Tag: Communications

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Communications, by Ricky

“What we’ve got here is …. failure to communicate” is a movie line from Cool Hand Luke spoken by Paul Newman that is perfectly delivered, humorously and sarcastically, in keeping with the character’s personality. Unfortunately for Luke, the senior guard was not amused, receptive, or tolerant of the mocking of the Captain’s phrase. Herein lies the difficulty with communicating with anyone; words.

The Captain and the Boss were communicating a message to Luke but their words were not precise enough for Luke to clearly understand. Thus, the Captain and the Boss were the ones who failed to communicate. They should have made it perfectly clear that if Luke tried to escape again, he would be shot dead; they didn’t and Luke died.

Words arrive containing varying numbers of syllables, shades of meaning, and ease of pronunciation. The definition of words can be modified from the original by common usage, which tends to happen because members of society do not learn enough vocabulary so they can pick the perfectly accurate but seldom used word. Some people use many long words and complex sentences to communicate simple ideas; a practice which often leads to misunderstandings. There are yet others who can communicate powerful ideas using simple and everyday words. An example is Abraham Lincoln’s statement, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Do you suppose Lincoln was warning other politicians, warning the public, or giving politicians a tip on how to get elected?

Some communications take on a life of their own and are so common in usage as to become cliches. “Houston, we have a problem.” is one of those. The phrase originated following the Apollo 13 disaster. Unfortunately, no one ever said those words. Here is the actual conversation between the Houston command center and Apollo 13.

John Swigert: ‘Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.’ Houston: ‘This is Houston. Say again please.’ James Lovell: ‘Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a main B bus undervolt.’

For dramatic effect, the movie of the events surrounding Apollo 13, altered the exact words. The incorrect phrase was picked up by the movie going public and now is commonly used to indicate any problem not just very serious ones.

Likewise,”Beam me up, Scotty” is a catchphrase that made its way into popular culture from the science fiction television series Star Trek. Though it has become irrevocably associated with the series and movies, the exact phrase was never actually spoken in any Star Trek television episode or film.

“Beam me up, Scotty” is similar to the phrase, “Just the facts ma’am”, attributed to Jack Webb’s character of Joe Friday on Dragnet; “It’s elementary, my dear Watson”, attributed to Sherlock Holmes; “Luke, I am your father”, attributed to Darth Vader; or “Play it again, Sam”, attributed to Humphrey Bogart’s character in Casablanca; and “We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” attributed to Gold Hat in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. All five lines are the best known quotations from these works for many viewers, but not one is an actual, direct quotation. Yet each of them conveys an idea, concept, and image that communicates very well because a large number of people have seen the source of the misquoted dialog and the erroneous version has become ubiquitous in our culture.

Communication also suffers when the sender and the receiver are not talking about the same concept or idea. Remember the dialogue between Tom Hanks and Elizabeth Perkins in the movie “Big”?

Susan: I’m not so sure we should do this. Josh: Do what? Susan: Well, I like you … and I want to spend the night with you. Josh: Do you mean sleep over? Susan: Well, yeah. Josh: OK … but I get to be on top.

One conversation between two different people, but on two incompatible topics. This particular conversation also illustrates the effect differences in age and experience (or lack thereof) can have upon the inferred meaning of the words heard.

Yet another problem with communication arises when one party doesn’t understand the clear and plain message he was given or does not take it seriously. While in the Air Force, one of my commanding officers was a colonel and a pilot. He related to me the following.

Before becoming a pilot he was a navigator on a military transport aircraft approaching his U.S. destination after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The plane was understandably low on fuel. Their primary destination had bad weather to the point that they could not land and there was just enough fuel to make it to the alternate airport. The navigator called the traffic controller for permission to depart for the alternate destination. He was told to standby to which he replied that they needed to leave now or not have enough fuel to make it. Again he was told to standby. He repeated the situation yet again and was told to standby. At this point the pilot called on the intercom asking if they had permission to depart for the alternate airport. The navigator told him yes even though no permission was given. The person on the ground did not appreciate the gravity of the situation and let himself be bogged down with control issues.

Sometimes the person initiating the communication sends an accurate message composed of factual data but in reality doesn’t state the actual issue. For example, when I was young I once told my mother that my urine was runny (a fact), which did not impart any information to her. The real issue was I had diarrhea. Another example would be the numerous politicians who when asked a question answer with information not directly related to the question. I think they have a condition known as “Diarrhea of the Mouth”.

The moral of this essay: Be gay when the concept or idea or message goes through without resulting in chaos. The word gay is used correctly, but did it, the other words, and the sentence structure combine to confuse or clarify the message? This is yet another example of the potential for a message to get “lost in translation” when there is a poor choice of words and grammar by the sender.

The real moral of this essay: In your next life, pay attention in language class.

© 22 April 2012

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Keeping the Peace, by Lewis

KEEPING THE PEACE

…IN EIGHT EXTREMELY DIFFICULT STEPS

(OR LEWIS’ RULES OF ORDER)

1. Don’t interrupt your adversary. Listen fully until you understand completely their position.

2. Say back to him or her what you think they said. “Did I get that right?”

3. If they say, “That’s not what I said (or meant)”, ask them to repeat. If they say, “Yes, that’s right”, continue.

4. Tell them specifically why you disagree. Ask them to repeat what you just said.

5. When the area of disagreement is clear to both parties, then: a) agree to disagree, or b) agree to break off the discussion until another day or until a mediator can be brought in or until areas of disagreement can be clarified or fact-finding takes place.

6. Never shout, threaten, or resort to ad hominem attacks.

7. Never make the argument personal or ego-centered.

8. Apologize if you step over the line. [Never be afraid to admit that you are wrong.]

9. Remember, above all, that cutting the baby in half is no substitute for lacking humility.

© 10 June 2013

About the Author

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

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Piece of Cake by Gillian

It isn’t just my age that makes it seem like many things that surely should be are not a piece of cake these days. Oh yes, I forget where I put things and logic occasionally skips a beat, but I’m talking about things made more complicated than they need to be by others, not myself.

Betsy and I regretfully sold our old camper van a few months ago. It was eating money and parts were becoming too hard to find. The man who bought it apparently drove it home on a toll road because a few weeks later we got a bill from the toll company for $3.20. Now even I am not going to quibble over three bucks, so I mailed the check and forgot all about it. Piece of cake! A few weeks later we received another bill for the same vehicle, time, and date, from a differently named company. It seems the toll collection passed to a different company without, surprise surprise, much communication. Other than the fact that this bill was mysteriously thirty cents higher, the bills were identical so we printed off a copy of the processed check, mailed it and forgot about it. Just last week we got a second bill from the toll company for sixty unexplained cents. Honestly! Can’t someone program their computer not to generate bills for amounts below a dollar? I am tempted to tape sixty pennies to a sheet of paper, but I know the computer wouldn’t know what to do with that. The next thing we’d receive would be a bill for $20.60 after they added a twenty dollar late charge. So I guess I’ll just write a check. I can honestly say I have never written a check for less than a dollar, but then, a woman in her seventies should probably be grateful for any new experience!

Have you noticed how people these days have developed the skill of completely ignoring evidence right in front of their eyes? Betsy’s granddaughter Lisi owed us some money and was paying it back via automated monthly checks mailed to us from her bank. Piece of cake! When she later closed out that account, the checks kept right on coming. After three monthly checks we should not have had, we visited a local branch of the bank and explained the situation. Yes, the young man agreed, that account was indeed closed and contained no money, therefore we would receive no checks. I pounded my poor pinkie on the paper until it pained me. There were the checks. Three of them. Keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the computer screen he continued to nod his agreement that the account was closed and empty and no checks could be issued. He simply refused to see the evidence before him. Really! What kind of bank continues to send out checks from a closed account with no money in it??

In fact, closing accounts just seems to cause problems. I closed out a savings account, withdrawing all the money. The next month I got a statement claiming I had thirty-nine cents in that account. I called the branch, but neither they nor I had any explanation for the thirty-nine cents.

“Oh well,” I said, “Just cut a check for the amount and toss it in the trash, then close the account.”

She explained that she could not do that, as the computer would not create checks for less than a dollar.

“Can I just pop in and you give me the cash then?”

Cash, all thirty-nine cents of it, was apparently, for some incomprehensible reason, not an option. I gave up.

After a couple of months my thirty-nine cent statement was accompanied by a letter expounding upon the joys of paperless banking. Yes! I thought, hastily completing the authorization. At least I would no longer be irritated every month by this three-page documentation of my thirty-nine
cents. I would never have to go on-line to look at it; it would be forgotten. Piece of cake! After the second month of continuing to receive the mailed statement, I phoned the 24 hour customer service number. Definitely, I was told, since I had signed up for paperless banking I no longer received hard-copy statements. I assured her that I was holding one in my hand at that very moment, and she continued to affirm that I no longer received statements by mail. I gave up, but the following month I took my apparently imaginary paper statement to the local branch and explained my problem. Eyes glued to the screen, the young woman agreed wholeheartedly with me. Yes, I had signed up for paperless accounts and no longer received hard copy. No amount of waving pages at her could distract her attention from that screen. I gave up. Now, each month as I watch my three-page proof of thirty-nine cents die an ignominious death in the shredder, I remind myself that I no longer receive hard copy.

I find, more and more, that I fail to understand what people are telling me. And no, it’s not because I can’t hear, or that English is their second language. No, English, as far as I know, is their first language. Yet they somehow speak it in a way I cannot follow. I understand the words, but the way they put them together makes no sense to me. Betsy recently e-mailed a very simple question to our insurance company. The reply, and I promise you this is a direct quote, read, “Yes your property is currently covered (but not now).” How in God’s name is a person to interpret that? How can something be currently but not now?

I think hell on earth must be struggling, from half way around the world, to deal helpfully and politely in a relatively unfamiliar language, with an angry American trying to set up his Smart TV. A few years ago, Betsy and I bought a new flat-screen TV, and, for the first time, splurged on Cable. The Comcast techie rushed off after a very speedy installation, leaving me no chance to ask questions. I could not figure out where to attach the DVD player, so in desperation I called the HELP number. After many minuets on hold and many more in conversation with a very frustrated young man, both he and I had had just about enough. His voice had risen an octave over the time we had spent together, and I was beginning to doubt his chances of reaching his twenty-first birthday without a heart attack.

“No no no! You are not listening to me. How then can I help if you do not listen?”

“I’m sorry. I am listening. Really.”

Like a recalcitrant three year old.

“Now.” He sighed; at the end of his tether.

“We are at the very top, on the left side of the television. This TV is not a person. It is not the left side of it of which we speak. No! It is your left. You are facing the screen. Yes?”

Without waiting for confirmation he plunged on.

“You are reaching out your left hand and placing it on the top of the side of the television that is there, closest to your exact left hand. Very good! Now, the first connection on top of all the connections on that very side. You see it. It is being very red and you do not use it.”

I replied that actually it was yellow, but no I did not use it.

“It is red!” he said, dismissively. “Now you move down your exact left hand and the next one is yellow and you do not use it.”

I saw little point in saying that it was white, and we moved rapidly on to the next which was supposedly white but was in fact red. Why wasn’t my TV like his picture of it? We had confirmed the model number.

“Now,” he said with an air of accomplishment, “in the next one below under your exact left hand is the unused white into which you place the white of your DVD cable.

I willed the thick cable already plugged into the dirty-mustard yellow connection to disappear, but it remained.

“Something’s already in that one. The cable box. Or maybe the DVR …” I said doubtfully, peering into the dark corner behind the TV and the tanglement of wires and cables nesting there.

“No no no! You are indeed not following me!”

I thanked him for his time and hung up.

And you know, among the endless frustrations of modern life, occasionally someone appears who reinvigorates your faith in people and even technology. Forgetting the DVD player, I worked on getting the DVR to work. Having failed on that score too, I called Comcast where the phone techie agreed that it was not working correctly and scheduled a real person techie visit in two days. She strode into the living room, an obvious lesbian wearing her overstuffed tool belt with pride. After a cursory glance, she began ripping out cables and wires and dumping them in a tangled mangled heap on the carpet. She scooped up the messy bundle and retreated to her van, returning with new, neatly coiled and labeled, cables and wires and connectors. In what seemed like no time she was demonstrating to me that the TV worked, the DVD player worked, the cable box worked, and the DVR worked. She gathered up her tools and waved a cheery goodbye.

Piece of cake!

© March 2015

About the Author

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

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Communications by Phillip Hoyle

Communications involve much more than words, a fact that to me seems especially true of communications made in the context of love, sex, and romance. In those contexts I feel uncertain what anyone is communicating to me. Why? Perhaps because I live too much in my own world. Perhaps I don’t hear anything except the words. Perhaps I just don’t get the emotional content of things said. Perhaps I didn’t get to practice love talk as a teen because I didn’t feel impelled toward girls and assumed boys were not interested. Perhaps I just cut off any expectation of falling in love so as to keep from getting hurt. Perhaps I married too young. I really cannot settle on any of these possibilities. 

A psychiatrist challenged my over use of ‘perhaps’ and ‘maybe.’ He would say, “There you go again, waffling. Just tell me. Make up your mind.” That’s a problem. In my own defense I could have appealed to my scores on the Myers-Briggs inventory with its use of Jung’s conscious ego states (I was a strong perceiver and weak judge), but then maybe the psychiatrist wasn’t interested in Jung! Setting that aside, I will try to make a synthesis of these ideas—all my perhapses—and that synthesis begins with a story.

When I was in my mid-forties living in Albuquerque, Teresa, a pastoral counselor, attended the same interdenominational clergy support group I did even though she was not clergy. I liked that for I had always thought the clergy/lay distinction rather meaningless given my background. It seemed good to have present in the group the experience and perspective of someone not trained so thoroughly in theology and congregational life. Pastoral counseling is a category of psychotherapy alongside, for instance, family-systems counseling and other specialties. In addition to psychotherapeutic techniques used in other approaches, Pastoral counseling employs spiritual and religious themes as they seem appropriate to the counselor and counselee. (I say this to be as precise as possible.) Pastoral counselors offer pastors and parishes a referral resource for cases that go beyond the training of local parish pastors.

I liked Teresa. She liked me. When my high-school age daughter needed support in a particularly tough time, I asked Teresa if she’d be her counselor for about two months. Teresa told me it was not her practice to work with children of colleagues, but she trusted me and agreed to talk with my daughter. They met on two or three occasions and helped pave the way for Desma’s decisions to be successful. Teresa told me how impressed she was with my daughter.

Some months later Teresa opened up to me about her frustrations with work. We developed a caring and trusting relationship in which our communications always interlaced mutual respect and humor. She asked me about how I dealt with the dynamics of being an associate minister. I saw she needed help thinking through how to deal with some kind of power inequity in her own work. We talked informally over several weeks as she met whatever was her current crisis. Then she told me, “Phillip, you’re the best defended man I’ve ever known.”

I really didn’t know what she was saying to me but decided to take it as a compliment. After all she had said ‘best,’ and mom had taught me to say ‘thank you’ to compliments, even those I thought I didn’t earn or didn’t quite understand. For years I mulled over Teresa’s evaluation. I knew she was an astute observer of human behavior. I knew she took a woman-oriented point of view. I knew she followed current trends in psychoanalytic perspective. I knew she was kind. So I accepted her comment as I tried to understand its insight in order to better understand the dynamics it could reveal both in my personality and in my work relationships.

My musings eventually went far beyond work and landed me back at the point in my teen years when I must have been feeling the juices of sexual yearning churning in my system. I had watched my older sisters fall in love with guys and get hurt over it. I reasoned if you didn’t fall in love, you wouldn’t get hurt. I have no memory that my homosexual proclivity entered into my reasoning. I simply wasn’t interested in being hurt. I liked both boys and girls. I got hard-ons over both girls and boys. I liked both a lot. I decided that was okay, of course, even quite enjoyable. I dated girls. I sometimes had sex with a boy. I kept busy with music, studies, art, reading, various church and school groups, and my part-time work at the grocery store. I took care of the lawn at home. I was a nice kid who fit in well. I lived into my life. I defended myself from love’s potential pain.

When from my old age perspective I look most searchingly at my young self, I realize that probably something homosexual was at play, but it was deeply submerged. I liked the same boy who broke my sister’s heart, but I didn’t want the hurt she experienced. I wasn’t able to picture a social price for being gay because I couldn’t imagine two guys living together into adulthood. I pushed down what I didn’t even know. I feel fortunate my parents had not taught me guilt feelings or self-loathing. Those would have been destructive. As a teenager trying to figure out life and desire, I took my practical approach and set aside the potential of same-sex love. My defenses were sure and served me well. I didn’t reject my interest in other guys, just watched it. I enjoyed the feelings but didn’t pursue them into any kind of institutional form.

When I was twenty-one, I married a fine woman. When I was thirty, I fell in love with a nice man. I saw what was happening and was thrilled to my toes with the feelings. Eventually an affair began. It was controlled by distance and the uneven needs of my buddy. Some fifteen years later, our on and off occasional contact was not sufficient for me. I wanted to simplify my life, to find something that seemed more natural. Teresa’s comment which was made at around that time may have helped facilitate my changes. I opened myself to more feelings and to acting on them with people who lived nearby. Of course, it was a costly decision that ripped apart the stability of my life. I found thrills, but some twenty years later, even with all my new experiences in love, I still don’t catch onto the emotional content of what may be pick-up lines. I really still need folk to speak to me in simple, straightforward English. I need a hand to reach out and touch me before I am ready to shed my defenses. My settlement these days stands in great contrast to what I did as a fifteen year old, or a thirty-five year old, or even a forty-five year old.

I am so glad this sixty-five year old man had all these experiences. I continue to shed my inhibitions but still don’t want to hurt anyone else with the shedding. I recall when at fifty-five years I was so thrilled over meeting Rafael. I really was. I told a friend about him and wondered aloud at my surprise and at my elation that anyone would be interested in me. My friend Tony laughed and said, “Phillip, you just aren’t paying attention.”

Now I listen more carefully but still am not sure what I am hearing. Does this mean my closet door could open even wider? Does it mean I could become even more gay? I’m listening for the deepest levels of communication in my effort to overcome my own residual defenses—you know that ‘best’ stuff in me—and in my effort I hope really to hear what others are trying to communicate to me.

Whew.

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

Read more at Phillip’s blog:  artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Communication by Gillian

My dad was a quiet, almost silent, man.

I never use the word taciturn in his case because that has a certain negative connotation and my father’s silence seemed one of peace and contentment.

He just felt little need of words.

In fact one of the dictionaries’ synonyms for taciturn is uncommunicative which my father most definitely was not, he simply communicated in other ways.

He never once told me he loved me, but I never once doubted it.

We had an ancient chopping block sawn from the trunk of a fallen oak tree.  My dad split logs on it as his father and grandfather had done. It was very hard wood but it had been slowly worn down to a shadow of its former self by three generations of abuse.

On one of my last trips back home he handed me a circular wooden chain, which, he actually did tell me in words, was carved from the old chopping block.

It is one of my most cherished possessions.

I cannot imagine how long it took him to carve this intricate creation from that tough old wood, and when I cleared up the shed after his death I found many rejects and practice bits and false starts tossed on the woodpile, and some complete chains which were not, apparently, just perfect.
For me it had to be perfect.
Communication comes in many forms.
This beautiful gift expresses Dad’s love for me in a way no words could ever do, and it lasts a whole lot longer.

Me with my dad in 1948

       

                                                              

About the Author

 

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

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Secrets by Donny Kaye

My
nine year old granddaughter told me yesterday that secrets can be good or
bad.  She went on to say that a secret
was good if you have just gotten a new puppy and want to surprise someone with
it.  When I asked her about when secrets
are bad she said, “Papa, you just feel bad inside with some secrets”.  As Lauren answered me, I recognized once
again, how early in life we are introduced to secrets and how they typically register
at the earliest of ages as “making you feel badly inside” and fill one with confusion,
disconnection and wonder about the truth.
Last
Saturday, the lay organist searched out the melodious tune of Amazing Grace on
the transportable electric keyboard organ in the gathering area at the small
town funeral home.  I was intrigued to
watch members of my extended family solemnly entering the memorial service in
remembrance of their recently deceased loved one, my aunt.    As I
witnessed their somber entrance, I was filled with fleeting remembrances of my
own of the stories that are part of my heritage in the Irish Catholic family I
grew up in.  Most of the stories I was
recalling have been figured out in time, realizing that secrets flourish in my
family’s history.
          My
cousin Mary spoke so eloquently at her mother’s funeral the other morning.  There is still confusion in the family about
her children and husband.  It seems that
after she was first married and had a child, she left her husband and child for
the man next door and his children.  No
one has ever breathed a word about this episode.  It’s treated more like she got confused one
night and entered the wrong house when she came home and no one ever had
courage enough to correct her error. 
There
is the secret about Cousin Bill who one day just disappeared from the family.  As a child I watched the eye brows raise in
the hush of the conversation about Bill. He was older and really cool and one
of my cousins who I enjoyed the most. 
Where did he go?  What could he have
done that resulted in such secrecy? Years later I learned that he was gay and
just disappeared because it seemed easier than to try and find acceptance
within the family.  
Or
Cousin Diane, whose children just disappeared one day, leaving all of the
others of us kids wondering if the same could happen to us, and nothing would
be said. 
To
add to the confusion and deceit there was Cousin Rogene, who after an extended
stay in California, returned home with triplets.  I was only ten and couldn’t understand how
that happened.  Only at her funeral some fifty
years later did I learn that the triplet’s father had secretly continued to
visit his lover, my cousin, on weekends when he could travel to Denver, leaving
behind his other wife and children in California.  It would have been nice to know that she
really hadn’t gone through life totally alone as a single mom. 
And
Amazing Grace played on.
As I
was overcome by emotions sitting in the memorial service as a result of the,
“bad feelings inside”, to quote my granddaughter Lauren, I found it difficult
to breath knowing my own story of secrecy related to my homosexuality and I
wondered how my deceit  would ever find a
place of acceptance and understanding within my family? No wonder my Cousin
Bill just disappeared one day.
On
Friday night before the funeral, I was visiting with my niece, who is my age
mate and who grew up with me more as my sister who lived next door. We were
recalling humorously, our learning in high school that one of our family had
been suspended from school because of the “m” word.  The only “m” word that she understood at that
point in her life was menstruation.   Did
this mean boys menstruated too?  This
secret confused her for a number of years; thinking that she didn’t want to get
caught having her period at school, for fear that she would get suspended like
our cousin.  She was in her late twenties
when she realized our Cousin William had been suspended for
getting caught masturbating at school.  Oh,
that
“M” word!  Needless to say, not only do
secrets make you feel bad inside, they can create situations of immense
confusion and major misunderstanding.
         It seems that sexual secrets
abound in our family.  My sister, who was
sixteen years my senior, recalled for me long after I was married that our
mother had bitterly handed her a brown paper bag as she prepared to leave her
wedding reception.  In the bag was a jar
of Vaseline and a douche bag.  Our
mother’s words to her on this significant occasion were, “Here, you will need
these!”  These were the only words ever
spoken to my sister about sex.  This
exchange of the brown paper bag constituted her sex education it seemed.   
In
the hours since this weekend’s family gathering, I’ve not only been aware of
“feeling badly” about the secrets I have created and allowed in my life, I’m
also aware of anger and sadness that comes up for me.  I know that there has been no spaciousness
within my life experience for fifty some years, regarding my sexuality. As I
realize this, I also recognize that I have been the one agreeing to and
perpetuating the secret concerning my sexuality.  As my granddaughter said to me yesterday,
some secrets are good, some bad.  Out of
fear and a sense of inadequacy within me to language my sexuality, I created
the secret in my life related to who I am. 
         Secrets, despite them
creating bad feelings and a sense of disconnection, isolation and separateness,
you’ve got to laugh.  Secrets revealed or
not can be quite humorous.
What
I recognize now is that living the secret is far more energy consuming than
living the truth.  Others do figure it
out, eventually.  The real price of
having a secret comes at the expense of the one living the secret.  After all, only my closest friends realized
the enjoyment I had shopping for my aunt’s funeral  for the perfect muted pattern scarf in purple,
pink and red to wear with my European cut pink shirt and skinny jeans.

About the Author