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House Cleaning by Lewis

I have been doing housework since I was no more than eight years old. I remember this very specifically because the summer of my eighth year I contracted ringworm of the scalp. It was the summer that my nuclear family—granddad, dad, mom and me—drove Granddad’s 1952 Packard sedan to New England and Washington, DC. We hadn’t been home one week when my scalp started to scale and itch. We had a pet cat, which had every reason to hate me but, when checked, it showed no sign of the skin disease. I might have picked it up in the Big Apple but my favorite theory is that I got it from putting the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner up to my cheek and making funny faces at myself.

In any event, that was only the beginning of a series of odd associations with house cleaning in my early life. My parents were lower middle class folk who rarely could afford to pay a cleaning person but my mother hated—that’s H-A-T-E-D—housework—so, when she was working, it was necessary to pay someone to clean our house. One day, according to my mother, she found a black cleaning woman asleep on her bed. That was the last time she ever paid anyone to do housework and, as far I know, the last time she ever spoke kindly of a black person. No, from then on, if house cleaning needed to be done and I was around, I did it (or, so it seems, looking back across so many foggy years).

Luckily for me, I kind of liked doing housework. (Please note the past tense!) I put cleanliness and order above godliness and I was the only person I trusted to do the job right. When I started working at the public library at the age of 15, my favorite job was to “read the shelves” on Saturday mornings. That meant putting hundreds of fiction books in alphabetical order by author and title and a similar number of non-fiction books in Dewey Decimal System order. I could do it faster and more accurately than anyone else on the staff though they seemed only upset that I lay on the floor to read the bottom shelf.

My second-favorite job was working the basement stacks. Down there was a large “squirrel cage” that housed back issues of periodicals, including National Geographic. Growing up in the 1950’s meant that there were a number of native peoples in the world who were accustomed to wearing little other than a loin cloth and, sometimes, some body paint or other ornamentation. The only magazine store in my home town was a great source of comic books and Christian literature but most definitely lacking in anything that would appeal to the prurient interest of a nascent adolescent. National Geographic filled the gap nicely, especially articles on the golden, stocky tribes of the Amazon River basin.

In my senior year of college, I took a job cleaning house for a retired professor and his wife. He was wheelchair bound and she was his primary caregiver. Their house was a two-story colonial with a half-finished basement. The finished half was the professor’s office and the unfinished half a place to store books, magazines, and other paraphernalia. My job was to clean only his office every other week, which only took two hours. I think they paid me $2.50 an hour but that would pay for soda, movies, and cigarettes for the month. Soon I discovered that the professor was a collector of National Geographics. Suddenly, my job satisfaction improved by leaps-and-bounds.

I now no longer do house cleaning—for myself or anyone. The thrill has gone. I still get a kick, however, out of watching the houseboy in La Cage aux Folles as he combines his flouncing with his feather dusting.

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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Spirituality, by Gillian

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss him….” Julian Barnes

I haven’t believed in God since I decided, at the age of nine, that it was all hogwash; at least, in the way God was portrayed by the church. I did miss him, but believing is not something you can learn or force yourself to do. You either do or you don’t, and I didn’t. However, not believing left me with, as they say, a god-shaped hole. It was this, I suspect, which drove me, eventually, to begin to delve seriously into Spirituality, and so, a few years ago, to a group at the nearby Senior Center who were about to read, and discuss, Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth.

OK. I know those of you who have been in this group for a while are sick of me droning on about Tolle, so feel free to groan loudly right now and get it over with.

(Pause for communal groan!)

But he became, via that group, my spiritual guide and leader. Not that his thoughts are original, as he would be the first to say, but he combines the best thoughts of the other main spiritual teachers from Buddha to Christ and many many more, and nets them out succinctly and in a language so easily understood. And, most valuable of all, he then proceeds to illustrate each point with everyday examples, and makes it clear how we can apply it to our own lives; our own inner selves.

At the first of these study-group meetings we were all asked to say what we hoped to get out of the group. I completely surprised myself by saying,

‘Peace for my soul.’

Where on earth had that come from? I had never spent very much time contemplating the condition of my soul. Not only did I not know it was not at peace, I most certainly did not know that I knew it. My, how we can astonish ourselves at times!

To cut a rambling story short, I have most definitely found that inner peace I needed via Tolle’s teachings and practices. Not to infer, lest you get the wrong idea, that my work is now done and I can relax. Oh, no no! Spirituality, like anything worth doing, requires endless effort and constant practice.

Let’s take just one aspect of the myriad facets of Spirituality; living in The Now. Tolle clearly thinks this is one of the biggies, as he devoted a whole book, The Power of Now, to the topic. Of course what it’s all about is keeping your mind and spirit in the present, not your body. Where else would a body find itself, after all? But somehow our minds, whisked away on thoughts, love to linger in the past or dash off into the future; and so we rob ourselves of the present. That voice in our heads drones on endlessly, reminding us of how much better things were before Mom and Dad divorced, Hubby left with that young chick, or the kids left home. Or piling on the guilt: if we’d been better parents Roger wouldn’t be an alcoholic, or Sally would not have run off with that complete delinquent. Or we trip off into the future on a sequence of what ifs. What if we lose our jobs, or that pain turns out to be cancer, or those damn Republicans take away our Social Security? Or we fall into the trap of coloring all future happenings with a rosy glow which reality can never live up to and we condemn ourselves to endless disappointment. Words chatter continuously in our heads. Tolle refers to it as the tapes playing over and over, though he’s rather dating himself there. I supposed a more up-to-date image might be u-tube videos constantly playing, but that didn’t feel quite right to me. Then it came to me. Of course! Streaming! That’s exactly what it is; words streaming endlessly across your mind and filling up your thoughts.

But, oh, the glorious peace, the blessed silence, when you can just turn that streaming off.

These days I rarely fall victim to that endless chatter, and if I do, I can usually recognize it and shut it off. The last time I remember really having to deal with it was when I treated my wrist to a compound fracture in a silly ping pong fall. I lay at St. Jo’s being prepped for surgery and the words were streaming and screaming. You knew you were wearing the wrong shoes but did you bother to change them? No! What an idiot. Why don’t you act like a grown-up? Didn’t you learn anything from when you broke your ankle? You’re a moron. And now what? We’re planning to go off on a camping trip soon but now you won’t be able to drive for who knows how long and Betsy won’t want to do all that driving herself and anyhow what sense does it make to go camping at all with broken wrist. A fine mess you’ve made of things. Why in hell didn’t you change your shoes……and round and round the voice goes, over and over and over.

Finally I recognized what was happening and applied the brake which Tolle recommends. A few deep breaths, relax, and ask yourself a very simple question. But what exactly is wrong this very moment, this exact current second tick of the clock? And almost invariably the answer is – nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yes, my wrist was hurting a bit, but that was it. All that angst was over whys and what-ifs of past and future. Keep yourself in the now, and there are no problems, no recriminations, no anger or guilt or fear. That one key question is one of the most healing things in my life.

At first this whole concept confused me. Other Spiritual teachers I read had the same concept, of living in The Now, but I didn’t quite get it. I have to live in this world. I have to plan when to take my car in for service and what to buy for the week’s groceries and what to write for Monday afternoon, and so what if I like to remember that wonderful beach in Mexico or think fondly of my mother in days long gone? Ah, Mr. Tolle to the rescue! Another question to ask myself. Am I in psychological time or clock time? Clock time has no emotional entanglements, it is purely for practical use. What time are we meeting for lunch? Psychological time is time that comes with all that baggage. Remembering Mom is fine, but not if the memories are accompanied by resentment, or guilt, or any of the multitudes of emotions we entangle ourselves with, drag them into the present, and ruin a perfectly peaceful Now.

Strangely, for me, Spirituality has provided all those things that I rejected when offered by the Church: angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, and, yes, God. None of these are in the form religion offers them, but they work for me in their re-creations. All of them are within me. They are me. And through spiritual practices I will get more in touch with those I need, and learn to minimize those I reject. Simply, I must believe in me; that me who is part of everything, as everything is part of me. And therein lies true peace. At least for me.

© January 2015

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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Unraveling the Knot by Carlos

I germinated in a small pot layered with rich loam. The respirating testa split, whispering softly to my now differentiating cells to trust. With radicle and root hairs, I explored, while my plumule sought the light above. A seedling was coaxed to life through a marvelously and massively intricate and interactive process that proved that the photosynthesis of life is neither accidental nor incidental. Hope was an aroma breathed out by a world of cosmic possibilities, caressed within a world of multiple universes. Unfortunately, in time, the world around me grew small, and I become root-bound. The nutrients that once nourished me dissipated, and although I valiantly sought reconciliation, the oppressive forces decimated my strength. Such was my life as a gay man struggling to embrace my sacred core. In time, with the kneading touch of gentle hands and with the alchemy of divine consciousness, the base kernel of a prosaic mundane life transmuted into the radiant gold of dawning light.

I was about eight-years-old when I first saw my father wear a tie. I looked up at him as he interlaced the snaking fabric into a credible Windsor knot. Because his job at a local trucking company as a dispatcher did not warrant any pretentious attire, I concluded that only a certain class or men brandished ties, namely professional white men I saw on our black-and-white Zenith, men whose fingernails were always immaculately manicured. Such men came home at the end of the day and sat at an easy chair, shielding themselves behind the newspaper as they awaited their supper and lorded over their kingdoms. Thus, as my father clumsily manipulated the knot, I knew it was an important day. Little did I realize the significance of the moment, for on that morning he, and in a sense I, earned our wings of citizenship. He was on his way to the federal courthouse, where after 40 some years of living in this country as an undocumented man born in Mexico, he was transformed, by his own choosing, into a new American. A few hours later, he proudly walked through the threshold of our 3-room adobe. He had left an invisible man weighed down by misidentity and had emerged like Nestor returning to Pylos. He was now free to bathe in the golden font channeling redemption upon the newly baptized although, in fact, he remained a working stiff drained by corporate vampirism. I don’t think I saw him wear a tie again until I graduated from high school a decade later. On that morning, as I fumbled with the manipulation of my own tie, he walked up to me, took the tie in his hands, and proceeded to show me how to be a man of learning, a man whose palms, unlike his, would never know the callouses of hard and dingy work. And I stood patiently as he metaphorically let me know my destiny would be different than his. Decades later, on those occasions when I still wear a tie, I can uncannily feel his fingers interlacing with mine; I can still feel his warm breath on my cheek. I can still see his eyes proudly declaring, “This is my son.”

In time, I did achieve my father’s expectations, becoming the educated man denied him. Throughout my youth he had encouraged me to be priest, even a Mason, a man to whom the world would genuflect, rather than one destined to be victimized by planned obsolescence. Instead I chose to become a teacher, not because I really wanted to be one but because my delusions of grandeur of being an architect did not see eye-to-eye with my lack of left-brained mathematical reasoning. And thus, for the next four decades, I taught generations of young people to wade through the shoals of Dickinson and Shakespeare, Lincoln, King, and Garcia Marquez, as well as how to write with urgency, with conviction, and with a need to let Spirit itself know that human reasoning is inspired by life itself. And every day I wore a tie because it was my father’s dream, because it was a symbol of the American quest, and because it purportedly conveyed confidence and power. I knotted ties around my neck that were whimsical, yet political in scope, as was a polyester sporting a lone black sheep daring to thrive amidst a flock of white sheep. I wore stately cravats that were door-openers as was my blue silk or my burgundy I’m dangerously-sensual cashmere. On occasion, I wound a black satin noose that bespoke of the renting of my heart, as when I stood before my father’s bier, straightened the tie festooned around his neck, and closed the casket lid. The sound of the latch was like the shattering of dewy ice crystals on a frigid night.

Not long ago, I accepted a position at a local college. I was ready to close my eyes, look within, and contemplate time’s Source. One of the first things I did was to shirk the tie. The first time I walked on campus liberated of my silken noose, I felt somewhat fragile. But like Francis standing unadorned before Pope Innocent III, I stood my ground, convinced my tie was not the sum of me, confident that my being would sufficiently address the crux of my truth. For decades I harbored internal doubts because as a gay man I bore witness to the stars rather than to the sun. It sapped my energy to walk on eggshells, valiantly trying to deflect the assaults around me. On the surface, I thrived, but when a man is gay and exists in a world where he has been acculturated to believe that only the validation and approval of others can give him substance, I struggled with self-acceptance. My reservoirs were diminished as sleepless night after sleepless night I sought unattainable rest. And all of this resulted to please those who imprisoned me in reduction, accusing me of infidelity because I was not the man of their vision.

It took time to reject the infernal scenario as I whittled away at the incrustations I had permitted others to impose upon me. I married the man of my dreams publically and with pride. I honed my voice before peers and strangers alike, casting down the veils that had previously denied me my holy tabernacle. I cut the umbilical cord to those in my tribe who loved me only on the condition that I spoke not my name. Of course, it has been difficult to tear into the carapace of fossilized layers I once so passively accepted. However, acceptance is like breathing in the aroma of freshly tilled spring earth pungent with the living energy of seasons no longer in repose. I was always a part of the garden around me, but only when I gave myself permission to cauterize the wounds resulting from death of a thousand self-imposed cuts, did I send shoots up into the stratosphere.

I have shunned the ties that I once wore like a scarlet letter around my neck; in addition, I have banished my shame and doubts of being gay to a domain of shadows. Only fools believe the adage that old dogs cannot learn new tricks. The fact is we, we proud gay men and lesbian women, are mutable beings capable of adapting to the undertows always swirling around us like a Mad Hatter. Awakening to my spiritual power is the equivalent of enjoying a piece of rich rum cake, listening to Bach, or sinking my toes into the sands of a Florida beach. As the Buddha found his enlightenment by sitting in immaculate Emptiness, I have found mine by dancing in radical Fullness, sans my tie.

© 1 June 2015

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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Just Don’t Flaunt It by Betsy

The question “What Makes Homophobes Tick?” put in generic terms might read: “What drives human beings to hate or fear other human beings?” That to me is the basic question here. A secondary question is: what drives a hating person to act on that hatred?

Looking into my own heart, soul, and mind the answer that comes to me is that people hate because of fear and their feelings of insecurity about themselves and their power–however great or small that power may be. Power is perceived as control. So the threat of losing power can be potentially very frightening as it means one might lose control of his life.

Homosexuality historically has posed a threat to the established institutions of our society without which we would have chaos, not order, say the homophobes. For example, threaten the traditional family and you upset the family power structure. Threaten the traditional religious beliefs in society and you upset the power structure of the church–not only the church but power structure of the state as well which is based on principles of Christianity–and also you upset the power structure of the culture in general which threatens the power structure in the home and the workplace.

There it is again. It’s in our face every day. What is behind most conflicts old and new? So often it is our religious beliefs and religious institutions at the root of our conflicts. Take a look at history. Most wars have been waged in the name of a religious belief. Take a look at the evening news. Most of the conflicts going on right now have some basis in religion. Does anyone think this pleases God? I don’t. The beliefs and institutions that are the source of the conflicts are not God’s. They are the creation and contrivances of human beings. Everyone knows this. But the hate mongers forget it and they refuse to be reminded because it does not serve their purposes.

We hear this all the time from homophobes: “The Bible says…” these words are followed by a perfectly quoted verse from the old or new testament. Most homophobes I have known are religious fundamentalists who reference the Bible whenever they have a need to defend their stance. But it seems they reference only those words which serve their purpose.

I do not believe all religious fundamentalists are hate mongers. But I do think taking the Bible literally and as the ONLY truth gives one, oh, such a narrow vision of reality, and is often at the root of conflict and discord.

Holding opposing beliefs does not HAVE to end in conflict. There are examples throughout history and in everyday life–examples of people with strong religious convictions who conduct their lives according to those convictions. Their beliefs may be totally contrary to the establishment, or contrary to those with whom they come in contact every day. One would have to say they are acting on their beliefs all the time. They are living their beliefs. But it seems that these (I will call them) peaceful people are not fearful nor do they have a need to control others. Why is this? I think it is because the peaceful people are not threatened by opposing beliefs nor do they require others to believe as they do. They are completely secure and in control of their lives As a result and most importantly, they do not hate anyone. You will not act on your hatred, if you do not hate. I believe this is why freedom of religion and freedom from religion is so important.

Many of us have heard straight people say something like this: “I don’t care if a person wants to be a homosexual. That’s his/her business. Just don’t be public about it. Stay in the closet. JUST DON’T FLAUNT IT!”

By the same token, if one fears and hates homosexuals, or any other group of people for that matter, what I ask of them is that they keep their hate feelings to themselves. I say to them go ahead, think and feel the way you do if you have to; but put away your guns and hate signs and just don’t FLAUNT it.

© 1-12-2015

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.

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Guilty Pleasure by Will Stanton

Without my dwelling upon any particular events in my life, I can say that, in general, I could have wished for a more satisfying, fulfilling life. Oh, of course, I have had some good things happen that others, perhaps, were denied; and I have not suffered the misfortunes that many others have. Yet, I would have preferred to have had a life of far better health, more supportive family, better direction, greater success, more love and happiness, and the physical ability to do the things I wished to do.


I always have been prone to seeing selected others who appear to be endowed with the qualities I would have preferred to share and wishing that I were like them. Of course, we can not tell for sure, especially from a distance, whether or not such persons truly possess those qualities. Simply viewing someone on TV, in movies, DVDs, photographs, or even live, briefly in passing, is no assurance that I would like to be “in their shoes” if I were fully aware of their lives, thoughts, and feelings.

Over the years, I have watched many hours of film of various genre, portraying other people’s lives. Some of it has been documentary, some of it fiction. Undoubtedly, some of my selections have been an attempt to divorce myself from the real world and to identify with the characters portrayed. I have found perhaps a dubious pleasure by identifying with some others rather than making something of my own life.
A more self-actualized person would declare that I always have needed more self-acceptance, more self-esteem; and that person would be right. My not reaching that preferred state of being has resulted in far too much time in my life wasted upon gazing at others and dreaming, “What if?”

All that time and energy wasted dreaming reminds me of a scene and a lesson I should have learned many years ago from the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Harry sits for hours in front of the Mirror of Erised, viewing his greatest desire reflected in the glass. He is found there by Professor Dumbledore who admonishes Harry, “ – – this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. – – It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

© 05 May 2015

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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Nowhere by Ricky

Like many men of my age group, I had my mid-life crisis a few years ago. At this point in time, I perceive that nothing has changed since then. I still have feelings that my youthful goals and dreams are nowhere in sight for the future or accomplished in the past. With the loss of my best friend of 27 years and 9 months, most of the joy of life went with her. I now have no ambition, nowhere to go, no one to go there with, and no money to spend when I don’t arrive there.

I have been blessed with a modest amount of financial and medical security, but the Republican Party leadership is poised and planning to take even that meager amount away by making major changes to existing law and programs. Republican Paul Ryan has published his proposed budget for 2015. Bruce Lesley reported in The Huffington Post [1 Dec 2014],”In the name of protecting children, the poor, and the states, the Ryan budget does the opposite.”


Like the Beatles’ Nowhere Man, the Republican Party’s proposed federal budget for 2015 is a “nowhere plan”. The republican leadership inhabit their “fortress of solitude,” listening to no one except budget extremists, and where they make all their plans for nowhere budgets for the benefit of nobody except the wealthy.

Nowhere does that nowhere plan contain the Affordable Care Act or the expansion of Medicare or uncapped Food Stamps or Public Radio or the endowment for the arts or Amtrak or even basic research grants or funding for education. Republican leaders are, “No way, no how, nowhere”, men.
They know not where they will lead us to.
They are as blind as they can be.
They see what they want to see.
Nowhere Men can you see the poor at all?

Somewhere, somehow, sometime, the Nowhere Men will find the way to fund their favorite project – weapons for war to either use or sell. After all, a good old fashioned war is great for business because war makes the rich richer.

Nowhere Men never learned the lessons of history, one of which is wars cost money, the outcome is never certain, and innocent nobodies will end up, no-where. “Nowhere Men wars” will take us all nowhere, somehow, in no time.


In exchange for a unique American culture of democracy and the American Dream, by defunding education, Public Radio, and the endowment for the arts, the Nowhere Men would have us embrace a culture of rule by the few wealthy Nowhere Men – an oligarchy based upon military strength and a subservient poor.
Nowhere Men would be well advised to remember that Democrats, Libertarians, Independents, other groups, and individuals also own guns and were trained to use them during combat in Vietnam, the Gulf Wars, and on the streets of major American cities.
© 1 December 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 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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From My Queer Point of View, by Phillip Hoyle

From my point of view, this presentation is a story and a rant. Behind it is an assumption that in comparison with the points of view espoused by others around me, my perspectives seem to me more artistic, open, religious, educational, intellectual, personal, flexible, and independent. And in one particular way more defended. But perhaps the most distinctive aspect of my point of view comes from fifteen years of giving massages.

The Story

I had poured beer at the bar in times past, refilling plastic glass after glass of cheap beer on a beer bust, volunteering there in order to raise money to help fund an annual retreat for people living with AIDS. I was sure my mother would never approve, but I did it anyway and enjoyed the snippets of conversation, the beauty of some men I poured for, and the humor of some fellow pourers. I liked being in a gay bar with something practical to do.

But that afternoon I was at the same bar, the same Sunday beer bust, but there as a guest attending a birthday party, there with my partner and several friends. I talked with our host, the birthday honoree, and my companions. The latter and I had just moved onto the patio to enjoy the sun when I saw a man I knew from the annual retreat and went over to talk with him. That’s when I noticed another young man in the yellow tee shirt that advertised an animal shelter, the not-for-profit organization he was pouring beer to benefit. I found him attractive. When he stopped to ask if we needed more beer, I noticed his healthy looks, warm smile, hazel eyes, sturdy build, and his language—real English, clever, sparkling, and engaging. I thought what a pleasure to have this fine looking youngster in a yellow shirt pour my beer while I talked with this other fine looking blue shirted and blue eyed young man I knew from the retreat. Some afternoons seem just so fine. I recalled that when I poured for the retreat beer bust I tended to go back to the same place to pour, so I was not at all surprised to have the youngster in yellow keep returning. Was he paying special attention to me? I laughed at my thought. Then I wondered at and dismissed the perception that perhaps he was paying attention to me. How pleasant it seemed and how funny. But I knew more. I knew my desire; laughed at it; and like always, enjoyed it. Being served beer by a nice young man on a sunny Sunday afternoon is never negligible.

Finally I had to excuse myself from the retreat friend due to the insistence of my aging bladder and made my way indoors to the restroom. As I was returning to join my friends outdoors, the good looking server greeted me. He asked if I needed more beer. I turned him down, but he continued talking wanting to know what kind of work I did. When I told him, he asked, “Do you have a card? I’m looking for a massage therapist.” I handed him a card, knowing that one rarely hears from card gatherers. And of course I didn’t hear from him, but about two months later at another bar, I saw the same good looking young man who remembered me and told me he still had my card and was going to call me. I smiled warmly and encouraged him to do so. And within a week or two I received his call. We arranged the massage. I gave him the massage registering how fine it always seems when massaging young men with their fine skin, supple muscles, and in this case attractive personality. We hugged at the end of the session. Again I wondered if I was being in some way interviewed for a relationship but laughed at the idea.

“I knew he was looking for an older man,” one of my friends said of the young man later when he became the topic of conversation.

“Yeah,” another friend asserted, “he wants a sugar daddy.”

Now of course there are young men who want to find an older man to take care of them. Had this been the hope of this young man in relationship to me, he’d have been sorely disappointed. I have no money, work only part-time. I’m one of those older guys who has to sing the lyrics, “I can’t give you anything but love, Baby.”

Let me restate that: from me one can get love and a good massage. So when he called for an appointment I gave him love and a massage, the kind of love I give all my clients whether male or female, gay or straight, intellectual or developmentally challenged. And of course I noticed that he was as beautiful unclothed as clothed, intelligent, warm and probably needy although I knew little about just what he might need. I must add that I felt a strong attraction similar to when at a bus stop I met Rafael years before, an attraction to the beauty of his body and spirit, to his ability to express himself verbally, and his openness to others around him. I was somewhat stricken but not so much as to reveal all this by shaking while I rubbed him.

The next time I saw this beautiful young man, he was accompanied by an older man who was quite handsome with his silver hair and nice clothes. I suspected he was well heeled and thought how nice for the younger man whatever his needs and motivations. As I shook hands with the elder, I projected warmth and pleasure in the meeting. I told the younger how good he looked and quietly affirmed my approval of his choice of companions. A few weeks later I again saw him in the company of the older man. They both looked pleased to be together. Again I stopped to greet them.

About two months later, around the year-end holidays, the young man was at the same bar alone. I went over to talk. I discovered his partner was out of town for the holidays and heard about the youngsters’ upbringing in a rather wealthy family and his plans to visit them in the coming week. While I didn’t get many details—I’m loathe to ask for such things—I did get picture enough to realize just how hopeless the superficial judgment that any younger person who shows interest in an elder is looking for a sugar daddy.

The Rant

How demeaning and objectifying the assumption is of the accused. In gay male relationship it reveals deeply held misogyny and a cultural prejudice that what makes an American male a real man is his ability and drive to be financially successful. I’m confused that men who themselves have suffered the same verbal put downs should dis some youngster for being a gold digger, a woman (as if that’s an insult), and a flop at manning up to the responsibilities of true manhood. From my point of view the assumption does not consider the following important possibilities:

* That the younger man may simply prefer to live around older men.

* That the younger man may have resources plenty or more than plenty for his own maintenance.

* That the younger may be seeking for the nurture of an older man since he may have got little from his father.

* That the younger man could have been raped as a child and thus as a young man is looking for the nurture of an older man who could heal him with love.

* That the younger man could be acting out of a need for survival.

* That the younger man could be victim of mental or emotional illnesses.

I know about these things from listening to my clients for the past fifteen years. The list can go on and on and still hasn’t asked any questions concerning the motivations of the older man who seems to be responding to the younger. What’s the old guy up to? Is he looking for a sugar baby? And whose business it is anyway to have such opinions about another person’s life? Well, that’s at least one interesting point of view from this old man.

I don’t say any of these things to pick on my friends because even in speaking this way I am somewhat defended. Seriously so. My defenses arise from what I consider to be the essence of my life’s religious assumptions, that when I accuse I am indicting myself in the accusation. So I usually choose to keep council with myself and not project onto others my own weaknesses and pathos!


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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Spirituality by Lewis J. Thompson, III

Ask ten people how they would define “spirituality” and you will likely get eleven different answers–and they would all be correct. I feel spiritual when I see a colorful sunset or listen to the main theme from On Golden Pond. I also feel spiritual when I lie down after a busy day or hear a great sermon on Sunday morning or taste a particularly good chocolate ice cream sundae. All of these experiences are even more spiritual when I share them with someone for whom I care deeply.

I would say that beauty possesses its very own spirit, as does companionship. Put the two together and nirvana can happen. Standing on the rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison with a loved one is spiritual to me. Meditating on my bedroom floor alone, not so much. Sharing our stories around this table is spiritual. Having lunch together? Fun, but not spiritual (although a hearty belch after a couple of beers can come pretty close). There are TV commercials that are spiritual to me but they are rare–ones for the benefit of disabled veterans or destitute children come to mind. Open displays of piety turn me off. Nothing is less spiritual to me than a politician justifying his or her vote to deny assistance to someone in dire need on the grounds of religion. Bigotry and prejudice do not dress up well in vestments.

Recently, I volunteered with the AmeriCorps’ Reading Partners’ program to tutor an elementary school child in reading. Last Tuesday was my first session with 8-year-old Eduardo. In getting acquainted with each other’s stories, there came a moment when we both felt a strong connection. We “high fived” in a spontaneous gesture of friendship. My eyes began to tear up, as they often do at such times, but I wasn’t particularly embarrassed. If he noticed, I couldn’t tell nor did I particularly care. I have come to realize that most of my spiritual moments happen when there are people I love around me. I think it’s more than a coincidence.

© January 25, 2015

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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Here and There by Pat Gourley

I realize that one of the great challenges of my life has been to appreciate that I am “here” and to not worry about being “there”. I have a nearly all-consuming preoccupation to be “there” and of course when I get “there” and that turns into “here” and then I am off and running in my head once again to get “there”.

In the early 1990’s when my partner David was feeling the ravages of HIV, I was the nursing manager of a local AIDS clinic and friends, acquaintances, strangers and folks I was working with were dying all around me. It was in those years 1990-1995 that I probably felt the strongest draw I ever have in my adult life to find some sort of spiritual solace, or maybe it was refuge I was after. My childhood Catholicism had long ago fallen by the wayside and a return to that worldview totally out of the question. I came to realize that most religions and my own prior belief in a “God” were responses to the fear of my own death and the stark reality that is it. Belief in an after-life was out the window with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. It was very hard to grasp that this amazing ego, “me”, will just come to an end at my death. Even today I find it at times unimaginable that this life is it and there will be no heavenly reward or more likely for me eternal damnation if I were to believe the bible to be anything more than bad mythology.

When I think about it religion and its belief in an after life is the ultimate “there” trap, truly a false illusion distracting from “here”. If it is really lousy “here” it will all eventually be better “there”, nothing but wishful thinking and snake oil at its worst. I suppose being involved personally and professionally in the AIDS nightmare up to my eyeballs was responsible for this longing on my part for a “there”. So I fell in with a group of local Buddhists. I was attracted first to the Korean sect of Zen called the Kwan Um School by a hospice nurse named Richard who worked with many of our patients in the AIDS Clinic. He was an active participant in the school and had close ties with one of its leading teachers a woman who was also a lesbian and hospice nurse herself, sort of the complete package I thought at the time.

Certain Buddhist sects are big believers in reincarnation, which I view as just another form of the “there” game though they would never admit this with all schools incessantly pointing to “being here now”. If I can’t escape the wheel of samsara in this life I will reincarnate and get another chance, or if I really fuck-up this go-around I may come back as a cockroach. My attraction to Zen practice was in part because they are not big believers in reincarnation and of course there is no talk of a god in Buddhism. The Buddha is viewed as an enlightened being, something we are also if we just wake up and see it.

At the time this Buddhism seemed the perfect salve for my HIV inflicted wounds and of course if I was honest it was my own HIV infection that was driving the quest. So for the next 12 years or so I was quite active with the local chapter of the Kwan Um School developing my own private sitting practice and being involved with numerous group retreats most often led by our teacher who came out from Rhode Island for these events.

I was involved to the point of taking the initial vows called The Five Precepts:

I vow to abstain from taking life
I vow to abstain from taking things not given
I vow to abstain from misconduct done in lust
I vow to abstain from lying
I vow to abstain from intoxicants, taken to induce heedlessness

These seemed to me way more realistic and appropriate suggestions for a moral life than the Ten Commandments ever were. Needless to say 12 years with the Sangha and lots of cushion time did not result in anywhere near full actualization of these vows.

One of the rather neat components of the initiation ceremony when I took my vows was the lighting of a small wax wick that was placed on the underside of your left forearm and allowed to burn down until you felt it start to singe your flesh. Talk about a strong method for getting you to focus on the moment. You don’t think about anything else but the pain of the here and now and putting that sucker out.

I no longer practice with the Kwan Um School but do still try to maintain some semblance of a solo practice. The whole goal of meditation, that I do really believe has tremendous benefit and lessons, is to be “here” now and not somewhere over “there”. To be banking on or even worse perhaps preoccupied with an afterlife really has the potential to rob us of appreciating the absolutely amazing reality that we are “here”. Our human birth is such an unbelievably unlikely reality as to be truly mindboggling.

The great teacher Ram Das summed it all up in three simple words: Be Here Now!

© May 2015

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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Living on the Faultline, by Nicholas

          Late that
pleasant afternoon, after I’d finished classes, I walked across campus to do
some work in the library. On the third floor I found the book I needed and was
about to sit down at a table when things began to rumble. It was Oct. 17, 1989
and San Francisco was about to get a shaking like it hadn’t felt in decades.
Floors and walls trembled in the familiar motion of a California earthquake.
Fixtures rattled a little and swayed. Then the real shaking began. Ceiling
lights knocked around and flickered and then went out. Books were flung off
their shelves. Filing cabinets toppled over. People dove under tables and I
quickly placed my brief case over my head to protect against falling debris. I
had been through many earthquakes in San Francisco—felt the building sway,
heard the rattling, been waken up in a rippling bed, felt the floor jumping
around beneath my feet—but this time, for the first time, I was afraid. “God, I
could die here,” I thought.
          Then, it
stopped. Fifteen seconds that felt like 15 years. The lights were out but being
5 o’clock in the afternoon, there was enough light for us to thread our dazed
way down three flights of stairs and out of the building. There was no panic as
hundreds of students climbed over piles of books and papers and dust to leave.
Outside, people milled about the campus. I was in probably the worst building
in the worst spot for an earthquake. The San Francisco State University campus
sits almost exactly atop the San Andreas fault and the soil is mostly sand
which tends to magnify the waves of an earthquake. The building I was in was
built of concrete slabs, the kind that respond to shock waves by simply
collapsing. It’s called “pancaking” in which the floors just slide down onto
each other, crushing anything in between. I was glad to be outside.
          Since all
power in the city was out, no traffic lights worked, cars just stopped on the
street, dazed drivers wondering what to do next. No streetcars could run
either. The city just stopped.
          The first
reaction to a major earthquake is confusion. Buildings and the ground they’re
built on aren’t supposed to move like that. Disorientation is the first shock.
          The campus is
in the southwest corner of the city and with traffic totally snarled and no
public transit operating, I figured I might as well start walking home which
was close to the city center, probably 4-5 miles away. I started walking, heading
toward clouds of billowing black smoke. I hoped it wasn’t our house burning
down.
          The streets
were crowded with walkers and some people had transistor radios to get some
news. Remember, this was way before Internet, Facebook, cell phones. No such
thing as instant communication.
          One lady stood
in front of her house and announced to passersby that “That quake ran right in
front of my house.” Had the tremor run right in front in your house, I thought,
you wouldn’t be standing here now. The actual shift in tectonic plates was
probably miles deep in the earth.
          Somebody said
the Bay Bridge collapsed—a part of it, in fact, had. A freeway in Oakland had
collapsed, killing 60 people. The Marina District, built on landfill by the
bay, took the worst damage and was burning. All highways, bridges and trains
were unusable. If you couldn’t walk to where you needed to be, people were told
to just stay where they were. I kept walking, stepping around the occasional
pile of bricks and stucco that had fallen off buildings.
          Finally, I got
home. Everything was OK. We lived on a hill overlooking Golden Gate Park, the
most solid geology you could find in San Francisco (the hill, not the park
which is sand). Walls cracked and books had wobbled to the edges of shelves,
but nothing toppled or collapsed.
          Jamie got home
soon after I did. He’d been in a highrise office building downtown and had to
walk down ten flights of stairs but managed to drive home taking a circuitous
route through neighborhoods to avoid traffic jams. Some of the office towers
had actually banged against one another at the height of the shaking—or so we
heard.
          Shortly after
we arrived home, two friends showed up. They both worked in SF but lived in
Oakland and couldn’t get home so they hiked to our place and stayed with us.
There was no power in the house, so we built a fire outside in a little hibachi
grill and heated up some leftovers. The city was dark except for the glow to
the northeast where the Marina District kept burning. We felt oddly safe on our
bedrock hillside.
          We did
actually perform one rescue that dangerous night. The woman who lived in the
flat below ours was stranded in East Bay which meant her cat Darwin needed
feeding. He sat mewling at our back door until we invited him in and gave him
some food. Next day Darwin repaid the favor by leaving us a dead bird on our
doorstep.
          In the days
that followed, the city slowly got back to a new normal. Mail delivery was
cancelled for three days and many shops remained closed. The World Series
between SF and Oakland resumed. Buildings and freeways were inspected and some
condemned. BART resumed running trains the next day but the Bay Bridge was to
stay closed for at least a month until the collapsed section could be repaired.
Ferry boats started running across the bay—actually a nicer way to commute. We walked
through the Marina District over the rippled pavement and past the leaning or
burnt out flats. Everywhere you went you calculated how safe it was or wasn’t
until you realized there was no place safe but you went on anyway. Living on
the faultline. 
©
19 April 2015 
About the Author 

Nicholas grew up in
Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He
retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks,
does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.