Carlos – Sage Telling Your Story

March 5, 2018February 26, 2019

Illegitimi Non Carborundum, by Carlos

“Illegitimi Non Carborundum …

Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down”

She had been a nun, a shadow of a woman who had infiltrated the cloistered nunnery not to be the voice, the hands of God, but rather to introduce darkness into the core of light. In the years she sidewinded among the devote sisters, she sowed the seeds of discord and fear, being immune to the beatific acts of devotion surrounding her. Rather than offering healing and solace to a community long in need of these virtues, she concocted a bubbling blasphemous brew. And thus, she was released of her vows and cast out into the realm of unsuspecting men and women. And for years, she became a contamination amongst citizens in her neighborhood, infecting them with her mellifluous words and her soulless deeds.

Death finally claimed the hellkite, but the aftermath of her deeds continued to radiate out like heat from an untended firepit. For so many decades, the neighbors had been in danger of sacrificing their immortal souls; even now that the corpse moldered in its grave, her influence continued to demand their attention. Although they had been freed from her shackles, they remained imprisoned by memories. Some even considered the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, they were tainted by the malignancy that still blighted them.

One day, a bright amber cart guided by a dappled mare rolled into town. At the seat of the wagon sat an old man with a grizzled beard and a booming voice, announcing his presence. His voice resonated throughout the valley, yet it was as gentle as the wool of a newly shorn lamb, “I am Raphael, a seller of treasures long sought after but rarely found. I offer them to you but for a few paltry coins, yet your investments will reward you unmeasurably as do the beams of light from the stars above. Come close, dear friends, and accept my offerings. Come forth, brothers and sisters, and cast down the anchors that weigh you down. Come forth, righteous men, women and beasts and drink from the font I offer you.” Needless to say, the citizens were intrigued, perhaps inspired, and one by one they approached the peddler, curious to learn his ways.

The first to approach was a massive cinnamon brown dog with its tail tucked between its legs. As it nervously approached the wagon, it pulled back its lips, revealing menacing, sharp teeth. The peddler held out one hand and whispered, “I know, dear one, that you have been abused and abandoned. Alas, the world knows not that all creatures great and small are in Spirit’s embrace.” The dog lowered its head and gingerly approached, the magnificence of the itinerant peddler now evident. “Sir, I have nothing to offer, yet, I long for so much, for the gentle touch of my beloved caretaker, for the tender loving words ‘Good boy’ whispered into my ear, for the freedom to love unconditionally, even as I am loved unconditionally.” I have been injured by one who no longer walks amongst us. Her curses and threats have seared my soul and made me fearful of humanity. In sleep, she still hovers nearby as I am consumed by spasms of fear and despair.” The peddler teared up and offered wisdom. He replied, “I know not why evil is incarnate. I know not why good is the world highest code. What I do know is that unconditional love will be rewarded, in time. Allow me to offer you a blessing on your head that you may always know that love will always reign supreme.” The dog, now smiling, genuflected before his benefactor, arose and trotted off into the shadows, knowing someday, someday but in the blink of an eye, he would awaken to the eternal caress of love.

A widow dressed in black garments approached slowly from behind a copse of weeping willows. Her gentle husband had died in a tragic accident in the wooded glen near the village a few months earlier. Going out into the countryside one summer morn, his horse had vaulted when a lion materialized unexpectedly from behind an oak, and the man tumbled off the horse. Though the lion ran off, the man was ushered unto gentle death surrounded by a quilt of overhanging firmament. His wife grieved unabashedly, withdrawing from the eyes of her neighbors. Alas, sensing that the widow was an easy target, the old woman snarled out bitter words, “I see, your ill-fated husband has abandoned you, leaving you to live out your years in utter misery, hoping for ultimate reunion. You know, of course, that he has flown away to a dreamless land, never to awaken. And as for you, the same inky nothingness awaits.” And she flew off cackling and chortling a demonic laugh, knowing she had unraveled the widow’s faith. Knowing the widow’s heart had little residue of hope, the peddler approached and offered her a tiny glass bottle containing a single grain of rice, girdled by a golden thread. As she looked at her offering, she noted her name as well as that of her husband etched into the grain. “What be this?” she asked the affable gentleman whose eyes sparkled with the inviting light of the sun. “Your faith, your love, your souls are conjoined for all time. Be patient and go out and harvest strawberries and rescue fledging sparrows fallen from their nests. In time, you will be rewarded with a table set with delights sweeter than the sweetest of honey and your heart will nestle within its own comforting nest. Be patient and live life like sunflowers unaware of winter’s approach,” he replied. Being unable to pay for her gift, she asked, “Since I have no coin, may I go and find the reddest, sweetest berries hidden beneath the shadows of a grove of white birches as a modest offering?” He smiled and nodded. She ran off dancing in the wind, knowing that the blade that cleaved her heart had been extricated, knowing that even now the scar was closing as two hearts, separated by the schism of time and space, pulsed with synchronicity anew.

Finally, the evil doer’s worst victim stepped forth. It was evident that his heart was heavy with grief, an affliction resulting not from the death of the neighbor, but rather from the pain he carried, believing that his vindictive thoughts had damned him. For years, she had tormented him because he was different, that is, a man who genuinely radiated light. In him, she recognized what she could never be. Thus, the only way she could deal with the mirrored reflection that taunted her psyche was to attack. He sought to ignore her assaults, to deflect the pellets of spewed hatred, to heal over the sullied wounds, but over time, being a man, bitter acrimony erupted from within. For the first time in his life, he envisioned doing harm to another, witnessing his tormentor’s dying the death of a thousand cuts. He wanted to look into her eyes even as her life force ebbed away, and see terror in her eyes, a terror of knowing that as she had sown, so must she now reap. It terrified the boy so thoroughly that his soul had morphed into such an absence of grace, that he feared the sun itself had turned its back on him. The peddler offered the boy a handkerchief as the boy wept bitterly. Finally, the boy said, “Forgive me, forgive me, for I am immerse in sin, a sin so bottomless, I know God Himself weeps for me.” Then he fell upon his knees in a bout of anguish so severe, the spasms within his chest became like bellows stoking a raging furnace. The peddler kneeled before the boy, held him up, and enveloped him within his mighty chest. “Mijo, cry not, for your acknowledgement of fault and your desire to exorcise it have saved you. I offer you, the mightiest of gifts within my wagon, a small seed of the sacred tree that once grew in a desert far away. Under this tree, the enlightened sought redemption and were offered healing water. And they arose, forgave the world, forgave themselves. You have proven worthy. Now go out into the wilderness and find a small plot of loam where this seed may germinate. Watch over it, nurture it, let the world come to partake of its fruit. Tonight, my son, God Himself shall dance joyfully, for today, your free has released evil.” Now afoot, he found himself alone amidst the chirping of crickets and echoes of the constellations, questioning whether he had just awakened from a dream. Opening the palm of his hand, one single seed rested within his hand. He stepped forth into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Yet, in an undisclosed primeval forest, a healing tree flourishes, jettisoning winged seeds unto every corner of the world.

And thus, my friends, in spite of the blissful dreams that we quest after, they often remain elusive. Yet utopia is ever possible, but only when the dreamer somersaults courageously… into the nightmare.

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.

December 20, 2016February 26, 2019

Snow Falling on a Sleepless Night, by Carlos

Snow fell last night

like silent doves descending
from heaven’s realm.

For one brief moment, the
voices of angry men subsided,

and the weary slumbered,
cocooned within folds of peace.

Empty promises and shattered
dreams flew off.

The recent dead again reposed
like opalescent bubbles in frozen lakes.

And spectral omens flew off,
declaring no more of darkness, no more of fears.

Prayers and hope for our land
broke out from wounded hearts.

Men and women of stolid hopes
again looked up, declaring,

We shall not fall as pawns.

We shall not despair the
ebbing of the light.

For like the snow quietly
descending from above,

so shall we our joy proclaim,

as we restore what we have
lost.

Let the bugle, therefore, rent
the clouds above;

let the snows purge the world
anew,

cloaking us with conviction,

that beneath a mantle of
pristine white,

we may again rejoice.

© 21 Nov 2016

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.

October 20, 2016February 26, 2019

In the Backlot of a Cowpen, I Sprouted, by Carlos

I thought I had forgotten; I wish I
had forgotten. However, as I consciously pulled the threaded needle through the
fabric of those distant memories, the details slowly encroach upon me, one
after the other, mushrooming like a cloud of shadows hovering, lurking, having
waited patiently for the day they could again walk upon the earth. And as I
flesh out the details of those distant memories, as they become real, even now
decades later, I roll over in my bed and shed one solitary tear although in
truth I think I have mercifully forgotten why I weep.

It was a hot, sultry day in early
August. Having packed my few essentials and tossing and turning for hours, I
lay tormented in my bed, enveloped in the silence of the night, pondering the
moment when I would have to say good-bye to all I knew, all I was. I arose ever
so quietly lest I disturb my parents’ sleep although I knew that on that night,
no one slept. I dressed and tip-toed out into the darkness, the stars and moonlight
serving as my beacons. I walked the few blocks to the man whom I had met only
months earlier, the first man whose warm embrace I knew. Waiting for me at the
threshold of his home as I approached, I enveloped myself in his embrace and we
held each other, for our time together had been so brief, our future so
uncertain. Among the shadows of encroaching dawn, we walked into the garden he
and I had planted, smelling the unfurling tea roses and interlacing our fingers
as though we could never let go. Our
time was brief. I promised to return; he promised to wait until that day. I
walked back to my parents’ home, tears cascading down my cheeks, my heart
feeling as though it would tear through my sternum.

Being that I had to report to the army
recruiting office near Oregon and Mills across the street from San Jacinto
Plaza in central El Paso at 9 a.m., my parents were already at foot. They were
trying so hard to be stoic, even as I tried to deny the reality of events
around me. They dressed, wanting to break bread with me one more time before I
flew away. My father pulled out the Chevy, its dented fender a vestige of my
learning-to-drive days, and we headed out to a Denny’s for breakfast. We ate,
we chatted, but in retrospect we were so far away, trying so hard to hold on,
trying so hard not to let go. Afterwards, in the parking lot, I reminded myself
that although my world was in flux, I would return. I tried to capture the rays
of the early morning sun, to hold on to the gentle touch of my mother’s fragile
hands, knowing I was about to be thrust into manhood in spite of my wishes to
remain cocooned in the chrysalis of my childhood. I wanted to bask in Peter’s
arms the rest of that summer and forge our emerging lives; I wanted to till our
garden. I wanted to comfort my parents and continue to celebrate our Sunday
morning tradition of menudo and sweet bread. But from the moment I received my
draft notice weeks earlier, I knew that change was inevitable. I longed for
comfort like a new-born babe finding himself not in the arms of a mother who
had anticipated his birth, but rather in the emptiness of an institutional
layette. A few minutes before 9, we arrived at my destination, and I requested
they just drive off, afraid of betraying my macho
bravado with a deluge of emotions. Accepting the inevitability of time and
circumstances, I recognized the futility of my longings.

Arriving at the reception area, I
found twenty some boys quietly awaiting the arrival of all the conscripts and
volunteers. I took a seat, trying like most to become invisible, knowing that
that luxury could not be so. Promptly at 9, several U.S. Army officials
festooned with a multitude of colorful ribbons upon their chests, ushered us
into a room nearly and after a cursory introduction, lined us up, had us raise
our right hands, and had us recite an oath, offering our allegiance to military
duty. Some of the boys were patriots stepping forward to champion our nation’s
cause voluntarily, believing their blood would nurture glorious ideals and
righteous causes. The rest of us were boys whose lives were interrupted by the
draft but who nonetheless were determined to answer the call. We were simply boys
who had run out of deferments and saw no escape. Regardless of motivations, all
were now a union of brothers who would be preened and molded for combat duty in
distant lands. Earlier, I had debated declaring myself a conscientious objector
since I did recognize that the war was but a ruse, a rich man’s war being
fought by a disproportionate number of poor boys, fighting and dying for an
unpopular war to maintain a corrupt government. However, I thought such an
action would dishonor my uncle and father’s valorous service a generation
earlier, in spite of the fact that they had returned to a country that still
saw them as second-class citizens. I also considered declaring that I was gay.
After all, I had battled with my evolving gay identity for years and just that
spring I had been joyously thrust into its lovely, complex culture and been initiated
into the fold, when Peter and I met and declared our love. However, I feared the
long-term consequences of speaking my truth for dodging the Vietnam draft,
especially since so many men pretended unsuccessfully to be gay to avoid
military service. Furthermore, being gay still carried a negative psychological
stigma that I did not yet have the wherewithal to question or deny. Perhaps, I
was simply an Emerson blow heart dutifully paying his taxes even as Thoreau languished
in jail for refusing to do so, recognizing the conflict of their time was but a
land grab of epic proportions. Perhaps, I was simply a coward who feared the
repercussions of not moving to the back of the bus. Thus, I mumbled my oath,
swallowed hard, and lowered my eyes in resignation, for once the words are given
wings, I recognize oaths become actualized.

I have but snippets of recollections
of what transpired the remainder of that day since everything from then on out
was a whirlwind of events. We were herded into buses and summarily hauled to El
Paso International Airport to be transported to L.A. Never having flown, I
looked down at America stretching out before me, wishing I could open the
airplane door and soar away to discover it, know it, claim it for my own.
Descending upon L.A. that evening, my mouth was agape at the lights that
emblazoned beneath me even toward the most distant horizons. They appeared like
a massive crab stretching out forever as though valiantly battling against the
inky blackness of a void devouring it. Never did I know America was so massive, so
oblivious to the realities of a boy from the fringes of its seams. Upon
arriving at LAX, we were goaded toward a small two-engine plane, which followed
the California coastline toward our final destination at Fort Ord near
Monterey. It was late and the darkness of the night mirrored the trepidation I
felt within. Arriving at our destination so late at night along with hundreds
of other boys who had arrived from throughout the country, we were finally
allowed to bed down in army-issued bunkbeds. The room went dark, and we coiled within
the itchy olive drab wool blankets and sought refuge from the uncertainty of
what awaited. I pulled out a small locket containing Peter’s hair, and held it
to my chest, desperately trying to keep my cloaked sobs to myself. Although I
wanted to awaken from the nightmare, exhaustion finally overwhelmed me and I
lapsed into a sleep that momentarily staved off the fears and doubts of the
unknown. Soon enough, we knew we would awaken and discover the sun water
coloring the clouds. We were boys from dusty Texas cow towns like El Paso,
Mesilla and Ysleta. We were boys from the windswept great plains of Dodge City
and Enid in Oklahoma and Kansas. We were boys from western hamlets of Alamosa,
Farmington, and Gallup in Colorado and New Mexico. We were boys from the inner city
barrios and ghettos of Watts and East LA. We had so little in common, except
that we were a divergent mass of humanity about to be molded by fates that
would anchor us to the annals of history.

Years after my stint in the U.S. Army
after decades of trying to forget the past, I walked into the Holocaust Museum
in Washington, D.C. The experience was unexpectedly personal for me. I
reflected on the millions who not long before had been unwillingly uprooted
from their homes in Germany and Poland and throughout Europe’s backbone, only
to awaken in camps with names such as Dachau
and Buchenwald, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor.
Entering a cattle car where “asphalt culture” Jews and “degenerative pervert”
gays had once been transported, I broke down and wept. My brothers and sisters
from American cow towns and from hope-defying Polish ghettos had been
sacrificed, and I’m not sure history has ever truly come to terms with the
magnitude of the sacrifices. I was one of the lucky ones. I survived something
I would rather forget. I returned relatively intact to my home, to the cow town
that infused me with its blood, allowing me to tell a story history would prefer
not be told except perhaps in hushed whispers during moonless nights.

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.

October 3, 2016February 26, 2019

Life is Indeed a Royal Flush, by Carlos

When
my grandmother was 94, the family pushed her to become an American citizen. Although
she had lived in this country for 90 years, we feared her social security benefits
might be compromised since, unlike my grandfather, she had never forfeited her permanent
resident green card. Now, my grandmother had always, to our knowledge, been an
upstanding citizen, raising her two sons as a single parent, remaining
steadfast even during war and the Depression, and ultimately becoming the core matriarch
of the family. She was a survivor to be reckoned with if anyone was foolish
enough to provoke her. On the day of her citizenship hearing, we discovered
that due to her sultry past, her application had not been considered. Although
we only knew the ethical, principled icon of virtue, we learned she had, in
fact, been a bigamist as well as a federal felon. When she had approached the
immigrations officials, she wasn’t attempting to be duplicitous; she simply
assumed that events that had transpired decades earlier carried no weight in
legal matters She shared with us that when she was very young, she had married
her childhood sweetheart and shortly thereafter had given birth to her two sons,
my uncle and my father. Unfortunately, her husband Carlos, soon started smoking
and pursuing a wayward life. Having no patience for his nefarious lifestyle,
she decided to leave him and raise her sons as a single parent in spite of the scarlet
letter she would have to wear in the community for shunning her man. Possessing
no job skills, but being responsible for two hungry babies, she bootlegged, brewing
and distributing home brew in the neighborhood. Since Prohibition was the law
of the land, she was apprehended and charged. Laughingly, she told us that
although she spent only two days in jail, in the evenings of both days her
jailers released her to care for her children. Apparently, nothing became of
the charges although the record of her infraction remained. To add insult to
injury, after she fulfilled her duty to her sons, she agreed to marry her beau,
a man who for years had been smitten by her charm, attractiveness, and
independence. Unfortunately, she neglected to inform the judge who married them
that she had never divorced her first husband. She must have convinced herself
that marriage vows have expiration dates. After her past caught up with her,
she sought the counsel of a kind lawyer and benefactor who, in fact, remained
her friend until he died of advanced age. For years she walked to his office on
the first of the month and paid him $2.00 religiously until the debt was settled.
By the time I was born, my grandparents were starting out their lives free and
clear. However, when my mother unexpectedly died and my father, my
grandmother’s son, found he could not raise me properly, I became my
grandparent’s son. In the truest sense of the word, they became my parents, and
better parents I could not have asked for. As for the misunderstanding with the
U.S. Immigration Office, after the meeting with the officials, my grandmother just
laughed, and we laughed along with her when she informed us that she had never
really wanted to become an American citizen anyway. Why upset the applecart by
becoming what you are not? She died decades later at peace and with no regrets.
Thus, early in life she became my prime candidate for the don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff
merit badge. After all, God recognizes that life requires tenacity. No doubt,
He rewards those who can sleep through a droning academic lecture delivered by
a verbose professor even as they dream of the bowl of steaming menudo awaiting back home.

Although
it skipped a generation, namely my father, I not only inherited her
intelligence, but I also inherited her roll-with-the-punches instincts. She may
not have been educated, being that she dropped out in the third grade, but when
I was in college and trying to prove to her how bright this egotistical college
boy was, she looked me in the eye like a hawk flushing out its quarry and
upbraided me, telling me, “Mijo, eres tan
inteligente que caminas en tu propia mierda.” “My son, you are so bright,
you walk on your own shit.” She taught me humility and gratitude with her wise
words. I never again did allow my swelled head to believe that I was better
than anyone else.

To
illustrate our binary connection that demonstrates how we were not that much
different from each other, some years ago, I was entertaining friends at our
home. Suddenly, one of my guests pulled out a rubber cock ring from his salad plate,
an appliance that must have been buried beneath the romaine and the croutons.
He held it up to everyone with a disgusted look on this face. The cock ring had
been a white elephant gift someone had given me a few days earlier, and I can
only guess that I must have inadvertently left it in on the kitchen counter
where I prepared our meal a few days later. I knew I had to think fast or
possibly lose a friend as well as my reputation as a host. Attempting to disarm
the situation with my Cheshire cat smile, I informed him that I had purchased
and deliberately placed the cock ring on his plate, in hopes that it would
inspire him to head out to Charlies that night and find himself a lusty cowboy with
whom to spend the rest of his life. He must have accepted my stretching of the
truth, for even to this day he has continued to accept dinner invitations to
our home. Later, as I reflected on how I had saved the day, I thought I heard
my grandmother’s muffled laughter at how I had managed to turn a possible
misfortune into a victory through guile and humor, qualities that are greatly
underestimated, especially when caught between a rock and a hard place…no pun
intended.

A
few days ago, I found myself among fellow writers at the Denver Gay and Lesbian
Community Center, where we congregate to share our stories, our adventures with
life. Notebook and keys, pens and reading material in hand, I went to the
lavatory to relieve my demanding bladder. As I flushed, in slow motion I noted my
keys tumbling from my hand and into the bowl, and in a split second, my world
turned topsy-turvy. In a surreal moment, I saw the keys swirl around the bowl as
though navigating on a white water river and disappear into the guts of the
plumbing system. I remember thinking, “Wow, this toilet sure has a strong
current.” I plunged my hand with some hesitation into the throat of the
porcelain throne, hoping to avoid some awkward explanation, in a desperate
effort to salvage my keys and my pride. After the water stopped gurgling, I
stood there with what I suspect was a classic what-do-I-do-now stupefied look
on my face. I debated simply walking out as though nothing had happened to save
face. Nonetheless, I washed my hands,
informed the receptionist at the front desk of my misfortune, and headed up to
the reading room. I was annoyed at my fate as I pondered my next options, to
walk home, to call Ron at work, to kick myself in the tuchus. I decided to muddle through the reading with as much grit
as I could muster. I found it ironic
that just before I read, one of the readers mentioned flushing a cigarette down
the toilet, and I took that as cosmic synchronicity. At that moment the tension dissipated like
steam released from a boiling kettle. I recognized my situation to be what it
was, small stuff. Gratefully, I discovered a new friend when she drove me home
after the reading. Furthermore, by the next day, I had managed to replace all
my keys. As for the Community Center, it was not, to my knowledge, deluged by a
flood of water from a backed-up toilet on steroids. Later, as I told Ron of my misadventure
of the day, we both laughed at how calm I was. In the past, I had cringed and gnashed
my teeth when buffeted by life’s inevitable headaches as when my cat pied on my
pants one night in retribution for some perceived offense to his feline sensibility.
I didn’t notice the stench of cat urine until the following morning at a job
interview. Ironically, I still got the job. Now, I just smile, and say, “Shit
happens.” And at such moments I can feel my grandmother’s energy as she reminds
me to wear my don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff merit medal with pride. Then, we both
laugh until tears roll down our eyes. In the end, I suspect most of life is
small stuff. When life rankles the soul, I recall an iconic epitaph I recently
saw on a Key West tombstone. The carving on granite, I told you I was sick, is undeniably
a testament to human grit. Therefore, Mámi,
kudos to you. You taught me to use what God gave me. I’ve learned that He
smiles at my victories even when I flush them down the crapper.

© 22 Aug 2016

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.

September 20, 2016February 26, 2019

The Invisible Line of Cigar Store Wooden Indian, by Carlos Castillo

The Plaza Theater in El Paso is one of those 1930’s iconic theaters built to immortalize cinematography. Entering into the Spanish colonial building festooned with ornate furnishings, red velvet curtains and ornate plasterwork propelled me to a world I could only imagine. After all, I lived in a 3-room adobe with no indoor plumbing. As I sat marveling at the ornate proscenium arch before me and the overhead ceiling with astronomically correct twinkling stars and projected gauzy clouds, I felt the awe of peasants in the Middle Ages when they walked into Gothic cathedrals radiating light through stained glass rose windows. I was on a school-sponsored trip to watch John Wayne’s rendition of Texas’ war of independence at the Alamo. When the camera panned the battlefield depicting Mexican soldiers falling in a barrage of bullets, my peers applauded and yelled enthusiastically at the carnage. After all, we were fellow Texans, disdainful of the Mexican hoard. It did not matter that the Mexicans spoke our language and looked like most of us. During the climactic scene when the small band of Texas insurgents were overwhelmed by the formidable Mexican army of Santa Ana, I felt strangely uncomfortable although I did not really understand why. Later, when I asked mi papá who at that time had not yet become a naturalized citizen to explain, he replied that films do not always depict history accurately, thereby challenging my vision of truth.

Throughout the years, being a child of immigrant parents had thrust me into a spiral of doubt. Although I ate beans and tortillas at every meal and considered La Virgen de Guadalupe my spiritual benefactress, the last thing I wanted to be labeled as was Mexican. Being accused of being one invariable resulted in angry words and school yard brawls. After all, the Hollywood stock character of Mexicans as poor and uneducated at best, corrupt and violent at worst, nettled my consciousness. I did not question this perception until years later when mis padres took me back to their native Jalisco in an effort to show me another facet of my identity. They, the Mexican people I encountered, did not fit the cartoonish stereotypes of sarape-draped men leading donkeys by the halter nor rebozo-cocooned women selling calla lilies at the marketplace. The relatives and human beings I met were poetic, cosmopolitan, and generous in their affection for me. My Tía Concha slaughter a hen from her garden and prepared a mole redolent with spices that left me lapping up the bowl with delight that evening. Noting my gustatory seduction, she again prepared the same complex dish the following day. Years later, I would recall a similar awe when after being legally deaf for years, I again heard after the advancement of deaf technology. Thus, I returned back home with a new-found appreciation for being Latino. Endlessly I played the rancheros/ bolero recordings of Javier Solís with his liquid brown eyes, bronze face, and moustache draping his pouting lips. I sat at the edge of my seat watching movies of Cantinflas, internalizing his typical we-live-to-laugh Mexican philosophy. I immersed myself in the national consciousness of my parents’ homeland while simultaneously remaining firmly rooted in my pride of the red, white and blue. I became a scion of two cultures, recognizing that my soul was forged of the silver of Taxco as well as in the coal of West Virginia. Thus, I started to reject the stereotypes that had calcified in me over a lifetime, to reject the scurrilous labels and images I had internalized, as a Mexican, as an American, and as an American of Mexican descent, and to drink water made sweet in earthenware cantaros even as I indulged in Oscar Mayer hotdogs.

Because The Alamo became a lesson for me about illusions, ultimately I recognized that even darkness can lead to vision. However, to see, it was important that I first embrace my blindness. Indigenous peoples have consistently been stereotyped. The oversimplified and inaccurate stereotypical depictions of identities run the gamut from noble savage to ignoble barbarian and from Indian princess and squaw pejorative to wise sage. The stereotypical influences are so pervasive many Native peoples today are actively pursuing a more accurate understanding of themselves and their cultures in an attempt to reject the internalized effects of these misconceptions and labels. Many are reclaiming their native identities, recognizing they are the people; they are human beings, not cigar store wooden Indian caricatures. Likewise, we gay and lesbian people struggle to define who we are as we confront the insidious stereotypes foisted about us by media even in this era of social progress. We struggle to reject the offensive humor and defamatory stereotypes. I weary of the sociopathic, effeminate and butch, dangerous and predatory, immortal, suicidal labels queer folk are subjected to. These stereotypes only foster hatred and prejudice. Like Native peoples, we too have become caricatures, metaphoric cigar store gays and lesbians. Of course, I understand that the media stigmatizes many groups from repressed Brits to evil Mexicans, and from racist white Southerners to doddering elders. After all, stereotypes are invaluable because audiences have been conditioned to expect certain behaviors from stock characters. The point is that audiences willingly accept established archetypes in place of genuine character development, thus freeing up remaining frames to more interesting and adrenaline-pumping scenes. Thus, unfortunately the cigar store wooden Indian, in its many manifestations, persists.

Over time, I have learned to savor the diversity and complexity of the human experience. Yet, false depictions continue to drift through the air like the stench of something unspeakable. Most recently, the vitriolic venom being spewed like explosive diarrhea by a “You’re fired” candidate and his followers about people who are like you and me angers me, but in my anger I find the courage to speak up and pull back the fog of blindness, the silence of deafness. I will not sanction cigar store wooden icons of any of God’s creations. I will not be a cigar store Latino or gay wooden icon.

The adage a picture is worth a thousand words is heartening. One balmy fall day in l960, I walked into a theater intent on immersing myself into a world I little understood. Several hours later, I emerged transfixed and transformed, pondering the implications of what I had witnessed. Although we have all been invited to attend a banquet in which all forms of delights, both sweet and savory, are ladled unto our bowls, unfortunately too often we pull back from the table because we fear the unknown. And in fearing, in withdrawing, and in condemning, we deny ourselves the wonders of an elaborately prepared spicy mole, made rich by old world and new world hands. Life is a journey in which we need not behold others nor ourselves reflected on the prism of cigar store wooden misrepresentations.

September 5, 2016February 26, 2019

My Diploma is Green and White, by Carlos

Almost fifty years have passed since I graduated from Technical High School, and as I recall those years of innocence and impertinence, frames materialize like a strange harvest in a room long abandoned and musty with disuse. Being introspective by nature, I am ambivalent about pulling back the curtain of time. Nevertheless, as soon as I activate my memory banks, endless frames of quasi-like silent-era flashbacks emblazon the darkness. In my mind’s eye, we, the young people from a former time, beam with the radiance of youth and expectations, anxious to discover our horizons, to journey down the gurgling eddies of time.

From a historical context, 1968 was a cataclysmic year in American history. Most of us were well aware that our fates were changing. Our nation was in the throes of war in Southeast Asia, and many of us could no longer bury our heads in denial. Soon, we would be called to fight in foreign shores, forfeiting our innocence, and in some cases our lives. Our duty done, we would return to the States to face averted eyes and whispered silence due to the war’s unpopularity. By 1968, the civil rights movement was roaring. America was burning, citizens were taking up the call for righteous causes, and democracy was being tested. Only weeks before my graduation, a great prophet for justice was assassinated in Memphis, prompting a renewed awareness to activism, to an acknowledgement that a democracy of the few and the privileged is but a Portuguese man-of-war ensnaring with its venomous tentacles. Furthermore, in 1968 feminist protestors targeted the Miss America Beauty Pageant as sexist and demeaning to women, further highlighting a civil rights movement that continues to this day. Unfortunately, our last vestige of hope withered on the vine when the hopeful rhetoric of Robert Kennedy was silenced and our disillusioned with American politics germinated in full. Thus, we, resplendent in our graduating colors, green and white, recognized that due to changing social norms, the world we were inheriting was a powder keg. We found ourselves confronting realities over which we had so little control and conflicted about the role we would ultimately play in the annals of history. We were being catapulted headlong into a microburst of epic proportions.

In a sense, my diploma was a rite of passage. For one moment we allowed ourselves to believe that we were stepping forward into a new America. We were idealistic and naïve. After all, most of my classmates were first generation Americans or newly arrived immigrants whose fathers slaved long hours to keep afloat and whose mothers struggled with day-to-day economics as homemakers or underpaid laborers. Nonetheless, our parents had placed their hopes for the future on our generation, yet within a year most of us would recognize we were small fish thrust into a deep and turbulent sea. The fact is, this was Texas in the late l960’s. Although I had wanted to attend a college-preparatory high school, my advisor felt I would be better off going to a vocational school. My parents, in spite of their acknowledgement that I was gifted and capable, deferred to the counselor since they, my parents, could not navigate through the shoals of English. An unspoken atmosphere permeated society that people from the barrio were better off goaded into the future by benign agents acting on our behalf. Thus, I accepted my fate. Although I was on the “college trek”, I recall reading Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in my senior English class, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized it wasn’t a play about a foolish donkey, but a metaphor about how love often deludes and eludes so many. At Technical, I never grasped calculus or physics, nor did I ever interact academically with the best of the college preparatory students from other high schools. Most of us were struggling with English, with citizenship, with self-validation. At graduation, we were appropriately attired in a white and green cap and gown, tassel to the right; no deviation to the norm was tolerated. Most of us simply accepted the realities of our lives with stoic resignation, or more tragic yet, with blind obliviousness. In spite of the reality that the late sixties ushered in a generation of malcontents and politically active young people, for the most part we accepted our reality. Only with time would we become conscientious warriors, gay and lesbian activists, feminist advocates as we rebelled against the constraints that bound us. Unfortunately, by then, our numbers had been culled by war, by AIDS, by poverty, and by the bitterness of life on the fringes. Nevertheless, some of us remained true to our zealous ideals in our attempts to forge a new world of inclusiveness. Speaking for myself, being resilient and tenacious, I burned the midnight oil and rolled up my sleeves and lived to tell my tale.

It goes without saying that I struggled, and continue to struggle, with my being gay after high school. I had no mentors nor role models to inspire me. I was weaned on misguided, homophobic values by ill-informed proseltyzers of morality. Even after I became an adult, I retained the shame of condemnation, feeling tainted, miserable, and lost. So much of our LGBTQ history has been a divine comedy as we journeyed into inner circles of hell. Too many have died from the ravages of AIDS; too many have committed suicide, often brought about by alcoholism and drug abuse. Too many have struggled to find a niche, disappearing into the shadows like the characters in John Rechy’s City of Night. So much has changed; so much remains to be done. Just last semester one of my students, a gifted 19-year-old man, committed suicide when he could not come to terms with his identity. Thus, we the survivors and the sages of our society, need to continue to provide direction, being that we have accrued a litany of survivors’ tales and remain standing nonetheless.

As I return from the journey of my youth, I recognize the timelessness of memories. The flickering images capture a moment in time that becomes my on-going narrative. The fact is that like Dorothy, Kansas or Texas or wherever will always be our foundations. In spite of Thomas Wolfe’s admonishment that we can’t go home again, we need to return if we are to recalibrate our navigating sextants. The journey into my green-and-white past reminds me that life must be lived without regret, since there is no point in wishing the pilgrimage had been different; it is what it is, but if I choose to do so, I can glean the knowledge that it has served me well. Therefore, though in retrospect I might have preferred a different map, the map I was offered was, in fact, a cartographer’s masterwork. Thus, guided by that blueprint, I look forward to the golden days that remain with the same fervor and curiosity as I did the green days now accomplished. Any regret is nothing more than a bowl of warm, curdled milk.

About the Author

June 2, 2016February 26, 2019

Vibrations of Time, by Carlos

A
ghost abides in my house, although the word ghost is hardly the appropriate
word to use, for I think both he and I prefer to use the word spirit. He is an inconspicuous
energy that lingers around me like the aroma of mint tea on a frosty day or the
taste of orange blossom honey on a warm croissant. I have only seen him once, a
snippet of a shadow that appeared in my periphery vision and was gone like a
summer beam of light. I was working in the garden and happened to look up at
small window above the staircase, catching him as he spied down on me. He is a
fine-featured, tall gentleman dressed in what looks like an Edwardian morning
coat and silk ascot. And although I dismissed him as an overactive imagination
borne perhaps from too many hours under the summer sun or from the expectation
that a spirit should after all reside in a Victorian home, I have never, until
now, spoken of him. I’ve given him the name John, and he seems most content
that I should name him so.

This
is not to say that John has always been a quiet energy, satisfied to waft
through the air like the first sublime notes of Karl Jenkins’ Benedictus. When I first moved into our 1888
Queen Anne, she looked like a dollhouse that had been touched inappropriately
by too many who had taken from her, but never loved her unconditionally. The
windows were broken, and the rooms frigid. Her fine details were gone, ripped
out and sold or simply discarded and replaced by the more modern contrivances
of evolving tastes. As for her garden, only two century-old maples and two
weathered apple trees remained, no doubt, an attempt by early homesteaders to
tame the wild grasslands of a former time. Nevertheless, our attraction to each
other was instantaneous, like two would-be lovers who meet on a quiet dance
floor and see each other’s souls through the haze and shadowy darkness. Putting
an offer, and finalizing the closing, within weeks our destinies were linked.
On my first day in my proud, but sad, house, I sat on the floor and envisioned
hopes and promises yet to be birthed. I sat in terror, pondering whether I
would be worthy enough to respect her and restore her faded self-esteem. Upon
moving in, I immediately hanged my treasured cuckoo clock upon a wall, taking
great joy in calibrating the weights every week to enjoy the automaton’s hourly
call. It became a symbol of my own nesting.

Often
the vibrations between house and me were at odds and tenuous, much like a newly
wedded couple in an arranged marriage. She was suspicious of my intentions; I remained
dubious as to whether I could do right by her, whether I could be faithful to
just one. The energy within the house was impudent, challenging me as though to
undermine me and determine my reaction.
After the water pipes froze and water fountained throughout the first
floor one frigid winter night, I repaired the damage and remained, proving to
both us that I was not about to retreat in spite of our apprehensions. As I cleaned
from the deluge and pulled up nasty, old carpeting, I connected with the past,
discovering sheaves of 1920’s vintage newspapers, now soaked, that had been
laid down by a former tenant to insulate the floors. Later, she tested my vows
as when during a small dinner party, I shame-faced discovered I had served gritty
sand in our soup bowls. Thinking I had been guilty of not washing the
vegetables, I, to my dismay, ladled out a chunk of horsehair plaster from the
ceiling that had unexpectedly fallen into the kettle. It was not long after
that that John’s presences made itself known. One night something touched my
toe as I lay in bed. I spent a few sleepless hours in a frigid room, not sure
whether I was more frustrated with the blustery winds that tumbled and shrieked
through the dark hallways or the unwarranted caress from the unknown. When I
demolished the upstairs walls, since they were but cheap cardboard sheathing
unceremoniously nailed down between rows of wood furring strips, giving the rooms
a prison-like aura, John was angry, perhaps because he thought that like others
before me, my intentions were to dismantle his world even further. I heard him
stomping angrily upstairs with fury, convincing me I was about to be pummeled
by a would-be intruder. However, when I ran upstairs to investigate, the sound
ceased; he had retreated. Over the ensuing years, the energy in the house gradually
changed to a live-and-let-live ambiance as I jacked up foundations, replaced
floors and windows, brought the plumbing and electricity up to code, and
strengthened the bones of the house. Eventually, chandeliers and fretwork,
stained glass and tile, roses and violets and sweet woodruff gardens graced my
home, mirroring her former self and solidifying my intentions to honor a
promise made when I was young and naive. Years earlier, I had concluded that
John did not care for the raucous sounds of my cuckoo clock since as long as
the clock chimed, his presence lingered nearby; thus, I decided to put the
clock in storage. I suspect that in
doing so, I finally banished him, for the energy in the house became peaceful and
sedate, a true nest of repose. Yet, in truth, I missed his child-like antics,
his protective aura that pushed away suitors who were not good enough for me,
but welcomed those bathed in an evanescent light. Today, although he never
reveals his presence and rarely leaves a calling card of his ethereal essence, I
know he is still as close as my heart. Ever vigilant and circumspect, I know he
watches protectively over the house, over my now husband and me. We felt his
presence reaching out the night our Jonathan died as though reminding us that
death is a return back home, with a promise of reuniting. I feel his presence
as he keeps guard over me in the garden, trying to coax another poppy or
hollyhock to reveal the scarlet garment encased within her burgeoning bud. I
feel his presence when I am afraid of death and tired of living. Sometimes in
the middle of the night, I walk downstairs and meditate, and although always unobtrusive,
he waits nearby, shielding me from evil. Because I’ve come to understand his
intentions as being altruistic and benign, I’ve decided to unpack the cuckoo
clock and restore its warbling mechanic bird. It is time to let him know he is not banished;
it is time to restore him to his rightful place in our home.

Our
home remains a work- in-progress, as well as a financial behemoth. More
important, however, it is a haven, a reminder that past sunbeams continue to blaze
and undulating rhythms continue to resonate, reminding me that I am but a
traveler temporarily away from home. I rejoice that time’s vibrations echo in
my life; I acknowledge energy’s immortality. I suspect that when I finally
awaken from my slumber, John, whether he is real or simply an abstract,
metaphysical self-deception, will serve as a reminder of the bewildering
ripples of time. Thus, I conclude that oscillations of time and space ultimately
act like concentric circles radiating from their source, the effect expanding
outward until equilibrium is again restored.

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.

March 8, 2016February 26, 2019

I’ll Pretend, by Carlos

I’ll Pretend. Pretending is Safer Than Believing

A Response to “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

September 2015 issue of The Atlantic

Words have always been a weapon that have cleaved into my soul. And although they embedded themselves securely within me like talons seeking out their prey, they have also resulted in cauterizing and defining.

Throughout my formative years, words sneered at me as they dropped like hot saliva from the lips of those who recognized in me what I did not yet recognize in myself. As a child, my uncle, lashing out at his own covert homosexuality or perhaps in a subconscious need to rescue me from the demons that fed upon him like maggots on carrion would refer me to as a maricón out of earshot of my parents. And, yes, I guess I was a maricón since I preferred practicing my violin, reading, and working the soil with my mother, to playing war games with neighborhood boys who smoked surreptitiously and smelled of stale urine. I guess I was a maricón since I enjoyed bathing with my mother’s heady, exotic soap and was more interested in learning words from the pages of my books than ripping them out to use as spit wads. In a burst of unrestrained anger one day, finding myself alone in the front garden, my uncle approached me, grabbed my testicles and with a pen knife he brandished, threatened to emasculated me, to castrate me, to shame me into manhood. Feeling violated, I lashed out angrily, and even though I was blinded by my tears, I managed to reach for rocks with which I drove him off, pelting him and yelling childish obscenities at him as he fled. We never spoke of it again, and he never touched me again, though the memory of his words and actions defined my childhood.

In high school, I was a natural target, studious, sensitive, and vulnerable. I was lonely, having no friends except for an occasion outsider like me. I preferred the company of men who visited weekly on our black-and-white Zenith, men such as the principled and compassionate Richard Chamberlain from Dr. Kildare, the brooding romantic-lead Joel Crothers from Dark Shadows, the masculine cigar-smoking John Astin from The Addams Family. Often, I would find safe niches at school simply to be alone or would slip away from the building during lunch and walk the streets free from judgmental eyes. At such times, I would soar away, always aware that soon enough the back-to-class bell would demand my return back to the realities that mocked at me with derision. I discovered that I did not like to company of other boys, for cruelties erupted more virulently at such gatherings. In my physical education classes, I was constantly subjected to words like joto and maricón and was always the last one chosen to participate in team activities but the first assaulted on the the field or taken down on the wresting mat by would-be assassins. Although I never missed a single day of high school, at 3:30 when classes were over, I ran toward home like a runner pursued by contempt. Needless to say, graduation became my reprieve, and I never looked back, never sought to reconnect with those years of imprisonment that further defined my childhood.

In college and in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam years, out of fear of discovery, I carefully hid my occulted secret, like a Hershey’s milk chocolate kiss hidden under a veneer of silvery foil. My grades suffered during my sophomore year at the University of Texas when I started to recognize that I might have homosexual longings. Although I spent many hours beseeching God to release me from the nightmares into which I was awakening, ironically I would walk home from the university, hoping that one day my knight-on-a white-charger would pull up and vanquish my fears, offering me the chalice containing a spirited distillation of self-love and acceptance. Unfortunately, my first tangible connection with a homosexual man was at a greasy spoon where I worked as a dishwasher when I was fifteen. Alone one night, the cook approached me with lust in his hand. Even though I longed to unravel the skein of curiosity, my fears compelled me instead to bolt out the door and never return. Nonetheless, I concluded erroneously, that the words directed against people like me by the cultural, political and religious pundits truly reflected a valid identity. I concluded homosexuals did, in fact, succumb to deviance, mental illness, and antisocial criminal tendencies. The words directed toward me became ingrained within me. They served to exclude me from mainstream society while simultaneously include me in the pathologies of negative stereotypes. Even in the army, I remained closeted in my self-hated. Being that I was company clerk, I once had to sit in an initial court martial investigation of two fellow soldiers who had been caught in a homosexual interlude. I sat at my desk dutifully taking in their testimony on my shorthand pad, which I was then expected to transcribe and submit as evidence of their crime. Although I maintained my military composure, I wanted to reach out to them and assure them they had a friend in the room, but words I heard thrust at them, homosexual, deviant, abnormal, aberration, sodomy ultimately made a coward out of me. No doubt, the transgressors, like me, feared the degradation of being classified as degenerates destined to trudge through life as neurotic, pitiable, psychologically damaged deviants of society. We recognized one word directed at us from the medical, psychiatric, and psychological field would result an an immediate and humiliating dishonorable discharge that would only serve to catapult us into further socially unacceptable isolation and self-recrimination. A few days later, I saw them dispiritedly walk away after their court martials, having been pilloried publicly by the stigmatizing actions of society. Once again, words defined my life.

I recognize that in spite of the power of words to burn like iodine on a raw wound, those words can also disinfect. Of course, the targeted victim can practice cognitive behavior therapy, thus minimizing distorted thinking and seeing the world more accurately. Of course, he can tell himself that The Buddha taught that our life is a creation of our mind. Of course, she can remind herself of Marcus Aurelius’ powerful words, “Life itself is but what you deem it.” However, it’s not that simple since even when a victim learns to practice mindfulness, the continued sting of envenomed words linger like burns inflicted by chemical terrorists. In my case, I was somewhat fortunate, but I suspect I was an anomaly. Throughout my life, words of derision have been directed at me whether because of my being gay or Latino or simply because I’m a ready target. When a large percent of ethnically diverse candidates, myself included, were hired to teach in Jefferson County Schools in 1980, only after the courts had recognized discriminatory hiring practices in the District and mandated changes, I frequently heard vitriolic words from my new teaching colleagues, as well as from students and their parents. Words like greaser, wetback, non-English qualified, spic, beaner, and the list goes on ad nauseam, vomited out and were quietly broomed into the closet. In 1986, I was recognized as one of the outstanding District teachers of the year. Of course, whispers swooped down like birds of prey that I had been nominated only because Jeffco sought to demonstrate political correctness. Although I agreed that I was meant to be a symbol of inclusiveness, I accepted the award, not only on my behalf, but on the behalf of the untold numbers of the past who had sacrificed for me. In addition, I recognized that in my own way, I offered a hand-hold to future generations. One facet that has consistently defined my struggles is that words have been the challenge that have nonetheless prompted me to action. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to believe, to pretend, that I could thrive within my carapace in spite of the tenderness of my lacerations. Unfortunately, words are harpoons that remain forever lodged in a fragile psyche. Although my wounds allowed me to become strong and resilient, I believe that if only my detractors had not directed misguided words at my still healing scars, I would not have been weighed down by fears of self-revelation. I might not have squandered so much energy attempting to prove myself, so much energy doubting my own abilities. As César Chávez said, “We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.” To that I add, but why should we have to endure such despair?

About the Author

February 19, 2016February 26, 2019

Life Is Like Green Chili, Spicy but Delicious, by Carlos

La Vida Es Como El Chile Verde, Picante
Pero Sabroso

Life
is Like Green Chili, Spicy but Delicious

Me puede decir a que hora abren an
santuario? I direct the question to an old man, wrinkles etched onto his
affable face. He sits in the church courtyard quietly taking in the rays of the
New Mexico summer morning like a raven perusing the world from afar. He looks
up at me and replies, but I do not completely understand because the Spanish he
uses resides in labyrinthine causeways of the past. I realize that though we are
both conversing in the same mother tongue, the dynamics of phraseology,
tonality and rhythm are traversed by centuries of experiences, of history,
making communication between us difficult. My Spanish is the language of
central Mexico, where the vowels lose strength while consonants are fully
pronounced and the sing-song tonality of indigenous peoples is deemphasized. His
is the language of our ancestors, forced upon the natives by well-intentioned
but often brutal Old World friars; it is a marriage of Castilian conquistadores and Nahuatl poets, sequestered but nurtured over the centuries behind
adobe walls and under Southwestern skies. I thank him for his kind, albeit
incomprehensible, response, concluding that I am a time traveler caught up in
the paradox of a fourth-dimensional arena. Rather than fleeing, as is my nature
whenever disoriented by exotic, extrinsic ways, I prepare to drink from the
chalice blessing me with an opportunity for new sensory delight. Little do I
realize that as I prepare to unhinge myself from my bungee-cord concept of
reality, I will be catapulted toward dormant realities. I continue on the high
road from Santa Fe to Taos, a road that unlike the modern fast-paced interstate
of the low road, is fraught with footsteps, wailings, ghosts of the past. Picaresque
images materialize, worlds where straw is gold, where faith is genuine, where
life and death are part of the bargain. And unlike mirages in the summer sun,
these images remain as substantial as Paleolithic hand stencils.

Over
the decades, my faith in organized religiosity has been shaken by the doxology
of paint-by-the-numbers philosophies. I weep for conflicted gay folk who
ultimately succeed in sacrificing themselves because of on-going wars between
ingrained beliefs and self. I cringe at endemic violence and bigotry
perpetrated in the name of God, at the narcissism of religious orthodoxy. Within
the silent adobe walls of northern New Mexico, I am surrounded by hand-hewn
cottonwood santos arrayed in
home-spun cloth and weathered retablos graced in straw to imitate unattainable
gold. The beatific looks on their faces look down at me with healing hope.
Faith weaves its tendrils within me like morning glory vines awakened in the
first glow of dawn. I may not understand the ways of people whose cultures have
slumbered in a time cocoon, but I want to understand the faith that inspires
them to recognize the voice of eternity in the rustling of the wind against the
red willow branches. I want to understand what drives them to walk through the moonscapes
of their deserts to reach their altars, what healing potions they drink from a curandera’s micaceous cup, what secret memories
they subdue when in the midst of an outsider.

Continuing
on the high road to Taos, a joyful whirlwind of warm air hovers unobtrusively
around me. It hums melodiously as I stand in quiet meditation next to the mud-plastered
exterior walls of village churches and ancient acequias. It reverently glides through the mishmash of grave
markers at the village camposantos, crosses
whose sun-bleached and splintered wood return to the secret occulted realm like
the brooding bones enshrined beneath the earth. The light plays tricks upon me
as I weave through the canyons and fingers of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The landscape seems sublimely remote as
though the ancestors watch and spiritual energy smiles. A light vertigo sensation
arises within me as I walk among the fragrant chamiso, larches and piñones.
I find myself humbled when I come across a procession of mourners. On their
shoulders they hoist a simple pine box that serves as the eternal bedchamber
for the deceased. They are dressed in the black weeds of grief, the women’s faces
hidden by black rebozos and wisps of
hair billowing in the breeze. It is so simple, so refined, so real. I want to
stop and root myself into the depths of the sandy soil, yet I hesitate, for I
find it eerily wondrous to walk in canyons breathing out the names of all that
is immortal. Driving further, I note the super highway of the low road snaking
through the desert below, I realize it is time to move on. Prior to my
returning back to my world, I utter a silent prayer of gratitude. The journey on
the high road from Santa Fe to Taos connected me not only to a part of history
that is drying up like an uncorked inkwell in a ghost town schoolhouse, it
connected me to myself.

Being
gay has not always prepared me to embrace the diversity of life within my own community.
I am aware of fortifications that isolate. Derision, rejection, and worst of
all, reciprocating invisibility result in a segmented community. My journey
into a world I thought existed only in shadows taught me to appreciate the diversity
within my own family. I learned that though I and my brothers/sisters may fail
to recognize each other, bridges constructed but abandoned long ago are still
traversable. In a dream of unrestrained idealism, I invite all members of my
community to break bread and drink wine with me, and if we are not too drunk by
the end of our festivities, to dance like celebrants in unison even as the
ticket taker validates our tickets. I’ve learned to rejoice that I am the son
of a woman whose many breasts have nurtured legions of children. Through my
brief foray into a peripheral world, I learn that life is a kitchen preparation
in which ingredients, bitter chocolate, savory peanuts and sesame seeds, spicy mulatto, pasilla and ancho chilies,
and pregnant raisins marry upon a volcanic stone altar, creating a mole ancient
and wise, yet young and vibrant. Whereas
the end result is a sacred dance, the process of preparation is the victory. A 38-year-old
Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, was murdered during the Spanish Civil War by
the Fascist militia for his being gay. In one of his writings, he reached back
to a friend who had taught him to smack his lips even as the sauce dribbled
down his chin. Garcia Lorca wrote, “Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt
Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies. All we have are our hands and a hole in God’s
earth”—Federico Garcia Lorca

About
the Author

February 3, 2016February 26, 2019

We Shall Never Know, by Carlos

A
poet much wiser than I recognized that journeys never undertaken and roads
never traversed, nonetheless have the power to burden. I find myself looking
back over the decades, forever ambivalent about those uncharted journeys. And
although I celebrate that I did take a less traveled road, which, in fact, made
a difference, a wonderful difference, the shadowy vignettes of a past unlived
on occasion haunt me like the dripping of a faucet on a silent night.

He
and I never danced; we never touched; we never spoke of the drives and passions
that might have lubricated our lives. It was a different time, a different
place. It was a time when to unsheathe our souls to judgmental eyes could have
thwarted careers, made futures bleak, and shattered lives like frost descending
upon tender blades of green grass. And though our connection consisted of two
twirl-a-cups gyrating around a circular orb, I have come to believe that had we
lived in a freer world, a more inclusive one, he and I might have given light
to secrets destined to remain forever occulted, held hands on blustery winter
nights, and charted voyages that alas never sailed away. In retrospect he was
my first infatuation, the first man with whom I dared to dream that somewhere,
someplace we could make our peace. We could have been oblivious to a sanctimonious
Brokeback Mountain world beset on
sacrificing us, for no other reason than our souls quested after forbidden
dreams. But we never danced; we never touched; we never found the courage to
challenge the consequences of reaching out to thwart ingrained fears. Thus, we
never transformed hope into possibilities.

We
were so different. He was passionate about Ché Guevara and César Chávez, about
the injustices of Chilean tyrants and brutish money changers. I was passionate
about my intangible world. How often I would find myself walking alone,
surrounded by the voices of poets and dreamers, philosophers and stargazers.
While immersed in my rhymes and rhythms of far-off melodies, I would focus on the
intricate cobwebbed anatomy of elm leaves, on the oceans mirrored within raindrops,
on the starry convolution of heavens above. Thus, in those early years, we trekked
in diametrically different worlds. We allowed our fears of the unknown, of
ourselves, to silence what in retrospect I now know nestled within us. We could
have, we should have, but we never did speak of our cryptic secrets, and time,
like a shape-shifting cloud flitted out of our reach.

Over
the years, I finished my studies. Over the years, I lost my innocence in foreign
lands. I thought of him often, but I allowed myself to believe that the past
was but an epitaph on crumbling sandstone. Years later, an act of serendipity
became our swan’s song when upon my return home from distant shores, I prepared
to root my life. Acknowledging my forays into the future, I celebrated among strangers
at my favorite restaurant. As fate would have it, he was there too, alone,
following a day of toiling in this world of the mundane. Instant recognition erupted
in our eyes, and although we spoke so briefly about things so trivial, we never
unshackled the chains that bound us. After all, the world still remained
dangerous for men like us. Thus, what needed to be said remained forever
fossilized within our respective hearts. Saying goodbye so long ago, I now
recognize that he wanted to say more; I can only hope he knew I too longed to
reach out, but instead with a quiet desperation I stifled my longings. Even as
I walked away and turned to look at him, I could not break the insidious spell
spun by those who had authority over us. And thus, we never danced; we never
touched, we never let the sun break through the storm. We will never know what
could have been. Suffice to say, although the road I took directed me away from
him, I remain forever grateful that this traveler did, in spite of himself, step
toward a wondrous journey. I can only hope his path was likewise emblazoned
with innumerable constellations.

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.