Tag: Donny Kaye

Posted on

His Story by Donny Kaye

     My story is an historical accounting of my life experience in this realm. It starts at birth, and even before. It is the accumulation of events and experiences documenting this life.


     All of the stories of my “history” exist within me. All are memorable, each for their very own reasons. Many of the stories stir delight and goodness in my recollection of the experience. In my history is the remembrance of riding my bike the first time without the assistance of training wheels or someone running beside me steadying the teetering cycle. I re-collect the stories of making of new friends who have grown old with me in time, remaining as witnesses to a life that has unfolded in time. There are those friends whose appearance was brief in the experience called my life.

     Some of my history is more painful to recall or even want to remember. Those times when for whatever reason I was at dis-ease with myself. I have recollections of feeling different and consequently, not enough. What is intriguing to realize is that the events of my history are all interpreted by me. My interpretation colors the experience in a good, bad or neutral way.

     There have been those experiences when I have not acted from a higher place within. My uncertainty has resulted in actions that only untruth can cover. The time I damaged another’s property intentionally; a reflection of unexpressed anger or emotions I couldn’t understand much less directly express. A test I cheated on because I didn’t hold confidence in my very own capacity. Actions I took out of fear that I wasn’t good enough in my own right. Moments of sadness and a sense of disconnection. My history is riddled with actions where I acted from a sense of lack rather than abundance and confidence.

All of who I am is an expression of the learning in my life that have become my history. What are the stories that get told? Of more significance than the history that gets told are the stories that don’t get told. What is realized is that only I get to choose the revelations of my history. No different from authors, publishers and political parties that are about a certain truth only achievable by withholding the truth, the whole truth that is.

     And so it is in this life; my history comes together with yours. Each believing in the history, at least to the extent that we choose to reveal. A new friend appears, the attraction found in the stories we tell–either ourselves or the other. The truth expressed and withheld.

     And so it is; my history comes together with “His Story”. And only history will tell the impact of the two, stories intertwined into one.

About the Author

Donny Kaye is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.”

Story Time at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community. 
Posted on

ABC’s of Life by Donny Kaye

It
seems that life is about mastery.  In my
mind, Mastery is not to be confused with perfection but rather the ability to
actually experience life as it presents, moment-by-moment. Mastery connotes
experiencing life effortlessly, without resistance and in the spirit of
surrender.  By surrender, I am not
suggesting submission or irresponsibility. 
There
was a time when I experienced life in a very black and white manner, with little
tolerance at all for the shades of gray that constitute actually living life as
it presents. My personality needed knowledge and control to assure me that I
was on some predetermined “single” pathway.
          There is a part of me that
would like to believe that life can be guided by a list such as The ABC’s of
Life, however; my experience suggests that about the time I master A, B and C,
life requires guidance from X, Y and Z!
If I
were to create such a list, the wise one within would begin with
ALLOWANCE.  As I use the term allowance,
I’m not thinking of the seventy-five cents a week for taking out the trash or
cleaning off the dishes nightly from the dinner table.  Allowance is a pre-requisite of being able to
meet life’s challenges just as they present. 
Allowance is a way of looking at my life events not as obstacles to
getting what I want but rather as stepping stones.  Allowance cultivates trust.  Trust that everything that appears appears as
it must.  Trust that comes through the
experience of allowance, allows for certain things to fall away from my life as
well as for certain things to come into my life.
The
B in A, B, C, is just that, be!  Being is
about cultivating a capacity to be present to what is.  Being allows for an informed response to what
is, rather than the experience of constantly reacting with either agreement or
disagreement.  The constant reaction to
what appears begins to lessen and a true sense of wonder serves as the lens for
viewing life’s experiences.
Change is constant, becomes
another critical aspect for me in understanding life.  I have found that when I am able to surrender
to the changes that are life, I am better able to stop resisting and instead,
allow what life’s experiences bring to me. Change is constant!   What must I do to create the ability to
remain flexible in my thinking and my actions? 
To allow and be, requires flexibility and surrender to the realization
that change is inevitable.
My
years of experience in this lifetime, and quite possibly, previous life times,
make the development of a full list, A-Z daunting and perhaps impossible to
create.  As an educator, I remember using
excerpts with my staff from the book, Everything I Needed to Know, I Learned in
Kindergarten.
As I
look back on that listing of essential learning from kindergarten, I am
reminded of the following ABC’s of Life, by Robert Fulghum:   
·       
Share
everything.
·       
Play
fair.
·       
Don’t
hit people.
·       
Put
things back where you found them.
·       
Clean
up your own mess.
·       
Don’t
take things that aren’t yours.
·       
Say
you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
·       
Wash
your hands before you eat.
·       
Flush.
·       
Warm
cookies and cold milk are good for you.
·       
Live
a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and
dance and play and work every day some.
·       
Take
a nap every afternoon.
·       
When
you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
·       
Be
aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go
down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all
like that.
·       
Goldfish
and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup –
they all die. So do we.
Everything you need to know is in this
list of ABC’s somewhere.
And
then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the
biggest word of all – LOOK.
LOOK! I must develop my capacity to
witness my life, without bias or expectation, and always with a sense of Wonder
for what is.  Realizing that “what is” is
precisely the life event that is needed for a certain life lesson. 
I
am not suggesting a naive or Pollyannaish outlook on life but the creation of a
life which when viewed by the witness within is viewing the life experience
with clarity, through a lens which does not distort, nor color everything as
rose colored glasses might. 
In
David Whyte’s poem, “No Path”, he states in his opening line, “There is no path
that goes all the way. Not that it stops us from looking for the full
continuation.” To exist with an expanded sense that there is no one way, be it
right or even direct, but the experience of life from the perspective that
everything belongs is entirely possible and practical. 

About the Author 

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite.  He has lived his life posing as a
hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that
of a gay male.  In recent years he has
confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding
his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated
life.  “I never forgot for a minute that
I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject
and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime
at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the
stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall
the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the
deepest corners of his memory.  Within
the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of
four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family
and friends.  Donny is divorced and yet
remains closely connected with his family. 
He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with
himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing
integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of
the GLBTQ community.  
Posted on

Breaking into Gay Culture by Donny Kaye

          My new home is only a couple blocks down the street and along the park from the coffee shop where my most recent introduction to gay culture started, some ten years ago. To understand the significance of my new home’s location I must go back in time to my earliest introduction to gay culture.

          After I graduated from college and before I was married I hung out with several colleagues who were friends of mine. The selection of hangout spots was always determined by a couple of the gals within the group. Their choice was either a country and western themed dance club or a gay bar on the outskirts of the city limits. We partied weekly as we danced and drank together unwinding from the challenges of work.

          On those nights when we would decide to go beyond the city limits and visit the bar heading up the hillside to the west of town, I paid close attention to the men who flirted with one another in the darkened recesses of the bar, typically men with men seeming very much at ease as they maintained close physical proximity with one another. Once in a while I would observe knees touching, hands caressing one another and even an occasional extended kiss. My heart would quicken and my mind engage. A few different nights I went back to that bar alone to not only watch but to be.

          On each of those occasions, feelings of excitement stirred deep within me. I got what I was looking for in terms of physical connection that would lead to the parking lot just outside and on one occasion; I actually went home with someone, caressing each other as I excitedly drove down the darkened roadway. My excitement was accelerated by desire and the experience of allowing what I then tried to repress and consciously deny.

           Within moments after the exchange I would be filled with guilt and shame as the awareness that within months I was to be married returned to my consciousness. It seemed so right and yet at the same time not allowable within my understandings of relationship, sexuality and my naïveté regarding models I had experienced for “doing” life, as defined by religion. There seemed to be no other choices. Being like I wanted to be seemed to also include the diagnosis of me having a psychiatric disorder! I just liked guys, why did it have to be so complex?

          Ten years ago I was helping my good friend with the opening of her hair salon, immediately next door to one of the area’s leading gay coffee shops. On each of those days after my early morning work at her shop, I always enjoyed sauntering into the coffee shop ordering my coffee, watching, wondering, and considering the possibilities. I felt very much at home there and I recognized in that setting my secret wasn’t of significance.

          In the interim between those early days and the coffee shop on ninth Avenue there were experiences, especially when work-related travel removed me from the confines of suburban life as a married man. I frequented various theaters, on occasion a gay bar, porn stores and occasionally an extended eye contact followed by a wink, a touch and caress. My experience of gay culture was reduced to a rich fantasy life and the expression of short stories in my creative mind as I ran miles at a time, trying to control my interests in men.

          The coffee shop became a weekly haunt, long after the work at the hair salon was completed. I began to relate to other gay men whom I met through a close friend who is gay. The longing to be in gay culture, at least as I had always known it to be, had started to shift from that of cruising, sexual connection and guilt, to something much different.

          My desire increasingly has included wanting honest relationships with men and women who understood me; who accept my desire, passion, and longing as a man of a certain sexual persuasion. I want to be around those who seemingly understood me and who have an allowance for me being the me that I have always wanted to be AND who are like me in that they are more diverse in their sexual orientation.

          The gift of my life now is the opportunity to integrate a culture rich in sexual diversity with the aspects of my former life, especially my children and grand children.

          Living within the hood allows me to interact in a much more complete and authentic way than I ever considered possible. The culture is no longer someplace I visit in secret in the dark of night and the anonymity of a setting where I’m just passing through. It is no longer restricted to Thursday mornings when I would linger at the coffee shop for hours on end, dreading the return to life as I had crafted it to be.

          My experience of my culture now allows not only for the expression of my natural sexual orientation, but allows for you my dearest of friends. It allows for this space, this time this opportunity to just be me.

          I live just up the block and through the park. I look from my balcony onto the streets and across the space of my neighborhood, which allows the experience of my culture. No longer separate or someplace I’m passing through. It’s where I flourish, the place I call home. My culture. My family. The place I rest in for this moment in time.  

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite.  He has lived his life posing as a
hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that
of a gay male.  In recent years he has
confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding
his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated
life.  “I never forgot for a minute that
I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject
and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime
at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the
stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall
the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the
deepest corners of his memory.  Within
the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of
four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family
and friends.  Donny is divorced and yet
remains closely connected with his family. 
He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with
himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing
integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of
the GLBTQ community.  

Posted on

Never Never Land by Donny Kaye

          In a time before reality TV and neighborhood video stores; long before Netflix was even a conception because there was no “NET” other than in women’s stockings and the fisherman’s contraption for pulling the resistant fish from its waters, and at a time when we still referred to theatres as just that, I saw Peter Pan. I was probably seven or eight years of age when we rode the bus down Broadway to the Paramount Theatre on 16th Street, to see Walt Disney’s newly-released production of Peter Pan. It was most likely then that I was most able to identify with the thought of Never Never Land, a place best known for eternal childhood and immortality. It seems that in the years that followed I moved farther and farther from the ability to exist in a simpler realm where life was childlike and pretty easy. At that point the world had not totally had its way with me in terms of experiencing society’s harsh need to have me be something other than what and who I am.

          As a seven year old, I was unfamiliar with the story of Peter Pan by J. Barrie and immediately loved the characterizations by W. Disney, especially Peter Pan and The Lost Boys. They were magical and yet the experience of the fairy, Tinker Bell, has remained a favorite in my life. Some time ago when I was considering my first tattoo, Tinker Bell actually showed as a possibility, realizing the fairy has always been of special existence in my mind.

          I must admit that I have never desired reading the unabridged work of J. Barrie. In fact, reading Peter Pan has not advanced to my Bucket List however; I am being inspired somewhat just doing background work on the web, in prep for this story. The stories of Never Land are far more complex than the animated cartoon produced by Disney in 1953. Just as intriguing as Barrie’s original creation, are the interpretations of his work. His characters have become the inspiration for psychological theories regarding men, such as the “Peter Pan Syndrome”, and homoerotic discussions of his characters abound on the web.

          What I do know is that there was a time when my life was a lot simpler. The complexities of my family and those of influence over me had not had their way with me yet. As time went on, I quietly assumed others expectations of me as I denied my own desires and to some extent, my own dreams. Never Land was indeed NEVER Land.

          NEVER Land became an experience in my life which was solely fantasy. It existed in animated characters living in magical scenes complete with original musical scores and at times, experienced in 3-D.

          I remember a condominium time share presentation in Orlando, Florida in which after we had been seated in a handsomely decorated and cozy library-study setting, complete with drinks in hand, the book cases on either side of the fireplace began slowly moving. As the book cases and fireplace gave way to a video presentation that would be screened on the newly exposed wall, Tinker Bell actually flew in through the doorway on the opposite side of the room, sprinkling her fairy dust across the room and onto the newly revealed video screen as an arial shot of Disney World and Epcot Center filled the magically expanding space. That seemed as close as I might get at that point in my life to the experiences of Never Land that were waiting for me in my personal journey towards wholeness. If only it would have been as simple as purchasing a time-share in Disney’s newest resort community!

          I don’t know if Never Never Land equates with St. John of the Cross’s Dark Night of the Soul or Dante’s reference to “awakening in the woods to find yourself wholly lost,” but certainly there was somewhat of a nightmarish quality to Captain Hook’s eventually falling from the gang plank in to the water and the awaiting open mouth of the crocodile.

          Some place near the “stars of the milky way” and “always at the time of sunrise”, there is a “turn just after the second star” that takes a person on a path beyond the experience of Never Never Land. Beyond reference to escapism, childishness and immortality is the experience of unity and wholeness that comes as unresolved emotional baggage is discarded and as a result, unconditional joyfulness is experienced.

          Our nightmares, as well as our dreams all exist within us. We are the creators. We can take inspiration from a fairy tale, such as Peter Pan and fall into the experience of our own surrender and opening to our own desire which provides us our own kind of beauty and richness.

          On the other side of Never Never Land, we can emerge transformed, lighter and brighter, braver and more confident for having moved through the experience of the darkness, the nightmare, or the experience of being wholly lost.

          In my reflections on Never Never Land it seems that there is continual movement between different realms of being. As infants we come to this experience called humanity and are moved between Never Never Land; Always Always Land and eventually, transformation into an experience of our own beauty and richness as spiritual beings having a human experience.

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.

Posted on

What Do I Call Myself? by Donny Kaye

          I’ve noticed a bumper sticker on the back of a friend’s car that reads, “I Am”.

      I am!

      I am?

      Immediately I realize that I begin to search for a label that names what I Am. I am a man. I am a son. In my search for the label that seems to fit at the moment, I begin to realize that to label me something requires a judgment. I am this and in being this, I am not that. It gets confusing. It can become disabling. It can seem unfair at times. It, what it is that is being used as the label, can be empowering, neutral or even the source of shame. Whatever it is that I call myself is the result of judgments that I have been taught. Judgments that are reflective of my culture.

      The culture that we get born into begins to differentiate and separate us at its earliest of opportunities. Immediately we are given a name. When I was born, I was placed in a blue blanket differentiating me almost immediately as the result of the judgment of another. (Trust me, I might not have chosen blue.) It seems that as soon as words began to be associated with defining me, words which were reliant on the judgments of others, I began to see myself separately and became conditioned to the language that was being associated with me for my definition of my own self. The labels started early. After all, if it weren’t for labeling, Margaret and Douglas might have taken another baby home from the hospital. Then, where would I be?

      As soon as culture has its way, there seems to be only more definition and separation that occurs with the labeling. So in my case, my differentiation ‘boy’—I am boy—took on more modifiers like ‘good boy’ and with that judgment, ‘bad boy’. Nice boy. Cute boy. Naughty boy. Guilty boy. And at some point in my formation, I made agreement with some of the labels that were being used to differentiate me. In my mind, in the language I used about myself, I began to accept that I am one way or another. As a result of the culture I got born into, there were some definitions about me that stuck. Some have been positive. Some, negative. Positive, negative or in between, they have all come to serve me.

      At some point in my life journey I began to be confused by the labels that had been used to differentiate me, recognizing that many of the labels just didn’t fit–or at least they didn’t seem to fit any longer. Who am I?

      Psychologists have researched and written about the principles of becoming autonomous for centuries. Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, was one of the first psychologists at the end of the Eighteenth Century to study these principles.

      Autonomous refers to one who gives oneself their own law-not a law based on another’s thinking, but the thinking that is unique to the individual. Autonomy refers to the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision, in this case, about the self. Not influenced by others; but an un-coerced decision about the self. Most psychologists agree that this process of becoming autonomous begins to unfold in the psyche during adolescence. What is interesting for me to realize is that some of the agreements I made about who I am have taken a life time to uncover. Could it be that adolescence actually continues into the sixth and seventh decades of life? Maybe!

      So, here I am. (It’s those two words again, I AM)

      I exist in a culture that is reliant on labels, requiring that everything be languaged in some way. At different times I call myself different things depending on the situation. In different settings, I act and exist with different labels that I assign to myself. Sometimes the label that I give to myself can be harsh and negative. At other times, not. Always it seems, the label I assign to myself is never comprehensive enough to describe the whole of me. These labels I give to myself can end up sounding like background information you might be reading about me in a personal add on one of the social websites. You know what I mean, GWM, cut. Top/bottom or verse. Sensitive. Creative. And the labeling goes on-and-on, attempting to define for myself and others my presence based on what I do.

      Beyond the labels that I assign to myself is the dynamic that gets set up when others label me, based on how they need me to be. At one time I thought it most critical what others thought of me. Now I’m more inclined to rest in the idea that it’s really none of my business what you think of me; unless, of course, it interferes with my safety and my right to happiness. I’ll never forget walking down Colfax in front of the Cathedral and the group of protesters shouting at me “Faggot,” “You’re going to hell,” and the malicious protests continued. Once I realized the taunting was directed at me, I stepped into the space of one of the loudest and looking him in the eye, invited him to “make it a great day and go create some fun in his life.”

      To this very moment, I don’t know what it was that started the enraged shouting at me other than location, and that it was PRIDE weekend. I wasn’t in drag. There were no messages on my shirt. I hadn’t put on any beads yet. What can I say? They just needed me to be their faggot. The one they could spew on with their hateful message and judgment.

      What do I call myself? It does come down to judgment. As soon as something is judged, there is a dynamic or quality that gets set up that requires looking at the label on a spectrum. The spectrum exists with extremes on either end. Someplace along that continuum is me in that one regard. So, I take an attribute like SENSITIVE. To understand sensitive, I have to know IN-SENSITIVE. Or CARING. To know CARING I have to put it along side my experience of UN-CARING. The judgments can only exist in the understanding of the opposites. So for the guy yelling “FAGGOT” he is basing that on his understanding of NON FAGGOT or in his mind, extreme hetero. I’m also reminded in this case of the childhood lesson of “it takes one to know one.” But, that aside; what do I call myself?

      Once all of the labels and the required judgments are set aside, there is the quality of experience within me of just being me. I JUST AM. (The bumper sticker’s message.)

      I AM. Beyond words. Beyond definition required by opposites. I AM. The experience of infinite possibility. No limitations. Just me. And what I realize is that when I can allow for the experience of I Am, I recognize an incredible connection, and a oneness with you. With everything. I AM.

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.

Posted on

Dis-ease by Donny Kaye

Smile.  The threesome posed with an apprehensive grin
as their buddy taking the picture commented on the potential FaceBook caption
he would assign to this particular photo op,
“My buddies waiting to get tested at the STD Clinic”. 
And then, one-by-one each of
the buddies was called into the clinic offices 
for their chance to fill one of those plastic containers, complete a blood
draw,  and finally, meet with the
counselor. 
“Have you had sex in the
past 48 hours?” questioned the counselor. 
“Yes.” 
“24? ”
“24 what?”
“Hours”
‘”Uh, yes.”
“More recent than 12?”
With a grin and a deep sense
of satisfaction, “Yes.”
The counselor then proceeded
to demonstrate, using his finger, how a condom rides down the organ, exposing
the shaft and consequently exposing the base, you know—The BASE, to potential
infection.  It seemed like the lead into
an infomercial for some type of device, much like a garter that could be
attached somewhere on the body to hold the condom in its appropriate location
for $19.95 (and if ordered within the next while, the order would be
tripled).  Just what was needed for the
threesome who had been waiting in the outer office for their time for direction
and instruction in safe sex. 
Upon leaving the Clinic, the
buddies compared the stash of condoms each had been given proclaiming there was
agreement that they were safe for the next while, at least 48 hours. 
A week later at coffee there
was a sense of relief and satisfaction knowing that each of the three had gotten
his tests back.  All was OK. 
“No syphilis,” the first
proclaimed.
“All is clear with me,”
stated another; only to be joined by the third, “I’m clean.”
There was a deep smile and
hug shared by the three, as they raised their mugs to their mouths and cheered
this most recent reporting.  Something
they have committed to on a routine basis.
AIDS, has become the focus
of health considerations for the GLBT community since the early 1980’s when the
death causing syndrome at the time was first identified.  Especially for men, AIDS was thought by some
to be God’s judgment and retribution for “unnatural relationships between men.”  This particular disease for a while ravaged
the bodies and lives of many of our brothers and sisters, as well. 
As a result of the focus on
AIDS since the 80’s, the disease is better managed within the culture.
AIDS has become part of my life.  Knowing that each of us to some extent live
with AIDS daily, even though it is not in my body, it has become part of my
culture and day-to-day existence.  AIDS
exists all around me and I don’t want it in me. 
Understanding how AIDS has
become part of our culture, and my day-to-day existence, I’m also drawn to the
realization that much of my reaction to life actually creates Dis-Ease.  
Dis-Ease
actually occurs within each of us as we experience the contraction that comes
with judgment, be it judgment about something or someone outside of me, or more
commonly, judgments against my own self. 
It has been suggested by some researchers that there is a physiological
reaction within the bodies various systems to the contraction that is
experienced within when judgment occurs. 
 Judgment causes the very cellular
structure to break down.  The cells
within the body vibrate in a completely dissonant way.  There is contraction.  The fluids do not move through the cells as
they were created to move.  The nutrients
do not become transported or delivered to the cells.  The waste matter is not processed
properly.  Everything gets clogged up,
and there is dis-ease.
Dis-ease
exists within me in a very physiological way. 
Its cause may result from actual physical infection or from the
contractions within resulting from my judgments against myself and others.  Certainly there are measures that I must take
to protect myself from external causes of infection resulting in disease, such
as those recommendations of the STD Clinic staff.  Equally, I must pay attention to the
contractions and disruptions to my bodies various systems that occur when I
experience judgments against myself and others.
I entered the office alone.  There were no buddies, no photo op.
“Have you made any judgments
against yourself or another in the past 48 hours?”
“Yes.” (I mean, after all,
do I want that politician representing me as a gay man?)
“24?”
“Yes.” (Well, the person in
the express checkout line had more than ten items.)
“More recently?”
“Yes.  Actually in the moments before sharing this
writing.”  Stated without a grin or sense
of satisfaction.
Oh for an infomercial
offering some type of device that would help me to self-monitor the judgments
that occur in my mind, moment-by-moment. 
The judgments that create contractions and dis-ease within that can serve to be more lethal than
actually contracting some other dreaded disease, such as AIDS.  The remedy?  Hmmmmmmmm! 
The remedy, self
forgiveness.  For each time I am judging
another, even the driver in front of me or the customer in the express checkout
ahead of me, I’m actually judging myself. 
Certainly those judgments against myself about being unworthy or in some
way, not enough; ripple through my body in the form of contraction that
disrupts the various systems within my body creating dis-ease which can be as life
altering as other forms of disease. 
I am learning what to do to
protect myself from dis-ease.  I take my
vitamins, practice safe sex and even wear my seatbelt.  The consideration that begs my attention is Am I as vigilant about monitoring the
judgments that can exist in my life experience in a very inconspicuous way?
 The judgments that are life altering especially
when I withdraw and step aside out of a sense of unworthiness.
Dis-ease.  I live with it silently.  Separately. 
Alone.  
Hey, what was that 800 number
again?

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite.  He has lived his life posing as a
hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that
of a gay male.  In recent years he has
confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding
his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated
life.  “I never forgot for a minute that
I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject
and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime
at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the
stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall
the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the
deepest corners of his memory.  Within
the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of
four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family
and friends.  Donny is divorced and yet
remains closely connected with his family. 
He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with
himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing
integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of
the GLBTQ community.  

Posted on

Feeling Different by Donny Kaye

In the poem, Self Portrait, by the Irish poet David Whyte, the verse invites; “it doesn’t interest me if there is one god or many.  I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.  I want to know if you are prepared to live in a world with its harsh need to change you.  If you can look back with firm eyes and saying, this is where I stand.  This is where I stand.”

I don’t think that I started out feeling different but it seems that the world often exists with a harsh message and need to change a person.  To have me be something other than what I am.
  • Men don’t kiss men,  my brother declared when I was ten and he was thirty
  • Don’t sit like that-you’re sitting like a girl.
  • You sissy!
  • Ok, Donny you can be on my team says the leader of the pick-up sandlot game as he selects from the two remaining kids to be chosen, the other being a girl.
I’ve existed with a sense of feeling different since about the age of ten.  I began searching for ways for me to feel accepted.  My interests served to be too much for others, after all, who really cares if it is a ‘55 or ‘56 Dodge Royal Lancer or that the Buick Roadmaster has four holes and not three.

Because of my feeling different, I always worked to overcompensate. I was determined to cover up the differences that were felt.  So, I wasn’t the best ball player, I put my energy into achieving—always working harder for an A or A+ to earn my mother’s praise, which she wasn’t capable of giving me in the way I needed it—other than in a sideways kind of way; always wanting to stretch my performance to be even better.  My achievements only seemed to reinforce my feeling different.

I polished my perfectionistic skills with the intent that the world wouldn’t see my imperfection, after all I was different.  That word I had heard said once too often, you know the one—sissy – yeah that one, I was different.  I felt it inside.  Unfortunately my perfectionism only served to separate me even more, after all who wants to be around someone that strives for perfection to the extent I was capable.   

Feeling different has served to develop some essential life skills.  My sense of being different resulted in a successful career serving others.  An impressive resume and on top of that, I’ve enjoyed happiness and fulfillment raising three children and being Papa to seven incredible grandchildren and as a life partner in a married relationship for  forty-two years.

I also recognize that the truth about me, as a result of feeling different, has been denied and repressed.  It’s interesting at this point in my journey to realize that I owe a lot of my happiness and success to withholding the truth.  It’s typically thought that the truth will set one free—when in fact the truth has served to imprison me.

Feeling different?  Yes, I am—Different and yet the same as any other being existing on the planet.  Before this experience called human life, I came from a place where there was no sense of difference, only oneness.  This life experience has been about allowing me to know the attributes (if you can call them that) about feeling different.  In coming to know different, I better understand not being different, or what I call the quality of unity or oneness with everything.  Not separate.   

The change?  The truth.  Accepting me, all of me.  The good and the bad.  The up and down.  The in and the out.  These opposites allow me to recognize the qualities of just being who I was created to be.  Realizing the longing to not feel different is merely the longing for a return to the place of oneness with everything and everyone.  This seems to be the heart of life’s lesson for me, this sunny day in mid August.  Might I finally be realizing the lesson? Enough with feeling different and into the differences that make me this individual experience called Kent. 

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite.  He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male.  In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life.  “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory.  Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends.  Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family.  He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.  
Posted on

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

Posted on

Acting by Donny Kaye

Acting.  Actors. 
Acting out.  Acting up.  Acting weird. 
Strange acting.  Not acting
right.  Was that just an act?  Act your age. 
Is this the final act?  Acts of
the apostles. An act of Congress. A heroic act. 
Caught in the act.

When does the actor put away
the act and become real? 

When do I finally become
real, and begin to act?

What an interesting
word.  It is only three letters in length
excluding a different suffix.  It seems
that the use of the word would result in clarity and yet, it like most of our
language is not as precise as it is assumed. 
The user as well as the one to whom the word is being directed can exist
with very different interpretations of the intended meaning and consequently
great disparity regarding the meaning of what it is that is actually being
talked about. 

Saturday morning a small
group of friends gathered on my balcony for early morning coffee.  We talked about love.  We talked about relationships.  We talked about sexuality and its
relationship to spirituality.  The
conversation was rich and filled with energy that stretched the coffee hour to
nearly four, yet we grew increasingly aware of the differences in how we each
language our thoughts and how both speaker and the listener often do not exist with
shared mind around the intended meaning even though we used similar language to
express our thoughts and ideas.

As a child I don’t remember
when I didn’t notice men.  Their bodies
were exciting for me to gaze upon.  There
were teachers at school.  There were
young men and boys in the neighborhood. 
I especially remember Mr. Harrington, my accordion teacher who also
owned a bright red ’56 Mercury convertible who had captured my attention by the
age of 10, well beyond cording and bellow-shakes.  In elementary school we got to attend a
ballet at the Denver Auditorium Theatre and my interest in that ballet was in
the costuming, especially the men’s tights which seemed ever so-o revealing.
Any interest I’ve ever had in football was focused on the tight fitting
player’s jersey, pants and their muscular torsos. 

Along with the awareness was
a cultured learning to act as if I didn’t notice other males.  My actions were about acting right and not
acting interested or acting badly as a result of my interests in other
males.  My actions were intended to help
me deny my very own orientation.  I
needed to act like my culture and what my parents, family and religion
expected.  There was no room for acting
out my sexual interests.  I became a
skilled actor in maintaining a secret that resulted in any number of
undesirable actions on my part resulting from my denial, frustration and anger
and not experiencing the spaciousness to be who I am. 

When I would take action on
my sexual orientation, my performance expectations as an actor merely had to
increase to act as if nothing was going on in my life that could be associated
with the actions of a queer. In many realms of my life, I acted as a seasoned
breeder, winning many accolades for my convincing performances. 

Today I am no longer acting
as a result of my shame for my sexual orientation.  I am taking action to live in integrity with
my very Being.  My acts now are more
complete, grounded in compassion and an increasing sense of self worth.  My actions are expressions of my awareness of
wholeness as a gay man. I ‘act’ out with a deepening sense of pride in who it
is that I Am.  In most realms of my life
the actions have not changed, however; the actions are expressions not of an actor,
playing a prescribed part but instead as, Donny the one taking action for
living this life.

Acting.  Actors. 
Acting out.  Acting up.  Acting weird. 
Strange acting.  Not acting
right.  Was that just an act?  Act your age. 
Is this the final act?

Possibly!

About the Author

Posted on

The Gym by Donny Kaye

Gym class in 7th grade turned brutal. I attended one of Denver’s roughest junior high schools, which I’m sure was one of the considerations for the set for the filming of West Side Story. I say it was brutal in that it was, brutal!

The 7:00 a.m. class was huge. Mr. Brutal was our teacher of record. Having a last name that began with “S” meant that I was always number 78 or more, in the large gym classes that were basically intended to be a place to keep large numbers of the student body in a holding place so that other classes, such as math and social studies were smaller in numbers of students.

The class itself was more like a free-for-all than a class with objectives and standards. One morning, one of the smallest boys in the class was hoisted to the top of the two story ceiling on the climbing ropes. When his strength finally gave out from physical exhaustion and crying for help, he dropped to the floor breaking his arm and collar bone. The teachers supervising this “class” finally came to his rescue after one of the other students went to the office and asked for help.

Showers were mandatory. When you were handed a towel after showering the gym teacher recorded your gym number, which constituted that day’s grade for the class. I hated it! Eighty to a hundred pre-pubescent and pubescent boys along with the handful or two of older, rougher students (who were always more developed physically) made for the hour from hell. Towels were snapped at bare asses, size and development were always the source of taunting and the occasional erection that seemed to ‘come up’, so to speak, in a shower full of boys, became the focus of teasing and torment. Typically, lunch money was collected by the older, rougher boys in exchange for ‘protection’. Gaud help me on a day when I had to carry a cold lunch. Fried egg sandwiches and a Twinkie were not negotiable and only intensified the harassment. No wonder I missed forty-eight days of school that year!

The experience of gym class continued to be traumatic. By 10th grade, the only option for not taking gym was in exchange for ROTC class. The choice only created more conflict for me. By 12th grade, I finally had settled into a routine of participating in class as I needed, realizing that those days when we were turned loose to run Washington Park for our class period were the best. Running the park served to increase my speed as a runner so that I could get back to the showers before many of the others, shower and be with towel, dressing and “observing” by the time the majority of the guys were back from their run.

In college, classes like fencing, badminton and bowling didn’t require showering and seemed to be more user-friendly, at least as I was concerned. It really wasn’t until my early thirties that I began to realize how fulfilling the experience of a gym could be for a guy like me. Frequently I would fantasize about the gym, especially the showers and the possibility of meeting someone special. The fantasies always unfolded much like porn. You all have seen the story line; I’m headed to the steam room and someone catches my eye, asks to join me and—well you can imagine the rest of the story. Or another favorite is walking into the dressing area and there are two guys getting dressed, well sort of getting dressed! They seem to be having trouble with their undies or, oh my, the breathing is getting intense!!

At my age, one of the benefits of going to the gym, other than keeping my body somewhat in shape is that I now qualify for a “Silver Sneakers” pass. The gym is free, well sort of. It seems my health insurance company has realized the benefits of staying healthy through exercise. Yes, I still enjoy the lockers and the steam room can be intriguing. Depending on the time of day, there can be extremely gorgeous young guys working out. But who’s looking? Right! It causes me to wonder if they might be interested in my lunch money, just as the tormentors in my seventh grade gym class.

Even though my formation around the gym was not positive, I developed some life skills beyond survival, in gym. I enjoy riding my bicycle, running, and I walk most every day and have stayed reasonably fit and healthy.  

About the Author