian lifesaver.  I have flagged a few pertinent pages.]
© 22 September 2014 

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. 
Posted on

Reframing Reality by Gillian

Many things can force us to reframe our reality; death of a
loved one, divorce, health problems, loss of a job or change in career,
relocating our home, addictions and substance abuse. The list goes on and on.
And the reasons don’t have to be negative. Winning the lottery could certainly
reframe reality, as could falling madly in love or escaping from
addictions and substance abuse.
But the extent to which you allow your reality to change when
such things happen, I believe, depends very much on how secure you are with
your own reality, and your place in it. Possibly I am being hopelessly naive,
but I really think I could find myself the lucky recipient of, say, fifty
million bucks, without it changing me very much. I think I could face health
problems, or being forced, for whatever reason, to live in some other State or
even country, and survive it without allowing my reality to morph to too great
an extent. Of course I’m kinda sticking my neck out here, inviting all of you to
judge me eagerly when one of these happenings does befall me. But at least my
own reaction to these things is something that is within my control, though
whether I do in fact master it may be another matter.
What I have little, if any, control of, is how something
which happens to me, ends up reframing another person’s, or many other people’s, realities around me. When I win
that fifty million, you know it changes me in other people’s realities. The same happens if,
say, I am diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six weeks to live. Does
that cause others to reframe me in their realities? You bet it does.
One of the strongest effectors of reality change in a person
and in those around them is probably addiction and substance abuse, whichever
direction those nightmares are moving. If we fall under the influence of an
addiction, it certainly changes our vision, our very sense, of reality. All
else becomes less and less real; the only thing real to us is that addiction.
Likewise, it is all others see of us. Our entire reality, to our families and
friends, is taken over by the addiction. If we continue, our frame of reality
both to ourselves and others, is the addiction.
Ah, but we have made the miracle happen. We are recovering
from substance abuse. So all will be well, will it not? We don’t fool ourselves. How many
relationships have we seen disintegrate well into the recovery stage? All those
friends, family members, perhaps partners, who had been been accompanying us
happily down Addiction Road no longer find us fun. We no longer share that
costly habit; that dark secret. As we fade in their realities to mere echoes of
our former selves, we are dealing, ourselves, with the formation of very new
realities. We are mere echoes of our former selves to ourselves, also, and must
begin the challenge of creating for ourselves a completely new reality which
maybe we have never known, or at least forgotten.
Well we can’t let this topic go without at least dipping our toes into
the Coming Out Ocean, can we? When I first came out, just to myself, I felt a
huge shift in reality. Or more, it seemed that my previous reality had simply
disintegrated, pffff, in an unimpressive little puff of steam like some things
do on the computer when you press delete. I had no concept of what my new
reality looked like. I was an explorer alone in a newly discovered land: a
time-traveller.
It took coming out to others to begin to frame this new
reality, and for those others to reframe their own, with the new me in it. But
as we stumbled along together, my family, friends, and I, we /found that, at
least superficially, not so much reframing was required after all. I was still
the same person. Little had really changed.
Oh but it had.
Oprah Winfrey has spiritual gurus on her TV channel on
Sundays, part of a series she terms Super Soul Sundays. Watching one of these
one morning I heard an expression that summed up the state of my soul to
perfection. Oprah, or her guest whose name I don’t even recall, used the phrase homesickness
of the soul.
“Yes, oh yes, that is it exactly!”  I wanted to yell and dance and shout for joy. Yes, that is
it.
Before I came out to myself with true, complete,
unquestioning acceptance of who I was, my soul was terribly, agonizingly
homesick. Now it am home. My soul and I came home. We are where we
live; where we must be. What we were born to be.
That is what now frames my reality, and no matter what
happens it will never change.
Perhaps that is why I dare to think, in a way that maybe
seems rather smug, that my reality will not falter in the unlikely event of
suddenly having undreamed of wealth, or, sadly somewhat higher odds, being
diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The only really important reality is my soul, and it has come
home.
©
June 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.
Posted on

All My Exes Live in Texas by Will Stanton

Who the heck came up with
this topic?  Just because the title
rhymes doesn’t mean that every member of the Story-Time group will have
something worthwhile to say about it…and, in my case, certainly nothing serious.  I’ve read the lyrics of the Shafer and Shafer
song, and I can’t say that the song has any memorable quality to it, regardless
of whether the song is sung by George Straight or Marvin Gay.
To begin with, I don’t have
any exes.  I had just one partner of
twenty years before he died of lung cancer, and I don’t consider him to be an
“ex.”  Besides, if I did have exes, the
kind of person I would have associated with, as sure as hell, never would want
to move to Texas.
Oh, I’m sure that a few of
the people in Texas are very nice and have something to offer humanity, but I
have to say the the ones that I met on a couple of visits left me
unimpressed.  Now, maybe this statement
is too much of a generality, but it appeared to me that the only things the
Texans whom I met were interested in were money, power, food, and sex…and
maybe in that order.  They practiced a
form of Texan chauvinism, viewing outsiders as suspect, probably even
un-American.
The Texan culture (to use
that term loosely) seems to consist of strident guitars, pounding drums, cold
beer, and line-dancing.  The Texas
Two-Step probably was devised by quickly avoiding cow paddies out on the
prairie.  Yes, I know that Houston has an
opera, but I suspect that its oil-rich patrons gave tons of money to Carl Rove
to help him execute the 2000 George-Bush junta that placed him the Presidents’
office.
After eight years of W,
along with a plague of senators and congressman from that lunatic asylum, I
cringe at even the hint of a Texas accent. 
I recall when a Texas senator (who expressed his dislike of faggots) had
the hubris to consider running for President. 
He naturally went to his base, the N.R.A., for a speech.  One of his statements, and his thick Texas
drawl, remain indelibly printed in my memory. 
He said, “Ah own more guhns than ah need, but not as minny as ah
wohnt!”  I suppose he thought that this
sentiment qualified him to be leader of the “Free World.”
In case any of you needs
assistance in interpreting Texan speech, there is, in fact, a Texan-English
dictionary.  For example, “ohll” is that
black stuff that they pump out of the ground.   
And, “Yurp” is that place east across the ocean.
I’ll tell you what – – how
about culling out those Texan senators and congressmen who are scary, delusional
nut-cases and making them all exes.  Get
them out of Washington and send them back to Texas.  Then if they want to secede, let them.  Let them try to make it on their own without
all the federal services and benefits that they claim are a commie intrusion
upon their freedom.  The next time a
hurricane devastates their coastline cities and industries, let them try to
make it on their own.  Or, maybe they can
ask Mexico for help.
I have one more suggestion:
how about all those people throughout the nation who have had the misfortune to
have made terrible choices in selecting partners sending all their exes to
Texas?  Get them out of the country and
put them where they belong.  We could
call that program “Keep America Beautiful.”
 © 17 December 2013 

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.
Posted on

The Bells Toll at Midnight by Ricky

BYU Carillon

Boy and man, I have always
been very mischievous.  In 1977, I was a
senior at BYU and working part time as an armed Campus Security Officer assigned
to night duty as a patrolman.  During my
shifts, I would occasionally explore the underground maintenance tunnels to
learn my way around in preparation for any needed response to an incident.  Using my pass key one night, I entered the carillon
tower about 2 AM via the maintenance entrance and began to explore the ground
floor level.  (I must note here that the
carillon would automatically chime the hours from 6AM to 10PM and remain silent
between 10PM and 6AM.)
I previously read about the mechanism
used to play the carillon manually, which is located near the bells at the top
of the tower, but I did not climb the stairs to see it or the bells.  I did discover a small concrete room on the
main level that contained a piano or organ style keyboard against the
wall.  It was electric, so I flipped the
switch and began to play a little.  I did
not hear any bells, just the keyboard tones.
Better-late-than-never, the analytical
part of my mind finally wondered, “Why is a keyboard down here?  Could it actually be connected to the bells?”
 I hit the lowest note key, ran out of
the room and opened the outside door just in time to hear the bell’s echo.  I turned off the keyboard and fled as fast as
I could–still unseen through the underground tunnels.
In October, I again went
into the tower unobserved via the maintenance access, turned on the keyboard,
and at midnight I played the Big Ben Chime Theme followed by “bongs” to mark
the hour.  In later years, my wife and I met
a married graduate who remembered that particular Halloween in 1977 when the
carillon struck 13 at midnight.
BYU Carillon
© 6 May 2014

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 9-11-2001 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. 
Posted on

No Good Will Come of It by Phillip Hoyle

Today’s topic—‘no good will come of it’—seemed an apt description of my search for a story even though I started looking for an approach two weeks ago. At first consideration the theme sounded to me like Cassandra’s warning to the good citizens of Troy in the Iliad, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” Homer could easily have added, “No good will come of it,” without any change to his character or plot. I didn’t pursue this image, for to view my life as a tragedy didn’t easily fit my personality. I felt stymied by the topic that seemed to go nowhere.

I began my search again on Tuesday morning and found myself wandering through empty hallways of my memory—no furnishing wanted to seat such a saying, no picture offered potential to my storytelling. Still I walked around in the space peeking into corners and around projections, peering out windows and down stairwells, opening doors and slamming them shut in frustration. Finding a story seemed hopeless.

Come Wednesday I considered what I saw as a great contrast between my parents: Dad, who was more of the “No good will come of it” school; Mom, who was more of the “Every cloud has a silver lining” school. I saw easily how I was more like my mom, but the insight offered no story I hadn’t told before. Besides, my parents’ lives were much more than a single contrast. Both believed in the power of learning and education. I’m sure Mom had her challenges that made some days seem just plain gloomy and Dad held out hope that his kids would live meaningful lives.

Surely both Mom and Dad deemed my education effective when in eighth grade I began reading with a voracious appetite, a result of my discovery of historical novels in the junior high library. My interest in American history was spurred on by the dramatic telling and the presence of Native American characters. As a developing bibliophile I supplemented assigned books with stacks of novels throughout high school, five years of college, and over five years of graduate education. I read with a preference for comedy but in the process took in many tragedies, stories from many cultures told from many perspectives. Finally I discovered novels written by American Indian authors and by gay and lesbian authors. Then I read more and more. A Canadian friend sent me books by Canadians such as Thomas King and Annie Proulx. I felt thankful that my vocation as a minister supported the idea that I continue learning in order to be an effective teacher and leader. My library grew, but of course, some books I did not place on the shelves in my church office.

I easily preferred reading a book over viewing a movie, even a cinema made from a book. So when I heard talk that a movie was being developed from a story by Annie Proulx, I went in search of the tale at the library and found “Brokeback Mountain” in a collection of Wyoming-themed short stories. I read “Brokeback Mountain” with interest and then the rest of the stories in the book. One word seemed to describe them all: bleak. Such a mood had permeated her novels. I wondered how this movie would turn out. When it showed at the Mayan Theatre I attended with my partner. I was so moved that at the end of the movie I had to stay through the credits to weep. Eventually we left the theater. Wanting to see just how closely the movie script and editing followed the story, I purchased the collection and was amazed at how accurately it tracked and how freedoms taken in the movie interpreted the story with amazing clarity.

While discussing the show with a minister friend I discovered my view contrasted greatly with his. At the end of the movie I had felt something deeply positive in the survivor’s life, in both the new-found connection with his daughter and a continuing deep love with his deceased friend. His grief had great value that made him reach out to his family. Even that little, undeveloped glimmer of hope which, in contrast to what else he had experienced, seemed to me the promise of eventual fulfillment for the character. My friend Terry didn’t feel it at all, but rather sank into the bleakness of the author’s characters and the setting’s spare resources. He left the movie feeling no hope. Perhaps he really enjoys tragedies while I really want comedy. But more importantly I believe I saw the movie from the point of view of my own gay experience. While I deeply loved a couple of men through the years of my straight odyssey, I also lived a strange, spare realty—one in which increasingly I desired a gay relationship of open shared affection. I wanted to be nurtured by it, by a man. I held onto the images, the friendships I had, the literature I read, even some pornography, but through a sense of self control patiently nurtured my friendships and loved myself. I really wanted more and eventually went to find it.

My search was consequential, but my life was not bleak. Still, deep within there was a Wyoming kind of windblown, cold, lonely world, aspects of which could be seen even in my childhood. Gay boy loses straight friend after years of playing together; their worlds diverged. His same-sex needs persisted but he didn’t find anyone to share them with. As a young adult he found two gay male friends with whom he could share his own sexual narrative, but he didn’t pursue either as a lover. He had other friends but the gay ones always seemed more interesting. He watched other bisexual men but didn’t want their problems. Eventually he changed his life, took the great losses and the attendant grief. He was hurt but not destroyed.

You see, like Ennis Del Mar at the end of the movie, I stood in the trailer of my transience and examined the souvenirs of my life and loves and felt inspired and loved—even if imperfectly—and eventually hopeful. That’s how I saw Ennis. That’s how I saw myself. So, although observers of my not-strong straight approach to life may have been supposing no good would come of it, and although some pointed to the disruption of my vocation and marriage as proof they were right, they had no access in their depressed judgmental view of the deep joy that disruption led me to experience. I found in those changes silver linings and deep veins of golden treasures. I kept my souvenirs while I continued searching for gay love and meaning. I guess I am so much like my mother! I found my story.

© 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.com