Tag: Coming Out

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Finding Your Voice in the Dark, by Pat Gourley

For many of us in this Story Telling Group I imagine that “finding your voice” could easily be a metaphor for our individual coming out, an emerging from the dark. A truth is implied in finding one’s coming out voice and that truth is unable to flower until we start to let our queer flag fly. Of course, for many of us coming out is in some respects a lifelong process. It is hard to imagine that we simply woke up one day and said: “I am out.” Rather the coming out adventure often has many fits and starts. We eventually find ourselves in a space where we can easily find our true voice in nearly any situation. It is though something, even today, not always spoken out loud since a protective common sense often dictates whom we tell and whom we don’t.

I’d like to share an example of a lesbian friend in San Francisco finding a voice in part through her poetry. This woman’s name is Tova Green and she is a Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC). In addition to her many teaching and administrative duties at the SFZC she was the co-founder of Queer Dharma an offering of the Zen Center since 2009.

During most of my extended sojourns to the City by the Bay I attend the Zen Center when I can made easy by the fact that it is located at the corner of Page and Laguna literally out the backdoor of the B&B. I most often participate in the evening Zazen session and occasionally the monthly Queer Dharma gatherings. It was at a Queer Dharma session that I encountered and struck up a budding friendship with Tova. On my most recent visit in September she again related her love for poetry over brunch, a wonderful trait it seems very common with many lesbians. Also shared was one of her own poems written about an event we were both made very sadly aware of that occurred on the night of January 9th 2015.

I was staying at the Inn that night with a dear friend from Denver named Clark. Clark and I have been friends since 1989 and share an unbreakable bond having been present for each other at the deaths of our partners from AIDS, his dear Phil in 1994 and my David in 1995. I had invited Clark on this trip to see the engraving of Phil’s name up in the AIDS Grove in Golden Gate Park. I had already had David’s name put up there the year before.

As was the case so often I was asleep early in the evening that January night but woke to the sound of what I first thought was firecrackers. It was a rapid staccato of noise that just didn’t really seem like firecrackers soon eliciting a sense of dread and quite frankly an emerging fear deep in the pit of my stomach. My worst fears were soon confirmed with the sound of many police and emergency vehicles arriving on the scene at the corner of Page and Laguna again right out the back door of the B&B and very visible from the first-floor bay window facing west.

What had occurred was a shooting, thought to be gang-turf related that left four young men dead at the scene. The probable semi-automatic weapon that was used allowed the perpetrator to snuff out four lives in a matter of seconds. An event that barely registered outside of San Francisco, since the cut off for significant media attention for a “mass-shooting” in America these days is five murders not just four.

We watched with disbelief and numbness as at least one of the victims in a body bag was loaded into an ambulance. Knocks at our front door and short interviews with police and homicide detectives soon took place. We were only able to offer after the fact partial accounts. The shooter or shooters were gone from the scene before we got to the window and realized what had happened.

By the next morning a makeshift memorial of flowers and candles had appeared at the lamppost directly out and across Page Street from the Zen Center. Living at the Zen Center, Tova was very aware of the tragedy that had occurred that night. She recently shared with me the poem she had written about that night. I am quite moved by how beautifully she was able to find her voice to acknowledge that very dark event on a dark winter night right on the doorstep of a place dedicated to compassion and meditative solace. Her poem in remembrance is titled “Prayer”.

Prayer by Tova Green

For Yalani Chinyamurindi, David Saucier, Harith Atchan and Manuel O’Neal

When my car was stolen
I remembered the four
young men, shot and killed
in a stolen car double parked
at our corner. It was nine
on a cold Friday night.
One was on his break
from work, catching
a ride with friends
to cash his paycheck.


The four had grown up
nearby, I learned,
when I joined their mothers
in a candlelight walk and saw
the wilting bouquets, photos
taped to a lamppost,
flickering flames enclosed
in glass on the sidewalk.

A girl gripped the lamp post
wailing—I want my brother back.
The next Mothers’ Day I stood
again with those women
on the steps of City Hall
and heard them tell their stories.
I’ll never know who
stole my car or what they
did with it before they left it,
wrecked, across the Bay.

I pray it wasn’t used
in an act of violence. I pray
for the safety of those
who stole it, knowing
their mothers pray for them
night and day

© 23 October 2017 

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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Choice, by Betsy

“When did you decide to be homosexual?” A gay man was once asked that question in an interview on TV. His answer was perfect: “When did YOU decide to be heterosexual.” That says it all, doesn’t it? Did any LGB or T ever make the choice to be LGB or T. I don’t think so. That is not to say there are no choices involved. “When did you decide to come out,” might be the more appropriate question. But is coming out or not coming out even a viable choice, really. In our society today, I would say “no,” not if an LGBT person wants to live life to the fullest, then he/she must come out. But the choice must be made and that is sometimes easier said than done.

Every day is replete with decisions from the moment we wake up in the morning. Shall I get out of bed or not? Shall I have eggs or cereal for breakfast? Shall I wear this or that? Shall I go shopping? Shall I go to Sprouts or Whole Foods? Most of these choices I can make easily because I am familiar with what is required to carry them out and I can easily imagine their respective outcomes.

Here’s when I have trouble: Let’s say (theoretically) I have never been to New Mexico or Arizona and (theoretically) I know absolutely nothing about either place. We’re on a road trip. Gill says to me, “You choose where we go. New Mexico or Arizona? Which will it be? Tell me right now because there is a fork in the road up ahead and I have to know which one to take.”

I have trouble with that. Since I have no information about either place and know nothing about them, it is not a choice. It’s a guess—a “pick a name, throw a dart exercise at best.” So, “no information” renders good choice-making difficult or impossible. This is not to say there is anything wrong with guessing and taking a chance, but only in some situations.

Even in the case of coming out or not, again it’s a matter of having some information to base your choice on. When I first became aware of my sexual attractions, I did not choose to come out because I had no information about what was going on with my feelings. I didn’t even know there was a choice involved. I was convinced that those feelings would change as I matured. I was totally unaware of any other person having homosexual feelings. When those feelings didn’t change I was convinced there was something wrong with me and I needed to fix it. Now, thanks to the gay rights movement and the general availability and dissemination of information, we know better and we can honor our feelings rather than denying them.

Another problem with choice making: Have you ever been in the store looking for say toothpaste? Your favorite old stand-by kind is no longer available—at least you cannot recognize anything that looks like it on the shelf. You need to choose a new kind. How do you choose one out of 250 boxes of toothpaste and you do not want to spend your entire day comparing them? Again you are faced with guessing because there is no way you are going to get all the information about all of the different brands in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes choices can be overwhelming. Guessing and taking a chance on toothpaste in this situation makes sense.

When I was teaching young children in school I learned it’s best to give them a choice but make it very simple. Do you want “this” or “that?” Choose between no more than two things. This way the little buggers feel empowered because they are choosing, but the outcome of their choosing will be appropriate and doable for the teacher.

Sometimes I wish choices would be kept simple for adults; namely, our electorate. Take the presidential election of 2000. The voters were given a choice of two major candidates: George Bush, Al Gore, and multiple third-party candidates, most notably Ralph Nader. Had we been given a simpler choice; i.e., George Bush or Al Gore, Mr. Gore would have been elected according to many analysts, and the world would be quite a different place today; certainly our country would be a different place today. One has to wonder if it was true that the republicans paid Nader to run that year. They knew it would split the democrat’s vote.

That was not the problem in the recent Brexit vote in Britain. A simple choice was presented: in or out of the European Union. The majority, though the vote was close, chose to leave the EU. Now, in retrospect, it seems a couple of million British voters feel they made the wrong choice. But here is a good example of the choice-making problem described above: not enough information. It seems clear now that the dust has settled that many who voted to leave the EU were persuaded by the fear mongers of the opposing side.

Sounds very much like our current presidential campaign. Mr. Trump is an entertainer and gets huge media attention. He’s different—not establishment. Many people have chosen to support him for this reason alone—literally this reason alone—ignoring his ideology and dangerous policies and beliefs. Guessing and taking a chance when choosing a president does not make sense to me.

So, for me, to create an opportunity to make a good choice requires having enough factual information, not lies, not propaganda, not spins, plus information from both sides. Unfortunately, in politics most people are not willing to listen equally to both sides. Or they have already made the emotional decision that one side is good or maybe just okay, but the other side is so bad that they cannot be believed no matter what. Often, it seems, it’s a question of which lies are most convincing. I love “fact checker” and I wish journalists would use it on the spot in interviews and debates.

In the case of making a choice, say, to avoid an accident while driving a car one cannot take the time to gather information and ponder it even for a minute. A choice is made to swerve to one side or the other, but that fits my concept of a reaction rather than a choice.

The next time I am faced with a choice I only hope I have some, not TOO much, but SOME good information, factual information, and some time to apply it. I do not want to react instantly, unless I have to, but I prefer to have enough time to think it through. In the case of a presidential election, I don’t mean years. I should think a couple of months would be enough before one is ready to cast a vote. In the case of coming out, well, I see choices to come out occurring everyday as an ongoing, lifetime process. But once the basic choice is made to open the closet door, the rest should fall into place.

© 5 July 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), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Tears, by Gillian

I saw my father cry three times.

When I was four or five we had a tiny 6-weeks-old kitten. He was all black, and sadly found a shaggy black rug a cozy place to sleep. My mother, no idea he was there, stepped right on him. We heard the terrible sound of crunching tiny bones. Tears were running down my dad’s face as he scooped up the screaming little body to take it outside and put an end to its suffering.

Neither my mother nor I cried.

When our old dog, for years Dad’s constant companion, died, my dad cried.

Neither my mother nor I cried.

For very different reasons neither of us cried. I, even as a child, somehow was playing a part; not being the real me. So, until the time I came out to myself in my early forties, when I did finally become the real me and no longer was simply an actor on life’s stage, I felt very little real emotion. I do not remember ever crying as a child.

My mother never got over losing two children, ages two and four, before I was born. She shut down. She refused to let herself feel any more personal sorrow. She did cry, quite frequently, but never over anything personal; anything really in her life. The first time I remember her doing this was when horrific newspaper photographs accompanied the stories of Allied troops liberating Hitler’s death camps; and why not, that was plenty to cry about. But she also cried at sad plays on the radio, or newspaper tales of abused animals or injured children – anything not actually personal to her. The few times I hurt myself pretty badly, as children do, neither of us cried.

But my dad had tears in his eyes when he carried a toddler me home from a pretty bad fall.

The third time I saw my dad actually cry was after I had come out. I was the authentic me. I had been back to England for a visit and when the day to leave arrived, Dad drove me to the train. As it pulled out of the station and I leaned out of the window to wave, I saw that he was crying. One of several things over my lifetime that I would rather not have seen, but you cannot unsee things.

I sobbed all the way to London. How much easier my former life spent playing a part had been, feeling emotions at best superficially.

Now, I cry at so many things, tears of sorrow or tears of joy; though tears do not necessarily flow. I find the feelings to be much the same whether in fact I literally cry, or cry just on the inside. I cried at the sight of The White House lit up in rainbow colors after The Supreme Court ruled on behalf of Marriage Equality.

I cried for the loss of Stephen and Randy, of this group, as I cry for every loss of yet another friend. I even cry when friends’ pets die.

I cry for our country which currently feels like one more loss, as I cry for the planet as we know it, which is another.

But I have no regrets for my tears. Having lived for so long without them, I welcome them. I almost revel in them; celebrate them. They serve to remind me, I am really me!

© October 2017

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Assumptions, by Ray S

Over some 90 decades my life has been one assumption after another, some good, but the majority not so. I recall another old adage, “Never assume; it can make an ass of you and me.” So be alerted. Assumptions can not only be habit forming but lead to some curious circumstances the result of our own making. Again, some good, some not so.

That day I stood on the Capitol steps looking west across Lincoln Street at the Gay Pride celebration in Civic Center Park. It marked the time and place that I committed, after years of stealthy hiding in my hetero-closet, that I joined the tribe. My assumption being that a place called the GLBTQ Center would have room for one more late-blooming queer Troll—a popular term for active geriatrics. That was a good assumption.

It felt so wonderful to be out to family and the three very close straight couples who responded happily for me with the classic rejoinder, “We always knew.” There’s another assumption—who me?

Naively, upon one impulsive search for an evening’s recreation I ventured into the local gentlemen’s athletic club—no, not the DAC or YMCA, but maybe with that song ringing in my ears, Y-M-C-A. This club sported both outdoor and indoor swimming pools and was noted for its hospitality and comradeship. There. ASSUME on that while I commence to relate what followed after I was buzzed in through their hallowed gates.

Many years had passed since my first impromptu visit to these premises, and you guessed it, I assumed nothing had changed but perhaps some twenty-five years on my shoulders. Well things did change that evening. The gate keeper “regretted” to inform me that under new management they had chosen to limit their clientele to what I would call (in the gay vernacular) “Twinks” (free lockers 18-20 aged, and no one that even neared the appearance of being over 32 years of age. It may have amounted to gross discrimination to any gay man even edging the neighborhood of geriatric maturity, no how much dignity and class and elegance a bit of seniority would have leant.

“Sorry, sir, why don’t you try the Uptown on Zuni Street.” Head unbowed I followed his suggestion, no assumption.

I offer this bit of history to those that assume we’re never too old to dream, or assume. As I stated at the beginning of this tale, life is just one big assumption after another until the coroner assumes for you.

I leave you with a very sage assumption by one poet laureate Robert Frost:

“Forgive me, O Lord, my little jokes on thee,
And I’ll forgive thy great big one on me.”


© 27 March 2017

About the Author

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Don’t, by Gillian

My mother was the one who instructed me on the do’s and more specifically the don’t’s of life. Throughout my youth they dropped effortlessly from her lips with great frequency.

“Gillian,” (always a mark of displeasure when she used my whole name rather than the usual ‘Gill’), frequently followed by a couple of disapproving tsk tsk’s,

“Please,” (emphasized to indicate that her severely-challenged patience was near it’s breaking point),

“Don’t do that!”

Mostly followed by,

“What will the neighbors think?” (managing to ignore completely the fact that in actuality we had no neighbors close enough to see me picking my nose or scratching my thigh or hitching up my skirt to straddle the fence or whatever this particular ‘that’ was. No human ones anyway, and the sheep, no matter what you may think of them, are not ones to pass judgement. Had I ever pointed out that basic fact, I’m sure she would have replied,

“Some passer-by then,” managing to ignore the rarity of that, too.

Of course those same fictitious persons must also be protected from hearing the unacceptable.

‘Don’t shout, dear,” she would say, almost in a whisper, thereby proving her point.

“I’m only three feet away. The neighbors will think we are arguing.”

“Do turn that awful noise down, please!” she implored as I turned up the radio volume for my beloved Beatles. “I don’t want the neighbors knowing you listen to that dreadful stuff”

My poor mother, life was simply loaded with pitfalls. If she wasn’t protecting us from the negative judgment of the non-existent neighbors, she was protecting us from the negative judgment of fate itself.

“Oh, don’t walk under there!” she would grab me to steer me around the leaning ladder.

“Stop! Stop!” she would cry out in alarm if a black cat – and there were many loose cats around in those days – threatened to cross our path.

If we saw a lone magpie we would gaze around anxiously for another. Where was it? There must be one! as she murmured,

“One for sorrow, two for joy.”

The only judgement which apparently held no fear for my mother was that from above. She never once even suggested that anything she or I might do would incur any negative judgement from The Almighty. The God she offered me was a loving God, not one of wrath. For that I am forever grateful. In my eyes it more than compensates for any petty fears I still hang on to, such as searching relentlessly for that second magpie. I confess that I still do that, if at least a little tongue in cheek. My efforts remain a bit unsettled because I am unsure of the rules. When does the Statute of Limitations expire on that other bird? Is it actually vital to see both birds together? Or is an hour later OK? What if I successfully spot number two later but on the same day? The same week? Someone once asked me, if I could spend five minutes with my mother now, what would I want to ask her. Crazily what immediately leapt to mind was that damn bird. Quick, Mum, tell me rules of the two magpies.

It was inevitable, of course, that my dead mother was hovering around, peering over my shoulder, when I decided I had to come out to the world. Gillian, what will the neighbors think? Indeed!

No, for all her earthly warnings, I have no concern about any Heavenly fears. If by some remote, as it seems to me, chance that she is actually aware of my life as it is today, she will not condemn, she will not fear, she will not scold. If she knows everything, then she understands and accepts everything. She is free of fear. She is done with don’t. And so am I!

© May 2017

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Reading, by Gillian

I was probably lonely as a child. I had good friends at school but when school was out I had no nearby children to play with, and I had no siblings. But I don’t recall ever feeling lonely as I was always accompanied by friends from books. (I originally wrote ‘from fiction’ but as The Bible was one of the few books available to me, I imagine some might take exception to including The Bible as fiction.)

I say few books were available not because of any failure on the part of my family to love books, but because paper was scarce in post-war Britain and so few books were published. There was a library in the local town but that was a long and infrequent bus ride away.

So my personal book collection contained four Winnie the Pooh books, published long before the war and once belonging to my mother, an old and very tattered family Bible, and a book called Mystery at Witchend by Malcolm Saville, a prolific author of children’s books in Britain in the 1940’s and ’50’s.

So I roamed the countryside accompanied sometimes by the roly poly Pooh and a bouncing Tigger, sometimes by all or some of the five children from Witchend who formed The Lone Pine Club and together had many harmless adventures and solved gentle crimes with never a hint of violence. Indeed the only violence I ever read about was in The Bible. But the Jesus who occasionally accompanied me was the gentle fatherly figure depicted in The Children’s Pictorial Bible which we read in Sunday School. Because of one of the pictures in this book, my friend Jesus always had a lamb draped around his neck like a fat wooly scarf. Looking back I rather suspect that my child mind had confused the picture of Jesus with one of the shepherds greeting His birth, but never mind. As Jesus and I frequently walked through fields dotted with grazing sheep my vision was appropriate enough.

Fast forward a few decades. I am in my early forties and finally coming out to myself, and very shortly after, to others. So. I was homosexual. A lesbian. What did that mean? Obviously I knew the meaning of the words, the definition, but what did it mean? To me, to my life. Where did I go from here? I felt very alone. Who could I talk to about all this? My friends might be very supportive, but what could they tell me? No-one I knew would have any answers.

So of course I turned to books and headed for the library. This was before the advent of internet so I searched through the catalog card files, in their long narrow boxes, for the pertinent categories. Although I was ‘out’ to anyone who mattered, I must confess to peeking furtively over my shoulder as I searched the LESBIAN section, the word seeming about a foot high and glaringly obvious to all who passed by.

There was amazingly little available regarding lesbians at that time, fiction or non-fiction.

What little there was, was awful. I rushed home with the few books on the library shelf, avidly read them, and wondered why I had bothered. Beyond depressing, they were just plain frightening. If this was where I was headed, I was in serious trouble. The Well of Loneliness, by Radcliffe Hall, was my introduction to lesbian fiction; one of the most depressing books I have ever read. The title alone, if you know that is the road you are now taking, is enough to to make you rush back in the closet and throw away the key. This book has become something of ‘classic’ in the lesbian world, in the sense that most of us have read it, though not a ‘classic’ in a positive sense as any mention of it is greeted by groans. I don’t recall now the titles of the other few books, but in all of them the lesbian character seemed destined for a life of abject misery, or suicide, or else they are saved by a return to heterosexuality. My reaction to this introduction to lesbian fiction was, essentially, what the hell have I done??

So, lacking new characters to jump from the pages and accompany me, I thought longingly of my childhood buddies. Somehow I didn’t think they would be much help. Pooh Bear would just sink his chubby head further into his honey pot, Tigger and Kanga are too busy bouncing and hopping to listen. Eeyore would say, as always,

‘It doesn’t matter anyway.’

But it does. It matters very much.

Those kids from the heterogeneous, clean-scrubbed families of Witchend, would look ascanse at each other and say,

‘Oh dear oh dear but this is awfully difficult,’

and probably run home to mother.

I, who do not identify as a Christian, actually did have a little chat with Jesus. And He actually helped. Asking myself the question what would Jesus do, I answered myself, with every confidence, that he would love me and accept me whoever and whatever I am.

Pretty soon, I discovered Beebo’s bookstore in Louisville and discovered that there really were positive portrayals of fictional lesbians. Claimed as the first of these is Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, in which neither of the two women has a nervous breakdown, dies tragically, faces a lonely and desolate future, commits suicide, or returns to being with a male. But by then I no longer had need for fictitious playmates. Women at Beebo’s had introduced me to the life-saving – or at least lesbian-saving – Boulder group TLC, The Lesbian Connection, which in turn introduced me to many wonderful women; real women, who in turn led me to my Beautiful Betsy.

With a real woman like that, who needs fiction?

© November 2017

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Clearly, by Gillian

Looking back over my life, at least the first forty or so years of it, very clearly I saw very little very clearly; both literally and figuratively.

From an early age I wore very thick glasses. Some time in my early to mid-forties I had laser surgery and discovered what seeing clearly really meant. Tests had always shown that I had 20/20 vision via my glasses, but it never offered the clarity with which I saw the world after that surgery. I cried tears of joy the next morning when I realized that I could lie in bed and clearly see the trees outside my window without first needing to grope around on my bedside table for my glasses. Betsy had to walk round the block with me when I first left the house, I was so disoriented. Everything seemed to jump up to meet me; too clear and too big and too close.

Twenty-five or so years later, my eyesight is deteriorating a little, and recently I discovered I have glaucoma, so perhaps my days of seeing so very clearly will be disappearing. Already I wear drugstore glasses for reading. That’s OK. I am just so grateful that I have not lived my entire life without ever knowing the real meaning of seeing clearly.

Oh, and how sincerely I mean that in the figurative sense as well. I could, I guess, have gone through my whole life without ever clearly seeing myself. Many have, many do, and many will in the future. And, yes, I am primarily talking about being GLBT but not that alone. Seeing yourself clearly, with all your complexities, is a serious life-long challenge. There’s an old Robert Burns poem which wishes that we all might have the gift to see ourselves as others see us. Sorry, Robbie, but I don’t see a solution there. Every one of you at this table sees me differently so I cannot imagine much more confusing than trying to see myself as every person I ever meet might see me. On the other hand, when I eventually came out to co-workers and friends there were a few who responded with well duh! looks or well I knew that kind of comments so if I’d seen myself as they saw me I might not have had to wait till my early forties to see it clearly for myself.

A good analogy of my coming-out-to-myself process I now see, looking back on it, as trying to see myself clearly via various visual depictions of myself. You know that famous Malevich painting, ‘The Black Square’? One version of it sold for the equivalent of a million dollars and, with due apologies to all sincere fans of purely abstract works, to me it looks like nothing more than a black square. Well, the first twenty or so years of my life, I might as well have been trying to see myself in that black square. Or as that black square. The more I looked the less I saw of me; hadn’t a clue. Or probably in fact the last thing I really wanted to see was me, and I was perfectly happy to see nothing more than a black square. By my late twenties I maybe had progressed to a vision of myself more akin to Suprematist Composition by the same artist, a jumble of confusion which I actually quite like, if not to the extent of the sixty million dollars for which it sold. I have always quite liked myself, but certainly saw myself as a jumbled confusion at this stage.

In my thirties I progressed to around the expressionism of Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Far from a realistic portrait but nevertheless clearly a scream – something I was feeling ready for about then. I was awash with frustration without knowing why. My life was good – no, it was great – so why wasn’t I satisfied? By my late thirties I had reached impressionism. You know, Monet’s water lilies etcetera, very clearly waterlilies but nevertheless a bit fuzzy.

And suddenly, in my early forties, I took one huge step for womankind; well – for me, anyway.

I saw myself as clearly as in any realist painting but more so. I saw the reality of my queerness with all the clarity of an award-winning National Geographic megapixel photograph.

But that, great breakthrough though it was, was all about being lesbian. I still had plenty more to look deeply into if I was truly to get a clear view of my whole self; all of me.

This group has been of immeasurable help in propelling me to dig really deep inside, to try to really see and understand what’s there and to be at peace with all of it – the good, the bad, and the ugly. Perhaps it explains the lack of appeal which purely abstract art has for me, and at the same time why I love photography. A photo can be so terrible it makes me cry or so beautiful it makes me cry, but I don’t have to wonder what it is, just as I no longer have to wonder who and what I am. I am here, I am queer, and I’m perfectly clear!

© November 2017

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Anxious Moments, by Ray S

Will I be the first of us to say, “My whole life has been one blinking anxious moment for as long as I can remember”?

Instead of my 2nd birthday party, it was the awakening to someone standing over my baby bed or crib and gently, I imagine, fondling the unknowing occupant. Some moment, and I too young to be anxious. The matter of anxiety about this moment didn’t materialize for some fifteen years later.

Meantime some other more routine moments developed and were overcome, such as fainting while the children’s choir I was a member of angelically sang the “Hallelujah Chorus” for some high holiday at an Episcopal Church that my 8th grade music teacher had recruited me for. Needless to say, I resigned choir and since our family didn’t frequent Sunday services, the Episcopalians lost a dubious potential convert. But I’m sure I looked cute in that choir uniform.

Many anxious moments transpired due to becoming a high school freshman and adjusting to the surprise divorce of my parents. So much for the nuclear family.

Age 17 and the Army and my discovery of boys and men instead of the fairer sex. College days, I was too unconscious to worry about studies, I just did what I was told to do and managed a mortar board and piece of sheepskin. But, the really anxious moments came when I was desperate to be accepted by a Greek club I needed, needed, needed. And then found out myself over my head when my then lady friend announced it was time for some sort of commitment about our, or her, intentions.

You’ve heard this one before, but this was my very own “A” moment, March 31st 1951, our wedding day and all I recall is my stomach kept telling me, “Do you really think you want to do this?”

For the following years there were many more anxious times: finding a career, raising two wonderful kids, trying to make love, trying to keep the closet door closed, etc., etc., etc.

Now, the family’s grown and gone, my good and I think suspecting wife passed on, and my awakening to how very many of my new gay friends shared similar stories. Were all of our anxious moments so bad or good? Who says you can’t have your cake and eat it too?

© 12 June 2017

About the Author

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New Year and Houses, by Ricky

At this point in my life, I have
experienced 63 “new years”.  That’s a lot
of days to review for anything to write about, especially when you must also
include New Year’s Eves as well for a total of 124 days of activities.  The first one that stands out would be the
one in 1958 (when I was 9 ½) which followed 3 days after my father told me
about the divorce of my parents.  It was
the year that began with me in a new family arrangement with an older stepbrother
(a good guy) and younger twin half-brother & sister (also good).  The remaining months of school passed fairly
quickly and in late May my mother, babies, and stepfather came to my
grandparent’s farm to show off the twins and to pick me up.  Later that fall I became sexualized and my
life further changed.
          The next new
year of note would be 1968 where at age 19 ½ I found myself in Air Force basic
training at Amarillo AFB, Texas and later in tech school at Goodfellow AFB in
San Angelo, Texas to become a Radio Intercept Analyst.  Looking back at those days, it was actually a
good thing the base psychiatrist washed me out of that program.  I did come away with a Top Secret security clearance,
which followed me for the next four years. 
The other good thing that came out of this “rejection” was I was sent to
Florida where I met my future spouse on December 21st.  (So there really can be a “silver lining” in
the clouds of life’s storms.).  Naturally,
at the time I was “washed out” I was not happy, in fact my ego was pretty much
devastated as I had been the top student in my Phase 1 training class. 
          1968 was also
the year I joined the LDS church, which is why I met my future spouse on 21
December.  The following New Year (1969)
began many years of church association bringing me outer peace and occasionally
inner joy.
          In 1971, the
“new year” began with me completely dropping out of college in January after
one semester to work at the Anaconda copper mine in Sahuarita, Arizona, before
beginning training as a deputy sheriff. 
Sixteen weeks later, in early December, I was sworn-in as a deputy in
Pima County, Arizona.  I completely
enjoyed that experience for the next 3 ½ years before returning to college to
obtain a BS degree. 
          I would be
very remiss if I did not include 1974, 1978, 1981, 1983, 1988, and 2001 as very
significant because they are the first new years to follow: my marriage; the
births of our four children; and the passing of my spouse and best friend of 27
¾ years in 2001, four days after 9/11.
          While there
are many new years between 1988 and 2011, those following Deborah’s death
through 2010 were filled with major depression and memories I’d rather not
recall.  By contrast, 2011 appears to be
a year filled with opportunities for happiness at last.  It is the first new year following my coming
out and finding people my age who are friendly, fun-loving, and good at making
a “newbie” feel welcome.  I am looking
forward now instead of living in the past.
          There are many
things that our topic word “house” could bring up memories, emotions, or
passions in anyone: House the TV show, House of Commons, whorehouse, White
House, House of Representatives, and others are some.  In all honesty, those were suggested to me by
my friend Michael King after I told him that only my houses came to mind.  Since I had already started to write about
them I decided to continue in that vein; to do otherwise, those of you reading
this would not be sufficiently bored.
          My life is
filled with memories of the different houses I’ve occupied.  The first was in 1948 at Lawndale,
California, a suburb of Los Angeles.  I
remember a small octagon window set in the wall of our porch by the front
door.  I remember our first pet—a purebred
black and white collie named Bonnie.  My
parents asked me to name her and I chose Bonnie because I liked the song “My
Bonnie Lies over the Ocean” which was played over the radio rather frequently.  My parents thought that a purebred should have
a fancier name so she was registered as “Lady Bonita”.
          According to
my mother, Bonnie was a wonderful nursemaid or watchdog for me.  If I got past the gate to the sidewalk,
Bonnie would bark up a storm; not necessarily to attract my mother’s attention
but to call out to me to let her come with me. 
Mother didn’t care what the motivation was; she promptly returned me to
our yard and tried another way to “lock” the gate.  Eventually, I learned to take Bonnie with me,
which stopped the barking, and I got “free” much more often and for longer periods.  Sadly, Bonnie got distemper and died before
her 1st birthday.
          In 1952, our
next house was in Redondo Beach (also a suburb), was brand new, and bought with
my father’s VA secured loan for his service in WW2.  That’s the house I unintentionally scared my
mother into thinking I was missing, lost, or kidnapped.  I had been eating, playing, or just being
naughty in the little café my mother owned two lots behind our house and she
had told me to go home and go to bed. 
          I did go home,
but being rather head-strong, naughty, and disobedient, I started playing in
our side yard with Mike Pollard; my friend from across the street.  I looked up and saw my mother come out of the
restaurant and come my way.  Believing
that she had not yet seen me, I quickly told my friend to go home and ran in
the backdoor (located on the side of the house where my mother could not see)
and took off my shoes and jumped into bed pulling the covers and bedspread over
me, and laying on my back, pretended to be asleep. 
          I heard my
mother come into my room and then begin to call my name.  Since I was supposed to be asleep, I didn’t
respond.  She then left my room and began
to call my name throughout the house. 
Finally, I heard her leave and I got up got undressed and went back to
bed and I actually fell asleep, not awakening until much later.
          The rest of
this story was told to me by my mother years later when I was about 15 or 16
when I reminded her of that day. 
Apparently, after she had left the house not finding me in it, she had
rather frantically looked for me over at the Pollard’s house and other homes on
our short block.  Still not locating me,
she then called my father at work to report me missing. 
          He left work
early (losing pay for the time missed) and came home where by this time I had
rolled onto my side so when he looked into my room he saw me sleeping
peacefully in my bed.  Mom didn’t relate
to me the exact conversation they then had, but she summarized it by saying
that he thought she was crazy.
          Apparently,
when I first jumped into bed and went under the covers, I pulled them over me
in such a fashion that the bed looked unoccupied.  It was my habit to sleep with my head
completely under the covers for many years and I was laying flat on my back, my
head under the pillow.  The mattress was
6 inches of foam rubber, which I “sank” into so there was no “lump” to show I
was in the bed, thus she thought I was missing.
          My favorite
house was in Minnesota at which I arrived in 1956.  This was my mother’s parent’s two-story home
on their farm I’ve spoken to you about before in conversations.  I’m not fluent enough in describing things so
just picture in your minds a typical mid-west, 1900’s turn-of-the-century,
nearly square, white-stucco, lightening rod studded farm-house typically shown
on older movies.  What makes this house
memorable was not only that it is the house of the divorce-notice previously
mentioned, but also the one where my uncle showed me the facts of life when I
was eleven (and also because it was very fun living there).  It was fun I suspect only because I was not
required to work but enjoyed: riding on the tractor with my grandfather, helping
with farm chores and work (where I could), and just watching when I could not.
          Naturally, as
I grew and left home, marrying and raising a family I have lived in a
collection of cabins, apartments, houses, military housing, and one time, in a
tent.  I will not continue with this
narrative except to say they also have positive and negative memories but I
don’t wish to document them at this time. 
I’m sure you will all understand and be greatly relieved that this,
reading a long narrative, ordeal is finally over.
© 6 Jan
2011 
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 was sent to live with my grandparents on their
farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents
divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is: TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com
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Ghosts, by Ray S

One day I read a book quite by a happy coincidence. A very wise literary mentor directed my attention to an author’s works that I would find not only well written but outstanding gay fiction and with wonderful character development.

As a child I was a slow reader as they called us in grade school. Reading was rarely fun and generally regarded a tedious chore. I wonder now that I ever got through sixteen years of reading assignments.

Update to that encounter in the library. My quest for a good erotic read had been answered. There were five or six volumes by the recommended author. Not being too adventurous I selected a slim book as an introduction to the make believe world of escapism.

My recent departure from sixty years of closeted double life required a great deal of catching up. There’s no time to waste; it’s not like you were sixteen and too dumb to know who you might be. Now that you’re at the threshold of full-blown “geom.”, it seems there is too little time and too many friends to meet.

The small book was more than a “good read” and having returned it, I went back to the well for a greater challenge. Bravely I picked up a 600 page book entitled How Long Has this Been Going On? by Ethan Mordden. For someone who was scared of any book longer than my third-grade Peter and Peggy, this choice was probably foolhardy.

Suffice it to say that my initial exposure to my author’s writing spurred me on to unknown stories and pleasures. Turns out that this volume was divided into related but not continuous stories. No chapters. Eventually I was tempted to make a family tree of the many characters just to keep up with each other’s life stories. As the saying goes, I couldn’t put the book down; my reading Renaissance had begun.

One day I finished How Long… and set it aside to return it to the library. Procrastination set in and the book kept company with some others—mostly unfinished.

The longer it stayed here at my reading chair, the longer I kept seeing all of those wonderful heroes and heroines in my quiet moments or my dreams. Something was unfinished. I can’t say they were all ghosts; ghosts are usually in another world, maybe even what we call dead.

I loved those beautiful men and women. They are alive to me and like Alice I just needed to step through the looking glass to be with all of them.

I’ve lived through the late 40s and 50s, the war protests, the fight for equal rights, AIDs, Stonewall, Harvey Milk, the wars, and up to Gay Pride March in NYC 1991.

These were stories of real people you could vicariously become and share their experiences, devoted friendships, passionate homoerotic encounters and love that we all have somewhere down deep for each other.

This is a ghost story, if you will, that I need to share with you, as you do each week with me. And I am in the process of re-reading How Long Has this Been Going On? It is more rewarding the second time, like coming home again or being there with my un-ghostly companions.

© 24 April 2017

About the Author